Hot Potato (9 page)

Shelby heard the voice first. It sounded urgent and
wavering on the edge of tears.

'Is she dead? Is she? She's dead, isn't she?'

Then the faces swam into view – Erin and Lindsey,
afraid and concerned. She could see bright white spots
in front of her eyes, like midges over a bowl of ripe fruit.

She heard another voice and realised it was her
own – groaning. Shelby sat up. Her head felt heavy,
and too big. She put her hand to her cheek and could
feel that it was hot. The skin was welted in the arc of
a hoof. She hoped it didn't look as bad as it felt.

'What happened?'

'Bess knocked you out,' Lindsey answered.

'You toppled down like a bag of spuds!' Erin added.

'How long was I out for?' Shelby asked.

'What do you reckon? Maybe thirty or forty?'
Lindsey asked Erin.

Erin nodded.

'Minutes?' gasped Shelby.

'Seconds,' Lindsey corrected. 'If you'd been out for
longer we would have called an ambulance.'

'I think we should anyway,' said Erin.

Shelby shook her head. Her neck hurt and she put
her hand to it. 'No ambulance. I'll be fine. We're
going to have enough trouble trying to explain this.'
She pointed to her cheek. 'Does it look bad?'

When they didn't say anything for a moment
Shelby wondered if she was being a wuss. Maybe
there was no mark at all?

'You know those Bratz dolls? Kind of crossed with
a . . .' Erin tilted her head to the side as she searched
for a comparison. 'No, that's not it. I know! You look
like that old detective man! Columbo!'

'Who?' Lindsey asked.

Erin rolled her eyes. 'You don't watch nearly
enough television.'

'I don't have time to watch television!'

Shelby frowned, confused. 'So is it noticeable?'

'She's trying to say you have a massively swollen
head,' Lindsey told her.

'And your eye has gone all squinty, and red, and a
bit purple,' Erin added.

'Oh great!' Shelby groaned. 'So did you fall off?'

Erin shook her head. 'I pulled my foot out of the
stirrup and slid off while she was smashing your face
in. I told you she hates you.'

'She doesn't hate me! She hates the saddle. Where
is my saddle?' Shelby propped herself up on her
elbows. 'Did it survive?'

Lindsey and Erin looked over Shelby's shoulder.
Shelby turned to where they were looking. Her saddle
lay upside down, splayed and oddly dislocated.

'Broken?'

Lindsey nodded. 'Looks like it.'

'Did she roll again?'

'As soon as I was off, she dropped and rolled. It's
like she was trying to beat a personal best time or
something.'

Lindsey sniffed. 'Anyway, it's clear that the first
time was no accident. This must be her little trick. It's
probably why she was dogged.'

'But she's fine bareback. It doesn't make her completely
useless,' Shelby argued.

'You can't seriously still be defending her!' said
Erin. 'She tried to kill you!'

'It was an accident. She might need another
massage.'

'A heavy massage with a blunt object!' said Lindsey.

'You're all talk, Lindsey. I've never even heard you
raise your voice. Anyway, we'd better get moving.
We've got to do the dinners, and we didn't muck out
the stables this morning,' Shelby said.

'I don't think you will be mucking out today, Shel,'
said Erin. 'Honestly, you have a head like a melon – a
deformed melon. You'll give the horses bad dreams.
They'll run screaming and crash through a fence or
something.'

'I'll be fine.' Shelby tried to stand up and immediately
rocked back again as her head whirled. She
reached out to grab something for balance, and found
Lindsey's hand. When she blinked she saw blotches of
coloured light in front of her eyes.

'OK, maybe not.'

Lindsey took Hotty back to the paddock while Erin
staggered back to the stables with Shelby leaning on
one arm and the broken saddle over the other.

Mrs Edel had finished with Diablo and was
heading back from his yard when she saw the two
girls in the laneway. Shelby was resting against a post,
because her head had started to swim again.

Lindsey's mum rushed towards them. She put one
hand on either side of Shelby's face, examining the
swelling on her cheek.

'Who kicked you?'

'Kicked? Nobody kicked . . .' Erin began, but Mrs
Edel cut her off.

'This is no time for mucking about, Erin. I can see
the hoof print. Who was it?'

'It was Bandit,' Erin blurted. 'I asked Shelby to
pick out his hooves for me. Then I was talking about
this show I watched on telly, and I forgot where I was,
and started waving my arms and whooping. Shelby
was really engrossed because she was leaning over, like
this, watching me through her legs, holding his hoof.'
Erin demonstrated. 'Then Bandit got spooked by the
waving and the whooping and kicked out. It was my
fault.'

'Does your neck hurt?' Mrs Edel asked.

'A little bit,' Shelby admitted. Her whole face was
throbbing, and her skin felt tight over her cheek. She
could feel it bulging.

'Stay right there. I'm calling an ambulance.'
Lindsey's mum turned on her heel and jogged towards
the office. 'Try not to move at all. You can have
damage to your spine without feeling pain.'

'No, I'm fine really!' Shelby protested. 'I just need
a breather.'

'This is not open for discussion,' Mrs Edel called
over her shoulder.

'I don't want all this fuss!' Shelby told Erin.

Erin patted her shoulder. 'You did bang your head
pretty hard. It's probably best to go along with it –
just in case.'

'It's nothing, just a bump,' Shelby grumbled, but
she was worried that something might be wrong. She
could feel it. She was more than worried, because if it
was as bad as she suspected, she might not be able to
ride for weeks.

Shortly afterwards Lindsey's mum came out of the
office. Erin offered to help Lindsey make up the feeds.
'Where is Lin, anyway?' Mrs Edel asked.

'She's in the feed shed. She's already started work,'
Erin lied, and then ran away.

'Your mother is on her way,' Mrs Edel told Shelby.
'So what happened to your saddle?'

Shelby thought for a moment. If she was whisked
away in an ambulance then she wouldn't have an
opportunity to tell Erin or Lindsey what she'd said.
Lindsey's mum was suspicious enough and they
already had the problem of Erin saying something
other than the story they had agreed upon.

'It's all a bit of a blur,' she replied. 'For Erin too.
I think she's in shock – post-traumatic stress, or something.
She was obviously babbling. Even more than
normal!'

'Tell me what you remember.'

'I would, but it hurts to talk,' Shelby said, holding
her cheek.

Lindsey's mum narrowed her eyes, but she didn't
ask any more questions.

The ambulance pulled into the driveway with its
lights turning on the top. They knew to pull into the
float bay near the arena, which indicated that this
wasn't the first time they had been here.

The two ambulance officers were cheery, telling
jokes and making Shelby smile, and all the while
pressing in different places – asking whether she could
feel this or that, and when it hurt, telling her to rate
the pain from one to ten.

Some of the other girls gathered around to sticky-beak.
Shelby was embarrassed and hoped Mrs Edel
would shoo them away, but she didn't.

Shelby had quite a crowd of spectators by the time
her mother had arrived – with Blake in tow, since
Connor was at soccer practice with her dad. The
ambulance officers had put a foam brace around her
neck and she was perched in the back of the ambulance
keeping her spine still, as instructed.

'She looks OK, but we'd like to take some pictures
of her noggin,' said one jolly officer.

'I feel fine, Mum,' Shelby assured her mother. 'I'm
sure I can go to school tomorrow.'

Her mother gave Shelby a thin smile, but her face
was white and her hand worried at the fine silver
chain she wore around her neck.

'Tomorrow is Saturday, love! Maybe you do have a
kangaroo loose in the top paddock!' joked the other
ambulance officer. He was trying to distract Shelby
while the white-clad officer drew her mother away,
but they didn't move far enough.

'Horses!' Shelby heard him say as he shook his
head. 'Why would you have 'em? I see so many riding
injuries. They're often quite serious too. It's a very
dangerous sport. Kids have no idea how risky it is.'

Shelby felt terrible. She knew that her parents had
always been apprehensive about her riding because
they feared something would happen to her.

The ambulance officers lowered her down carefully
so that she was lying flat. All the way to the
hospital she closed her eyes, willing her face and neck
to get better before they arrived.

At the hospital they waited for the radiologist.
Shelby reclined on a trolley and her mother sat on an
orange plastic chair by her side. They both held
tattered magazines with missing covers and torn
pages, while Blake squatted on the floor mining a deep
basket of toys.

Shelby wasn't reading her magazine. Between bouts
of feeling sorry for herself and being annoyed that it was
taking so long, she was finding it hard to concentrate.

After half an hour Blake was fractious and Shelby
was hungry. She flipped through the celebrity cellulite
and middle-aged miracle pregnancies and huffed.

Fifteen minutes later a nurse scooted across the
waiting room in her quiet shoes and switched on a
television that was suspended from the ceiling by
a metal bracket.

Shelby put down her magazine and wriggled so that
she could get a better view. Blake put down the plastic
truck he was holding and sat cross-legged, eyes on the
screen. After the image flickered to life Blake turned to
his mother, wrinkling his nose. 'News!' he whined.

'Shh!' Shelby's mum blushed, glancing around to
see if anyone had taken offence. Shelby was with
Blake on this one. She'd been hoping for a cartoon –
even an educational one would have been acceptable
under these circumstances.

Soon afterwards, an orderly came to collect Shelby.
He wheeled the bed out of the waiting room, down a
corridor and into the lift. Shelby waved to her mum as
the lift doors closed. The orderly stared at her. Shelby
felt awkward in the silence and so she tried to think of
something to talk about.

'Are all orderlies men?' she asked.

The young man sighed as the doors opened.
'You're never too young for feminist sensibilities,' he
said, and then he abandoned her in front of a door
marked 'X-Ray'.

The radiologist didn't speak. He slid Shelby under a
heavy grey machine and indicated what he wanted her
to do by manipulating her limbs. Once she was in
position he would leave the room. She was expecting to
hear a click, or a whiz, or something from the machine,
but she couldn't hear anything at all – not until the door
squeaked open and he returned. After he had done this
a few times he pushed her back out into the corridor.

This time she didn't have news or even a scruffy
magazine. Every now and then a member of the
hospital staff would stride past, either giving her a
brisk smile or ignoring her altogether.

Eventually her orderly returned. He placed a big
yellow envelope across her knees. She could see her
name printed on a sticker in the corner.

'OK, Germaine, time to take you back to your mum.'

'Can I look at these?' she asked.

The orderly shrugged. 'It's not sealed.'

As they trundled back into the lift Shelby slid out
the sheets of thick film. It was a picture of her skull
and the top portion of her spine from the front and
both sides. She'd never seen her head from the inside
before. On two of the images she could see a number
of arrows and crosses had been drawn on.

'What's this?' she asked, frowning. She was pretty
sure the radiologist didn't put arrows to mark all the
places where everything was fine.

'He's started a game of noughts and crosses and
hoped that you'd join in.'

Shelby raised an eyebrow.

'Do I look like a doctor to you?' he grumbled.

She looked him up and down. 'Kind of. You're
wearing those overalls and a hairnet like they do on
telly.' The doors to the lift opened.

He grunted and then stopped the cot, flicking on the
brakes with his toes. 'Your mum's coming over now.'

Shelby's mum appeared and squeezed her daughter's
hand. 'Not long now, honey.'

In her other hand was a cup of chips. Shelby's
mouth started watering at the idea of them, but when
she tried one it was cold and tasted of old oil. 'Is there
anything else?'

'Only sandwiches.' Blake rolled his eyes. Shelby's
mum lifted him up so he could sit on the end of
Shelby's bed, and then handed Shelby a corned beef
and pickle sandwich in a triangular plastic container.

'Pickles!' she complained.

Blake took a bite out of his and started to cry.
'I want that one!' he demanded, pointing to Shelby's.

'Yours is exactly the same,' his mother said.

'That one! That one!' His face was turning redder.

'Swap sandwiches, Shelby.'

'But Blake's is all spitty!'

Shelby's mother rubbed her temples. 'This is not
how I intended to spend my afternoon.'

'You think I got kicked in the head on purpose?'

'Give him the sandwich now!' her mum said
through gritted teeth.

Shelby handed the plastic container over and Blake
stopped crying.

'How much longer are you going to be sick for,
Shel?' he asked, blinking away his tears.

'Not long,' she promised, closing her eyes.

It was another forty-five minutes before a doctor
saw them. The doctor bundled them into a ward and
whipped the curtain around. Shelby wondered why
she'd bothered. It wasn't as though it stopped the rest
of the people in the room from hearing.

'You've fractured your zygomatic ridge,' she said,
holding up the X-rays to the light.

Shelby and her mother both spoke at once.

'So when can I start riding again?'

'What does that mean exactly?'

'It means you've broken your cheekbone. You've
got a mild concussion too. I would recommend that
you don't ride again for at least six weeks, and keep
away from horses for at least four to five weeks. I
know horses, and I know how often they can clock
you in the head with their jaws. This is not the kind of
fracture that we can set with a cast. You will have to
stay at home for the next week at least.'

Shelby wriggled on her trolley. 'Handling horses
is my job, and I've never missed a day, so that won't
be possible,' she said. 'What sort of horse did you
have?'

The doctor smiled. 'Shelby, I know it sounds
boring, but it will be much more boring if you don't
give the bone a chance to knit. It could end up taking
twice as long. You could also end up with a permanent
lump there.'

Shelby opened her mouth, but her mother interrupted
with a warning. 'No more cheek from you!'

They picked up a small vial of painkillers at the
chemist on the way out and Shelby soon found herself
at home on the lounge with a half-eaten spaghetti
jaffle on the arm of the lounge next to her and six
whole weeks of convalescing to contemplate.

She tried to remember the longest time that she'd
gone without riding since she'd owned Blue. There'd
been heavy rain for four days in a row last winter, and
that had been unbearable.

Blake had eaten most of his jaffle, except the
crusts, and now he squatted in front of the TV
cupboard perusing the animated movie collection.

'
Nemo
or
Milo
?' he asked, displaying the two
cases as if he were a game show hostess. 'I'm thinking
Nemo
.'

Shelby huffed. 'I don't have time for this!'

Blake examined the titles, frowning with concentration.
'I don't think
Milo and Otis
is any shorter,' he
said apologetically.