Phantom: One Last Chance (3 page)

Chapter Four

BY the time they’d walked the ponies back, the afternoon light was fading fast. The air was feeling icier, and the darkening sky was completely free of cloud. Pirate rushed to the front of his stable and whickered, his ears pricked as he watched the other ponies spill into the yard. Charlie’s scratched cheek stung as she untacked and settled Phantom for the night in his warm rugs. She filled his haynet and cracked the thin layer of ice in his water bucket before heading to the tack room with the others. As they pushed the door open, they found Megan looking much brighter. She quickly shut the copy of
Pony Mad
she was reading.

She looked as if she was about to launch into
a speech, but Charlie stopped her before she had a chance to get going.

“Um, about loaning Pirate,” Charlie started awkwardly, as she hobbled over and sat down heavily on a blanket box, wondering how to put what she had to say. In the end, she decided to come straight out with it. “I… think it’s best if I find someone else, someone who wants to have fun with him and do lots of jumping – I mean, that’s what Pirate loves. I’m going to put up some more adverts. Sorry Megan.”

“Oh, right,” Megan said quietly. “Are you sure?”

Charlie nodded. Her parents might not be pleased, but Pirate would thank her for it.

“Well, okay then,” Megan said, looking at the floor then picking up her red folder. “I guess I better get going.”

She stood up and they watched her walk across to Pirate’s stable, pat his stocky neck, then disappear round the corner. Suddenly Rosie jumped up and called out.

“Oh, and don’t forget to…”

At that moment there was another cry, a bleat and a scuffle, then Hettie trotted past, heading to the feed room.

“Climb the gate.”

Rosie sighed as she and Alice got up again, well practised after a few days of shepherding duty. They rushed out into the dark winter evening, shivering as they turned on the yard light, which glowed pale yellow. At that moment they heard a couple of cars crunch slowly up the bumpy drive that led to the yard.

“That’ll be your mum, Charlie,” Mia said, jumping up, “and my dad. We’d better feed and say goodnight to the ponies.”

They hastily mixed feeds, dropping carrots and apples into the buckets before taking them out to the ponies, who whickered deeply, their nostrils fluttering at the sight of their dinner. The only horse that stayed back was Phantom. He stood stock still, like a statue, the whites of his
eyes showing, until Charlie let herself out of his stable. Next she opened Pirate’s door and held his bucket for a second as he dived into it, then she put it down on the floor and gave him a long hug. Charlie wasn’t looking forward to showing her mum her scratched face – her mum would go mad – but Charlie couldn’t avoid it. She gave Pirate one final pat, then walked slowly towards the gate, where her mum was standing. Charlie kept her head down, trying not to limp too much. As she got nearer her mum gasped.

“What happened to your face?” she asked, looking worried. Charlie winced as her mum gently guided her towards the yard light so she could get a better look.

“I fell off Phantom,” Charlie said with a sigh.

Charlie’s mum took a deep breath, sounding angry. “Well, from what you’ve told me about that horse I’m amazed it hasn’t happened before. But this is getting serious, Charlie. Look at you, limping as well – next time it could be a lot worse.
He can’t be trusted, and you’re NOT to ride him again, not under any circumstances, until I can speak to Pixie’s mum and work out what we do next. And if he does anything bad between now and then, he goes. Phantom’s got one last chance, okay?”

Mia, Alice and Rosie waited for Charlie to protest, but to their amazement she just sighed again, then nodded and climbed into the welcome warmth of her mum’s car. Alice jumped in beside her to get a lift home, chattering away anxiously to fill the tense silence as they pulled slowly up the track, away from Blackberry Farm.

Charlie traced patterns in the beads of condensation on the side window. She couldn’t stop thinking about how easily Neve had handled Phantom. Charlie couldn’t help feeling useless compared to Neve. She had been fine bumbling along with a pony like Pirate, but who was she trying to kid? She’d got lucky the first few times she’d competed on Phantom, and she’d let it go 
to her head. But Neve proved today that the black horse
wasn’t
difficult, just that Charlie wasn’t good enough to cope with a horse like him. And it wasn’t as if Phantom would care for a second if he was taken away from Charlie, either – he was so cold and distant that he would leave without a backward glance. As Alice’s chatter faded and silence filled the car, the patterns on the window began to blur. Charlie felt herself getting cross at how unfair everything was. She wished it could all return to how it had been – before she outgrew Pirate and before she’d ever set eyes on Phantom.

Chapter Five

AFTER a final week at school filled with
carol-singing
, the Christmas play, a non-uniform day and exchanging tons of Christmas cards, the Pony Detectives couldn’t wait to get to the yard on Friday. They had another pile of cards to deliver to their out-of-school friends, including Fran, who owned Hope Farm, the animal rescue centre.

“Our first official Christmas ride!” Rosie had squealed as they mixed their ponies’ feeds first thing on Friday morning.

“Or cycle,” Charlie added with a small smile. She wished she could just tack up Pirate and take him instead, but she was way too tall for him now and she knew it wouldn’t be fair. The others sighed, feeling bad for her.

“We can fix some reindeer antlers on the handlebars,” Rosie said, “and pretend the bike’s Pirate.”

While they waited for the ponies’ breakfasts to go down, Charlie took Phantom out for his daily pick at some grass, so that he didn’t spend all his time cooped up in his box. The others set about turning the yard into a grotto, covering the stable doors with their cards, lots of tinsel, baubles and fairy lights.

They tacked up, with antlers on their bridles and tinsel on their reins. Rosie had pulled a Father Christmas hat over her jockey skull cap. They’d all wrapped up in as many warm layers as they could find against the icy cold sky. Charlie sat on her bike, which Rosie had insisted on smothering with baubles and jingle bells, as well as the reindeer antlers, and they all rode over to the gate. Charlie scraped it open just as Mrs Honeycott came scuttling out of the cottage, holding a huge ceramic bowl in one arm and
waving a tea towel around, warbling at them to wait.

“What
is
she up to now?” Rosie said, shaking her head. She was so used to her mum’s batty behaviour that nothing surprised her any more.

“All of you have to stir the Christmas cake mix and make a wish before you disappear off!” Mrs Honeycott puffed. “I’m baking it this afternoon, and I didn’t want you to miss your opportunity.”

“Dancer, pay close attention to this, it involves you,” Rosie said, whirling the spoon stiffly with one hand and holding Dancer off with the other as the mare tried to dip her moustached muzzle into the bowl. “I wish you’d pay more attention to me and far less to passing snacks, including cake mix!”

“Rosie!” Mia groaned. “Wishes are supposed to be secret!”

“But the Pony Detectives
always
share their secrets, so what’s the big deal?’ Rosie said, looking quite pleased with her clever reply.

She passed the spoon, like a baton, to Alice, who giggled and wished that Scout would always be happy. Alice leaned over to give the sticky spoon to Mia.

“I wish that Wish Me Luck wins even more red rosettes than last year, if that’s actually possible!” Mia said, after pausing for a second to decide whether or not to wish out loud. “Charlie?”

Charlie took the spoon, dipping it in the gooey mix, and sighed. She paused for a moment, looking over to her black horse’s stable. “I wish that Phantom gives me a sign, even a teeny one, that he likes me just a little bit. Coming to the front of his stable to say hello when I get to the yard would be nice. Oh, and that he lets me get near him just once without looking seriously cross.”

“Er, you’re making a wish, Charlie,” Rosie said, “not asking for a miracle.”

“What about Pirate?” Alice asked, scratching Scout’s withers as they waited.

“That one’s easy,” Charlie smiled. “I wish that the perfect rider appears out of nowhere, who loves having fun, just like he does.”

“Two miracles!” Rosie cried. “This needs to be one seriously powerful Christmas cake!”

“Oh, and the person who finds the coin once it’s been baked gets a whole extra wish on top!” Mrs Honeycott beamed. “And I’m making some mince pies too – I’ll put some in a tin for you in the hay barn.”

She took the mixing bowl and the spoon back inside the cottage as the girls gathered up their ponies’ reins and set off between the turnout and schooling paddocks. Pirate, who was turned out on his own, lifted his head from the grass as he heard the ponies. He took off, galloping and bucking, then skidding to a halt at the gate, his hooves sliding across the crisp frosty grass. His huge mane stuck up in every direction. Charlie stopped her bike and found him a mint from her pocket.

He hoovered it up, and as he crunched it noisily, Charlie gave him a hug. Then she jumped back on her bike and cycled on, looking back over her shoulder as the other Pony Detectives headed towards the woods. Her heart ached when she saw Pirate’s little face. His ears were pricked and his eyes bright as he stood right up against the fence, watching them disappear without him, and not understanding why.

Mia led the group as they entered the woods. Charlie cycled at the back, weaving the bike along the path behind Dancer. She giggled as the unruly pony attempted to clamp her teeth around any bit of foliage that looked even slightly green, much to Rosie’s frustration. It was as Dancer dived off the path and towards a bush for about the hundredth time that Charlie noticed a flash of something white on the ground, poking out
from under some leaves that Dancer’s hoof had disturbed. Charlie braked.

“Hang on,” she called forward to the others. “I think I’ve found something!”

As the rest of the Pony Detectives pulled up their ponies and turned round to look, Charlie stepped off the bike and leaned it against a tree. She shuffled the damp, mulchy leaves to one side with her gloves and picked up a rectangle of pale, whiteish shiny paper. It looked weathered, and the corner had a big crease from Dancer’s large hoof. Charlie turned it over.

“It’s a photo,” she said, puzzled.

“What of?” Alice asked, peering to get a look.

“A horse,” Charlie replied quietly, staring at the picture. For a second she was transfixed. “That’s so weird – it looks just like Phantom!”

“It does, too,” Rosie said, leaning over and squinting at it. “How odd is that?”

They all crowded together to get a better look at the photo of a beautiful but thin, wild-looking
black thoroughbred in a red headcollar. The horse was being held by a small woman, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her black hair tied back. The shade from a riding hat almost covered her face.

“Look, there’s a date on the back. It looks like this was taken… six years ago,” Charlie said, flipping the picture back over and showing the others.

“I wonder who it belongs to?” Alice asked. “I can’t see any clues in the picture.”

“Ooh, hang on,” Mia said, leaning down from Wish to study the photo more closely. “Do you think that might be Hope Farm in the background? Look! You can just see the corner of the sign on their gate.”

The others peered at the picture which, like the writing on the back, had faded slightly with time. The edges were bent and scuffed.

“It might be,” Rosie said uncertainly.

“Well, we’re riding there to drop off a card anyway, so we can ask,” Mia suggested. “If that
is
Hope Farm in the background, Fran Hope, who runs the place, might recognise the horse. Then we might be able to find out who the owner of the photo is.”

“And then we could return it,” Charlie agreed, intrigued by the picture.

They looked at each other and smiled. “It’s not much of a mystery,” Alice said, knowing the others were thinking the same as her, “but the Pony Detectives haven’t had anything to do for ages, and this could count as a mini mystery, couldn’t it?”

“Yes!” Mia and Rosie chorused, getting excited.

They rushed round to drop off their other cards, deciding to leave Hope Farm till last.

The wintry-looking lane leading to the farm twisted gently downhill between tall, bare hedges, their branches crusted in white and laden with red frost-dusted berries. Dancer picked her way down very slowly, her hooves sliding on the icy ground
every few strides – so much so that Rosie had to concentrate hard and keep her reins a bit shorter, rather than riding at the buckle end like she normally did. Rosie puffed as the lane evened out and gave Dancer a squeeze to urge her to catch up with the others, producing a long-necked,
gogglyeyed
, shuffling trot from her mare.

They soon turned off into a field, which had a strip of grass around the edge. Charlie smiled, thinking that if she were riding Pirate he’d be bunny-hopping, desperate to gallop. Her smile faded as she remembered the time she’d taken Phantom along there and he’d flown out of control, his hooves thundering as Charlie had fought to pull him up before the vast hedge at the end. She quietly patted the bike, pretending it was Pirate.

Dancer managed to trip on every lump and bump going, catching Rosie by surprise each time. Alice and Charlie couldn’t hold in their giggles, which set Rosie off too, just as Dancer almost
tipped onto her nose, sliding Rosie up her neck. Mia shook her head at her friend’s clumsiness as Wish carefully placed her delicate hooves without stumbling once.

“There it is,” Mia pointed out once Rosie had recovered herself. They had reached a five-bar gate in the high hedge that edged the field and could see out onto the lane. Opposite was the entrance to Hope Farm, with its ancient post-and-rail fencing dividing a patchwork of paddocks and barns. A rutted dirt track led from the lane up to a large square stable yard with a huge three-storey blue-and-white cottage to the side.

The ponies clattered across the lane and onto the track. Charlie felt a tingle of nerves as she took the photo from her pocket and gave it one last look before clanging the gate shut behind them.