Hot Potato (3 page)

The three girls perched on the top rail of the fence and
watched the pony. The wind had picked up, making
the tree boughs creak and lifting Shelby's hair from
her forehead.

They had decided that the back spelling paddock
was the best place to keep the pony for now, even
though most of the horses were racehorses, or broodmares
– big thoroughbreds or standardbreds – so the
tiny mare with her fancy white legs stood out.

It had taken them a while to coax her along the
laneway between the paddocks. She shied at everything,
but Shelby accepted that this was a new place
and she'd had a very scary day so far. Who knew
where she had been before, or what had happened
to her?

At the sales, with all of those people crowded
around, she must have felt like a pack of wolves were
surrounding her, ready for the kill. She had no way of
understanding that they weren't going to hurt her.

Now the mare was cantering up and down the
fence line and whinnying. The girls weren't so worried
about her making a fuss and drawing attention to
herself way out here. This paddock was seventy-five
acres with lots of trees and two huge dams. It was
criss-crossed with paths where Lindsey or Shelby led
the beginners on trail rides on the weekends.

There was a ridge running along the middle, and
you couldn't see the far side of it from the house.
Lindsey's mum didn't come out the back very often,
anyway – only to check on the fences and the broodmares
when they were close to foaling.

'I think we should call her Princess Arabetha
Bella,' said Erin.

'Just off the top of your head?' asked Shelby.

Erin giggled. 'No, silly! I was thinking about it on
the way back in the truck.'

'What about Bess?' Lindsey suggested. 'Bess is a
good name.'

'For a Clydesdale,' said Shelby. 'She's too small to
be a Bess. I think it should be something pretty.'

'OK, what do you think of Minuetta Farfalla
Flora?' asked Erin.

The pony galloped along the fence, ears back,
shaking her head and swishing her tail. She skidded to
a stop and whinnied again – her belly shaking with the
strain. She was working herself up into a nice frenzy.
Shelby wondered if the little mare had a best friend
where she'd come from and she was only just now
realising that it wasn't there.

'Tess,' added Lindsey, shrugging. 'Or Ness.'

'How about Countess Simonetta Cecilia Songbird?'
offered Erin.

'Then she could be Tess,' said Lindsey.

Shelby laughed and rolled her eyes.

'Only for short,' Lindsey added.

Shelby groaned. 'No more "ess" names!'

'Well, you haven't come up with anything, Shel,'
Erin retorted.

'We should call her Hot Potato. That's what
Lindsey called her at the sales, and that's what she is.
We can call her Hotty for short.'

The two girls stared at her. Erin curled her lip.
'And you thought Arabetha Bella was bad?'

'Don't forget she called her horse Blue,' observed
Lindsey.

'He was already called Blue when he arrived! I
couldn't change it, because he answered to it.' Shelby
frowned. There was nothing wrong with the name
Blue. It was a good name – true blue, blue blood, blue
ribbon. There was also the fact that her little paint
gelding had blue eyes. It wasn't completely random!
'We have to agree on a name.'

'Why?' asked Erin. 'You can call her what you
like, but I'm going to call her Cecilia Songbird. Maybe
I will call her CC for short?'

Shelby tilted her head to the side. 'Wouldn't that
be CS?'

'Bess,' said Lindsey.

'CC!' Erin retorted.

'Bess!'

'CC!'

'What's wrong with Hotty?' whined Shelby. Hotty
was a good name. It had a meaning – it was a joke
between the girls that no one else would know. Why
couldn't the other girls see that?

'What's wrong with Cecilia Songbird?' argued
Erin.

'Nothing,' said Shelby. 'It'll be good for when we
show her, but we need something to call her at home.'

'Show her? You said we were going to sell her!'
Lindsey rocked her head from side to side, mimicking
Shelby. '"Get your money out, Lindsey, we can get a
thousand dollars for her tomorrow." Remember?'

'We need to find out what she can do first. She
might be worth even more than that,' Shelby began.
'She could be . . .'

Just then the pony trotted across the paddock in
front of them. Her hooves flicked out, hanging in the
air for a second before they hit the ground. Her neck
arched over, and her hindquarters were tucked underneath
her, propelling her forward. She looked as
though she was floating.

'Oh my Lord!' gasped Erin.

'Wow!' said Lindsey, shading her eyes with her
hands.

'. . . Something really special,' Shelby finished.

'So?' inquired Shelby's father when his daughter
walked out the back door. He was crouched down,
weeding the vegetable garden. Shelby noticed he was
wearing the gardening apron that he'd bought for her
to give to him last Christmas.

'It was good fun,' she said. 'Nice apron. Someone
really good-looking must have given that to you.'

'Someone really good-looking bought it,' he retorted.
He frowned at her for a moment longer. 'Your mother
and I were sure we were going to have to console you
tonight. We thought you'd see all these sad, old, broken
ponies off to the knackers, and you'd be beside yourself
– crying and throwing yourself around. We even bought
you blackberry pie for dessert to distract you.' He thrust
his trowel into the dirt and brushed his hands together.

'Mmm, pie,' Shelby grinned.

At dinner Shelby really wanted to talk about the
chestnut pony. It was the most exciting thing that had
happened for ages and she was bursting to tell, but
every time she opened her mouth she remembered that
it was a secret.

She also wanted to complain about how dumb
Erin and Lindsey had been about the name, but she
couldn't think how to bring it up without revealing
the truth.

Her family wouldn't be listening anyway. For years
now she'd been prattling away about ponies at the
dinner table, and none of them knew one end from the
other.

'Lindsey bought a horse today and we were trying
to decide what to name it. Erin wanted to call it
Arabetha Songflower or something, and Lindsey
wants to call it Bess. How dumb is that? I said they
should call it Hotty. They said I pick dumb names, but
I've never had a horse that wasn't already named, so
how would they know?'

'What sort of horse?' asked her little brother,
Blake. He had skewered a rissole and was waving it
casually on the end of his fork. Connor, Shelby's other
brother, concentrated on stabbing his vegetables.

'A chestnut one,' she answered. 'Four white socks.'

'How many hands is it?' Blake asked.

'Could be twelve-something.' She shrugged. 'Small,
anyway.'

Blake nodded and then tore a chunk from his
rissole with his teeth.

Connor frowned. 'I thought four socks was bad
because white hooves are softer than black ones, and
so they get lame easier.'

'Sometimes,' Shelby replied. 'It doesn't really
matter on the surfaces we take them over. It's pretty
sandy in the Gully.'

Shelby's father spooned some extra carrots onto
his plate. 'What about Blossom? If it was a gelding I
would suggest Hamish. Hamish is a fine name. But if
I had a little mare I would call her Blossom. What do
you think?'

Shelby didn't answer. Instead she took a long drink
of her milk.

'It must be just for herself.' Her mother pressed
some mashed potato onto the back of her fork. 'The
Edels usually buy bigger horses for the riding school
because they have a longer stride and are more flexible
in terms of the size of the riders they can put on
them.'

Shelby put down her glass and stared at her
mother.
Typical!
she thought. As soon as she needed
them to be ignorant, everyone's an expert!

The next day after school Erin's mum drove the two
girls to the stables, as usual. Shelby could hardly sit
still in the car. She and Erin had talked about the pony
all day and Shelby had been dreaming about her so
much that she couldn't remember what she really
looked like.

They stopped briefly to pull on jodhpurs and grab
their helmets, and then they headed to the riding
school ponies' paddock to catch Blue.

He was standing in the very far corner, resting. A
round, shaggy pony called Hiccup grazed nearby.
Since she'd moved Blue from the paddock near her
house to the riding school, he and Hiccup had become
firm friends. She'd noticed recently that when she let
Blue loose in the paddock after a ride Hiccup would
whinny to him, and they would canter towards each
other and have a dramatic reunion, as though they
had been separated for years instead of a few hours.

At the gate Shelby called out, 'Come on, little
man!' Blue pricked his ears for a moment and then
closed his eyes again. He wasn't as easy to catch as he
used to be. In the old days, when he was by himself,
Blue used to wait for her at the sliprail, but these days
he was more likely to be standing with Hiccup near
the dam, or under the trees at the very back of the
paddock.

It made her sad that he wasn't so keen to see her
any more, but at the same time she was also glad that
he was in a herd, the way horses were supposed to be.
She knew that he was much happier than before.

Shelby slid the bridle over his ears, and then she
and Erin doubled bareback along the laneway to the
back paddock, leaving a bereft Hiccup neighing
behind them. Shelby drummed her heels on Blue's
sides and Erin laughed at his rumbling, bumbling,
teeth-chattering canter.

Along the way Shelby looked around for Lindsey
but she couldn't see her anywhere. On Mondays
Lindsey's school finished earlier than hers and Erin's.
Normally Lindsey went straight to work making up
the feed buckets, or lunging horses, but today Shelby
thought she might be down at the back paddock
already. That's where Shelby would be, if she had
arrived early.

She and Erin had talked about the pony all day,
and had got in trouble in almost every class for not
paying attention. Like Shelby, Erin had dreams about
great show-ring victories and champion ribbons, but
they had been careful to avoid two topics – the pony's
name, and who was going to ride her first.

Shelby wasn't sure if it was because Erin was
scared to ride her first and embarrassed to admit it, or
whether she wanted to be the one and didn't want to
argue with Shelby about it.

Lindsey was the most experienced rider of the
three. Erin was probably the most technically correct,
even though she had started riding later than the other
two girls, but that was because she had lessons with
Miss Anita every weekend. Neither Shelby nor
Lindsey had instruction.

Shelby thought she should be the one to ride the
mare because she saw her first. She was the one who
felt the special connection when they were at the sales.
She was the one who had bid.

Hopefully they wouldn't have to argue about it.
Shelby had been optimistic that the other two might
nominate her to go first – Erin because she was scared,
and Lindsey because she was wise – but now that she
couldn't see Lindsey around the stables, Shelby
thought it was unlikely that she had waited. Lindsey
didn't think there was anything special about riding a
new horse. She had no sense of ceremony.

When they reached the gate Erin swung off Blue's
back to unlatch it, and then she walked beside Blue
along the wheel ruts that headed up to the ridge. They
reached the top and Shelby stopped, surveying the flat,
cleared part of the paddock below.

Fat broodmares and spelled horses grazed in a
herd. Shelby noticed that they were all facing the same
direction and wondered if that was always the case.
She couldn't see the small pony amongst them.

Beyond the herd was the gate that led out to the
Gully where the girls rode. Fire trails stretched away
left, right and straight ahead into the bush. She
wondered if Lindsey had headed out for the afternoon,
and felt a flare of anger in her belly at the
thought of it.

Blue strained at the reins, keen to munch at the
grass in front of him, but Shelby held them firm. She
took a deep breath. She was already cross, and there
was no proof that Lindsey had even done anything
yet.

'There,' said Erin, pointing.

Through the trees further along the track that ran
along the ridge, Shelby could make out a chestnut hide
moving at speed.

'Is she riding her?'

'Yep,' said Erin with her hands on her hips.

Lindsey rode up to meet them at a canter. She
hadn't bothered with a saddle either. Her face was
flushed and she beamed. The pony tossed her head
and crunched on the bit.

'There you are! Well, she's definitely broken. I
don't think she's done much, but she's got a nice soft
mouth and she responds to leg aids. Watch.'

Lindsey put her calf to the pony's side and the
pony moved her back end away from Lindsey's leg.
'See?'

'Nice of you to wait,' snapped Erin.

'I get off early on Mondays so I came straight out
here. I was going to wait, but I knew you guys would
take ages. I couldn't help myself! She's pretty good.
You should have a ride.' Lindsey slid off the horse's
back and held the reins out.

'Erin and I have been looking forward to this all
day,' said Shelby. 'Don't you think it's a bit selfish?
She's our horse too.'

Lindsey tilted her head to the side. 'Well, technically
speaking she's my horse at the moment. Remember?'

Shelby and Erin exchanged a glance.

'You would have made me get on her first
anyway,' Lindsey said. 'Why don't you have a ride
now? What's fifteen minutes?'

Erin's face broke into a smile and she took the
reins. 'Give me a boost, will you? Is she fiery? Has she
shied or anything?'

Lindsey cupped her hands together and Erin
stepped into them, flipping her other leg over the
pony's back.

'OK, Bess, be a good girl now,' Lindsey murmured,
patting her neck.

'Her name is Hotty!' Shelby said. She could feel
her chest tightening and her face going red. 'You can't
have every part of it all to yourself. It's not fair!'

'Jeez, Shel, chill, peppermill,' said Erin, adjusting
the reins. 'Wow, she feels really narrow after Bandit.'

Shelby glared at Erin. She shook her head, and
then squeezed Blue's sides, pushing him around
towards the gate.

'I'll leave you to it then,' she said.

'Shelby,' Lindsey called after her. 'What's the big
deal? I'm sorry, OK?'

It's too late
, Shelby thought. It wasn't as though
Lindsey could unride her. 'I have work to do,' she said
without looking back.