Pony Passion Read online

  “Library ban! Aaargh! A fate worse than death!” whispered Kenny, clasping her hands to her throat and doing some blood-curdling eye-rolling. But then Weaver spotted her and gave her one of her speciality frosty stares.

  The library’s not far from our school, so we walked. Mrs Weaver made us go two by two, in a crocodile. Rosie had to go in front of me with Regina Hill, but luckily I got paired up with Frankie, and Kenny and Fliss were behind us, so we could all chat on the way.

  That was the good bit. The bad bit was that in front of Rosie and Regina were the M&Ms, and they just couldn’t resist smirking over their shoulders every two seconds.

  “Top riding skills, Collins,” said Emma ‘the Queen’ Hughes at one point. “You must be really good.”

  Beside her, the Goblin was sniggering. “D’you fall off everything you sit on?” she asked. “Even the loo?”

  “That’s right, kick a girl when she’s down!” yelled Frankie. “You are the meanest slimebags in the history of the entire world!”

  “Francesca Thomas! If you don’t start behaving yourself this instant we shall all turn back and head for school!” boomed Mrs Weaver from the head of the line.

  “They started it,” muttered Frankie. It was probably a good job Mrs Weaver didn’t hear.

  “Last night my sis showed me a clip on the internet from The Lord of the Rings,” said Kenny behind me. “And the goblins are sooo gross. They look exactly like Berryman.”

  “We should’ve told the director,” giggled Rosie. “Think how much money they could’ve saved on make-up if they’d cast those two!”

  That made us all crack up, and gave me an attack of hiccups that lasted the rest of the way to the library.

  Cuddington library never used to have exhibitions like this, but a couple of years ago it got a chunk of lottery money, and now there’s a brand new gallery built on at the back. Chimney-sweeps and Crinolines – Leicestershire in the Victorian Era said the signs as we went in through the big sliding doors.

  “I have a feeling,” said Frankie gloomily, “that this is going to be a serious yawn.”

  The first room was full of glass cases. Some of the things in them were quite interesting – ancient lacy gloves, hats with feathers on, old children’s toys and a thing called a mangle for squeezing water out of washing – but half the cases seemed to be full of rusty tools.

  “We’ve got junk like this in the shed at home,” said Fliss, wrinkling her nose.

  “You should take it to the Antiques Roadshow, then,” said Rosie. “It could be worth a fortune!”

  We hurried on, to a doorway marked Victorians Come To Life. From beyond it you could hear singing and laughter and people chattering. “Sounds more fun in here,” said Kenny. “Follow me, troops!”

  Through the doorway, we found ourselves in a really posh sitting room, like something out of a stately home.

  “Cool!” said Rosie, looking about. “It’s like Madame Tussaud’s!”

  “Madame Two-what?” said Kenny.

  “That place in London with all the waxworks,” said Fliss.

  Rosie was right. There was a waxwork of a woman in a long dress by the piano, and another waxwork (a man) sitting playing. Another couple were sitting on an enormous sofa drinking cups of tea, and an older man was standing by a window. They’d put a picture on the other side of the glass to make it look like a real street outside. Hidden somewhere there must have been a tape recorder, because you could hear the woman singing and the piano playing, and a murmur of voices as if the people on the sofa were chatting.

  “It’s wicked!” I said. “What d’you reckon, Frankie?”

  Frankie hadn’t said anything since we’d come into the room. Now I noticed she wasn’t even beside me – she was still standing by the entrance, staring at her shoes.

  I went over to her. “What’s up?”

  “Look, don’t tell the others,” she said in a low voice, “and I know I’m a complete wimp – but waxworks give me the screaming ab-dabs.” She glanced up at me briefly. “Can I hang on to you, and not look, and you can kind of lead me through?”

  “Seriously?” I couldn’t quite believe it. Fearless Frankie, the feistiest girl in the west, scared of a load of dummies? “They’re not alive, you know. They’re not going to jump out and bite you.”

  Frankie winced. “I’m always thinking they’re about to move. Like walking zombies or something.”

  “You’ve been watching too many scary films,” I laughed.

  “Some people are scared of snakes – or wasps, or mice. I’m scared of these, that’s all,” said Frankie grimly. “Now are you going to help me or aren’t you?”

  “All right, all right, keep your hair on,” I said. Biting my lip to stop myself from grinning, I inched closer to Frankie so she could take hold of my good arm without anyone noticing. Then, as if we didn’t have a care in the world, we strolled into the next room.

  On the way we passed the M&Ms, and I saw Emily nudge Emma and nod in our direction, whispering something behind her hand. I presumed she was just being snide about my arm again. Later, I wished I’d taken more notice.

  I forgot all about the M&Ms as soon as we got into the next room. It was really dark and the air was filled with noise – clangs and crashes. It was supposed to show you what it was like in a Victorian mine, and it was dead realistic.

  “This is awesome!” I said. “Frankie, you’re really missing out!”

  But she wouldn’t look up. “Just – keep – going – will you?” she said through gritted teeth, her nails digging painfully into my arm. I should’ve told her to hold my plaster cast, and I wouldn’t have felt a thing!

  I guess if you were wobbly about waxworks it must’ve been pretty spooky. The room was dim and shadowy, and the waxworks weren’t grouped in one area, behind a rope barrier – they were dotted about all over the place. To get from one side of the room to the other, you had to weave your way amongst them.

  That didn’t bother me. But something else caught my attention. “Look – oh, poor thing!” I said, dragging Frankie to where a waxwork of a woman stood next to a model pit pony. “How cruel to make ponies work in a place like this,” I said, ignoring Frankie’s tugs at my arm. “They must’ve been so scared.”

  If I hadn’t had my mind filled with those poor pit ponies, I might have spotted that something was up. As it was, I was just about to turn round and set off towards the door when Frankie jerked suddenly as if she’d had an electric shock, and let rip the most blood-curdling scream I have ever heard in my life.

  The waxwork next to us, the woman, had moved. Not just moved – it had stuck out an arm and grabbed Frankie. For a second everything she’d said about zombies came flooding back and I was pretty panicked too.

  Frankie hadn’t stopped screaming. It wasn’t one “Eek!” and it was all over – she was shrieking, again and again, and making a dash for the exit, pushing and shoving in her panic to get out. She even managed to knock over one of the waxworks, which toppled against another one, and sent them both head-first into a wagon of coal.

  Everyone else in the room – not sure if The Incredible Hulk was about to burst in, or if one of the waxworks had a bomb under its hat – started jostling around, some people heading for the exit, others back the way they’d come and some people just milling about, asking each other what’d happened.

  Meanwhile, standing right where Frankie had left me, I saw something no one else spotted: a person emerging from behind the waxwork that’d ‘moved’. Even in the dim light I could see a really slimy smirk spread all over her face.

  “What happened? Where’s Frankie?” said Kenny, suddenly right at my elbow.

  Before I could reply, an announcement came over the tannoy, like at the supermarket. Except instead of, “Supervisor to checkout three, please,” it said, “Cuddington Primary group, go to the exit immediately.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Kenny. “Weaver’s pulled the plug. Come on.”

  We had to assembl
e outside in the car park, where Miss Walsh was standing, her face as sour as if she’d been sucking a whole bag of lemons.

  “Don’t you dare make a noise!” she hissed, as we shuffled into a group and waited for Mrs Weaver to arrive. Frankie had been standing beside Miss Walsh, digging her toe into the gravel, but now she came and joined the rest of us. We eyed each other, but didn’t say a thing.

  At last Mrs Weaver emerged through the sliding doors, looking flushed, with one of the librarians walking beside her. I heard Mrs Weaver say, “Once again, I am so sorry,” to the librarian. Then she stalked over to us.

  “I expected better from you,” was all she said, her eyes raking round the group. And then we set off in a straggly line back to school.

  “Why do they always shout at all of us?” said Kenny at break, slumping on the bench. We’d had a good fifteen minutes of Mrs Weaver blasting us, telling us how she and Miss Walsh had “never been so embarrassed in their entire lives” – all the usual teacher guff. “No offence to Frankie, but it was a one-girl stampede. Personally, I was behaving like a super-swotty goody two-shoes…”

  “I saw you with one of the waxworks!” said Rosie. “You were sticking a pencil up its nose!”

  “That was a serious experiment!” said Kenny. Then she grinned. “Kind of.”

  “I wonder if Frankie’s OK,” said Fliss. Right this minute Frankie was inside the office of Mrs Poole, our headteacher.

  “Oh, she’ll be fine,” said Kenny confidently. “You know Pooley – she’s way softer than Mrs Weaver. She’ll probably tell Frankie to try not to do it again and then she’ll crack open a packet of Hob-nobs. Talk of the devil…”

  “Hey guys!” It was Frankie, bombing towards us across the playground.

  “So what happened?” asked Fliss. “Have you got a million detentions?”

  Frankie shook her head happily, still getting her breath back. “Pooley tried to be really strict,” she said at last, “but when I explained that I hadn’t been messing around – that the waxwork really had moved – she turned all sympathetic, and said it would’ve scared her too. Apparently she knows the head librarian and she’s going to have a word. She reckons that if exhibitions have moving parts they should warn you at the beginning. She said if someone with a dodgy heart had a shock like that it could make them keel over.”

  “Good for Pooley,” said Kenny.

  “Except she’ll find out from the librarian that the waxwork didn’t move,” I said.

  “It did!” insisted Frankie. “It grabbed me! Though probably by chance, Mrs Poole said – it couldn’t really have been programmed to do that.” She frowned. “Blimey, Lyndz, why don’t you believe me?”

  “I do believe you,” I said. “But I saw something. After you’d gone.”

  I’d been dying for a chance to tell them ever since the bell rang. Now I had everyone’s attention. Even Kenny sat up straight and stared at me.

  “Someone was hiding behind the waxwork,” I said. “They grabbed you. On purpose.”

  “You saw them? Who was it?” Frankie was looking at me in astonishment. “Who, Lyndz? Who?”

  Who grabbed Frankie? I bet you’ve got a pretty good idea, haven’t you, and you weren’t even there! You could narrow it down to two, anyhow: our two worst enemies, the M&Ms.

  I took a deep breath. “Emma Hughes,” I said.

  I think Frankie’d had a hunch too, because she didn’t look shocked – she just looked furious. “What I’d like to do to that twisted, snotty, fat-bottomed fartbrain!” she snarled.

  “I saw her when Mrs Weaver was bawling us out,” said Rosie. “She had the slimiest ‘I’m-so-perfect’ look on her face. Ugh! Why does she always get away with it?”

  “She doesn’t – not this time,” said Kenny darkly. “Nobody plays a trick like that on the Sleepover Club without paying for it!”

  As you can imagine, we spent the whole of the rest of break complaining about the M&Ms. We could spend years on that subject, I reckon!

  “You know what I heard them saying to Alana?” said Rosie. “That she couldn’t be their friend because she doesn’t wear the right clothes at the weekends.”

  “Yeah, like they’re such style queens,” said Fliss. “Not!”

  “They’re just the pits,” declared Frankie. “And we have so got to get them back for setting me up like that.”

  There was silence while we all tried to think how.

  “We should kung fu them,” suggested Kenny, “like in Kung Fu Panda!” Now Kenny turned into her own version of a kung fu whirlwind, her arms chopping and her legs flailing – until she tripped over one of her big feet and went sprawling on the tarmac.

  “Ow.” She sat up, rubbing her knee. “OK. Maybe not. I think it takes a bit of practice.”

  Then the bell rang. “We’ll think of something,” I whispered to Frankie as we lined up. “It’ll be the best revenge plan ever. No fear.”

  I have to admit, though, I hadn’t had a single idea by the end of school. And when I got home, the whole Frankie revenge drama flew clean out of my head when I saw a large white envelope waiting for me on the kitchen table.

  Don’t you just love getting post? I grabbed the envelope and tore it open without even waiting to take my coat off. Inside was a card, with a picture of a girl riding a beautiful black pony on the front. Inside it said:

  To a very promising – and brave! – rider,

  Wishing you a speedy recovery

  Mrs McAllister

  Miranda

  I read it over three times. Mrs McAllister had never said I was “very promising” before. This almost made breaking my arm worthwhile!

  “Can I go to the stables?” I said to Mum.

  “What, now?” Mum laughed. “You can’t keep away from that place for five minutes, can you?”

  “I’ll go on my bike.”

  “Not with your arm like that.” Mum checked her watch. “I promised I’d take some books round to Mrs Clark, so I suppose I could drop you on my way and pick you up on the way back. You wouldn’t have very long there…”

  “That’s OK. I just want to thank Mrs McAllister for the card.”

  “All right, then. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  When I got to the stables, I found preparations for the gymkhana in full swing. I must admit, it made my heart sink. Why had I had my accident now?

  I poked my head round the office door, and found Miranda sewing flags. I thanked her for the card.

  “You’re welcome—ouch!” She stuck her finger in her mouth. “I tell you, if I’d known working at a stables involved so much sewing I’m not sure I would’ve taken the job.”

  “Sorry I can’t help,” I said, waggling my plaster arm.

  Miranda winked. “You’re well out of it,” she said. “Shame about missing the gymkhana, though. You were coming on so well.”

  The next moment Mrs McAllister hurried past me and picked up the phone.

  “I got your card. It’s lovely!” I said as she flipped through the phone book and started to dial.

  Mrs McAllister flashed me a smile. “Don’t you worry, Lyndsey,” she said. “We’ll soon have you riding again.”

  I backed out of the office. They were clearly too busy to chat. Instead I walked over to one of the fields that Mrs McAllister rents from Mr Brocklehurst’s farm next door. As well as games at the gymkhana, there was going to be a small course of jumps. They’d been set up in this field.

  One of the jumps was made out of tyres threaded on to a pole, another was made of a pile of straw bales. Then there were wooden poles painted with bright red and white stripes, some fitted on to stands and some on to plastic blocks.

  I’ve only had a go at jumping once or twice. Now I stood and watched one of the bigger girls, Lisa Bentham, practising on a pony called Trojan. Have you ever seen show jumping? What’s so awesome about it is how beautiful the horses look when they leap over the fences – the way their forelegs tuck up and their backs arch… For a split second
it’s like they can fly.

  The weird thing today, though, was that every time Trojan took off, my stomach lurched. In my mind’s eye I could see Lisa tumbling out of the saddle and landing – splat – in the grass. How weird is that? I knew she wasn’t actually going to fall off – she’s really good at jumping and Trojan is dead reliable. But still I kept getting this strange feeling.

  I shook my head and turned away. A moment later I’d forgotten all about it. I was too busy looking out for Mum’s car and chatting to Miranda, who’d come out into the yard. Maybe I should’ve been more worried. I’d thought that breaking my arm was the worst thing that could happen to me. Little did I know that my riding troubles were only just beginning…

  The next day, I didn’t tell anyone at school what’d happened at the stables. I couldn’t tell them how down I felt about missing the gymkhana – and besides, there was plenty to take my mind off it. For one thing, Kenny was acting strangely.

  “Is she up to something, d’you reckon?” whispered Rosie in the middle of English.

  “No idea. Why?” I said.

  Rosie shrugged. “She’s not usually this…helpful, that’s all.”

  It was true. A minute ago, when Mrs Weaver had asked for a volunteer to collect in our science books, Kenny had shouted, “Me!” like the keenest cheerleader ever. Right at this moment she was heading our way, a growing pile of exercise books under her chin.

  I held out my book to Kenny, eyeing her suspiciously. She replied with a large wink.

  “Definitely up to something,” I muttered. But as Kenny plonked the books on Mrs Weaver’s desk and came back to her seat, I couldn’t work out what it might be.

  “What’re you aiming for?” asked Frankie ten minutes later when we were out in the playground. “Nature table monitor?”

  “Get real,” Kenny snorted. “Do I look like teacher’s pet material? It’s part of my cunning plan.” Glancing round to check no one was watching, she pulled a piece of paper out from under her jumper and unfolded it. “See!”