Beginner's Luck (3 page)

At the beginning of Geography, Erin flopped down in
the chair next to Shelby and grinned. 'Only four more
sleeps!' There was a stack of envelopes in her hand
and she flipped through them. 'Here.'

Shelby ripped the envelope open. Inside was a
small sheet of pink paper, scalloped at the edges, with
a border of blue and yellow balloons.

'
Come to my party, this Saturday at 11 am.'

There was a space on the pre-made invitation for
the address. Here Erin had written, '
U know where
I live. Luv from Erin.'
She had dotted the 'I' in her
name with a smiley face.

'Eleven?' Shelby said, looking at her friend.

'That was the only way Mum would let me invite
boys. She's worried about gatecrashers and spin the
bottle,' Erin explained. 'It's going to be
so
good –
heaps of junk food, and . . .'

Mr Halbert, their teacher, stood in front of their
desk and raised an eyebrow. 'When you're ready, girls.'

Shelby shoved the invitation inside her exercise
book and took a pen out of her pencil case. She held
it over a blank page, trying to look as though she was
ready to learn.

'Where were we?' he asked.

Shelby blinked. 'Where were we when?'

'Tindouf,' he said.

'Bless you!' called out one of the boys and the
whole class laughed.

'You may recall from the previous lesson that
Tindouf is in Algeria. The major ecological problems
in Algeria, and Northern Africa generally, are . . .?
Chris, can you tell me?' He turned away to one of the
boys at the other side of the room.

At lunchtime Erin continued. 'We're turning the
garage into a disco and there'll be karaoke. Mum's
even hired a smoke machine. Dad says there is going
to be a surprise. I hope it's not something dumb like a
clown. I'd be so embarrassed. It could be a jumping
castle. That would be cool. Do you want to come up
to the stables this afternoon?'

'OK.' Shelby smiled at her friend.

After school Shelby went with Erin and her mother
to the stables where Erin and the Crooks kept their
horses. Erin talked the whole way there.

'Mum said we can have pizzas delivered. I haven't
decided whether I want proper pizzas from the Italian
place yet. What do you reckon?'

'Umm,' started Shelby.

'And I'm getting a giant ice-cream cake. I wanted
chocolate at first but vanilla will look better. Mum
hasn't told me what she's bought me yet. I hope I get
heaps of presents. What are you going to get me?' she
asked, poking her head around the edge of the passenger
seat.

'What do you want?' asked Shelby.

'Oh, just a million dollars. Maybe a Porsche. Just
kidding, I don't really like Porsches anyway. Only old
blokes drive them. I want a Fiesta – in red, or maybe
pink. Do you like them?'

Shelby didn't pay much attention to cars. 'Would it
pull a float?' she asked.

Erin tilted her head to the side. 'I don't know.
Maybe.'

'No, it wouldn't!' said Erin's mum. 'It's one of
those little zippy things.'

At the stables Shelby helped Erin clean out her
stable and then bring her horse, Bandit, in from the
day paddocks for his dinner.

Bandit was a slightly built plain bay with no socks
or facial markings. Shelby thought he lacked personality,
and that he wasn't quite handsome enough to get
away with it.

While Erin was making up his dinner, Shelby gave
Bandit a brush and picked out his hooves. Lindsey
came past the yard leading a big thoroughbred that
Shelby hadn't seen before.

'Who's that?' Shelby asked.

Lindsey stopped and patted the horse on the neck.
'This is Jezebel. She's just visiting Diablo for a few
weeks,' Lindsey tactfully explained.

Lindsey's mum owned the stables and the riding
school, and Diablo was her Hanoverian stallion.
Sometimes owners of broodmares paid Lindsey's
mother to let their mares have foals by Diablo.

'I'm glad you came past,' Erin called out from the
tack room. 'I wanted to give you this.' She handed
Lindsey one of the envelopes. 'It's for my birthday
party on Saturday. You have to come! If you don't, I
won't speak to you again,' Erin insisted. 'Or I might,
but I would be cold and distant.'

Lindsey smiled. 'I'd better come along then. I
couldn't risk a cold Erin!'

The girls laughed.

'You don't need to get me a present or anything.
Only if you really love me,' Erin grinned. 'No, really,
you don't have to.' She paused. 'But I hope that you do.'

Shelby winked at Lindsey. They both knew Erin
would be devastated if they didn't get her anything
at all.

When Shelby arrived home later that afternoon,
her mother was sitting at the dining table reading the
paper. She had a pen in her hand, circling ads in the
employment section.

'Did you find anything?' Shelby threw her backpack
on the floor.

Her mother pushed the paper away with her hand.
'I've found great jobs that I'm not trained for, and
jobs that I can do but don't pay well enough. I've been
out of the market for a long time. The best thing
would be to do a course part-time and move into it
slowly, but then we have your little friend.' She tilted
her head toward the back sliding door. 'He ate your
father's jacaranda, you know. "Down to a bloody
nub,"' she said, mimicking her husband's voice.

Out the back Shelby's father was bending over his
vegie patch with a trowel in his hand. Blue was
standing behind him and, as Shelby watched, the pony
reached forward and untied the strap of Dad's gardening
apron with his teeth. The apron swung away from
Dad's belly, hitting him in the face. He stood up
straight and pivoted. 'Out of it, you cheeky mongrel!'

Blue pricked his ears and backed away – straight
into a shrub.

'Get off my camellia!'

Shelby's dad looked towards the house. 'Is that girl
home yet? Tell her to get out here, will you? This
animal is ricocheting around my garden like a bloody
pinball!'

Shelby stood in the doorway and Blue turned to
face her. The camellia swayed.

'Hello, my boy.'

'Come here, you,' Dad said.

Blue took a step towards him.

'Not you, brute.'

Shelby laughed. She thought they looked like a
clown act at a circus.

'Don't forget you have to do some cleaning today.
It would be nice if you could do the bathroom, and
vacuum the lounge room. You'll need to pick up the
boys' Lego first,' her mother reminded her.

'Yeah, I'll do it after.' Shelby walked across the
lawn and her father took one of her hands. 'Look at
this,' he said, using her finger to point at a hedge
along the back fence. Much of the underside had been
torn away and the tattered branches lay beneath it,
their leaves wilting.

'And this,' he said, swinging her arm around.
There was a tall tree now minus several limbs. 'And
what I really want you to see is this. This is brilliant.'

He led Shelby around to the back of the vegie
patch. There were distinct hoof marks across the dirt
and then a section completely flattened. Little green
shoots lay crumpled and broken. Blue had rolled in
Dad's vegie patch.

'All the way over, he went; wriggling and rubbing
his neck like a kid making a snow angel. It was as
though he'd set himself a personal challenge –
how
many plants can I destroy in one movement?
You
know what I call him? Tsunami. He's a bloody natural
disaster!'

Shelby put her hand over her mouth to stifle a
giggle.

'You can laugh if you want to, but understand this.
The damage your horse has done in one short week
will take six months to recover, at least. You've got to
find a place for him, or I'll put him out on the street.
I'm serious, Shelby.'

Shelby looked at her father's face – his hazel eyes
shiny and wide – and she could see that he was indeed
serious.

Shelby meant to do the vacuuming on Tuesday. She
did do the dishes – well, most of them. She'd done the
glasses and plates, but the pots and pans had food
encrusted around the edges so she left them to soak
for a little while, and when she came back someone
had finished them off.

She almost cleaned the bathroom on Wednesday.
She put rubber gloves on, but then she remembered
she was supposed to hand in a Maths assignment on
Thursday, and by the time she'd finished it was ten
o'clock, and she was supposed to be in bed by half
past nine.

On Thursday night Shelby took the vacuum
cleaner out of the hall cupboard. She'd just finished
picking up the Lego from the floor, and then Erin
rang. Shelby remembered that she had to buy her a
birthday present, and she asked her mum if she could
run down to the little strip of shops on the corner. Her
mother wouldn't let her go alone at that time of night
and so they went together.

Shelby had thirty-five dollars, and she needed to
keep twenty aside for her entry fee to the Matchstick
Town Challenge. She found a cute make-up kit with
four types of glitter lip-gloss that she knew Erin would
love, but it was twenty-five dollars. Her mum lent her
the extra ten.

When she walked in the front door, she could hear
the boys raking through the Lego. They'd tipped it all
out on the floor again.

On Friday when she came home from school the
house was spotless except for Shelby's room. Her mum
and dad had invited some friends over for dinner.

Shelby's mum asked if she could clean her room
before they arrived. She didn't say anything about the
rest of the house and Shelby didn't either. It had to be
a quick clean so she shoved as much as she could in
her wardrobe and under the bed, and arranged the
rest into neat piles.

When the friends came, Shelby made up the plates
of nibbles and then she went into the boys' room to
keep them occupied as much as she could. They
played Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Uno, and then
Shelby painted their faces. They both wanted to be
Spiderman, but Shelby ran out of red so she painted
Blake with orange instead.

They went out into the lounge room to show the
grown-ups. Her mum's friend said, 'Marie, your
children are so beautifully behaved!' Shelby's mum
smiled, but she didn't answer.

On Saturday morning Shelby fed Blue a biscuit of
hay, and then she stayed in her bedroom until ten. She
was dying to ask if she was still allowed to go to Erin's
party, but she was afraid that the answer would be no.
There would be a speech, maybe even two. Shelby could
hear them in her head already. At five past ten she took
a deep breath and proceeded out into the dining room.

'Do you think I should let you go?' her mother
asked.

Shelby shook her head. 'But I'd really like to go.
Erin would be sad if I didn't.'

'This is not about Erin's happiness.' Shelby's
mother didn't burst out shouting like Dad sometimes
did when he was cross. Shelby's mother saved all her
grumpiness up and then spoke quietly.

If Shelby had to make a choice she would pick
Dad's shouting, because it was over sooner, and
besides, her mum always had a logical argument.
Sometimes when her Dad started yelling he didn't
make any sense, and then they would both giggle. One
time he shouted, 'Don't you yell at me, or you'll go
over my knee!', and then he paused for a second and
added, 'And that rhymes!' A moment later his chin
started to wiggle, he pursed his lips, and soon they
were both hooting with laughter.

When Mum was going off Shelby never felt like
laughing.

She sighed. The speech was coming. She could feel
it brewing in the air, like an electrical storm.

'Shelby, you are asking this family to completely
change the way it operates for your hobby, but you're
not willing to give anything in return. You've had five
whole days to show us that you can be responsible, and
so far you've done half the dishes, which is less than you
are supposed to do, even without Blue in the equation.
I'm not willing to live in a sty. I've explained to you that
I can't take on a job and manage here at the same time.'

'I know.' Shelby hung her head.

'And this is only week one. How is it going to be a
few weeks – months – down the track?'

'I know,' Shelby said again.

'You can go to Erin's party, but I want you to
think about what I've said.'

Speech two came in the car on the way to the
party.

'I don't think you appreciate what a strain a job
can be,' her father began.

'I know, Dad,' she said.

'No, you don't know. It's tiring physically and
mentally. We all have to do our bit around the place.
At the very least you could clean up your own mess,
and you don't even do that.'

'I'm sorry. I'll try harder.'

'This thing with Blue is getting worse every day. I
want you to talk to your horsey friends at this party
and get some phone numbers.'

'Yes, Dad,' she said.

At Erin's place he pulled up the handbrake and
frowned at her.

'He has to go, Shelby.'

She nodded. Aside from general worrying, Shelby
hadn't thought much about what to do with Blue over
the past week. She decided to put together a plan for
action as soon as she got home from the party. She
would read the livestock section in the newspaper and
ring the saddlery to see what they had available on
their notice board. Hopefully her parents would drive
her around to look at some places if she found any
that were suitable.

Shelby could hear the music as soon as she opened
the car door. Most of the guests were already there.
Shelby could see Hayley Crook and two other girls
from the stables, Monica and Kim. Lindsey sat with
them. Lindsey looked different from the other girls.
Her clothes were daggy and she didn't have any makeup
on. Shelby glanced down at her own plain tee-shirt
and three-quarter pants, and wondered if she stood
out as much as Lindsey did.

There were also a few of the kids from school. A
group of boys sat together in the corner trying to look
cool. Shelby thought they looked funny with their
gelled-up hair and their low-slung pants.

She placed her present on top of the pile on a table
by the door and then kissed Erin on the cheek. 'Happy
birthday!'

Erin hugged her, talking in a loud voice to be
heard over the music. 'Have you seen how many
presents I got? Have some food. I can't believe everybody
came! I was sure nobody would. I stayed up all
night freaking, so I'm a bit scattered.'

'You're always a bit scattered,' replied Shelby,
smiling.

'I know,' she moaned. 'Have you tried one of those
green things?' She pointed to a plate. 'Don't. They're
called dalmatoes or something. They're green and
slimy and gross. Mum bought all this normal food
and then those. It's just so random. Have a drink. Do
you want orange or passionfruit?'

Shelby took a plastic cup and looked around, not
sure where to sit. The kids from school sat on one side
of the room, and the girls from the stables on the
other.

'You know everyone here. Make them mingle!'
urged Erin.

Shelby loitered around the food table for a bit
longer and then she was saved by the 'surprise'. It
wasn't a clown; it was a magician. He had set up a
table just outside the doorway and Erin's dad opened
the garage door as if it was a stage curtain.

Erin groaned and covered her eyes. 'This is so
lame. How embarrassing!'

Shelby didn't think it was lame at all. It might have
been if he wore a cape and a silly hat, but he was
wearing a blue checked shirt and dress shorts.

All the guests pulled their chairs over so that they
could watch. Shelby sat in the middle between Lindsey
and a girl called Christie from her Maths class.

The magician started off with a few tricks with
handkerchiefs, cards and coins, but he also told heaps
of jokes. The boys were sitting back with their arms
folded at first, but then the magician made one of
them – a surfer boy called Angus – come to the front
and put his arm in a small guillotine. Just when the
blade came down Angus started screaming, and the
magician looked really frightened for a second, but
then he realised that Angus was joking. Everybody
laughed. Soon all the boys were wanting to have a
turn up the front.

Shelby thought it would be easy see through the
illusion but, trick after trick, she couldn't figure it out.
At the end of the show everyone was laughing and
having a good time, and Shelby was sad that it was
over. She offered to help him pack the car.

'That was cool! How do you do it?'

He grinned. 'Magic!'

'No, really,' she pressed. 'You make it look so
easy.'

'Practice,' he replied. 'No, not practice, experimentation.
People say that if you fail you should try again,
but I don't think that's true. You can do the same
wrong thing over and over, and you're going to fail
every time, but if you're smart, you learn from your
mistakes, so the next time you try you do something a
little bit different and then you might succeed.
Comprenda?
'

Shelby nodded. 'Like when you ask a horse to do
something and it doesn't do it, then you might not be
asking it the right way.'

The magician shrugged. 'I don't know about that.
Cards and handkerchiefs don't have free will.'

'Doves and bunnies do,' replied Shelby with a grin.

'That's why I don't use them!' he said, slamming
the back door. He climbed into his car and waved as
he drove away.

While everyone had cake, Erin opened her presents.
Shelby was pleased to see that hers was just as good as
all the others and Erin was happy. After the magic
show everyone seemed to get along better. All of the
girls got up to dance, and some of the boys did too.

Shelby sat with Lindsey for a while.

'You got the day off,' Shelby said.

'Yes, Mum will be leading the trails today. Can
you imagine it?'

Lindsey's job was to clean stables and feed horses
when their owners weren't there. She led the trail rides
on weekends, and also handled the foals so they
would get used to people. Whenever Shelby saw
Lindsey she was busy, but Shelby thought it looked
like fun work. She wished she could do that instead of
vacuuming and washing the dishes.

An Avril Lavigne song started playing and Shelby
stood up. 'I love this song! Want to dance?'

Lindsey shrugged. 'OK.'

'Don't you like Avril?'

'I don't know who she is,' Lindsey laughed.

Shelby grinned back at her, but she thought it was
weird that Lindsey hadn't heard of Avril Lavigne. It
was brave too. When Erin talked about a song or a
singer that Shelby hadn't heard she would just pretend
she had heard of them, otherwise Erin would make a
big deal about it and make Shelby feel stupid and
embarrassed.
'Omigod! I can't believe you don't
know!
Everybody
knows that, Shel. Where have you
been?'

Shelby didn't think Lindsey would get embarrassed
about it. She didn't seem to care about fashion. Shelby
would have imagined that the other girls would be
mean about it, and talk about Lindsey behind her
back, but they didn't. Hayley, in particular, was very
respectful to Lindsey. They weren't best friends, but
they had known each other for most of their lives, and
they behaved like cousins.

At about four o'clock the parents started arriving
to take their kids home. Shelby was one of the last
people there and helped Erin and her parents clear
away. Erin's mum offered to drop her home when they
were finished.

'Thank you,' said Shelby, relieved that she
wouldn't have to sit through another speech.

As they turned into her street Shelby gasped. Blue
was on the front lawn tied to a stake by a long rope.