The Wild Boy and Queen Moon (14 page)

He said breezily, ‘We’ll have to buy new ones! Nothing’s safe these days.’

Polly, predictably, went white.

‘I’ll never get another saddle like that one! It cost me an arm and a leg. The insurance never pay you in full – and they’re far more expensive now. Whatever shall I do?’

Bill Fielding rang the police. ‘Whoever it was, only took the good ones.’ The pony saddles, and Stick and Ball’s antediluvian old plates, were still on their racks.

Nobody could ride.

‘And I’ve found a team-chase for us, a novice class, the very thing – only a month from
now
!’ Polly despaired. ‘We can’t stop work at this stage.’

‘We can get some second-hand saddles to tide us over,’ Tony said. ‘My parents’ll pay for them – we can pay them back when we get the insurance money.’

Polly and Henry perked up slightly at this. But they loved their own saddles. ‘With luck the police will get them back.’

But there was very little to go on. The police came down and examined everything, but found no fingerprints, no footmarks, no sign of force. The outside key was in its appointed place; nothing was out of place.

‘He must have had a car.’ But it was impossible to find any incriminating tracks.

Polly and Tony arranged to have an outing to buy new saddles and in a few days they were back to normal. But Sandy could take no joy in the stables any more. It was all right for Tony and Polly – they were only onlookers, although their property was concerned. But they weren’t responsible for the place, as Sandy was. She begged to be allowed to sleep in the loft over the tackroom.

‘It’s warm enough, and no-one will know I’m there. I’ll find out, if anyone comes. It’s the only way!’

‘I don’t like the idea,’ said her mother. ‘It could be dangerous.’

‘It’s a good idea,’ said Gertie. ‘Get that rotter who pinched my money.’

Talking about it gave Mary Fielding her opening to suggest that Gertie might feel like moving back to her cottage.

‘I’ll go back when the weather improves,’ Gertie said. But nobody could tell whether she meant it.

‘Oh, please, Mum, let me sleep over there,’ Sandy begged. ‘Leo could come too. We could do it together. And he wouldn’t know we were there. We’d be perfectly safe.’

To her surprise, her father thought it was a good idea.

‘We could lay a bait. Leave something in the tackroom that might tempt him.’ Everyone took their saddles home with them since the break-in.

‘Like what?’ Ian asked scornfully. ‘Sandy?’

‘Ha ha,’ said Sandy.

They all tried to think of something valuable that would look as if it belonged, and not like a trap.

‘A really good bike is worth a bit these days. How about Ian’s mountain bike?’ Sandy suggested. ‘It would be a perfectly reasonable place to keep it.’

Her parents thought it a good idea. Ian didn’t. He was overruled.

‘The whole point is, if it goes this time, Sandy will see who takes it.’

‘Huh. She’ll be snoring like a trooper.’

‘I will not!’

Leo’s parents didn’t like the idea, but Leo overruled them. Mary Fielding promised to give her breakfast and get her off to school. Leo thought the plan a great lark. The two girls spent a private evening carving lookout holes in the floor of the loft (and the ceiling of the tackroom) and in all the side walls so that they had a good view in every direction, and – when no-one was about – they took two campbeds up there with their bedding. Ian’s bike took up residence in the tackroom. Everyone fell over it and complained. Tony bought King of the Fireworks a very expensive Melton rug for going to team-chases and this was displayed prominently, looking very desirable. ‘Cost me a few quid,’ he boasted. The trap was sprung.

The first night they were to sleep there, Sandy and Leo went to bed early. It was eight o’clock and just going dark. Sandy put the light on.

‘He won’t come till everyone’s asleep.’

‘You’re not expecting him tonight, are you? That would be too easy. It’ll probably take weeks, long after we’ve got fed up with sleeping up here. Or he might never come.’

But there was something both exciting and cosy about their new situation. It was fun to be sleeping together, to be on their own without anyone else. They wriggled down into their sleeping bags. The evening breezes whistled through
the
old loft and starlings cluttered and chattered in the eaves.

‘I hope there’s no rats,’ Leonie said.

‘No. The cats keep them away.’

‘Tony’s party was great. Pity it finished with the saddles being nicked.’

‘At least it can’t have been Jonas.’

‘You didn’t think he’d come, did you?’

‘No. I was sure he wouldn’t. But he only came because Josie told him to. I could have died.’

‘He wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t wanted to, daftie. He enjoyed it. He’s quite civilized really.’

‘The ride home was—’ Sandy had already tried to describe it to Leo – tried and failed. She thought she would never forget that evening till her dying day. She hadn’t seen Jonas since. It was no good pretending it had been the start of a great love affair.

They gossiped, knowing it was going to be hard to get to sleep the first night. It was strange, when they stopped talking: the shuffling and munching and sighing of the horses drifted up from the yard, and the muttering and chuckling of the Brent geese on the marshes carried so clearly on the still night air that they could have been in the yard too.

‘I suppose we ought to put the light out.’

Sandy lay there thinking about it, and in that instant they both heard quite clearly the sound of the key turning in the tackroom padlock below.
Sandy
heard Leo give a sort of gulp. They looked at each other. Sandy felt the hairs rising up on the back of her neck. She lay petrified, not daring to move. Footsteps sounded on the floor below.

Sandy knew she should apply her eye to the hole in the floor, but she was too frightened to make a move. The two campbeds creaked alarmingly every time they moved. Whoever it was must know they were there, because of the light – who was going to discover whom?

The footsteps paused. There was an agonizing silence. Then the footsteps approached the ladder and the two girls heard someone coming up.

Afterwards, comparing notes, they both agreed they were so frightened they nearly passed out. They heard the groping hand looking for the trapdoor edge, then the trapdoor started to lift. Sandy heard Leo give a sort of squeak.

The trapdoor rose up and a head followed it.

‘Good heavens!’

It was Duncan.

‘I thought you’d left the light on. I didn’t know you were still here.’

No-one knew who was the most surprised. Duncan now looked thoroughly embarrassed.

‘I was just on my way home. Sorry if I frightened you.’

‘We’re doing a burglar watch.’

‘Yeah, I can guess. I used the spare key. It’s very easy for this burglar.’

‘We’re setting a trap. We want to see who it is.’

‘You’ll be sorry.’

Sandy, propped up on one elbow, said quickly, ‘What do you mean?’

Duncan, in the poor light, looked even more embarrassed. ‘I’ll be getting along. I’m sorry if I spoilt it.’

‘No,’ said Leo. ‘You didn’t. It’s good practice. I didn’t know how terrified I’d feel. We were really stupid to leave the light on. We didn’t think he’d come till much later.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘Do you know who it is?’ Sandy asked.

There was a long silence. Duncan, framed in the trapdoor, looked very solid and dependable, Sandy thought – how could she ever have suspected him? He never skimped on his work, sitting up with sick cows, coming now to put the light off when he could easily have ignored it. She still had his penknife in her anorak pocket.

‘Do you know?’ she repeated.

Duncan shrugged. He had shoulders like a rugger player, and a wide, mild face, not easily excited. He always needed a haircut and quite often a shave.

‘Sometimes it’s best not to know things.’

‘What does that mean?’ Leo asked sharply.

‘It hurts.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

They thought he was lying. His face was expressionless.

‘I’d best get along. I’ll lock the padlock and put the key back. I’m sorry if I scared you.’

When he had gone, they put the light out and lay there going over his remarks. They were both very disturbed. Sandy was agonized.

Leo said, ‘Perhaps it was a cover for himself, to appear to be so helpful and cast the blame away from himself.’

‘Oh, no. Not Duncan.’ Sandy hadn’t told even Leo about the penknife. ‘I wish that hadn’t happened.’

‘I was so terrified. If the burglar does come, we’ll be useless. We’ll just die of fright.’

‘Everything squeaks so up here. We can’t even move to look through the holes. I suppose if he comes by car, we could look out before he gets in.’

It wasn’t a good start. Sandy told her mother – not her father – what Duncan had said, about being sorry if they knew who it was. Mary Fielding did not reply, but her saggy look came back and she looked about sixty.

‘Do you know?’ Sandy shouted out, the agony feeling coming back.

Her mother shouted back at her, ‘Nobody
knows
! You just think, without any proof. That’s what’s so horrible about it!’

‘Who do you
think
then?’

‘Do you think I would tell you, you stupid girl?’

Her mother was so upset that Sandy was scared. All her clever plans suddenly seemed as useless as thistledown drifting on the breeze.

POLLY ENTERED THEIR
team in the competition under the name ‘Drakesend Dodderers’. It was apparently the fashion to use facetious names. It suggested, in true British style, that you did not expect to win. Tony wanted Drakesend Devils, and Ian suggested Drakesend Dumbos. Polly thought she had chosen a happy medium.

‘Tony on King of the Fireworks, me on Charlie’s Flying, Julia on Faithful, and Leo on Empress of China.’

Sandy accepted the blow as it fell. Although Polly hadn’t mentioned it before, Sandy had known Leo would get the ride on Arthur’s horse. Polly gave her an anxious glance and Sandy returned a brave smile. Inside, she felt hurt and demolished. ‘It’s my yard,’ she thought indignantly to herself. ‘If it wasn’t for me, no-one would be here at all. There wouldn’t be a team.’ Then she thought that that ought to be a comfort, ought to make her feel good and important. It didn’t.

Nothing made her feel good any more. Jonas seemed to have disappeared. Mary Fielding was a nervous wreck and always in a bad temper. She had cleaned up Gertie’s cottage for Gertie to return to as soon as the weather settled into summer, and now Grandpa said Gertie mustn’t leave: Drakesend was his house, and he would say who lived there. As this was true, the argument was very delicate. Josie came round with the baby, and Sandy came in on the tail-end of an argument between Josie and her mother and was in time to see Josie depart in tears. She could not believe her eyes.

‘Don’t you say a word!’ her mother hissed at her. ‘I’ve had it up to here. I don’t want to hear your opinion, or anyone else’s!’

Sandy, hurt, retired to her bedroom in the loft. It seemed a friendly place all of a sudden. They had made it more cosy now, with books and shelves and a carpet, and they both slept soundly there, almost having forgotten about the burglar. The team-chase was taking precedence in their thoughts, even Sandy’s, although she wasn’t riding.

‘I wish Polly had chosen you,’ Leo said gloomily. ‘I’m frightened to death. You know what a hold the Empress can take once she’s tizzed up.’

‘You can still ride better than Tony though. And he’s not frightened.’

‘Well, he’s still as conceited as they come, isn’t
he
? He doesn’t swank about like he used to, but he still has a pretty high opinion of himself.’

‘You could call it confidence.’

‘You could.’ Leo was doubtful.

‘He’s the one most likely to fall off.’

‘But he’s the one who’s got to get round.’

‘Only three have to get round. It’s the first three home.’

‘I know. But for his auntie’s money, he’s got to finish.’

‘Whatever was in his auntie’s mind, he’s much nicer since he started coming here. It’s worked, hasn’t it? Do you remember the night he first came, in the lorry? How bossy he was?’

‘Yes. He was revolting.’ Leo considered for a moment and said, ‘Julia’s nicer, too. It must be your influence, Sandy.’

Was Leo being nice, to make up? Sandy wasn’t sure.

Polly hadn’t asked Julia if she wanted to be in the team: she just took it for granted.

‘Do we, Faithful?’ Julia asked her. She was sitting in the straw in the corner of the box, watching Faithful feed. Faithful’s box was her home-from-home, like the loft for Sandy and Leo. She spent a lot of time in there with Faithful, not just mucking out or grooming, but sitting. Nobody commented on it, taking it for granted. Everybody, if questioned, would have said Julia
was
a bit odd, a loner, but nobody disliked her. If Julia had been asked what she was doing, sitting in Faithful’s box, she would have found it hard to answer. Most of the time she was thinking how nice it was, not being at a show, not loading up or unloading or trying not to forget the bandages, the schedule, the spare girth, the water bucket, the plaiting things. All her life until now she had been chivvied unmercifully. At Drakesend, nobody asked anything of her. Until now.