Beginner's Luck (6 page)

Cracker was faster than Blue, and Shelby didn't want
to gallop because, with so many horses in the Gully,
she could come across one unexpectedly, and somebody
could get hurt. She had to find a place where she
was at an advantage – a place where Cracker would
slow down and Blue wouldn't.
I know
, she thought.
The Cross-Country Course.

Shelby turned Blue along a narrow looping path
that was a shortcut to that trail. It was sandy and
straight. She didn't see any other riders and she urged
Blue along, tucking her head low and leaning forward.
Blue sprang onward with his ears flat and his tail
swishing. A cloud of dust billowed out behind her.

They drew up behind a group of riders and slowed
to trot past them. 'Hello, are you having a good day?'
Shelby asked, grinning, and then she pushed Blue into
a canter again, without waiting for an answer.

Over the little hill was the first abandoned car. It
was tilted on its side so all she could see was its rusty
undercarriage. Blue didn't even blink. His hooves
drummed a beat along the dirt path.

Next there were four fallen branches. The first
three were only small, each about forty centimetres off
the ground, but the last one was twice that height. She
popped over the first and second, but at the third,
Blue had misjudged his stride. He slowed down, off
balance, hesitating. His front hoof grazed the top of
the branch. He stumbled. Shelby was thrown forward.
She squeezed with her knees. He needed to get himself
together or they would crash through the fourth. It
was stuck between other branches and stumps on both
ends and Shelby wasn't sure how much it would give.
Blue took two enormous strides and leapt over the
final branch. Shelby was thrust back in the saddle.
They were over it, heading downhill and around a
turn.

Shelby risked a glimpse over her shoulder. Lindsey
was still behind them. Cracker shied at the old car,
and Lindsey tipped slightly to the side. She was
frowning, her face steely with purpose.

Up ahead were the forty-four-gallon drums. There
were five of them scattered over the trail. Two of them
were upright, but the other three lay on their sides.
Some days Blue snorted at them with suspicion, not
wanting to pass close to them, but today he skipped
between them, like when they played Flags at pony
club, changing his leading leg as he wove through
them. She leaned forward and patted him on the
shoulder. 'Good boy!'

Next there was the whistling tree stump, but the
wind was low today. Blue cantered on without a
glance. One more obstacle to go – the knocking cable
spool. It was at the top of a steep incline and around
a bend. Blue's hooves scattered the gravel as he
bounded up the slope. Shelby looked back again.
Lindsey was nowhere in sight.

She turned back to the trail. Suddenly Blue planted
his feet. Shelby was thrown forward. She sailed over the
side, legs akimbo. She had enough time to think,
Hmm,
big orange bulldozer. That's new
, before she hit the dirt.

Shelby lay on the trail on her back, looking up at
the sky. Sometimes when she fell it felt like no time
had passed at all – one minute she was in the saddle
and the next she was lying on the ground – but other
times it seemed to take forever. This had been a fall of
the second type. Her whole body felt shaky and numb,
but nothing seemed to hurt.
I might just lie here for a
second.
Sometimes big pain took a little while to
happen.

Blue's face loomed over hers and he snorted,
blowing her fringe up from her forehead. Shelby could
feel his whiskers on her cheek. She had to get up.
Lindsey would come around the corner any second.
She scrambled to her feet. Blue backed up, eyes wide.

'It's OK. You didn't mean it. It's my fault. I wasn't
paying attention,' she told him.

She could hear hoof beats coming down the trail.
She grabbed Blue's reins. 'C'mon.' She dragged him
off the trail and behind the gigantic spool and the
boulders that held it in place.

Shelby cupped her hand over Blue's bottom lip.
'Stay quiet,' she whispered to him. He nibbled at her
fingers. She twisted her wrists experimentally and
leaned from side-to-side, feeling for pulled muscles in
her back and shoulders. She had been lucky this time.

The hoof beats faltered and skidded. 'Whoa! Bulldozer!'
It was Lindsey's voice. Shelby waited for the
thump, but it didn't come. The hoof falls were irregular
for a moment. Cracker must have been dancing around
on the spot. He didn't want to pass the bulldozer.

'Get moving!' Lindsey ordered.

Shelby heard more horses coming along the track.
It must have been the group she had passed earlier.

'Have you seen a girl on a little paint horse come
past here?' asked Lindsey.

'Yeah, she was in a hurry,' a voice answered.

'Did she come back this way?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'Thanks. Have a nice day.'

The hoof beats continued on down the trail,
slower now. One two, one two. Cracker was trotting.

Shelby counted to three and then stepped out from
behind the spool.

There was Cracker standing in the middle of
the trail. Lindsey was leaning over, buttoning up the
pocket on her saddle blanket. She looked up at Shelby
and smiled.

'Did you get caught short?' Lindsey asked.

The two girls stared at each other. Shelby was
embarrassed, but she was also irritated. Yes, she had
run away, but why did Lindsey have to chase her? If
she'd just let it be then they wouldn't be having this
stupid, awkward moment.

Lindsey had a half smile on her face. There was no
point hiding anymore.

Shelby bit her lip. 'I know where the Matchstick
Town is.'

'I know you do,' Lindsey replied.

Shelby ran Blue's reins through her fingers. 'I need
the money, Lindsey. I'm going to use it to pay for
Blue's agistment. I can't let him be a riding school
horse.'

Lindsey brushed her hair away from her eyes. 'It's
not that bad. I'll take good care of him, I promise.'

That's not good enough
, Shelby thought.

They stood still, not speaking.

Eventually Lindsey asked, 'Does Erin know?'

Shelby shook her head.

Lindsey sighed as she turned Cracker around. 'I'm
going to go and find her. Good luck.'

'You'll end up with the money anyway,' Shelby
called after her.

Her friend looked over her shoulder, but she kept
the horse moving forward. 'Don't fret. I understand.'

Shelby watched her back as she rode away and felt
regret. Lindsey wasn't cool like Hayley. She didn't
have all the latest gear and the glamorous horses. She
wasn't fun and silly like Erin was either, but Shelby
thought Lindsey could have been an important friend
– the sort of person you could rely on when you were
in trouble.

She tried to imagine how she would feel if the
tables were turned. Shelby ran her hand down Blue's
face. 'I wouldn't care about the money,' she whispered
to him. 'I'd be disappointed that Lindsey didn't trust
me.'

Shelby wished that she had trusted Lindsey with
her secret. She could have told her on the rainy day
they met on the trail. Lindsey might have even agreed
to help.

'I guess it doesn't matter now,' she told Blue, as she
put her foot in the stirrup. 'Come on, let's hurry up
and win this thing. I'm getting hungry.'

She thought about having a sausage sandwich with
onions and barbecue sauce back at the starting point
and her stomach grumbled.

The mouth of the tunnel was obstructed with long
branches, ragged with leaves, silt and other debris. At
first Shelby thought they must have washed in there
during the heavy rain, but as she started to move some
of the branches away she could see that they were
embedded in chicken wire at the bottom. It was
almost as though someone had done it on purpose,
like a giant version of a flower arrangement held in
place with florist's sponge.

She had to keep stopping as people rode past,
because she thought they would wonder what she was
up to. It was heavy work. The branches were tightly
wedged and she was grateful for the frequent rests.

The first time, Shelby stood there like a chump, but
she decided that looked suspicious, so after that, every
time somebody rode past she would lift up one of Blue's
hooves and pretend to be inspecting it for stones.

Eventually she made a space big enough for Blue
to step through and, having checked that nobody was
looking, she led him inside.

There were still pools of water along the floor of
the tunnel, giving off a dank, nasty smell, but they
were shallow – not even halfway up her boots.

At the end of the tunnel she looked down into The
Pocket. It was much steeper than she remembered.
The water had worn the ground away so that there
was only about a metre now between the concrete
edge of the tunnel and the steep drop into the pool
below. She put out one foot, gingerly testing the
surface. It held firm.

'Either this is much more dangerous than it used to
be, or I've got more wussy. Which do you think?' Blue
twitched his ears. 'Shall we give it a go?' He chomped
on his bit, as though he was considering his options.
'I don't really want to either,' she told him.

Shelby stepped out onto the narrow shelf and then
turned left, holding out her hands in front of her to
keep steady on the slippery slope. Blue placed one
hoof on the ledge, his ears pricked forward and his
nostrils blowing nervously. He put the other front
hoof out. So far so good.

Blue swung his body around so that he was
sideways on the ledge, and suddenly it started to
collapse beneath his weight. He bounded forward.
Shelby let go of the reins as he scrambled across the
slope beside her. With each step his hooves plunged
deep into the crumbling soil and then it slid away
beneath him. He was in front of her, and his churning
legs kicked sods into her face. She closed her eyes and
dug her hands into the ground, trying to hold onto the
clumps of clay for balance. She opened her eyes and
watched as Blue lurched and staggered across the
steep slope. The reins were flinging sideways and with
each stride the ground fell away, down into the pool
below. She could hear the fragments splashing as they
hit the water.

Shelby scrambled upwards like a rock-climber. She
reached the top, where there was a small lip before the
fence on the shoulder of Gully Way. Car tyres rushed
past her face. She looked down over her shoulder. Blue
had reached the flatter ground to the side and was
standing still between a few blackberry bushes. Even
from here she could see his sides expand and contract
as he breathed heavily. She crawled sideways along the
ledge for a few metres and then headed back down
again where it was flatter.

When she reached Blue she put her arms around
his neck. 'See? I told you it was more dangerous than
before.' Shelby looked back towards the mouth of the
tunnel. It seemed to jut out now. She wasn't sure if she
would be able to climb up there, and she had hands.
How was Blue supposed to do it?

The only way available to them was down into
The Pocket.

'We'll take the photo and worry about getting out
after that,' she told Blue.

The camera. She hadn't felt it digging for ages. She
patted all around her waistband. It wasn't there.
She must have lost it when she fell.

She remembered stepping out from behind the
cable spool. Lindsey had been putting something in
her saddle rug's pocket – something small and rectangular.
The pocket had been empty when they set out
together. Shelby remembered looking at it.

Her mouth opened. Shelby had been worrying
about being deceitful to Lindsey, and all the time
Lindsey
was the one being sneaky. It was mean and
spiteful – not at all like the friend that she knew.

'She took my camera, Blue. Why would she do
that?'

Shelby led Blue between the vigorous blackberry
bushes, down the slope, through the shaded glade and
into the clearing. It seemed pretty much the same as it
had been before. There were no kangaroos this time,
but she could see their droppings on the grass.

She took off her helmet and tied it to one of the
stirrups. Having tucked Blue's reins into his bridle and
loosened his girth, she stepped up into the doll's house
to have a look.

It should have been dirtier. Shelby knew because
her own shed in Blue's paddock needed regular
sweeping, especially when it was windy and the dead
leaves, dust and debris drifted in and collected in the
corners. Shelby's shed had a door that was closed
most of the time. The doll's house was open at the
front, so as well as the normal dirt and dust, it should
have had dead branches, birds' nests and animal droppings
– but it didn't have any of those things.
Somebody had been sweeping again.

The mug, lighter and tin-opener were still in the
cupboard above the sink, but now there were lots of
cans – chunky beef soup, tuna, and baked beans. There
were also a few forks and spoons, and a dishcloth that
hadn't been there before. She twisted the cans around
to look at the labels, but as she was about to close the
cupboard door, she turned them back again so they
were stacked exactly as she had found them.

There was a tap over the sink. She had assumed it
was a dummy, but when she turned the handle, there
was a loud cranking, knocking sound and then a
dribble of water ran into the sink and down the drain.
She could hear it hitting the ground somewhere underneath
the structure.

At the back of the doll's house was a water tank. It
had been painted a pale blue colour, but the paint was
flaky. There was a tap jammed into the bottom, with
a bucket underneath it to catch the drips.

In the clearing just beyond the back wall there
was a little vegetable garden – corn, eggplant, staked
tomatoes, and some herbs too. She recognised them
all, because it looked just like her dad's vegie patch at
home, except smaller. Some of the corn stalks had ears
missing, and she could see the withered green stubs on
the tops of the plants where the tomatoes must have
been picked. There were no weeds between the rows
either. Somebody took care of this garden.

Between the shed and the doll's house, a ring of
rocks encircled a blackened patch on the ground – a
campfire filled with grey, burned-out logs. A dented
black billycan rested on a angle between two of the
rocks and a squat camp oven was half-submerged in
the ash. She held her hand above it, but the ashes were
cold.

Nearby there was a neat stack of wood. There
were two thicker blocks. One must have been used for
chopping, because it had a small tomahawk suspended
above it with its blade buried a few centimetres into
the wood. The other, closer to the fire, was probably
used as a stool.

Shelby heard a crash and glanced up, startled. It
sounded like a limb falling from a tree, and hitting
other branches before it reached the ground, but she
wasn't certain. She couldn't detect any movement.

She grabbed the handle of the tomahawk and
jerked it out of the chopping block. If there had to be
a weapon around, she wanted to be the one holding it.
The handle was made from rubber and she could feel
the ridges of the grip pressed against her palm.

Behind the doll's house there was a thin rope suspended
between two trees, and hanging over it was a
tattered flannelette shirt with the sleeves ripped off, an
old pair of shorts and a faded blue sleeping bag,
unzipped all the way around so it spread out like a
blanket. She touched the shirt. It was damp. It hadn't
been raining for a few days. It must have been washed
and strung up that day.

Shelby looked around the clearing again, frowning
– the broom, the vegie patch, the fireplace, the
washing – it all added up to an alarming idea. This
wasn't just a secret place to visit – somebody
lived
here.

Gripping the tomahawk to her chest, Shelby felt
awash with uneasiness.
I shouldn't be here
, she
thought as she made her way back to where Blue was
grazing. The thick shrub surrounding the clearing
seemed more sinister, as though it concealed watching
eyes.

When she reached his side she threw her free arm
over his wither, trying to look casual. She hummed the
first song that came into her head –
Waltzing Matilda
,
because they'd sung it in choir at school.

Who would choose to live here? Could it be
someone friendly? If they were, why would they stay
down here, surrounded by bush, and why
this
part?

It wasn't even the nicest part of the Gully. Shelby
knew much prettier places on the other side of the
tunnel. She'd thought of camping in the Gully herself,
but she didn't think her mum and dad would let her.

Suddenly The Pocket seemed very quiet. She
couldn't hear birds singing or insects chirping. Even
the steady drone of traffic along Gully Way had disappeared.
The whole place was silent.

'Once a jolly swagman . . .' Shelby sang under her
breath.

She'd never really thought about the lyrics before.
A jolly swagman. Was 'jolly' a nice way of saying
drunk? She hadn't seen any empty bottles lying
around. Was there such a thing as a tidy alcoholic?
She tried to think back to her Health classes at school.
She was pretty sure drunk went along with violent.
She changed her grip on the tomahawk, holding it by
the blade. She ran the tip of her index finger along its
narrow edge. It was pretty sharp.

'Camped by a . . .'

A billabong. She'd always called the water underneath
the tunnel a pool, but it wasn't artificial, and it
didn't flow anywhere either. It
was
a billabong.

'Under the shade of a coolabah tree.' Her voice
cracked as she tried to reach the higher note.

Shelby had no idea what a coolabah tree looked
like. Apart from the clearing, the whole place was
pretty shady – almost gloomy. She eyed the shadowy
scrub.

'I don't think there are any swagmen these days,'
she whispered to Blue. With her free hand, she stroked
his mane. There were homeless people, but they lived
in the city. She'd seen them on television, crouched in
doorways – old men and crazy-looking ladies with
their beanies and shopping carts.

'You know what
really
lives by billabongs, Blue?'

She reached down and loosened his reins, a new
sense of urgency making her blood rush. It was time to
find another way out. She had to try. She couldn't stay
here after dark. She knew what lived by billabongs,
kilometres away from people, in dark, murky places.
She'd seen them in picture books and in the sorts of
movies and documentaries that her parents didn't like
her watching.

Of course, it sounded dumb when you were in
your own nice warm bed with your parents within
shouting distance, or lying on the lounge channel-hopping
on a lazy Sunday, but out here in a dank,
sombre place with the afternoon sun descending
slowly towards the horizon, and nobody at all for
company except a small, wiry paint pony, it seemed a
very real possibility.