Issie and the Christmas Pony Read online

  “It could be worse,” Issie said cheerily. “At least Bert has a hogged mane so we don’t have to be there at 5.30 a.m. to plait up!”

  “What a bonus!” groaned Mrs Brown.

  In fact, Avery had Bert all groomed and ready in his floating rug and boots by the time Issie and her mum arrived. He lowered the ramp of the horse truck and gave Bert’s lead rope to Issie. “You can lead him on if you like,” he said. “Turn him round to face the truck and then walk him up; he’ll follow you.” Issie felt nervous, but Bert stepped obediently behind her up the ramp and tethered quietly in the horse truck next to his hay net. “Issie can ride with me in the truck if she likes,” Avery told Mrs Brown. “We’ll see you there!”

  The pony club was only about ten minutes drive away. Issie felt sick the whole way. She had been excited by the idea of her first club rally, but now she felt nervous, really nervous.

  “Something up?” Avery noticed how quiet she was.

  Issie didn’t know how to say it, but finally she blurted it out, “All the other riders are going to be better than me.”

  Avery nodded. “That seems quite likely since you’ve only just started riding,” he said. “You can’t expect to be the best rider at the club on your first day.”

  Issie sighed. “You’re really not making me feel any better here. Shouldn’t you be telling me how good I am?”

  “Issie,” said Avery gently, “I’ve ridden at the Badminton Horse Trials against some of the best riders in the world. Don’t you think I felt the same way when I turned up there for the first time? I worried that I was out of my league, that all the other riders were better than me. That fear never goes away, no matter how experienced you are. But it shouldn’t stop you. I went to Badminton because I knew that I wanted to ride with the best, to learn everything there was to know about horses. It’s not about being on top-it’s about the journey that takes you there.”

  He smiled at her. “We all have to start somewhere Issie. You have the talent and the natural ability to be a great rider. Right now, you’re still a beginner, but one day that will change. This is the first step. Your first time at pony club.” He pulled the truck up at the gates of the club grounds and looked at Issie. “Are you ready?” he asked seriously. “Because it all begins right here. This is where you start to become a real rider.”

  Issie nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “Excellent,” said Avery, grinning. “Hop out and open the gate, will you? I’ll park the truck under those trees over there and we’ll unload Bert.”

  Issie was just bringing Bert down the truck ramp when she heard her name being called and saw Stella riding towards her on Coco. The chocolate brown mare came trotting up, followed by Kate on Toby. Both girls pulled their horses up alongside Avery’s truck and dismounted beside Issie.

  “Is this Bert?” Stella said. “Oh, he looks like a total and utter sweetheart! I can’t believe this is the last time you’re going to ride him before he has to go away to his new home! How awful!”

  Kate looked at Stella as if she was a complete and utter twit and hissed through gritted teeth, “Stella! I’m sure Issie doesn’t want to think about that! How would you feel if someone was coming to take Coco away?”

  Stella shrugged. “Oh, today they can have her! She’s being so naughty. When we hacked up here this morning from the River Paddock she would barely move a hoof! She was a total slug! Then when we get here and she sees the other horses, she starts jumping around like she’s a racehorse in the starting gates. She’s completely bonkers!”

  Kate, who had given up on Stella saying anything sensible, turned her attention to Bert. “Isn’t he a cool colour?” she said to Issie.

  “He’s a strawberry roan,” said Issie authoratitively. She would never have known this if Avery hadn’t explained it to her-she would probably have described Bert as pink. He was a sort of rosy chestnut colour with lots and lots of white hairs muddled all through his coat, which made him look, well…pink was probably the best word for it.

  “Issie, you’d better hurry and get him tacked up,” Kate said. “It’s our first rally today with Mr Avery, our new head instructor, and we don’t want to be late.”

  Stella and Kate had never met Avery. “You’ve been having lessons with him, haven’t you?” Stella asked Issie. “What’s he like? Everyone’s been going on about how great he is, but he’s probably just like the last instructor: a total fossil, at least a hundred years old and really, really boring…”

  “Actually,” Tom Avery’s voice behind Stella made her turn around, “I’m thirty-six and I promise I’ll try my best to be extremely interesting.”

  Stella winced. “Issie!” she hissed. “You should have warned me he was right there!”

  Issie gave Avery a grin. “Tom, these are the friends I was telling you about. This is Kate Knight and Stella Tarrant.”

  “Nice to meet you, girls,” said Avery. “I’m Tom Avery. Your new head instructor.”

  If the day got off to a dodgy start, it quickly improved. The riders all lined up for inspection at the start of the ride, and then Avery divided them up into groups, putting Stella, Issie and Kate together with two boys they had never met before.

  “I’m Ben,” said the first boy, introducing himself. “And this is Max.”

  “Hi, Ben,” Issie said to the first boy. “Hi, Max.” Issie smiled at the good-looking boy sitting on the grey horse next to Ben. He grinned back, his blue eyes laughing at her.

  “I’m not Max!” he said. “Ben’s horse is called Max!”

  “Oh!” Issie said. “Sorry! I thought…”

  “My name is Dan, Dan Halliday,” the blond boy said, “and this is my horse Kismit.” He gave the fleabitten grey gelding that he was riding a slappy pat on his glossy neck.

  “Nice to meet you, Kismit,” Issie said to the pony. “At least your name isn’t confusing! This is Bert,” she told them. Then she hastened to add, “He isn’t really mine.” And before she knew it, Issie found herself telling Dan and Ben the whole story, about how she had met Avery and how the instructor had given her lessons on Bert until she could buy a pony of her own.

  “I hope something comes up at the auction,” said Ben. “It’s only a couple of weeks until pony camp.”

  Twelve days actually, Issie wanted to say. She knew exactly how far away pony camp was. Her chances of going were dwindling by the day. She guessed she had been hoping in her heart that maybe Avery would say she could keep Bert for an extra couple of weeks and ride him at the camp before he went to his new owners. But as they came to the end of the rally that day and they loaded Bert back up into the truck, she realised this simply wasn’t going to happen. Stella had been right. This was the last time she would ride the little strawberry roan.

  At least it had been a fantastic farewell. After all her fears about being a total beginner, Issie actually found herself loving her ride at the club. Bert was a superstar, doing everything perfectly.

  They spent the morning in the arena doing basic dressage, which at pony club everyone called “flat work”. Bert walked, trotted and cantered on cue as if he had been at Chevalier Point his whole life.

  Despite Stella’s fears, Tom didn’t prove boring at all. After the flat-work training, their new head instructor set up bending poles and barrel races and had bags of lollies as prizes for everyone who made it through to the finals. Then, after lunch, it was time for jumping.

  “Can everyone take their stirrups up two holes to jumping length?” Avery instructed.

  “Ummm, Tom?” Issie had a worried look on her face as her instructor walked over to see what was wrong. “I don’t think Bert and I are ready to jump yet,” Issie admitted. “We’ve never even tried it before.”

  Avery took a leather strap and tied it around Bert’s neck. “That’s a neck strap for you to hold on to in case you lose your balance,” he explained. “That way, you won’t jerk back over the jumps and jag Bert in the mouth. Now, all you need to do is stay forward in two-poi
nt position like I showed you at home,” Avery said. “Turn him straight at the fences, stay in stride, give him a tap with your heels just before the jump and then Bert will do the rest.”

  And he did. There was a whole jumping course and OK, the jumps were tiny, but Issie managed to steer her horse around the course nicely so that Bert, who was a very honest jumper, did a totally clear round the first time!

  After all her fears, rally day had turned out to be one of the best days Issie had ever had.

  “Thanks for letting me bring Bert today,” she said to Avery as they untacked him.

  “I think Bert enjoyed it as much as you did,” Avery replied.

  “Will I see him again before he goes?” Issie asked as she helped her instructor wrap the floating bandages round the pony’s legs. She was trying not to get upset, but already she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.

  Avery shook his head. “I guess not. His new family are coming to the farm to pick him up tomorrow.” He looked at Issie, who was battling bravely not to cry. “Why don’t you come home to the farm in the horse truck with me and Bert now? You can give him his hard feed and let him loose in the paddock one last time.”

  And so Issie rode home from her first day at the Chevalier Point Pony Club, not with her heart full of joy as she had been expecting, but with a pain in her chest that felt unbearable as she realised that she and Bert were about to part for the very last time. She stood in the paddock at Winterflood Farm as the sun set and snuggled into the strawberry roan’s neck, feeding him peppermints out of her pocket and trying not to cry too much. Then she sniffed back her tears and gave Bert one last hug, holding him tight as she said goodbye.

  8

  Auction Day

  Avery arrived on the morning of the auction with his horse float attached to the Range Rover. When he saw Issie’s eyes light up, he shook his head. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he told her. “It’ll probably be coming home empty. I wouldn’t count on finding a horse at this auction. It will probably be full of the problem animals that their owners can’t get rid of any other way.” Issie knew that. And she was trying not to get her hopes up. But the harder she tried the worse it got.

  Bert had been gone for a week now and Issie really missed him. Being suddenly alone again without a pony was awful. How bad would she feel if she didn’t have a pony for the whole of the holidays? This was her last chance to find one before Christmas, and if she didn’t, her chances of making it to pony camp were pretty much non-existent.

  As the Range Rover cruised out of town and headed through the rolling farmland of Chevalier Point, Issie was one big ball of nerves. While her mum and Avery chatted away in the front seat she sat in the back feeling positively sick, overwrought with excitement.

  As he turned down Lone Pine Road, Avery passed Mrs Brown the road map. “Can you look up the address for me?” he asked.

  “Don’t you know where it’s being held?” asked Mrs Brown.

  “Uh-uh. This is the first auction they’ve held at MacKenzie’s Farm,” Avery said. “I’ve never been here before.”

  Mrs Brown took the map from him and checked the address. “According to this, the farm should be about another two kilometres down the road,” she said.

  Issie looked out of the window ahead of her and was struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu. There was something so familiar about this road, the way the winding snake of grey tarmac cut through the faded hills. Issie felt a strange sense of premonition as she stared out at the bare, pale branches of the slender trees.

  Ohmygod! she thought to herself. I know this place!

  “Pull over up there!” she told Avery. “Ahead of us, where that red barn is, there’s a gate that will lead you through to the farm.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Avery.

  “Because,” Issie said, “I’ve been here before.”

  She had been here. But when? How? Issie’s heart skipped a beat. The dream that she’d had-the grey pony! She remembered every detail of it so vividly. When she had woken up afterwards it had been so clear in her mind, as if it had really happened. Now here they were-this was the same place she had dreamt about! Everything was as she remembered it: the road, the ghostly trees, the red barn. The only difference was the sign that had been erected by the side of the road AUCTION TODAY and the fact that the metal gate was open this time.

  Avery drove straight through, nosing the Range Rover down the rutted dirt track towards the barn. “What do you mean you’ve been here before?” Mrs Brown said, turning around in her seat to look at Issie. “When did you come here?”

  “Ummm…school trip…last year…you know?” Issie said. Her mother arched a quizzical eyebrow at this, but she didn’t ask any more questions. Issie hadn’t meant to fib to her, but she hadn’t known what else to say. “I saw it in my dream” would have sounded a little too kooky. Her mum might freak if Issie told her this was the place that gave her a nightmare the other night.

  As they pulled the Range Rover up in the marked parking area next to the barn, Issie stared out of the window at the spot where she had seen the grey horse appear in her dream. She was expecting him to canter round the corner of the barn at any moment and stand before her just as he had done that night. But the grey pony wasn’t there and the farm, which had been so eerie in her dream, was no longer quiet and empty. There were horses everywhere, being unloaded from trailers and trucks, with people grooming and fussing over them. Issie’s eyes searched frantically through the crowds. How would she find the grey pony in amongst all this lot?

  “Do you see one that you like?”

  “What?” Avery’s question brought Issie back to reality.

  “No,” she said. “I was just looking…there are so many beautiful horses here!”

  “Well,” Avery opened the car door, “we won’t be able to bid on them if we stay sitting here all day. Let’s go!”

  Inside, the red barn was a maze of stalls and roped-off pens, each containing a horse ready for the auction ring. Avery looked at the horse in the first pen. It was a brown gelding, about sixteen hands high, with a number 1 stickered on its rump

  “These horses here will be the first ones up in the auction ring today,” Avery said, consulting the programme he’d been handed a moment earlier. “There are 122 lots going under the hammer today. The first horse goes up for auction at 10 a.m. so that gives us a bit of time.” He looked round the barn. “I’ll check out the horses in here. Issie, why don’t you go out the back and see what else is around? If you see anything you like, take down the pony’s number and details and come back and report to me, OK?”

  Avery turned to Issie’s mum. “Mrs B, if you wouldn’t mind going to the registration desk in the corner over there and signing up so that we can make a bid? You’ll need to give them all your details and get a bidder’s number. We need to meet back here again at nine o’clock with a list of ponies that we want to trial.”

  Issie looked at her watch. It was eight o’clock now.

  “Are you all right?” Issie felt a hand on her shoulder. It was her mum. “You look a little bewildered,” Mrs Brown said. “Will you be OK by yourself, or do you want to wait for me to do the registration and then I can come with you?”

  “No, Mum, I’m fine, honest,” Issie said. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that she had been here before. In fact, she was certain of it. And that meant she wasn’t just looking for any horse. She was looking for him-the grey pony. He was here somewhere; she could sense it. She had to find him before the auction began.

  As her mother headed towards the registration desk, Issie hurried through the barn towards the wide, sliding back doors. As she ran, her eyes scanned the horses in the roped-off stalls. There were chestnuts and palominos, a couple of skewbalds and loads of bays and browns, but she couldn’t see a grey pony anywhere. He had to be outside somewhere.

  Once she got outside, she realised that finding her pony was going to be more complicated than she had initially
thought. The horses and ponies weren’t lined up neatly in a row for inspection; they were scattered all over the place. Some of them, mostly the young colts and yearlings, were being kept all together in the cattle pens near the barn. Others were tethered to trucks and floats or grazing in the roped-off pens that ran in strips between the horse floats. It was like a maze!

  Issie began to work her way down the first aisle of trucks and floats where horses and ponies with numbers on their rumps were tethered. Issie noticed that, as well as the number on their rump, each pony had a sheet of paper pinned next to it with the pony’s details written up in thick black type. She walked up to the first pony in the aisle, a pretty, creamy coloured horse with a chocolate mane and tail, and read the paper which was plastered to the horse float beside it. LOT 72. The description read:

  Three year old dun mare

  12 hands high, no vices, recently broken in

  Expected price range: $500-$1500

  Name: Chico

  “Hello, Chico!” Issie giggled. The little pony’s forelock was so long and thick that Issie couldn’t even see Chico’s eyes. She was pretty sure that Chico couldn’t see out from beneath all that hair. The mare looked like one of those ponies in a Thelwell book. At only twelve hands high Chico came up to Issie’s chest. “You’re too little for me,” Issie told the pony gently. “Besides, I’m looking for someone else.”

  Over the next hour Issie kept looking. She wound her way down the rows of horse floats and trucks, always expecting to see the grey pony. In fact she saw several grey ponies, but none of them was him. Grey ponies can look fairly alike and yet Issie knew quite definitely that none of them so far was the pony from her dream. She had a snapshot of his face clearly in her mind-his silvery forelock, his deep black eyes and thoughtful expression. She would have known him in an instant if she had seen him again.