Team Challenge (12 page)

“Did he actually say that?” I said, feeling my hackles rising.

“Well, not in so many words, but I did feel kinda frumpy,” she continued. “I could tell Greg was uncomfortable— embarrassed even, especially when we bumped into some friends of his. They all looked very elegant. Perhaps I’ll try that fancy boutique in town…what’s it called…Toto… Totum…Too-too?”

“The one you said was run by the old bag with the facelift?” I reminded her. “Who sells the sort of clothes you always said were over-the-top and overpriced?” I went on, rubbing it in. Honestly, what had Cotton-Ball-Hair done to my mom?

“Well, I need something. I don’t want to feel like that again. Greg’s taking me to an exhibition at Splash! that fancy art gallery next week, and he said I’ll need to dress up. But I’m not sure I can carry off anything too couture. I’m still carrying some extra weight. Greg says I need to loose at least five pounds, and—”

“
What?
” I screamed.

Mom stopped and looked at me as though she’d just remembered I was there.

“Listen to yourself!” I ranted. “Greg says this, Greg wants that, Greg thinks something else. What do you want, Mom? Do you really want to be with a man who makes you feel shabby? Who tells you you’re fat? Who tells you what to wear? Shouldn’t you be with someone who likes you because of what you are now, not what he wants to make you into?”

Mom looked stunned, but I was off, and I couldn’t stop now.

“You were fine when you met Greg, now all you do is what he wants. Remember how you were when Dad left? You’re ten times more confident now. You don’t need Greg—or anyone like him. You need someone who accepts and appreciates you for yourself. Who does Greg think he is, anyway? He’s so nerdy, Mom, he doesn’t deserve you.”

“That’s enough, Pia!” Mom found her voice at last, and I realized how rude I’d been. But I’d had it up to here with Greg. My mom didn’t need him. Couldn’t she see it?

“I’m going to see Drummer!” I yelled, running out of the door and slamming it behind me. I was behaving badly, but I was really upset at the thought of Greg telling my mom what to do—and he’d completely overshadowed my news of qualifying for Brookdale!

By the time I got to the yard, I felt dreadful. I hate fighting with Mom. Close to tears, I found Drummer in the field, rubbing his tail on a tree.

“Hey,” I said crossly, “stop that!”

“I think I’ve got pinworms,” he grumbled.

“So not the greeting I was hoping for!”

“Well, I thought you would want to know, so you can do something about it,” he said. “You’re sweetness and light this morning. What’s up?”

“Family!” I said. “Oooh, they’re so annoying!”

“Skinny Lynny?” asked Drummer.

“Not this time. It’s Mom. Or rather, it’s her latest boyfriend. He’s such a know-it-all and he keeps bossing her around. I can’t seem to make her see what a total loser he is.”

“Mmmm, love is blind,” Drummer said, his gaze drifting toward Bambi, who was rolling in the dust patch by the gate.

“Are you still infatuated with her?” I asked him.

“What can I say? She’s the one.” He sighed.

“She hates you,” I reminded him.

“We’re destined to be together. Bambi just doesn’t know it yet. Besides”—he looked at me again—“people and ponies have to make their own mistakes. You can’t stop them from taking wrong paths. It just makes them more determined to prove you wrong.”

I don’t know how Drummer knows so much about life and love and the universe and everything. Either he’s very wise or he’s just good at talking horse poop, which sounds more likely. I chewed the inside of my mouth and thought about it.

“But Greg’s such a dork!” I wailed.

“Yeah, well, if that’s true, your mom will see it eventually,” Drum assured me. “Now, how about taking me in for a bite to eat? Something tasty, some pony cubes, maybe some sugar beet, a few handfuls of coarse mix? It must be breakfast time—and if we don’t get a move on, it will merge into lunchtime, and I’ll miss out. Come on!”

So we wandered in, and then Bean and Katy arrived, and we spent the morning practicing braiding manes and tails and dreaming about winning Brookdale and galloping around the big arena, and although Mom was still seeing Greg, and Skinny was still having riding lessons at Stocks Hall, and nobody seemed impressed that I was going to Brookdale, it somehow didn’t seem so bad when I was with everyone else and I had Drummer to talk to. It didn’t seem so bad at all.

Chapter 14

I
t was James who thought of it. It was such a totally obvious thing to consider.

But nobody had.

Katy and I were doing the supportive thing for Bean, who was practicing her dressage schooling in the outdoor school, when James walked over to join us, his lips grimly pressed together.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

“Oooh, is it gossip?” Katy cried eagerly, jumping down from the fence.

“Where am I supposed to canter?!” yelled Bean.

“Oh, let’s see…” I looked at the dressage test sheet in my hand. “Canter a fifty-foot circle…at…A.”

“What are you doing?” asked James.

“Bean’s learning her final dressage test,” Katy told him.

“But she’s not supposed to practice the actual test.” James sighed, like we had pony poop for brains. “If the judge thinks the pony’s anticipating the next movement, she’ll lose marks.”

“Shhh!” I hissed, shaking his sleeve. “You know that, and we know that, but Bean’s in such a state about remembering the test, she has to do it this way.”

“Don’t you say anything, James,” warned Katy, putting on her menacing face. “Just let Bean do what’s right for her. We’ll probably have to drop her score, anyway, so what does it matter? Get on with what you came to tell us.”

James took a deep breath. “Has anyone given any thought as to how we are going to get to the final at Brookdale?” he asked.

“But we’ve qualified,” Katy said in a voice that suggested James was being dim. “We’re G-O-I-N-G!” She did a jig on the spot in glee.

“Yes, but how? How, physically, are we G-O-I-N-G? Ride all the way?”

“Oh,” I said again, feeling as though someone had let the air out of my lungs. Obviously we did have pony poop for brains, otherwise we’d have thought of that. Brookdale wasn’t a rideable distance.

“Mmmm, bit of an oversight, wouldn’t you say?” agreed James, running a hand through his slightly-too-long blond hair. It has a peculiar effect on me, him doing that, but I couldn’t dwell on that now.

“What’s going on?” said Bean, pulling up next to us. Tiffany snorted dramatically at a snake in the sand before it turned back into a stick. We explained the crisis.

“Well, Katy’s got a trailer. Two of us can go in that,” said Bean, being a bit free and easy with Katy’s trailer. But Katy nodded in agreement.

“But what about Moth and Drummer?” asked James. “Katy’s dad can’t make two trips, and Brookdale is miles and miles and
miles
away!”

I felt my spirits dribbling out of my boots and sinking into the grass.

“We’ll just have to hire a horse trailer,” said Bean matter-of-factly.

“But that will cost a
lot
,” I said, chewing my lip. Mom and I weren’t even going on vacation this year, so I knew we didn’t have any spare cash for a horse trailer rental. The entry fees for the Sublime Equine Challenge had been difficult enough to scrape together, and I hadn’t any pocket money left after forking out for Drummer’s ear protectors and bells. James’s family was obviously loaded, and I could only imagine how he was going to feel when I had to let him down. But James surprised me.

“I don’t think my parents will pay for me to go,” he whined. “They’re helping my sister buy an apartment. They’ve made it clear that I have to fund any shows and events I want to do with Moth this year from my allowance.”

We all stood around in gloomy silence. Tiffany rubbed her nose on the fence. Katy screwed up her face, deep in thought. I could almost feel the wind whistling through my head—empty of any ideas, as usual.

“I’m going for a ride,” Bean announced in a wobbly voice, obviously totally let down. She rode off through the yard, her blond braid bobbing up and down, riding out a wobble halfway along the drive as Tiffany spotted a couple of monster rabbits. I couldn’t be sure Bean wasn’t actually crying, but I knew how she felt. It seemed so unfair that after everyone’s hard work we weren’t going to be able to get ourselves to the final. James, Katy, and I flung ourselves down on the grass in gloom.

“We should so have thought of this,” James said.

“I can’t believe we’ve been so stupid!” I agreed, angrily wrenching the head off a daisy.

We sat wallowing in misery, trying to think up ways to get around it and failing. When Dee arrived, declaring that she had some bad news of her own, we were less than sympathetic.

“I bet it’s not as bad as ours,” mumbled Katy.

“You’re always complaining,” said James, disappointment making him unkind.

“Yes, well, it’s all right for you,” wailed Dee. “You can do what you like up here. You should have your mom around all the time, telling you what to do with Moth, see how you like it.”

“OK, Dee, what’s your bad news?” said Katy, soothingly, anxious to avoid a scene.

“It’s about Brookdale…”

“Yeah, ditto!” I said.

“I can’t groom for the team at the finals—”

“No problem, actually,” interrupted Katy, testily, “because the team can’t go.”

“
What?!
”

“It’s true.” I sighed. “Half of us can’t get there because—”

“The transportation’s too expensive,” finished James, stealing the punch line. “Only two of us can go in Katy’s trailer, so it’s all been for nothing. So you see,” he went on, “it’s actually all right for you, for once.”

You’ll never guess what Dee did. You won’t, so I’ll have to tell you.

She
laughed!

We all stared at her. I thought Katy was going to burst. James looked ready to do murder.

Dee stopped laughing and rolled her eyes skyward. “The other two can come with us,” she said, like we were stupid not to have thought of it.

I felt my jaw dropping.

“Say again?” Katy said slowly.

“Yeah, we’re going. That’s why I can’t groom for you. Mom’s entered me and Dolly for a showing class there— it’s a HOYS qualifier—and it’s on the same day as the challenge. Our horse trailer takes four horses, and we’re only taking Dolly, so there will be plenty of room. I’ll ask Mom now, if you like.” She poked her tongue out at James. James just looked flabbergasted. I’d never seen him lost for words.

I looked over to Sophie’s huge and expensive horse trailer parked next to the barn. Could we really, possibly, ever in a million years, travel to Brookdale in that? We’d not just get there, we’d get there in style!

Dee’s mom, Sophie, was completely supportive.

“Of course you must come with us,” she gushed. “You’ve all done so well to qualify, and we’re going anyway,” she said in her usual, bossy tone. Which everyone forgave because she was being so generous.

So it was settled, and when Bean returned, after much whooping and jumping about, we all had a powwow, and Bean and I biked to the village shop to get a box of chocolates for Sophie and a couple of bags of Whoppers and Marshmallows for us to celebrate. We all sat and had a major, delirious scarf-fest until Bean actually turned a bit green, jumped to her feet, ran across the yard, and disappeared. We just thought she was being strange as usual, but when she wobbled back she confessed to having thrown up a load of brown and pink goo on the muck heap— which we put down to the emotional roller coaster of the day. James felt the need to point out that it was a terrible waste of good Whoppers and Marshmallows. But then, I thought, that was far, far better than not being able to go to Brookdale, and we all (except Bean, who shook her head and rolled her eyes at the thought) sucked another Marshmallow each to that!

Chapter 15

I
can’t believe we’re really here!” murmured Katy, looking around the famous Brookdale showground. The rest of the Great Eight nodded in agreement. It was totally awe-inspiring, competing at the same show as some of the most famous riders in the world. I could feel butterflies doing the rumba around my stomach.

We’d hit the road at six o’clock that morning. Bluey and Tiffany cocooned in Katy’s trailer—Bluey swathed in purple from poll guard to boots, Tiffany in a more sophisticated two-tone blue ensemble. Drummer and Moth had been draped in their green (it’s so Drum’s color!) and black blankets respectively, and ready to go in Sophie’s luxury horse trailer. Boy was it nice! With a ramp at the side and another at the back, four stalls, and living accommodations, Drummer had never traveled in such four-star luxury, and neither had I. I was almost as excited about traveling in that as I was about our destination.

Dolly had gone up the ramp first, and it immediately became clear why Dee hated going to shows with her mom.

“Tie her up a bit shorter,” Sophie had barked from the bottom of the ramp. “Oh, come on, Dee, you’ve done it enough times!”

“Last time, you said I tied her too short!” Dee had protested.

“Sometimes, I think you do it deliberately, just to annoy me!” her mom had retorted, shaking her head.

“Why doesn’t she do it herself?” I’d whispered to Dee when she came back down the ramp.

“Then she wouldn’t have anything to complain about,” Dee had whispered back. “She’s always worse on show days—nerves.”

With trepidation, and hoping I wouldn’t get yelled at, I’d led Drummer up the ramp and tied him next to Dolly. Dolly had been made up.

“Oooh, hello, handsome. How lovely we get some quality time together at last!” she’d cooed as Drummer had sighed. Dolly’s attentions embarrass him. I keep asking him why he doesn’t just roll over and go for the glam Dolly, who clearly adores him, instead of rough old Bambi, but he says that love’s like that. He must like a challenge.

“Can’t Moth go here?” Drum had whispered out of the corner of his mouth. I’d grinned and patted his neck.

“Sorry! We don’t get to choose. Sophie’s in charge.”

“Oh, I guess that’s it then.” Drummer knows an immovable force when he sees it.