Greener Pastures Read online

  When she saw it for the first time Zeb's place had been magic to Shelby. It was like a circus every day. Over the months she had got to know all the horses and learned so many techniques from the people who worked there, but Zeb in particular. As soon as the horses had learned a trick, Zeb was keen to try something new. It didn't always turn out the way he had hoped, but the horses looked forward to working with him. He kept it interesting. He challenged them in a friendly, playful way, and they responded to it.

  Shelby would miss them all. She wondered if she would still be welcome to visit. She expected Zeb to start yelling soon, trying to bully her into giving in. He chewed his lip. That was usually a sign.

  'Blue's the reason I'm quitting anyway, Zeb. If I'm going to sell him to you, I might as well stay. I don't think it's good for him to spend his life on the road.'

  'What are you talking about? Horses are nomadic, you silly-billy.' Zeb was still smiling.

  'Yeah, but not in trucks,' Shelby countered.

  'Five thousand.'

  Shelby snorted. Five thousand was a lot of money. He must be pulling her leg.

  'Ten. I'll give you ten thousand dollars.'

  Shelby laughed. 'You can't be serious.'

  'Cash,' he added. 'Right now.'

  'You don't have ten thousand in cash right now,' she said.

  'Try me,' he replied, still grinning, and Shelby could see he wasn't joking at all.

  2 Grass and Bread and Stuff

  'Can you pass me the flour?' Shelby asked.

  Erin pursed her lips and thrust the sifter towards Shelby. Flour showered Shelby's school shoes. She stamped, trying to shake it off. She had been anxious to get to school to talk to Erin about quitting the troupe and about Zeb's offer, but Erin wouldn't even look her in the eye. It was hard to make banana bread in a pair when your partner wasn't speaking to you.

  Shelby snuck a peek at the front of the classroom, but their teacher was focused on another pair of students. The Food Technology teacher wore all the kitchen utensils tied to a belt around her waist, like some kind of crazy hula-skirt.

  'Do you really want to start a food fight with me?' Shelby threatened, pointing an overripe banana at Erin as if it was a gun.

  Erin's lip twitched.

  'C'mon, Erin. I have noted that you are cranky. Can you tell me what it's about this time?'

  Erin began whisking eggs vigorously.

  'My Aunty Jenny says you should never bake when you're cross because you put your anger into the dough and it doesn't rise properly,' Shelby told her.

  'Then I will feed my flat, cranky banana bread to you!' Erin snapped.

  'You're always cranky these days, Erin,' Shelby grumbled, turning away. She leaned her hip against the bench as she folded the flour into the butter mix with a wooden spoon.

  Erin thumped the egg bowl on the counter. 'How would you know? You're never even there!'

  'Is that what this is about?'

  'Everybody at the stables talks about you behind your back, you know. They all say, "That Shelby thinks she's so great!"'

  Shelby doubted that everybody was talking about her. She simply wasn't that important. Erin was probably saying so because she didn't approve of Shelby trick riding. Shelby thought Erin might even be a bit jealous, but whether she was jealous because she wanted to be with Shelby, or do trick riding herself, or because Shelby spent so much time with Chad and Keisha these days, Shelby wasn't sure. All she was sure of was that she had some bridges to mend with her friend.

  Erin turned to face Shelby. 'And Mrs Edel is really angry, because you've broken your agreement.'

  Shelby's mouth dropped open. 'I go up to the stables, muck out and make up feeds every day before I go to troupe training! Do you know what time I have to get up to do that?'

  All winter Shelby had ridden her bike to the stables at five o'clock each morning. It was freezing cold and dark; sometimes raining as well.

  She'd scrubbed out water troughs when her hands were almost blue. She'd hauled tubs of feed around, and shifted bales of hay. She'd had her feet stepped on when they were already numb with cold, been slammed against stable walls by careless horses, been snorted on and had to go to school with horse boogers in her hair. She'd had her face lashed by whipping tails. Then she'd ridden across the Gully to training in the dark, rain and icy cold, only to be stepped on, snorted on and yelled at even more.

  All the while Erin was toasty-warm in bed, or chowing down a nice, hot bowl of porridge in front of the cartoons in her yeti slippers.

  'It's not like I've been lying around on my behind,' Shelby protested.

  'Yes, but that's not what you said you would do. You're supposed to help lead the trail rides on weekends. Now I have to do it. For free! And Blue is supposed to be available for the beginners.'

  Back when Shelby had no place to keep Blue, Mrs Edel had offered Shelby free agistment in return for Shelby working at the stables. Having Shelby and Lindsey, Mrs Edel's daughter, working on the agistment and trail riding part of the business had freed up Mrs Edel's time to concentrate on the breeding side.

  'But you always came along the trails with us anyway,' Shelby said.

  'That's not the point, though, is it? Maybe sometimes I would like to go clothes shopping, or to the beach.'

  'What would you want to do that for?'

  'You can't ride horses all the time,' Erin said.

  Shelby blinked. Why would you want to do anything else? she wondered. 'Well, I'll be there all the time now,' she muttered, mashing the bananas in a bowl.

  She looked up to see one of the other girls from her class, Lydia, staring at her.

  'What?' she said to Lydia, more peevishly than she meant.

  Erin and Shelby had been hanging out together pretty much since the beginning of high school. She hadn't paid much attention to the other girls. Some of them teased her because she wasn't into clothes or boys. They would whinny at her and make stupid jokes, sometimes hurtful practical jokes designed to humiliate her. Shelby had decided long ago not to let it bother her, but she'd learned to be suspicious of someone seeming to be friendly.

  Shelby hadn't paid much attention to school generally, except earlier in the year she and Erin had got an A for a science experiment that they made up in the holidays. Their Science teacher Mrs Singh had written, Excellent grasp of the concepts, wonderfully inventive. Great to see you incorporating science into your life!

  Since then Shelby had started to look forward to Science classes and her marks were going up. Socially, though, she and Erin were still low in the pecking order. They didn't care. Their real friends were at the stables.

  'I have a horse too,' Lydia said, smiling. 'I got it for free.'

  'Oh?' said Shelby. Suddenly Lydia seemed much more interesting. Shelby examined her as if for the first time. She was an ordinary girl, like Shelby and Erin. She wasn't one of the super-smart kids who always worked in class, or one of the ones who spent all day flirting with the boys either. Shelby thought they could probably be friends – especially if they had horses in common. Shelby and Erin talked about horses a lot.

  'What do you mean free?' Erin asked, forgetting her irritation as well.

  Lydia smiled coyly. 'These people my dad knows were giving it away. Their daughter had lost interest and they said it needed to be exercised more often.'

  'I wish someone would give me a horse for free!' Erin said.

  'What do you need another horse for?' Shelby asked.

  Erin's Bandit was a good all-rounder. He wasn't flashy, but he was useful. Bandit picked up whatever they were doing at Pony Club without much fuss. He usually placed in a few classes at the local hack shows the girls went to, and he was relaxed on trails as well. Shelby thought he was a bit boring. Sometimes Erin would say, 'Quick! Look what he's doing!' and when Shelby looked Bandit would be standing there. Yawn! He was just a horse, but she would never say so to Erin.

  The Food Tech teacher sidled up the aisle with an imaginary bowl on her hip. She
was holding the whisk, mimicking the action. 'Whisking, whisking, whisking, girls!' she said.

  Erin held her egg bowl and did some frenzied whisking until the teacher looked away again.

  'Mashing, mashing, Lydia!' the teacher instructed.

  Lydia picked up her banana bowl and mashed half-heartedly.

  'Where do you keep it?' asked Shelby, after the teacher had passed.

  'Just in the back yard.'

  On the other side of the Gully from the stables there were many small acreages. Most of the families from the Gully Pony Club kept their horses on properties there. Shelby guessed that's what Lydia must mean.

  'It must be a big back yard. Or is it a miniature?' Erin said.

  Lydia tilted her head on the side. 'It's not miniature. It's about this high.' She held her hand up to her eyebrow.

  'About thirteen hands? Fourteen?'

  Lydia looked uncertain.

  'You know what a hand is, don't you?' Erin asked.

  'Yeah! Of course!' Lydia laughed. Her face reddened, and a little furrow crossed her brow.

  Erin raised an eyebrow, but Shelby was willing to give Lydia the benefit of the doubt. Knowing what a hand was on paper was quite different to assessing the height of a real live horse. It could be hard to guess exactly, especially if the horse was heavy-set or very fine, and even more so if you had nothing to compare it to. It took practice. Erin had probably forgotten what it was like to be a beginner, when all your information came from books or movies.

  The teacher headed back down the aisle again. 'Once our eggs are whisked we put them with our bananas, and into our flour bowls!' she called out. She dropped the whisk and picked up her wooden spoon. 'Folding, folding, folding!'

  'Isn't there supposed to be sugar in banana bread?' one of the boys asked, licking batter from his finger.

  'Cinnamon is our friend, Ethan,' she replied.

  'Not my friend,' Ethan griped.

  Erin stared at Ethan for a second, and then she poured the egg into the flour bowl. Shelby added her mashed bananas.

  Lydia put her bowl down again. 'The thing is, he's become really stubborn. I can't get him to go like he used to. I have to really kick him and hit him with the crop. Dad said he is going to buy me some spurs.'

  'How long have you had this horse in your back yard?' Shelby asked.

  Lydia shrugged. 'Two months, maybe? He's so lazy. He just lies around all the time.'

  'Lies around? Is he old?' Shelby had a vision of Lydia whipping a little old pony with no teeth and a sway back. 'Did you ask how old he was when they gave him to you?'

  'I dunno.' Lydia shook her head. 'He's kind of middle-aged, I guess.'

  'What are you feeding him?' Erin asked.

  Lydia flushed again. 'Just the usual – grass, and bread . . . and stuff.'

  Shelby wondered what 'and stuff' might encompass, and from the look on Erin's face she was wondering too.

  'Now, into our loaf pans, people!' the teacher called out. 'Pouring, pouring, pouring!'

  'We'd love to come and see him,' Erin said.

  'Yeah, maybe we could go for a ride together?' Shelby suggested. 'I could try to get him going if you like. You can ride Blue.'

  Lydia looked concerned.

  'Don't worry, anyone can ride Blue,' Erin assured her. 'He's the safest pony in the whole universe. Blue's a legend.'

  'OK,' their new friend grinned. 'That would be great.'

  'What do you mean a legend?' Shelby asked.

  'You know,' Erin said. 'At Pony Club, or at the stables, whenever anyone talks about a horse and how quiet it is – especially about kids' ponies – they always say, "almost as quiet as Blue".'

  'Really?' Shelby asked. 'Who says that?'

  'Everyone,' Erin replied. 'Everyone on the planet says that. He's the world champion of quietness.'

  'Cool,' said Shelby. She had no idea that he'd attracted so much attention.

  3 Castles

  Shelby threw her backpack in a heap by the front door. Her mother was standing at the kitchen bench peeling potatoes into the compost bucket. She paused, staring at the backpack. Shelby picked it up again with a sigh, and trudged down the hallway. There she threw the bag in a heap by her bedroom door.

  Connor was sitting at the breakfast bar swinging his legs and eating a sandwich. Shelby noticed that his legs had grown really long recently, as though someone had taken her little brother and stretched him on a rack. There was Nutella smeared on his cheek.

  He observed Shelby for a moment. 'So how was your day?' he asked his mum.

  'I didn't have a bad day,' Shelby snapped at him.

  'Whatever,' he said. He'd grown more annoying lately too.

  'Please!' Mum begged. 'Can we have ten minutes of civility before we descend into brawling? Connor, you have chocolate on your face.'

  Shelby bristled. 'What did I do?'

  Connor rubbed his face with the back of his hand and then wiped his hand on the leg of his shorts. His mother tutted.

  Blake, her youngest brother, grinned through a milk moustache. 'I know something you don't know,' he sang.

  'I seriously doubt it,' Shelby replied. Then she saw her mother shoot Blake a warning glance. 'What?' she demanded.

  'We'll talk about it when your father gets home,' her mother answered.

  'How come they're allowed to know?' she asked, pointing at her brothers.

  Her mother rinsed the potatoes under the tap and then wiped her hands with a tea towel. 'Shelby, you are obviously in a mood. Perhaps you should go into your room, do your homework, and come back when you can be pleasant.'

  'What?' Shelby protested. 'This is so unfair!'

  'Yeah, Shelby, take a chill pill,' Connor teased.

  His mother slipped her apron over her head. 'Where is your homework, young man?'

  Connor climbed down from the stool and rummaged through his school bag.

  'Are you seriously not going to tell me?' Shelby asked.

  'Go!' her mum said.

  Shelby stomped to the lounge room and switched on the computer.

  'I said your room.'

  'I'm doing research!' Shelby huffed. She logged on to Messenger and her favourite horse forum, reading through the day's posts.

  She was thinking up a long rant about how unreasonable her parents were. They would tell her she was 'being a teenager', or 'being moody', and when she tried to tell them she was just being they would give each other a look as if to say, There she goes again. It was so annoying that it then made her angry, which is what they accused her of being in the first place.

  She was about to start typing, but was interrupted by a message from Erin.

  If I ever have a brown horse I would call it Cinnamon. Cinnamon is our friend.

  It is?

  If anyone asks I'm writing an essay. That was from Chad.