Eleventh Hour: (Pony Jumpers #11), page 23
“I don’t know how you can still be hungry after all that pizza we ate.” She walked to the sink and refilled her water glass. “It’s such a shame you missed out on going to Ireland,” she said softly. “I really felt bad for you when I found out. Even Hayley thought the selectors were nuts.”
I shrugged. “Thanks, but it’s okay,” I said, and I meant it. If I’d gone to Ireland, I’d never have met Ngatai. Or Kahu. Or Kiri, or Faye. “I think it worked out for the best.”
Tess raised her eyebrows curiously, but didn’t say anything. The microwave beeped, and I opened the door and looked in. She joined me, looking dubious.
“That probably needs a bit longer.”
“Just what I was thinking.”
I put it on for another minute, then leaned back against the bench and waited. Tess took another sip of her water, seemingly reluctant to go back into the lounge.
“So, how is Hayley?” I eventually asked.
“Uh, she’s okay.” She took a long drink of water, then refilled her glass. “Still not quite herself. She mostly acts the same, but she’s lost some coordination and balance, so she’s finding riding a lot more difficult than she did before. Still gets headaches sometimes, but she hasn’t had a seizure in ages, so…” She crossed her fingers and held them up. “She’s going to the Young Rider camp next month, and she’s super looking forward to it.”
“You said she has a new horse,” I remembered.
“Yeah, he just flew in yesterday from Australia.” She shrugged as I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Mum had to remortgage the farm to pay for him, but Bruce reckons he’ll be something special, and as long as Hayley’s happy, we’re all happy.”
I didn’t think that she sounded too happy, but before I could ask any further questions, the microwave beeped again. I opened it to the acrid smell of burnt popcorn.
“Damn.” I grabbed the bag by a corner and pulled it out. “Looks like we overdid it.”
Tess wrinkled her nose. “Hey, don’t drag me into this. You were the one in charge here.”
I tore the bag open, and the smell worsened. “Think they’ll be able to tell?”
She shrugged. “AJ might still eat it.”
I laughed, and Katy yelled from the other room. “Susannah, your phone’s ringing! I think it’s your boyfriend! Should I answer it?”
“No!” I ran into the lounge as AJ grabbed my phone out of Katy’s hand and threw it to me. I caught it one-handed as it continued to ring.
“Where’s my popcorn?” AJ demanded.
“Trust me, you don’t want it,” Tess told her. “Susannah has many skills, but cooking is not one of them.”
I prodded her in the side with my finger, making her double over as I went back into the kitchen to answer the call, plugging my other ear with a finger to drown out my rowdy friends.
“Hi.”
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Good. I’m just at a friend’s place. Hang on.” I tried to pull the sliding door between the kitchen and living room shut, but it wouldn’t budge.
“That door’s broken,” Katy called across to me. “Just put him on speaker!”
I flipped her off with my free hand before going to the back door and out onto the verandah, shutting the door behind me. It was cold outside, but at least it was quiet.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Good news. I got the name and phone number of Kahu’s owner.”
My heart thumped. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Did you steal it from Faye?”
“Maybe she left it out for me to find.”
“Maybe?”
“Okay, okay. Don’t tell anyone.”
I laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
The door swung open behind me and AJ stuck her head outside. “Do you want some ice cream?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Sure? God, it’s freezing out here,” she complained. “Come back inside, we promise to behave.”
“So do you want the number?” Ngatai asked me.
“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” I told him, then pulled a face at AJ, who had lifted her eyebrows suggestively at my words.
“Hi Susannah’s boyfriend!” Katy shouted as I went back inside. “I hear you’re super hot—Ow!”
“Was that your head?” Tess said innocently. “I’m sorry.”
“Can you all just shut up for a second?” I asked, grabbing a pen and looking around for a piece of scrap paper. AJ shoved a local newspaper towards me, and I poised the pen over the masthead. “Go on.”
“Her name’s Lisa Moore, and her number is 0-2-1…”
He read the number off to me, and I wrote it down.
“Thank you so much,” I said gratefully. “I owe you one.”
“I’ll put it on your tab,” he teased. “Good luck. Let me know how you get on.”
“I will.”
“Have a good night, Q.”
I smiled, trying to ignore my friends’ eyes on me. “You too. G’night.”
He hung up as Katy leaned over and looked at my note. “Lisa Moore,” she read aloud. “Who’s she?”
“The person that owns Kahu.”
“You found her!” AJ exclaimed, dropping her scoop of ice cream on the floor. Critter scrabbled over to it and started licking it up. “You’re welcome, I guess,” she told the dog, then went in for another scoop.
“He can’t eat all that, he’ll be sick,” Katy complained, picking the ice cream up and attempting to smush it into AJ’s face. Her best friend fended her off effortlessly, and Katy gave up and threw it in the sink. “But that’s good news. Now we just have to figure out how to get Kahu away from her.”
Tess picked up a bowl as AJ handed her the ice cream scoop. “Who’s Kahu?”
I filled her in as we sat at the table and ate our dessert. AJ was all for ringing Lisa immediately, but Tess pointed out that it was almost midnight, and most people wouldn’t take too kindly to getting a phone call this late.
“Susannah didn’t seem to mind,” Katy teased, and I punched her in the arm.
“Ow! Why is everyone beating me up tonight?” she grumbled.
“Because you keep being an asshole,” AJ replied blithely. “Tess is right. You don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with this woman.”
“I don’t even know what I’m going to say to her,” I admitted. “What if she wants to keep her?”
“Make her an offer she can’t refuse.” Katy scraped the bottom of her bowl. “Or I can talk to her, tell her I heard she’s got a project horse going cheap and convince her to sell Kahu to me for next to nothing, which – no offence, Susannah – is probably what she’s worth right now. Then we go back to the original plan – I get her up and running, then sell her to you for five times the purchase price.” She smacked her lips. “It’s a win-win.”
“You can’t profit off your friends,” AJ objected.
“I’m not,” Katy replied. “I’m profiting off her wealthy parents, who have more money than they seem to know what to do with, so they might as well give some of it to me.”
AJ continued to look offended on my behalf, but I didn’t care what it took.
“Sounds good to me,” I told Katy, who grinned at AJ.
“See? It’s a brilliant plan.”
“You’re a terrible person,” AJ muttered.
“Maybe,” Katy agreed, standing up and going to the sink. “But it’s better than being a poor person.”
CHAPTER 17
A CLOAK MADE OF STARS
It was still dark the next morning when we stumbled outside to feed Katy’s horses, following our phone flashlights across to the covered yards. Katy flipped on the overhead lights, making her horses blink in the sudden brightness. She started mixing feeds while AJ hung hay nets, and Tess and I lugged a rickety hay cart out to the paddocks. The sun slowly rose over the horizon, bringing colours and edges to the world as we took turns to throw a slab at a time over the fences to the impatient horses and ponies waiting for their breakfast. The track between the paddocks was rutted and muddy, and it took both of us to shove and pull the wagon down to the end of the line. Squib was the last to be fed, and he squealed happily at our approach, bucking and farting around his paddock in giddy delight.
“Mood,” Tess said as the grey pony skidded to a stop in front of us and tried to catch the hay in his mouth as I threw it over the fence. “I don’t know about you, but my stomach is demanding immediate sustenance if it has to be up this early.”
“I’m always up this early,” I admitted. “It’s the only way I can get all the stables done before school.”
“Another reason I’m glad our horses live out. I’m so not a morning person.” She frowned as we dragged the handcart back down the track. “What happens if you get Kahu? Will you start getting up at four?
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
The handcart got lodged in the mud again, and I shoved it from behind while Tess pulled on the handle with both hands. It sunk deeper into the glug, then suddenly jerked forward. I stumbled, gripping the back of the cart hard to stop from falling forward, but Tess had no such luck. She fell backwards, landing on her butt in the soft mud.
For a moment, we both just stared at each other, then she burst out laughing. I joined her, going to the front of the cart and pulling her to her feet.
“Gross,” she complained, brushing pointlessly at her wet backside. “I knew I should’ve packed a second pair of breeches.”
“I’ve got a spare pair you can borrow.” I grabbed the handle and yanked the cart out of the mud. “Pretty sure we’d be the same size.”
“Probably,” she agreed. “But it’s okay. You don’t have to do that.”
“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Tess smiled. “Yeah, we are.” She stepped over a puddle. “I never thought we would be, you know.”
“Me either. Weird how life turns out sometimes.”
“Mmm.” She was quiet for a while and I wondered if she was thinking about Hayley. Her next words made me realise that I was way off-base. “But then, I never thought I’d be friends with Jonty either, and now I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
“How is Jonty?” I asked, feeling vaguely guilty that I’d forgotten to ask sooner.
“He’s good.” Her face lit up as she talked about him. “I mean, apart from the usual stuff. His home life is not…great. But somehow, despite all that, he’s still the best person I know.”
A slow smile crossed my own face. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Tess looked curious, but before she could ask any questions, we’d arrived back at the stables. Together, we migrated back to the house.
“Finally – I’m starved!” AJ complained as she kicked off her gumboots outside the kitchen door. “Ireland was a bad influence on you Katy. You never used to get up this early.”
“Horses eat first,” Katy replied, shrugging off her jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair. “Don’t like the rules, don’t have a horse.”
“I could eat like a horse,” AJ replied. “What’s for breakfast? Please tell me you’ve got something more substantial in your cupboards than stale old cornflakes.”
“Doubt it.” Katy shrugged. “We don’t really eat breakfast in this house.”
AJ groaned and flopped into a chair, draping herself dramatically across the table. “I’m dead. RIP me.”
“We’ll remember you fondly,” I told her, patting her head as I walked past. “There must be some leftover pizza from last night.”
“Nope. AJ ate it all before bed,” Katy said, sitting down at the table and staring at her phone.
“Toast?”
Tess opened the bread bin and pulled out a plastic bag containing two thin slices of white bread. “Not enough for all of us.”
I took a look in the fridge. “Eggs?” I opened the carton to find one solitary egg. “Okay, so one of us can have breakfast. Do we toss a coin for it, or…”
“There’s flour and sugar in here,” Tess said, her head in the pantry. “If you’ve got butter and milk, we could make pancakes.”
I grabbed the missing ingredients out of the fridge and dumped them on the bench. “Now you’re talking.”
Tess had just dropped the first dollop of pancake batter into a hot frying pan when Deb came into the room, bleary-eyed in her threadbare dressing gown.
“Morning, girls.” She sniffed the air. “Something smells good.”
“Want one?” Tess offered, but Katy’s mother shook her head.
“Oh, no thanks. I run purely on coffee in the mornings. See?”
She opened her dressing gown to show us her t-shirt, which had Mama Needs Coffee printed on it. Katy rolled her eyes, but the rest of us laughed. Deb dumped a heaped spoonful of coffee grounds into a small plunger and switched the kettle on.
“Did you still want to take the horses to the beach today, Katy?”
Her daughter nodded, finally looking up from her phone. “That’s the plan, if you guys are up for it.”
AJ grinned. “Squib will be amped.”
“No he won’t, because he’s not coming,” Katy replied. “I’m not letting him set Tori off again like he did last time.”
“That wasn’t his fault! It was those people kite-surfing.”
“And Squib saw them and bolted, and so did she, and I narrowly escaped permanent disability.” Katy shook her head. “Never again.”
“Wuss.”
Deb poured boiling water over her coffee grounds, then glanced down at the newspaper I’d left on the bench. “What do you want with Lisa Moore?” she asked curiously.
My head shot up. “She owns a horse I’m trying to buy.”
Deb looked surprised. “Really? What horse is that?”
“The rescued one, remember?” Katy interjected. “We were going to feed it up on Susannah’s behalf, make it fancy enough for her dad to spend money on. I did tell you about this.”
“Oh, right.” Deb frowned. “Wait, it wasn’t a grey Thoroughbred, was it?” She searched my face as I nodded. “Hmm. I’m not sure that’s a horse you would’ve wanted, Susannah.”
My throat had gone dry. “What d’you mean?”
“You remember Morag called me earlier this week to see if we’d take a couple of her horses while she’s in traction?” she said, directing her question to Katy, who nodded. “It was a grey mare she got from Lisa Moore that bolted, threw her off and broke her leg in two places.”
Everyone in the room was staring at me. I shook my head.
“Kahu wouldn’t do that. I’ve ridden her and she was fine.” You walked around the paddock bareback in a halter. That hardly counts as riding. I told the voice in my head to shut up. “She wouldn’t do something like that.”
Deb seemed unconvinced by my protestations. “Well, either way, it may be too late now.” Her eyes flickered to her daughter. “The other reason Morag rang me was to get Gary’s number.”
“The dog tucker guy?” Katy burst out. My heart seemed to stop beating for a moment before resuming with a painful thump. “She sent her to him?”
Deb shrugged. “I don’t know. She just wanted the number.” She looked at me sadly as AJ wrapped her arms around me from behind in a bone-crushing hug. I barely felt it. “You can’t help every horse, even with the best of intentions. Dangerous ones shouldn’t be passed around. That’s how people get killed.”
“But Kahu wouldn’t do that,” I repeated, as if by saying it again I could make it into the truth. “This Morag person, she must’ve done something to upset her. Maybe her saddle didn’t fit, or her feet hurt, or her teeth— She needed her teeth done, did she get her teeth done?”
“I don’t know.” Deb shook her head. “But Morag’s a former jockey who’s ridden a lot of difficult Thoroughbreds in her time, and if she thinks the mare is dangerous…”
“Nope.” Katy stood up. “Morag also told you that Forbes was going to get me killed, remember? And that Molly would never be any good as a show jumper, and that Splash was—”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, Morag’s not always right, and we’re not giving up yet. If Kahu’s as skinny as AJ says, there wouldn’t’ve been much meat on her. Gary might have turned her down, or passed her on to someone else to fatten up. She might still be alive.” My heart constricted at the thought of her being anything else, and AJ’s grip around my ribs intensified. Katy picked up her mother’s cell phone and unplugged it from the charger, holding it like a weapon. “Either you ring him right now, or I will.”
Deb rolled her eyes. “Oh, for goodness sake. Give me that.”
She took the phone into the living room as Katy gave me a defiant nod. “We’ll sort this. AJ, let go of her before she passes out. You’re about to puncture her lung.”
AJ relinquished her hold, and I sank slowly into a chair, feeling numb. Tess set a pancake down in front of me. I shook my head, pushing it away.
“I’m not hungry.”
Nobody argued. The cheerful banter of the morning had disappeared, and we sat in silent numbness in the messy kitchen. Outside, birds were singing. One of the stabled horses whinnied to a paddocked friend. AJ pushed a piece of pancake around her plate with a bent fork. Melted butter sizzled as Tess poured more batter into the hot pan. Katy scrolled through her phone with a deeply furrowed brow. In the distance, I could hear the roar of a dirt bike.
How am I going to tell Ngatai about this?
What will Faye think when she finds out?
How did it all go so horribly wrong?
I sank my head into my hands, fighting back tears. I couldn’t get the image of a deceased Kahu out of my head. Lying slumped on the ground, her ribs sticking through her pale coat, her beautiful head pressed against the dirt. How could her life end like that? Why did the world have to be so unfair?
Deb came back into the room and I forced myself to look up.
She smiled. “Good news, girls. The horse is still alive.”
