Scout and the Mystery of the Marsh Ponies (5 page)

Chapter Eight

“S
ORRY
I’m here so early.” Alice shivered as she sat down at Rosie’s kitchen table the next morning, her foot tapping edgily. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I might as well come over.”

“S’fine,” Rosie replied. She’d been hauled out of bed almost an hour earlier than usual after hearing Alice’s anxious knocking at the door. She sat in her pyjamas and yawned as she cradled a hot chocolate. Mrs Honeycott pottered about in the background, her hair piled up haphazardly on her head, her dressing gown splattered with a rainbow of paint colours. She had been heading for her studio to work on her latest painting when Alice arrived, but before she disappeared she’d put on milk for hot chocolate. She absently patted
Alice on the head, knowing that something was up with her daughter’s friend.

Alice drank a few sips of her hot chocolate while Rosie went upstairs to get dressed, but what she really wanted was to be out in the yard, with Scout. She didn’t know how long they had left together, and she wanted to spend every second with him that she could. When Rosie reappeared a few moments later in scruffy outgrown navy jodhpurs and a yellow T-shirt, they trooped out of the kitchen, grabbed headcollars and went to collect the four ponies from the paddock. They brought them in, Rosie leading Dancer and Wish, and Alice with Scout and a jogging Pirate. Then they made up the feeds. The ponies ate tied up in the yard outside their stables. As Scout chomped, Alice leaned against his withers trying to take in every detail about him, as if she were recording them in her memory, just in case. She stopped herself, not wanting to believe that Scout might really go.
Then she took a deep breath and went to fetch her grooming kit from the tack room.

When Scout had finished his feed and licked every hidden corner of his bucket, Alice tried to distract herself by grooming him. She fussed around the grey pony, brushing off all the grass stains on his hocks, withers and neck, and making his dapples sparkle. Then she trimmed his feathers, levelled off his tail and pulled his mane to neaten it up. Scout loved nothing more than having tons of attention and he dozed in the early morning sunshine, blinking round at Alice and rummaging in her pockets for treats when she tried to brush his forelock.

She’d just finished when Charlie arrived on her bike. Almost before she’d had a chance to get onto the yard, a car drove up the drive. A door slammed, and a second later Mia came running onto the yard too. Normally Mia was a picture of calm collectedness, whatever the situation, but it was obvious from the moment she stopped in
front of Alice, her almond eyes wide, that something had seriously rattled her.

“What’s the matter?” Charlie asked, following Mia across the yard. Rosie threw her mane comb back into Dancer’s grooming kit and rushed over to join them.

“I glanced behind me in the car as Dad drove here just now,” Mia explained, raking her hand through her long, silky black hair. “I don’t know what made me look, but there was a car right behind us. When I saw who was driving I made Dad speed up, just so we could get here quicker to give me a chance to warn you!”

The others stared at Mia. At that moment, they heard another car bump down the drive.

“Who was driving?” Rosie asked, looking over to the drive as a sleek dark grey Range Rover appeared near the cottage and parked.

“Mrs Valentine,” Mia told them, looking anxiously at Alice.

Alice gasped. Her first panicked thought was 
that she should untie Scout, leap on him bareback and gallop him miles into the woods at the back of Blackberry Farm. Her heart started to race as she reached for the lead rope with shaking fingers. But deep down she knew she couldn’t hide him among the trees for ever. Or even for a week.

“Did you know she was coming?” Rosie asked, looking dismayed.

Alice frowned, shaking her head and racking her brain over what the unannounced and unexpected visit could possibly be about.

“Maybe she’s come to her senses and changed her mind about selling Scout!” Charlie suggested optimistically, squeezing Alice’s arm. At Charlie’s words, Alice felt a surge of excitement.

“Do you reckon?” she said, almost allowing herself a smile.

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Mia said quietly as they heard a car door slam. “At least this gives us a chance to find some answers to the questions we came up with yesterday.” 

Alice took a huge deep breath to try to steady her nerves as Mrs Valentine appeared on the yard, her sunglasses and large-brimmed hat still in place. She walked straight over to Scout, smiling her approval at his appearance and quietly sizing up the yard. Seeing her smiling face, Alice felt a glow of warmth. Maybe things would be fine after all. Just as she was about to relax the teeniest fraction, she heard a loud rumble from the drive. She looked up and Mrs Valentine followed her gaze, then checked her watch.

“Right on time,” she said smoothly.

“Er, what is?” Rosie asked, looking round at the others.

“The first person who’s come to try Scout, of course,” Mrs Valentine purred.

“What?!” Alice almost choked, feeling her face flush pink and her heart hammer in her throat. “But… but the advert’s not due out until the next issue of
Pony Mad
! Scout’s not officially for sale yet – no one can come and try him!”

“Well, this is a bit of a
special
trial,” Mrs Valentine explained smugly. “You see, I overheard someone asking about me at the Show after I left you. Turned out that this person was particularly keen to buy Sunny – money no object – so obviously I had to introduce myself at once. They persuaded me to let them come and try him today, ahead of the advert coming out. They
so
wanted first refusal. I had meant to call and let you know I’d be coming, but I didn’t want you to
forget
and be out, by mistake. I thought it would be better for us just to drop in. So I’m delighted you’ve got him looking so amazing, without any notice. He looks worth every penny of my asking price, don’t you think?”

With that, Mrs Valentine turned on her heel and marched over to the gate.

Alice felt faint. She felt sick. She turned to Scout, who was standing, ears pricked, listening to the engine approaching. She put her arms around his neck and stood there, hardly able to breathe.

“This isn’t fair,” Rosie whispered hoarsely. “She can’t turn up out of the blue like this and just act like Scout’s…”

“Hers?” Charlie finished. Rosie huffed. Charlie was right, but it didn’t make what she was doing any easier to swallow.

“So who is it that’s come to try him?” Mia said, frowning as she tried to work it out, all thoughts of questioning Mrs Valentine dissolving at once. “Who would have been talking about him at the show?”

“There’s only one person I can possibly think of…” Charlie said, glancing over at Alice, who had suddenly turned very pale.

At that moment the top of a brightly coloured horsebox became visible above the overgrown hedges lining the track before it swung into the parking area beyond the gate.

More doors slammed, and the next second a girl wearing a bright stripy T-shirt and garish green jodhpurs bobbed round the corner. Before
them, grinning like a cat that had got the cream, stood Alice’s worst nightmare – Tallulah Starr. Fear gripped Alice as she turned to look at Scout, standing there quietly, trustingly. There was no way that she wanted Tallulah getting her hands on him, just to dump him in a stable to be looked after by someone else, to ruin him then sell him on like a second-hand car for scrap. No way! Not far behind Tallulah was her dad, swaggering and talking in a loud, brash voice to Mrs Valentine, and acting like he owned the yard.

“Hi, Alice.” Tallulah smiled brightly, looking straight past Alice to Scout, her eyes loaded with electric blue glittery eyeshadow. “Isn’t it funny, you saying at the show that Scout wasn’t for sale and now, look – here I am, about to buy him!”

“Here you are,” Alice said through gritted teeth.

“Normally, I make my instructors pick out the best ponies for me and I don’t bother getting
involved – I just ride them when they turn up,” Tallulah gushed. “But my last instructor walked out last week, and my groom, too, come to that – I have no idea why – so I had to come and do it myself. Mind you, this is a bit different because I already know that I want Scout, whatever the price. Oh, tack him up, can you, Alice? He’s still yours, after all.”

As Tallulah continued to chatter away, Alice scowled before disappearing with leaden legs to fetch the tack.

“Still, it’s actually really handy that I had to come along today,” Tallulah chirped as Alice put the tack on the top of the half stable door. “After all, I intend to win the Sweetbriar Stud Cup on my new pony, so this trial will give him a chance to get used to me. Oh, and I’m changing his name by the way, look! Do you like it?”

Tallulah turned round and pointed to the lettering she’d already had printed on the back of her T-shirt:

Alice gasped. She felt the blood race through her body and her hands started to shake. She was so angry and frustrated and protective over Scout, and yet so utterly powerless to do anything about Tallulah taking him.

“I think the Sweetbriar Stud Cup’s beyond Scout’s scope. You could ruin him if you enter it and scare him over a course that’s too big,” Mia pointed out.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tallulah said dismissively. “I heard Poppy say quite clearly that she thought this pony was a star, and that she’d buy him if she didn’t have her piebald. And if
she
likes him, I’ve got to make sure that I get in there first, before she sees his advert and puts in an offer herself!”

Tallulah decided she should tack Scout up herself after all, ‘to help them bond’. He lifted his
head sharply as she clonked the bit into his mouth, hitting his teeth, before thumping the saddle onto his back and leading him out of the stable. It was only Charlie grabbing the stable door that stopped it swinging back on him – not that Tallulah even noticed.

She climbed into the saddle and kicked Scout’s sides with her heels, asking him to walk on. But she held on tightly to the reins at the same time, confusing him. He nervously took a step back, thinking that was what Tallulah wanted. She gave him a sharp slap down the shoulder with her whip and he shot forward, his ears flat and a startled look on his face. Alice turned away, wanting to call out everything that Tallulah was doing wrong but knowing that she wouldn’t listen for a second even if she did.

The four girls watched as Tallulah trotted Scout down to the schooling paddock and got him going on wonky circles, pulling him to a stop, then kicking him forward into trot, pulling him
back to halt, then kicking him into canter, and throwing the reins at him.

“He needs lots of transitions to sharpen him up!” Tallulah called out as she flew past in canter with Scout getting faster, his tail held stiffly out behind him and his ears back. Alice could tell that Scout was seriously anxious. After Tallulah had thoroughly confused him with her chopping and changing and frantic aids, she pointed him at the oxer that was left up from the last time the girls had practised their jumping.

Charlie called out to say that she should warm him up over a cross pole first, but Tallulah stuck out her chin and ignored her, kicking Scout into the large square fence. Her other ponies, who were all older schoolmasters, would have ignored Tallulah and set themselves up nicely, but Scout was less experienced. He lengthened his stride, responding honestly to what Tallulah was asking him to do, and met the fence too fast, on too flat and long a stride. He grunted with the effort of
stretching over it, trying hard to clear it, but his big jump left Tallulah behind and she sat back in the saddle too soon. Feeling her weight on his back, Scout dipped and his hind legs crashed into the back pole, hitting it so hard that it cracked.

“I knew these fences looked second rate,” Tallulah said breathlessly, still beaming as Alice rushed forwards and Scout pulled up on a slightly uneven stride, his ears pointing back. “Not like the shiny new ones I’ve got at home. He’ll go much better over them when I take him back there, I’m sure of it.”

“Don’t worry, it’s just a knock,” Mia said to Alice as they reached Scout. Alice nodded, not trusting herself to speak as she bent down next to him. She ran her hand down his leg, but she couldn’t see through the blur in her eyes as she thought of Scout’s future with Tallulah and her merry-go-round of grooms who were always too busy to give the ponies any fuss. But then ponies weren’t there to be loved in Tallulah’s book:
they were there to help her fulfil her ambition and get to the top of the showjumping world. That, and to put her ahead of Poppy Brookes.

“I’d better take him over another fence so that he can get used to my technique,” Tallulah chimed, filling Alice with horror.

“Oh, no – I think it might be best to leave it there, don’t you?” Mrs Valentine stepped in firmly. Having quickly cottoned on to Tallulah’s limitations, she clearly didn’t want her to fall off over a fence before the deal had been done. “That was only a blip. He’s normally so confident.”