Flame and the Rebel Riders (12 page)

“I work long hours,” Issie mumbled, “and I’m tired at the end of the day. I don’t really feel like hacking about pointlessly…”

The words slipped out before she realised what she was saying. She saw Aidan’s face fall. “Well, if that’s
how you feel, I won’t keep you from your important work any longer,” he said. “I’m a professional too, you know. I better get back to my horses.”

“Aidan, no! I didn’t mean it like that…” Issie called after him. But he ignored her and walked away.

“Come on, Issie!” Natasha was beside her, jumping about with such urgency it looked as if she was dying to go to the loo. “We need to get back to the truck. Ginty will kill us if we’re late!”

Issie walked back to the truck in a state of shock. Why did Aidan have to fight with her now? He had ruined her course walk and she would never remember her route. Come to think of it, did Aidan have to fight with her at all? It was none of his business if Issie was too busy to see her friends. He had no idea what it was like trying to juggle her work and everything else. The more she thought about it, the more furious she became, and by the time they had reached the horse truck she was full of righteous indignation. She’d done nothing wrong. She was just doing her job.

She was so cross about Aidan, it took her a moment to focus on what was happening right in front of her eyes. Tottie had been saddled up and put on the lunge rein.
Ginty was lunging her now at a trot in a twenty-metre circle right beside the horse truck. Issie and Natasha watched slack-jawed as the mare trotted briskly around the circle.

“I don’t believe it,” Natasha whispered.

“Me neither,” Issie said.

The grey mare was lifting up her hooves neatly, her head held high. As she trotted freely on the lunge there was no sign of the soreness that had been there earlier that morning.

“It’s a miracle,” Natasha said.

Issie had to agree. Tottie was no longer lame.

Tottie’s lameness had completely disappeared and the mare performed like a superstar, winning ribbons in two classes. Flame, meanwhile, was a nightmare ride. At times, when Issie could get the powerful chestnut under control, she could see hints of the greatness that lay deep within him. His jump was so scopey, that even when he was approaching the fences in his crazy, overexcited crab-step and pulling at the reins like mad, he could still fly the fences with ease. But his ability was marred by inconsistency. Again and again Issie managed to get him jumping neatly, only to have him go completely berserk if he so much as brushed a rail with his legs, behaving as if he had been given an
electric shock. He’d then lose his cool so badly that he’d go on to bowl through the next jump and bring the whole fence down.

Back at the horse truck, Ginty brushed off Issie’s concerns. “He’s your responsibility,” she snapped. “Pull your socks up and start riding him properly or I’ll get Penny to ride him instead!”

Issie was horrified. It wasn’t her fault that Flame was going so badly, was it?

“Ginty doesn’t care whose fault it is,” Natasha told her bluntly. “She just doesn’t want to be embarrassed in front of Cassandra. You’re making her look bad.”

Natasha was right. Ginty was hellbent on impressing Cassandra—especially since today she had just asked the millionairess to spend even more money buying another new horse for the stable. But Flame was hardly proving to be a great advertisement. Ginty tried to keep Cassandra away from the ringside so that she wouldn’t see the chaos Flame was causing on the jumping course. But it all went wrong when Cassandra happened to catch sight of the chestnut gelding crashing his way through his final round for the day.

Cassandra was less than impressed and she told
Ginty that there would be no buying of a new horse. “I think you’ve got enough on your plate with this one, haven’t you?” she said.

Ginty didn’t seem to have any answers to Flame’s problems. Her only solution seemed to be rubbing copious amounts of some new kind of liniment into his legs between classes. Though heaven knew what good that was supposed to do, Issie thought. The horse’s problem wasn’t that his legs were stiff — it was that he continued to act bonkers in the ring.

Flame was a washout in all five of his classes that day and Issie’s only success in the hack ring was a first and second place on Tottie. Penny, meanwhile, had done well on Vertigo and Sebastian and won two of her classes.

In the pony ring, however, Team Araminta were definitely the ones who came out on top. Aidan and Morgan had beaten both Issie and Natasha in most of the events, with Fortune performing like a total hero. The partnership won all four of their classes that day. Issie had managed to mumble a “well done” to Aidan as she joined him in the arena to collect her blue second-place sash while he received the red ribbon yet
again. Aidan responded with a polite “thank you”. But that was the only time they spoke.

At lunchtime, Issie kept thinking that Aidan might come over and apologise for the way he had talked to her that morning, but he didn’t appear. Then before she knew it the afternoon’s competition was winding up and they were loading the horses back on the truck and heading for Dulmoth Park.

It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. Ginty asked Issie to stay on to do all the hard feeds and ice Tottie’s legs as well. It was late when Issie finally left the stables and headed for home. The bike ride back was the final straw at the end of a tough day, and she was aching and exhausted by the time she got to the front door.

“At last! I’m keeping the dinner warm in the oven,” Mrs Brown told her as she walked in. “Go get changed out of your jods and I’ll dish it up.”

Issie was hardly great company that evening. She sat at the table lost in her own world, picking at her reheated casserole, still hurting over her conversation with Aidan. He didn’t have the right to talk to her like that! He couldn’t tell her what to do. Why did everyone seem
to have an opinion on her working for Ginty? It wasn’t like she had many options if she wanted to be a professional rider around here. Apart from maybe Araminta, there was no one else in Chevalier Point who had the resources that Ginty had.

Avery certainly didn’t. Winterflood Farm was nice enough with its neat green hedges and small stable block, but it was low-powered and impoverished compared to Dulmoth Park. A single one of those Hermès saddles in Ginty’s tack room was probably worth more than all of Avery’s tack put together! Issie was only realising now just how much money mattered when you were talking about professional riding. If she was really serious about being a competitive international rider one day then she was going to need a backer, someone like Cassandra with enough money to provide her with the high-class horses required to take her to the top.

“Too rich for you?”

“What?” Issie was startled.

“The casserole,” Mrs Brown said pointing to Issie’s untouched plate. “Is it too rich? Or are you not hungry?”

Issie shook her head. “It’s fine, Mum. I just had a tough day.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs Brown looked worried.

“Things aren’t going very well with Flame. He went bonkers today in the ring.” Issie sighed. “Plus I had a fight with Aidan at the show. I don’t think we’re speaking any more.”

“A fight?” said Mrs Brown. “What about?”

“It was, well, it wasn’t a fight really. He just said some things…” Issie paused. “Mum? Do you think I’ve changed since I started working for Ginty?”

“Is that what Aidan said to you?”

Issie nodded. “I just feel like my life has suddenly got really complicated. It used to just be me and my horses and Stella and Kate, but now I’ve got all this pressure on me.”

Mrs Brown put her arm around her daughter. “Do you remember your first day at pony club? I think you’d only had Mystic for a couple of weeks and you were so excited to be in your new uniform with your own pony. The look on your face! I’d never seen you so happy. You loved that grey pony so much, you couldn’t stand to be apart from him. After the rally was over you didn’t want to come home. You would have stayed at the paddock all night with him if I’d let you. As far as you were
concerned, it was just you and your horse, and the world didn’t matter. And now here you are four years later and it’s not just you and your pony any more. You’ve got responsibility for a whole stable-full of horses and suddenly it’s all serious and frightfully grown-up…”

Mrs Brown paused for a moment. “But I still see the same look in your eyes, Issie. It’s that look you had when you rode for the first time. It proves that no matter how complicated your world has become, the girl that you are inside is still the same.” Mrs Brown smiled at her daughter. “You love horses as much as you ever did, and that will never change. No matter what anyone says.”

Issie collapsed into bed exhausted at nine o’clock, thrilled that tomorrow was Sunday and for once she didn’t need to set the alarm for 6 a.m. She had somehow been talked into working a seven-day week for Ginty, but at least tomorrow the trainer had agreed to let her have a lie-in and she didn’t have to start work until
eight. She was determined to leave Dulmoth Park on the dot of four so she could head down to the River Paddock to give Blaze and Comet some much-needed exercise. She had been neglecting her horses lately because of work, and she needed to make time for them again.

Her lie-in never happened. Instead, she woke up at two o’clock in the middle of the night, startled from her sleep by noise down below her bedroom window in the garden.

It was Wombat. The blue heeler pup always slept downstairs, on a dog bed on the back porch by the French doors. It was a common occurrence for the pup to wake Issie with his fussing and whimpering because he’d found a hedgehog curled in a prickly ball on the lawn.

Issie knew that she’d better get out there straight away and get Wombat. Not that the hedgehog needed her help. Wombat was usually the one who usually came off the worst in these tussles and ended up with a bleeding snout for his troubles!

She got out of bed and slipped on her jods and a pair of trainers, grabbed her Dulmoth Park sweatshirt,
which was sitting on top of her laundry pile, pulled it on over her pyjama top and padded downstairs.

In the kitchen, Issie stared out through the glass of the French doors looking for her pup. She could hear Wombat growling, but when she scanned the lawn she couldn’t see him or his prickly prey. All she saw outside were the shadows of the big trees that spread out over the lawn. She reached up a hand to open the top lock on the door when she saw something that made her freeze. That was why Wombat was growling! One of the shadows was moving! It was a big shape too — much too big to be a dog. Issie didn’t move. She watched the shadow move closer, and then, as she recognised the silhouette in the moonlight, she let out a sigh of relief and began once again to frantically work the lock.

The moment she stepped outside, Wombat ran to her. The hackles on his back were raised and he was still growling, a low threatening rumble coming from his throat. Issie smiled at the dog’s devotion to protecting her, and crouched down beside him, one arm hugging his neck as she gave him a reassuring pat.

“Shush!” she told the dog. “Don’t growl, Wombat.
You’ll wake Mum.” Then she looked up at the shadow standing on the lawn in front of them. “It’s OK. It’s all right, boy, he’s not dangerous.”

Wombat didn’t seem convinced. He pressed himself against Issie’s legs, the growl still rumbling through him as he stared at the shadowy shape standing right in front of them.

“Wombat! Don’t be a silly puppy!” Issie tried to coax the dog forward as she walked into the darkness towards the shadow. “Come and meet Mystic.”

Mystic didn’t seem at all concerned by the blue heeler’s antics. He stood calmly on the lawn, illuminated by the moonlight, waiting for Issie to come to him.

Issie stepped forward with Wombat trailing anxiously behind her. She wasn’t certain what it was about Mystic that had the pup so rattled. Could Wombat remember Mystic from that night in Australia with the wild dog? Probably not — the pup was barely conscious when Mystic had arrived to save them. Maybe Wombat simply wasn’t expecting a horse to appear in the back garden in
the middle of the night. Or was it because the pup could sense somehow that this horse had an otherworldly quality to him, that he wasn’t really supposed to be here at all?

Issie remembered her own shock the very first time she encountered Mystic here after the accident. She understood that her pony shouldn’t be here, but at the same time she knew he was real. She never for a moment questioned Mystic’s return. All she knew was that each time she saw him her heart soared to have her pony back with her once more.

There was a catch, of course. Mystic’s arrival tonight meant that there was trouble. So, overjoyed as she was to see the grey gelding, Issie knew that there would be a darker reason for this late-night visit.

“Come on, Wombat,” Issie cooed. The blue heeler had finally summoned up his courage and joined Issie on the lawn. Now he reached up his snout so that he was nose to nose with the pony. Mystic gave a stomp with his front hoof and Wombat leapt back again, cowering against Issie’s legs. Issie giggled.

“He won’t hurt you, Wombat,” she said, “but you better stay here. Mystic and I have to go now.”

Wombat was well-trained. He knew exactly what Issie meant when she said ‘stay’ — he just chose to ignore her. If there was an adventure afoot then he was coming too! As Issie led the grey pony down to the gate at the end of the back lawn, Wombat disobeyed her command and ran after her. He caught up by the time they had reached the back gate.

“OK,” Issie sighed. “Have it your way, Wombat. I don’t have time to argue.” She let the pup go through the gate ahead of them, then guided Mystic through and asked him to stand still as she climbed the gate rungs and threw herself on to his back.

The pony waited expectantly as she arranged herself comfortably and grabbed a tangle of his thick mane in her hands. The mane wasn’t for steering purposes, it was only to help her hang on and keep her balance. Not that she was the one doing the steering. Mystic would decide where to go. The grey pony had turned up tonight for her and he alone knew where they were heading.