Pony Passion (3 page)

On my bike I can whizz to the stables in about two minutes, which is dead handy. Today, the moment I got there, I went to see Bramble. She’s a lovely bay – brown with a black mane and tail. Of all the ponies at Mrs McAllister’s stables, she’s my favourite (only don’t tell Alfie and Marvel and the others!).

And when you’ve had a wobbly day at school, there’s nothing like having a pair of kind brown eyes to talk to and a lovely warm furry neck to hug.

“Hey, Bramble,” I said, stroking her soft nose to say hello. She nuzzled my hand gently. It seemed like she was pleased to see me.

“Hello, Lyndsey!” called Mrs McAllister, who was walking across the yard. She’s my riding teacher, as well as being the owner of the stables.

“Hi, Mrs McAllister,” I called back. “Can I do some practice today, for the gymkhana?”

Mrs McA looked at her watch and pursed her lips. “Well… give me about half an hour. Then I’ll come and watch you do some jumping on. Bramble’s had a fair amount of exercise today, so why don’t you just give her a gentle warm-up while you’re waiting?”

“Great!” I said. “Thanks, Mrs McAllister.”

“Glad to see you’re so keen, Lyndsey,” she said, heading for her office.

“Well, less than three weeks to go now!” I said.

“Two, you mean!” she called, tapping the poster taped to the office window as she passed. “See you later!” And the office door swung shut behind her.

Two weeks? I frowned, puzzled. But surely the gymkhana was on the 28th? “Wait a sec, Bramble,” I whispered, and ran across the yard to have a look at the poster.

My watch just tells the time. It doesn’t have a little date window on it, like Fliss’s does, so I’m never the person to ask if you want to know the date (unless it’s my birthday!). But for once I could remember Mrs Weaver writing it up on the board this morning: Monday 16
^th
.

Well, I bet you’ve done the maths already, haven’t you? Yep, that’s right. Dozy here had been reckoning on nearly three weeks to turn
herself into Cuddington’s answer to Zara Phillips when there were less than two. The gymkhana was a week on Saturday!

That was enough of a shock in itself. But the next moment I felt as if Bramble had leapt across the yard and given me the most almighty kick.

“Oh no!” I groaned out loud. “Frankie’s sleepover!” She’d said a week on Saturday, hadn’t she? And I had promised promised promised (cross-my-heart-and-hope-never-to-set-foot-in-a-stirrup-again) not to miss it. What on earth was I going to do?

Through the window I could see Mrs McAllister, the phone pressed to one ear, looking at me weirdly. I was probably grimacing really gruesomely, worse than the M&Ms with tummy ache. Quickly, I turned round and marched back to Bramble’s stable, to tack her up.

Half an hour later, when Mrs McAllister came out to the field and shouted, “How about some jumping on, then, Lyndsey?” I wasn’t feeling any better. If anything, I think I was feeling worse. My
heart was going ker-boom ker-boom in my chest, like it was trying to get out, and I kept thinking how desperately I wanted to enter the gymkhana. I had to find a way. But how could I, after what I’d said to the others? Especially after the barny we’d had about me preferring ponies to my friends!

It was hard to concentrate, but I needed to – jumping on is really tricky. You see, there are some races where, to be quick enough to stand a chance of winning, you have to get off your pony and get back on again while it’s still moving. I’m OK at the flying dismounts (sounds like a circus trick, huh?). It’s the vaulting – that is, the getting back on again – that I have problems with, big time.

“Now try to relax, Lyndsey,” said Mrs McAllister. “And remember: watch Bramble’s stride. You should jump when the front foot that’s nearest to you hits the ground.”

I nodded. I knew this. It was just easier said than done. And I had quite a few bruises from when I’d messed it up last time.

Trying not to be nervous, I urged Bramble into a canter. I ran alongside, gripping her saddle in one hand and the reins in the other, and watching her feet. I was going to have to jump, swinging my legs out over her back end to land in the saddle.

“Come on Bramble,” I whispered breathlessly. “We can do this!”

And then I jumped.

“That was a beauty!” I heard Mrs McAllister call.

I was in the saddle – no bruises. I’d done it!

“Way to go, girl!” I laughed, patting Bramble’s neck.

Well, that put me on such a high I thought I’d show off and go straight into a flying dismount. I swung my body forward and my legs back. But one of my feet got caught in its stirrup. My other leg was already swinging over, and I could feel my weight dragging me out of the saddle. The foot that was stuck was twisting now at a really awkward angle, so I couldn’t get it out.

It must’ve all happened in a nanosecond, but to me it felt like some horrid slow-motion dream. Panicking that my foot wasn’t going to come free, I let go of the reins and was immediately flung out sideways. The ground swung up towards me with a sickening lurch, and then: thwack. Everything stopped dead.

It took me a moment or two to work out what had happened. I just lay there like a sack of potatoes, with my face in the muddy grass.

“Lyndsey! Lyndsey! Are you all right?” I heard Mrs McAllister’s voice right in my ear. She was out of breath; she must’ve shot across the field like an Olympic sprinter.

I groaned and tried to sit up. But when I pushed on my left hand the most horrible pain shot up my arm. “Owww!” I yelped.

“Don’t move yet,” said Mrs McAllister. “Where does it hurt?”

“My arm,” I gasped. “Left… arm.”

Straight away Mrs McAllister sprang into super-efficient emergency gear. First she checked me all over to make sure my arm was the only bit that hurt. Then, ever so gently, she helped me sit up. I was crying by this time, blubbing worse than my little brother Ben (who is the biggest cry-baby in the world, in case you didn’t know). I never knew part of me could hurt that much. I swear, if your arm felt like mine did right then, you’d have been bawling too!

“All right, Lyndsey. We’re going to get you to the hospital,” said Mrs McAllister.

“Where’s Bramble?” I said, turning my head. My eyes were so full of tears, everything was a splodgy blur.

“She’s fine,” said Mrs McAllister. “She’s away by the fence, nosing about in the grass. Think you can stand?”

I nodded, sniffing loudly. I hoped I hadn’t
yanked on the reins in my panic and hurt Bramble’s mouth. But I couldn’t worry about Bramble for long. Getting to Mrs McAllister’s Land Rover took all my concentration. My right hand was holding my left arm close to my body to stop it moving, but somehow it still felt as if every step I took gave it a hideous jolt.

Call me crazy, but in the hospital all I could think was: Kenny should be here! Kenny, as you probably know, is dead set on being a doctor when she grows up, like her dad. She just loves all that gruesome medical stuff. If she’d been sitting next to me while I waited in Casualty she would’ve been bouncing up and down in her chair with excitement and trying to guess what hideous diseases everyone else had.

As it was, I was sandwiched between Mrs McAllister on one side of me and Mum on the other. Miranda, Mrs McA’s assistant, had rung my house as soon as we set off for the hospital.

Mum kept saying relieved things like, “Thank goodness you were wearing a hard hat, poppet!”

And Mrs McAllister kept saying apologetic things like, “Believe me, Mrs Collins, I would never let anyone out of the yard without one.”

Mrs McAllister was looking quite shaken, actually. I guess it’s really rare that anyone hurts themselves at the stables.

They’d given me some majorly strong painkillers, so I was feeling a bit better, though still really sore. It took ages to get everything sorted. They did an X-ray (Kenny would’ve been in orbit!), which showed that my arm was broken. Then, after another long wait, I had my plaster cast made. That felt mega weird.

The cast went from my wrist to just above my elbow, and I was going to have to wear my arm in a sling, the nurse said, to hold it in place. Some slings are quite small, I think, but mine was like an enormous napkin. I felt like an Egyptian mummy!

“How long do I have to wear the cast for?” I asked Mum on the way home.

“Six weeks, the nurse said,” Mum replied. We stopped at some traffic lights and she turned to look at me. “Poor pumpkin. You were very brave.”

Famous last words! For some reason that just made me burst into tears again. It was probably the shock of it all, Mum said later.

When we got home, Dad came bounding out of the house and opened the car door for me. “But – what’s happened to you?” he said, gasping and staring at my plaster cast as if I’d just sprouted an alien growth.

“Daaad! You are such a bad actor!” I shrieked. “Mum was on the phone to you every five minutes when we were in the hospital. I heard her!”

“Oh. Right you are, then,” Dad said, slamming the car door behind me and ruffling my hair in the way that usually really annoys me. Tonight, for some reason, I didn’t mind.

Ben and the baby, Spike, were already in bed, but my older brothers Stuart and Tom piled downstairs when they heard us come in.
They’d even made a welcome home banner for me out of a couple of old tea towels stapled together.

Before you go thinking they’re in any way soppy or nice, though, I should tell you that the banner said:

It was in enormous red letters, so it was pretty embarrassing.

“Mum, can I ring Rosie and Frankie?” I asked. And Kenny and Fliss, I might’ve added, but I thought I’d stand a better chance if I just started with two. I couldn’t believe so much had happened since the end of school, and they didn’t even know!

Mum tapped her watch. “It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?”

I looked at the clock. It was 10pm! I couldn’t believe it. We’d been at the hospital for hours and hours.

“You’ll have a surprise for your mates at school tomorrow,” said Dad as he kissed me goodnight.

I grinned. I couldn’t wait to see their faces.

But d’you know the craziest thing of all? You’ll really think I’m stupid, but what with all the fuss and worry at the hospital I hadn’t put two and two together. It was only when Mum and Dad had gone to bed, and the house was quiet, and I was lying in the dark beginning to realise that my arm was aching quite a lot, actually, that it hit me:

I had to wear my cast for six weeks.