Fortune and the Golden Trophy (6 page)

“Hi, Dad!” Natasha beamed. “You’re just in time to watch the jumping. I’ve got Romeo going really nicely. Watch us do the Show Hunter course.”

Oliver Tucker looked at his daughter as if she were a fly buzzing around his sandwich. “Natasha, with the amount of money we spend schooling this beast with Ginty, I’m sure that even a trained monkey could make it jump without messing it up,” he said dismissively. “Anyway, I don’t have time. I’ve got business to attend to.”

Natasha’s face fell as her father turned his back on her and kept walking. He hadn’t been looking for his daughter. Tom Avery was his target and he headed towards him, looking like a man on a mission.

“Avery!” he boomed out so that the whole pony club turned around to listen. “We have a
serious
problem.”

Tom, who was in the middle of helping Stella to attach a running martingale to Comet’s reins, stopped what he was doing and turned to face Mr Tucker.

“And what problem is that, Oliver?”

Mr Tucker reached into his pocket and produced a small, white object. He triumphantly held it aloft for everyone to see. It was a golf ball.

“I found this floating in the horse trough in the middle of the club grounds,” he said gravely. “And I think we all know what that means!”

“You’re trying to make extra pocket money by finding used golf balls to sell?” Stella offered.

Mr Tucker glared at Stella. This girl must be the redheaded nuisance that Natasha was always complaining about. Why couldn’t pony clubs be more like posh schools? Why did they have to let anyone and everyone join in? All these scruffy kids with their badly-bred ponies. No wonder Natasha resented having to mix with them.

“This is no laughing matter, young lady,” Mr Tucker continued. “This golf ball is evidence of the dangers this club is living with every single day that it remains here. Do you realise how ridiculous the Chevalier Point Pony Club location is? There’s a main road on one side and a golf course on the other!”

Oliver Tucker reached into his pockets again and dramatically produced two more golf balls which he held aloft. “I found both of these within the pony-club grounds,” he continued. “They are obviously stray balls hit by golfers into the paddocks.”

“I’m sorry, Oliver,” Tom Avery said, “I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”

Oliver Tucker drew himself up to his full height. “Good Lord, man. Think! Imagine if a horse ate a golf ball! Or what if a rider was hit by one? This is a very, very serious matter and as your new president I plan to address it urgently!”

“Oliver,” said Avery, “the pony club and the golf club have been neighbours for a very long time now and I’ve never heard of a horse eating a golf ball. As to the matter of stray balls hitting the riders
or
horses, yes, there is a slight risk and we’ve already taken it up with the manager of the golf course in the past. He
wasn’t very sympathetic to our plight…”

“Exactly!” Oliver Tucker cut Avery off. “Drastic action is required.”

Avery looked nervous. “What do you mean?”

“Given the extreme danger of being located here,” Oliver Tucker continued, “as president I will be recommending that we give up the lease on the pony club and move our entire operation to the River Paddock!”

“What?” Avery was shocked. “When?”

“Immediately. The lease is due for renewal in a couple of months. We could pack up and be gone by then.”

“Hang on a minute!” Avery was losing his good humour. “Oliver, I’m not at all sure about this. Even if the club committee agrees to your plan, we can’t move right now. We have our dressage day here later this month and our Open Gymkhana a few weeks after that. We’d have to wait until after the gymkhana, and it will take an enormous amount of work to move the jumps and equipment, set up new arenas and shift the clubroom.”

“Make it happen!” Oliver Tucker demanded. As a property developer this was his catchphrase, and he was very glad of the chance to use it now.

Avery screwed up his face. “What the heck does that mean?”

“It means that I’m president and I’m telling you,” Oliver Tucker said firmly, “that after the Open Gymkhana, we pack our bags. The Chevalier Point Pony Club is out of here.”

After all those years as a property developer Oliver Tucker knew how to turn on the charm and he could be very convincing. Even though his plan to move the pony club was completely crazy, by the end of the day, most of the riders’ parents seemed to be in agreement with him.

It didn’t matter that the two clubs had been neighbours for years without any serious incident. Suddenly, Oliver Tucker had everyone believing that the risk of golf-ball strike was a major cause for concern. Parents were scared that their child or pony might be hit by a wayward ball. The club committee was scheduled to meet right after the Open Gymkhana next month and it looked like the members would support giving up
the lease and shifting the whole club down to the River Paddock permanently.

As the rally day came to a close and the floats and trucks headed out of the gates bound for home, Issie couldn’t help but feel like this might be the end of an era. In two months’ time, if Mr Tucker got his way, they would be saying farewell to the Chevalier Point Pony Club grounds for ever.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Kate grumbled as she mixed up Toby’s feed, stirring the chaff and pony nuts together thoroughly with her hands before placing the bin down on the ground in front of the big bay horse. “Nothing has changed. The golf club and the pony club have always been side by side…”

“…and we’ve never been struck by stray golf balls,” Stella added, finishing Kate’s sentence. She put Comet’s feed bin down on the ground next to Toby’s. “So why is it suddenly all a big deal and we have to move? I don’t get it.”

Issie looked over at Fortune. While Toby and Comet both had generous portions of pony nuts and chaff in their feed bins, poor Fortune was on the first day of his new fitness regime. He had reduced rations—just a handful of sugar beet and a small scoop of chaff for his
supper tonight. Also he was being kept in the car park paddock, while Kate and Stella were letting Comet and Toby loose in the pony-club’s middle paddock where the grass was thick and lush.

Fortune snuffled up the last of his hard feed and used his big tongue to lick the bottom of the empty feed bin, before bashing it with his hoof as if to say,
please can I have some more!

“Nice try, Fortune,” Issie said, “but you’re on a diet, tubby.”

Stella watched Comet using his rubbery lips to snuffle up the last scraps in the bottom of his feed bin.

“Toby’s finished too,” said Kate. “Shall we get going?”

Issie shook her head. “I have to wait until all the cars are gone before I can take Fortune’s halter off and let him go. If anyone’s left the gate open, he could get out on to the road.”

There was only one car still parked in the paddock. It was a cherry-red Ferrari, a flashy two-seater sports convertible.

“Who does it belong to?” Kate asked.

Issie shook her head. “I don’t know. Everyone’s gone.”

“No,” Stella corrected her, “there’s still someone here. Look—over by the golf-club fence. Who’s that?”

The pony club was bordered on one side by the main road, and on the other side a post and wire boundary fence ran between it and the golf course. Over by the fenceline there was a man doing something rather peculiar. He had a wheel on the end of a long broomstick and he was walking back and forth, taking notes in a book as he went.

“It’s Mr Tucker,” Kate said. “You can tell by the suit.”

“Why is he pushing a unicycle?” Stella asked.

“That’s not a unicycle,” Issie said. “It’s a measuring wheel. You use them to measure out distance on the ground. I’ve seen Avery use one when he’s staking out the dressage arenas.”

“Well, what’s Natasha’s dad doing with one?” Kate said.

While the girls had been talking, Mr Tucker had packed up the measuring wheel and walked back towards his Ferrari. He didn’t seem to notice their stares as he threw the wheel on to the passenger seat and jumped in, slamming the door behind him. The car lights came on and the tyres of the Ferrari dug into the grass as the car revved up to the pony-club gates. Mr Tucker leapt out again, swung the gates open and was promptly gone in a cloud of dust.

“Hey!” Issie said. “He didn’t close the gate after him. That’s against club rules.”

“Well!” Stella said. “What was all that stuff with the wheel about?”

“I don’t know,” Issie said darkly. “It’s weird though. How come Mr Tucker never, ever came to watch Natasha ride before and now he suddenly seems to be here all the time?”

The troubles at the pony club must have been weighing heavily on Issie’s mind because that night she dreamt that she was back at the clubroom. It was a freezing, wintery night and the wind was howling outside, rattling the decrepit weatherboards. Shivering with cold, Issie fumbled for the light switch. The clubroom was pitch-black except for a patch of moonlight that shone in through the window. The beams fell like a spotlight on to the golden Tucker Trophy in the centre of the room. In the shaft of moonlight the golden horse gleamed and shimmered. The horse’s turquoise eyes almost seemed to follow Issie around the room.

Issie stood in front of the statue. She reached out a hand to touch its golden surface. Her fingers were almost
within reach when the statue let out a loud whinny. Issie shrieked and pulled her hand back. The statue was alive! Then, from the depths of her dream, she heard the whinny again. It was a clarion call, shrill and bellowing, and this time it woke her up so that she sat bolt upright in bed with her eyes wide open. What was going on?

The whinny sounded out again, ringing clear in the night air, and Issie realised that it hadn’t been part of her dream. The whinny was quite real and it was coming from outside her bedroom window.

“Mystic!” Issie leapt out of bed and ran to the window. She pressed her nose up against the glass, looking out into the darkness. She could see the shape of a horse on her back lawn. It had to be Mystic. He was waiting for her and he was getting impatient. He let out another loud whinny.

“OK, I’m coming…I’m coming…” Issie muttered as she searched in the dark bedroom for some clothes to put on. She didn’t want to switch on the light and risk waking her mum. Then again, if she didn’t hurry up, Mystic’s whinnies were bound to do the trick anyway.

Luckily, her jodhpurs and boots were still in a heap on the floor where she had thrown them when she got home after the rally. She hurriedly pulled off her pyjama
bottoms and yanked the jods on, and then shoved her feet into the boots without bothering with socks. There wasn’t time to muck about. Her polar fleece was hanging on the back of her wardrobe door so she grabbed that too as she headed out, tiptoeing down the stairs, ducking out through the kitchen to the French doors that led to the back lawn.

The grey horse was waiting for her. Issie felt her heart beat faster as she saw her beloved grey pony in the moonlight, his coal-black eyes, almost hidden beneath his silvery forelock, were gazing at her intently. Mystic gave a soft nicker, as if to say hello.

“Hey, Mystic, it’s so good to see you,” Issie breathed softly to her pony. “That was you the other day in The Pines, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you wait for me? I was trying to follow you, but Fortune was too slow to keep up.”

Issie reached out a hand and ran her fingers through the grey gelding’s mane, feeling the coarse, ropey fibres against her skin. Even now, after all this time, it was still a shock that her pony was here, that he was real and alive. She could feel the warmth of his soft coat beneath the mane, smell the gentle, warm odour of horse sweat in the cold night air.

Perhaps, Issie thought, seeing Mystic in The Pines had
just been a warning that something was coming. His arrival tonight signalled that the danger, whatever it may be, was far more immediate now. The grey gelding was here to help and his impatience meant that they needed to move fast.

“Mystic…” Issie began, but before she could finish the grey pony had broken away from her and set off back down the lawn towards the wooden gate under the trees at the far end of the garden. The gate was illuminated by a streetlight, so Issie could see to open the latch to let Mystic through.

On the other side of the gate, Issie climbed the bars to get up high enough to make the leap on to her pony’s back. With no reins to hold, she buried her hands in the gelding’s thick, ropey mane as he set off at a trot along the back street behind Issie’s house. His hooves made a clack-clack on the tarmac for a moment before they struck the soft dirt of the grass verge and Mystic began to canter. Issie didn’t try to guide him. The grey gelding knew where he was going. All she did was hang on and try to stay low, sheltering from the biting wind by keeping her head down close to Mystic’s neck.

The little grey gelding was such a dream to ride that, even when you were bareback, his canter was so fluid and
floaty it was like riding a rocking horse. Issie didn’t know where they were going or what was going to happen, but she trusted him and felt safe on his back.

As Mystic cantered on down the street Issie felt a chill up her spine. There was an intersection up ahead and, sure enough, when they reached the corner the pony turned right, striking out along the main road that led to the pony club.

In broad daylight this road was nerve-wracking to ride alongside because of the traffic. But now, in the early hours of the morning, there were hardly any cars at all. It wasn’t until they had almost reached the turn-off to the pony club that Issie found herself being momentarily blinded by the headlights of a car—coming straight at her! For a moment she panicked that the car was going to hit them, and there was nothing she could do except shut her eyes tight, blocking out the searing white light of the headlights. She wrapped her hands deeper into Mystic’s mane and hung on. But the car headlights passed without coming close to them and Mystic kept going at a steady canter, turning down the gravel side road that led to the pony-club grounds.

As Mystic slowed down to a trot near the front gate Issie vaulted to dismount and then dashed forward to
find that the padlock was still locked.

“Wait for me here,” she hissed at Mystic. “I’ll be back in a minute.” The grey pony stamped his feet anxiously as he watched her clamber over the fence and leap down into the car park paddock on the other side.

As she walked across the paddock she realised that, although Mystic had brought her to the pony club, she didn’t actually know why she was here. She had no idea what the danger was, or why Mystic had come to her. Issie looked around. The night was totally quiet and there was no sign of anyone else lurking about. She decided that the logical thing to do would be to check all the horses first and then…

A noise behind her made her jump. Terrified, she spun around, then leapt back in shock. “Mystic!” she cried. “Ohmygod! You gave me a fright. Don’t scare me like that!”

Then Issie looked back at the gate. It was still locked. “How did you get in here?” she whispered to the grey pony. Mystic gave a nicker and wheeled about on his hocks heading towards the far side of the paddock at a brisk trot. Issie ran behind him, following the grey pony’s shadowy shape in the darkness until they reached the fenceline that divided the pony club from the golf course.
Issie expected Mystic to stop, but the grey gelding put on a sudden surge of speed, cantering straight ahead—right through the wire fence!

Issie couldn’t believe her eyes. But as she came closer she realised that there was a big gap in the fence—a whole chunk of wire and wooden palings had been cut away with wire snips and bent back, leaving a huge, horse-sized hole.

It took a second for the next realisation to hit home and then Issie’s blood ran cold. If the hole was big enough for Mystic to fit through then it was big enough for Fortune to escape from as well. She had left the piebald grazing alone in this paddock when she went home. Now, as she looked around frantically in the darkness, she realised she couldn’t see him anywhere. He must have got out through the hole in the fence. Fortune was loose and he was somewhere out there on the golf course!

“Mystic?” Issie called as she stepped through the hole. She peered desperately into the blackness in front of her. “Fortune?” she called hopefully. There was no reply from either of them. Ahead of her the golf course stretched out endlessly; shadowy clusters of trees and the gloomy outlines of sand bunkers, hills and hollows were barely visible in the dark night. There were no fences here to contain a piebald pony. Fortune could be all the way over
on the other side of the course by now. It would be impossible to find him.

“Fortune!” Issie felt panic rising in her. She was about to put her fingers to her lips and whistle when she heard a horse whinny, and then a second horse returning the call. The first whinny had come from Mystic. He had found Fortune, right beside the pony-club fence, less than ten metres from the hole! The two ponies were standing happily side by side. Mystic was looking at Issie with wise, dark eyes. Fortune had popped his head up briefly to whinny and now had his snout back down in the long grass, grazing like mad.

Issie breathed a sigh of relief. For once Fortune’s gluttony had worked in her favour. The pony must have escaped through the gap and spotted the long grass by the fence that the mower couldn’t reach. He was so keen to get his head down and eat that he hadn’t strayed very far at all.