Team Challenge (8 page)

“Well, good-bye, Drummer. Thank you for the ride,” Skinny Lynny said, patting Drummer on the forehead. Drum blinked dramatically every time her hand connected. Pat-blink, pat-blink, pat-blink.

“Bye-bye, Lyn!” Skinny Lynny said in a pretend Drummer voice. “Come and ride me again soon!”

“Oh, puh-leeese!” said Drummer, rolling his eyes and backing into his box to escape.

Skinny wiped her hands on a nearby bale of hay, anxious to get any Drummer-scent and Drummer-dirt off them. I don’t know why, Drum smells great—when he’s not farting.

We went out for lunch. And, get this, Skinny Lynny didn’t even get hat hair! Peeling off her riding hat, she just shook her head and looked gorgeous. How does that work? When I take my riding hat off, my hair’s stuck to my head like it’s been glued.

All the men in the pub swiveled around to stare at Skinny in her breeches and boots. I could see Dad puffing out his chest in pride, like he was personally responsible for Skinny’s figure. I suppose that’s why he ran off with her in the first place. The thought of my dad behaving like those lecherous men made me feel a bit strange. I mean, yuck!

“So what’s on your agenda this summer vacation, Pia?” asked Dad. I told them about the Sublime Equine Challenge, and how Drum and I were the wild card. I sort of glossed over how badly our team had performed in the first qualifier, concentrating instead on our plans to get to the Brookdale final.

After lunch, Dad dropped me back at the yard. “We’ll have to do this again,” he said.

“Mmmm,” agreed Skinny. “Now that I’ve got all the gear, I’ll need to use it!”

I waved and sighed with relief as I watched the car bounce down the drive and away. Then I remembered how I had promised myself I’d make an effort with Skinny Lynny.

And how I had failed.

Again.

Chapter 8

H
aving had our confidence shaken so much at the first qualifier, we were all very nervous at the second, held at Beeches Riding School, even though the ponies had promised to do their best, and we were all determined to make them feel good whatever the outcome. If we didn’t make the first three this time, it was the end of the road as far as our Brookdale ambitions went.

Beeches was miles away, so by the time we’d ridden over there, we were all pretty well warmed up. I had our outfits in my backpack, so they were a bit creased, but we had to go with it. I wished I’d asked Dee to bring them with her—her mom was dropping her off by car after her schooling session with Dolly. Her HOYS campaign was in full swing, and she’d just missed qualifying at her last show by one place. Not for anything would I have swapped places with Dee in the horse trailer on the return journey with her miffed mom. Can you imagine?

This time, Drum and I were first to go in the wild card event. As I waited in the collecting ring, trying not to look at the other teams and smoothing down the creases in my skirt, I whispered to Drummer, reminding him of his promise.

“Stop worrying,” he said. “I’ll be an absolute pro. Honest. Your wimple’s wonky, by the way—you’re letting me down.”

I pulled the conical hat straight. There was a stiff breeze, and the chiffon scarf kept blowing across my face. My yellow dress threatened to trip me up. I saw Katy, Bean, Dee-Dee with Bluey, and Tiffany and Moth, all grinning and giving me the thumbs-up sign. Well, the humans were. The ponies couldn’t because they don’t have thumbs, obviously.

“The next competitors are Pia Edwards and Drummer, for the Great Eight,” the announcer managed to say without sniggering, which was impressive. Drum and I walked into the ring and faced the judges—three of them standing with clipboards, looking all stern and important. I nodded toward James and he started the CD player. It was now or never!

Drummer was as good as his word. He twirled, he shuffled, he did exactly what we’d practiced and what I asked him to do. He even shook his head a couple of times to get the bells going. At the end, we bowed to the judges, and I could see them all smiling broadly—they even clapped.

“You
star!
” I hissed to Drummer, patting him like crazy as we left the ring.

“Told you,” he said smugly.

“Oh, well done, you were both amazing!” squealed Katy, peeling off Drum’s leg bandages.

“Good old Drummer!” cried Dee-Dee, forcing pony cubes into my pony’s willing mouth.

“Hey! Lay off the ‘old’ part,” Drummer mumbled, shaking his head as I peeled off his ear protectors.

“Good job, Pia!” said James.

“Now you all have to be fabulous, too!” I laughed, relieved our part was over. It was a tremendous start. Our score was a decent fourteen out of twenty. Not bad!

I caught sight of Cat and Bambi performing their polished routine, their teammates cheering at the end. But we couldn’t stay long, because it was Bean’s turn to perform her dressage.

“I’m so nervous. Look!” she said, thrusting wobbly hands out in front of her. “What if we mess up again? I’ll let you all down. What if I let Tiffany down? She’s been so fantastic lately—and she’s been so brave about the noseband.”

“Just do your best,” said Katy, patting Bean’s arm.

“You looked great at the last practice,” said Dee-Dee.

“Oh, why couldn’t you do the dressage?” whimpered Bean. “Dolly would just walk it.”

“OK, you go to shows with my mom,” offered Dee.

Bean pulled a face at her. Suddenly the dressage didn’t seem so bad after all.

“Just do your best, that’s all we ask,” said James. “No one is going to blame you if you don’t do well.”

“Oh, my legs are shaking so much, I don’t think I can mount Tiffany,” moaned Bean.

We all shoved her into the saddle, and I glanced at Tiffany. “Don’t worry,” she said huffily, “I’m going for it this time.” She gulped. “Is it time for the noseband?”

As we threaded the noseband on at the very last minute, Tiffany closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She really did hate it. I had to admire her courage—but could she get past her bad memories? And could Bean remember the test?

Tiffany pulled out all the stops and did a good test with only half a head shake. Bean managed to hold it together through a few wobbly moments when we could see she wasn’t sure whether to make a transition or turn across the arena. She still went wrong though. Twice.

When Bean finished her test, we crowded around her making encouraging noises.

“Why am I so bad at dressage?” she cried, dismounting and ripping off the noseband before giving Tiffany some polo mints. Tiffany rubbed her nose across Bean’s shoulder as if to rub away the memory of the hated noseband. “I was so much better at home—I just can’t remember anything when it’s a competition.”

Their score was 41 percent—better than last time but still pretty terrible. No one else had a score less than 57 percent. Gloomily, we all regrouped at a tree we’d picked out. Although there was a breeze, the sun was strong, and we tied the ponies up to some string we’d tied around the trunk and had a break.

“My mom should be here any minute,” James said, looking at his watch. “She’s bringing some lunch.”

Now that my part was over I was ravenous, and I’d been eyeing up the burger van. I wondered what James’s mom would be like. When I’d first moved to Laurel Farm, James’s scruffy appearance had so fired my imagination, I’d believed him to be some kind of gypsy prince. After hearing that his parents had bought him Moth at the drop of a hat, I’d had an instant rethink. I’d seen his dad—he often dropped James off at the stables in his (expensive-looking) car, but I’d yet to meet his mom.

Petite, blond, expensively dressed, James’s mom looked chic, young, and very, very glamorous, like an ex-model or something. James ran to help her carry the huge cooler she had brought along, and she opened it up and invited us all to dig in. There were sandwiches, sausage rolls, hard-boiled eggs, and chips, then éclairs, doughnuts, cheesecakes—and cans of Coke underneath. Dee-Dee, Bean, and I stuffed ourselves, and Katy and James made us save some for them to eat later—they were feeling too nervous to tackle anything now.

“I’ll only bring it back up again,” Katy told us.

“Yuck, don’t waste it!” Bean exclaimed, cramming another doughnut into her mouth, happier now her part in the challenge was over.

“Oh, James,” I yelled, “you’ve only got ten minutes to warm up!”

Tightening his girth, James leaped into Moth’s saddle and headed for the show jumping ring at a fast trot. Katy volunteered to stay with the ponies, so the rest of us, together with James’s mom, followed him over. As we walked across the grass, James’s mom fell in step with me.

“James thinks very highly of you, Pia. He says you’ve helped him a lot with Moth,” she said, smiling.

“Oh, well, I hope so,” I muttered. I could feel myself going red. How wonderful that James thought highly of me. I felt like I was walking on air.

India Hammond was in the collecting ring on the Dweeb and talking to a girl with glasses on a piebald pony. Bean and Dee-Dee went to help adjust poles for James and Moth to practice over, and as James’s mom and I stood anxiously waiting for James to jump, I could hear the Dweeb and the piebald pony talking.

“How’s it goin’?” the piebald asked in a drawl. I remembered that I had promised myself to do some research into whether ponies had regional accents—and this seemed to confirm it.

“Well, I find this all a bit—forgive me—provincial,” said the Dweeb. She sounded really upper-crust and a bit conceited.

“Whaddya mean?” said the piebald, not posh at all.

“Oh, you know, it’s not quite what I’m used to. I mean, when one has jumped at the National Show Jumping Championship, coming in and competing against these ponies doesn’t seem fair—for them, I mean.”

“Oh, a bit beneath you, is it?”

“Quite! If I don’t get a clear here, I might as well retire! Of course, the championship was in my younger days, and I’m not sure India even knows how good I really am. I changed homes so many times—as talented ponies do, you know. My name was Platinum Bell then. Ahh, wonderful times.” She sighed.

“That must be a pretty big burden for ya,” the piebald said sarcastically.

You know when you hear a snippet of information you know to be important, but you can’t really unravel its significance at the time? I got that feeling when I heard the Dweeb, so I filed it away for future reference. I couldn’t do much else right then because James and Moth galloped into the ring, grabbing all my attention.

“Oh, come on, James,” breathed his mom, crossing her fingers on both hands. Bean and Dee-Dee scooted up behind us, and we all held our collective breaths. Moth looked fired up and ready for action. The pair of them flew around like they were late for an appointment—which is how Moth always tackles jumps—and only one flimsy pole dropped on a nasty upright, giving her a ten-second penalty. We all leaped in the air and screamed, “Well done, James!”

We grinned at one another. The ponies were being so great this time!

We followed James and a puffing Moth back to the tree and gave Katy the great news.

“Fantastic!” she cried. Then her face dropped. “Oh, I hope I’m not going to spoil it all.”

“Don’t be silly,” I told her. “Bluey is our anchor pony!” It really did seem that we were invincible this time. We could easily drop Bean’s score and still do well at this rate. I couldn’t wait to see Catriona’s face when she found out how improved we were.

We had at least half an hour before Bluey was scheduled to go cross-country, and it was when I was munching on yet another of James’s mom’s sausage rolls that my thoughts returned to what I’d overheard the Dweeb tell the piebald. Because I thought I remembered reading in the rules that this competition was restricted to ponies who were not at the national level. It was strictly not allowed to have any team members who had jumped under USEF rules. If the Dweeb had indeed been to the championship, then she wasn’t eligible to compete in the Sublime Equine Challenge. My mind rambled on and reached an inevitable conclusion: the Dweeb’s experience meant that Cat and Leanne’s team was breaking the rules.

Cheating.

But then, just as that nasty word popped into my head, another worse thought followed it—was I cheating, too? Because there was no doubt about it, Epona had allowed me to listen to the ponies on my team, and it had dramatically improved our performance. If I hadn’t heard them, would we still be struggling?

My head hurt.

I had to share this.

As Katy rode off on Bluey (with Bluey getting excited at the prospect of doing his favorite thing), I grabbed James and Bean.

“I’ve got something to tell you both,” I told them. “I need your opinions.”

“OK, let’s have it,” said James, between bites of an éclair. Cream oozed out and dripped onto his blue tie. I ignored it.

“You know the Dweeb?” I said.

“India’s pony,” said Bean, on the ball for once.

“Well, according to the rules, I think she’s overqualified to be in this event.”

James gave a low whistle. More cream spluttered out.

“Oh, puh-leeese!” wailed Bean, flicking bits of secondhand cream off her jacket.

“I overheard her saying she’d jumped at the national championship,” I continued.

“So?” said Bean. I knew it wouldn’t last.

“This competition is for ponies that have never competed under rules.”

“The cheats!” Bean exclaimed, looking around wildly for the secretary’s tent. “Let’s tell on them, get them disqualified.”

“Hold on…” I said, grabbing her arm. “I’m worried they might have something on us, too.”

“Like what?” James said indignantly. “We’re not cheating.”

“No?”

“Get to the point, Pia!” Bean cried.

“Well, what about my little talk with the ponies? How can we explain our remarkable improvement? Cat and Leanne know about my Pony Whisperer status, they could complain about that, too!”

“Mmmm, tricky,” said James, stroking his chin. Why do boys do that? “But they don’t know about your chat with the ponies.”

“They’re cheating!” wailed Bean. “It’s not fair!”

“I’m not sure they even know they’re breaking the rules,” I said.

“You’re kidding!” exploded James. “How can they not know?”