Left, Meg thought as she rode along the track away from Sam’s house. Then left and left again. Meg wasn’t really thinking about how to get home. Her mind was full of Sam and the perfect day they’d had and what a Pony Club rally might be like.
It was a while before she knew that something was wrong. She’d gone left at the top of the track and then left again, but everything looked different. They’d said goodbye to Sam and Alfred twenty minutes ago. Shouldn’t she be able to see the village green by now?
Meg tensed and gave Merlin’s reins a squeeze. He came to a halt and she had a good look around. She couldn’t see anything at all that she knew. What was going on?
It was like having a bucket of icy water poured over her head. She’d got lost. How could she be so stupid? It was left, left, left again on the way there. On the way home it should be right, right, right. Shouldn’t it?
A bubble of panic started to swell in her chest. Merlin could sense Meg was worried. He began to fidget.
“Is there danger?” he said. “Where? What? Snake? Panther?”
“Keep calm,” she told herself. “Keep calm. Go back the way we came. Start again. You’ll find the way back.”
But then she’d be late and Dad would get worried. She’d better give him a ring on Mum’s phone.
She pulled it from her pocket. And then – disaster! A sudden enormous roar. The smell of engines and petrol, and around the corner a motorbike came at full speed, heading straight for Meg and Merlin.
Merlin’s head shot up. He snorted in alarm. The motorbike swerved to avoid them but passed so close that Merlin shot backward into the hedge. Mum’s phone flew out of Meg’s hand, landing on the tarmac with a crack.
Perhaps even then things would have been fine. Meg could have calmed Merlin down, picked up the phone and called Dad. But Merlin had hit the hedge so hard that he’d snapped off a branch of something spiky. It had tangled up in his tail. When Merlin took a step forward, the branch came with him and smashed against his back legs.
Suddenly all the monsters that Merlin always thought were about to attack him seemed as if they were real. Thorns were claws. Teeth. Something was hanging on to his tail, trying to jump onto his back! Trying to kill him!
For split second Meg felt Merlin stiffen. His muscles tightened, then – BANG! – he exploded like a racehorse out of the starting gate. One moment they were standing still, the next they were galloping full speed along the lane. This gallop wasn’t for fun. This was galloping away from danger. This was raw panic.
Meg tried to calm Merlin, but it was no good. There was nothing in his head but fright. With each step, the branch banged against his legs. He was totally out of control. Meg was used to him responding to her, but now he wasn’t listening. She had no idea what to do.
She tried pulling his reins, softly at first, then harder. But his head and neck were stretched straight out and no amount of tugging on the reins would slow him. With his hooves clattering on the tarmac, he tore along the lane, desperately trying to get away from the terrible thing that was chasing him and clawing at his legs.
Meg was really frightened now. It was hard to breathe. Hard to stay in the saddle. But Merlin couldn’t run for ever. Could he? Surely he’d slow down soon? What should she do?
Thoughts whizzed through Meg’s head. She’d seen a video clip of how to stop a bolting horse. Turn its head. Ride in smaller and smaller circles until in the end the horse has to stop. But she was hurtling along a straight stretch of lane with high hedges on both sides – she couldn’t go in a circle.
Meg thought things could get no worse and then she saw that the lane they were bolting down met a big road a hundred metres ahead. Lorries. Cars. Speeding along. Merlin was going to run right into heavy traffic. They’d both be killed!
What could she do? Another clip flashed through her mind. The one-rein stop. But that was so dangerous! If you pulled too hard, a horse could trip and fall. Yet she had to risk it.
She dropped the left rein, leaned forward and slid her right hand as far along the right rein towards Merlin’s mouth as she could. Then she grabbed the right rein very firmly and leaned backward. With both hands, she started to tug.
“It’s OK,” she kept saying, over and over. “It’s OK, Merlin. You’re safe. Trust me.”
Merlin slowed down, but he didn’t stop. Then Meg stood up in her stirrups and leaned back. She pulled Merlin’s head round as hard as she could.
Froth flew from his mouth; his eyes rolled madly. But he began to slow down some more.
“It’s OK,” she said again. “It’s all right. There’s no danger.”
Now she had turned his head round, Meg could feel that Merlin was beginning to think again. To listen to her. He wasn’t as scared as before.
She kept pulling hard on the right rein.
“Let’s stop, shall we?” she said. “Please?”
They were just metres from the main road when Merlin stopped at last. Even then, he didn’t stand still. The branch was tangled in his tail. He couldn’t calm down until he was rid of it.
Meg slid off his back. She held on to his reins, but he wheeled around and around her, kicking out at the horrible thing that was attacking him.
Meg held Merlin’s reins tight in one hand and made a grab for the branch with the other. She tugged on it as hard as she could.
Merlin pulled forward again and Meg held on tight. She heard his tail hair rip and then, at long last, the branch came free.
Meg hurled it as far away from Merlin as she could.
It took a second or two for him to work out that the thing had gone. Meg kept hushing him, telling him that everything was all right.
Merlin puffed and panted and at last the panic ebbed away. When he looked at the branch lying in the road, he made a soft, low rumbling sound in his throat.
“Was it just a stick? Is that all? Silly me.”
He lowered his head and pressed it against Meg’s chest, and they stood for a moment.
Meg rubbed his ears, breathed in his horsey smell of hay and honey and sweat. She’d been so frightened. But now it was over and they were both OK. She felt closer to Merlin than ever before.
“Poor Merlin,” she soothed. “Poor frightened boy. You thought something was chasing you, didn’t you? But you’re safe now. We both are.”
When their hearts had stopped thudding, Meg looked around.
She didn’t have a clue where they were. She had dropped Mum’s phone. It was probably smashed. Mum wouldn’t be angry – Mum wasn’t like that. But Meg knew that phones were expensive and money was always tight. And with no phone, she couldn’t let Dad know she was lost. She had to find it. And then … how was she going to get back to Merlin’s field?
Meg climbed back into Merlin’s saddle. It made no difference. She still couldn’t see where they were.
They rode back along the lane away from the busy road. After a few minutes, they reached a fork and Meg slowed Merlin to a halt.
“Where now?” Merlin asked.
“No idea,” Meg said.
Merlin was tired and hungry. He wanted to go home. His head drooped. He let out a deep breath that sounded like a sigh.
The way Merlin hung his head and let out that long sad sigh made Meg remember the time Before Merlin. When she had gone out for rides in the country on ponies from the riding school.
Riding those tired old ponies was like being on a bus or train. You just had to sit there. The ponies knew all the paths they had to follow and all the places where they had to trot or canter. They knew exactly when it was time to turn back and how to get home. They used to sigh like Merlin had just done.
A thought buzzed inside Meg’s head. Maybe Merlin knew how to get back? She’d never ridden around these lanes, but maybe Merlin had been here before? Or maybe Merlin had a kind of map in his head, like a sort of horsey sat nav?
Birds did, she thought – they migrated around the world, didn’t they, and nobody ever gave them a map or compass. And someone had told her about a dog on the news that had got lost on holiday and walked hundreds of miles home even though no one had shown him the way.
It was worth a try. Meg let the reins hang loose. She was going to let Merlin choose which road to take.
“Let’s go home,” she said aloud. She didn’t touch the reins, but she gave a slight squeeze with her legs.
“Oh good!” said Merlin. “Are we going back now? I’m starving!”
Without any fuss, Merlin chose the right-hand fork. He stepped out briskly, head held high, eager to get home. They only stopped to pick up Mum’s phone. The screen was cracked, but it was still working, so Meg rang Dad to say she was going to be a bit late.
She didn’t mention that she’d got lost or that Merlin had run away with her. It was probably best not to worry her parents, Meg thought. Dad might be OK about it, but Mum would never let her near Merlin again if she knew how close they’d got to the main road.
When the phone call ended, Merlin set off again. The best pony in the world carried Meg safely all the way back to his field, where Dad was waiting for her.