Megan and Mischief (2 page)

Still Monday,
after yummy lunch

I GOT MY PONY!!

He’s called Mischief and he’s completely gorgeous. Here’s a quick profile of him:

Before we got our ponies, Jody did a welcome talk and introduced us to all the staff. Lydia is the girl with blonde curly hair who I saw before. She’s a stable hand, which is my dream job – imagine getting paid to look after ponies all day! Sally is the instructor and she has these cool army print half chaps that I’ve wanted since I saw them in
Pony
magazine. Jody looks after us and does all the cooking (we’re all going to help too, but she’s in charge) and her husband Johnny is the Yard Manager and Millie’s dad!

Next Jody got us to say our names and where we were from. There are nine of us including Millie, three in each room. Carla is the youngest (she’s only six) and she’s in with
Chloe and Tam, these two friends who came all the way from Manchester! In the other room there are three almost-teenagers sharing together – Kate and Karen the twins are smiley and nice, but Jade looks a bit moody. She wears lots of make-up and has blonde hair that she keeps flicking round as if she’s in a shampoo ad.

Anyway, back to MY PONY!

When Lydia led this gorgeous pony out of the stable I crossed my fingers really tight, hoping he was for me. Then I heard Sally say, “Megan, you asked for a challenge, so we’ll try you on Mischief.”

I could hardly believe it! He was the gorgeous palomino I’d seen in the field! I wanted to jump up and down and scream, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” but I didn’t in case it spooked the ponies.

Kate got this handsome black gelding called Rupert.

Gabrielle got the cute cobby piebald, who’s called Prince.

Moody Jade got a glossy chestnut called Shine, who flicks her tail round in the same way Jade does with her hair – so they suit each other well! I don’t remember who the others got because I was too excited about Mischief! 

We tacked up (Lydia helped me with getting the bit in) and waited to mount up on the block, ready for our first lesson. Once I was on I felt quite high up on Mischief, but as he’s a light 
build I could wrap my legs round his sides nicely. I even tightened my own girth, and I felt really cool and grown up just sorting it out myself – until Mischief started wandering off while I still had my leg forward. Lydia had to come back over and hold him still, so then I didn’t feel very cool after all!

At first, when we got in the ménage we just had to walk round on the track and think about sitting up straight and keeping our hands relaxed and our heels down. There were no complete beginners and everyone could trot at least, so that was okay.

Then it all went not okay, ’cos Mischief started doing Naughty Things. Like:

We did trotting to the back of the ride one by one and I think Mischief got bored of walking round and round waiting for his turn because
he kept going really close to the person in front, which was Gabby, and nearly sticking his nose up Prince’s tail. Sally told me to use half halts to keep him in check, but that didn’t really work because he just kept stopping completely!