Moonlight: Star of the Show (6 page)

With lots of pit stops, filled with Rosie complaining about the cycling making her ravenous, it took them longer than they thought to reach the edge of Harry Franklin’s paddocks. They walked the bikes up to the top of the slope where they’d hidden earlier that morning and pushed them roughly into the hedge, keeping them nearby in case they had to make a quick getaway.

What do we do now?” Rosie asked, collapsing dramatically and lying flat out on the grass in the sun.

“We sit and wait until we see a horsebox approaching, then we sneak down and get a photograph as they load Moonlight. Then we phone the police,” Mia announced. “Simple.”

So they sat down on the warm grass behind the hedge and waited.

And waited.

Rosie let out an occasional slight snore as Alice made endless daisy chains and Charlie saw how much grass she could put in Rosie’s hair before she noticed. Suddenly Mia peered over at the yard and squeaked. The others looked up, with Rosie wondering where she was for a second, as Mia pointed silently.

Lying on their fronts, they peeped through the hedge and saw Harry walk out into the yard. Somehow he looked even larger than before, and Alice felt a shiver go down her spine despite the
warm summer sun. Harry had his big grey lurcher loping along by his side. It looked as if Harry was taking Growler out for a walk.

Rosie groaned. “We could be here all night at this rate!”

Charlie stood up, stooping to keep hidden by the hedge. “Look, rather than hanging about up here, which isn’t getting us anywhere, why don’t we sneak down to the yard now while Harry’s out, get a photo of Moonlight, then make a run for it.”

“What, go down there now? Before the handover?” Alice gasped. “But he’ll go mad if he finds us on his yard. You heard what he said about us ever coming back here!”

“He won’t even know we’ve been,” Charlie said. “We’ll be in and out before he has a chance to see us.”

Alice looked seriously doubtful.

“You can always stay here by yourself all night if you’d prefer,” Charlie called back to them as she scrambled over the hedge and darted off down the
hill to the yard. Filled with excitement and nerves, Alice jumped up and followed her, snagging her jods on the way over. Alice heard a cry and guessed Rosie had done the same, but she didn’t turn to check. By the time Alice reached the stables her heart was racing. She told herself that it must have been the running.

Charlie motioned for them all to head straight across the main yard and round to the stables at the back. It was a huge risk, heading in the same direction that Harry had disappeared in, but they had no choice. Alice was two steps behind Charlie, and she heard Mia’s voice in her ear hissing at Rosie to stop pulling at her T-shirt or it would lose its shape. Charlie edged slowly round the corner then suddenly stopped dead and whipped back. Alice crashed into her, Mia into Alice, and Rosie collapsed, panting, on all of them, almost knocking them to the floor in a heap. The look on Charlie’s face said all they needed to know: Harry Franklin was on his way back… with Growler!

They turned quickly back into the main yard. Suddenly they saw the office door opposite where they were standing start to open. The skinny stable lad! They’d all totally forgotten about him! Alice, Rosie and Charlie panicked – they were trapped, with Harry advancing in one direction, the skinny lad in the other! There was no way they’d make it out of the yard without being seen now! Without thinking, Mia quickly scraped back the bolt on the nearest stable door and bundled the others inside. She swung the door shut and scraped the top bolt across, ducking down behind the door just as footsteps stepped out across the yard from the office. Mia stayed stock still for a second. Then, still bent double, she turned to make her way to the back of the stable where the others were hiding. She came nose to nose with a huge white horse – Harry’s huge white horse. The horse snorted. Even his nostrils were vast. He stomped his hoof, and as Mia glanced down she noticed that his hoofs were also seriously huge. With a gulp, she edged round
him and joined the others who had shoved themselves as tightly as possible into the furthest, gloomiest corner.

The massive horse shifted his back legs round, turning so that he was facing them. He lowered his head and snuffled them. Rosie tried to squeeze further behind Charlie, who was trying to inch behind Alice. Alice, cramped in the corner on her heels, felt herself tipping forward and pushed back on them both. As Rosie opened her mouth to protest Mia shot her a warning glance, holding a finger to her lips with one hand and trying to push the huge, inquisitive, whiskery white muzzle away with the other.

There was a light patter of feet outside. Alice tried to breathe so silently that she started to feel faint. A dog’s nose snuffled outside, his shadow just visible as it broke up the crack of sunshine under the stable door.

Then the metallic ring of steel-toecapped boots clopped closer.

“All right, boss?” The girls hadn’t heard the skinny worker talk before, but they figured it must be him. Harry grunted in reply then stopped outside the big white horse’s stable.

“What’s wrong, Colossus?” Harry asked. The horse, unsettled, stepped forward to the front of the stable and nodded his massive head up and down. Alice was convinced that her heart was beating so loudly Harry would be able to hear it from where he was standing. The four girls were cramped in the corner, squished into the straw. Alice’s legs were starting to burn but she didn’t dare move an inch.

Suddenly Rosie’s stomach let out an almighty rumble, echoing round the stable. The girls’ mouths dropped open as they stared at Rosie, whose eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“What’s that?” Harry boomed. The girls leaned back into the shadows even further, starting to shake as they glared at Rosie, certain she’d just given them away. “Are you hungry, Colossus, is that it?”

As the footsteps disappeared for a second the others let out a collective, shaky sigh.

“What? I
warned
you I was hungry!” Rosie mouthed, as Charlie nudged her.

Suddenly, a slice of hay was lumped over the door. Harry loitered outside.

“Who forgot to put the bottom bolt on your stable, eh, Colossus? Better go in and check that nothing’s amiss. Isn’t that right, Growler? Yes, isn’t that right?” Harry said in a surprisingly high, soppy voice, patting the dog loudly.

A bolt was slowly scraped back and the lower stable door opened an inch. A crack of sunshine appeared, along with a long, furry snout.

At the same second a mobile phone rang out, shattering the silence. Rosie went pale – it was her ring tone! It was her phone! She must have forgotten to turn it off, she thought, scrabbling for it in her pocket and elbowing Alice in the nose. This was it – she’d led the others into the shaggy grey jaws of doom!

“Where are you? On your way?” Harry barked, at the same moment that Rosie’s hand closed round her own phone. The screen was blank. With her heart galloping she let out a long, silent sigh and sank back into the straw, squashing the others even more as they silently protested with shoves and glares. Rosie was about to slide her mobile back into her pocket when she looked up and saw the door was still open an inch. The big snout was still there. Rosie shivered as the snout edged the door open an inch more. One black, glinting eye looked round, then fixed itself upon her. But the next second Harry, his mobile still stuck to his ear, used his large boot to hook Growler back from the door.

“I’ll get the pony ready,” Harry said. “Now, about payment…”

He swung the stable door shut, slid the top bolt then kicked the bottom lock across. The rest of the conversation was lost as he stomped out of earshot.

Mia, huddled in the corner behind the others, looked stricken.

“He’s shut the bottom bolt!” she whispered. “We’re trapped!”

Chapter Six

“W
E
might be trapped,” Charlie whispered, feeling hot and sticky from crouching awkwardly in the corner, “but at least we haven’t been caught.”

“That was close, though!” Rosie said, puffing out her pink cheeks as she fanned her face with her hand.

Her insides felt upside down and she was secretly glad that she was sitting and not having to run anywhere or be heroic at that precise moment.

“Listen!” Mia hissed quietly, holding her hand in the air.

They all fell silent. The huge white horse, Colossus, stopped munching for a second, too, raising his head and taking a massive step up
to the door, his big ears pricked forward. It was getting louder by the second – the unmistakable drone of a horsebox, gears changing down then revving as it slowed for the turning into the drive, then accelerating up the drive and braking in the yard with a hiss.

“They’re here,” Mia mouthed and took a deep breath. They all looked at one another, feeling nervousness and excitement bubble through them.

Alice felt her knees give and she grabbed hold of Rosie, who nearly jumped out of her skin, making Charlie start to giggle nervously before gulping and biting her lip to keep silent. Horsebox doors were slammed and a couple of people jumped down onto concrete. The girls crept nearer to the stable door, avoiding Colossus’s flashing tail, and straining to hear snippets of conversation as Harry clacked over to meet whoever had just arrived in the driveway. Three sets of footsteps walked into the yard, stopping not far from the grey horse’s stable. Alice felt a bead of
sweat trickle down between her shoulder blades as she heard the voices – they were just the other side of the wooden stable wall!

“So, you managed to get your hands on the pony my son here had his eye on,” a deep voice boomed. “No trouble keeping everything hush-hush at this end?”

“It was easy keeping everything under wraps to begin with,” Harry replied, “until today when some girls came round, one with a proper-looking show pony.”

In spite of the situation, Mia allowed herself a small, superior smile.

“They kept mentioning the Fratton Show and trying to get round to these stables where I’ve hidden your pony. I think they knew more than they let on, but I put them off. Just,” Harry explained.

“Good. That’s what you’re being paid extra for, to keep this ‘special’ deal quiet, remember?” the deep voice replied coldly.

As the other girls looked at each other with widening eyes, Mia eased her notebook out of her pocket. She began quietly scribbling their conversation down, collecting the evidence.

“Come on, Dad, I don’t want to hang around here all day,” a new, younger male voice piped up. “Can’t we just get the pony and load him up?”

The girls’ jaws dropped. They glanced at one another, their eyes wide with disbelief. The voice was unmistakable. Mia wrote down a name in capital letters, then tapped the notebook. The others read, then nodded their heads vigorously.

But they couldn’t be shocked for long. Mia would only have a second to get a photo on her mobile phone of Moonlight as he was led through the yard to the waiting horsebox. She switched her mobile to camera mode. Alice pointed out silently that she needed to turn off the flash option.
Mia stepped lightly and hunkered down beneath the half door in the shadows, her hands shaking as she held the phone.

The hoof beats got louder as they passed right by Colossus’s stable. Mia waited for as long as she dared, then as the hoof beats tripped away she popped her hand over the stable door while staying well hidden and took a picture.

She scooted back and they all huddled round to see the result. It wasn’t easy to see in the gloom of the stable and it was a bit blurry because Mia’s hand had been shaking. She’d taken it at an angle, and most of what was visible of the pony was covered in a huge, lightweight summer rug. Mia looked disappointed for a second, then saw, in among the muddle of human legs, a pony’s back leg. It was an off hind. And it was white. They all peered closely in turn at the photo of Moonlight stuck into Mia’s notebook from the ‘Missing’ advert. It showed that his near hind was black, from his stifle to his hoof. But the off hind,
his right back leg which Mia had just caught on camera, was all white.

“It’s him!” Charlie whispered urgently, peering at the phone. “It’s Moonlight!”

“Shh!” Alice hissed. “They’re still talking!”

They strained their ears again. Then the horsebox roared into life.

“Good luck at the Fratton Show,” Harry shouted over the engine noise. “He better win after all this effort.”

“Oh, there’s no question about him being placed first. This one’s a proven winner. There’ll be no disguising
that
bit once we get there! All this will be worth it then, as Mark here picks up the red rosette,” Mark’s dad replied. The horsebox rolled down the drive and rumbled away into the early evening.

The girls sank back in the straw, exhausted and elated at the same time. But as Rosie did a victory shuffle she spooked Colossus. Unsettled already by their presence and all the activity on
the yard, he began to pace his stable. They all rushed to get out of his path and squeezed against the back wall, breathing silently, as Harry returned to the main yard, rustling something in his hands.

“Easy money, Growler, easy money. Come on, boy – I don’t know why you’ve decided to guard Colossus’s box tonight.” He stopped and called the dog again. Growler whined and scratched at the stable door.

“What’s in there, Growler?”

Alice stopped breathing.

“Are there rats? Shall we open the door for you to get the rats? Shall we?”

Alice froze. She stole a glance at the others; they all looked exactly how she felt – petrified and in a state of total panic.

“Too late now, Growler old boy. The rats can live until tomorrow.”

The girls let out a collective long, silent breath.

But outside Growler still refused to shift. If he didn’t disappear they’d never be able to escape
without his alerting Harry. Harry hovered nearby, trying to coax the reluctant Growler away, while Colossus circled his box again. As they huddled in the corner, Colossus let out a loud, body-shaking neigh, which pierced the girls’ ears as they stood just behind him. Harry stomped over. Already stiff and uncomfortable, the girls squeezed as tightly as they could into the shadows, desperate not to get caught and have to face the wrath of Harry. If he discovered them now, he’d know they’d just witnessed him selling a stolen pony to Mark Tickle. And if he was mad at them earlier just for sniffing around the yard, who could tell how furious he’d get for this? The girls clung together. Rosie closed her eyes and crossed her legs, suddenly feeling desperate for a wee.

At that precise moment Colossus lifted his tail. A strong smell preceded the droppings that followed the tail lifting, but in his excitement they shot out further than normal. Much further. Charlie and Alice silently ducked either side of
the long grey tail. Rosie, left crouching between them, still had her eyes tight shut. There wasn’t the usual bounce on straw as the droppings landed, because they didn’t land on straw. Rosie’s eyes popped open. Mia just got her hand over Rosie’s mouth in time, covering it fiercely as Rosie threatened to squeal.

Harry patted Colossus’s big neck. “Calm down, old boy. Come on, Growler. Dinner time.”

Finally the big lurcher turned and followed his master at the mention of dinner, his claws tippy-tapping across the yard. Charlie and Alice doubled over, collapsing into the straw in fits of silent giggles as Rosie at last removed Mia’s hand from her mouth.

“This is not funny!”
she hissed dramatically. She moaned quietly as she looked at the droppings that had dribbled down her.

While Rosie attempted to use some straw to wipe her T-shirt, she glanced up at Charlie and Alice who were weak from trying to stifle their
laughter. Rosie bit her lip, trying to keep up her look of disgust until she saw Mia wiping away a tear, her face crinkling as she tried to control herself. Suddenly Mia’s laugh escaped as a snort and she waved her hand around, cracking up again, and Rosie finally dissolved into giggles too.

After being silent and still for so long, and with Harry safely out of the way, they all felt hysterical and for a minute none of them could move. After sitting cramped up for ages, and suddenly exhausted after the all the tension had drained from her, Alice stood up and slowly stretched her achy legs. She had to turn away from Rosie to keep herself under control as the others started to unfold themselves too. Finally, when they were all standing up, they crept to the front of the stable, patting Colossus. The big grey had calmed down and he breathed warmly over them, snuffling across Alice’s hair.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked quietly. “About Moonlight, I mean?”

“First things first,” Charlie said, looking over the stable door. “We need to get out of here. Coast’s clear. Someone give me a leg-up?”

Mia and Alice cupped their hands together, and when Charlie put her knee in they hauled her up, then she leaped down the other side, landing as quietly as possible, and quickly pulled back the bolts. Alice locked them after they’d all silently slunk out. Then they scooted across the yard and up the hill, bending low, until they reached the hedge with the bikes in it. Hauling them out, they jumped on and pedalled manically back to Blackberry Farm.

“Can you believe it was Mark Tickle?” Alice asked, desperately trying to distract herself from the back-breaking pedalling on her bike which only had one gear, and the overpowering smell of horse dung wafting up from Rosie’s clothes. “I mean, I knew he was competitive, but stealing the top pony to secure a win? That’s just madness.”

“It’s more than madness,” Charlie replied.
“It’s total craziness. He can’t possibly think that he can turn up to the Fratton Show and ride Moonlight in the Cup. Everyone would recognise the piebald immediately, especially Poppy – he’d be mobbed! His plan would backfire before he’d even had a chance to jump the first fence.”

“Charlie has a serious point,” Rosie puffed.

“So why, exactly, did he go to the lengths of stealing a pony he’d never get away with competing on in the Cup?” Mia asked.

Everyone fell into a thoughtful silence. After being so close to solving the case, they now felt as if it was crumbling around them. It just didn’t make sense. Mia braked abruptly, resting Will’s bike against her leg. She pulled out and flipped open her notebook, reading it back to herself. Suddenly her face lit up.

“It’s here!” she squealed, pointing at her neat scribbles from the overheard snippets of conversation in the stable. “Mark’s dad gave us the clue himself!”

They all crowded round as she continued.

“He said there’d be no
disguising
Moonlight’s talent. That can only mean one thing, can’t it?”

“What exactly?” Rosie asked, not quite following.

“Well, if he can’t disguise the
talent,
he’ll have to disguise the
pony
!” Mia cried.

“How will he do that?” Alice asked, getting off the bike with Rosie and collapsing on the grass verge for a proper breather. The others joined her and they became lost in thought as the warm evening sky turned dusky pink.

“Boot polish?” Charlie finally suggested. “Something like that maybe?”

“Yuk! Poor Moonlight!” Rosie exclaimed. “So, what are we going to do about it?”

“We need to come up with a plan to expose Mark at the show, right in front of all the crowds. And Poppy,” Mia said thoughtfully.

“Only not this evening,” Rosie said with a huge yawn.

Now they’d worked out the hard part of who had stolen Moonlight and why, the next step would have to wait until they’d all had a good night’s sleep. Wearily, but with a glow of triumph as warm as the sinking sun, they picked up the bikes and started to pedal the rest of the way back to Blackberry Farm.