Patricia Leitch: Rebel Pony (eBook) pre-order out 18 September

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THE RED ROSETTE flapped gaily on the black pony’s bridle as Kandy Kerrack led the winning gallop round the show field.

“Steady Gypsy, steady,” she whispered, moving her fingers on the reins and sitting down tightly in the saddle, as she felt the pony gathering himself together before he bucked.

It was a huge buck, a leap forward into the air, head tucked down and heels flung skywards so that the people at the ringside gasped and jumped back from the rail. Kandy never moved in the saddle.

“Silly thing,” she told the pony, clapping his sleek neck. It didn’t matter how he behaved now. He had won the red rosette. He could do what he liked, now.

Kandy rode out of the ring and across to where her father was talking to an elderly gentleman and a pigtailed girl. The girl looked about ten years old, the same age as Kandy. When she saw Kandy she ran forward and flung her arms round Gypsy’s neck.

“How super,” she cried. “Super for you to win. I think Grandad is going to buy him for me. He promised he would buy him if he was placed and now that he’s won the red rosette he’s sure to buy him.”

Kandy swung herself out of the saddle. “Oh good,” she said, feeling years and years older than the other girl, thinking, “Daddy will be pleased if the old man takes Gypsy.”

Mr. Kerrack, Kandy’s father, bought and sold hunters and children’s ponies. He was well known in Brentshire as a reliable horse dealer—only buying and selling the very best horses and ponies and always being completely honest with his customers.

“I’ll come over tomorrow and make the final arrangements,” Kandy heard the old gentleman say to her father as they shook hands.

“He’s going to take him,” Mr. Kerrack said to Kandy when the girl and the old man had walked away. “Suit them nicely. Quite a good rider. She’ll be able to cope with him.”

“I thought he was going to buck when we were doing our show,” Kandy said.

“Yes I saw him,” agreed her father. “But you pushed him on just in time. He’ll soon forget all about bucking. Really he’s stopped it now. The excitement of the show must have put the notion into his head again.”

Mr. Kerrack had had Gypsy in his stables since February and it was the beginning of July now. Kandy remembered the day when Gypsy had arrived from Ireland. She remembered the wild eyes glaring through the slats of the horse box; the way the pony had clattered down the ramp and started to buck the second he had felt firm ground beneath his hoofs.

She thought of the hours of work in the indoor school that had changed the fiery rebel into the well-schooled pony who had just won the Championship of the Best Child’s Pony at the Green Loaning Show.

And now he was to be sold! Soon Kandy would never see him again.

She took off her hard hat and pushed back her long, fair hair. Perhaps it didn’t matter. “I should be used to it by now,” she thought. “All my life it’s always been like this. I’ve always had lots and lots of ponies to ride but never one of my own.”

“Take his tack off and put him back in the box once he’s cooled down,” Mr. Kerrack told Kandy.

“Jolly good,” shouted Pat Linton, coming trotting across on her pony. Pat was in Kandy’s class at school and owned a shaggy, brown pony called Tupper. “The beastly judge never even glanced at us. Sent us out of the ring straight away as if we were a bad smell. Oh, you are lucky having such super ponies to ride.”

“He’s sold,” said Kandy, rubbing her hand up and down Gypsy’s neck. “The old man bought him for his granddaughter.”

“Oh,” said Pat. “You don’t mind though, do you? You’ll be used to it by now.”

“‘Spose not,” said Kandy. “It’ll be a good home for him.”
But really she did mind. Her father would laugh if he knew and even Pat expected her not to care. Not to care that the pony she had ridden and schooled and loved was to be sold.

“You’d mind if Tupper was to be sold?” Kandy said suddenly to Pat.

“Of course, but that’s different. Oh, I would never dream of selling Tupper! He belongs to me. I mean it’s different for you.”

Kandy shrugged her shoulders.

“Are you going in for the jumping?” said Pat.

“On Mrs. Davenport’s new bay pony, Blake,” answered Kandy. “She wants to see someone else jump him in a ring before dear Priscilla comes back from boarding school and risks her precious neck.”

“Well I’m jumping Tupper,” sighed Pat. “And you know what will happen, don’t you?”

Kandy giggled. “You will stop three times at the first jump and if they let you have another shot at it after you’ve been eliminated he will jump it beautifully.”

“Absolutely right,” agreed Pat. “I’m going to start waking him up now and perhaps he’ll lose count and jump it the third time.”

“I wouldn’t mind even if I had a pony that wasn’t good enough to win showing classes. I wouldn’t mind if he was like Tupper and wouldn’t jump in the ring. I wouldn’t mind a bit just as long as he was my own,” Kandy thought wistfully as she watched Pat riding away. But she knew that that wasn’t true. Not any pony. It would have to be a special pony for Kandy.

Tupper, heaving like a flying feather mattress, careered three times up to the first jump, and three times stopped dead, throwing Pat on to his neck. The judge blew his whistle and they cantered out.

“Told you so,” Pat shouted to Kandy who was waiting her turn to jump.

“Bad luck,” said Kandy, hardly glancing at Pat or Tupper. All her attention was on Blake, the bay pony she was riding and the thought of the course she was about to jump. It looked a fair course but a tricky double. Kandy guessed from Blake’s behaviour that he had been in a ring before. His eyes were bulging knowingly and his neat ears pricked sharply forward. Every few seconds he stuck his head straight into the air and whinnied shrilly.

In the ring he half reared and bounded forward at a full gallop, charging the jumps. Kandy managed to get him steadied and steer him round the course—but out of the ten jumps he had nine down.

He shot out of the ring like a rocket, narrowly missing a steward.

“Priscilla will need to sit a bit tighter in the saddle if she’s going to ride you, my lad,” Kandy told the bay pony as she fought to bring him back to a trot.

Mrs. Davenport was standing beside their horse box talking to Mr. Kerrack as Kandy rode up, still trying to check Blake’s breakneck speed. As well as Mrs. Davenport there was a very elegant lady whom Kandy didn’t know and a boy who looked like her son.

“Gave you quite a ride,” twittered Mrs. Davenport. “Naughty boy,” and she tapped Blake’s muzzle with the tips of her gloved fingers. “I’ve just arranged with your father to take him over for the next month. Priscilla is going abroad on holiday next week so she won’t be back until the middle of August. I know a wonderful little jockey like you will have him jumping beautifully by then,” and she beamed at Kandy. It was a cold smile that stayed on her narrow lips but didn’t reach her pale blue, bullet eyes. With another tap on Blake’s muzzle she turned her back on Kandy and went on talking to Mr. Kerrack.

Kandy screwed up her face behind Mrs. Davenport’s back. She could think of a lot of things she would rather do than spend the summer schooling a pony for Priscilla Davenport.

Suddenly Kandy realized that the boy was watching her, grinning at her with laughing brown eyes as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and quite agreed with her.
Kandy grinned back, thinking he looked good fun and wondering where he lived. He looked about eleven years old and had wavy black hair and a wide, smiling mouth.
“Well I won’t be there myself,” Kandy heard the elegant woman say. “But I’m sure Jack would like to go and if you should see a suitable pony he could have a ride on it.”
“You could come with us in the Land Rover,” Mr. Kerrack said to the boy.

“No thank you. I’ll find my own way,” said the boy, and Kandy, listening as she took off the bay pony’s tack, thought that he looked the kind of person who would always prefer to do things for himself, to find his own way.
“You will do your very best with the pony won’t you? Priscilla is so keen. And she’d be so disappointed if he wasn’t ready for her to show jump when she comes home from Spain,” breathed Mrs. Davenport to Kandy as she said goodbye.

“Who were they?” Kandy asked her father once Mrs. Davenport, the lady and the boy were out of sight.
“Mrs. Dunn and Jack Dunn. She’s a widow. Writes detective stories. They’ve come to live at High Hall. She wants me to look out for a pony for the boy. I told her we’d be at the Brent Sale on Monday but she won’t be there. Going up to London for a week. Said she thought Jack would like to go but he didn’t seem very keen to me.”
As Kandy bandaged the ponies’ legs for the journey back to the stables she felt cross and disgruntled. Gypsy was sold and Blake would take hours and hours of schooling at a slow sitting trot to improve his balance and steady him up.

“Oh, how I hate being me,” Kandy thought. “Stand still, pony,” she said sharply to the bay pony and as she wound the blue bandages round his fine black legs, Kandy built a new life for herself. It was Kandy Kerrack and not the black haired, independent, smiling, Jack Dunn who had come to live at High Hall. It was Kandy who was going to the horse sale at Brent on Monday to buy a pony that would be her very own; a pony that nobody could take away from her; that she would school and school until it was the best pony in the world.

Humans: Kandy Kerrack, Mr and Mrs Kerrack, Jack Dunn, Mrs Dunn, Mrs Arthur, Priscilla Davenport, Mr and Mrs Davenport

Horses: Falcon, Blake, Gypsy