The Wish Pony (5 page)

I didn't always like feeling the baby kick. But this time I did.

‘He's going to be a footballer,' Dad said when he got home and felt it.

That was such a strange thing for Dad to say. He didn't even watch football.

Mum caught my look and laughed. ‘It's what all dads say,' she said, ‘it doesn't mean anything. I'm going to look at my collage. Want to see it too?'

She pulled out her latest one. She'd started it ages and ages ago. We both looked at it for a while. It wasn't for a book or anything, though sometimes she does that. This was something personal she was making, though it might end up in an exhibition. There were two people, who looked quite small in an immense garden of trailing vines, fruit trees, big wavy ferns. It was very beautiful even though the two people were naked. It wasn't finished.

‘Are you going to do more?' I asked. Mum only works on personal collages when she's feeling really good. If she's not feeling so good, she'll do some cards – something quicker – ‘instant noodles' she calls that kind of work. But it is still beautiful, because how can it not be? Even the cards have this treasure load of stuff on them – scraps of patterned material, gold and silver threads, old postage stamps with fruit or butterflies or even people on them and sometimes even little beads.

‘Not tonight,' Mum said, ‘tonight I'm going to wallow like a great whale in the bath. But I might work on it tomorrow. I'd like to put some little white daisies in the garden. And maybe some pansies. What do you think?'

‘I love pansies,' I said, ‘they've got little faces.'

‘Maybe all those little faces should watch my couple?'

‘But they're naked! You can't have them being watched if they're not going to wear any clothes.'

‘Oh Ruby! Come on, come into the bathroom and watch me have a bath.'

‘That's different,' I said but I didn't go anyway because it was my bedtime. The rose oil Mum used in her bath drifted out from the bathroom, right down the hallway into my room and I felt as though I was going to sleep in a garden.

‘Goodnight, Wish Pony,' I whispered into the darkness after Mum had tucked me in and I thought – but I might have been mistaken – that there was a faint whinny from my dressing table.

 

 

The next morning Dad drove me to school so Mum didn't get tired out. I was really pleased about that. If Mum had walked me down to school, she might have met Sarah's mum and been told the whole horrible story. Or she might have run into Waddle and then Waddle would have taken the opportunity to talk about my behaviour. Either way, Mum's day would be ruined and it would all be my fault. It was much safer having Dad drive me.

Sarah and Bree still weren't speaking to me but I'd expected that and I'd packed Magda's book to read. It made my bag heavier but I didn't care. No way was I going to sit next to Sharnie.

Generally people left me alone. Luke came up, snatched the book away from me and read out the title in a posh voice. ‘
The Secret Garden
, ooh what a good book, don't you think?'

‘Very good book, Luke, all about gardens that are, well, secret,' Tod said, but the new teacher, Ms Saunders, came up and took it off them.

‘Good book,' she told me, ‘I read it when I was about your age. It made me cry.'

I was pleased someone at school was talking to me. Waddle glared at me in class and Sarah and Bree whispered behind their hands. Still, Mum was back from hospital, I kept reminding myself, and that was the only thing that really mattered.

She was waiting for me at the end of school and I took one look at her face and knew that she wasn't happy.

She waited until I had my backpack on and we were out of the school grounds and then she started. Why had I written that note? What was wrong with me? She was so disappointed. She'd always been proud of me coping so well with school and everything. Clearly, however, I wasn't and what did I think we should do about it? But she didn't stop for me to answer – she just went on. Dad was worried too and where was the note that had been sent home for him? Was I becoming deceitful? Then there was the cheating incident. Was it true? What was she going to do about all this? Was it attention-seeking behaviour? Did I need help?

I couldn't answer. She whirled me around and made me look at her, even though my eyes were streaming tears and my nose was running in sympathy.

‘Ruby, we have to sort this out. I should be able to trust you. But I get sick and look what happens. I can't begin to tell you how – how shattered I feel about all this.'

I couldn't even say sorry.

When we got home she didn't ask me whether I wanted a chocolate muffin. She just upended my bag right there on the kitchen floor and found the squashed note for Dad in its torn envelope.

‘Oh Ruby,' she said and walked away, leaving everything of mine just strewn over the kitchen floor – the banana peel from recess, my maths sheet, my reader and pencil case which was leaking pencil shavings, even
The Secret Garden
. She didn't care if they got trodden on or not. I thought of just leaving them there –
I
hadn't tipped the bag up, why should I clean it up?

I rescued
The Secret Garden
and walked away. But then I thought of Mum having to bend down, over the baby lump, and I gave in. But I left the banana peel where it was. It certainly wasn't going back in my bag. I left the scrunched-up wrap, as well. She wouldn't have to bend for those, she could just get the broom and sweep them up.

I didn't care if I was grounded. There was nowhere I was going anyway. Sarah wasn't going to invite me around for a sleepover, not when she wasn't even talking to me. I just shoved the rest of the stuff back in my bag, including the maths sheet even though I was supposed to do that for homework. I didn't feel like doing homework. Why should I do anything for Waddle? She'd got me in this mess.

I lay on my bed and the tears leaked out the far corners of my eyes and ran into the pillow.

When Dad got home they both came in to have a chat. I knew it wasn't going to be a real chat – and it wasn't. They did all the talking. The word disappointment came up eleven times. I was counting. Mum said worried ten times and Dad said it four times. But then he didn't say all that much, it was really Mum who was chatting.

I wasn't hungry but they made me come out and eat dinner anyway. I didn't talk to them. I didn't feel like chatting.

It was after dinner that it happened. Mum was clearing the table and she turned around, with all the plates piled up in her arms, and she slipped on a bit of the banana peel that she hadn't seen. It was the tiniest piece. I could hardly see it but Mum slid on it, lost her balance and she – and the plates – crashed to the floor.

‘Bloody hell!' Dad was helping her up in seconds. ‘Rita, are you okay?'

Mum had gone pale. She put a hand on the baby lump. ‘Yes,' she said, her voice shaking, ‘I think I'm fine. There was a bit of stuff on the floor, that's all. I'm so unbalanced these days.' But she didn't smile when she said it, she just went on being pale and looking frightened. There was broken china all over the floor and Dad's foot was bleeding but he hadn't noticed.

‘I think you should go and lie down,' he said. ‘Do you want me to call the doctor?'

‘No, no, I think I'm fine, Edward. Really.'

‘What in god's name did you slip on?' Dad helped Mum into a chair and then swept up the plates, examining the rubbish for clues.

I sat tight. It was my banana peel. I knew. I'd seen the little squishy edge of it. But I had no idea Mum would fall. I started to cry.

‘Ruby,' Dad said, and his voice was dangerously calm, ‘I think we've had enough trouble from you for one day. You have to learn to take a back seat, miss. You're not the centre of the universe, you know.'

‘It was my banana peel,' I sobbed. ‘I left it on the floor and Mum must have missed some when she swept.'

‘You left a banana peel on the floor? You deliberately left a banana peel on the floor?'

I was sent to bed. I didn't care. I didn't want to be in the same room with my pale mother who kept her hand on the baby as though her hand was listening to him breathing. I didn't want to be in the same room as my dad who fussed around her, stroking her hair and kissing her free hand as though she'd just been saved from some big terrible accident.

It was only a bit of banana peel. You could hardly see it. Honest.

I changed into my pyjamas. My room felt lonely but I took the Wish Pony into bed with me and held him for a while and told him all about the banana peel and my mother falling and the plates crashing around her. He felt warm in my hand and I couldn't bear to put him back on the dressing table so I tucked him carefully under the pillow and waited for someone to come in and say they were sorry and kiss me goodnight. But no one did. I didn't care. I really didn't.

Much later I smelt roses and knew Mum was having a bath and that made me feel a bit better so I rolled over and went to sleep.

Someone must have come and tucked me in because in the morning the Wish Pony was back on the dressing table and the blankets were way up to my chin where they scratched.

‘Ruby,' Dad said when he came out for breakfast, tying his business tie, ‘you need to say a great big sorry to your mother and promise that your behaviour will be perfect in future. You've behaved very, very badly.'

‘And I want you to write a sorry letter to Sarah,' Mum said, ‘then we'll say no more about all this. Okay?'

‘A sorry letter?' I squawked. ‘No way. I'm not sorry. She was mean, Mum. She just took up with Bree and ignored me. I'm not saying sorry. She should.'

Mum pressed her mouth together tightly. ‘You are writing a sorry letter,' she said firmly. ‘After school today you can choose a card to write it in.'

Even the prospect of using one of Mum's cards didn't make me happier. It was so unfair. What about Sarah's sorry letter to me? Was she going to have to write one? No, of course not. She'd just dumped me for the new girl but no one was going to make her write to me. That was just normal girl-stuff. Totally okay.

I did give Mum a hug. Of course I was pleased that neither she nor the baby were hurt and it had been a stupid, spiteful thing to do. But even as I hugged her, I was still smarting over the letter for Sarah and a bit of me hung back so it wasn't as big – or loving – a hug as it should have been and I know she knew that even though neither of us said anything.

 

 

The Wish Pony was bored. He had quite enjoyed the part of the night he had spent under Ruby's pillow, but then before he could even get used to the sound of her breathing, which reminded him of something so far back in his memory he couldn't quite get to it, he was whisked away, back to the dressing-table top. Boring. The street light shone in through the window and he galloped up and down for a while but he soon got tired of that too and by the time the sun edged up, he was back where Ruby's mother had put him.

Not even facing the window, but turned instead to the mirror so all day he had to stare at his own reflection. For the first little while he admired his mane and the ripples in his tail. But when all was said and done a mane was just a mane, no matter how thick and sculpted, and a tail was just a tail.

He missed listening to Magda talk to her dead husbands. He missed her singing and cleaning. He missed the sound of the cat purring beside him. He missed – oh, he missed so much he would have wept huge horsey tears if he'd been able.

When Ruby came through the door in the late afternoon, he was so pleased he was nearly certain his tail flicked a little to one side and his nostrils quivered. But if they did, Ruby didn't see. She flung her bag down on the floor and herself on to the bed and cried, face down on the pillow which muffled her sobs.

Oh no, thought the Wish Pony. He strained with all his might to tell her silently to come and pick him up. Just that. Just to pick him up and hold him. But Ruby didn't.

A few minutes later her mother came and sat down on the edge of the bed and patted her head. But if Ruby said anything, the Wish Pony couldn't hear it because the pillow swallowed the sound. Her mother sat there for a while patting. Ruby hiccupped a few times but stubbornly refused to look at her mother. Neither of them looked at him.

The Wish Pony shook his mane impatiently. Nothing happened, of course, his mane remained sculpted in its perfect waves but nonetheless the Wish Pony felt a little better.

I don't care, he told himself, if she doesn't want to know about me, she doesn't have to. It doesn't bother me. He willed himself back to his favourite daydream in which he galloped wildly across some plains with a whole herd of ponies just like him, whinnying and nickering together, their hooves making a glad thudding sound across the warm earth. He could almost feel the sun on his back and hear the startled chitters from the little ground birds that flew up in alarm as the ponies thundered past.