Phantom: One Last Chance (7 page)

They were starting to feel the numb chill of the afternoon through their thick layers, and their noses, fingers and toes were beginning to freeze.
Then they heard Beanie barking excitedly on the yard.

Phantom started at the sound and Charlie looked anxiously at him. She took a step nearer and reached out to pat him, but he lifted his head and shied sideways. She sighed, but reminded herself that Caitlin had only ever taken tiny steps forward and that she shouldn’t race ahead and then get frustrated.

Charlie walked over to Mia and Alice, leading Phantom, who was warily keeping his distance. “I’m going to head back,” she said to them.

“I bet Rosie’s bridle’s still in pieces when you get there,” Mia said.

Suddenly they heard a sneeze, which sent Phantom scooting backwards, nearly dragging Charlie over. Mia and Alice turned to see an evergreen bush quivering, close behind the fencing where they were sitting.

“Rosie!” Mia called out. “Is that you?!”

The bush quivered again and Rosie stepped
out sheepishly, her cheeks bulging.

How long have you been hiding in there for?” Alice giggled as Charlie got Phantom back under control.

“Om, nt lng,” Rosie mumbled with her mouth full, not looking at them but chewing quickly and swallowing. “Well, actually, a while. I got bored on lookout duty in the tack room. There was no sign of anyone, so I headed down here soon after you to watch Phantom, keeping out of sight so I didn’t get rumbled. It was quite cosy in that bush, especially with these mini Yule logs to chomp on.”

“Hang on,” Mia said, deadly serious. “If you’re down here, who was Beanie barking at on the yard a few minutes ago?”

They all looked at each other for half a second before Mia and Alice jumped down on the other side of the fence and sprinted, Rosie hot on their heels, towards to the yard. Rosie took a running leap at the back gate as Mia and Alice climbed it,
but her foot slipped and she crashed noisily into the top of it and then tumbled down the other side.

“Are you okay?” Alice asked as Rosie untangled herself and rolled into an upright position. Mia held out her hand to help her up. Then they heard a clatter round the corner. Alice raced round, only to find the tack-room door swinging on its hinges, and Mia’s pink body brush lying on the floor just outside. Alice ran to the front gate and jumped over it, then stood scanning each direction.

“Nothing,” she reported to Rosie and Mia as they joined her. She climbed back over again just as hoof beats skittered onto the yard and Phantom appeared with Charlie. She led him back to his stable, then squealed as Hettie came shooting out of it just as they reached the door. Charlie held her breath, waiting for Phantom to explode, but to her surprise he just lowered his head instead, snorting and watching the sheep as
she slowed to a halt in the middle of the yard, wondering where to go next.

“If Hettie’s in the yard, my Pony Detective powers tell me that it
has
to be Megan. Again,” Charlie said, bolting Phantom’s stable before joining the others while Rosie persuaded a grumpy Hettie back to her field.

“Exactly. She must have waited until Rosie left the yard
unguarded
,” Mia said, looking pointedly at Rosie, “then crept on. Only, Beanie gave her away.”

Suddenly Rosie looked puzzled. “Hang on a sec, though. That doesn’t add up,” she said. “
I
heard Beanie barking playfully on the yard too, and thought it must have been at Mum or Dad, because he only barks like that at people he knows and likes…”

“And he doesn’t like Megan,” Alice said, realising what Rosie was getting at. “She was always tipping him off seats or squashing him when she sat down.”

“So who was it, then?” Mia frowned.
“I’m going to ring Megan,” Charlie said decisively, “so we can sort this out once and for all.”

Charlie went into the tack room and looked for the number Megan had written down on a scrap of paper. Then she dialled it and switched on her speaker phone so the others could hear.

“Hello, is Megan there please?” Charlie asked politely, when Megan’s dad answered.

“No, sorry, she’s still out,” he explained. “She’s at the stables with the little bay pony she’s got on loan. She should be back soon though.

Charlie thanked him and ended the call, looking round at the others.

“Proof!” she said. “It sounds like she’s told her parents that she’s got Pirate on loan!”

“And she’s still determined to continue her plan to perfect him,” Rosie added, “only now, she’s gone undercover.”

“And she’s so desperate,” Alice added, “that she even risked sneaking in here when she knew we were still nearby!”

“She probably saw Rosie heading for the paddocks then came over. I think we’ll have to stay here again tomorrow so we can catch her out and put a stop to her creeping onto the yard all the time,” Mia said seriously, as the others groaned at the idea of another day filled with tack cleaning. “Only this time,
Rosie
, we can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

Chapter Ten

ALICE’S mum drove slowly along the lane, the car’s tyres crunching lightly on the inch-thick snow that had fallen the night before. She turned slowly into the drive for Blackberry Farm, and Charlie and Alice jumped out at the end, calling their goodbyes and thank-yous. Rosie and Mia were standing by the tack-room door, staring into the yard. They looked as if they’d seen a ghost.

“What’s up?” Charlie asked anxiously, as she scrunched towards them with Alice.

Rosie didn’t speak. She just pointed.

Alice and Charlie stood for a second, not knowing what they were supposed to be looking at. All the ponies were standing at their doors, except Phantom. Dancer scraped her hoof
impatiently for her breakfast.

“I don’t get it,” Alice said, confused. “Everything looks the same as usual.”

“There, on the ground,” Mia whispered.

Charlie and Alice lowered their gaze. They both gasped, suddenly feeling goosebumps. There, clear in the light layer of snow, were hoof prints. They edged closer to get a better view. There were some more, little indistinct prints too, which looked as if they could have been made by Pumpkin, the yard cat.

“Those hoof prints lead from Pirate’s stable,” Charlie gasped, “to the gate, then back again!”

There was a scrape in the snow where it looked as if the gate had been pulled open.

“Are they definitely Pirate’s hoof prints?” Alice asked.

Charlie nodded, feeling queasy. They were tiny – they could only belong to the smallest pony on the yard. “But both his bolts are still done up,” she said.

“And there isn’t a human footprint in sight.” Alice shivered. There was a tiny strip untouched by snow around the edge of the stables, under the eaves, but it was too far away from the hoof prints for someone to have led Pirate out while walking beside him.

Charlie opened her little bay pony’s door and he nudged her hard with his muzzle, his eyes bright, wanting his breakfast. Charlie ran her hands over his legs and turned back his rug; there wasn’t a mark on him. She lifted one of his front hooves.

“I picked these out last night before we left,” she said quietly, showing the others, her heart thudding, “but now they’re full of mud and fern. The ground’s frozen everywhere… apart from in the wood.”

“He’s been out of the yard,” Rosie said, her eyes widening as Dancer nearly bashed her door off its hinges.

“Quick, we’d better feed the ponies first,” Mia
said, taking a deep breath. “Then we can think about this.”

They mixed together the chaff, pony nuts, garlic, chopped carrots and apples in silence, then walked back to hand out the buckets. Dancer nearly knocked her bucket out of Rosie’s hand in her desperation to get to it. Charlie dropped one bucket into Pirate’s stable, and he launched himself at it, lifting his near fore hoof as he tucked in greedily. As Charlie moved on and opened Phantom’s door, she gasped, nearly dropping the bucket. Phantom always waited uneasily at the back of his stable until she’d left, and only then would he cautiously approach his feed. But this time he was standing quietly, his ears pricked and his eyes full of curiosity as he bent his head to the shape beneath him.

The others, hearing Charlie’s gasp, rushed over and stood behind her, peering into the stable.

“Hettie!” Rosie exclaimed, then she slapped her hand over her mouth as Phantom jumped. She lowered her voice and he dropped his
nose once more to the woolly ball standing triumphantly at his hooves. “Those smaller prints weren’t Pumpkin’s, they were hers! But how did
she
get in
there
?!”

“Do you reckon that Megan sneaked in overnight?” Alice asked. “I mean, I don’t get how she could, if there weren’t any footprints…”

“But Hettie being in is evidence that she was here,” Mia puzzled. “Only – why put her in Phantom’s box?”

“If Megan crept onto the yard after we’d all left,” Charlie said, talking slowly while she thought things through, “and Hettie sneaked in with her, maybe it was easier for her to shove Hettie into one of the stables than try to get her back into the field.”

“But how can it be her, or anyone else, in fact,” Rosie asked, frightening herself, “if there wasn’t a single footprint in the snow?”

The others stood stumped, and seriously spooked.

“I don’t know,” Mia eventually said, “but I think we might need to do a night-time watch if we’re going to find out.”

“There’s no way I’m keeping a lookout on my own in the dark!” Rosie cried. “You’re all going to have to stay with me – I’ll ask Mum about a sleepover.”

“Yes!” Alice said. “Then we can take it in turns to stay up and keep an eye on the yard.”

“We
have
to work out what’s going on here,” Mia said. “But in the meantime, I vote we stay put. And I think Pirate should stay in his box under close guard all day.”

“What about Hettie?” Rosie asked. “I’d take her out, but I’d rather not tackle her while she’s being protected by Phantom the beast.”

“You know what?” Charlie said, smiling for the first time that morning as she recalled the diary entry about Fable gaining confidence from her woolly companion, Molly. “I think it might just be the other way round. I don’t suppose
there’s any chance your dad might let Hettie stay put, is there?”

Pirate stood miserably, watching Scout, Wish and Dancer being led to the field with their thick winter turnout rugs on. He whickered every time Charlie came near, his ears pricked hopefully, but he turned grumpy when she walked past telling him that he had to stay where they could keep an eye on him. She let herself into Phantom’s stable, next door, and opened Fable’s diary at the point where she’d finished reading the day before. Charlie settled herself quietly on the thick deep straw around the edge of the stable. Phantom stood in the far corner, but with Hettie planted firmly between them he looked less distrustful of Charlie. His back leg was relaxed and his ears had drooped slightly outwards. Charlie didn’t feel she needed to tie him up.

At first she was aware of Pirate’s restlessness in the next stable, and her reading was punctuated by his shrill whinnies to his stable mates.
But before long, she became lost to her surroundings, totally immersed in the other world created by Caitlin in the pages of the diary.

Charlie quickly lost track of time, reading silently for ages before she finally yawned and looked up. She felt her heart skip a beat. Phantom was half-dozing, his eyes soft. He shifted, but didn’t start when she got up. She wanted to stroke him, but she kept her hand on the diary, gripping it firmly. Little steps, she told herself. She scraped back the bolt and let herself out of the stable. Pirate immediately whickered to her and paced his box, so Charlie went over and hugged his sturdy little upright neck, scratching his withers under the thick rug.

She walked to Wish’s empty stable, where Rosie, Alice and Mia had spent the day with Beanie and Pumpkin, wrapped up in blankets reading old copies of
Pony Mad
, drinking hot chocolate from flasks and scoffing sandwiches and chocolate mini logs. That way they’d kept
a close eye on the yard without making their presence visible, hoping Megan would sneak in. So far, though, the only creeping about had been done by the chickens clucking to and fro and the odd smoky-grey pigeon looking for loose feed in the yard.

Charlie sighed as she sat down with the others. She knew how much Pirate hated being cooped up, especially when his friends were out.

“It’s only for one day,” Mia reminded her as Rosie picked up the Christmas
Pony Mad
and started to flick through it. Alice was snuggled up next to Rosie, looking at the pages with her until they got to the classifieds.

Rosie was about to turn the page when Alice put out her hand to stop her, frowning. Part of the page was missing – just a tiny square from the bottom, and it was barely noticeable, but there was still a bit of pink highlighter on the page around the tear. Her mouth dropped open and she looked up at the others.

“You know that advert for the dressage pony we thought would suit Megan,” she said quickly. “It’s missing…”

The others looked over and gasped.

“Well none of us would’ve taken it,” Charlie said, looking round at her friends, “which means…”

“It
has
to be Megan,” Mia concluded with a frown. “When her dad said she was spending time with her bay loan pony, we just assumed he meant Pirate!”

“When he might have meant a different pony altogether.” Rosie shivered. “But how do we know if that dressage pony is bay or not?”

“We call Rockland Riding School,” Mia said quickly. “The pony was from there – has anyone got their number?”

Rosie ran to the cottage and came back with it. She rang it, but when the manager answered she suddenly went blank. She threw the phone like it was a hot potato to Mia, who caught it,
put it on speakerphone and, rolling her eyes at Rosie, took over the conversation.

“Hi, I was wondering if the dressage pony advertised in
Pony Mad’s
still up for loan?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, no. A young girl took him on a few days ago,” the voice at the other end told them.

“I know it’s an odd question,” Mia continued, as the others held their breath, “but could you let me know what colour the pony is?”

“Of course!” the man laughed. “Mistral’s a very handsome bright bay. Megan, his new rider, is over the moon with him.”

Mia thanked the manager for the information, then ended the call and took a deep breath.

“It looks like this has just turned into a proper case, after all,” she said to the others. A sudden chill gripped her and she pulled the blanket close.

The girls sat in stunned silence for a moment as the sky outside started to darken, until Charlie’s phone buzzed, frightening them all half to death.

“It’s Mrs Millar,” she whispered before pressing the speakerphone button and answering, her heart still racing. Mia flipped to a new page in her notebook, ready to take notes for Charlie.

“Ah, Charlie, Mrs Millar here,” Mrs Millar began, after Charlie had said hello. “I’ve done a bit of digging around and this is what I’ve found. You know some of it, but I’ll go through it all anyway. So, Pixie’s father bought Phantom in March this year. Before that, I had him on the yard for about eighteen months. He was a tricky horse but he settled after a while, helped by the friendship he got when Wish Me Luck arrived. Only, she was sold to your friend Mia pretty quickly, and he got fretful again after that.

“Now, I bought him off a woman called Liz, who was desperate to sell at any price. She’d got him as a four-year-old from a dealer, who promised that he was an amazing jumper. He was that all right, but he was a handful too, even by that age. Liz only had him a few months before
deciding that she couldn’t cope. The dealer refused to have him back, saying that he’d had Phantom since he was two and a half and he’d been backwards and forwards on trials the whole time. He’d been glad to get rid of him. While he was with me we took him right back to the start and he was going really nicely by the time he left. Spirited and quirky, always living on his nerves and fretting all the while, but so much talent. Not the friendliest, but then not every horse is, and I put that down to his chequered past.”

Charlie glanced at Mia to check she was getting all of it down in her notebook. Mia nodded encouragingly.

Mrs Millar sighed. “Hmm, what next? Oh yes, that’s it. Last night I managed to speak to the dealer that Liz bought him from. He picked Phantom up cheap from a woman called Ellie, who’d bought Phantom direct from his breeder. She was still fuming about it, apparently, convinced that the breeder had pulled a fast one,
pretending the foal was older than he actually was. Ellie kept Phantom in a field for a couple of years but could never really get near him, he was too wild. So she sent him to the dealer, who then sold him on to Liz. I haven’t managed to speak to the breeder yet, but I hear he’s a bit of a slippery, unpleasant character. I’ve got his name here somewhere… now, where did I put it? Ah, yes, here it is, the breeder’s name is Tim Leech.”

Charlie gasped. She remembered the photo of Fable – she’d almost mistaken the black mare for Phantom. But Phantom
couldn’t
be Fable’s foal – her little colt had died! At least, that’s what Tim Leech had told Caitlin all those years ago. Unless he’d lied to her.

Charlie sat stock still, stunned by Phantom’s possible connection to Fable and Caitlin and the diary she held in her shaking hands. She cleared her throat and thanked Mrs Millar, then ended the call. Mia had written everything down in her notebook, but the words swam before Charlie’s
eyes and for a moment she couldn’t move. Then she got up and walked to the stable next door. Phantom raised his head, and it was as if Charlie was seeing him for the first time: a gangly legged foal, wrenched from his mother too early, running scared ever since.

She heard the others emerge from Wish’s stable, carrying out their blankets and mugs.

“Come on,” Alice said. “Time to get the ponies in.”