“How I wish I hadn’t come,” thought Jacky furiously. “If only I’d known that Mrs Marshall had broken her wrist and she was going to take us! What right has she to take the Pony Club? She can’t even ride.”
Jacky pulled her hard hat farther down over her eyes and scowled through the driving March rain to where the fat shape of Mrs Grunter, helped by two children, was setting up jumps made out of tin cans, wooden boxes and poles.
Jacky Munro was eleven. She was small for her age but wiry and full of energy. More than anything in the world she loved ponies and riding and some day she was positive that she would be chosen to jump for Britain—some day. But just now she didn’t even have a pony of her own. It was Saturday afternoon and with twelve other members of the Tarentshire branch of the Pony Club Jacky sat waiting to jump while Mrs Grunter fussed over the height of the tin cans.
“It’s just a complete waste,” Jacky muttered to herself. “And probably Miss Henderson won’t be able to let me have Maverick again now that the riding school will be busier at the weekends. Oh why did Mrs Marshall have to come off Sultan?”
Schooling under Mrs Grunter had been bad enough, but trying to make Maverick jump would be worse. Mrs Grunter had been very rude about Maverick, the pony Jacky had hired from the riding school. “Wake him up,” she had shouted. “Everyone look at Jacky Munro. Here is an example of a completely unbalanced horse and a lazy rider. Never let me see any of you allowing your ponies to crawl like that.”
Remembering, Jacky snorted indignantly. “If Mrs Grunter had to work as hard as the ponies at the riding school she wouldn’t be so fat and I bet she’d crawl round if she got the chance. Maverick doesn’t need waking up, what he needs is a good feed of oats and a warm stable instead of a cold field.”
Jacky looked round at the other children’s ponies. Even the shaggy ones who must have wintered out looked plump and cheeky, and several who were clipped and stabled looked like little racehorses.
Jacky sighed aloud with jealousy. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought Maverick to the rally. After a winter of too much work and too little food his bones poked under his long winter coat, his shoes were worn thin and like nearly all the ponies at Miss Henderson’s he was old—fifteen or sixteen. “But if I don’t ride the school ponies what am I going to ride?” Jacky thought.
Suddenly she realized that the six jumps were ready and Mrs Grunter was calling her daughter’s name to jump first.
“Mummy’s little darling,” Anne Flynn whispered to Jacky.
“Hope she comes off,” Jacky agreed.
Celia Grunter was ten, and fat and bossy like her mother. She was a hopeless rider but always won things because her parents bought ponies that other children had trained, then, when Celia’s heavy hands and bad riding had ruined them, sold them again.
Today Celia was riding a black pony with three white socks that Mr Grunter had bought in Ireland a month before. The pony cleared the jumps without any effort and Celia rode back grinning.
“Well ridden, Celia,” shouted Mrs Grunter. “Clear round.”
“Well jumped, Prince,” said Anne Flynn.
“Well bought, Daddy,” mocked William Davis, a blond boy who rode a New Forest pony.
Jacky gripped Maverick’s reins between numb fingers. Watching Celia and Prince she hadn’t really seen them, she had seen herself in the future riding Miss Henderson’s Flicka. Someday Flicka would be the best pony in the world.
William poked Jacky with his crop. “You’re next”
“Jacqueline Munro! I have more to do than stand here waiting for you. Come along. You’d better come next. I expect we’ll have quite a bit of bother trying to get you to jump.”
Jacky gathered up her reins and urged Maverick into life. The old pony moved forward at a slow walk. Jacky felt him tired and unwilling under her. If it had been Mrs Marshall she would have explained and not jumped but she could imagine the fuss Mrs Grunter would make if she said she wasn’t jumping.
Maverick approached the first jump at a slow trot.
“Wake him up! Wake him up!” yelled Mrs Grunter. “He’ll stop if you don’t.”
Maverick stopped. Jacky turned him round to try again.
“Ride him at it!” Mrs Grunter’s face was scarlet under her tweed hat. “Show some life.”
Again Maverick trotted slowly up to the jump and stopped.
“Oh, really, child! When will you realize that to ride you must be awake.”
“I am awake,” Jacky muttered, turning the reluctant Maverick round for a third attempt.
“Now ride him at it. Get him going on a bit.”
Again Maverick refused.
Mrs Grunter came pounding across to them.
“I’m not going to jump. He’s not fit … ” Jacky began but Mrs Grunter’s voice drowned hers.
“Jump off,” Mrs Grunter commanded. “Celia’s going to take him round for you. Just to let you see that a real rider can get any horse going.”
Jacky gazed in horror, then realized that Celia was standing waiting to mount. Jacky sat frozen to the saddle. She wanted to shout that Celia wasn’t going to ride her pony; that it wasn’t Maverick’s fault that he wouldn’t jump.
“Come along now,” boomed Mrs Grunter and somehow, against her will, Jacky was standing on the ground while Celia climbed up on to Maverick.
“Wake him up,” ordered her mother. “Let him know who’s boss.”
Celia pulled at Maverick’s reins, banging his mouth with the bit until the pony threw up his head. Her booted feet kicked into his sides and her crop rattled against his ribs.
“That’s the stuff,” encouraged Mrs Grunter.
Jacky had been standing trying not to watch. Suddenly she could bear it no longer. She raced to Maverick and grabbed his bridle.
“Get off my pony,” she screamed and snatched the crop out of Celia’s gloved hand. “Don’t you dare hit him like that!” She felt Mrs Grunter grip her shoulder and realized that all the other children were staring at her in amazement but she didn’t care. She had only one thought in her mind, to make Celia get off Maverick. She waved the crop in Celia’s face. “Get off him or I’ll hit you,” she heard her own voice shouting.
Hurriedly Celia scrambled down.
“If you knew anything about ponies you wouldn’t let her treat him like that,” Jacky stormed at Mrs Grunter.
“What an exhibition! My dear child, control yourself. Mrs Marshall warned me about your impulsive nature but really … ”
“I’m going home and I’m never coming to another rally if you’re taking it,” Jacky yelled.
Her legs felt rubbery and she could hardly climb back into the saddle. As she rode through the field gate she realized that she was crying. She ran her hand down Maverick’s neck and patted his side. “It’s all my fault. I should never have taken you. Poor Maverick.”
Maverick, knowing he was going home, walked out briskly. Soon they were clear of Tarent and riding between trees and high hedges with country sounds reaching them through the rainy dusk.
As she rode, Jacky went over and over the afternoon’s happenings in her mind. “Beastly woman, but I shall have to apologize the next time I see her,” she decided and started to think about the riding school. How bad things had been that winter; not enough food for the ponies; horses going out for rides with shoes loose or missing; tack breaking and being tied together with bits of string and Miss Henderson always cross and worried with too much work to do.
Then Jacky thought of Flicka and smiled into the gathering dark. If it hadn’t been for Flicka Jacky would have changed to another riding school. Flicka was a five-year-old black pony just under 13.2 hands high. Her mother had been a Fell mare and her sire a show pony. Miss Henderson had brought her as a yearling and now that she was old enough, maybe this summer, Jacky was going to show jump her. Miss Henderson had promised.
Thinking about Flicka, Jacky forgot all about her afternoon at the Pony Club, forgot about the state of the riding school and forgot that Flicka in spite of all Jacky’s titbits was really as thin as all the other riding school ponies. Jacky saw her sleek and shining with a red rosette flapping from her bridle.
Maverick broke into a trot, swung round the last bend in the road and the riding school lay in front of them. Light was streaming from the window of the front room of Miss Henderson’s bungalow.
“Strange,” Jacky thought. “She never ever uses that room,” and she shivered uncontrollably as a goose walked over her grave.
Parked in front of the bungalow was a low-slung, black car. As Jacky rode past it into the stable yard she wondered who it could belong to. It was a stranger’s car, not one that belonged to any of the riding school’s pupils.
The stables and yard were deserted. Normally at this time Miss Henderson was busy in the tack room or sweeping out the boxes. Usually a few children were still hanging about after their ride helping Miss Henderson or waiting for their parents. Tonight there was nothing but silence, and darkness creeping in from the fields.
Jacky took off Maverick’s tack, gave him the apples and carrots which she had bought for him and led him to his field. The ponies were grouped round the gate hoping for hay. Jacky chased them back, opened the gate and led Maverick through. As she slipped the halter over his ears something at the far end of the field caught her eye. In the dusk a dim shape was struggling and fighting. As Jacky stared she heard a high-pitched twanging noise. The dark shape seemed to be caught in the far corner of the field. The corner where workmen, only that morning, had been winding barbed wire round the telegraph pole that stood there.
Instantly Jacky checked the group of ponies. First she looked for Flicka and her heart leapt with relief when she saw that she was safely there. Kirsty, Sceptre, Friday, Dinkie, Bunter and Maverick were all there but there was no Dimsie—Dimsie, the valuable brood mare who had been left with Miss Henderson while her owners spent the winter in Spain. When there was any chance of food Dimsie was always the first to push her way in but tonight she wasn’t at the gate.
Jacky charged across the field, stumbling into mud and over tufts of weed and as she ran the twanging of wire grew louder.