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  Abbey burst out laughing and even Hannah recovered enough to giggle.

  The girls raced down to the stables as soon as they could. Both Pepper and Bedazzled had their heads hanging over the door of their stalls. Pepper whinnied happily when he saw Abbey approaching.

  Hannah burst out laughing and pointed to Pudding’s stall. Poor little Pudding was too short to look over his stable door – all you could see was his little black muzzle poking up and sniffing the air.

  ‘Oh, poor baby,’ said Talika. ‘I am going to have to put a bale of hay or something in there, so he can stand on it and see out!’

  The girls looked over the half door at the little pony. His feed bin was empty and he had eaten all the hay in his net already.

  ‘Um, I hate to say it, Talika, but I suspect that if you put a step made out of hay in the stall for that little guy, he’ll eat it before he ever gets to stand on it!’ said Hannah.

  The girls started by grooming their horses in their stalls. Hannah had a huge array of brushes and combs that her dad had left her, and she was happy to share them.

  ‘I only have the one brush I use for everything,’ said Abbey, ‘and in all the excitement I left it in the truck.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’ve packed enough for ten horses,’ laughed Hannah.

  Mr McPhail came around the corner and looked in on the girls. ‘You lot are keen,’ he said.

  They all smiled back at him.

  ‘Can I just ask that once you have them saddled up, I do a tack and hoof check, to make sure you’re all going to be safe? Everyone here is going to have different abilities and experience, so we need to take this slowly until I can gauge how independent you can be. I’ll just be in the office at the end of the stalls.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Abbey.

  Once the girls had finished grooming, Abbey showed Talika how to clean Pudding’s feet with the hoof pick. Pudding spent the whole time trying to sniff Abbey’s jeans in the hope that she may have some food in her pockets.

  ‘I’ve never met such a little piggy!’ laughed Abbey, giving his scruffy mane a rustle.

  Once the horses were saddled and bridled, the three girls led them into the arena that the back door of the stalls connected to.

  Abbey dropped Pepper’s reins on the ground in front of him and ducked out to get Mr McPhail.

  ‘That is one well-trained horse,’ said Hannah, when Abbey returned. ‘If I dropped Bedazzled’s reins, he’d go bananas.’

  Bedazzled was snorting and stamping the ground. He looked enormous next to Pudding, who was trying to pull against Talika and get his head though the rails to the grass on the other side.

  ‘He looks pretty fired up,’ said Mr McPhail when he appeared. ‘Is he normally this flighty?’

  ‘He settles down once I’m on his back,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I think I’d like to see you lunge him first in the round yard, just to settle him a bit. Are you okay to do that?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hannah.

  Mr McPhail checked the saddles, girths, bridles and hooves of all three horses, before opening the gate to the round yard for Hannah to lead Bedazzled through. Even though she was tall, Hannah’s head did not reach the height of the big horse’s withers.

  ‘How on earth is she going to climb on?’ whispered Talika to Abbey.

  Hannah attached a lunge rope to the huge horse and pulled up the stirrups on the saddle so they wouldn’t hit his sides as he moved around. She led Bedazzled off to one side of the round yard, then stood in the middle of the ring. With a gentle swish of the end of the rope and a double click from the side of her cheek, she set the gelding in motion, walking, then trotting steadily around the yard.

  Mr McPhail was clearly impressed. ‘He does move beautifully,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

  Hannah unclipped the lunge rope, placed one foot in a lowered stirrup and gracefully slipped up and landed gently in the saddle.

  She was absolutely right. As soon as she mounted Bedazzled, he relaxed completely.

  She gave him a small nudge with her heels and he moved into a smooth steady trot as he rounded the yard. Hannah rose and fell in the saddle with each stride, in perfect unison with her horse.

  ‘Wow!’ said Abbey.

  Mr McPhail nodded approvingly. ‘I think you know what you’re doing, Hannah,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Talika, ‘how I wish I could do that.’

  ‘We’ll teach you,’ said Abbey, slinging her arm around Talika’s shoulders. ‘Like everything, it just takes practice. You’ll see. Hannah and I are completely different riders, but the basics are the same.’

  Abbey grabbed the reins in one hand and sprang onto Pepper in one easy move. Hers was a stock saddle, and unlike the English saddles that she’d seen all the other girls unload, it had a large horn on the front for tying ropes to when working with cattle.

  Without seeming to use any obvious hand movements at all, she steered her horse around the arena, cantering and stopping and turning at full speed. Pepper was like a bullet as he shot in every direction Abbey asked of him, finally coming to a stop in a cloud of dust in front of the group.

  ‘Okay. So you’re not a beginner either?’ laughed Mr McPhail, raising his hands in mock surrender.

  It was Talika’s turn next, and despite the fact that her pony was half the size of the other horses, she had the most trouble getting on. This was mainly due to the fact that he would not keep his head up, and instead spent the whole time sniffing the ground around his hooves for food.

  ‘Head up,’ growled Mr McPhail, giving the pony a sharp jerk of the reins.

  Talika finally managed to get on, but the minute they headed off, it was obvious Pudding was choosing the destination. He trotted aimlessly around the yard, stopping suddenly to sniff some grass and nearly unseating Talika every time.

  ‘He’s got to know that you’re the boss, Talika,’ called Mr McPhail. ‘Be firm with him, or he will be your master.’

  ‘We’ll help her,’ said Abbey. ‘I’ve watched my brothers break in hundreds of horses and get them out of bad habits.’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘I’ll be running some classes for our beginner riders that I think Talika might benefit from. In the meantime, I’m happy for you two to leave the arena and ride in the open paddock and down the road leading to the school, but not Talika at this stage.’

  Talika had pulled up beside him and heard his last sentence. She looked hurt.

  ‘What if Pudding was on a lead from Pepper? Then we can train him as we ride?’ said Abbey.

  Mr McPhail looked at them thoughtfully, and finally nodded. ‘No further than the paddocks and the end of that one road though, is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Mr McPhail,’ they chorused. Talika grinned at the others in delight.

  ‘Just to be clear,’ repeated Mr McPhail, ‘Pudding must always be on a lead when in the paddock or on the road, and I’d like you to spend the rest of today just in the arena, to get the horses comfortable around each other.’

  ‘Yes, Mr McPhail,’ they beamed.

  Dinner that night was meatloaf.

  ‘I don’t know if this meatloaf tastes of nothing, or I’m just too tired to taste anything!’ said Abbey, her head resting on her arm as she shovelled another spoonful of mashed potato into her mouth.

  ‘Backs straight when you’re eating, girls,’ barked Mrs Bristow across the dining hall.

  They all jumped in fright. Abbey rolled her eyes and Talika and Hannah stifled sniggers.

  They struggled through their meal and staggered back to their room. Abbey couldn’t believe it was only their second day. She was determined to stay up and talk late into the night.

  But when Miss Beckett tapped on their door at eight o’clock to tell them that a supper of hot milo and biscuits was available downstairs for the boa
rders, she found all three girls fast asleep.

  ‘We are feeding the pigs!’ groaned Talika, running her finger across the roster of jobs that had been posted on the wall in the boarding house common room. ‘It says here we have to collect the kitchen scraps from Mrs Bristow.’

  ‘Great!’ said Abbey. She didn’t mind feeding pigs at all.

  Hannah’s face was a picture of dread.

  ‘Don’t worry about Mrs Bristow,’ said Abbey. ‘I’m sure her bark is worse than her bite!’

  After breakfast the girls hovered nervously near the counter, waiting for the scraps to be sent out.

  Mrs Bristow strode out of the kitchen and thumped the large bucket onto the ground beside them.

  ‘Don’t spill it, and bring my bucket back clean,’ she said, then marched away.

  The girls looked at each other and shrugged. Hannah and Abbey carried the heavy bucket between them, while Talika ran ahead opening doors.

  ‘You’ve gotta wonder,’ said Abbey as they poured the vast amount of toast and omelette slops into the pigs’ troughs, ‘why all these scraps don’t send a message to Mrs Bristow about her cooking?’

  Boris the boar, however, looked very pleased as he dug his snout in.

  They rinsed the bucket and slipped it into the kitchen while Mrs Bristow wasn’t around, then raced to their maths class.

  ‘I am so determined to get my head around algebra today,’ said Abbey, as they entered the room.

  Try as she might though, the more their maths teacher Mr Bryson talked, the more confused Abbey became. She slumped on her desk and watched Hannah and Talika tapping away at their calculators and writing down answers feverishly.

  ‘I’m never going to get this,’ she sighed.

  ‘The trick is to learn the rules,’ said Hannah. ‘My mother put signs up on the back of the toilet door when I first started learning. To this day, whenever I sit on a toilet, the words a negative times a negative equals a positive pop into my mind!’

  Abbey snorted.

  ‘It is actually a wonderful idea and not as silly as it sounds,’ said Talika. ‘We could make some signs for our room!’

  By the end of a full day of lessons, they were well and truly ready for a break. When the last bell went, the girls rushed to the stables and saddled up.

  Talika had announced that after practising in the arena and paddock the day before, she felt confident enough to go for a walk up the road on a lead rope.

  Abbey was thrilled. She was quietly determined to have Pudding well and truly trained by the end of the term.

  ‘Hello, Flossy,’ called Talika as they rode towards the school’s front gate for the first time. The sheep stopped eating and looked up.

  ‘Hey, Poppet,’ called Abbey.

  ‘Valentina, here girl,’ called Hannah.

  ‘I can’t believe you called her Valentina, Han,’ laughed Abbey. ‘She sounds like she should be on a catwalk or something, not in a paddock.’

  ‘She’ll be ready for the catwalk when I’ve finished shearing her!’ said Hannah.

  They kept walking along the road. The horses seemed to like each other right from the start, but Abbey couldn’t help thinking how funny they looked together.

  ‘At least if it starts to rain, Pudding can get under Daz to keep dry,’ she joked.

  Bedazzled liked to walk quickly and up the front. Little Pudding trotted along happily beside Pepper, with Talika bouncing on his back and the bright red lead joining the two.

  The girls had quickly worked out this was the best formation, because every time they passed anything that looked remotely edible, Pudding would try to stop or grab a mouthful on the move. Talika could then pull his head up with the reins and say ‘no’ firmly, and Abbey could give him a tap on the rump with her hand and keep him moving along.

  They had been helping Talika learn to grip with her knees and keep her heels down for better balance. She was learning to be more assertive with her horse, and she was already a lot more confident. Pudding wasn’t quite so happy about the new arrangement.

  The three girls were just passing a rather rundown-looking house on the road that led to the school when Abbey glimpsed something crouched in the bushes.

  Before she had a chance to call out, a brown and white border collie came flying out, barking madly at the girls and their horses.

  Pudding neighed in fright and leapt sideways and Talika, looking terrified, barely managed to stay on.

  Abbey spurred Pepper into action and jumped between the dog and Pudding. Pudding danced around on the spot behind the larger horse.

  ‘Get out of it!’ Abbey bellowed at the border collie, and Pepper snorted and lashed out with his front leg, which frightened the dog enough to make it turn on its heels. It snarled and snapped, but slunk back through the hole in the side fence. Pepper stood guard, stamping at the ground.

  Abbey looked at Talika and Hannah. Their faces were white and Bedazzled was prancing nervously.

  ‘You girls turn around and head back,’ she said, passing Pudding’s lead to Hannah, ‘and Pep and I will just stay here until you’re a safe distance back towards the school.’

  The dog continued to bark aggressively from behind the fence as Talika and Hannah slowly made their way back. Abbey was just about to follow them, when she heard a screen door slam.

  A man with a rough beard and dirty jeans stood on the verandah with a cigarette. He drew back on it casually as he looked at Abbey.

  Abbey called out to him, but the man just looked at her and continued to smoke his cigarette, as if the sound of his dog going berserk didn’t bother him at all.

  There was a yell from the neighbour’s window to be quiet, and the dog slunk back to its bed of hessian sacks on the verandah.

  ‘There’s a hole in your fence, sir,’ Abbey called politely, now that she could be heard. ‘Your dog came out and chased our horses.’

  ‘Maybe you should ride your horses somewhere else, then?’

  He went back into the house, slamming the screen door behind him.

  Abbey was furious. She cantered up the road to rejoin her friends.

  ‘One of us could have fallen off,’ she fumed. ‘He didn’t seem to care at all!’

  ‘Maybe he will fix the fence now anyway?’ said Talika hopefully. ‘Sometimes people just need a little time to think about what the right thing to do is.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Abbey. But she wasn’t so sure.

  That night at supper, Miss Beckett had organised a few games for the year seven and year eight boarders to get to know each other better.

  Abbey looked around the room at the laughing girls when it was Hannah’s turn for ­charades.

  Hannah was perched on a table with her face scrunched up, making clicking sounds with her tongue. She seemed to be a totally different person now to the sullen girl Abbey had first met when she arrived at Willowvale, and her meerkat impersonation was brilliant!

  Over hot chocolate, Miss Beckett told them that she was not married, and while she had no children of her own, it didn’t make her sad because the students felt like her children. She said that some of the past boarders still came to visit her, even though they were in their thirties.

  As the sleepy girls said goodnight and made their way back to their rooms, it occurred to Abbey that just two days ago she had felt like a stranger in this place, and now she felt surrounded by friends.

  The next morning at breakfast Mr McPhail came to see Abbey. As soon as he sat down at their table, they knew something was wrong.

  ‘I’m afraid I have some very bad news, Abbey,’ he said.

  ‘Is Pepper hurt?’ Abbey cried, jumping up.

  ‘No, it’s not Pepper, but I’m afraid the sheep you chose has been attacked by something.’

  ‘Oh no, not Poppet!’ cried Abbey, tears filling her eyes.

&
nbsp; ‘Is she dead?’ gasped Talika.

  ‘No, she isn’t, but she has been quite badly injured. Dr Brown is down with her now.’

  ‘What about her lambs?’ said Hannah. ‘She had two little lambs.’

  ‘The lambs are fine,’ said Mr McPhail, ‘but that’s what we need to talk to you about. Can you all come down to the stables straight after breakfast? I have spoken to Mrs Parry and told her you will be late to her class today, and I have asked Beth and Amber to feed the pigs for you.’

  The girls threw down the last of their toast and leapt up to put their dishes away.

  ‘Have you been told to do that yet?’ boomed a voice from across the dining hall. Mrs Bristow was making a beeline for them, and the whole dining area had fallen silent.

  ‘Mr McPhail just came and told us we have to come down to the stables immediately. Abbey’s sheep, Poppet, has been attacked,’ stammered Talika.

  ‘Well, he didn’t tell me that, did he?’ boomed Mrs Bristow. ‘He didn’t tell me a thing. So, unless I hear directly from Ms Sterling, you will take your places at the table until I dismiss you, along with all the other girls.’

  The three girls all walked sullenly back to the table, every eye in the room upon them. Abbey didn’t have to look at Hannah’s sister to know she was glaring at them again.

  Mrs Bristow let their table go last, and it felt like forever before the girls were able to escape the dining hall and bolt down the stairs and out the door to the stables.

  Mr McPhail was standing outside the stable door at the end of the row. He waved the girls over when he saw them.

  ‘Now, girls,’ he said kindly, ‘she’s a bit of a mess, so prepare yourselves. Dr Brown wanted to talk to you, because she feels that you might be able to help. Just slip in very quietly and she’ll tell you what the problem is.’

  The three girls slowly opened the half door and crept in. There, on her side, lying on a large piece of canvas, was Poppet. Her lovely white wool was covered in blood, especially around her neck and face. Dr Brown was leaning over her, carefully pulling a stitch in place. Her assistant, who was introduced to them as Tom, was at her head, monitoring the sedated sheep’s breathing.