Moonlight: Star of the Show (7 page)

Chapter Seven

A
S
much as Alice enjoyed doing lots of detective work, she was secretly relieved the next morning that she was free to do her own thing for a bit. The Fratton Show was drawing ever closer and she still hadn’t schooled Scout. She’d got up extra early to go to Blackberry Farm. Charlie had said she’d do the same, only she overslept, and leaned out of her bedroom window to tell Alice she’d catch her up.

Scout was waiting for Alice as always by the paddock fence and whickered softly as she cycled into the yard. The other ponies wandered over to the gate, and Alice slipped on Scout’s and Wish’s headcollars and led them both in before heading back for Pirate and Dancer. After she’d put them
in their stables she quickly mixed their small feeds while Dancer kicked her stable door demandingly, the deep whicker getting louder and louder as Rosie appeared sleepily from the farm door and carried over her feed bucket.

After the ponies had finished eating, Rosie and Alice tied Dancer and Scout up outside their stables in the cool, early morning sun. While Rosie faffed about sorting through her grooming kit, Alice gave Scout a thorough brushing until his dappled grey coat shone. Scout nibbled and pulled at his haynet and every now and again he turned his head, watching Alice with his soft, friendly dark eyes. He stood solidly while she brushed all around his legs, and as she lightly pulled his feathers, he lifted each hoof in turn for her to pick out.

Then she decided to tidy his mane, backcombing it and gently pulling out the longer strands until it was shorter and all the same length, making it easier to plait. Scout held his
head low, so that she could reach all the way up to his ears, his eyes half closed and his lower lip drooping.

Once she’d finished and was happy with his neatly hanging mane (apart from the bit by his ears, where she’d got carried away and it was sticking upright), Scout nudged her arm and she found a carrot for him in her pocket. He lifted one front hoof and waved it as she held the carrot out to him. His soft lips hoovered it up, and he crunched noisily and happily while she went to fetch his tack.

Mia and Charlie had arrived at the yard by then, and they joined Alice and Rosie as they headed to the well-worn track in the small schooling paddock. After they had worked the ponies in, Alice turned Scout towards one of the pairs of faded wooden jump wings with the flaking cross poles that was set up in the middle of the paddock. Scout felt confident and strong in Alice’s hands going into the fence. She softened
her reins as they got to it and he cleared it easily.

While Mia walked Wish to one side (“I’ll judge your jumping,” she’d announced to the others before turning her face towards the sun and closing her eyes), the rest of them slid off their ponies and mapped out a course as they hauled their collection of rickety poles and barrels about the field, building an upright, spread and double before taking it in turns to jump round. Pirate went first and flew each fence, rattling them but somehow leaving them all standing.

Next up was Dancer, who approached each fence at a snail’s pace, eyeing them suspiciously even though she’d seen them a hundred times before. Nothing Rosie did could make her go any faster. She slowed on the way to the first fence, then launched herself over. Rosie collapsed on her neck, giggling and heading vaguely for the next jump.

Despite Charlie and Alice yelling “Legs!” at the top of their voices, Rosie was still giggling
too much to use them effectively. Dancer cat-leaped the next fence then ground to a halt in front of the third. Rosie sank in the saddle dramatically. While Alice and Charlie groaned, Rosie just shook her head.

“It’s not my fault – Dancer just isn’t built to jump.” She shrugged good-humouredly, joining Mia and letting her reins go to the buckle end. Dancer dropped her head immediately with a snort before ravenously starting to crop the patchy grass in the dusty field.

As Mia rolled up her short sleeves to get a better tan, Alice set off around the course. Scout bounded into canter from walk and bounced forward over the dry summer grass, picking up neatly at each fence and jumping carefully, his ears pricked as he kept looking for the next one. Maybe all their hacking had freshened him up, Alice thought happily as they soared clean over the small triple bar.

“And the winner of the Blackberry Farm Cup
is Alice Hathaway riding Scout!” Rosie joked through coned hands.

Alice laughed as Scout put in a series of high-spirited bucks. If only, she wished for the hundredth time, she could feel as relaxed in the show ring as she did in the field.

“Then, Scout,” she whispered as her pony’s grey ear flickered back and forward at the sound of her voice, “we might have a chance in the real thing, I’m sure of it!”

Over the next couple of days they concentrated on getting ready for the show. Mia spent hours on Wish’s appearance and practising her show-ring routine. Wish walked, trotted and cantered neatly in figures of eight with her neck arched gracefully. Her extended trot was a show-stopper and Mia practised that most of all, although she knew that Wish saved her best for when she had
an audience. The sound of the crowd ‘ooh’-ing in awe as the palomino mare flashed across the centre of the ring with a combination of power and elegance, her hoofs flicking out magnificently, elevated her to another level. Mia leaned down and hugged Wish. She’d worked hard to get her spot on, but she knew how lucky she was to have found a pony as talented as Wish, one that loved showing off to the crowd and the judge as much as she did. Charlie did nothing different from normal, just sat quietly and effortlessly as Pirate spun and bucked and charged about the schooling ring, while Rosie tried and failed to persuade Dancer to leave the ground from any pace other than a virtual standstill.

Alice schooled Scout on the flat and over some show jumps, and he was accurate, fast and responsive. Alice felt completely in tune with him and she was enjoying every second. She knew that jumping was his favourite thing, and since she’d got him it had become hers too.

“It’s just your nerves that stop you, Alice,” Charlie announced after they’d turned out their ponies in the warm, late afternoon sun, “I reckon it must be all those millions of eyes on you once you get in the ring that does it.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Alice groaned.

As they wandered back to the yard they talked half about the classes they were entering and half about Moonlight. There was only one more day before the show, which was being held on the Sunday, and they still hadn’t come up with a plan of action over how to confront Mark. Panic was starting to set in.

“We’ve got so much preparation to get through tomorrow with the ponies and the tack that we’re not going to have a spare second!” Rosie whined, at the idea of all the work she needed to do the next day as much as anything else.

“But we can’t just leave it to chance on Sunday morning once we get to the show,” Charlie said.

“No way,” Alice added, trying hard not to
think about how ill she’d be feeling on the day. “I’ll be such a bag of nerves by then I won’t be able to think straight so we’ll have to get it sorted out before then.”

“There’s only one thing for it,” Mia announced. “Rosie, if you agree, we’ll have to have a sleepover tomorrow night.”

Chapter Eight

M
IA
, Charlie and Alice arrived at Blackberry Farm the next morning with their overnight bags and show kits, bubbling over with excitement about spending the night there. Rosie’s bedroom looked out across the paddocks, so they would be able to check on the ponies by the luminous light of the moon and the stars as they made their plans.

After they’d bundled their bags in the cottage and hung up their clothes, they raced back to the stables and concentrated on getting ready for the following day. The yard was soon awash with suds as the girls tied their ponies outside their stables and shampooed them, getting drenched as the ponies whirled their tails round after they’d been rinsed. They used a sweat scraper to squeakily
squeeze off all the excess water from their ponies’ coats.

After washing Pirate’s tail, Charlie put a tail bandage on to try to make the hairs at the top lie flat, rather than spiking out like a huge hedgehog. Then the girls led their ponies to a patch of grass to crop while they dried off in the sun, with Dancer getting behind Rosie and nudging her along each step so that they could get there faster. Every now and again Scout stopped eating, and while Alice stroked his velveteen muzzle, prickly with whiskers, he rested his chin lightly on her shoulder, blinking his eyes.

Once Scout was turned out wearing his light summer sheet to keep him as clean as possible, Alice headed into the depths of the gloomy tack room, filled with its familiar strong smell of leather and saddle soap. Finding a sponge, she started cleaning her tack, scrubbing Scout’s bit and all the metal buckles. She polished the leather on her saddle until it shone.

“Alice, you do realise that if you carry on like that you’ll make the seat so slippery”, Charlie pointed out, “that you’ll slide off it after just one jump!”

This sent Alice into another spasm of nerves, but although they all offered various opinions, no one actually knew how to scuff up the leather once it had been polished so Alice just added it to the list of things to worry about the next day.

After they’d finished tack-cleaning and had given the ponies their small evening feed Alice gave Scout strict instructions not to get any grass stains on his beautifully clean and sparkling grey coat.

They yanked off their jodhpur boots, leaving piles of straw that fell out of them by the mat before running through the open back door of the farmhouse, into the large, cluttered kitchen. The smell of warm, fresh bread filled their noses. They scraped out the chairs and flopped at the big, scarred wooden kitchen table moaning about their aching arms after all that tack-cleaning as
they cut huge chunks of the bread and buttered it haphazardly.

Rosie’s mum, dressed in paint-spattered overalls, her messy blonde hair tied back with a long, dangling rainbow-coloured scarf, wandered in and poured them some lemonade.

“Home made,” she announced proudly as she poured it, not noticing the girls grimacing as they took great gulps.

“Mum!” Rosie groaned. “I think you forgot to put any sugar in!”

Mrs Honeycott scratched her head with the small paintbrush she’d had tucked behind her ear.

“Did I?” she asked vaguely. “I must have been distracted.”

“I think you’re permanently distracted,” Rosie muttered as the other girls giggled between mouthfuls of bread.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Mrs Honeycott asked as she piled salad onto plates and placed them on the table.

“Nothing,” Rosie replied sweetly, before clocking the plates and frowning. “Er, haven’t you forgotten something else, Mum?”

Rosie started to sniff the air, then they all noticed smoke drifting from the ancient aga. Mr Honeycott appeared at the back door at the same moment and pulled off his wellies, shaking his head.

“You go and finish your painting,” he said, smiling broadly. “She’s always like this when she’s in the middle of a big project – you get used to it! I’ll dish up.”

Mrs Honeycott drifted off in the direction of her studio and Mr Honeycott rescued from the Aga the slightly burnt home-made pizza, piled high with fresh roasted vegetables that he’d grown. As he cut it into slices Beanie’s beady eyes watched his every move, hoping for a scrap to fall. Beanie positioned himself by Rosie, head on one side, as she and the others tucked in, talking through mouthfuls about the show. Will, Rosie’s
older brother, rushed in, grabbed a slice of pizza then sat with Mr Honeycott discussing a problem with one of their tractors.

As soon as they’d finished the girls rushed up to Rosie’s bedroom and plumped down on the air beds that Rosie had blown up and piled with sleeping bags and pillows. The walls were covered with sketches and paintings that Mrs Honeycott had made of Dancer, and every available surface was covered with framed photos of Rosie’s strawberry roan mare. Rosie stroked the one by her bed, a close-up of Dancer’s broad, honest cobby chestnut face with its white blaze, before collapsing on her bed. She pulled out a tin from under it, filled with all sorts of sweets.

“I got them for our midnight feast,” she explained, chomping on some marshmallows and handing the tin round, “but there’s no way I’m going to be able to stay awake till then so we might as well eat them now.”

“You eat louder than Dancer!” Charlie joked
before Rosie swung her pillow, laughing as it missed Charlie and clocked Alice on the side of her head. Charlie and Alice both started to retaliate before Mia coughed pointedly, calling them to order, just as the bedroom door was butted open and Pumpkin the ginger cat strolled in.

“Right,” Mia began, opening her notebook as the others stopped giggling and started to concentrate. They all studied the new clues:

Impressive, even if Mia had to say it herself. She hadn’t missed one single tiny detail as she’d scribbled away in Colossus’s gloomy stable.

“So,” Alice asked, wishing for the hundredth time that she could be just a teeny bit more like Mia, “what should we do at the show tomorrow?”

“Let’s just tell Mark as soon as he gets there that we know all about his plan and that it would be better for him to hand Moonlight over without any fuss,” Charlie suggested. “That’ll save lots of messing about.”

“But if we do that he might just keep Moonlight hidden in the lorry and drive straight off,” Mia said. “Then we won’t have the chance to catch him out.”

“Well, we all heard Mark’s dad as good as admitting when he was at Harry Franklin’s yard that he was planning to disguise Moonlight,” Alice replied. “If Mark’s going to use some kind of boot polish or dye to cover up the white bits, we need to figure out how we can get close enough to rub some of it off and prove in front of everyone that he’s a thief.”

“I’ve got it!” Charlie shouted as she jumped
up, almost dislodging Pumpkin, who was curled at the end of Rosie’s bed. “We throw a bucket of soapy water over Moonlight as soon as Mark leads him out of the horsebox!”

“That sounds way too messy…” Mia began, making a face, “although… maybe, just
maybe
that could work.”

“Bagsy I throw the water!” Rosie squealed, shooting her hand up in the air.

“Ok,” Alice said, checking she’d got it right. “We confront Mark about Moonlight, and if he
doesn’t
confess but denies it then Rosie throws water –
gently
– over Moonlight…”

“… and all is revealed!” Rosie beamed, stroking Pumpkin as his contented purrs rumbled all round the room. “Well, maybe all will be revealed with water followed by a bit of scrubbing, anyway.”

“Right,” Mia agreed, “and I’m sure Poppy will still come to the show, even without Moonlight. She’ll want to see everyone and maybe ask around
to see if anyone’s got any news of him. So I think we should do this: one person collects Poppy and comes up with a reason for her to come over to Mark’s horsebox. One person holds the ponies and acts as look-out…”

“Me! If I can’t throw the water, I want to be lookout!” Charlie interrupted.

Mia made a note before carrying on: “… One person confronts Mark, and Rosie throws the water.”

“What happens if he confesses before we throw the water?” Alice asked, even though that seemed highly unlikely. “We won’t have to throw it if he does that.”

“How will I know, though?” Rosie asked, sounding disappointed. “Maybe I should throw it anyway, just to be sure.”

“No, Alice is right,” Mia said, chewing her pencil. “We need a code word. Rosie, you can hide around the other side of Mark’s horsebox. I’ll confront him and if he confesses everything,
forget the bucket. But if he isn’t playing along, and you hear me shout ‘CHEAT’, that’s your cue to throw it.”

“So if Charlie’s the lookout, Rosie is throwing the water and you’re talking to Mark, I guess that leaves me with the job of collecting Poppy,” Alice said, slightly grumpily. After all, it was the least glamorous job of the four. But then again, Alice didn’t particularly fancy confronting Mark either, so all in all it wasn’t too bad. “What about timing?”

“Charlie’s class – the thirteen-two-and-under showjumping – is first,” Mia said, studying the show programme. “My showing class follows that, and the Fratton Cup for Alice, Rosie and Mark is last. If he’s intent on winning the Cup, he’ll probably get to the show and start warming up just after my Ridden Show Pony class starts. He won’t want to be hanging around for ages with a stolen pony, so I bet he’ll leave it all to the last minute. So, we’ll have to act after mine
and Charlie’s classes have finished and before the Cup starts.”

Mia yawned as she finished speaking.

“That’s settled, then,” Charlie said, fighting back a yawn herself. “I doubt he’ll get Moonlight out early – that way as few people as possible will spot him before he jumps. It won’t give us much time to catch him.”

“Let’s just hope we have enough,” Rosie said, opening her window wider and looking out into the still darkness to where the ponies were quietly dozing by the big tree. “It might be our only chance to reunite Poppy with her pony.”

Rosie called Beanie, who scuttled up the stairs and snuffled around each of the girls’ beds before settling down by Rosie’s feet, with Pumpkin taking up position by her pillow. Charlie reached over to turn out the side light and the girls carried on talking for a while. Then Charlie and Alice whispered for a bit longer as Rosie, Mia and Beanie started to snore lightly. Gradually the
room fell silent. The only sound inside Alice’s head was her heart racing as she lay in the dark and started to panic in earnest about the Cup the next day.