Megan and Mischief (7 page)

Sally said I could stay on Mischief! Yes! Yes! Yes! And phew! Phew! Phew!

The exact thing she said was, “Jody is also a qualified instructor and if she feels you’ve improved enough to keep riding Mischief, then that’s fine by me, but you must keep up the good work and stay in control.”

I said, “Yes, absolutely, I promise,” and then I hurried straight over to Mischief’s stable and told him the news. I gave him a big hug and I could tell he was as pleased as me by the way he nuzzled my neck. Yippee!

It’s especially brilliant because today we’re all going on a picnic ride. We’re having our lecture straight after breakfast and then getting our horses ready and we’ll be out from about half eleven till half three in the afternoon, and we’ll have our lunch out in the countryside too, which is the picnic bit! That is just so

I can’t wait!

And I’m going to show Moody Jade just what a fab team me and Mischief are too. Everything is brilliant again! Right, got to go and pick which cereals to mix up this morning.

Morning break

Oh dear, things have gone really wrong because I’ve fallen out with Millie and Gabrielle.

We were just having our orange and biscuits before we set off on the picnic ride and I was sitting next to Millie and kind of staring into space and thinking about whether Mum might get me the army print half chaps (I left
Pony
mag open on the kitchen table at the advert as a hint). Then Jade came up and said, “You look well edgy, Megan. I don’t blame you. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle Mischief on the picnic ride.”

“I’m not worried about anything,” I said, determined not to get upset. “Am I, Millie?”

I expected Millie to say, “Course not,” or something like that, but instead she just shrugged and looked at the table. “Well, I’m not,” I mumbled. “Just because people are
staring into space thinking about half chaps, it doesn’t mean they’re worried.”

Jade gave me a mean look and walked off, saying, “Well, you’d better not slow us up, that’s all.”

Right then, Gabrielle came over and asked Millie if she could ask Jody for more chocolate digestives because there were only custard creams left on the biscuit plate, and before I could stop myself I pointed at Millie and blurted out, “She thinks I’m not good enough to ride Mischief on the hack out!”

“I didn’t say that!” Millie cried.

“But you didn’t stick up for me when Jade said those things!” I challenged. I don’t really know why I was so annoyed with her. I just was.

“Well, to be honest I am a bit worried about you,” Millie admitted. “The picnic ride isn’t the same as on the beach, Megan, where you can just point forward and poddle along.”

“Huh! I do NOT poddle!” I cried.

“Okay, sorry, wrong word,” said Millie, “but what I mean is, there are gates to open and you have to make sure Mischief doesn’t barge through. And you need good control for the canters, otherwise you’ll end up dragged through a hedge at the top of the field. And there might be cows that you have to stay calm round or you’ll get Mischief all nervous and…”

Maybe what Millie was saying was sensible, but all I heard was, “You’re not good enough to ride Mischief, and by the way you’re not good enough to ride Mischief and, oh, did I mention that you’re not good enough to ride Mischief?”

“What do you think, Gabby?” I asked.

Gabrielle blushed bright red and looked at her feet. “Well, I guess you should listen to Millie,” she mumbled. “I mean, she’s been on loads of these rides before and…”

“Is Millie a trained riding instructor?” I shouted. “If Sally and Jody both think I can do it then that should be fine with Millie, shouldn’t it? Just because she’s got her own pony and she gets to live here all the time doesn’t mean she knows everything, does it?”

Millie glared at me as if she was about to shout back, but then she turned to Gabrielle, saying, “But you can see I’m only saying it because she’s my friend, can’t you?”

Even Gabrielle got cross then. “I don’t know!” she cried. “I only wanted a chocolate digestive, and now you two are putting me in the middle! In fact, I think I’ll go and talk to Chloe and Carla and Tam instead!”

And with that she marched off, and me and Millie had a glare at each other and then
she
marched off too. That was when I spotted Jade looking at me with a smug kind of smile on her face – she’d seen the whole thing. So now Gabrielle is ignoring me and Millie, and us two are ignoring each other. I feel really upset about it and I can’t believe that my so-called friends could be so mean. So far they haven’t come over here and there’s no way I’m going up to either of them. After all, it’s their fault we’ve fallen out, not mine.

I know Jade’s still watching me sitting here on my own, so I’m pretending to concentrate really hard on writing this. I don’t want her to do that “What are you staring at?” face at me again. I will just have to be Megan the Brave and have a brilliant picnic ride on Mischief and prove everyone wrong – so there!

It’s after tea and we’re all watching this film called
Spirit
in the living room, with yummy hot chocolate and popcorn. I’ve got the DVD at home and I’ve seen it about 23 times, so I’m writing this instead. It’s quite dark in here so it’s hard to keep my writing in a straight line. The film is instead of our Evening Activity, which was meant to be swimming and a barbecue, but it’s having a thunderstorm outside so we can’t go in the pool. I’m secretly glad because I’m really worn out from the picnic ride and all the terror and excitement that happened to me on it.

So here is the story of…

We started our picnic ride with Sally riding at the front and Johnny bringing up the back to make sure we were all safe. It was good
because we had to go down the road a little bit before cutting up on to a lane so we got to use our road safety skills that we did in our lecture this morning, like riding on the verge where we could, keeping together as a group and thanking drivers who come past slowly (well, driver, because there was only one). We all had these bright yellow bibs over our jackets to be visible, too.

I was nervous at first, because after what Jade had said this morning I didn’t want one single little thing to go wrong, but it was brilliant riding Mischief out in the countryside and he was really listening to me. But I did feel sad that me and Millie and Gabrielle were still not talking. Millie was at the back, chatting to her dad, and Gabrielle was riding with the younger girls. I didn’t feel like I could talk to Kate and Karen as Moody Jade was with them, so I had to ride by myself.

Sally must have noticed because she called for me to trot up to the front of the ride and chat with her. Unlike before when I was too upset to say anything, this time it was a proper chat. She said she was really proud of me for giving it my all with Mischief and she also said how much improvement she could see. I said thanks and how I liked her jacket, because I wanted to say something nice back. We stopped talking after a while and it was good just riding along beside each other. Mischief was a bit keen on some of the trots we did, but I remembered to use my half halts to get him listening and responding to me.

There were some fallen branches and little shrubby things on this grassy bank and Sally let the older girls and Millie and Carla have a go at jumping over them. I even had a pop over a log with Mischief! When Sally said we’d reach the picnic site quite soon, I could hardly believe it. It felt like no time had gone by, but my bottom was getting sore so I could tell it had.

There was a nice gentle uphill-sloping track at the edge of a field of corn and Sally said we could have a canter to the top (everyone can canter now). It was great, flying up the hill with the sound of pounding hooves all around. But then suddenly Mischief was going faster and faster and then he broke into a gallop! As we left the rest of the ride behind us, I panicked and lost my left stirrup. I was desperately trying to get it back and at the same time thinking

For a few seconds I forgot everything I ever knew about riding. My hands went flying everywhere and my bottom was bouncing about and I just clung to Mischief’s mane for dear life. Then finally I caught my breath and managed to struggle up to sitting. I gathered the reins, pulled back sharply and shouted, “Whoa!” but Mischief didn’t listen. Trying not to panic, I focused on getting my stirrup back, hoping that would give me more control. It took a few goes but then I got it. I glanced backwards and everyone else was miles behind.

While I was busy panicking, Mischief veered off the track and started galloping across the field instead. Suddenly the hedge into the next field was looming up ahead of me. It felt a hundred times scarier than racing up to the edge of the ménage in the gymkhana games practice and I had no idea how I could make Mischief stop when he was going so fast!

Well, the answer is that I didn’t. He jumped the hedge! Then we were galloping across the next field and I was leaning back and pulling the reins with all my strength and shouting,
“Whoa!” as loud as I could, but he still wasn’t stopping. Writing it now, it sounds like a long time, but it all went by in a complete flash and I hardly had time to think.

That’s when I heard galloping behind me – it was Sally and Millie. Sally kept calling, “Turn him, turn him!” and I tried but nothing happened, and I started to really panic as the next hedge appeared on the horizon. “Megan, turn him NOW!” Sally shouted. “I know you can do it, come on!”

I was just panicking by then and thinking,
I can’t, I can’t!
when Millie yelled, “There’s a road on the other side of that hedge!”

That really made me listen. I was the rider and I was meant to be in charge, and I couldn’t let Mischief get into danger.

“Come on, I know you can do it!” Millie was shouting.

Suddenly I remembered the things Jody had said when we were practising circles and turns. I adjusted my position, took a deep breath and pulled on my right rein, squeezing hard with my left leg. The hedge was really close now and I felt like just shutting my eyes and hoping for the best, but I knew I couldn’t give up. I kept my seat and carried on asking Mischief to turn. “Come on, Mischief!” I cried. “We’re a team! Just turn for me!” The hedge got closer and closer and then … he turned! It was so sharp I lost my stirrup again, but I didn’t care.

“Now circle him!” Sally called. “Quite tight. And use your half halts. That’ll slow him down.”

Even though it felt like my shoulders were being pulled out of their sockets, I brought him round into a circle. We went round and round and round and it seemed to go on for ever.

Just when I was so scared and tired I felt like leaping off, Mischief dropped into canter and then trot and finally came to a halt. I let the reins go slack with relief and just like that he dropped his head and started eating the grass, as if nothing had happened.

That’s when I noticed the rest of the ride standing by the gate – they’d seen
everything!

I hardly dared look at Sally – I thought she’d be furious with me! But she just said, “Wow, Megan, that was

I must have given her a really confused look because she added, “The way you kept your head and regained control! Just staying on would have been impressive, but you managed to slow him right down, without getting dragged through that hedge!”

“Do you really think he would have jumped it and gone into the road?” I asked.

Sally laughed. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. That one’s far higher than the last. But saying that, with our Mischief you never can tell. Let’s just say, I’m very glad you handled him well and we didn’t have to find out!”

Then she said, “Right, let’s get back on track. We’re not even supposed to be going this way!”

And, signalling for us to follow, she turned and trotted back towards the group by the fence.

Me and Millie looked at each other and both started talking at once. I was saying, “You were
right, I couldn’t handle Mischief out here,” and Millie was saying, “You were great. You handled him really well. I’m sorry.”

Then we steered up close to each other and did the “make friends, make friends” handshaking thing to make up, which was quite funny because we had to lean really far over. Sally called out, “Come on, you two, stop horsing around, there’s a picnic waiting for us!” and everyone laughed. When we got back to the group, Gabrielle wanted to make up too, so now we’re all friends again.

When Jody arrived in the Land Rover with the picnic, everyone was talking about how brave I was. (I’m not saying that to boast, but it’s true, and I did promise to write down everything that happens at Sunnyside!) They kept telling her braver and braver versions of what happened, till it sounded like Mischief had been bucking and rearing and half jumping the hedge and I’d stopped him just by using my little finger.

Then Jade said really loudly to Karen, “She was just showing off, making him gallop like that – it’s a miracle she stayed on. She can’t even handle him in the ménage, let alone out here!”

Everyone turned and looked at me, and Gabrielle started saying, “That’s not true!” but I was so annoyed I just stood up for myself without thinking. “Of course I didn’t make him do it on purpose!” I shouted. “Unlike you forcing poor Rupert to go near the water.

And at least I held on even at a gallop, when you fell off in trot!”

Everyone laughed then, remembering what happened to Jade at the beach. We were staring hard at each other and I was holding my breath, wondering what awful thing she’d say next. But Jade just looked away and I thought,
Wow, I really stood up for myself.
Maybe I can be Megan the Brave with girls too and not just ponies!