Blaze and the Dark Rider (5 page)

“Araminta is super-competitive. I guess she really wants Morgan to win.” Issie shrugged.

Still, Issie knew what Stella meant. Poor Morgan had looked so desperate to go and hang out with Issie and her friends instead of training for a change.

While Issie and Stella had been lying on the picnic blanket finishing off the bacon and egg pie, Kate had been in the clubroom. She emerged, running towards them with a piece of paper gripped tightly in her right hand.

“Ohmygod!” she said. “You are not going to believe it.” Her face was stiff and miserable.

“What?” Issie and Stella cried out together.

“I’ve got the team list results,” Kate said. She looked deadly serious now. “And, well…they’re terrible. None of us have made the team.”

Stella’s horror at being left out of the team quickly turned to anger. “What? I can’t believe it!” she squawked. “I have ridden better today than I ever did in my life! I won all the games! I have loads of points!” Her cheeks flushed hot pink against her red curls. “Issie? I can’t believe it! Issie?”

She looked at Issie, who had a smirk on her face, and then back at Kate, who, incredibly, was also smiling.

“I can’t believe you fell for it!” Kate laughed. “Of course you made the team, Stella! We all made it!”

Stella gaped open-mouthed like a goldfish at her friends and her eyes grew wide with disbelief as it dawned on her that the whole thing had been a trick.

Then she sputtered and gasped and finally broke out into a huge grin too, and the girls all hugged and squealed, falling down finally on to the picnic blanket with a case of hysterical giggles. Kate opened up the team list and they all sat there and looked at it for ages just to make sure that it was really true. There it was in black and white. They had made the team.

There were eight names on the list. It read in alphabetical order, which meant, Issie noted proudly, that her name came first.

Chevalier Point Interclub Gold Shield Team:

Isadora Brown

Dan Halliday

Kate Knight

Ben MacIntosh

Stella Tarrant

Annabel Willets

Reserves:

Morgan Chatswood-Smith

Natasha Tucker

“Do Dan and Ben know that they’ve made the team too?” Stella said.

She heard a loud whoop behind her and saw the two boys running across the paddock towards them. “I think that’s a yes!” Kate laughed.

That afternoon, Avery gathered his new team together in the clubroom. “Well done, all of you!” he said. “But I hope you realise that making the team means hard work. I’m going to be scheduling in extra training sessions each week from now until the Interclub.”

He turned to Morgan and Natasha. “I expect to see both of the team reserves at training too. If, for any reason, one of our team can’t compete, then I’ll be calling on you to ride in their place. You need to be ready.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and leaned over to whisper dramatically to Morgan, “I don’t see why we should turn up if we don’t actually get to ride at the competition.”

Issie overheard her say, “Especially when some people only make the team because they are Avery’s special
pet!” Then she turned to Issie and gave her a smirk. “Isn’t that right, Isadora?”

“Don’t worry about Stuck-up Tucker,” Stella said to Issie afterwards. “She’s just got it in for you because she didn’t make the team.”

Kate agreed, “Natasha spent a fortune on her pony. It’s, like, just because she’s rich she thinks she should automatically be chosen.”

“But why is it always me she picks on?” Issie sighed.

“Are you kidding?” Stella grinned. “It’s so obvious that she is jealous of you, Issie. She’s never recovered from the time you beat her at the one-day event.”

Even Natasha’s cattiness couldn’t crush Issie’s good mood. She had made the team. That night, as a celebration, Mrs Brown made Issie’s favourite dinner—cottage pie with minted peas and chocolate ice cream for dessert.

Afterwards, Issie lay on her bed, still in her jodhpurs, feeling too tired and stiff to take them off and change into her pyjamas. She was just thinking that this was
possibly one of the best days she had ever had when the phone rang.

“Mum! Can you get it? I can’t stand up because my legs have fallen off!” Issie yelled out.

She heard her mother yell something back, but then she heard her get up from the kitchen table and walk towards the phone. Her legs-falling-off excuse must have worked. She could hear her mum talking in her proper phone voice that she reserved for people she didn’t know very well, and then she called out, “Isadora, it’s for you.”

“Who is it?” Issie asked as she took the receiver. Her mother just smiled and handed her the phone.

The voice on the other end of the line was syrupy and warm, with a strong French accent.
“Bonjour
, Isadora,” said Francoise D’arth.
“Ça va?
How are you? I am calling as you suggested to ask if you are free tomorrow? I would love to come and meet your pony.”

As she cycled towards the pony club the next morning Issie felt sick with nerves. She had never dreamt that
the glamorous Francoise D’arth would really be interested in Blaze. To Issie, Blaze was the most beautiful horse in the world—but what would an expert horsewoman like Francoise think? Francoise would probably be disappointed when she came all the way to the pony club to meet her and saw that Blaze was just an ordinary pony not anything special at all.

It was eight a.m. and the morning air still had a slight spring chill in it, despite the fact that summer was almost here. Issie wished she’d worn her jacket. By the time she reached the pony-club gates, though, the bike ride had warmed her up and her cheeks were flushed from the fresh air. Next to the gates was a black car, and out of it stepped Francoise, who had been waiting for her.

“Bonjour
, Isadora,” she said. “Thank you very much for meeting with me. Now, where is this pony of yours that looks so much like my dancing horses?”

Issie grabbed Blaze’s halter out of the tack room, and she and Francoise set out together across the paddocks.

“I usually graze her at the River Paddock,” Issie explained, “but we had a pony-club rally yesterday and I
kept her here. Avery says we can graze them at the pony club for as long as we like now that we’re in the team.”

The pony club was divided into three fields. You came off the main road down a long gravel driveway lined with giant magnolia trees. The first gate opened into the paddock where the cars and horse floats usually parked on rally days. There were large plane trees running like a leafy spine through the paddocks, providing extra shade for the horses and riders on hot days, and the clubroom which straddled the fence line between paddocks one and two. Paddock three was the furthest away. The jumping arena had been erected there, and the perimeter of this paddock was bordered by a thick privet hedge. Issie looked out to the far paddock where she could see the outline of three horses grazing—Blaze, Coco and Toby.

“There she is,” Issie pointed. “She’s the one standing by the stack of cavaletti.”

Issie and Francoise climbed over the turnstile in the fence and began to walk through the lush, spring grass towards the far paddock.

As they got closer, Issie made a clucking noise with her tongue and Blaze raised her head from the rich,
green spring grass to look up at her. She gave a soft nicker.

“She usually comes if I call her,” Issie said proudly. She made the clucking noise again and Blaze gave another little whinny now and broke into a high-stepping trot. When she reached the fence line that separated her from Issie she looked for a moment as if she were considering jumping the fence, but instead she came reluctantly to a stop. Snorting and shaking out her mane with frustration, Blaze trotted up and down along the fence line impatiently.

Issie watched her horse in motion, her flaxen mane and tail flowing freely and her dark liver chestnut coat glinting in the morning sun. Blaze’s paces were so light she seemed to be floating above the ground. Her neck was arched and her ears were pricked forward. Issie smiled at how beautiful her horse was when she moved—surely Francoise would be impressed by how gorgeous the chestnut mare looked.

She turned expectantly to look at the dark-haired Frenchwoman next to her. But Francoise was not smiling. Far from it. She was standing perfectly still, and the look on her face was one of shock. It was almost as if
she had seen a ghost.

Issie noticed that her hands were trembling. Francoise seemed to realise this too because she now entwined her hands together to steady herself, clasping them under her chin as if she were praying.

Francoise stood perfectly still in this way for a long time. Issie heard her muttering something under her breath in French. Then Francoise raised her hands to her face, cupping them around her mouth. She pouted her lips and blew a shrill high whistle.

Blaze, who had been trotting back and forth anxiously along the fence line in front of them, came to a sudden halt.

Francoise whistled again. It was a different whistle this time: sharper and shriller than the first, in three repeated short bursts, like a bird call.

The mare’s ears pricked forward and her nostrils flared wide. She let out a low, deep snort. Then, with a defiant shake of her head, she threw herself back and reared up on her hind legs so that her hooves thrashed wildly at the air in front of her.

“Blaze!” Issie cried, rushing forward.

Too late. Blaze spun around on her hind legs and hit
the ground at a gallop. With a rush of speed she charged around the paddock at full speed, her head held high, her legs flashing over the ground beneath her.

“Blaze, stop! You’ll hurt yourself!” Issie felt her chest tighten in fear. What was wrong with her? Why was Blaze behaving like this? She looked back at Francoise, whose face was aghast as she watched the mare.

“Come on,” Francoise said to Issie, breaking into a run, “she will stick a hoof in a rabbit hole and hurt herself if we do not calm her down.”

The two of them both broke into a run, heading for the paddock gate. When they reached it, Issie climbed the turnstile, but Francoise simply vaulted lightly over the gate like a gymnast, hitting the ground running on the other side. By the time Issie was on her feet again and running after her, Francoise already had her hands held wide to stop Blaze as she circled around again at a frantic gallop.

This time, when Blaze rounded the perimeter of the paddock, Francoise stood in her path. As Blaze charged down at her, Francoise, still with her arms outstretched, let out a long, low whistle, a single note. Blaze’s pace abruptly slowed to a canter and then a
trot, and finally, she calmed right down to a walk.

By the time Issie reached them, Francoise had grasped Blaze around the neck and was holding on to her mane, waiting for Issie to arrive with her halter.

Isadora slipped the halter quickly over Blaze’s head and did up the buckle. She let out a sigh of relief, and ran her hand down her horse’s neck. Blaze was damp with sweat and her flanks were heaving after her mad gallop.