Beginner's Luck Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Matchstick Town Challenge

  Chapter 2 The Pocket

  Chapter 3 Evicted

  Chapter 4 The Promise

  Chapter 5 Tsunami

  Chapter 6 Speeches

  Chapter 7 Bromeliads

  Chapter 8 Plans, Deals and Secrets

  Chapter 9 A Chance Meeting

  Chapter 10 Signing Up

  Chapter 11 The Shake-off

  Chapter 12 The Race

  Chapter 13 Into the Pocket

  Chapter 14 Waltzing Matilda

  Chapter 15 Rock Face

  Chapter 16 The Billabong

  Chapter 17 Torch

  Chapter 18 Concussion

  Chapter 19 Blue's Best Friend

  Chapter 20 Prowler

  Chapter 21 Old Tales

  Chapter 22 Lindsey's Story

  Chapter 23 Raffles and Petitions

  Chapter 24 Not a Generator

  Chapter 25 An Old Friend

  Chapter 26 Explaining

  Chapter 27 The Business of Rescuing People

  Chapter 28 Two Wrongs

  Chapter 29 Lateral Thinking

  Chapter 30 Halfway

  Chapter 31 Herd Animals

  Chapter 32 A Visit to the Hospital

  Chapter 33 Beginner's Luck

  About the Author

  Beginner's

  Luck

  ALYSSA

  BRUGMAN

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Beginner's Luck

  ePub ISBN 9781864715538

  Kindle ISBN 9781864716559

  Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point NSW 2061

  http://www.randomhouse.com.au

  Sydney New York Toronto

  London Auckland Johannesburg

  First published by Random House Australia 2005

  Copyright © Alyssa Brugman 2005

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without

  the prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Brugman, Alyssa, 1974–.

  Beginner's luck.

  ISBN 1 74166 007 6.

  1. Ponies – Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  A823.4

  Cover photograph copyright © Trudy Nicholson Equine Photography

  Cover and internal design by Sandra Nobes

  Typeset in Sabon 11/15.5 pt by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough, Victoria

  Printed and bound by Griffin Press, Netley, South Australia

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Michelle, who fell off in Terrey Hills

  and thought she was in Far North Queensland,

  and for Corrina, who fell off eight times in one day.

  1 Matchstick Town

  Challenge

  The saddlery smelt like new leather, oil and plastic. In the middle of the shop there were racks of stiff, pristine black and brown saddles. Shelby walked straight past them without more than a glance to see what was in fashion.

  At the very back of the shop, tucked in a corner, were the rows of second-hand ones. She preferred this part of the shop because it smelled of hard work and heavy lifting, like a proper tack room. The saddles here had scuffs, rub marks and contours from wear. They'd been on real horses and, compared to that, the new ones just smelt like wishes and daydreams.

  Shelby had her eye on an older style dressage saddle. It was $446, which was an outstanding price for the brand, even though it had a deep scratch across the cantle, and the mounts were stretched. She thought they must have left out a digit on the price tag, or that the first four was really a nine.

  It had been on the top rack at the far left for three weeks now, but today she could see that it had been moved to one of the moulded trial frames on the floor. Either the staff were trying to draw people's attention to it, or somebody had tried it out.

  'Can I help you?' asked one of the shop assistants. Shelby had seen her before. The last time she came shopping, the girl had told her that she owned a lanky thoroughbred and had trouble finding rugs deep enough to cover his tummy, but Shelby didn't expect the girl would remember. Shelby had a way of melting into the background.

  She looked back at the racks. There was a big old western saddle with buttons, bobbles and scrolled silver plaques. 'Is that for competing?' she asked.

  The shop assistant lifted the dressage saddle off the trial frame and shoved it back on the rack at the top, replacing it with the western, just as Shelby had anticipated.

  'It's a bit over the top, isn't it?' the girl commented.

  'Yes, but it would look great on a quarter horse,' Shelby replied, running her fingers along the saddle's suede seat. 'I'm not really here for a saddle. I'm with the Crooks.' She pointed back to the middle of the shop.

  Hayley Crook and her mother were in the clothes section. Hayley was trying on a new tweed show jacket. They had already piled up a mountain of new gear on the counter.

  The Crooks had three of the fanciest show horses that Shelby had ever seen. They called them Echo, Ditto and Scamp, but their registered names were much longer.

  Echo was Shelby's favourite. The Crooks had let her ride him at a local show not long ago, because Ditto's classes were on at the same time, and Hayley couldn't ride two horses as once. Shelby had won the pony class on Echo, which was the first time she'd ever won anything, although she had placed in the pleasure pony class before on her own horse, Blue.

  Some of Shelby's other friends had told her that pleasure pony was hard to win, but Shelby suspected they were trying to make her feel better about having an ugly, chumpy horse. Blue, a little old paint pony, wasn't the best-looking horse, but she wouldn't swap him for any horse in the world.

  Well, she wouldn't swap him again, anyway.

  'I think they might be a while,' the shop assistant said with a smile, and she returned to stacking shampoos on the shelves.

  Shelby didn't normally shop at this saddlery. She usually bought what she needed from the produce store. This saddlery was the sort of shop that had a 'collection' for each season, but Shelby joined the Crooks whenever they were going, because she took vicarious pleasure in watching them try out the new season's range. It felt a bit like sharing in someone else's Christmas. Mrs Crook would always go nuts and buy things they didn't even need, just because they were on special.

  On the side wall of the shop was a notice board where customers could tack up signs – horses for sale, stallions at stud, agistment available, instructors, local shows and events. While she waited for the Crooks to finish their spending spree, Shelby read through them and took a few flyers.

  One of the signs caught her eye.

  Gully Riders' Annual Matchstick Town Challenge. Can you find the Matchstick Town? Provide photo evidence of your find and win great prizes, including three months of produce from Gully Stock Feeds FREE, ser
vice your float or truck at Gully Mechanics and Auto Electrics FREE, and $1000 CASH!!!! Entry fee $20. For more information ring the Gully Riders' Club, or visit our website.

  The shop assistant stood behind her, flattening an empty carton.

  'What's the Matchstick Town?' Shelby asked.

  'Some people say there's an old movie set down at the bottom of the Gully. The legend is that the production company went broke and abandoned it, leaving it completely intact. Every year the Gully Riders try to find it, but nobody ever has.' The girl folded the cardboard against her chest. 'If it ever was there, it's probably just a pile of rubble now. They reckon it must have been pretty flimsy to start with. That's why they call it the Matchstick Town.' She shrugged. 'It's just a bit of fun, really. They have a barbecue at the end. It's only two weeks away now. Are you going to enter?'

  The sign had been frayed at the bottom, and on each strip there was a phone number and website address. Shelby tore off one of the strips.

  'Yes, I . . .' Shelby started to answer, but Mrs Crook called the shop assistant over. She stood the flattened cardboard against the wall, excused herself and walked away.

  'I know where that is . . .' Shelby whispered to herself.

  2 The Pocket

  Shelby climbed in the back of the Crooks' four-wheel drive with their purchases and wound down the window a fraction. The air coming through the space made the plastic bags rustle on the seat next to her. Hayley was sitting in the front passenger seat with her feet tucked up underneath her, and she tapped her knees in time with the song on the radio.

  Shelby's mind returned to the Matchstick Town competition. All that stock feed would come in handy. She wondered how they figured out how much three months was worth. If you had seven horses then it would be worth a lot more. One thousand dollars cash would be great too. She would be able to buy the dressage saddle and have money left over. Her mum wanted a new dishwasher. Shelby would be the favourite child for ages if she bought a dishwasher for her.

  'How much is a dishwasher, Mrs C?' she asked.

  'I'd say about two grand for a good one. Why?' Mrs Crook looked at her in the rear vision mirror.

  'Just wondering,' Shelby replied. Two thousand dollars! That was no good. She might get her mum a new blender, or a really nice bunch of flowers.

  The way Shelby remembered it, the Matchstick Town wasn't in the Gully at all. It was probably part of the Gully many years ago, but a bypass road had been built, cutting a section off and leaving a scrubby, narrow, weed-filled crevice of land on the other side of Gully Way.

  In the construction of the bypass, the strip of land between the Gully and the crevice had been built up with rubble, and cemented into place, so any of the old trails or roads to it would have been covered over. Gully Way was six lanes across and this section had a high fence with barbed wire at the top running down both shoulders. There were no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings for a kilometre in each direction. The only way to the other side that Shelby had discovered was through a storm water tunnel under Gully Way.

  No wonder nobody had found it! She doubted anyone had ever thought to look there.

  Shelby called the place where she found the Matchstick Town 'The Pocket', because the track she had made down to the floor of the ravine was zigzagged and crumbly, like a zipper, and the bottom was matted with lantana and blackberry bushes, like lint.

  It wasn't really a 'town' either. There were only three structures, and two of them weren't proper buildings, but looked as though they had been sliced up, like the sections they did under the microscope in science at school.

  She discovered it about six months ago, in the winter. She had already explored most of the trails in the Gully. She had favourites, and ones that she didn't like so much, but she knew where they all led. Some trails didn't go anywhere; they stopped abruptly at the edge of a cliff, or were swallowed up by dense bush. Many of them looped around, or joined another trail.

  There were spots where she stopped to look at the view, and stretches of track that were pretty, like the illustrations in fairytale books, or where the plants were fragrant. There were parts where she could hear the sound of running water, or particular birds call and answer.

  Shelby had made up names for all the trails based on what she had found along them. There was a place she called the Cross-Country Course because it was littered with obstacles – two burned-out, abandoned cars, tree limbs fallen across the path, rusty yellow forty-four-gallon drums, a hollowed out tree stump that whistled in the wind, and a massive cable spool, about two metres across, that creaked as it rocked from side to side between two boulders.

  Most horses would shy along that trail, but Blue was used to it, and they often cantered through, using the obstacles as jumps. Shelby would pretend she was a competitor in the Olympics, and commentate her progress in Lucinda Green's English accent.

  'It's quite a difficult course, really, but you can see this lovely little Australian combination bounding enthusiastically over each obstacle. And here is the water jump. Is he going to make it? Yes! A swish of the tail there. What a jaunty little gelding he is.'

  Sometimes she got up very early in the morning to ride before school, and on weekends she usually took a bottle of water, a snack and some sunscreen in a backpack and rode all day.

  There was something special about knowing the whole gully, but on that particular morning – the morning of The Pocket – she remembered sighing. She hankered for the thrill of turning a corner with no idea what she would find, or climbing a hill just to see what was on the other side.

  The storm water tunnel that travelled under Gully Way was on a trail not far from the stables where Hayley and Shelby's friend Erin kept their horses. She'd ridden past the tunnel many times before, but on this day she stopped at its mouth and looked through. It was less than thirty metres long. Shelby could see light at the other side. If it had been longer and darker she might not have attempted it. Blue didn't like dark places.

  The floor was dry, and as she stepped inside she could hear Blue's hoof beats echoing off the concrete sides and the steady ominous drone of traffic travelling on the road over the top.

  Beyond the concrete lip at the far end, the ground dropped away. Looking down, she had seen the sloping ground furrowed into deep runnels where the water must rush across it in heavy rain. To the right was an angled expanse of cement stretching up to the fence along the edge of the roadway, too steep and slippery to climb; to the left was a slanted incline of rubble and clay freckled with blackberry bushes. It looked as though somebody had attempted to poison those closest to the road, but beyond that the bushes were sporting robust curved branches.

  Standing on the edge of the storm water drain, Shelby had looked down into The Pocket to see a pool of water choked at the edges with willow. There was a cormorant swimming in circles, diving deep into the pool and slipping back out again. Beyond the willows the taller trees were matted with vines.

  From where she stood The Pocket had not looked very appealing. It was scrubby, dense and full of prickles, and the water was murky and foamy at the edges. But it was new, and some of the best places she had found hadn't looked inviting at first, so she went down there anyway, heading to the left and leading Blue all the way, because the ground was slippery and spongy.

  It had taken a long time. There was no track and it seemed that whichever way she turned there were impenetrable brambles, impassable boulders or treacherous slopes. At times she had been worried, because Blue's hooves had plunged deep into the clay, or slid across, sending stones clattering over the edge of the rock face. Shelby had reached the bottom covered in scratches from the brambles. She had twigs stuck in her hair and burrs in her clothes, making her itch.

  At the base of the ravine the ground was flat and damp. Clumps of prehistoric-looking ferns and a thick carpet of moss grew underneath a thick canopy of vines. The sun shone through the leaves high above, speckling the fronds and always moving, like fairy lights. The air sm
elt rich, moist and metallic, but was soured by the pong of stagnant water from the pool.

  She pushed her way through the fibrous branches and found a small clearing where the sun shone through. Tall native grasses grew in thick tufts, but underneath them the grass was short and cropped.

  There were three structures in the clearing. One was a façade. She could see the side of it from where she was standing. It was propped up at the back with thick beams. It reminded her of the skeleton frames of the new houses along the cul-de-sac near Blue's paddock.

  The second was a shed made of shingles, about the size of a double garage. It slanted to the side where one of the supports had rotted and collapsed.

  The third had walls on three sides and a roof, but the front was cut away, like a doll's house, and inside there was furniture.

  The roofs of both buildings swayed in the middle under the weight of a thick layer of dead leaves and sticks. Shelby thought that it was like camouflage – planes and helicopters wouldn't notice them from above, even if they could see through the trees.

  On the lawn between the three structures a mob of five grey kangaroos lounged in the sun. Shelby stood still and watched them dozing. After a minute or two, Blue rubbed his face on the inside of his leg and snorted. The kangaroos scattered in alarm. She could hear the beats of their tails on the leaf litter as they bounded through the bush.

  Shelby loosened Blue's girth, tucked his reins into his bridle and left him to graze while she explored.

  The shingled shed was empty. She peeked through the windows, but she didn't go inside because the floor was tilted and rotting, and it looked dangerous. Its roof was made of iron, rusted in parts. There were nests of pigeons along the beams. Shelby could hear them cooing.

  The façade had been painted to look as if it was made of shingles too. It had a door in the middle, nailed shut, and two windows on either side. The glass panes were lying in pieces on the ground below. It looked as though they had fallen out, rather than deliberately smashed.