Pony Rebellion (5 page)

Sophie laughed. “All in good time,” she said mysteriously, “but you'll all love it, I promise!”

Tiffany is definitely getting braver, don't you think?” asked Bean as her golden mare demonstrated her courage by snorting and sidestepping a puddle.

“No,” James and I said together.

“Well, I think she is,” Bean said defensively, shrugging her shoulders.

“She's better on the activity ride than I thought she'd be, I have to admit that,” James said.

“Mmmm, that's true,” I agreed.

The three of us were making our way back to Laurel Farm having enjoyed a fantastic ride around the countryside in the fall sunshine. All the leaves still clinging to the trees were burnished fiery red and gold by the afternoon sunlight, and the ponies' hooves made a swishing sound as they walked through the crisp leaves that had already fallen. I could hear Drummer and Tiffany muttering away to each other and, occasionally, I even heard Moth add a whisper to the equine conversation. This was progress—she still didn't speak directly to me—but at least she was getting confident enough to converse with the other ponies when she knew I could hear her. But only just.

“Moth needs clipping again. Her coat has grown so fast,” I remarked, looking at the sweat on Moth's chestnut neck, making her half-grown coat crinkle up like a wet sheep.

James nodded. “I know. I'll ask Sophie whether she'll have time next week when I'm at school. Oh, I forgot to tell her, Dec's totally up for helping out with the activity ride—moving jumps and stuff. I sort of twisted his arm.”

I sniffed, wondering whether Declan would be as anti Pia as his sister.

“He helped you when you rescued Moth, didn't he?” asked Bean, sitting another swerve from Tiffany around something that couldn't be seen by the naked eye and probably wasn't there.

“Yup, he's a good friend,” confirmed James. “And he's really into working out. He'll be perfect for running around and moving things. Hey, what's going on?” he continued as all the ponies lifted their heads and stared at a man getting out of his car. The bridle path ran alongside a gravel parking lot where people often parked while they walked their dogs, but this man was alone and dressed in a suit—not usual garb for a hike around the countryside. He beckoned us over, clearly reluctant to walk far in his expensive shoes.

“Did you lose a horse?” he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose and shivering. He was about Mom's age and managed to look both annoyed and worried at the same time.

James shook his head. “Nope, all present and correct!”

“Well, there's a black horse on the baseball field,” continued the man, pointing behind him. “A magnificent black horse wearing a fancy bridle. It isn't supposed to be there you know. The field is sacred, and a horse like that can do a lot of damage. You'll have to remove it.”

Bean and I exchanged glances. We didn't care about the baseball field, but a magnificent black horse sounded like news. Wearing a fancy bridle, eh? Lead us to it!

“It's not ours,” explained James, “and it doesn't sound familiar. A black horse, you say?”

“Yes, yes,” nodded the man, like we were stupid. “A magnificent big black horse,” he continued, waving his arms at the magnificence of it all. “On the baseball field, tearing up the grass. You must know who it belongs to.”

“Why should we?” asked Bean.

The man turned and looked at her. “You're on horses,” he said illogically. Like we know who owns every equine in the vicinity. There are tons of stables around, but we didn't know everyone. It didn't seem worth explaining that.

“We'll take a look if you like,” said James, turning Moth in the direction of the community baseball field and pavilion. “We might recognize it.” The field was located at the back of the ponies' turnout field, bordered by a lane we could easily get to by a detour.

Satisfied that he'd shifted the burden of ensuring the community baseball field was returned to its original condition, namely horseless, the man shivered again and got back into his car, muttering.

“Let's go see this magnificent black beast!” said James, urging Moth into a trot. Bean and I hustled Tiff and Drummer along behind him.

“Why the hurry?” asked Drummer.

“This mystery black horse sounds exciting!” I told him. “It could be a Friesian, the royal horse of the Netherlands—”

“Or there might be a reward!” interrupted Bean, overhearing me, “if he's really that important.”

“I wonder if we could sneak a ride on it,” James said. “It might be our only chance to ride a circus horse, or an escaped competition horse or film horse!”

I felt my heart thumping in my chest. This was an adventure!

As we drew nearer to the baseball field we slowed the ponies so as not to frighten the magnificent mystery horse. However, we all wanted to be the first to see it, and we crammed three abreast along the track (I ignored Drummer's protests) in a hurried walk. The bushes obscured our view until we turned past the last one and eagerly craned our necks to catch our first glimpse of the magnificent black horse in its fancy bridle.

So-called.

“Somebody is playing a trick on us,” wailed Bean. “Honestly, this has to be right up there for anticlimax-of-the-year award!”

“Some magnificent black horse!” I said, my shoulders sagging along with my expectations.

“Ugly black horse, more like,” added James.

We stared at the horse that had received top billing. It lifted its head and stared back, still chewing the hallowed grass.

“Well, give me a hat and call me Charlie, what's he doing here?” I heard Drummer say. Then he shouted—only James and Bean heard a neigh whereas I heard, “Hey, Henry, you dumb old hillbilly, what are you doing here? Practicing for the World Series? Ha, ha!”

Mrs. Bradley's pushy Dales pony neighed back something about making a hole in the field hedge and finding some tasty new grass.

“Call that a fancy bridle?” asked Bean, disgusted. “It's Henry's tattered old blue head collar. Somebody needs glasses.”

“He was wearing glasses,” I said, gloomily.

“Well, he should've gone to LensCrafters,” said Bean.

Nobody laughed.

“Good thing we checked him out,” James said, dismounting and diving under the single rail boundary to the baseball field after handing Moth's reins to me. “I'll go and catch him.”

We watched as James walked up to Henry, but Henry was having none of it. I heard him say, “Get lost!” as James approached him, then he whirled around and trotted off to the far end, near the pavilion. He also lifted his tail and left further evidence of his presence alongside his hoofprints. I wondered what Mr. (shortsighted or possibly crazy) Pinstripe Man would say when he saw that.

“Come on, James!” I shouted, giggling. “Call yourself a horseman?”

“Want to try?” James yelled back unhappily.

“We couldn't do much worse,” Bean sniffed as Henry took off again, shaking his head and snorting as he did so.

Drummer sighed. “I guess no one's in a hurry,” he murmured.

“What's that?” Tiffany asked, staring intently at a twig on the ground.

“A twig on the ground,” explained Drummer.

“Oh, OK. If you're sure,” sighed Tiffany.

Eventually Henry, finding himself cornered, gave himself up and came quietly, allowing James to lead him over to us.

“Now what?” I asked, eyeing up the boundary rails.

“He must have jumped in here. He can jump out again,” said James grimly. “Can you take one of my stirrup leathers off Moth's saddle? It'll have to do as a rein.”

Dismounting, I wrestled one of James's leathers from Moth's saddle (which wasn't easy as he hardly ever cleans his tack) and threw it over the rail.

With the leather fastened to Henry's head collar as makeshift, very short reins, James jumped onto Henry's unclipped, fluffy black back.

“Come on, you big lump,” said James, turning the Dales pony around to run up. “Let's go!”

But Henry didn't want to go. Henry decided to adopt a slo-mo attitude and went at a snail's pace, despite James urging him on with his legs.

“This pony is very badly trained!” his substitute rider grumbled. Mrs. Bradley was quite content to let her dear Henry wander the countryside at a mile a week, and Henry had become used to dictating the pace. He wasn't about to relinquish control to James.

“
Let's go!
” James yelled angrily, flapping his elbows and kicking Henry's sides. Unused to such positive riding, Henry bounded, surprised, into a canter. Unfortunately, it surprised Tiffany too, and she turned and fled back down the bridle path with Bean clinging on like a leech, having had plenty of practice sitting through her pony's one-eighty turns. Luckily, this gave Henry the idea, and he sailed over the rail after Tiffany with James clinging to his mane. Unluckily, the idea petered out on the other side, and he came to an immediate and very abrupt halt the moment he touched down.

There was a dull thud accompanied by several words I hadn't heard since my dad was cut off on the highway by a maniac in a BMW.

“Are you all right?” I asked, peering down at James. James peered back up at me from under Henry's neck.

“Physically, yes,” he said. “Psychologically, no!” He grinned, hauling himself up and brushing leaves off his riding pants. “Where's Bean?”

“Tiffany thought you were talking to her.”

“I'm back,” said a voice as Bean steered a bug-eyed Tiffany through the trees.

“Where did you get out?” Drummer asked Henry.

“Behind the field shelter—there's a nice big hole there now. I'll show you later,” he replied.

“Oh no, you won't!” I said, pulling out my cell phone and speed-dialing Katy.

“What did you say that for?” asked Drummer.

“You asked me!” replied Henry.

“Yeah, well sometimes I think I'll wake up and discover this pony-whispering girl was just a bad dream,” I heard Drummer mumbling to himself.

With Katy dispatched to fill in the escape tunnel, we turned for home, James leading Henry from Moth, his spare stirrup dangling from my hand. Henry still wasn't playing ball. He snatched at the hedges, he dawdled, he shook his head trying to get James to drop the makeshift lead rein. In all, he was
so annoying
. Moth didn't look too happy either, and Bean and I found ourselves trying to push the magnificent black horse along in front of us.

“How does Mrs. Bradley put up with this little punk?” James asked, tugging on the stirrup leather.

“She loves him,” sighed Bean as though that was all that mattered.

“Hummph!” snorted James, unimpressed.

“I'll take him for a while if you want,” I offered. “You'll be better at coaxing him along than I am.”

Steering Drummer around Henry, I took the stirrup leather from James, and we proceeded for a while with James successfully shoving Henry along so that he walked beside me.

We reached the path—the quickest way back to the yard was to follow the road for several hundred feet. My plan was to keep Henry to my inside, his head up and level with my knee—with James's help.

“You know Tiff's not very good on the road,” Bean told us doubtfully.

No surprises there.

“We've only got about half a mile before we get to the yard,” James assured her. “Tuck her on the inside of Moth behind Drummer and Henry. She'll be between Moth and the bushes, and the others will give her confidence.”

But as soon as we turned onto the pavement, Henry dropped back so that he was behind Drummer, almost pulling my arm out of its socket. Riding escort to Tiffany, it wasn't so easy for James to keep Henry going, and we couldn't ride more than two abreast. A car passed us and Tiffany did a bit of a dance—but she had nowhere to go except backward, and Bean held her tight so that wasn't an option. Henry, right behind Drummer now, went along sideways, his backside out into the road. Very helpful—not.

Then I heard a motorcycle approaching from in front of us.

“Oh, rats!” exclaimed Bean. “Tiffany dreads motorcycles! What are the chances?”

“Is that one of those two-wheeled dragon things that make a terrible noise?” I heard Tiffany say, her voice rising.

“Nothing to worry about, Tiff, get a grip,” I heard Drummer try to reassure her. Good old Drummer, nothing causes him to lose his cool. I would have patted his neck in gratitude—if I'd had a hand free, which I didn't.

“Do you think you could work with us a little here, Henry?” Drummer asked as I leaned farther backward to keep hold of the stirrup leather.

“Why should I?” I heard Mrs. Bradley's Dales reply sulkily. “You guys are pathetic the way you always do as you're told.”

The motorcycle came into view and, mercifully, the rider slowed right down when he saw the ponies. I could see his passenger rider behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and waving his arms around as though he was urging him on.