The Auditions (19 page)

All of the twelve riders had made it home safely in the end. They had spent the past hour washing down their horses, then scraping them with sweat scrapers and rugging them up before walking them for half an hour to cool down. Now the horses were all back in their fields or stalls and the young eventers were sitting nervously on hay bales at the back of the stable block, waiting for Tara Kelly to read their class rankings. She had their fates in her hands as she addressed the class.

“I’m doing this in order,” Tara told them. “The best riders will be called first. When I call your name, I’ll be giving your class ranking.”

Georgie got the shock of her life when she heard who had crossed the line before anyone else.

“Emily Tait!” Tara Kelly said. Emily beamed with pride at her first place. There was a round of applause from the class, but Nicholas Laurent wasn’t clapping. He was fuming.

“It’s not fair,” he complained, “she rides a Thoroughbred. Of course she will win in the steeplechase. Her horse is built to run and mine is built to jump.”

“Oh suck it up, Laurent.” Alice rolled her eyes at him.

Nicholas Laurent had taken the number two place in the class rankings. He had been followed by Cam and Daisy, who were tied for third as they had crossed the line together. Incredibly, Mitty Janssen had come fifth. She was beaming from ear to ear because her big Swedish Warmblood had jumped so well.

Georgie had risen all the way up through the numbers to come in sixth. Right behind her had been Alex Chang, who had ridden aggressively over the last three fences to take out seventh place in front of Alice in eighth. Matt Garrett had been ninth and he looked miserable about it, while Arden, in tenth, looked positively thrilled to have made it around at all.

The final two places were the ones that mattered. Because today, one of the riders in the final two would be eliminated.

“Kennedy Kirkwood,” Tara Kelly said. “Will you please stand up?”

At the back of the hay bales, in the shadows, Kennedy got to her feet. As she stood up, a snigger rosefrom a few members of the eventing class. Kennedy, normally so glamorous and immaculate, was a mess. Her wet hair was clinging like damp rope to her sodden back protector. Her white shirt and jodhpurs were soaked through and covered in mud.

Kennedy had encountered a problem at the water jump. “She wanted to jump it one way and Versace decided to go the other!” Alice murmured to Georgie.

“Hey, Kennedy,” somebody shouted out, “I love what you’ve done with your hair!” There was another outburst of sniggers and giggles but Tara Kelly silenced them.

“Kennedy,” she said, “you were the last one across the line today, and you are to be considered for elimination.” The class went quiet. “Isabel Weiss,” Tara said, “would you also please stand up.”

At the front of the class, Isabel stood up. She looked Tara in the eye as the instructor spoke to her.

“Isabel, you rode well today, but you retired on the course at the water complex and didn’t cross the finish line.” Isabel nodded. “I told you all at the start of this term that I expected to expel at least one student frommy class after the mid-term exam.” She looked at Kennedy and Isabel. “That student will be one of you.”

The tension was unbearable. As Georgie watched the girls waiting for Tara’s decision, she wanted to shout out that Kennedy deserved to go, that she had pushed her off her horse in the middle of the course. But she knew she couldn’t prove it.

“Isabel,” Tara said. “You are more accustomed to riding dressage than battling it out on the eventing field. Over the past four weeks however, you’ve proven to me that you can be a competent jumps rider. But I wonder if you have the courage that cross-country will ultimately demand of you?

“Kennedy,” Tara continued. “You came into my class as the top rider from the US auditions. But being at the top means there is only one place to go. You’re a born showjumper and yet from day one you have expected to naturally become the queen of the cross-country. I think today you’ve seen that this is not the case. Every rider needs to fight to stay at the top.”

She already knows how to fight
, Georgie thought. Kennedy was looking down at her feet and snivelling.

Tara paused. “Kennedy … you’re still in. I’m giving you a second chance to prove yourself. I’m sorry, Isabel, but you’re out.”

It was hard to believe that one of their classmates was gone.

“I feel so sorry for Isabel,” Daisy was saying as they walked up the driveway to dinner that evening.

“Not as bad as I feel,” Georgie said. “If she hadn’t stopped to help me up maybe she would have tackled the water jump after all.”

“It’s not your fault, Georgie,” Alice said and then added, “but Isabel must be devastated.”

“Uhh, is that how devastated looks?” Emily asked. Ahead of them, queuing up at the door was Isabel. She was laughing and larking about as she re-enacted the elimination scene to the great delight of her dorm mates from Stars of Pau. It turned out that Isabel was neither surprised nor upset by her expulsion from Tara Kelly’s class.

“I am a dressage rider,” Isabel shrugged, “I neverwanted to be an eventer, but my instructor back home told me that I had to take Tara’s class because she was the best in the business.”

Half a term of eventing was more than enough for Isabel who had now swapped to a classical long-reining class.

“We’re going to miss you,” Georgie told her.

“Ja,” Isabel shrugged, “you’ll get over it. Wait ‘til you see the German class rankings. I whipped all of you!”

After dinner, Georgie, Daisy, Alice, and Emily sat together in the living room at Badminton House with mugs of hot tea and chocolate biscuits recounting their rides around the point-to-point. They relived the hairy moments and shrieked with laughter at stories of neardisasters that were averted just in time.

Georgie had laughed along with them but she found it hard to join in the storytelling. It was impossible for her to describe how she had felt, especially when she had confronted the coffin.

She had asked so much of Belle and the mare had performed brilliantly. Jumping the coffin had been a rite of passage for both of them. It was almost as if theyhad left behind their past and formed a real bond at last. Georgie couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have a horse that she adored every bit as much as Tyro.

Lucinda had been thrilled when Georgie called and told her about their point-to-point victory. She laughed when Georgie told her that instead of taking time out to celebrate, Tara had warned the class that there would be another exam at the end of the term and this time she promised it would be much tougher!

“Typical Tara!” she said. “There’s never time to celebrate. She’s always looking to the next fence.”

“I’m so glad you’ve bonded with that mare,” Lucinda told Georgie. “It sounds like she’s a fantastic horse. And sixth in the class is a brilliant ranking to begin the year on. Your mother would be very proud.”

Having used up her evening phone call quota, Georgie had emailed her exam news to her dad. Typically, he was most excited about her maths mark–she had come third in the class rankings, a fact that Dr Parker was enormously pleased about.

Are you sick of the gruel yet?
Lily had written in her latest email. She was still convinced that Blainfordsounded like a total nightmare.
I can’t believe you’ve got in trouble for walking on some poxy patch of grass again!

It had seemed like a great thing to do at the time, but now Georgie regretted storming off across the quad in front of Conrad. She had hoped Conrad might have forgotten, but then she saw the latest fatigues list had her name on it and knew she had no choice but to accept her fate and turn up at four o’clock to take her punishment.

At three fifty-five she stood by the archway next to the Great Hall with three other junior students, all of them boys from Luhmuhlen House. “I got caught talking during assembly,” one boy told her.

“I didn’t muck out my horse’s stall,” another one admitted.

The third boy, like Georgie, had mistakenly trodden on the quad. “It’s just a bit of grass,” he groaned. “I don’t know why they make such a fuss about it.”

By five minutes past four they were all getting restless. “Do you think if there’s no prefect then we can just go back to the dorm?” one of the boys suggested.

“Too late,” another one groaned, “here he comes.”

Georgie turned to see Conrad walking along the footpath beside the quad–and James walking beside him.

“Hey, Parker,” James gave her a grin.

“What are you doing here?” Georgie asked.

“I’m on fatigues,” James said giving her a wink.

Conrad kept walking and the students, including James and Georgie, fell into line behind him. “Follow me,” Conrad instructed. “We’ve got some hay bales to move down at the stables.”

As they walked around the quad, Georgie tried to hang at the back of the group so that she wouldn’t have to talk to James. But he slowed down intentionally, so that he could walk alongside her.

“Who gave you fatigues?” Georgie asked.

“Conrad did,” James gave her a grin.

“But I thought he was your friend.”

James shrugged. “Friendship with Conrad has its limits. Let’s just say he got fed up with me so I’m here with you being forced into hard labour.” Then he added, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for weeks. You’ve been avoiding me ever since the polo match.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” Georgie said, “I’ve just been making sure I’m in places where you aren’t.”

James laughed. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“No,” Georgie said honestly. “There’s something wrong with me.”

She looked up into his blue eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly like Arden and Tori and the showjumperettes.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” James grinned.

“And your sister can’t stand me.”

James laughed. “Parker, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to my little sister. I love Kennedy, but she can be a colossal witch sometimes. And she doesn’t get to choose who I can hang out with.”

“What about Conrad?”

“Nah, he’s not my type,” James deadpanned. They were walking close and James let his hand brush against Georgie’s hand. She felt her skin tingle as if an electric shock had gone through it but she pretended she hadn’t noticed.

“So, you got through the first round of eventingexams. I guess it runs in the blood,” James said. “Your mum went to Blainford, didn’t she?”

Georgie nodded.

“My dad came here and was this polo star,” James said. “I know what it’s like to have big shoes to fill.”

“I used to think about that all the time,” Georgie said, “but it doesn’t worry me any more, at least not so much. I’m not going to compete against my mother’s memory. I’m here to be the best that I can be.”

James arched an eyebrow at this. “So what do you like best so far about Blainford?”

“Well, I like my new horse,” Georgie said, “and my new friends.”

“.and the food in the dining hall?”

“That is most definitely not high on my list!” Georgie groaned.

“I was thinking you must be getting pretty sick of those dining hall meals by now,” James said.

“Totally!” Georgie agreed. “I had a nightmare last week that involved being attacked by industrial quantities of macaroni cheese.”

James laughed. “Well, that settles it then,” he said.

“You’re coming to dinner at my place.”

“What?” Georgie was confused. “At Burghley House?”

“No!” James grinned. “At my house in Maryland. I’m only a weekly boarder. Mom and Dad pick me and Kennedy up and take us home most weekends–when I’m not playing polo.”

Georgie noticed that James deliberately didn’t mention the private jet.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I can’t promise anything special but Mom makes a pretty good home-cooked meal. Well, actually our chef makes it. But you get the idea.”

He looked at Georgie. “So what do you say? You want to come and hang out at my place next weekend?”

When Georgie told Alice the news she shrieked so loud that she startled the horses.

“Ohmygod! James Kirkwood,
the
James Kirkwood has asked you out on a date!”

Georgie groaned, “This is exactly why I wasn’t going to tell you! And, strictly speaking, he hasn’t asked me out. He’s asked me to go to his house.”

Alice squealed even louder at this. “The Kirkwood house is, like, a total mega-mansion. It’s supposed to be amazing!”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Cam huffed, as he led Paddy out of the loose box. “I mean, what does James have that I haven’t got?”

“Err, do you want me to write the list or is this multiple choice?” Alice said dryly.

It was a rare occasion that the three of them had time together to go out hacking after school. It was a pity they couldn’t do this every day, Georgie thought. There were so many bridle paths and the grounds were so beautiful.

The sun was low in the sky over the bluegrass pasture as they rode under a long row of white-blossomed dogwood trees. The bridle path ran alongside the novice cross-country course and Georgie could see the fences that she had jumped for the midterm exam. None of them held any fear for her now but as Tara had told them, the next challenges would be far greater. As she thought about this, Georgie felt Belle snatch at the bit, wanting to canter.

Beside her, Alice was having trouble holding Will back as well. “Are you ready?” she asked Georgie and Cam. “Shall we canter?”

The three of them rose up in their stirrups and urged the horses on. Georgie looked back over her shoulder and saw the red Georgian brick buildings of the academy behind her and the horses grazing in the fields and realised for the very first time that she finally felt like she was home. She smiled at Alice and Cam and pointed at the lone dogwood in the distance. “First one to reach the tree wins,” she told them.

“Come on. I’ll race you.”