Pony Club Challenge (Woodbury Pony Club Book 2) Read online

  “When everyone’s jumped we could have a pair relay competition,” Sarah told Hanif, who had fetched Jupiter and was trotting round and round in a large circle trying to settle his over-excited mount.

  “No, we couldn’t,” answered Hanif firmly. “This is a school, not a competition, and afterwards we’re going down to the river; Alice and I have hidden some poles and drums by the ford.”

  The larger and more experienced ponies all jumped well. Rajah had a brick off the wall at his second height, but all the others jumped confident clear rounds. Alice was amazed at Saffron.

  “I haven’t practised over show jumps at all,” she told Lizzie, “but now, suddenly, he can do them. At the beginning of last holidays I couldn’t possibly have jumped a course like this .”

  “David’s always said that showjumping needs a better schooled pony than basic cross-country,” Lizzie reminded her, “so now the ponies are all better schooled I suppose it’s almost automatic.”

  “It’s a shame to think that we’ve all got this far, now, if David chucks the pony club, we’re stuck. We won’t get much further on our own,” said Alice, elation over Saffron’s jumping vanishing as she thought of the future.

  “If only we could think of some way of putting it right,” Lizzie sighed sadly.

  Saffron and Jupiter, who crossed the river every time they went to Garland Farm or Kidlake, accepted wading through water as a very normal activity, and most of the· other ponies remembered the day they had jumped in and out before the Area Cup at Easter. Jigsaw began by being suspicious, but when he saw the others splashing over the poles and drums, he followed them cheerfully.

  “It’s been great, really good fun,” said Seb, when they decided that, if they were going to have time for running and swimming, they must take their ponies home at once. “Does anyone else have jumps we could practise over?”

  “No, we’ve only a few cavaletti; my mother always schools over the riding school’s jumps, but you have to pay,” explained James.

  “Ours are such a mess,” Lizzie answered apologetically.

  “Yes, they’re disgustingly grotty: awful propped-up jobs and much too low for people with good ponies,” agreed Netti.

  “I’ve an idea for tomorrow. Well, it was my aunt’s idea, actually,” said Alice. “When I told her about the pistol thieves she said that when they got tired of shooting at the foals, they probably threw the pistols into the nearest hedge, so’s not to be caught with them. I know the police have looked a bit, but they haven’t had hundreds of policemen searching in rows like they do when someone’s been murdered. I think we ought to ride over and take a look.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Hanif.

  “It couldn’t do any harm,” James admitted cautiously.

  “Unless we meet the ferocious Mr Collingwood and he starts bawling at us,” observed Rupert.

  “If we stay on the bridle path he can’t object,” argued Alice, “and if we did find the pistols it might do us some good with David.”

  “And with my mother, she never stops going on about the money we’ve wasted,” said Lesley.

  “I’m for it.” Seb sounded enthusiastic. “I’d give a lot to get my pistol back.”

  “I’m for it too,” agreed Netti. “Why don’t we meet at Kiddleworth tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes, it’s worth a try, but no tying up of ponies,” stipulated Lizzie.

  “I don’t suppose we’ll be allowed to come,” Lesley’s voice was gloomy. “The very mention of Kiddleworth makes my mother explode.”

  “Oh yes we will, I’ll talk her round somehow,” said Sarah.

  That afternoon all the tetrathlonites, except the Robertses, met again at Hanif’s house, and Alice took them for a run down Darkwood Lane and through the beechwoods. Despite the luxury of deep shade and a soft carpet of beech leaves, there was a good deal of moaning about the immense distance, the intense heat and terrible stitches. Most of it came from Rupert, Sarah and Oliver; Tina, who looked equally miserable, suffered in silence.

  Then, when they had limped and puffed their way back to Barn Cottage, Mrs Franklin drove them, in two very squashed car loads, to Woodbury pool. They swam in three groups, slow, medium and fast, all ploughing up and down with grim concentration as they tried to add a few more metres to their scores.

  Everyone improved, and Hanif, who in his second swim added half a length to his previous best, was delighted.

  “It works,” he said, “practising really does work. I’m coming every day from now on. Look, why don’t we swim tomorrow morning and ride over the downs in the cool of the evening?”

  “I don’t think we can get here.” Lizzie looked worried. “Mummy’s got a deadline for this book she’s illustrating so she’s too busy, and Mrs Morgan, who brought us over today, is out all day tomorrow, isn’t she, James?”

  “Come on your bikes,” Seb told her.

  “They’re a very geriatric lot, our bikes. Ollie’s is about the best and Tina still hasn’t recovered from borrowing it,” Rupert told him.

  “Why don’t you mend them?” asked James briskly.

  “Lizzie and I don’t know how, Rupert and Ollie think they know but always make them worse,” explained Netti.

  “James and I had better look at them on our way home,” decided Seb.

  The pony club members met again at the Old Forge on Wednesday afternoon. The Woodbury people were all boasting about the number of lengths they had swum that morning while the Kidlake lot, which included James and Seb, competed with stories of bicycles restored, until suddenly they realized that Tina was riding Bowie.

  “He’s better then!” exclaimed Alice.

  “How did you square your mother?” Rupert asked Lesley.

  “I’m not sure. She seemed impressed with all the money we were collecting; Alice gave her their kennel-painting cash—six pounds—this morning. And she approves of us looking for the pistols.”

  “She was just in a better mood,” said Sarah. “But she says David’s still fuming, and he won’t discuss what’s going to happen at the rally on Friday at all.”

  “I’m not looking forward to that rally one bit,” said Lizzie sadly.

  “I don’t want to go, but my mother says we’ve got to,” Lesley told her. “She says it serves us right if David does bite our heads off.”

  “I think we’d be mad to go anywhere near him if he’s still in such a raging passion,” observed Rupert. “Especially when we don’t know what’s happened to the Robertses; they’ve never reappeared.”

  “Perhaps we’ll find the pistols,” suggested Alice optimistically, as they took the left-hand road from which the track led up to the downs.

  “If we don’t, my stepfather’s offered to lend us enough money to buy one before the rally,” said Hanif. “I think it would be better if we earned all the money ourselves, but I’ve agreed to him trying the sports shop in Brunstock and anywhere else he can think of for second-hand ones. I hope that’s O.K. with all of you?”

  “Yes, great.”

  “It would be a good idea to have a peace offering for David,” said Rupert. “We’ll send James in first, holding it out.”

  “We’d better concentrate on finding the old ones now and decide where we’re going to search.” James spoke in a rather reproving voice.

  “Yes, do be sensible, Rupert; this is serious,” pleaded Lizzie.

  “I’ve borrowed my father’s map of the downs,” Seb told them, “and I took a good look at it before we started. When we chased the bikers do you remember coming to a meeting of four tracks?”

  “Yes, that’s where we turned back,” said Alice.

  “Well they must have turned left there,” Seb went on, “because that track runs parallel to the Coombe Lentworth road and along the back of the stud farm.”

  “We couldn’t see them,” said Hanif.

  “No, but they could have been in one of the stud farm fields, or there’s a turn that takes you down to the Coombe Lentworth r
oad, or there’s a wood,” Seb told him.

  “And we know they went to the stud farm, so it’s obviously the one they took,” snapped Lesley. “Let’s stop talking, get over there and start looking.”

  “Can we gallop?” asked Oliver.

  “Yes, come on.” Sarah’s legs flapped feverishly as she kicked Chess into a canter. Oliver followed.

  “Steady,” shouted James as the more excitable ponies took off.

  “Ollie, do be sensible, let Bowie go first; we don’t want any more accidents,” called Lizzie.

  With miles of open country ahead the ponies soon thought better of racing and settled down to a steady hand gallop. Jupiter had taken the lead with the other large ponies grouped just behind him. Behind them Tristram and Bowie galloped stride for stride, and further back Chess and Hobbit scurried along, their manes and tails flying.

  At the downland cross roads Hanif pulled up and waited for the little ponies.

  “Aren’t they all being good,” said Alice, patting Saffron.

  “Yes, Jupe is a marvel of good behaviour,” agreed Hanif. “And galloping really fast is bliss if you know that you can stop.”

  Tina had turned back to ride alongside Sarah. “Bowie’s terribly fast and wonderfully smooth. Are you sure you don’t want a turn on him, Sarah?” she asked. “There’s no traffic up here.”

  “No, I’m not going to bother with him any more. I hate stupid, sensitive ponies, and now my mother’s agreed to sell him and buy me a pony more like David’s Vulcan there’s no point.”

  “I think he’s lovely,” said Tina sadly as she stroked the slender bay neck. “I hope he gets a good home.”

  “I hope his legs hurry up and heal and that he isn’t scarred for life,” said Sarah. “I’m never going to hear the last of it from Mummy if he has to be sold cheap because he’s blemished.”

  “Shall we have another gallop?” asked Seb, who was leading them along the east wood track. “Because once we reach the stud farm fence we’ll have to ride slowly and look for the pistols.”

  They galloped until the dipping cornfields on the left side of the track levelled, became pastureland, and they recognized the high, well-made post and rails of the stud farm fencing.

  “There’s no horses in here,” shouted Oliver in a disappointed voice.

  “Look, there’s Beacon Hill. Usually it looks so huge, but now it’s suddenly tiny,” called Netti, pointing away to their left.

  “Shush everyone, we don’t want to be heard by that horrible Collingwood man or he’ll come out and give us hell,” warned Hanif.

  They rode in silence then, their eyes scanning the rough grass on either side of the beaten track for discarded pistols.

  “It’s a bit soon to start looking really,” James pointed out, “because we haven’t found the field with the foals yet and we know that the pistols weren’t thrown away before the foals were shot up.”

  “No, but we don’t know which field the foals were in,” Rupert told him. “It could have been this one.”

  “Yes, he’s probably moved them nearer to the house since the shooting,” agreed Alice.

  “And for all we know, they could have come back this way afterwards,” added Seb, “though I think it’s more likely they took the track down to the road.”

  They rode their ponies on loose reins while they stared fixedly at the turf, hoping to see the dull metal grey of a pistol butt among the fading green of the coarse summer grass.

  “I can see horses in the distance,” announced Oliver, bored with pistol hunting. “Lots of them.” He stood in his stirrups. “They look like racehorses, but fatter.”

  “And that looks like the end of the stud’s fields,” said Seb. “There’s the wood that’s marked on the map. Now, there should be some sort of track going down between the field and the wood.”

  There was—a steeply descending chalk track, scattered with loose flints and shaded by the edge of a great wood which spilled down the slope towards the Coombe Lentworth road.

  “If the mares and foals were in the corner field, the bike blokes could easily have thrown the pistols away here when they’d finished up their ammunition,” decided Seb., dismounting and scuffling his feet through leaves and grass.

  “They had a tinful of pellets each. I should think the pistols would have been red hot if they fired all that lot off without stopping,” protested Oliver. But no one was listening to him; they had all dismounted and were busily searching on one or other side of the track.

  “It’s a yew wood,” called Lizzie suddenly. “We must be careful. Ollie, do keep Hobbit away from those overhanging branches.”

  “Yew!” repeated Tina in horrified tones. “Bowie’s not going near it.” And she hurried him across to the field side of the track.

  “Here, Ollie. If you’ll lead Jigsaw for me, I’ll search the wood side,” called Seb.

  “Good idea,” said Netti. “If you’ll take Tristram, Lizzie, I’ll give Seb a hand.” Sarah also decided to help the wood party and she handed Chess’s reins to Alice.

  “Horses at last!” called Hanif, who was being towed along in the lead by Jupiter. “A whole field full of really beautiful thoroughbreds.”

  “They look like youngsters,” said Alice, joining him. “Yearlings do you think, or two-year-olds?”

  “One-and-a-half-year-olds,” answered Hanif, “because thoroughbreds are foaled very early in the spring, or so my book says.” The young horses threw up their heads and began to pace about excitedly, snorting through wide nostrils at the sight of strange ponies.

  “I hope old Collingwood doesn’t come to see what they’re excited about,” said Hanif, looking round anxiously. The next field seemed to be empty. It was the last one; they could see that it ran right down to the road.

  “The pistols will be here if they’re anywhere,” said Alice.

  “I think the corner of the wood by the road is the most likely place of all,” Seb called from the other side of the track. “They’d chuck them away when the fun was over and they were about to start for home.”

  “Fun?” queried Hanif in a disapproving voice.

  “Well, they were obviously too thick to realize that foals had feelings, so I’m sure they thought it was just fun,” explained Seb.

  “The gate’s open.” Alice pointed. “Look, the field gate, it’s been taken off its hinges.”

  They led their ponies over to investigate.

  “This end’s chained and padlocked,” said Hanif.

  “That’s why it was lifted off its hinges. But whoever did it must have been a fairly hefty bloke,” remarked James, testing his strength. “I can’t move it on my own.”

  “Perhaps the thieves did this as well,” suggested Rupert, “and the stud farm haven’t sent anyone round to put it back yet.”

  “Except that it looks more as though a car had been driven through,” Alice pointed out as she inspected the two parallel tyre tracks imprinted on the crushed grass.

  “Someone’s had a picnic,” called Tina, who had ridden Bowie a short way into the field.

  “Here, come out!” Hanif shouted at her as he looked round apprehensively. “If Mr Collingwood catches you in there he’ll blame us for the gate.”

  “There are lots of Coke cans and takeaway food boxes lying about as well as chicken bones,” Tina told them as she rode back. “And the grass is all squashed down; it can’t be long since people picnicked there.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to do with us and luckily there were no horses in the field,” said Lesley briskly. “Let’s get on. Where have the others vanished to?”

  “Sarah,” called Alice, “Sarah, come and take Chess.”

  “I can’t,” came an answering shout from deep in the wood. “We’ve found a loose horse and we’re trying catch it.”

  “A loose horse?” The pony club members on the track looked at each other in consternation.

  “Perhaps there were horses in the field then,” said James.

  “W
hat sort of horse is it?” Hanif shouted into the wood.

  “There are some more over here,” Netti’s voice came from higher up the wood. “Seb, can you come and help?”

  “There’s a gate down here and it’s open,” called Tina, who had ridden Bowie almost to the road and found the hunting gate into the wood standing open. The people who weren’t hampered by having two ponies mounted and rode to investigate. Oliver gave Lizzie Jigsaw to hold as well as Tristram and scrambled up on Hobbit.

  “Can you drive them out?” James was shouting. “The gate’s in this corner, we’ll stop them getting on the road.”

  Rupert and Oliver had ridden into the wood to help and it rang with confused shouts as they tried to round up the horses.

  “Someone ought to go to the stud and warn them,” said Alice.

  “Yes, and supposing they’ve eaten yew,” added Lizzie anxiously, as a beautiful bay thoroughbred mare appear in the lane being chivvied along by Oliver and Sarah.

  “Ollie,” called Lizzie. “They mustn’t drink, whatever happens, because if they’ve eaten yew it’ll kill them. Go and stand by the water trough and drive them off.”

  The bay mare was reluctant to go back to the field without her companions, but with the track blocked by riders on either side of the two gates, and with Sarah and Oliver waving their arms threateningly behind her, she had no alternative. The moment she was through the gate Oliver set off across the corner of the field at full speed for the water trough. Alice threw Chess’s reins at Sarah and called to Hanif as she mounted.

  “We must tell the stud what’s happened. Will you come with me, Harry? We know the way.”

  “Make sure they realize the horses have been in the yew wood,” said Lizzie. “They ought to send for the vet.”

  “We’ll tell them,” agreed Hanif. “I only hope they don’t blame us for the whole thing.” He followed Alice, who was urging Saffron into a gallop as she gazed across the field, searching for a gate in the fence on the far side.

  The bay mare was neighing, calling to her companions to rejoin her, and suddenly six of them jostled their way through the hunting gate and trotted up the track, to be turned into the field by Lizzie and Sarah who guarded the gateway. Rupert and Netti went back into the wood to help Seb.