Victory and the All-Stars Academy (15 page)

Digger had been in his ute all this time, listening to the radio and waiting. He was too far away to see or hear any of what had just happened. So he didn't know that Wombat wasn't a sheep-killer or that the pup was a hero. Wombat was still trying to herd the mob to safety, but as far as Digger knew, Wombat was the killer. All he could see was a vicious blue heeler worrying his sheep, and he knew exactly what to do. He raised the gun sights to his face, pointed the barrel and began to fire.

As the shots echoed in the darkness, Issie screamed at Digger Murphy to stop. But her shouts were drowned out by the crack of the gun.

“No! Stop! Please don't hurt him!”

Issie could barely move. She felt as if knives were piercing through her shoulder blade. She gripped on to Mystic's mane and tried to manoeuvre herself without moving her left shoulder, but there was no way she could get on to the grey pony's back. She had to do something. If she couldn't get to Digger Murphy in time then Wombat had run out of chances.

Issie had never felt so helpless. She shouted out again, but Digger was too far away to hear her. She
needed to get closer, to help Wombat, but the pain in her shoulder was so intense it was hard to move. She couldn't walk, let alone run.

Digger Murphy had fired twice now, both times warning shots up in the sky to frighten the dog off, but the blue heeler refused to go. As Digger reloaded the rifle, the dog was in full view. Wombat was herding the sheep back around towards the ute, right in the beam of the searchlights. The pup couldn't get past. Digger Murphy had parked the ute so that it blocked the gateway to the next paddock, to stop the sheep getting through, and the flatbed of the truck spread right across the gate. Wombat was heading straight for the ute and the man with the gun.

Crouched down by the open door of the ute, Digger Murphy finished reloading the rifle. Slowly, he carefully raised the gun to his left shoulder and shut one eye, focusing his vision on his prey. He took a deep breath and held it, ready to shoot.

But the next thing he knew there was a horse flying over his head! He looked up in horror and amazement as the underbelly of the great animal soared directly over him. Digger's gun fell to the ground as he
watched the horse arc clean over the flatbed of the ute!

Digger's astonishment was quickly replaced with anger as he watched the rider pull the horse up to a halt directly in front of the ute. “What the bleeding heck do you think you're playing at?” he yelled. “You could have taken the top of my head off!” The black mare was crab-stepping anxiously, but her rider sat perfectly still and relaxed as she faced Digger Murphy.

“Oh, Mr Murphy. Come on! Seriously, I was nowhere near you. You were never in any danger,” Tara Kelly replied. “Don't tell me I scared you?”

Tara looked as if jumping over the back of flatbed trucks was something she did every day and she couldn't fathom why the farmer was making such a fuss.

“You're a lunatic!” Digger Murphy fumed. “I had a gun in my hand. I could have shot you!”

Tara Kelly rode Demeter forward and pulled the mare up right next to the farmer. “That's why I'm here. You need to stop shooting. One of my students is out there somewhere.”

“What?” Digger Murphy's expression changed completely from anger to real concern. “You mean there's a kid out there?”

“It's one of the girls from Havenfields. She's following the blue heeler pup that you've been shooting at.”

Digger Murphy looked worried. “I would never have started shooting if I knew there was someone in the paddock…”

Tara looked out into the darkness. “Well, you know now. And she's still here somewhere, so help me find her. Use your searchlights to scan the paddocks.”

Digger leapt on to the cab of the ute and swivelled the searchlights around so that they scanned the field. Tara's eyes followed the beam.

“There's her horse!” Tara said. The light had illuminated Victory. The brown gelding was standing alone in the middle of the blackberry paddock, still completely terrified by the dog attack. He still had his saddle and bridle on, but there was no sign of Issie.

“He must have thrown her,” Tara said. “Digger! Turn your searchlights in that direction. Over there!”

As the light beamed across the open fields, Tara caught sight of a black shadow in the distance.

“That's her!” she said. And before Digger could even put the ute into gear, she was already urging
Demeter on into a canter, heading across the fields towards the shadow and calling out Issie's name.

The pain in Issie's shoulder was so intense, she was hanging on to Mystic's mane desperately trying to keep from blacking out. She could see the ute in the distance and heard Tara calling to her. She knew she had to stand up long enough for Tara to see her, but she was having trouble staying upright and her legs were like jelly.

As she heard Tara approaching, Issie felt she couldn't hold on any longer. She lost her grip and let go of Mystic's mane. She was falling again. She must have blacked out briefly because the next thing she knew Tara was by her side, trying to rouse her and telling her that everything was going to be OK. Then the ute pulled up alongside them and Digger lifted her off the ground, wrapping her up in a thick, scratchy blanket. Issie felt a flash of pain as he put her on to the back of the ute.

“We're taking you home. You'll be OK,” Tara said.
She stayed with Issie on the back of the flatbed, cradling her in her lap the whole way home as the ute bumped and bounced back to Havenfields.

On the ride home, despite being in shock, Issie protested that they couldn't leave without Victory. The horse was still out there somewhere with his saddle and bridle on. And Wombat was out in the paddock too—they needed to get the pup who had tried to save her. She was still insisting that Tara take her back to find them when they arrived at the villa.

“You're not going anywhere except the hospital,” Avery told her bluntly when he saw the state she was in. “Let Tara and Digger go back out there and deal with it. We need to get you to a doctor.”

An hour later they were in the radiology room at Lilydale Bush Hospital. The drive in Avery's car had been far more comfortable than it had been bumping over the paddocks on the back of Digger's ute. Stella and Dee Dee had come along to keep Issie company and after she had told them what had happened with
Wombat and the wild dog, Dee Dee spent the rest of the trip burbling on telling long and pointless stories and giggling at her own jokes.

Incredibly, Issie didn't find Dee Dee's endless chatter irritating any more. In fact, she had to tell her room-mate to stop making her laugh as the giggling was hurting her shoulder.

The X-rays revealed a broken collarbone. It didn't have to be put in plaster—it just required a sling and a prescription for some painkillers.

“You're a very tough girl. You must have a pretty high pain threshold,” the surgeon told her.

Issie swallowed two of the pills and felt the pain ebbing away. “They might make you sleepy,” Issie remembered the nurse saying as she escorted her to the door. Issie didn't recall anything more about the car trip home after that. The next thing she knew, she was waking up in her bed back at Havenfields. What time was it? She looked at her alarm clock. It was eleven-thirty. Almost midday! She gave a low groan and Dee Dee, who had been sitting quietly on the bed opposite her, came scurrying over.

“Hey, roomie!” Dee Dee whispered, smiling at her.
“We've been waiting for you to wake up.”

Issie looked around the room. It was different somehow. “Where am I?” she groaned.

“In our room,” Dee Dee said. “I tidied it up as a nice surprise. I thought you might wake up when I vacuumed, but you just kept on sleeping.” She smiled at Issie. “Stella and Kate have been dying to see you. I said I would get them as soon as you woke up.”

Issie nodded. She was still feeling bleary and exhausted, but she wanted to see her friends.

“I'll be back in a minute.” Dee Dee left the room and when she returned, Stella and Kate were with her. There was someone else with them as well.

“Wombat!” Issie grinned at the sight of the pup. “You're OK!”

“Tara found him early this morning,” Stella said. “She was out there half the night looking for him.”

“Is it true what Dee Dee told me?” Kate asked. “Did Wombat really fight a wild dog?”

Issie nodded. “Yeah, it's true.”

Wombat had fought the dog. But he hadn't beaten it. Mystic was the one who had truly rescued them both. Issie thought about that moment last night,
when Mystic had arrived just in time to deliver the fatal blow as the dog attacked. It had all happened so fast and then the grey pony had gone, as quickly as he had arrived.

Issie had never told her friends about Mystic. She instinctively knew that the grey gelding was meant to be her secret. Wombat would have to take the glory for saving her life. Not that it was undeserved. After all, the blue heeler puppy had shown extreme bravery, running back to face the wild dog, prepared to protect Issie, no matter what the consequence.

“Digger Murphy says that wild dog that attacked you was the biggest one he's ever seen,” Kate said. “He's not sure whether it was a dingo or a half-wild dog. He said sometimes dingoes breed with wild dogs. Whatever it was, he said it was totally huge!”

“And Wombat hardly even has a scratch on him! He's like a super-dog!” Stella enthused.

“What about Victory?” Issie asked. “Is he all right?”

“He's fine. Tara's down at the stables with him now. She said you could go and see him if you want. But only if you feel up to it…”

The girls had all wanted to come with her to the stables, but Issie wanted to go alone. She felt like everyone had been fussing over her since the accident and she just wanted to clear her head. As she got closer to the stables though, she wondered if she could actually open the sliding door on her own. The painkillers were helping dull the ache in her shoulder, but with only one good arm, she wasn't sure that she had enough strength.

Luckily, Tara had left the door open a crack and she only had to give it a little push to make enough space to get in.

“Hello?” she called out, looking down the row of stalls.

“We're in here!” Tara responded.

She found Tara in Victory's stall, bent down over his forelegs, rubbing on a thick white cream that looked like plaster of Paris. She stood up as Issie approached.

“He seems none the worse for his ordeal,” Tara
said, “but his legs have taken quite a hammering in the past twenty-four hours. This will cool them and make him feel better.”

She looked at Issie. “And how are you feeling?”

“A bit sore,” Issie admitted.

“How long before you can ride again?” Tara looked concerned.

“The doctor says six weeks.”

“Doctors!” Tara sniffed. “They're such wusses. Give it two, maybe three weeks and you'll be fine. I rode Lexington with a broken collarbone.”

“They let you do that?” Issie couldn't believe it.

“They didn't know!” Tara grinned. “I just strapped my shoulder up tight and rode the cross-country using one hand.”

“What happened?”

“I won,” Tara said. “It was my fourth time. That was the year that I quit and took up my position at Blainford.”

She paused. “Has Avery told you about my work at Blainford, about what I do there?”

Issie nodded. “He told me that you're the Eventing Mistress.”

Tara frowned. “That's true. That's one of my roles there. I'm also the head scout for the new enrolments department.”

Issie looked puzzled. “What does that mean?”

“It means I spend at least a term every year travelling, looking for new riders that might be suitable to join the Academy. There's a highly rigorous entry exam for most riders who want to come into the school, but sometimes we waive the exam, if we find a rider that we consider to be particularly gifted.”

Tara looked at Issie. “That's why I'm here in Australia. I came over to scout for talent for the Academy.”

“You came over to watch the Young Rider Challenge?” Issie's heart was racing.

“No,” Tara said. “I came over to see you.”

“Me?” Issie squeaked. “You're kidding!”

Tara turned back to Victory to put more white paste on his front legs. She didn't look up at Issie as she spoke. “Three years ago I asked Tom Avery to join the Academy. It was a job offer that I thought he would snap up. But no, he turns me down because he's got some pupil who is too good to leave behind.”

She stood up again and looked at Issie. “Naturally, at that point I started paying attention. When Tom told me about his star in the making, I had to see for myself. Then he calls up and says he's bringing his star rider to Australia for this competition and do I want to meet her? Of course, I said yes. I offered to come along and help instruct so that I could see you in action.”

Issie was even more confused now. “You mean it's me? The reason that Tom turned down the job at Blainford All-Stars Academy was me?”

Tara smiled. “Now you can see why I had high expectations of you when I arrived here. I know I was tough on you. I pushed you harder than the other riders, but that was because I needed to see what you could do under pressure, and I needed to gauge your abilities, get you outside of your comfort zone.”

“I just thought you didn't like me…” Issie mumbled. “You've never said anything encouraging to me—not even when we won the Young Rider Challenge.”

Tara frowned. “I said ‘well done' when you got the cup, didn't I? That's more praise than some of my
riders get all year at Blainford!”

Issie laughed and Tara gave her a smile.

“I know I don't heap my riders with praise,” Tara said. “That's not how I work. But I am very impressed by you. Despite your headstrong nature and your tendency to race off after dogs in the middle of the night and get yourself into trouble, I think Avery was right.”

Tara took a deep breath. “Isadora, I want you to join us. I would like to offer you a place at the Blainford Academy.”