The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus (10 page)

The time came for the first race. This was the race in which Silver Streak was entered, and in good time Fred was up in the saddle, ready to make his way to the starting gate. I walked across to the railings with Mr. Fetlock
and Ed, and together we watched the horses line up for the start.

The starter’s pistol took me by surprise and made me jump. Ed looked at me sideways.

“You should be used to that by now,” he said suspiciously.

“Oh, he is, aren’t you, Harry?” Mr. Fetlock blurted out jovially, trying to cover up for my mistake. “It’s just that he had a little accident with a starter’s pistol once, didn’t you, Harry?”

“Oh?” said Ed. “What happened?”

I looked up at Mr. Fetlock. I had no idea what to say.

“I … er … I … er …” I tried desperately to think of a likely story, but my mind was a blank.

“He sat on one,” said Mr. Fetlock quickly. “I mean, he, er, sort of stepped on it and … Actually he doesn’t like to talk about it, do you, Harry?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t.”

Ed was still looking at me, and although he
said nothing further, I could tell that he was very suspicious. But fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, his attention was distracted by what was happening on the racetrack. Several of the horses had collided with one another and fallen in a tangled heap. And at the bottom of the heap, struggling to get back on his feet, was Silver Streak.

“Oh, no!” wailed Mr. Fetlock. “That’s another race lost! Where will it all end?”

Well, it certainly did not end that day. In the next race, in which Nifty Dancer was being ridden by Ted, everything went very well until the horses were going around for the second time. Then, just as Nifty Dancer was coming up into second place, he reared and threw Ted to the ground. The jockey was unhurt, but that was the end of the race for Nifty Dancer.

“I’ll be a ruined man at this rate,” said Mr. Fetlock, holding his brow. “It just isn’t fair!”

Then came the final race, and with my heart in my mouth I watched Black Lightning being ridden out to the starting line. Ed gave us
a friendly wave from the saddle, and I waved back, hoping against hope that the incident with the glue would have no ill effects on Black Lightning’s performance. But just as I thought this, I saw something that shattered any hopes I might have had. Standing at the starting line, Black Lightning put up his head and gave an unmistakable yawn!

In a flash the mystery was solved. With his hooves glued to the stable floor, the poor horse had been unable to sleep all night. So now, just when he should have been at his most energetic, he was absolutely exhausted, and even
I
knew that absolutely exhausted horses never won races.

And that is exactly what happened. Black Lightning could hardly bring himself to gallop, and when he did so, it was the slowest gallop I have ever seen. The crowd around the railings began to laugh.

“Wake up!” they shouted. “It’s only one o’clock!”

Mr. Fetlock turned red with embarrassment.

“I’m going back to the truck,” he said. “This is all too terrible.”

I walked back with him, but I was unable to say anything. Later, when Ed joined us again, I noticed that he was still looking at me very suspiciously.

We were to go to more races first thing the following day, and so I went to bed early. Thinking about the day’s events kept me awake for a while, but at last I drifted off to sleep. I had bad dreams, though—dreams in which horses were running around in circles, falling over one another, whinnying in alarm. But it was not the dreams that woke me up. It was a noise.

I sat up in bed. Somewhere in the stables, somebody had dropped something, and it had fallen with a
clang
. I reached out in the darkness for the flashlight that stood on my bedside table and switched it on. Then, putting
on my bathrobe and slippers, I crept as quietly as I could to my door.

There was a moon in the sky, a great silver ball that bathed the yard and the stables in a soft half-light. The shadows, though, were dark and seemed as if they could be concealing all kinds of dangers. I looked around me, and just as I did so I heard a noise again. This time it was softer, as though somebody was moving something around.

I turned off my flashlight and tiptoed quietly in the direction from which the noise was coming. There was a saddle room next to one of the horse stalls, and it seemed to me that whoever was making the noise was in there.

Slowly, I inched my way toward the door of the saddle room. It was closed, but through the cracks in the wood I could just make out the glow of a flashlight inside. I was sure of it now: whoever was inside was preparing to sabotage tomorrow’s races. He was doing something to one of the saddles, perhaps, so that it would fall off in the middle of the race. The thought of it made me seethe
with anger, and I was more determined than ever to see who it was and expose him to Mr. Fetlock. How proud Aunt Japonica and Aunt Thessalonika would be that I had solved my first mystery so quickly!

Then I sneezed. It was not one of those sneezes that you know are coming and that you can stop by pressing your finger against your nose. It was one of those loud ones that come out in a rush before you know where you are.

I stood stock still. The sneeze had been so loud that it couldn’t have been missed by the person in the saddle room. I listened hard. Everything was quiet, but I saw the flashlight beam move inside the room, and I knew that I had to hide quickly.

I looked around me. My own room was too far away for me to run to, but there was a storeroom close by, and I could see that its door was open. Dashing across the yard, I flung myself through the storeroom door and crouched down in a far corner, hidden in the shadows.

There was the sound of a door opening outside. Then a voice came drifting across the yard. It was not much louder than a whisper, but it carried very well in the stillness of the night.

“I know you’re there! And I’m going to find you!”

I shivered with fear. With its open door, the storeroom was an obvious place to hide, and the person out there, whether it was Ted, Fred, or Ed, was bound to find me.

I looked around. If only there had been a trapdoor or a large box I could crawl into. But there was nothing. The only thing I could make out properly in the moonlight coming through the window was a large pot with a brush sticking out of it.

That was it! That was the way to save myself!

The footsteps outside grew louder. Now they were right outside the storeroom door. Then the beam of the flashlight appeared and flashed across the room. At first it missed
me, but when it came back for its second swing, there I was, crouched down, caught square in the beam of light.

“So!” said the voice. “It’s you! I knew there was something funny about you from the beginning. You’re not a jockey, but a spy!”

I was too terrified to say anything.

“Well, well!” said the person at the door. Slowly he began to walk toward me.

He stopped.

“What … what?” came a puzzled voice. And then,
squelch, squelch, squelch
, and silence.

“What’s going on?” said the voice angrily. “What have you done?”

I knew that it was safe for me to get up, so I leapt to my feet and ran across to the light switch. As the light came on, all was revealed. There was a pair of boots firmly stuck in the thick layer of glue I had spread on the floor in front of the doorway. And there, in the boots, looking trapped and flustered, was … Ted!

“So you’re the cheat,” I said, my voice sounding very disappointed. I had expected it to be Ed, or maybe even Fred; instead, it was the pleasant, smiling Ted.

Ted looked down at his boots.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” I said sharply. “Poor Mr. Fetlock doesn’t deserve what you’ve been doing to him.”

Ted still hung his head.

“I know,” he said. “It’s been very bad of me. But they forced me to do it.”

“They?” I asked. “Who are
they?”

“The League of Cheats,” said Ted sadly. “They found me cheating just a tiny bit once. I normally never cheat, and I don’t know why I did that time. Anyway, they told me if I didn’t join them, they’d tell everybody about my cheating, and I’d be ruined.”

I looked at the jockey. A tear was running down his right cheek, and I felt very sorry for him.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll explain it to Mr. Fetlock and ask him not to be too severe with you.”

Ted lifted his face and beamed with pleasure.

“Oh, thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”

“But in return,” I went on, “you must tell me all about the League of Cheats and help us to put a stop to their cheating. Will you do that?”

Ted looked a bit worried, but he knew that he had to agree.

“I could try,” he said.

I moved over to him and began to help him out of the boots, which were firmly stuck to the floor.

“Good,” I said. “Now you tell me everything you know, and we can work out a plan.”

Ted told me everything he knew about the League of Cheats. It was run, he said, by a man he had never seen, a man called Charlie Heat. He was the Chief Cheat, and he arranged cheating all over the place. But it was impossible to find him by yourself. What
you had to do was to be seen by one of his men to be a good cheat, and then they would ask you to join. If you cheated very well, you might be taken to meet Charlie Heat.

“So,” said Ted, smiling as the idea came to him, “why don’t we arrange for
you
to cheat at the races tomorrow and see what happens?”

It was a good idea, but there was something that worried me. Ted’s plan meant that I would have to ride a racehorse, and not only that, it involved a very, very uncomfortable end. But I had no alternative. I was determined to put an end to the League of Cheats, and if this meant that I had to take risks, then I would be happy to do just that.

The racetrack was already crowded by the time we arrived. I looked at the faces of the crowd, hoping to see my aunts, but there was still no sign of them. I was longing to be able to tell them of the plan that Ted and I had hatched, and to find out what they thought of it.

We saddled the horses and led them to the pen where the jockeys were preparing to mount. Mr. Fetlock stayed behind at the rail, where he was talking to a friend. From time to time, he glanced nervously at Black Lightning, wondering whether his favorite racehorse would let him down again.

“Are you ready?” Ted whispered to me. “Are you sure you still want to go ahead with it?”

“Yes,” I replied under my breath, trying not to sound too nervous. I was ready, and I did want to go ahead with it, but part of me was wishing that I had never agreed to the plan.

“All right,” said Ted. “I’ll give you a leg up.”

And with that I found myself being hoisted up and onto Black Lightning’s back. It all happened very quickly, and before I knew where I was, I had the reins in my hand and Black Lightning had joined the cluster of horses making their way toward the starting gate.

“Good luck!” Ted called out. “Remember to hold on tight!”

I gritted my teeth and concentrated on staying in the saddle. Although Black Lightning was only walking, there was a spring in his step that worried me. Would I be able to hold on for more than a few moments once the race started? I doubted it.

We reached the starting gate, where the starters led each horse into the squashed little boxes that allowed everybody to charge off at the same time. I could tell that Black Lightning was excited by the way he pawed at the ground, and I wished that he was as tired as he had been the previous day.

“Are you ready?” called out one of the starters. Then the starting pistol rang out, the doors of the starting gates fell open, and there in front of us stretched the racetrack with its jumps.

Black Lightning gave a leap, which took me completely by surprise. For a moment it seemed as if we were both in the air, but then I felt the thud of his galloping hooves against the turf. I shot up and down in the saddle, holding onto the reins with one hand and desperately trying to keep myself on Black Lightning with the other.

I had little chance to look around me, but I’m sure that I saw Mr. Fetlock’s face flashing past me at the rail. His mouth was open with
surprise, and I think he shouted out something, but I was soon past him.

I looked ahead. It was a miracle that I was still on Black Lightning at all, and now we were coming up to the first jump. It seemed very high—far too high to get over—but Black Lightning’s ears were flattened against his head, and he seemed determined to clear it.

With a great leap, the racehorse launched himself into the air. I saw the top of the jump passing below me, and I felt the air rushing past in a cool torrent. And then, having gone as high as he could go, Black Lightning began to sink back to the earth beneath him.

I didn’t. As the horse went down, I stayed up, and when I next looked, the saddle was no longer below me. There was nothing but the wide pond of water that always comes after the water jump.

I closed my eyes. Down I tumbled, down toward the waiting water, and then, with a splash, I was in it. The water broke my fall, of course, and I was unhurt, but there I was, sitting in the middle of the pond, covered in
muddy water with the other horses and jockeys flying over my head. I felt very foolish, but at the same time I was very pleased indeed that the race was over as far as I was concerned.

“Well done!” said Ted as he came out to collect me and to lead me back to the saddling pen. “Everybody thinks you fell off deliberately.”

“I didn’t!” I said. “I was going to fall off a bit later, on some nice, soft grass.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Ted went on.
“They
think you meant to fall off, so that Black Lightning would not win. In fact, here comes one of them now.”

I looked behind me. There was a rather dishonest-looking man coming over. He smiled at me and passed me a clean white handkerchief.

“Mop your face with that,” he said. “That was a very clever fall.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It took a lot of practice to get it just right.”