Josephine Pullein-Thompson: Pony Club Challenge (paperback)

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Alice Drummond waved goodbye to Mr Crankshaw and rode her dun pony, Saffron, down the track to the river. It was the first day of the summer holidays; she had made the long journey home from school the day before.
Home, thought Alice. Well, since her parents’ death, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Peter were always telling her that she must look upon Shawbury as her home. But then, even when her parents were alive, she had never had a proper one—a house full of brothers and sisters, dogs, kittens and rabbits, where you’ve lived for as long as you can remember. Her father had worked for a multi-national company so they had moved about the world living in smart company flats in Rio de Janeiro, Washington and Mexico City. She hadn’t had a brother or sister—there were just the three of them, and she had never had a pet, not even a hamster, until Saffron. He had become hers after that miraculous day last holidays when the Woodbury Pony Club had won the Area Cup. She had ridden Saffron, hired for the holidays, but afterwards Clare, the youngest of her four grown-up cousins and her only real friend among them, had persuaded Aunt Margaret to buy him. He’d spent the term turned out on his ex-owner’s farm and was now fat and sleek from the rich grass of the water meadows.
The pony club fixture list was a bit of a disappointment, thought Alice, splashing through the ford. She had hoped that David Lumley, their instructor and district commissioner, who had been a famous steeplechase jockey until a crashing fall had left him disabled, would run another course. In her wildest dreams she had even imagined a camp, but there were only working rallies, a picnic ride and a test day on the fixture card. As she took the silent, leafy path through the beechwoods, she wondered whether David was all right; she did hope that they hadn’t worn him out last holidays. Then she thought about Harry Franklin and wondered if he would still want to ride with her. That was the worst of going to boarding school, you didn’t see people for ages and they changed. She conjured up Harry’s brown face, dark eyes and curly, blue-black hair. He was bound to be older and taller, but she’d telephone him as soon as she had settled Saffron and see if the rest of him was the same.

Alice heard her aunt’s champion springer spaniels barking in their kennels and saw the red-brick, gabled house through the trees. Last holidays it had seemed a dismal, dripping place, but now, on a hot summer’s day, the house and garden looked deliciously shady and cool.

The Rookes were cleaning tack in the old conservatory attached to their tall, red Victorian house on Woodbury Heights. Neither Mr Rooke, who was a solicitor, or Mrs Rooke, who was the pony club secretary, cared about plants or gardening, so the conservatory had long ago become a tack room and a general dumping ground for unwanted objects.

Generally, Lesley and Sarah, who hated doing anything together, managed to stagger their tack cleaning, but as their school had only broken up that day, there had been very little time to prepare for the first rally of the holidays.
“You could have cleaned yours on Monday, you didn’t have anything like the amount of homework I had,” complained Lesley, glaring at her younger sister through thick-lensed glasses as she waited impatiently for the metal polish.

“Well, I didn’t.” Sarah shook the can with deliberate slowness and then applied the polish to her cloth with irritating precision. She was much prettier than her sister, with a narrow face, mouse-brown hair cut in a fringe and she didn’t have to wear glasses, but her mouth was rather small and thin-lipped. “Anyway, you’re lucky that Julian’s not cleaning tack too,” Sarah went on. “If Tina hadn’t cleaned his there would have been three of us sharing; that wouldn’t have pleased you.”

“Tina won’t go on cleaning it now she’s not riding Chess, and I can’t see Mummy making Julian do anything, so you’ll have two sets to clean and two ponies to look after,” Lesley told her sister. “If the great Sarah’s such a brilliant rider she has to have two ponies at her disposal, she can jolly well see to them. I’m not going to help out,” she added spitefully. She hated Sarah for being their mother’s favourite.

“You’re jealous. It’s not my fault if the only thing you’re good at is dreary old dressage. Anyway, Tina may go on helping. Just because Mummy’s put Julian down for every rally it doesn’t mean he’ll go, and if he doesn’t Tina can have Chess.”

“You can’t expect her to bike up here and do all the work on the chance of a ride.”

“I don’t see why not,” Sarah retorted. “That’s what she does at the riding school.”

“Well, if she’s fool enough to let you use her, that’s her business, but don’t think you’ll get me doing extra work so that Mummy’s pet can be in all the teams,” sneered Lesley.

“No one’s asked you. And I know what you’re afraid of,” Sarah snapped back. “You thought you were the only person who could do dressage, but now I’ve got a decently schooled pony like Bowie you’re terrified I’ll beat you at that too.”

At the Old Rectory at Kidlake, the Wheelers were having a family flap. It was getting dark, there was no light in the tack room and, when they had moved all the tack and cleaning materials into the kitchen, they found they were low on saddle soap and that the tin of metal polish wadding had had its lid left off and had dried up.

“Ra’s tail is full of burrs, his mane needs pulling and this tack’s filthy,” moaned Lizzie, the second eldest of the Wheelers, as she dismantled her saddle.

“I’ve found this old tin of metal polish, it was dried up too, but I’ve added a bit of water,” said Netti, inspecting the result critically. “There’s just enough for badges; the stirrups and bits will have to stay tarnished. Come on, hand your badges over; you know how the Old Rooke goes on and on if they’re dirty.”

“Oh, she goes on about everything,” complained Oliver, the youngest of the Wheelers, who had the same pink and white complexion, the same pale, straw-coloured hair as his brother and sisters, but a rounder, cheekier face. “She’s a real pain.”

“Still, she does a lot of work for the pony club,” Lizzie, who wore her flaxen hair in one thick plait, pointed out. “I know David’s much nicer and a terribly good instructor, but I don’t suppose he’d do the boring things like collecting subscriptions and sending out fixture cards.”

“I wish Julia would be secretary as well as junior instructor,” grumbled Oliver. “She’s really nice.”
Rupert’s pink and white face, which was long and dreamy, appeared round the kitchen door. “Has anyone seen my boots?” he asked.

“But I thought it was your bridle you were looking for.” A note of irritation crept into Lizzie’s usually patient voice.
“No, I’ve found that. It’s been hanging on a tree by the field gate; it’s been rained on and it’s hideously stiff,” Rupert explained. “I’ve got all my tack now. It’s just my boots.”

“You’ll have to use neat’s foot oil,” Lizzie told him as she looked at the cardboard-stiff bridle. “We’re running out of saddle soap. And you must do something about the drop noseband, it belongs to Harry Franklin,” she reminded him.

“Harry won’t mind, but his stepfather’s terrible fussy,” added Netti. “Can I have your badge, Rupert? I don’t want too many sniffy remarks on the Wheelers’ turnout from the Old Rooke.”

“One thing is, we haven’t got far to go,” said Oliver, dipping Hobbit’s green encrusted bit into the bucket of water.

“Yes, but that makes it even worse when we’re always last or late,” lamented Lizzie, scrubbing hard at a greasy saddleflap. “Do you think that David will be very disappointed when he finds we haven’t done much schooling in the term? Do you think he expects the ponies to have improved?” she asked anxiously.

“He’ll get a very nasty shock if he expects anything so unlikely,” answered Rupert, swamping his bridle and the kitchen floor with neat’s foot oil. “Rosie’s so fat she can scarcely waddle, and I’m quite sure she’s forgotten everything she learned last holidays, including how to take off.”

“Oh, we won’t be anything like as hopeless as we were last holidays,” Lizzie told her brother. “David’s instruction changed us completely. Don’t you remember everyone’s amazement when we all whizzed round the cross-country at the Area Cup? Even Julia said it was a miracle. No, I’m just afraid he may be disappointed that we haven’t schooled the ponies since then.”

“Perhaps our lack of improvement will make him run another course,” suggested Netti. “Working rallies and a picnic ride aren’t going to help much.”

“I don’t see why we can’t have a camp—all the other pony clubs do,” complained Oliver. “Except for boring inspections, they have a terrific time at the Cranford Vale camp and, on the last night, no one, not even the juniors, goes to bed until two in the morning.”

Human: David Lumley, Sarah, Lesley and Mrs Rooke, Paul, Lynne and Mr and Mrs Roberts, Alice Drummond, Hanif (Harry) Franklin, James Morgan, Rupert, Elizabeth, Nettie and Oliver Wheeler, Sebastian Fuller, Tina Spencer
Equines: Stardust, Chess, Berry, Banjo, Saffron, Jupiter, Ferdinand, Rosie, Rajah, Tristram, Hobbit, Sea King, Jigsaw

1. Pony Club Cup
2. Pony Club Challenge
3. Pony Club Trek