Phantom: One Last Chance Read online

  For Bun, my never-ending inspiration

  Puffin & Rumpole,

  our black and white rescue moggies

  and Jerezano, my dapple grey Phantom

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Copyright

  “I’VE found more black hairs in Wish’s body brush,” Mia said, her breath white in the frosty air of the tack room. She pointedly plucked them out and dropped the pink brush back into her grooming kit.

  “That’s hardly surprising”, Rosie said, rubbing her gloved hands and blowing into them to warm them up, “when you think how many people have come to the farm to try out Pirate. Some of them must have accidentally used your brushes to groom him instead of Charlie’s.”

  Charlie had been rapidly outgrowing Pirate, her mischievous little bay pony, since the end of the summer and, after one final success in the showjumping ring at the beginning of October, she’d finally stopped riding him. Her parents had let her have a new horse on full loan but they couldn’t afford to keep two ponies. So Charlie had reluctantly agreed to find a new rider for Pirate.

  “Has everyone ridden him now?” Alice asked Charlie.

  Charlie nodded, poking her dark brown elfincut hair back under her woolly hat. Mia, Rosie and Alice were Charlie’s best friends and she trusted their opinion completely. So, the four of them had spent yesterday meeting people, interviewing them and seeing them ride. Charlie had wanted the evening to think about which rider would be best for Pirate, but as she sat in the tack room the next morning, she still wasn’t convinced that any of them were right.

  “So, all you’ve got to do now is make a decision,” Mia said, opening her notebook. “Who, from this list, do you think most suits Pirate? Who would you want to take him on loan?”

  “I don’t know.” Charlie sighed, reading and re-reading the neatly written list that Mia was holding out to her. “How about none of them?”

  Charlie had wanted to find someone local, so that Pirate wouldn’t be moved far. The girls had helped her, writing out adverts and putting them up in the post office and at school. Lots of people had come to try him, but he was quick and tricky to ride and most had been frightened off, or Charlie had put them off on purpose, knowing they weren’t right. But with Christmas two weeks away, her parents were starting to pile on the pressure for her to find someone who’d take on not just the riding, but the costs of his stabling, bedding, feed and shoeing too. And not only that, Charlie was finding it difficult fitting in the time to look after two ponies before and after school, alongside all her homework. None of it was making the decision any easier. Charlie scratched her head. “This really is impossible,” she muttered grumpily.

  “Look, we can work this out,” Mia said, sounding determined as she scanned down the list of names in her notebook, “after all, we’ve solved bigger problems than this before.”

  The girls grinned at each other and even Charlie forgot her worries for a second. At the beginning of the summer, the four of them had decided to call themselves The Pony Detectives, after they solved the mystery of a stolen showjumping pony called Moonlight. Since then, they’d had three more cases to investigate, but they desperately wanted a new one to get stuck into, however small.

  “Mia’s right,” Alice agreed. “And seeing as mysteries are a bit thin on the ground at the moment, this is what we should be putting all our efforts into – finding Pirate’s perfect partner.”

  “And with our track record,” Rosie said, “once the Pony Detectives get on the case, Pirate will be sorted out in no time.”

  Charlie looked less convinced.

  “Actually, it might be sorted out already,” Mia said, tapping her notebook. “Look – there’s only one person who’s really keen and an okay rider: Megan Green.”

  The others groaned. Megan lived in the cottage across the field from Blackberry Farm and she desperately wanted to take Pirate on full loan.

  “I’m sure she waits at her bedroom window, watching the yard for when we come back from a ride,” Rosie said, “because she seems to know exactly when to come over.”

  “Normally just as we’re about to sit down with a hot chocolate,” Alice grinned.

  Since Megan had first ridden Pirate a few days ago, after seeing the ad in the post office, she’d been popping over every five seconds to show Charlie a new exercise for Pirate that she’d thought of, or a new feed supplement she wanted to try to make his coat shine. She used any excuse to come to the yard so she could groom Pirate or trim his feathery legs, trying to prove to Charlie that she was his ideal partner.

  “To be fair,” Mia said, tossing her long, silky black hair over her shoulder as she put down the notebook and started flicking through the bumper Christmas issue of Pony Mad, “she is a pretty good rider.”

  “I know, but it’s not her riding ability that’s the problem,” Charlie grumbled. “More her ridiculous plans to turn Pirate, the hairiest showjumper around, into a super-smart dressage pony. She hates jumping, which he loves, and Pirate hates flatwork, which is all she wants to do. It took everything just to persuade Megan to join us later this afternoon for a hack as part of the trial. She’d be happy just schooling him all the time. He’d die of boredom!”

  “Well, if it’s a dressage pony Megan wants,” Mia said, flicking through Pony Mad to the ads at the back and circling one with a pink highlighter, “there’s one in here for loan at Rockland Riding School, which isn’t far away – 13.3 hands high, fourteen years old, experienced competition pony. Sounds ideal.”

  Suddenly, from outside, they heard a loud bleat, a cry and the clang of a metal gate being slammed shut.

  “Well, here’s your chance to tell her,” Alice said as Mia put the magazine down. The next second the tack room door opened, letting in a blast of icy cold air. A small girl rushed in, her blonde pony tail bobbing from side to side. She was dressed head to toe in the neatest, most correct riding gear, holding a shiny red folder, and looking apologetic.

  “Sorry, Hettie got past me again.” Megan smiled as a black-faced sheep trotted past the tack room door, making a beeline for the feed room.

  “I’ve told you a million times – if you insist on coming through the sheep field, don’t open the gate,” Rosie said, clambering to her feet. “Hettie’s always lurking about, waiting for an opportunity to barge her way onto the yard so she can rummage around in the feed room.”

  “Why don’t you just climb over the gate?” Alice asked, getting up with Rosie to help her catch Hettie and return the sheep to her field.

  “I keep forgetting,” Megan said lightly, holding up her folder. “I was too busy looking through this. I’ve found some really good schooling exercises I can’t wait to try on Pirate and I’ve put them all onto a chart – look!”

  Megan opened her folder and unclipped the ring binders. She carefully laid out three A4 pieces of paper which she’d sellotaped together to reveal an intricate plan of her exercise regime for Pirate. Big red, green and yellow arrows interweaved until they reached the final box which had gold stars all around it.

  “All this work will take us to our first dressage test!” Megan breathed excitedly, pointing to the box. “I just wanted to prove to y
ou how serious I am about taking on Pirate, Charlie. I thought this might help you make up your mind about letting me have him on loan – you said you’d let me know today, after our first hack. I know loads of people have tried him, but I watched everyone riding him from my window and I didn’t think any of them got on with him like I did. Anyway, I’ll just pin this up here…”

  Beanie, Rosie’s Jack Russell dog, eyed Megan suspiciously as she leaned over him to a spare bit of wall opposite the saddle racks. She never quite seemed to see poor Beanie and was always treading on him, squashing him or edging him off seats. She took some Blu-Tack from her pocket, then stuck the huge poster up, kneeling on the blanket box in front of her and nudging Beanie off of it in the process. As Alice and Rosie walked back into the tack room, Beanie shuffled crossly into the corner. Charlie looked at the chart, her face dropping as she realised how unimpressed Pirate would be by all the schooling Megan had planned for him, especially as there wasn’t a single mention of hacking or jumping.

  “Listen, Megan,” Charlie began, “dressage really isn’t Pirate’s thing. I mean, he’s only got three speeds – jog, jog faster and flat out. That doesn’t generally go down well with dressage judges, and you’ll probably get fed up with him after a bit.”

  Megan shook her head vigorously and was about to interrupt, but Charlie continued.

  “Look, there’s a dressage pony being advertised in the latest Pony Mad – maybe that one would be better suited to all this?”

  Charlie grabbed Mia’s copy of Pony Mad and pointed to the highlighted ad. Megan glanced across, then shook her head again. “Don’t worry, Charlie, I wouldn’t get fed up with Pirate,” she said, sounding determined. “And if you do let me take him on loan, I won’t let you down, I promise!”

  With that, Megan picked up Pirate’s tack and stepped out onto the yard. Charlie sighed. Convincing Megan that Pirate wasn’t her perfect pony was going to be harder than she’d thought.

  CHARLIE watched Pirate’s ears prick as Megan placed his tack on the stable door. The little bay pony always got excited about being ridden, unlike Charlie’s new horse, the fractious, delicate black thoroughbred, Phantom. His owner, Pixie, hadn’t been experienced enough to handle him and had totally lost her confidence. She’d been excited about Charlie taking him on loan, especially after she found herself a new, straightforward and safe pony to part-share earlier in the autumn.

  Charlie slid back the bolt and stepped cautiously into Phantom’s stable. He was standing in the shadows, still and wary, his head up, ears slightly back. He was unresponsive and distant, almost like he was frozen, until Charlie stepped forward to take hold of his leather headcollar. Then he flinched and flattened his ears.

  Phantom shook his head irritably as Charlie pulled back the thick stable rug from his back and quickly flicked her body brush over his thin silken coat. He danced about the stable, threatening to kick as Charlie placed the saddle on his light-framed back, tightening his girth as gently as possible. As Charlie untied him and tried to get the bit into his mouth, Phantom backed up into the corner of the stable, raising his head.

  “Come on, Phantom,” she whispered in frustration. It wasn’t until she spoke that she realised that she’d been holding her breath and had been working in silence. Phantom finally opened his mouth, and she slipped the bit in. Then she hastily slid the top of the bridle over his ears and pulled out his neat forelock. Charlie breathed out, feeling exhausted after her daily battle just to get the black horse tacked up.

  She’d had him for nearly three months now. At the start she’d had a few successes with him in showjumping competitions, but she was starting to wonder if that had been a fluke, because instead of getting any easier to handle and ride, he’d got worse. Much, much worse. At first she thought his cold, unaffectionate behaviour was down to being in a new yard with a new routine, and she’d been convinced that he’d warm to her and start to be friendly. But it felt like the black horse was more unreachable now than ever, as if he’d shrunk further and further inside himself, miles away from the outside world.

  Charlie had tried everything. He was stabled next to his old friend, Wish, but he barely seemed to notice she was there. Charlie had given up turning him out, too, because all he would do was pace by the gate until he was brought in again. He never came to the front of his stable when Charlie arrived at the yard, or when she called him or carried his feed over. She hated to admit it, but she was starting to wonder whether she’d ever grow to love Phantom, however talented he might be.

  “Faraway Phantom,” she sighed to herself, remembering his show name. “Whoever named you got that completely right.”

  The black horse wrinkled his nose as Charlie tightened his girth another couple of holes, before leading him out of the stable into the frosted yard. She put her foot in the stirrup. Phantom skittered sideways and Charlie hopped after him, eventually managing to swing herself up into the saddle. His head was high, fighting her grip on the reins as she tried to make him wait for Megan and Pirate. Megan finally led Pirate out and fussed around him, checking that all the straps on his bridle were neatly tucked into their keepers.

  Alice mounted Scout and waited in the yard, resting both her hands on her grey Connemara pony’s neck to warm up her already frozen fingers. Her toes were numb with cold too, and she couldn’t wait to get going. Scout began to paw the ground, getting impatient. Rosie, who had been ready for a while, hugged Dancer as the mare drifted round the yard, head down, hoovering up any last wisps of hay she could find. Once Megan had mounted, Mia led them over to the gate on Wish, who was covered by a dark pink exercise rug that matched Mia’s thick fleece-lined jacket perfectly.

  Alice leaned down from the saddle and scraped the gate shut after they’d all trooped out of the yard. They headed down the frozen rutted path which ran between the white crystal-tipped grass in the turnout paddock to their right and the schooling paddock on the left. The frosted post-and-rail fencing sparkled in the bright, silvery sun and great white plumes puffed from their ponies’ nostrils with each step. While the other Pony Detectives chatted excitedly about Christmas and what presents they were planning to buy for their ponies, Charlie tried her best to keep an eye on Pirate and Megan. She kept glancing back over her shoulder, but Phantom’s raking stride was so huge that she was always too far ahead to watch them properly.

  When Charlie was riding Pirate she could laze in the saddle and join in the fun, but she had learned to keep her wits about her when she was on Phantom. The black horse high-stepped and snorted as they headed into the woods, where the ground became soft and spongy. He suddenly shot sideways as a pheasant dived across the path, and nearly deposited Charlie in a bush. She tried to stay relaxed, but her breathing got faster and faster. Phantom began to jog beneath her, his neck tight and his head high.

  Charlie wished that she’d been able to turn Phantom out in his field so he could get rid of some of his energy before they went riding. But he didn’t like being turned out, and the ground in the schooling paddock was so rock-hard that she hadn’t been able to lunge or school him. Now it was like sitting on a ticking bomb, with pent-up nervous energy just waiting to explode.

  “Steady, Phantom,” Charlie said, her chest tightening in fear – she’d ridden him enough times to know what was about to happen next. The black horse’s trot got faster and more unbalanced. As Charlie jolted in the saddle, he broke into a canter. His stride was short and bouncy, like a tightly coiled spring, and was almost impossible for Charlie to sit to. She tensed as she tried to slow him, but he fought her stiff hands, lengthening his stride.

  Charlie could just make out the others’ shouts behind her as she held her breath, but their words were lost in the chill wind that whipped her face, forcing tears from the corners of her eyes. She clung on grimly as Phantom began to race along the bridleway, branches snatching at her jacket. They flew down the narrow, winding path and she felt the familiar sick sensation in her stomach, knowing that now she was totally out
of control.

  The path was too narrow for her to try to turn Phantom and slow him down. Charlie would just have to hope she could cling on until he pulled himself up, but as he dodged around a low bush she tipped forward perilously and lost a stirrup. Phantom flung his head up in the air and tripped over a knotted tree root, stumbling and scraping the woodland floor with his nose. Charlie, already unseated, was thrown from the saddle. She closed her eyes tight, disoriented as she tumbled down and crashed into the bushes with an explosion of icy spray.

  She lay there for a second, winded and shaken, then gingerly stood up, feeling sore and stiff all down her left side as she untangled herself from the brambles. Phantom pulled himself up ahead of her, his head high and his nostrils flaring as he snorted. As she heard the thudding of hooves on the path behind her Charlie dabbed her stinging cheek with a gloved finger. She brought it away and saw blood just as Alice pulled up behind her and squeaked at the sight.

  “That looks nasty!” she gasped, squinting at the jagged bramble scratch across Charlie’s face. “Does it hurt?”

  Charlie nodded, not trusting herself to speak. It had been threatening for ages, but it was the first time she’d actually fallen from Phantom and it had been every bit as painful as she’d imagined it would be. Her eyes welled up and she turned away, looking towards Phantom.

  Mia and Wish appeared a second later, closely followed by Megan and Pirate. The little bay charged up bright-eyed as if he’d loved every second of the high-speed chase. Megan, on the other hand, was looking a bit sick.

  “I didn’t realise he could go quite that fast,” she gulped, catching her breath.

  “Are you okay, Charlie?” Mia asked, seeing Charlie’s hands shake as she touched her cheek again.

  At that second Rosie appeared, puffing, while Dancer’s eyes goggled out on stalks at having been asked to canter flat out around so many bends.