Moonlight: Star of the Show (2 page)

“There’s really no need to remind us of that painful experience,” Mia sighed. “Don’t you even want to try to get a rosette this year?”

“Er, no. I’m not ultra competitive like you, Mia,” Rosie replied, opening a packet of crisps with a pop. “I’ll go in for the class again because Dancer enjoys a day out, but I’m not bothered about winning anything. I’m just as happy hacking about. Anyway, I’d rather be realistic about my riding than be like Alice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alice asked indignantly as she stopped reading over Rosie’s
shoulder the
Pony Mad
article about how to ride the perfect circle.

“She means that at least she doesn’t almost die of nerves before each show,” Charlie explained. “Face it, Alice, you’re already as jumpy as a flea and there’s still a week to go before the Fratton Cup.”

Charlie was right. Even hearing the words ‘Fratton Cup’ said out loud made Alice’s knees turn to jelly.

“I don’t get it,” Alice replied. “How come you never worry about competing?”

“Because there’s no need to, that’s why,” Charlie said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We go to the show, Pirate either clears every fence or knocks them all down depending on what mood he’s in, then we go home. Simple.”

Alice sighed, wondering if she’d ever be as brave as Charlie. Charlie had been riding for ever, and she’d owned Pirate for years. They knew each
other inside out, and although none of the other three dared sit on him, Alice knew that, for Charlie, Pirate was the best pony ever. He was a daredevil who’d tackle anything, just like her. The only worry Charlie ever talked about was outgrowing Pirate. He was 13.2 hands high, and she had suddenly started to shoot up.

Alice, on the other hand, worried about everything. Because Pirate was shorter than Scout and Dancer, he’d be competing in a different class, with smaller fences. Alice wished for a second that she could shrink Scout, just for the day. She knew the fences for the Cup would be huge, with tall uprights and vast spreads. Last year she’d been eliminated when her mind went blank halfway round and she’d taken the wrong course. Despite this, Alice still couldn’t stop herself dreaming of winning the Cup one day.

“Well, I think it’s pretty clear who’ll take first place,” Mia remarked matter-of-factly, crunching on a carrot stick. “Poppy Brookes. She’s bound to
win again. Moonlight’s totally amazing. They’ve won for the last two years in a row and I can’t see anyone beating them.”

“Not even Tallulah Starr?” Rosie asked. “She’s got a whole string of good jumping ponies. She
must
be one of Poppy’s biggest rivals.”

“The Starr ponies are good,” Mia said, thinking about Tallulah’s team of grey ponies and the entourage of grooms she had to help keep them sparkling. “But they can’t quite match Moonlight over a fence. And Tallulah isn’t anywhere near as skilful as Poppy in the saddle.”

“What about Mark Tickle, then?” Charlie suggested. “He was runner-up to Poppy both times so he’ll be desperate to win this year. You know what he’s like – he’s so competitive, it’s almost unsportsmanlike. I bet he’s sitting in his yard right now trying to come up with a plan to topple her.”

“No,” Mia replied sitting up. “Poppy and Moonlight are in a league of their own. I bet
you my favourite pink jodhpurs that Poppy wins again this year, no matter what Mark or Tallulah do.”

“Oh no, she won’t!” Rosie gasped, inhaling a crisp the wrong way by mistake. She started to choke, and in between big gulps of air spluttered, “She can’t!”

“What are you on about?” Charlie asked as she thumped her on the back.

“Look!” she whispered hoarsely, jabbing a greasy finger at a photo in the classifieds at the back of her magazine. “It’s Moonlight! There, in the ‘Missing’ section!”

They all stared in silence, unable to take it in. Up until now it had been as if the ponies in the ‘Missing’ photos were somehow not real. But they knew Moonlight. He was stabled not that far from Blackberry Farm and was a celebrity on the local showjumping circuit.

“Read out the ad,” Mia said as they all leaned in.

Rosie cleared her throat and put on her serious voice: “Piebald showjumping pony stolen from paddock. 14.2 hands high, twelve years, answers to name of Moonlight. Please call Poppy if you have any information.”

They tried to imagine coming into the yard one day and finding that overnight their ponies had mysteriously disappeared, the awfulness of seeing a stable door open and no pony inside. The worst would be not knowing what had happened, or how their ponies were being treated and wondering if they’d ever get to see them again. It was terrifying and impossible. And with the Fratton Show coming up, the timing couldn’t have been worse – Poppy must be shattered.

Rosie suddenly perked up.

“Ooh, I wonder if they’re offering a reward?”

The others all glared at her.

“I was just saying!” she added huffily, turning back to her magazine and flicking the page.

“Well, that’s it then,” Charlie sighed. “Mark will
finally get the first place he’s so desperate for in the Cup.”

“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Rosie said, her blue eyes wide. “Maybe
he
stole Moonlight so that he could win. I wonder if I should call Poppy and suggest that. Then I could ask her if there’s a reward going at the same time.”

“Maybe Rosie’s got a point,” Alice said suddenly.

Mia and Charlie looked at her as if she were mad.

“I don’t mean about the reward, or calling Poppy – but her yard isn’t far away,” she explained. “Moonlight might’ve been stolen by someone near here. I know! Why don’t we try to find him? I mean, imagine if it was one of our ponies – I know I’d feel terrible, and I’d want everyone around to be searching for Scout if he went missing.”

Charlie frowned for a second; it sounded like a crazy idea. Then suddenly her eyes lit up as she
realised what looking for Moonlight might involve. “Yes! We’ll get to gallop all over the place, checking every paddock and every stable for possible clues!”

“Think how much chocolate we could buy if there is a reward!” Rosie said, getting excited too. The pair of them started to jump up and down around the barn, holding onto each other’s arms. Beanie joined in too, leaping up and bouncing between them as if he were on springs, yapping and adding to the general noise.

“I might get my picture in this magazine! They might do a whole feature on me… I mean us!” Mia gasped, looking at the pages of
Pony Mad
reverently.

“We’ll be famous super sleuths!” Rosie shouted.

“Right, come on then, we need a plan,” Mia said, clapping her hands and bringing the others to order as her mind raced with the possibilities of photos and fame.

“First we’ll have to visit Poppy’s yard, Hawthorn Farm. It’s about four miles away, I think,” Alice said loudly, hardly able to control her voice she was so delighted with her idea. “The ponies can’t go out again today, so we’ll have to wait till tomorrow to start the investigation. That’ll give me time to find a map.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“I’ll get a notebook and pen,” Mia said seriously, “to write down all the clues in.”

“I’ll organise snacks – if the yard’s that far away we’ll need them,” Rosie added even more seriously. “And we’d better take sandwiches, too.”

“OK, so tomorrow we ride out to Hawthorn Farm and search for clues,” Mia said, before starting to smile. “Imagine how happy Poppy will be if we manage to find Moonlight before the Fratton Show!”

“That doesn’t give us long, though.” Charlie frowned.

“Exactly. The next week will have to be
crammed with frantic evidence-gathering,” Alice said enthusiastically.

“And lots of galloping between one bit of evidence-gathering and the next,” Charlie reminded her, thinking how much Pirate would absolutely love that. Not a schooling circle in sight!

“I say we get going at ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” Mia said.

“Right, that’s sorted, then,” Rosie nodded.

“Settled,” Charlie agreed, and they all stood up, gathered the rubbish from their packed lunches and marched out of the den, fired with a new purpose.

Alice hastily picked up the apple she was saving for Scout and rushed after them. A thought suddenly struck her. In all the excitement she’d completely forgotten about her own plans for the next week. Her stomach lurched again as she thought about how little time there was both to school Scout and to find Moonlight. The show was looming closer by the hour. Alice called Scout
and he came trotting over, his ears pricked as he scuffed to a messy halt by the paddock fence, snorting. As she held the apple out on her hand Alice noticed that it was already starting to shake.

Chapter Two

T
HE
next day Rosie stepped out of Blackberry Farm cottage just as Alice and Charlie pedalled up. The two lived in the same street, in the same village not far from the farm, and during the light summer mornings they called for each other at 7.30 a.m. then cycled to the yard together. As they dumped their bikes just outside the gate, Mia’s dad rolled up in his car and Mia jumped out looking a totally fresh vision in pink as the others yawned and tried to wake up. They crossed the yard and picked the headcollars from the hooks outside each of their stables, then walked towards the turnout paddock.

The four ponies were waiting at the gate. As soon as they saw the girls they set up a chorus
of whinnies in greeting. Dancer jostled the other ponies as Rosie slipped on her headcollar, keen to get back to the yard – and her breakfast – before the others. Alice climbed the gate and slid onto Scout’s warm, silky back and Charlie vaulted onto Pirate from the ground. They rode their ponies up to the yard bareback, while Mia and Rosie led Wish and Dancer.

They tied up their ponies outside the stables in the cool early sunshine and quickly mixed their feeds. Dancer scraped the concrete with a front hoof, demanding her breakfast, until Rosie rushed over with her bucket.

“Honestly, Dancer, all that fuss over a handful of pony nuts,” Rosie yawned.

As the ponies slurped and sloshed their feeds the girls fetched their grooming kits from the tack room and started to brush their ponies.

“I’m convinced that all grooming ever does is shift grime from Pirate onto me,” Charlie commented with a frown, looking from her bay
pony’s summer coat, which shone like a polished conker, with his black points over his knees and hocks gleaming, to her own pale green T-shirt and slightly too-short purple jodhpurs. They were already streaked with dirt.

Once the ponies were sparkling and enough time had passed after they’d been fed, the girls tacked up. They set off filled with excitement and armed with a map and Mia’s notebook. Their pockets were stuffed with cereal bars and already squashed sandwiches for them and apples, carrots and mints for the ponies. As they left the back of the yard, the ponies started out down the usual well-worn route – past the turnout paddock and onto the bridleway that led through the woods beyond. They took the path to the left, with Pirate pulling at his reins, a bundle of endless energy jig-jogging all the way.

The bridleway took them to the end of the woods and they cantered along the grassy edge of a field filled with shimmering golden wheat.
At the end of the field they rode onto a dirt track and Charlie unfolded the map to check where to go next.

“Down this way,” she announced, turning Pirate right along the track, which led onto a small, winding lane covered by the shade of overhanging branches. Once they’d left their familiar path, Pirate stopped playing up and his small, hard ears pricked alertly as he bobbed along at the head of the group. Charlie’s legs dangled below Pirate’s elbows, her feet out of the stirrups.

They kept a lookout for a bridleway marked on the map that crossed a big field. They soon found the field but the map hadn’t warned them that it would be filled with cows. The cows crowded round in spite of the girls shooing them, clinging to the ponies and jostling them while Rosie dragged the gate shut across the thick grass. Scout shied nervously, then suddenly bolted. From the squeals and thudding hooves that Alice heard behind her, she guessed her pony wasn’t the only one.

For a second Alice felt out of control as Scout thundered along. She grabbed a handful of mane, then she relaxed and leaned forward, lifting her weight out of the saddle and enjoying the exhilaration of speed. Suddenly Pirate was at her shoulder, racing Scout. Charlie grinned at Alice before Scout’s stride started to shorten and Alice began to pull him up as they reached the gate at the far end of the field.

“Where’s Rosie?” Alice shouted, looking round and seeing Charlie cantering Pirate in a large circle to slow him down. Wish wasn’t far behind, looking gee’ed up by the gallop, unlike Mia, who was as cool as ever on top. Mia looked round too. That’s when they realised – only three of them had made it.

Suddenly they heard a high-pitched squeal.

“Can’t one of you
please
help me?”

At first it was as if Rosie’s voice were coming from inside one of the cows, and Charlie wondered out loud whether she and Dancer had been
swallowed by one. But when they looked closer they saw that there, stuck in the middle of the herd of bustling cream Jerseys, was Rosie. Dancer was progressing slowly, her neck stretched upwards and her goggly eyes out on stalks, snorting wildly with every stride.

By the time the girls had stopped laughing and were thinking about going to help, the cows had lost interest and wandered away.

“Thanks a bunch!” Rosie said indignantly as she finally reached them. “Some friends
you
are!”

“Er, Rosie,” Charlie said between big gulps of air, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, “what’s all that… that browny green stuff splattered all over you?”

Mia leaned closer. She sniffed.

“Ugh!” she cried, pinching her nose dramatically. “It’s cowpat!”

Charlie and Alice collapsed into fresh fits of laughter.

“Well, it was your fault! It was your ponies
that kicked it up as you all galloped off and
left me
!” Rosie protested, trying hard not to laugh now herself.

She started to scrape the offending splats off with her whip but that just smeared them. There were even some long, straggly lumps in her hair.

After that Mia refused point blank to ride near Rosie, insisting she take the lead with Dancer relegated to last. The ponies trotted along another couple of quiet lanes, their metallic clip-clopping the only noise apart from the constant birdsong until they turned off and headed onto a huge, gently sloping grassy hill. The ponies stretched out their necks and flew to the top. From there they rode into some woods where the ground was soft and springy under the ponies’ hooves.

“Look! Jumps!” Charlie cried.

She pulled up Pirate, who backed into a bush and half reared in excitement, his chunky neck all bunched up. There, along the path in front of them, were a series of natural-looking jumps that
had been set up: fallen logs, old stone walls and tyre fences. Charlie trotted to each fence quickly first to check that there weren’t any bad landings, then rode back, calling out that they were safe to jump.

“See – you can school while we hack, Alice!” she cried as she turned Pirate once more. He bunny-hopped sideways for a couple of strides before taking off and disappearing into the bright, sunny woods.

Alice didn’t quite see how solid fences taken at speed could be good schooling for the showjumping ring, where control and collection were the order of the day. But she knew they’d be fun so she pressed her lower legs to Scout’s warm sides and he took off towards the small fences. Alice hardly felt his stride break as he flew over the first log, then curved round the slight bend to the tyre fence, which he popped over easily. Alice patted his neck as they cantered on to the white stone wall ahead, sitting into the saddle until they reached it and then folding forward over Scout’s
neck. Scout stretched out over the next tyre fence and the wood pile, tucking up his hooves neatly and clearing them fluently.

As Alice pulled up, patting Scout and beaming, she rode over to the clearing where Charlie was standing. Pirate pawed the ground with his small black hoof, all fired up. Alice leaned over and held Pirate’s reins near the bit, patting his damp neck, while Charlie pulled out the map and checked it. Mia had thought about not jumping Wish – she was always aware that if Wish ever cut herself over fences and got a scar it would count against her in the show ring. But she knew her mare enjoyed it, so she let her take the fences slowly. Wish elegantly cleared them and joined the others, followed by Dancer, who veered to the left at the last fence, jumping the edge of it. Rosie managed to cling on somehow, ducking to avoid being clonked by a thick, overhanging branch, and trotted over to them.

They rested the ponies in the shade and ate their
sandwiches hungrily as Charlie checked the map once more. Just as they were about to set off again along the path that led from the woods, they heard a loud voice barking instructions. The girls looked at one another and groaned – Major Thurlow.

The next second a man wearing a tweed shooting jacket, a flat cap and beige trousers marched into sight along the path. He was thwacking the bushes either side of him with a walking stick and looked menacingly determined.

“Does he think this is a jungle?” Rosie whispered as Pirate shied away and backed into Dancer, squashing Rosie’s leg with a metallic clash of stirrup irons.

The Major looked up, nodded a clipped greeting to the girls, then continued with his instructions.

“Get that pony going, Daisy!” Major Thurlow roared, glancing over his shoulder. “Ride ’im like you’re in charge, c’mon, sharpen up!”

A black pony emerged along the path behind
the Major. In the saddle sat a girl the same age as them. She had long brown hair and her riding hat framed a delicate, pale face. She looked utterly miserable.

“Hi, Daisy,” Alice said, smiling.

“Hi,” Daisy replied wanly, not meeting her gaze.

“What are you doing over here?” Rosie asked, thinking that the woods were a bit out of the way from where Daisy lived.

“Don’t ask,” Daisy said disconsolately, looking down at the ground.

“Now, Daisy, no time for pleasantries!” Major Thurlow, Daisy’s dad, commanded. “We haven’t ridden two miles from home to train out in the wilds just for you to stop and be sociable. Now, I want you to take Shadow over the fences through these woods. Ride ’im at speed! It’ll do your confidence no end of good. Now, give the pony a kick and ride like you mean it!”

Daisy took a deep breath and squeezed
Shadow on. The black pony flattened his ears and swished his tail irritably.

“Don’t tickle the poor beast!” the Major shouted, his jaw twitching. “You’re not going to win the Fratton Cup riding like that, are you?”

“I don’t even want to
ride
in the Cup, Dad, let alone win it,” Daisy hissed quietly, struggling as Shadow weasled about on the path. “Just because you used to win every competition when you rode in the army, it doesn’t mean that I should do the same, does it?”

“Nonsense! You’ve got a family reputation to keep up! You’re going to win that Cup this year and show everyone what a fine rider you are!” Major Thurlow yelled. “Like father, like daughter, eh?”

With that Daisy rolled her eyes, looking thoroughly fed up, and clumped her heels to Shadow’s side. The black pony jumped forward with a squeal and shot off along the path. They all watched as Shadow reached the first fence.
The sly pony ducked around it, almost unseating Daisy, then bucked and dropped his shoulder at the same time.

Mia groaned as she watched Daisy’s saddle start to slip. They’d met Daisy and Shadow out on rides lots of times and on most of them Daisy had ended up on the ground after forgetting to tighten her girth. Shadow seemed to know this and would do his worst to get rid of her at every opportunity. Consequently Daisy spent more time lying down on the grass than sitting in the saddle. Once again Daisy slid to the ground and lay there with a sigh as Shadow charged back to the other ponies. He put the brakes on at the last second, skidding towards them. As Alice went to grab his reins the black pony flattened his ears, opened his mouth and clamped his teeth around her finger.

“Ow!” she yelped as the Major marched up and took charge of Shadow, shaking the pony’s bridle. He scowled at the girls from under his cap.

“Your ponies put poor Daisy off, unsettling Shadow like that,” he growled. “Tell me, any of you entering the Fratton Cup?”

Alice and Rosie exchanged glances and nodded slightly.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, thwacking his stick into a nearby bush and making Scout jump. “You’re putting Daisy off on purpose, then! Can’t stand the competition! Well, just you wait. Your tactics won’t work – trust me. We’ve got this one in the bag! Come on, Daisy, back in the saddle. Let’s try again!”

The girls watched as the Major marched Shadow towards Daisy, who was getting to her feet, her head down.

“Dad, I really don’t think this is going to make much difference to my performance at the show,” she muttered, trying to rearrange the saddle before her dad legged her back up.

“We’ll start from the other end this time,” the Major said, ignoring her and thwacking his
way deeper into the woods, out of sight. The girls watched as Daisy wobbled precariously in the saddle. She half glanced behind her, then turned away and disappeared too.

“Poor Daisy,” Charlie sighed. “I wouldn’t want to ride Shadow – he’s a total menace.”

“So’s her dad,” Rosie added. “He should realise that teaching Daisy to jump is a bit like me trying to get Dancer airborne. It’s just physically impossible and shouldn’t be attempted.”

“Does he
really
think she can win the Fratton Cup?” Alice asked, shaking her head.