The Wish Pony (15 page)

The Wish Pony sits on my dressing table. He's not doing much these days – doesn't have to. He's gone back to dreaming. I'll keep him probably until I'm as old as Magda. Then I'd like to give him away, like she did, to someone who needs him. I think I'll know when it's right – you just do, don't you?

We've never been certain that Magda's been on MSN. Sometimes, when Bailey and I are chatting, someone invites themselves to the conversation – it's always a weird name, Foxylady75 or Your grandmother can suck eggs or Married x 3 and loved them all. They never really talk to us, even though we say Hi, hello, anyone there? Then after a couple of minutes, they disappear into cyberspace. Well, Bailey says cyberspace. I don't know that Magda would need a proper MSN connection to keep in touch with us, in her own way. I know I'll see her again – but probably not until I'm as old as she is. Then I reckon one day, I'll be having my hair done, or looking at a pair of purple boots, and I'll hear her voice, ‘A bit young for an old chook!' I'll look up and her eyes will be almost green, the way they were the day she said goodbye.

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have you noticed that not everyone wishes on the same thing? Here are just a few of the traditional ways you can make a wish:

• when you see a falling star, or the first star of the evening

• by throwing a coin into a wishing well or fountain

• when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake

• when you break the wishbone of a cooked chicken or turkey

• by blowing on a fluffy dandelion flower so that the seeds float away into the air

• if you stand inside a fairy ring – a circle of grass that is greener than the rest

How do you and your friends make wishes? Do you close your eyes? Do you keep it a secret or do you tell people what you wished for?

 

Let me tell you about what I've wished for, and my inspiration for
The Wish Pony
. . .

If wishes were horses

The idea for
The Wish Pony
came to me when I was thinking of the old rhyme that begins, ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride'. Versions of this rhyme have been around for over four hundred years and it's thought that the last two lines were recited to children to make them stop asking questions and do their chores: ‘And if ifs and an's were pots and pans, there'd surely be dishes to do!'

 

I'd never heard the last line, but the first line had been told to me time and time again over the years and it had always struck me as a little mean. What's wrong with wishing for something? When I was a little girl, my mother and I always wished on birthday candles, every slice of a new Christmas cake (which meant that the more people you visited at Christmas time, the better a wish time it was!), when we saw a white horse, or saw the first star in the sky at night, or a falling star. The only rule with wishes was that you couldn't tell a soul. If you did, they would never come true.

 

Sometimes they came true and sometimes they didn't, even if you didn't tell. That was just their nature. For one whole year I wished for curly hair. That didn't happen. But others did come true – my mother took up the hem of my new dress, transforming it instantly from daggy to cool. I was bought sandals with a white leather daisy underneath the big toe, just the ones I wanted. I was allowed to paint my bookcase cobalt blue, as blue as the dark sea.

 

Later, for many years, I had a big, very secret wish I used on every white horse, every birthday candle or slice of Christmas cake and two falling stars. It came true, although it took quite a bit of work on my part.

 

So what I didn't like about the old rhyme was the idea that it was somehow foolhardy to wish for things. If you didn't, you wouldn't try so hard to make those things happen, would you?

 

Sometimes that was probably a good idea. There were always some wishes that you didn't really, in your heart of hearts, want to come true. I might have wished for my classmate to break her arm on the monkey gym when she said mean things about that daggy dress. I might even have felt a moment of triumph if she had. But it wasn't a good wish.

 

These thoughts led me to wonder what would happen if one day someone gave you a wish horse, a little horse that rode your wishes home. My step-grandmother had two glass cabinets of precious things while I was growing up. When I stayed with her and my grandfather, I was allowed to help their cleaning lady, Mrs Arnold, dust some of them, those that were less valuable and least breakable.

 

In one of the cabinets was a marble horse, caught striding out, mane flowing back. I transformed him into my wish pony. I'd already decided my wish horse would be a pony, smaller and friendlier than a horse, the perfect size to grant a child's wishes.

 

Of course Ruby has to learn – as we all do – to be wise about what she wishes for.

 

Oh, and what was my big, secret wish? To be a writer – and here I am, writing these words to you!

 

Finding Magda

I've been lucky enough to have a couple of Magdas in my life. In my experience, they've been tough, loving older women, difficult and prickly, eccentric and wise. For me, they've been associated with my work, turning up when I most needed the kind of honesty and inspiring mentoring they were able to provide.

 

One, in particular, had the time to ring me when I was home with my new baby, who was ill for all of his first twelve months of life. She told me news of the writing world, a world so far removed from my own life of doctor's appointments and hospital stays that it seemed as distant and unreachable as a fairytale city. I can't say that I even missed that city. I was so busy both enjoying being a mother (impossible though that sounds under the circumstances) and keeping everything together when things got rough, I didn't have time to miss anything. But those phone calls were small blessings on my day and for those ten or twenty minutes I remembered the other person I also was and would be again – the writer.

 

But what happens when you need a Magda and there's simply not one around? I'll tell you a secret – you can make one up.

 

She has to be older than you. She has to know more things than she tells you. Give her a pair of outrageous boots – Doc Martens with roses or orange suede boots with a fringe. Maybe she's got a tattoo on her wrist, but it won't be a butterfly and if it's the name of someone, you'll never know who.

 

Write about your Magda in a journal you bought specially. Write about the questions you ask her and what she tells you back. Just remember, she's tetchy and trouble, cranky and caring and you won't always like her honesty. But never forget that you made her up – she belongs to you.

Reading with Ruby

Now that you've read Ruby's story, you might like to read
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which is also available as a Vintage Classics book. You can find out why Magda and Ruby like it so much, and why it's nice to have a secret garden of your own.

 

It's the story of Mary Lennox, who is sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle. Everybody says she is the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It is true, too. Mary is pale, spoilt and quite contrary. But she is also horribly lonely. Then one day she hears about a garden in the grounds of the Manor that has been kept locked and hidden for years. And when a friendly robin helps Mary find the key, she discovers the most magical place anyone could imagine ...

For Younger Readers

Being Bee

Rain May and Captain Daniel

Millie and the Night Heron

Magenta McPhee

Hanging Out

Mimi and the Blue Slave

For Young Adults

A Dangerous Girl

The Year It All Happened

Painted Love Letters

The Airdancer of Glass

His Name in Fire

Poetry

The Vigilant Heart

Marriage for Beginners

 

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Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 2.0
The Wish Pony

Copyright © Catherine Bateson

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

A Vintage Classic Children's book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW, 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au

Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at
www.randomhouse.com.au/offices

First published by Woolshed Press in 2008
This edition published by Vintage Classic Children's in 2012

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

Author: Bateson, Catherine
Title: The wish pony [electronic edition] / Catherine Bateson
ISBN: 978 1 74274 116 1 (ebook)
Target Audience: For primary school age.
Dewey Number: A823.3

Cover illustration by Sarah Kate Mitchell
Cover design by Astred Hicks,
www.designcherry.com
Internal design by Stella Danalis, Peripheral Vision Design
Typeset by Stella Danalis and Midland Typesetters, Australia