Stay Well Soon (17 page)

There's a knock on my door.

‘Come in,' I say.

Mum comes in and sits on my bed. ‘That was Lara's dad on the phone.'

‘Lara's dad?'

‘Yes, you met him once, remember?'

‘Yeah. What did he want?'

Mum tells me that Lara's dad has offered to give me free horse-riding lessons. Mum is really excited for me. She says she's checked with Sarah and she told Mum that Tim is one of the best horse-riding instructors in the country. It would normally cost thousands of dollars to have lessons with him. It's pretty close to a dream come true.

On the day of my first horse-riding lesson I wake up feeling nervous. I get dressed slowly and go out to the kitchen. Mum, Rhys and Dad Ben are all sitting at the kitchen table.

‘So today's the big day!' says Dad Ben.

‘I guess so,' I say.

‘You are such a lucky girl,' says Mum.

I am too nervous to eat much breakfast. I pour myself a bowl of cereal but most of it just goes soggy and I throw it out.

Mum drives me to Lara's dad's place. When we turn into the driveway and can see the red-brick house Mum says, ‘Wow, this place is something.'

Tim is waiting for us in the driveway. Mum and Tim say hello and Tim offers Mum a cup of coffee, but she says no. Maybe because I warned her about the kitchen. Mum says she will go for a walk while I have the lesson, but she might not make it past the driveway given how long it is.

‘Have fun, Stevie!' she says as she heads off.

I am not sure.

Tim goes to get Buttercup and when he comes back Buttercup is bigger than I remembered. She's only a pony but I bet she could crush me to death if she rolled on me.

I've already forgotten how to do most of the things Tim showed me last time, maybe because I wasn't really concentrating then. He explains it all again and I try to remember what he is saying for next time.

Tim asks me to hand him the currycomb and I walk over to get it.

‘Stevie, just make sure you never walk behind a horse like that,' says Tim.

‘Why?'

‘If she doesn't realise you're there and gets a surprise she might kick you.'

Then Tim tells me to brush Buttercup all over with the currycomb. But he just told me never to walk behind a horse because she might kick me, so now I am nervous of brushing her back half. Buttercup flinches and I get a big fright and drop my currycomb.

‘You alright, Stevie?' asks Tim.

‘Yes,' I say.

When I finally get on Buttercup I am a long way from the ground. Tim holds the rope and we go round in circles again while Tim shouts reminders at me. ‘Hands! Eyes! Feet!' Tim decides it's time to try trotting again and I've just got into the rhythm of going up and down when Buttercup suddenly stops. I'm thrown forward, my bum slips sideways out of the saddle and I just manage to stay on by grabbing Buttercup's neck.

Tim walks over to me. ‘You okay there, Stevie?'

I nod. But I don't understand why Buttercup just stopped like that. Why would she do that?

‘Buttercup saw a plastic bag blowing on the wind,' says Tim. ‘She hates those. Let's keep going.'

‘No!'

‘What's wrong?'

‘I don't want to.'

‘Come on, Stevie. You have to get straight back on the horse, and you didn't even fall off.'

‘I don't want to.'

When Mum gets back I am sitting on a rock. Tim has taken Buttercup back to her paddock and is standing beside me. We don't have much to say to each other.

‘How did you go?' Mum asks me and Tim.

‘Okay,' says Tim. ‘She just needs to get her confidence up.'

I think Mum expected me to be more excited. I've disappointed Tim, and Mum, and everyone.

In the car on the way home Mum can tell I'm not happy.

‘What's wrong, Stevie?' she asks.

I don't say anything. I just keep staring out the window. But I know what's wrong. I don't love horses. I'm scared of them.

I start to cry. Mum pulls over. Next to us is a paddock full of cows.

Mum hands me a tissue. ‘What's wrong?' Mum asks again.

‘I don't know,' I say, but then I start to talk. ‘Lara will never see Finnigan again and she loved him so much. And it's not fair because I can still see horses, but I don't deserve to. Tim only gave me lessons to make up for not visiting Lara, because he couldn't cope with her dying. He thinks I'm like Lara because we both love horses, but I'm not. I don't like them.'

‘You don't have to keep having riding lessons if you don't want to.'

‘But it's a dream come true!'

‘When I was your age I wanted to be a ballet dancer. And do you see me on the stage now? No.'

‘What happened?' I ask.

‘I begged my mum to have dancing lessons. I had a lot of books about ballet and I used to dance around the house in a skirt I made from some old lace curtains. Finally, Mum let me have lessons. I was terrible at it and I didn't even enjoy it. In the first concert I crashed into another dancer and fell off the stage.'

Even though I'm still crying, that makes me laugh.

‘But at least I tried and found out,' says Mum. ‘You're only eleven. It's okay to change your mind, but give it a proper chance.'

It is hard to imagine Mum doing ballet. She never wants to dance unless Dad Ben makes her and even then she looks embarrassed.

I have stopped crying so Mum starts the car.

The cows are still eating grass. It must be very easy being a cow, doing the same thing every day. Although, the weather changes and the grass is yellow in summer and green in winter. And a cow can choose what part of the paddock to eat grass in, and what cows to stand with. Maybe that's enough variety for a cow.

We drive past a paddock with horses. Most of the horses are brown but one horse stands out because it's grey with a silver mane, like my dream horse. I try to imagine riding the grey horse up a mountain, or along the beach, or bareback across Russia. But I don't want to. I'd rather be doing something else. Like playing handball, or protesting for equal rights, or going to the tip.

Lara has stopped, but I keep changing.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sophie Hamley, Ali Lavau and everyone at UQP, in particular Kristina Schulz and Meredene Hill, for their support, hard work and thoughtful suggestions.

Thanks to Zoe Asher and Christina Adams for sharing their knowledge of medical, and horse related matters respectively, and to Mary-Anne Jess and Stacey Vale for their information on schools these days. Thanks to Tim Carruthers, Georgina Tangey, Mary-Anne Tangey and Bonnie Tangey for their feedback and encouragement. A particular thanks to Vaya Pashos for patiently reading and discussing many drafts.

Finally, thank you to Lincoln Turner for enthusiastically reading drafts and then remaining enthusiastic during many conversations about the details.

LOVING RICHARD FEYNMAN

Penny Tangey

Shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Award for Older Readers

Shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Young Adults

Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize–winning physicist. Catherine is a science-loving fifteen-year-old. Richard helped build the atom bomb. Catherine's just trying to survive school.

When your life is falling apart around you, is talking to a dead physicist normal? Catherine thinks so, but it isn't until her life begins unravelling that she learns who she can really trust.

I've been looking at you while I sit at my desk, and imagining what you were like as a person. In the poster you look like you're concentrating hard on the machine you're working on but having fun at the same time. I get that feeling when I'm working on a difficult Maths problem. In the picture your hair is a bit mad, really curly and there's lots of it. I like it though. In fact, you were pretty cute in 1943. Of course, even then you were far too old for me, probably in your 20s.

‘A moving and funny story . . . Richard Feynman is one of my heroes!' Dr Karl Kruszelnicki

‘A delight to read.'
Magpies

‘A lot of fun.'
Fiction Focus

‘This book is an excellent read and one for all teenagers.'
Gold Coast Bulletin

ISBN 978 0 7022 3725 6

First published 2013 by University of Queensland Press

PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

www.uqp.com.au

[email protected]

© Penny Tangey 2013

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research,

criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act,

no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior

written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Cover design by Jo Hunt

Cover photograph by Yolande de Kort, Trevillion Images

Typeset in 12.5/16.5 Adobe Garamond by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

National Library of Australia

Tangey, Penny, 1981– author.

Stay well soon / Penny Tangey.

For primary school age.

A823.4

ISBN 978 0 7022 4994 5 (pbk)

ISBN 978 0 7022 5195 5 (epdf)

ISBN 978 0 7022 5196 2 (epub)

ISBN 978 0 7022 5197 9 (kindle)

University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable

and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.

The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental

regulations of the country of origin.