Natasha Tucker straightened her tie and admired her reflection in the wing mirror of the Mercedes. Today’s pony-club rally was the final team training session before the Interclub Gold Shield and all the riders were in full uniform so that Avery could check their turnout.
“Mum,” Natasha scowled as she cast her eye over her palomino mare, “I asked for Goldrush to have an odd number of plaits and you’ve gone and done evens again!”
Mrs Tucker stuck her head out of the door of the Mercedes and rolled her eyes at Natasha. “Maybe you’d like to try getting up at six in the morning to groom Goldrush yourself?” she responded.
“Uggh. No thanks,” Natasha groaned. She looked across at the group of riders saddling up under the spread of a large plane tree. One of them was laughing and chattering away as she brushed out the long flaxen tail of her pony. Natasha took a second look at the girl and the horse. “I don’t believe it!” she said.
“What now?” her mother asked with an air of resignation in her voice.
“Isadora is here and she’s got her horse back!” Natasha said.
The news of Blaze’s return spread like wildfire through the pony club that day. Issie knew it would. She also knew, after her conversation last night with Francoise, that not everyone would be pleased to see Blaze was back. If Francoise was not responsible for Annabel’s accident or for Blaze’s poisoned horse feed, then the real culprit was still here at the club.
When Francoise told Issie that there was another woman in the tack room that night, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. “I think I know the reason that Annabel’s stirrup leather was cut,” Issie told Stella and Kate. “I think I know why they did it.
And I also know who did it—it was the same person who poisoned Blaze’s horse feed.”
“Well?” Kate said. “Come on. Who was it then?”
“I can’t say yet. I want to be sure that I’m right before I start accusing anyone,” Issie said. She looked serious. “You must promise me that you’ll both be careful and make sure to check your gear today before you ride. Whoever caused those accidents is still out there. I can’t explain it yet, but I’m pretty sure that now Blaze is back we may all be in danger.”
“Shall we tell Dan and Ben?” Stella asked.
Issie nodded. “They need to keep a close eye on their horses.”
“What about Natasha and Morgan?” Kate said.
“No,” Issie said firmly. “Don’t tell them.”
“But they might be in danger too!” Stella squeaked.
But Issie shook her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she replied quietly.
When the girls lined up with the rest of the squad for the training session all eyes were on Issie and Blaze.
“Excellent!” Tom Avery said as he addressed the team. “Now, as you can all see, Isadora has Blaze back.”
He turned to Issie and gave Blaze a cheerful slappy pat on her neck. “How is she feeling, Issie?”
“Great, Tom!” Issie smiled. “She’s fine—I think she’s just happy to be home again.”
“Excellent,” Avery said. He turned to the lineup of riders now and gave his right boot a resounding whack with his riding crop to get their attention. “Right. With Isadora and Blaze back in the team we’re going to have to do some reshuffling,” Avery said blithely. “Morgan, you will be team reserve again.”
Issie looked across at Morgan. She glared back at Issie, her eyes blazing with anger and then looked away.
“Hold on a moment, Tom!” a voice called out from the clubroom steps. Araminta Chatswood-Smith came striding across to where Avery stood addressing his team. “Are you telling me that you’re dropping Morgan from the team just because your star rider is back again? That doesn’t seem very fair, does it?” Araminta’s voice was steely and cold.
“I agree, Minty,” Avery said. “It’s rough on Morgan, but I can’t leave Isadora out either. She was originally selected to ride and now that she can ride, I have to put her back in the team.”
“All the same,” Araminta fumed, “my daughter has trained hard for this team. Riding in the Interclub Shield is very important to me.”
“Important to me?” Avery repeated her phrase. “You mean important to Morgan, don’t you? Who exactly are you talking about here, Minty, because it strikes me that you might be confusing your own ambitions with Morgan’s wishes.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Araminta harrumphed. “Morgan is desperate to ride in the Interclub Shield. I think you need to reconsider your decision.”
“And I think you need to leave the team selection up to me,” Avery said. “Listen, Minty, I’m sure she’ll get the chance to ride in the Interclub. Next year…”
But Araminta wasn’t listening. “Come on, Morgan, training is over!” she snapped at her daughter, and she stormed off in disgust.
Morgan looked a bit bewildered. She watched her mother stomping off towards the horse truck, and then shrugged her shoulders, gathered up her reins and clucked Jack on, trotting off after her mother.
“Tom, maybe I shouldn’t be in the team…” Issie began.
“Nonsense, Isadora. You’re in the team and that’s final,” Avery said calmly. “There’ll be no further discussion on the matter.”
“Now, everyone, we’re doing rider on the flat training today. The winner of this event gets three big points for the team, so everyone spread yourselves out around the arena and walk on with a loose rein to get them warmed up. Let’s start thinking about our position in the saddle, shall we?”
At the end of the day as Issie unsaddled Blaze she thought about the past few weeks and everything she had been through. She had lost her horse and now she had her back. After that, a little thing like the Interclub Shield shouldn’t really matter much to her at all. Yet she still found herself thrilled with the idea of being in the team and she felt butterflies in her tummy even thinking about the competition. The Interclub was this weekend. They had just a few more days to prepare. She slid the stirrup leathers up on her saddle and undid the girth, then moved around to the other side of her horse and slid the saddle off.
As she slipped the bridle over Blaze’s ears she spoke softly to her. “Now that you’re back we have a competition to win,” she told her. “Are you ready, girl?”
Blaze nickered in reply and Issie laughed. “Yeah, me too!” she said.
With the bridle hanging down from her shoulder and the saddle slung over her right arm she walked over to the tack room. The team would all be leaving their horses and gear here until the day of the Interclub rally so that they could fit in one more training session before the event.
In the tack room, Issie slid her saddle on to the wooden saddle horse. She thought about the training session today and how furious Araminta had been when her daughter hadn’t made the team after all. Araminta’s fury had only confirmed Issie’s suspicions.
It was more than a coincidence, Issie thought, that all these accidents had started happening after Araminta arrived at the pony club. Issie had seen some pushy pony-club mums before but this was extreme. It was scary how much Araminta wanted Morgan to ride in the Interclub. Was she really so determined that she would go to any lengths to get rid of anything that stood in her way? Did that include sabotaging other riders who were chosen ahead of her own daughter? Issie remembered Francoise describing the stranger in the tack room that night as “a woman with dark hair”. It all made sense. It had to be Araminta.
Issie looked around the tack room. If Araminta was causing the accidents would she give up now? No. Araminta wasn’t the sort to give up. She would make one last effort to get rid of the competition and get her daughter in the team. Only this time, Issie would be ready for her.
That evening, after her mum had gone to bed, Issie snuck down to the kitchen and packed her backpack with everything she would need. She had a silver Thermos filled with the leftover soup from dinner in case she got hungry. Her mum had bought her a new torch for school camp, and she put that in too, checking the batteries to make sure they still worked. She also borrowed her mum’s mobile phone just in case, and put in the throw rug off the sofa to snuggle under if it got cold. Then she strapped her backpack on to her back, grabbed her bike out of the garage and set off.
As she cycled along the backstreets that led from her house to the pony club, she began to wonder if what she was doing wasn’t a little mad. Perhaps Annabel’s stirrup leather had really been an accident after all. And was she sure that someone had tampered with Blaze’s feed? Even if Araminta really had tried to sabotage the team, that didn’t mean she would be back tonight. Issie was beginning to have real doubts about her plan. Then, as she parked her bike up by the pony-club gate, she saw a silvery shadow in the nearest paddock and heard a low whinny calling out to her. Mystic was here!
The little grey came closer, tossing his mane and snorting. He seemed distracted and nervous, Issie thought, and she realised that she had made the right decision to come to the pony club tonight. If Mystic was acting like this then something had to be wrong. The grey gelding trotted over to Issie, snorting and quivering with tension.
“Easy, boy” she soothed, although she knew that she was just as nervous as he was, and she was saying this mostly to calm herself down. Issie peered out into the blackness of the horizon. She could just make out the shapes of the horses grazing in the far paddock.
“Mystic, you go keep close to them,” she whispered to her horse. “Look after Blaze. I’ll be all right here by myself.”
Mystic seemed to understand her instructions. He wheeled about instantly and cantered off, his head held high. Issie watched him blurring into the shadows as he reached the other horses. She heard another horse, perhaps it was Blaze, calling back to him, her soft whinny carrying clearly in the crisp night air.
Issie looked back at her bike. It was too obvious to leave it here leaning up against the fence. She didn’t want anyone to know that she was already here. But it was too heavy to lift over the fence and she didn’t have a key to the paddock gate. She would have to hide it somewhere.
She decided to shove it into the hedge on the other side of the gravel driveway by the club gates. It turned out this wasn’t as easy as she thought, but eventually she found a gap and with a little effort she managed to wedge the bike into the hole. She hunted around and found a couple of branches to prop in front of it to hide it completely. Satisfied with her work, she walked back to the pony-club gate, climbed the rungs, swung herself over and headed for the clubroom.
She found her way to the tack room easily in the dark without even having to resort to the torch in her backpack. I’ve been sneaking about here so often I can find my way in the dark, Issie thought to herself. She found the tack room key easily this time too and opened the door.
It was pitch black inside and she reached for her torch. She didn’t want to switch the light on in case someone saw it and got frightened off. She turned on her torch briefly to make sure that she’d locked the door again after herself. Then, once she was inside with the door shut behind her, she turned it on one more time to find a spot just behind the saddle horses where she could snuggle down in her blanket and take out her Thermos of soup for a midnight feast while she waited.
It wasn’t the most fun way to spend an evening, Issie thought as she tried to get comfy, sitting here alone in the pitch dark, in a creaky old tack room. She curled up under the blanket for a bit, and then got bored and filled herself a cup of soup. Luckily her mum had just made a big pot of homemade chicken and vegetable that night, which was her favourite. She wished she had packed some juice and maybe a chocolate bar as well. She put the lid back on the Thermos and settled down to wait.
Issie must have dozed off so she wasn’t sure what time it was when she heard the sound of footsteps outside the tack-room door. The noise instantly woke her up and she panicked, fumbling around underneath the blankets to find her torch.
There was the sound of keys in the lock. She threw the blanket off and crouched down low behind the saddle horses and waited.
The door opened. Issie looked up between the saddles and saw the figure of a woman, her long hair silhouetted against the night sky. The woman reached up for the light switch and just as she did, Issie stood up from behind the saddle horse. As the lights came on there was a moment of stunned silence as Issie finally stared the mystery in the face.
“It’s you…But why…?” Issie found herself too dumbstruck to finish her sentence. She looked at the dark-haired figure standing opposite her. Not a woman, as she had thought, but a young girl, just like her. It was Morgan Chatswood-Smith.