Hide and Seek (12 page)

Sitting down for breakfast, Shelby stared out the window. It was a gorgeous, clear, autumnal day so she decided to ride her bike to work. Cycling meant her parents didn't have to organise their schedule around her. While she ate her cereal the rest of the family made plans for the day.

The boys were hoping for a day at the zoo, or the aquarium. Her father had heard there was a European car exhibition out in the western suburbs. His wife was trying to distract him with descriptions of a lavish picnic in the Botanic Gardens. None of those activities appealed to Shelby – except for the picnic food.

Cycling also meant she could dawdle. Shelby had worked out that if she arrived just after the first trail ride left she could clean some stables, make up some meals, and then be gone before Erin and Lindsey came back from the ride.

She might run into Hayley, but Mrs Crook was usually hanging around, and she didn't think Hayley would make a scene in front of her mother.

Shelby's mum refilled Shelby's glass with orange juice. 'So what have you decided?' she asked, referring to Shelby's list.

'Don't hassle me!' When she saw the look on her mother's face she quickly added, 'Please, beautiful mother, as I am already feeling stressed about it.' She drank the orange juice in one long gulp and plonked the glass on the table with a clunk.

Blake copied her. Luckily his drink was in a plastic tumbler. She waited for her dad to start the speech about setting a good example, but instead he scolded Blake.

'Actually, I have decided I really do need to know what happened with Diablo, so I'm going to ask Zeb about it today. I'm going to make them tell me. So when I get home could you help me finish the time-line, please?'

'No problem,' her mother smiled.

Shelby wheeled 'Misty', her old bike, out of the garage. The bike was much too small for her. She wondered whether she should ask for a new one for Christmas. December was a long way away. Maybe her parents would consider buying her a second-hand one? They would save money in petrol not driving her to the stables, and time too. She still didn't have a saddle, though, and that was a higher priority. There were so many things she needed. It made her tired just thinking about it.

Perhaps if Chad was her boyfriend he could give her a lift across the Gully on his motorbike? Shelby could feel the colour rise in her cheeks. She pedalled furiously around the corner and past the shops, enjoying the sensation of her muscles working and her blood pumping.

Her mother had suggested that Shelby invite Chad over for a barbecue. With everything going on she had forgotten all about it.

Shelby stopped at the tee-intersection, feeling the wind from the passing vehicles whoosh against her. She hesitated. She could turn left and ride around the Gully, straight to Keisha's place, and avoid the stables altogether. It was tempting. It was also cowardly. Her friends had a right to be cross with her, even if it was based on bad information. Once she proved that none of Keisha's family had stolen Diablo they couldn't stay grumpy. Erin would have trouble staying cranky anyway. For now Shelby would have to suffer through it. Spending time with Blue would make it worth-while. Sometimes just being with him, smelling his dusty pony smell, or tracing the outline of his patch-work coat made her feel calm.

There was a break in the traffic and Shelby turned right, standing above the pedals while the bike swung from side to side. Once she was at cruising speed she sat back in her seat, pedalling smoothly.

Shelby had never had a boyfriend, not even one that she didn't speak to, the way some of the other girls did, although she did go to the year six formal with Justin Ganneck. Well, she didn't actually
go
there with him. They met out the front and walked into the hall together, and then they danced in the same group for a few songs. Shelby supposed Justin Ganneck didn't count, and besides, he ended up going to a dif-ferent high school.

Lots of the other girls in her year were already kissing and touching boys in the playground. Even the thought of doing that stuff gave Shelby that hollow nervous, sick feeling in her stomach.

She wondered whether she would have to actually say to Chad, 'Will you go out with me?' or if he would, or whether they would just start hanging out and it would be assumed that they were 'together' without either of them saying anything at all.

Hayley would know these sorts of things. She could ask her – but then she remembered that Hayley wasn't speaking to her, and she felt a small hurt in her chest again.

A car tooted as it swept past and Shelby saw Monica grinning at her through the passenger window of her mum's car. Shelby waved back. She was nearly at the driveway to the stables now. She slowed the bike down, getting her breath back. At the gate she climbed off the bike and wheeled it up the driveway.

With a sinking feeling she could see that Lindsey had held up the trail ride waiting for her.

Shelby leaned the bike against the tack shed.

'You're late. Helping with the trail rides is part of your job,' Lindsey said.

'Sorry,' Shelby replied. 'Where's Erin?'

'Erin doesn't work here.'

'OK. Just asking. I guess that means you're speaking to me now.'

Lindsey blinked. 'If you want to say stuff to me later you can, but not in front of clients.' She looked around to see who was within earshot. Shelby guessed that if a couple of riders had been further away she might have copped an earful.

She quickly saddled Blue.

'It's about time you got your own saddle too. Don't you think?' Lindsey added.

Shelby blushed. She also felt a flash of anger. Lindsey knew Shelby's situation. She'd been more open with Lindsey than with her other friends, believing Lindsey was in the same boat.

'Yeah, I think,' she snapped. 'But we don't all have our own goldmine, Lindsey.'

This time it was Lindsey's turn to redden.

They headed out. Shelby tried to muster enthusiasm. She was glad for the first time that their standard practice was to ride one at the front and one at the rear. Just before they reached the back paddock the line of riders stopped so that Lindsey could tighten one of the horse's girths.

Blue tucked his head around and sniffed Shelby's boot, sensing her tense mood.

'I love you too, handsome boy,' she whispered, and reached down to stroke his forelock.

A younger girl with big brown eyes was riding Cracker. 'I just love horses so much!' she told Shelby. She was wearing such a hearty grin that Shelby couldn't help smiling back.

Shelby leaned forward and hugged Blue around the neck. Sometimes she forgot how lucky she was.

After the trail ride Shelby cleaned out stables by herself. She could hear Hayley, Erin and Lindsey laughing together in the next block and she wondered if they were just trying to make her feel bad. It was working.

When they had finished mucking out the other stable blocks the three girls took their horses out to the jumping arena. Erin stared at Shelby as she rode past. Shelby smiled at her, but Erin just looked away.

Once they were out of sight Shelby dumped her last barrow of manure, washed her hands and collected Blue from his paddock.

She rode around the back way, through the paddocks, rather than along the laneway that went past the jumping arena, hoping that the other girls wouldn't see where she was going. With the back gate behind her, Shelby rode swiftly across the Gully.

'Now with a step-though, you start by sitting sidesaddle, then tuck the top leg under the one that's on the stirrup, and bring it round the back so you are sitting astride. You're going around the saddle in a circle. Get it?' Molly asked.

Today Molly had another horse saddled, so that Keisha could show Shelby what to do. They had already practised the stand-asides. At one point Shelby had found herself slipping, but she remem-bered what Zeb had said about balance. She leaned forward and grabbed Tex's mane, and soon she was steady again.

In the background, Zeb continued working with Blue, or 'Fandy', as he insisted on calling him. He was teaching him walk/canter transitions out of the station, turning on the hind leg, which Zeb called a 'half roll-back'. Blue was going really well. Shelby thought it was because she usually rode him without depending on her reins, and most of the time in trick riding you didn't use reins at all.

'You try a step-through,' Molly said. 'Remember to hold on.'

Shelby was about to try when she heard a familiar sound. It was Chad's bike. He rode up to the gate, switched off his engine and leaned the bike on its stand. Suddenly she felt shy and clumsy. Now that he was there in person she knew she would never have the courage to ask him out. He would have to ask her, if he was interested, which she was now certain that he wasn't. Chad probably had girls ask him out all the time.

'How's everybody?' he asked.

'Chadwick! Come in, son,' Zeb greeted him.

Shelby thought there was something very relaxed and familiar about the exchange, as though this visit was expected.

'Do you change everyone's name?' Shelby asked.

'What's that, Blondie?'

'You can do better than that, Zeb,' Molly challenged.

'Maybe we should just call you Nat.'

'Nat?' Chad asked.

'Yeah, she came in here, bold as you please, and told us she's a natural trick rider.' Zeb held his fingers up indicating parenthesis marks as he said the last part.

Chad grinned. Shelby felt Keisha's eyes on her as well and she blushed.

'And you'd never guess it, she really is!' Zeb added.

'Told you,' Shelby muttered.

Molly called for Shelby's attention. 'Let's get back to it, OK? Try a step-through.'

Shelby wished they could go back to doing the stand-asides so Chad could see her being 'natural'. She tried the new move, but she couldn't get her leg to go underneath the other one. It was awkward. Finally she was able to push one leg past the other, and then swing it over the back. The move was chumpy and inelegant. She waited for someone to make a joke, but nobody did.

'You need to put all your weight in the stirrup. Push it out so you can slip that leg under,' Keisha sug-gested. 'Tilt your hip to the side so you're leaning away from the saddle.'

Following her advice the next time Shelby found it much easier.

Soon they were doing step-throughs at a canter. Chad sat at the side of the arena watching. When she was concentrating she was able to forget he was there, but every now and then, when one of the girls did a particularly good step-through, he would clap, and then she would remember. He made Shelby feel flus-tered and gawky.

'You're learning so quickly!' Molly said. 'Usually it takes a bit longer than this.'

Shelby grinned.

'She trusts Texas, that's why,' Keisha added. 'That's half of it, I reckon, trusting that they are going to stay at the same pace – moving with the horse's rhythm, not trying to guess where it might be two seconds from now.'

Molly nodded. 'Keisha had a fall,' she told the others. 'She still hasn't got her confidence back.'

Keisha looked away, scowling.

Shelby didn't know what to say, so she changed the subject. 'What's next?'

'Keen!' Molly said, smiling. 'Step-downs are the same as a step-through, except that, after you have slipped your leg through, you drop down, as though you're getting off, bounce off your toe and then get back on again. Show her, Keisha.'

Keisha pushed her horse into a canter and did a neat step-through, dropping onto her pointed toe, like a dancer, in the middle.

'You make it look easy,' Shelby said.

Keisha pulled into the station without a word.

'It's easier when the horse is moving faster. You can use their momentum,' Molly said.

As she rode around, practising her step-downs, Shelby remembered why she was here. She was supposed to be kibitzing. Shelby tried to think of a way of bringing up Diablo.

'Did you ride that stallion while he was here?' she asked, stopping Texas at the station.

'Do you think we should have? How does he go?' asked Molly.

'I haven't ridden him myself,' she said, with a secret smile, imagining Mrs Edel's horror if she should ask. 'I've seen him move, though. He's got nice action.'

'We've seen him in action too,' Molly said. She and Keisha traded a glance and then burst out laughing.

'What?' Shelby asked. She looked over at Chad, but he shrugged, just as perplexed as she was.

Molly shook her head. 'One of our mares . . . um, we haven't had a vet test yet, but we think she might be in foal.'

'She was in season?' Shelby asked. 'Do you know how much a service from Diablo is worth?'

'About as much as the fence he broke down to get to her,' Zeb called out.

'We have a motive now!' Shelby beamed at her mother. Shelby was wearing an apron over her pyjamas and fluffy slippers. She finished cutting the onions and slid them off the cutting board into a bowl. She spoke loudly over the sizzle of the barbecue. Flames licked up between the bars, searing the steaks as her mother turned them over.

Shelby continued. 'Way back when it happened, I said, "Why would Diablo leave the mares?", and Lindsey told me he would if there was a mare in season in the Gully, which she thought was unlikely, at the time, but now we know there was one!'

'And what about this accomplice you have here?' her mother said, pointing with the tongs. They had laid the chalkboard on the outdoor table between them.

'Yes, the escape artist,' Shelby said. 'I thought she looked a lot like Diablo. Monica thought not. It depends on who you ask.'

She rinsed the cutting board under the garden tap and then started shredding lettuce for the salad.

Her father wandered through the barbecue area with a basket of washing that he had just taken down from the line. He looked Shelby up and down. 'That's a great look you've got going there. What if your um friend saw you now?'

'Chad was there today,' she told her parents. 'He watched us practising. I was going to talk to him after, but he just said "See ya", and rode off on his bike. I don't think he likes me as an um friend.' She shrugged. 'He's been going over there a bit. He might have a hotty on for Keisha. I don't know why else he would go there.'

'I'm sorry, honey,' her dad said, suddenly concerned.

Shelby sighed. 'It wasn't even anything in the first place. Jeez, Dad. You need a hobby!'

Dad took the tongs from Shelby's mum and squeezed Shelby's nose with them.

'Ow! Yuck!' she protested, wrestling the tongs away from him. 'They've got grease on them. How disgusting! What is this nose obsession you have, anyway?'

'
Eww, how disgusting
,' he squealed, mimicking her as he took the washing inside.

'Hush, you two, this is serious business.' Her mother stared at the board with her hands on her hips. 'Go back to the beginning, Shel. At four forty-five you fed Diablo.'

'And then I walked through the breezeway – stopping to talk to Mrs Crook.'

'Who was clipping the horse, is that right?'

Shelby nodded, wiping her greasy nose on the apron. 'And then Mrs Edel drove past.'

'With the poo vac,' her mother finished. 'Now we reach this part here. The part where your friend Kim puts this accomplice horse back in the broodmares' paddock.'

Shelby cut an avocado in half and scored the flesh into squares with her knife. 'Yes.'

'And this horse she put away looks the same as Diablo?'

'Yes,' said Shelby.

'Well, then it's obvious what happened.'

'It is?' Shelby asked.

Shelby held the cordless phone to her ear.

'Is Erin there?'

'Hi, Shelby,' said Erin's mum. 'I've been instructed to tell you that Erin isn't talking to you.'

'That's OK. I don't want her to talk. I just want her to listen.'

'Excellent. I'll put her on then.'

Shelby could hear Erin's mother handing over the phone. She licked her thumb, tasting traces of tomato sauce from dinner. She walked towards the bathroom to wash her hands. Then she heard Erin's breath blowing across the mouthpiece.

'I'm guessing you haven't done your science assign-ment,' Shelby said, tucking the phone between her chin and shoulder. Her voice echoed around her in the tiled space.

Silence. In the background Shelby could hear the television in Erin's lounge room.

'I know you're there. I can hear you breathing. Maybe you could blow twice in the mouthpiece for yes, and once for no.'

Shelby heard one breath. 'Are you saying no, or are you just breathing?'

Two breaths.

'Have you done the assignment?'

One breath.

'So, you haven't done it?'

More breathing. Shelby wandered up the hall to her bedroom and flopped on her bed.

'This is dumb, Erin. Breathing at me is communication. It's the same thing as talking.'

'Maybe I wasn't communicating. Maybe I was just breathing.'

'So which was it?' Shelby asked.

Erin huffed. 'It doesn't even matter now because you already tricked me into speaking!'

'You've got a video camera, haven't you?' Shelby asked, curling a ringlet of hair around her finger.

'Yes, why?'

'Bring it to the stables tomorrow. We're going to do our assignment together. If Hayley or Lindsey say you can't, tell them I have guaranteed you will get an A.'