by Amanda Wills
Chapter 1
Poppy McKeever held her breath and waited for the vet to speak. A dark cloud had followed her like a shadow all day. The suspense of not knowing was almost unbearable. Cloud’s ears flicked anxiously back and forth and when Poppy looked down at her hands she realised she’d been clasping his leadrope so tightly that her knuckles had turned completely white. The vet lowered Cloud’s leg to the ground and straightened her back. Poppy tried to read her expression but she was giving no clues. Her face was calm, composed, professional. In contrast, Poppy felt like screaming. Cloud’s ribs jutted out like the furrows of a newly-ploughed field and his brown eyes were fixed on Chester. The donkey was watching the proceedings with interest from over the stable door while Poppy’s brother, Charlie, was surreptitiously trying to listen to his own heartbeat with the vet’s stethoscope. Her stepmother, Caroline, gave Poppy an encouraging smile, although she looked as pale and worried as Poppy did.
“Well,” said the vet, her tanned arms reaching for her medicine bag. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
Poppy’s heart sank. “The good news?”
“For a pony that’s spent the last five years living wild on the moor he’s in remarkably good shape. He is underweight and his teeth definitely need a rasp, but his eyes look healthy and his chest is as clear as a bell. There’s nothing wrong with his general health, at least nothing that a bit of TLC won’t sort out.”
Poppy gave Caroline a quick smile. “But what about his leg?”
“Ah, that’s the bad news, I’m afraid. As you know he’s very lame on his near hind leg and we need to work out what’s causing it. If it was a stone or an abscess in his foot or, say, a pulled tendon, it would be easy to spot. But I can’t see or feel any obvious sign of injury.” The vet ran her hand along Cloud’s leg from his hock to his hoof again, shaking her head. “I think we’ll have to get him to Tavistock and X-ray his foot. It may be a fractured pedal bone, which is a worry.”
“What’s a pedal bone and why is it worried?” asked Charlie, who had dropped the stethoscope on the ground and was making a beeline for the vet’s bag of instruments, some of which looked as if they belonged in a medieval torture chamber. Caroline deftly swept the stethoscope and the bag off the ground and into the hands of the vet, who took them with a grateful smile.
“A pedal bone is a bone in a horse’s foot,” she told the three McKeevers. “It runs roughly from here to here.” She drew a line with her index finger from the top to the bottom of Cloud’s hoof. “Occasionally a horse can fracture its pedal bone. It’s an impact injury. You could fracture it by landing heavily on a rock for example, which this chap could easily have done while he was out on the moor.” She gave Cloud’s bony rump a gentle pat and he shifted his weight to the other leg. “The only way to tell is with an X-ray. We’ll get that done and hopefully we can rule it out.”
“What happens if his pedal bone is fractured?” Poppy asked, her nails digging into the lead rope.
“Well, he would need to be fitted with a special shoe that immobilised his foot. A good farrier would be able to make that.”
“My friend Ed’s dad is a farrier!” said Charlie.
“There you are then. And once the shoe was fitted Cloud would need complete stable rest for up to two months. We’d X-ray his foot again after a few weeks to see if there were any signs of the bone healing and then it’s a waiting game I’m afraid. If it does heal he should make a full recovery but if it doesn’t it’s not good news. He’ll never be completely sound.”
“You mean Poppy would never be able to ride him?” Caroline asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. Anyway, I’d better get going. I’ve two more calls to make before evening surgery. Phone in the morning to make an appointment for the X-ray and once that’s done we can see where we stand. In the meantime keep him in his stable, just to be on the safe side.” The vet saw the lines crinkling Poppy’s forehead. “It’s no use worrying about something that might not happen. You concentrate on fattening him up and leave his foot to me.”
Poppy nodded, her face a picture of gloom. She led Cloud into his stable while Caroline walked around the side of the house with the vet and watched as her mud-splattered Land Rover disappeared down the Riverdale drive. Chester whickered softly and gave the pony a nudge. Poppy slipped off his headcollar and gave them each a bucket of nuts.
The trauma of being rounded up in the annual drift and then sold at auction with the native Dartmoor ponies had taken its toll on Cloud. He’d been so exhausted the night before that he'd barely been able to stand up. As well as being as thin as a stick he shrank to the back of the stable if anyone except Poppy, Charlie or Caroline went near him. Poppy hoped his anxiety was something she could heal with time. But if his foot was broken would she even get the chance?
About the Author
Amanda Wills lives in Kent with her husband Adrian and sons Oliver and Thomas, and their two cats. She spent many years as a journalist and now works as a police press officer. The Lost Pony of Riverdale is the first novel in the Riverdale Pony Stories. To find out more about the books visit www.amandawills.co.uk
