Love and Muddy Puddles (10 page)

But that wasn’t the main problem.

I suddenly realised I still wanted friends—at least for now. Once I got back to Sydney I could pick up where I left off, but it’s hard to be in a place where there’s absolutely no-one who likes you and no one you like.

Especially not for a whole year.

For the next whole entire month I was lonely and bored. Josh called me a sook and even though I got mad at him, I knew he wasn’t far off being right. I was more than sorry for myself. I was pathetic.

Charlie and Josh now had a new way to fill their afternoons—riding with Tessa and James. After only about two lessons on how to hold the reins and direct a horse they saddled up and hopped on, never to hop off again. It was like they’d been born up there. Charlie rode Fozzles, Tessa was on Boldy and Josh and James rode Nellie and Perry. Charlie started wearing jodhpurs and boots all day and these weird looking things—’chaps’ I think they’re called—that got strapped around her legs.

“You’re just wearing that stuff to annoy me,” I said, complaining.

She gave me a look. “Yeah, like I choose my outfits each day specifically with you in mind,” she said. “Anyway, what’s wrong with it?” She looked down at her riding vest and brushed off a few brown hairs.

“You smell like horse,” I said. “And it’s gross to have animal hair all over you.”

“But it’s fun to ride,” she said. “You should try it.”

I didn’t try it. I watched instead, sulking and miserable, from the shed as they galloped across the paddocks, set up jumps and took the horses down to the creek.

The night we went over to Ness’s place Mum and Dad had (of course) given Tessa and James unlimited permission to ride on our property.

“That sounds terrific!” said Mum. “Come any time.” Dad had smiled along. I hadn’t looked over at James because I knew he’d be looking at me and I could feel my face already starting to burn so I’d pretended to be engrossed in one of Ness’s old Phantom comics until they went back to planning their first ride.

“You should come,” Charlie said that night and Tessa agreed. “Yeah, come. We’re going up this awesome cliff face. The view is incredible.”

“Not really my thing, but thanks,” I said, and on the day they went I stayed in the shed and played an old version of Angry Birds on my iPod. There’s something about smashing up cartoon pigs that’s strangely satisfying when you’re annoyed.

Charlie came in every night exhausted and with an irritatingly happy face. Her new favourite thing in the evening was to sit with her feet resting on the log stove (it was getting cold) and talk about horses. 
Boldy played up today, Nellie’s starting to pigroot, Perry jumped higher than he’s ever gone before, blah blah blah.
 I studiously ignored it and changed the subject as necessary, but sometimes she’d make a special effort and try to persuade me to join in.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?” she said once, lying on my bed and sticking her feet into my doona to keep warm.

I shrugged. “I just know what I don’t like doing. And I don’t like horses or riding, so I’m not going to start.”

“But you haven’t even tried it,” she groaned. “It’s like when we were little and you wouldn’t eat cheesecake because you couldn’t imagine how cheese and cake would taste nice together. You missed out on like four whole years worth of amazing deliciousness because you wouldn’t even put a teaspoon of it on your tongue.”

“That’s completely different,” I said. “I just didn’t get the whole concept of cream cheese. But I know what horses are like and what they do. It’s not as if I’d suddenly go, ‘oh, I get it, they run along the ground. I always thought they flew’.”

“Whatever,” she said. “You’re just missing out on heaps of fun. And I’m missing you.” She made a sad, pouty face. “Anyway, even if you didn’t like the horse bit of it, you could still just hang out with us all.”

“What? Tessa and James?” I said. I made a face imitating Tessa’s long nose and James’ serious look. “Come on.”

“No, they’re really nice,” she said. But she was laughing. “That’s funny, but you’re mean. Tessa’s sweet and James has an awesome sense of humour.”

“Really? He seems so...” I searched for the right word, “...dull.”

“He says what he thinks,” said Charlie. “And he doesn’t play games. He is who he is. But he’s hilariously funny when he wants to be. And he’ll do anything. He’s fearless.”

“You’re in love,” I said accusingly.

“Who with?” She looked shocked.

“James.”

“Are you kidding? No way! Seriously, I’m not. But I think Tessa’s in love with Josh a bit.”

“Ewww. How could she be?” I said. “But anyway. They don’t like me.” I shrugged. “It wouldn’t be fun.”

“They only don’t like you because you’re kind of too cool for them—or you act that way at least,” she said. “If you just came out with us they’d see the real you.” She thought for a moment. “Well, Tessa would anyway. Maybe James still wouldn’t like you.”

“He hates me,” I said, thinking about it for a second. “But then, I kind of hate him too.” I suddenly got sick of the conversation. “Anyway, I just don’t want to. I just don’t want to like that kind of stuff. I don’t want to spend my days getting hot and sweaty and tramping through the mud.”
“But the horses do all the tramping for you.” It was her last-ditch effort but I wasn’t going to be moved.

“You know what I mean,” I said. “It’s icky. Sorry. But I’m just not interested. And I’m not going to learn to be. Now give me my doona back.” I pulled the doona off her warm feet so she kicked me and I jumped on her and soon we were giggle-wrestling which was awesome fun, at least until Dad told us to s
top it, we were being way too noisy 
and Mum said the same thing she’s said for the past 13 years which is, 
be careful or it’ll all end in tears.

It occurred to me that night that if Charlie really did miss me as much as she said she did she should suggest to everyone else that they hang out with me in the shed instead of riding and I almost felt happy thinking about it as I went to sleep. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad tomorrow. Maybe everyone would make an effort to include me and take care of me. Maybe even James would be nice. I could imagine him laughing and chatting with me. Maybe I might be able to have some fun in the part of the year that was left before I went back to Sydney.

But there’s something about the middle of the night that completely messes up your perception of reality because the next day everything was back to what it had been. Dad was still building his muddy little house, Mum was still washing and cooking and trying to teach us maths and science, Josh was still teasing me and Charlie was still horse-crazy.

I watched as my brother and sister and their new friends took off on a ride over the mountain and waited, kicking my feet, for the three long, boring hours it took for them to come back. There are only so many times you can play Angry Birds, and anyway, I’d finished all the levels.

As the afternoon sky got darker, it seemed to match my thoughts which were going from mildly annoyed to completely depressed and desperate.

No one really cares about me.
 
If they did, they wouldn’t have brought me here. I can’t believe I’m reduced to living in what’s practically the outback with no friends and no one who even likes me just a tiny bit. My clothes are dirty, my shoes are ruined, my nice stuff is in storage and I can’t even take a shower. I hate everyone. I wish they’d all just disappear and leave me alone. Waaah.

The only place for me was bed. I put myself under my doona and then refused to get up for dinner, refused to talk to Charlie when she came in gasping with delight about the 
amazing ride
 she’d just been on, refused (of course) to answer Dad when he asked me if I was okay and refused to bring in wood for the fireplace.

“I don’t feel well,” I kept repeating, looking at the wall. “I just feel sick.” Actually, I just felt angry. And sad. But I mostly didn’t feel like arguing any more. It was easier to lie down.

Something has to change,
 I thought to myself as I lay there, listening to everyone eat and laugh and bicker and live. 
Stuff can’t be like this for much longer or I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I didn’t know that the change was already on its way. And it was something that would take me completely by surprise.

While Charlie and Josh had been hanging out with Tessa and James, Mum had been spending time with Ness. And it was firing her up. I’d never heard her talk so enthusiastically as when she was explaining Ness’s dilemma to Dad.

“Her problem is that they don’t have enough land for all the horses they want. They’ve got the stables, and of course they do those rides, but she’s constantly getting people ringing and emailing to ask if they can let their horses live at her place, you know—agistment—but they don’t have the space. I was thinking though. We do! We could agist.”

“Even if we did it until we work out what else we can do with the property, that would solve some cash flow problems,” Dad said, thinking. And then he got all enthusiastic as well. “We’d need to make sure the fencing was secure, obviously. And we’d have to talk to Ness about setting it up so the horses all have what they need, and so the business side was okay, but we could get it going pretty much straight away.”

A few weeks later, horses moved onto our property. There were just three to begin with. I was bored and Charlie was out so I walked down to the end paddock with Mum to see them come off the float. They were quiet at first but after their halters were taken off they kicked and squealed and shook their heads. And then they ran and ran, like it was the first time they’d been free in years. They looked around at the field and at each other and I could almost see horsey joy on their faces.

Huh.
 I thought. 
It’s a nice place. For them. Not so much for me.

Over the next few weeks more horses came in their floats down our mountain track. Soon we had over 20 spread over three paddocks. Mum and Charlie spent days out looking at them, feeding them, trying to remember their names and getting to know their quirks.

And then one morning, while everyone else was busy or out, a horse turned up that I already knew.

It was Cupcake.

Ness brought her over. “Hey Coco, are you the only one here?” she called out, sticking her head in the door of the shed. “Can you let your mum know I’m putting her in the paddock with the others? I think she’s stressed out from being in the stables—a bit barn-sour—and she’s gotten too hard to handle. I’ve really got to spend more time with her in the ring but I’m flat chat for the next few months and I won’t get to it. So until I figure out what else to do with her, she’ll just have to spend more time with the herd.”

I hopped out of bed and walked down with Ness to the horse float. Finally something interesting was happening in this boring, boring place.

It wasn’t that I was into Cupcake, although it did seem like she had a bit more personality and a few more opinions than the other horses. It was more that I liked Ness. She had the same blue eyes as James, which I’ve always said were particularly good-looking eyes but as well as that, there was an aliveness and enthusiasm about her. It was kind of intriguing, but also slightly embarrassing. It was like she didn’t care what other people thought so she just said whatever she was thinking out loud. She didn’t seem worried about what she might look like or how she came across. She just looked free.

And happy.

Cupcake, on the other hand, wasn’t happy. She neighed and bucked as she was led out of the float.

“Stand up,” said Ness, putting a hand on her neck but it didn’t work. Cupcake looked angry and nothing anyone did was going to help. She snorted hot air and tossed her head and rolled her eyes.

It was when I saw the eye roll that everything changed. You’d think that a horse and a girl would look nothing alike, but as soon as I saw her do what I’d been doing for months, it was like I recognised myself.

And then I couldn’t help it. I didn’t usually put my hand out to pat horses, but I had this huge intense feeling inside me. I wanted to let Cupcake know that it was okay. I wanted her to know that I understood how she felt. I was desperate to tell her that I felt the same.

I put my hand out. And it was like I’d put on sound blocking headphones. Everything went very quiet. Cupcake looked at me and her body relaxed and she stopped fussing. Even the birds and the crickets subsided into silence. I touched Cupcake’s neck and felt the warm of her coat. She turned her head around to me and I could feel her breath on my hands and a strange tickly feel of her nostrils.

She was suddenly quiet and happy.

And it was because of me.

“She really likes you, Coco,” said Ness, quietly. “Look. She’s calmed right down.”

I looked up at Ness. “Do you think so?” My eyes were wide and I actually felt excited.

“I’m sure so. It’s definitely you. She’s been terrible to everyone else. Tessa and James have given up on her. And Charlie just about got bucked off when she tried to ride her last week. But she looks like she’s bonded with you.”

A thrill went from the ends of my hair all the way into my body and through to my toenails. I’d never felt anything like it. Well, maybe that one time when Mum let me sit and watch the parades in the Queen Victoria Building in Australian Fashion Week when I was four. Seeing those models in such amazing outfits had given me a tingle that had been unmatched by anything else in the world, ever. At least, up until now.