Love and Muddy Puddles (12 page)

Cupcake started to shift her weight back and forth. “Sorry,” I said, quiet again. “Sorry, Cupcake. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll stay calm now, okay?”

Ness stood still. She took a deep breath and then she let it out.

“Yeah,” she said. “I get it. When no one listens to you, that is hard. That’s the hardest thing of all.”

So Ness and I started our secret horse training. First we worked in the round yard with Cupcake once a week and then I practiced what I’d learned with her every afternoon when Josh and Charlie were out riding. When Cupcake got calmer and heaps more predictable and when I felt confident, Ness came over to give me riding lessons.

“Heels down, chin up, sit on your pockets, keep your hands below your belly button. No, not up like that. You’re not in a Wild West movie! Don’t be scared. You’re in charge.”

But I was never scared. Not even for a second. My tummy wobbled slightly when I first got up, just because it looked like a long way down, but I trusted Cupcake and she trusted me. We were learning together.

“You can ride, you know,” said Ness, two months later. “You’re good. You’re steady, you’re confident and you’ve got style. In fact, you’ve got a better natural seat than Charlie. I think you were made for this.”

“Do you think I’m ready?” I asked her.

“I think you’re ready,” she said.

A few days later I casually mentioned to Charlie that I might join her on a ride that afternoon.

“You’re going up to the dam, right?” I said. “So, I might come today.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? That would be cool.”

“Great.”

“We can go a bit slow if you like.”

“Meh. Whatever. I’ll try to keep up.”

“Okay.” She looked at me like I was about to let her into the joke. “You’re serious, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, making wide eyes at her. “Have I ever joked about going riding before?”

“Well... I guess not.”

“So, then,” I shrugged.

“So, then.” She looked at me and laughed. “We’re going at 3.30.”

“Like usual, right? If you go over to the stables to saddle up with Josh, I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.” She looked confused. “Um, which horse do you want to take? You could go on Nellie. She’s pretty good for beginners.”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said mysteriously. “I’ll just see you there. 3.30.”

“Okay.” She was curious and her eyes narrowed. “See you there...”

Let me just say that, in life, the element of surprise is vastly underrated.

When I galloped down James and Tessa’s driveway on Cupcake, and then wheeled around and pulled her up, you could have caught ten dozen flies in everyone’s open mouths. It took about five seconds for any words to come out at all, and then:

“Is that you, Coco?” said Tessa.

“Is that Cupcake?” said Josh.

“You can ride?” said Charlie.

“
You 
can ride 
Cupcake
?” said James.

I shrugged, enjoying myself. “Aaah. I took a couple lessons. No big deal, right? So, are you guys ready or what? Let’s go.”

It was James’ eyes that looked the longest and shone the brightest. He didn’t say anything, but he rode next to me all the way.

I didn’t want to say it or even think it, but life got better. I wasn’t admitting to anything but everyone noticed the difference. I was out of bed, I had more energy and I had something to look forward to. It was nice to feel more normal. I did better in my school work, ate more and laughed almost every day. I even helped around the shed and did some fetching and carrying for Dad. I watched the frame of the new house go up. It was kind of fun.

Obviously, though, I didn’t want anyone to take ‘new happy light-hearted Coco’ for granted or to forget that I had been dragged there against my will, so I made sure I mentioned going to back to Sydney at least once a day. For example:

Mum: “What a beautiful sunset tonight.” Me: “Yes, it’s gorgeous. I’ll almost miss the sunsets when I go back to Sydney next year.”

Charlie: “Doing school at home gives me heaps more time to myself.” Me: “I know. It’s cool, right? I’ll have to make the most of it now before I go back to Sydney next year.

Josh: “Nice soup, Mum. Delish.” Me: “It’s great. I wonder what boarding school food will be like when I go back to Sydney next year?” Josh: “Would you just shut up already?”

The best part of being happier was that finally, I had friends. Tessa turned out to be nice, even though she was shy and still wore all the wrong shirts, but she wanted to learn and a few times when I helped her with her clothes she was so grateful—and she looked so good—that I actually felt pretty proud of myself, like I’d done something nice.

“When I get back to Sydney next year I’ll buy you something at the place I always used to get my jeans,” I said. “Something in a really pale blue. It will go with your eyes.”

Tessa giggled and preened a little, especially once I put some make up on her.

“See? That really helps.” I stood back to admire my work. “There’s no reason why anyone should ever go out anywhere without mascara and eyeliner on.”

“What about just down to the stables?” Tessa asked. Her face was worried.

“Look, obviously you can do what you like,” I said. “I’m just saying, you don’t know 
when
 or 
where
 someone might see you—or 
who
 it will be. So it’s best to be prepared, right? It takes about two minutes to put on, and you never know—if you meet someone who turns out to be the boy of your dreams, it might be the most useful two minutes of your life.”

Tessa giggled and then blinked a few times. “My eyes feel weird. Is that normal?”

“You’ll get used to it,” I said. “What’s that phrase? You have to suffer to be beautiful.”

With her eyes watering, Tessa was suffering. But she did look beautiful.

“You have used your powers for good,” said Charlie later in her Yoda voice, being silly. But she was happy with me for being nice to her friend. And Josh approved too. He was still hanging around Tessa like a lost puppy. That romance was doing my head in. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine 
anyone 
liking my brother. 
I mean, really? 
Thankfully it wasn’t like they were about to start kissing around every corner. Even though Tessa giggled and looked at him all the time, neither of them seemed to have the guts to do anything about it. Instead they just talked about horses. Incessantly. Boringly. Never-endingly.

Even though I now loved riding, and we all went out together on the horses just about every afternoon, it wasn’t like horses had taken over my world like they had for Charlie and Josh.

For me, it was about one horse. I loved Cupcake.

The more time I spent with her, the more I realised that she was probably the closest friend I had ever had, which sounds ridiculous, I know, because she was an animal, obviously, and not a person. But it was like we both knew each other so well and trusted each other so much that nothing could go wrong.

What I loved was that we could be—no, we had to be—completely honest with each other. There was no mistaking how she was feeling. Horses don’t play games or hide things. And they’re amazing at picking up on your feelings too. When I was worried, she got worried. When I was excited, her ears pricked up and she went faster. If I was angry I had to make sure I got rid of it and truly calmed down before I could work with her.

Cupcake responded to me like no one else. I was definitely her favourite person. We spent at least two hours together every day, either riding or in the round yard, and at the end I made sure she always had a bucket of feed ready.

And it was making a huge difference. She had calmed down a lot, even to the point where other (carefully chosen) people could ride her again. But mostly everyone just said, “Oh, Cupcake is pretty much Coco’s horse.”

It did worry me that once I went back to Sydney in February I’d miss her and she’d be left alone, but I tried to put it out of my mind. Besides, I figured that if I spent enough time with her now, she’d probably be settled enough by then. And of course I could see her in the holidays.

By October we had about 35 horses grazing our paddocks. Half of them belonged to Ness but the other half were from random people who’d heard on the grapevine that they could agist on our property. Ness was forever getting calls and bringing new horses down.

She and Mum hung out all the time and were talking about starting a business together around riding and lessons and horse stuff in general. The rides which she’d been doing every three weeks or so became more frequent and Charlie, Josh, Tessa, James and I found ourselves with part time jobs (yes, okay, we worked for our mothers!) helping get the horses tacked up and sometimes even going out on the rides.

I’d given up on the idea of Charlie being in love with James. They were friends and joked around but there were no gooey gazes or giggling so I figured that was that. Anyway, at first I was pleased because if they
had
started going out I would have had to see him even more than I did normally. Don’t get me wrong, he was actually pretty nice, and the more I hung out with him the more his looks seemed to go from ugly to okay to actually kind of handsome, but he unsettled me. I didn’t really understand him.

To begin with, we talked a bit, but not very much and only about things like the weather or the saddles needing a polish. It was just everyday stuff and he didn’t seem to have much else to say to me. It wasn’t because he was a shy person though. He laughed and joked with the others with no problems. He just seemed to go quiet around me. I figured maybe he still hated me, but that didn’t account for the times I’d turn around suddenly, in the stables or on a ride, and he would just be there, watching me, closer than I expected.

As the weeks went on, though, I found myself hoping to run into him more and more. It wasn’t because we had more to say to each other. In fact, it was the exact opposite. It was the quietness that was the intriguing thing about him.

I hadn’t been calm—ever—my entire life. I was always the kid with jellybeans in her feet; the exact opposite of quiet. So when it was just him and me and the horses in the stables, and he didn’t talk, this weird thing happened where it felt like I was under some sort of magnetic trance and naturally calmed down as well. We just worked together, polishing tack and cleaning out stalls and sorting out gear.

The whole thing made me surprisingly dizzy. I had no idea you could just 
be
 in a room with someone else. Samantha would have gone crazy. She was fifty words a second most of the time. But I got used to it. In fact, I was nearly addicted to it. After a few weeks I found myself hoping that I’d find James by himself when I went over so that we could work together without talking to each other.

But it’s not often that people change completely overnight, and it’s especially not true for me. Some days the new ‘quiet Coco’ stayed peaceful and serene. It was on the other days I just couldn’t help myself.

We were getting ready for a ride one afternoon and I stuck my head outside to see who the customers were. It was a disappointing view. About eight young looking people were hanging around, taking stuff out of their cars and getting helmets on. And all of them looked like they’d walked straight out of a cheap 1990s sitcom, but not in a cool, retro, hip kind of way. The hair was wrong, the clothes were wrong, the, well, 
everything
 was wrong.

“You have got to see this.” I put my head back in the door and made big rolled eyes at James. “We’re riding with the cast of the Big Bang Theory!”

James turned around to look at me but he wasn’t laughing. “What?” he said, like he didn’t understand.

“I’m serious,” I said. I was giggling with delight. “These people are like, nerds from Nerdville. Seriously, one of them looks like that guy from Napoleon Dynamite.”

James tightened his mouth. And then he stood up. My eyes followed him to his full height. I felt vaguely nervous.

“They’re people, Coco,” he said. He looked disappointed and then he turned away.

“Can’t I call someone a nerd?” I said. “Maybe it takes a nerd to know one.” I giggled, but it was weak.

He stopped still for a minute and then he turned around and looked straight at me. His face seemed puzzled. I tried to keep a smile on my face but it only lasted a second. And then I felt small down in the pit of my stomach.

“I don’t know why you do that, Coco,” he said. “You don’t need to be—I don’t know—cooler than everybody the entire time. I like it when you’re just being yourself.” He turned around again and started buckling Boldy’s girth.

That night I shifted and fidgeted under my doona. Why did it bother me so much what James thought? Why did it affect me so much when he made that disappointed face? And why did he have to be so 
straightforward?
 It was all too annoying. I decided that the next time I saw him, I’d just pretend everything was alright. It was easier that way. All of this figuring-stuff-out-with-blue-eyed-boys took way too much energy.

Anyway, I had something else to distract me.

The internet had come to Budgong.

I couldn’t believe that I had lived for eight months without (a) Facebook, (b) email or (c) online chat. In the beginning I had felt like I was having email withdrawals. It got easier of course, but I was desperate to get on the net again and when Dad said one night that the phone company had been down to install some sort of connection thingy, I held in my excitement until he’d gone out of the shed. Then I literally bounced on my toes and listened to myself make some sort of unexplained and unexpected ‘eeeee-eeeeee-eeeee’ little-girl-style squealing noise.

It wasn’t immediate, of course. What was, around here? We still had to wait a few weeks until the solar panels were installed so we could actually use the phone line connection. Or something. I didn’t really get it. All I knew was that the first night that we actually had proper lights instead of kerosene lanterns we had a party. As the designated lantern cleaner I was especially celebratory. That was one less chore for me to wreck my nails on. The next day an electrician installed a plug that I could charge my laptop on and a connection for the net. True, it didn’t work perfectly, but we had a few usable hours each day and I could check my email.

Which turned out to be chockers.

I had a bit of junk mail and some random messages from a few different school people, but mostly my inbox was crammed with messages from Samantha. Two hundred and eighty-seven of them to be exact. When I checked the dates, they were mostly written in the autumn, just after we’d moved. Then she’d obviously given up because there were only two in winter and a final message from about two months ago:

Hi Coco? Are you out there? Still no Internet connection? Couldn’t you even drive into a town and check it at a library or a cafe or something? Have you fallen off the face of the earth? Are you dead? Are you ever coming back? Sam xxxxxoooooxxxxx

Outside it was a sunny spring day but I shivered. There was a feeling in my chest I couldn’t quite name, even though it felt familiar. It was a mix between cold and ill and fear. 
This is weird, 
I said to myself. There was nothing specific in her email which made me uncomfortable. But I felt really off-beam. And it took me about three days before I was ready to write back.

Hey Sam.

Finally got internet on so I got your emails—eventually. Life has been... different. It seems like a long time ago that we were on the bus together. I told James—he’s the boy next door—about you. He’s mostly nice but his clothes are dodgy. I’ve been riding a horse called Cupcake. She’s beautiful and kind of ‘my own’ horse. It’s a long story. But you can tell the girls that I’m fine and school is strict and I’m not allowed any emails. I don’t know. Make something up. Miss you.

Coco xxx

I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting to hear from her for a while. I think I had forgotten how instant emails are. So it was almost shocking when Samantha replied the same afternoon.

Hi Coco,

Omigosh! You’re alive! Who knew? I’d given up—almost. Told the girls I heard from you. They texted Mr Perfect (yes, Darcy—he’s SO gorgeous) straight away cos he still wants to meet you. Can’t wait til you get to meet him too. We can trade notes.