Beginner's Luck (15 page)

It was Shelby's first day at work. After school she
helped Lindsey's mum feed all the riding school horses
in the paddock that they shared with Blue. There was
a bit of argy-bargy as the horses swapped dinners, and
pulled faces at each other, but they were soon settled
into eating from their own bins. Shelby thought it
would be awkward working with Mrs Edel, but it
wasn't. In fact, it was better than before – as though
they understood each other now.

Her next job was to fill all the water troughs.
Several of the paddocks and stables had automatic
waterers, but Lindsey's mum said they needed to be
checked every day, in case they were not working
properly. After that Shelby headed back to the house
to see what was next on her schedule.

Lindsey was lying on a fold-out camp-bed in the
office. She had the phone tucked in next to her thigh,
and the folder that held all of the information about
the agisters was on a small table in easy reach of her
other hand.

'Mum says she and I have to swap jobs for a while.
I have to ring the agisters who are late with their rent.'
She rolled her eyes. 'I think I'd prefer to pick up
manure.'

Shelby smiled and sat down at the desk.

On the wall behind Lindsey's head Shelby saw a
faded poster. It was laminated, and in a ready-made
frame, but it must not always have been, because the
corners were dog-eared and pricked with pinholes,
and Shelby could see smudges in lines were it had been
folded and rolled.

It looked like the 'coming attractions' posters that
Shelby had seen at the cinema, except that this one
was not nearly as glossy as the ones she was used to.

The picture showed a man and a woman facing
each other, looking into each other's eyes. Behind
them was the front of a house made of shingles, with
gingham curtains drawn across the windows. Across
the top in a scrolled script was written
Beginner's
Luck.

'Lindsey, how big is your mum's property?' Shelby
asked.

Lindsey tilted her head back to see what Shelby
was staring at. 'One hundred and seventy-five acres,'
she replied.

'Oh,' Shelby said.

'It
used
to be two hundred acres, but in 1986 she
sold off twenty-five acres to the Department of Public
Works to build the Gully Way bypass,' Lindsey
grinned.

'Really?' Shelby's eyes widened. 'So The Pocket . . .
I mean, Frank's place, once belonged to your mum –
or at least bordered onto it?'

Lindsey nodded. 'I think so. Mum used the
proceeds of the sale to buy a Hanoverian yearling colt,
which she had shipped over from Germany.'

'Diablo?'

'Yep. Everyone thought she was mad, paying that
much, but they still line up for his prodigy.'

'So is your mum the Yoko?' Shelby asked.

Lindsey shrugged. 'I don't know for sure. Maybe.
It could be a coincidence.'

Shelby leaned forward. 'So who is Frank? Is he the
old bene-whatsit, or the art student?'

'I haven't been able to figure that out yet. That's
why I go back there. Every time he tells the story it's a
little bit different.'

'So is he your dad or something?' Shelby asked.

Lindsey laughed. 'No! This all happened ages
before I was born. My dad shot through.'

Shot through.
It was an old-fashioned, country
expression. Shelby thought it was funny how Lindsey
looked like an ordinary girl, but sometimes she would
come out with sayings that made her sound like an old
woman.

Lindsey frowned. 'Frank might not be either of
them! It could be all made up, but I think there are
bits of truth in every story that he tells.'

'Why don't you ask your mum what happened?'

Lindsey brushed her hair away from her eyes.
'She's almost as bad as Frank! She says she gets impatient
with other people's stories of the-one-that-got-away,
so she doesn't want to tell them herself. She
talks about Diablo, though. She says he's the best
thing that ever happened to her, other than me. She's
built this whole place around him. I guess he's a bit
like Blue is for you.'

Shelby stared at the poster. 'Wow. I can't believe
your mum is famous!'

Lindsey smiled. 'Not very famous. I don't know if
I'll ever get to the bottom of it, but that doesn't really
matter. It's like when you read a book – if you wanted
to know what happened then you could just flip to the
last chapter, but you read it for the story.' She paused
for a moment, running her fingers along the hem of
the sling. 'Don't you ever wonder about what sort
of people your parents were before you came along?'

Shelby blinked. She hadn't thought about that at
all, although she'd heard both her parents talk about
when they were young. 'You know, I've never really
thought that they were doing anything other than
waiting for me to be born!'

Lindsey laughed. 'That is such an Erin thing to
say!'

A moment later Lindsey's mum came into the
office, reaching over Shelby's shoulder to flick through
some papers on the desk. 'What are you two giggling
about?'

Lindsey flicked her eyes up to the poster and then
nodded at Shelby.
Ask her
, her eyes said.

'What's this poster from?' Shelby asked.

Lindsey's mum twisted around and looked at the
poster, then she waved her hand dismissively. 'Oh, it
was a movie about a million years ago. Nobody
remembers it now. It didn't do very well.'

'How come you have it? Were you in it? Were you
the star?' Shelby asked.

Lindsey's mum laughed. 'Good heavens no! I was
just somebody's assistant's assistant. I don't even
know why I keep it hanging up there. I guess it
reminds me of the folly of youth.' She frowned. 'And
it also reminds me not to allow myself to be
bewitched.'

'What do you mean?' Shelby asked.

Lindsey's mum put down the papers and leaned
against the desk. 'A girl called Becky died on the set.
She drowned. The next day the producer sat us all
down and said, "Let's keep going, let's do it for
Becky." But I knew Becky. We were friends. She
wouldn't have wanted us to keep going. Becky would
have said that it was silly, and that we should stop
before somebody else got hurt. It made me angry that
the producer used her memory to make the cast and
crew do what
he
wanted. Everybody else was nodding
and saying, "Yeah, let's do it for Becky." Then I
realised that
they
wanted to keep going too – they
didn't want to lose their chance to be in a movie; they
wanted an excuse to continue. Nobody really cared
about what Becky really wanted, except me. So I quit.'

She gave Shelby a brief smile. 'So I guess when I
look at that poster it reminds me to wonder about
people's real motives. People say all kinds of things to
get what they want, but it's not always true.' Lindsey's
mum finished shuffling through the papers and then
tapped them on the desk, making the edges square.

Lindsey grinned at her and winked. 'Better get to
it, you two! Chop, chop. No time for gas-bagging.'

'You're enjoying this, aren't you?' her mum said,
folding her arms.

'Maybe a little bit.'

Mrs Edel turned to Shelby. 'The boss is right, we'd
better get going. Now that you're working here you
should probably get to know the stallion. I know he
looks scary but Diablo's really a pussycat, as long as
you're sensible. Would you like that?'

Shelby smiled. She probably didn't have the magic
touch, but handling Diablo was a start. She could
learn a lot about horses from Lindsey and her mum,
and maybe learn about other things too.

On the way home I might ask Dad how he met
Mum
, she decided.

'I would love to meet Diablo,' she replied. 'Lindsey
said you bought him from Germany.'

'That's right. It's a long story. Do you want to hear
it?'

Shelby and Mrs Edel turned to walk out the door.
Shelby looked over her shoulder and winked back at
her friend. 'Yes, I think I would.'

Alyssa Brugman's first novel,
Finding Grace
, was shortlisted
for the New South Wales Premier's and Queensland
Premier's Literary Awards and the Children's Book
Council of Australia Book of the Year (Older Readers). It
was a Commended Book in the 2002 Victorian Premier's
Literary Awards and has been translated into Dutch (for
which it was shortlisted for the 'Gouden Zoen' Award),
Danish and German.

Walking Naked
, Alyssa's second novel, was shortlisted
for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and
awarded Honour Book in the 2003 CBCA Book of the
Year (Older Readers). It is distributed in the United
States, United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium. Alyssa's
third novel for young adults,
Being Bindy
, was released
in 2004.

Beginner's Luck
is the sequel to
For Sale or Swap
released in early 2005.

Alyssa lives in the Hunter Valley, where she writes
full-time and keeps four horses. Shadow, her first pony, is
a bay mare in her early thirties. Istana Kazrah is a
chestnut Arab mare. Greenwood Elizabeth is a five-year-old
grey Riding Pony mare. Reddy is a bay thoroughbred
gelding who belongs to Alyssa's sister.