Jade's Summer of Horses: Pony Tales Book 4

You can’t say that,’ Jade’s father had told her. ‘You are a member of the public, and the public is everyone. You don’t hate everyone.’

Yes, she did. Right then, at least. Jade mixed Pip’s feed too vigorously, scattering chaff outside the bucket and getting bits stuck like splinters under her finger-nails. If the meeting went ‘well’ this morning, it might be one of the last feeds she would make for Pip.

It seemed odd, placing Pip’s feed bucket on the chewed-down grass of her diet paddock. Especially when the other side of the fence was lush with spring clover, on which Jade’s young pony, Taniwha, was grazing greedily.

‘Poor Pip.’ Jade patted the old pony’s black neck, her summer coat shining underneath the last tufts of brownish winter hair. ‘Always boring chaff. But it’s healthy, and you don’t want laminitis again, do you?’

Pip snorted and kicked her bucket. To be honest, the old pony was not looking her best, with her between-seasons coat and with gummy eyes caused by the spring pollen. Normally, Pip’s slovenly appearance frustrated Jade, but today she was glad. The Hodge family were due any minute now to ‘try out’ Pip. Jade hadn’t liked the sound of Mrs Hodge over the phone, and hoped that her pony’s dishevelment would be enough to put them off.

‘Isn’t the old girl looking splendid? I’m sure she’ll charm them.’

Jade tried not to scowl at Mr White. He was just being nice — and he had been very kind to her since his awful suggestion that two ponies were probably more than enough to be grazing on his property. No, he’d been kind before that, too — ever since Jade’s first day in Flaxton, really. As her dad had told her, she must remember how generous the Whites had been before cursing them for evicting her elderly black mare.

‘You think so?’ Jade asked as brightly as she could. ‘I reckon she’s looking a bit feral.’

‘Not at all. Still the looker, even at twenty-four.’ Then he noticed Jade’s face fall. ‘It’s good! Plenty of people will be interested, and the more interest you have, the better your chances of finding her the perfect retirement home.’

Jade kicked a lump of dried horse poo towards the wheelbarrow designated for ‘cleaning’ the paddock. This was the perfect retirement home for Pip. Couldn’t Mr White see that?

‘I think your customers have arrived,’ Mr White said, as the driveway was suddenly full of a huge silver van. ‘Would you like me to stay for moral support or make myself scarce?’

‘I don’t mind. I’ll be fine by myself if you have something else to do.’

‘Right-o. Just call if you need me. I might not hear, though, as I’ll be mowing the lawn.’

Jade forced a smile as a woman, who must have been Mrs Hodge, and three almost identical brown-haired children emerged from the van.

‘She’s so pretty!’ the oldest of the children exclaimed, touching Taniwha’s face with a nervous hand.

‘He’s a he, not a she,’ Jade said, remembering that she had made exactly the same mistake with her first pony, when she first moved to Flaxton and rescued Pip from the pound. It felt like a very long time indeed since she had assumed that the old mare was a stallion.

The girl, who looked about nine, didn’t seem to hear Jade. She was busy whistling at Taniwha’s nose in a way that she didn’t realize was annoying the young pony.

‘That’s not the one for sale,’ Jade said hurriedly, noticing Tani’s biting face coming on. ‘Pip’s over here.’ She’ll be more tolerant of your fussing, Jade wanted to say, but stopped herself.

‘That one?’ asked one of the younger children, with disappointment.

‘I like this one better. This one isn’t ugly,’ said another charming child. ‘Can we have him, Mum?’

‘He’s not for sale,’ Jade cut in.

‘You heard the girl, kids. It’s the lovely old pony that we’re here to see. What was your name again, sweetheart?’ Mrs Hodge asked. Jade thought she looked like a woman who regularly lost track of her own children’s names.

‘I’m Jade, and this is Pip.’ Jade tried to lead by example, ducking under the tape fence of the diet paddock and putting a halter on her less attractive pony.

The Hodge family slowly followed. They seemed reluctant to be in the same paddock as the pony, preferring to stand on the other side of the fence. Jade could tell they were staring at poor Pip’s gummy eyes.

‘Is she sick?’ Mrs Hodge asked.

‘No, she’s fine at the moment. But there’s always a chance of the laminitis coming back. That’s why we have to be careful about controlling what she eats.’

‘Does laminitis affect the pony’s eyes?’

‘No, that’s just hay fever.’

‘A horse with hay fever!’ the middle Hodge child chortled.

‘She’s allergic to the pollen,’ Jade explained.

‘Can we ride her?’ the smallest Hodge asked.

‘Yeah, sure.’ Jade should have tacked up Pip before the Hodges had arrived; she knew they would want to ride. It had been wishful thinking, assuming the family would be instantly put off by Pip’s appearance. ‘I’ll get her saddle.’

The family, in their track pants and running shoes, watched with respect as Jade tacked up Pip with a skill that comes from having practised literally hundreds of times.

If it had been Tani, Jade would certainly have mounted first. She would have been warming him up all morning, before the Hodges arrived, trying to calm all the bucks out of him. But Pip was another story. Jade knew she could trust old Pip to walk a few circuits of the paddock without turning a hair, regardless of what her rider was doing.

The eldest Hodge was to go first. She waited and listened while Jade demonstrated how to mount, how to hold the reins, and how to sit in the saddle.

‘Your turn,’ Jade said, dismounting. She watched the child step carefully from the upturned feed bin that acted as a mounting block to the stirrup. With little grace but no catastrophe, the young Hodge was soon in the saddle. She wasn’t going too badly.

‘Heels a bit further down, and legs back,’ Jade said, finding it easier to move the child’s feet and legs herself than explain how to do it. ‘And sit up a bit straighter.’ Jade was about to tell the younger girl to keep her chin up and look straight ahead, when she noticed the helmet sliding forward over her eyes. ‘Is my helmet too big for you?’

‘It’s OK,’ the girl said. ‘Can we just ride now? What do I do?’

‘Hold the reins like this.’ Jade demonstrated. ‘And try and keep your legs and hands still. I’m going to lead you for now.’

‘Like a pony ride at the races.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can we trot?’

‘No, Pip’s only up to walking.’ Jade looked at Mrs Hodge, to whom she’d explained Pip’s condition over the phone.

‘I told you, Crystal — this pony just walks. No making it gallop.’

Crystal didn’t reply. To her credit, she didn’t blame Pip for her disappointment, and remembered to give the pony’s fluffy black neck a pat before slithering to the ground and letting her siblings have a turn.

The middle Hodge, an excitable seven-year-old boy called Ethan, allowed Pip to prove herself ‘bombproof’, as Jade had promised in the ad.

Instead of waiting for the helmet, and for a leg-up from Jade, the small boy clambered up Pip as if she were a jungle gym. When he found himself miraculously in the saddle and facing the right way, Ethan grabbed the buckle of the reins and, with one foot in a stirrup and one out, kicked Pip’s sides in an urgent but ineffectual manner. Uncertain of what was expected of her, Pip looked at Jade.

‘Ethan, sit still,’ Jade said. She would have been sterner, but was afraid it was rude to scold a child while his mother was watching.

‘Make it go!’ he yelled. ‘Come on, horse!’

‘Sit still and be quiet, just like Crystal was before,’ Jade said.

‘If you do as Jade says, the pony will take you for a ride,’ Mrs Hodge said, with astounding patience. Her words worked; straight away, the middle Hodge ceased his flapping and let Jade move him into the correct riding position.

‘Now, are you ready? We’re off!’ Jade said, trying to get Pip to move at a pace that would impress the boy but do her no injury.

‘I’m quite high up,’ Ethan announced, pleased. ‘It’s higher up than the pony at the races, Crystal.’

‘Maybe too high up for Danielle?’ Mrs Hodge asked. Jade noticed that the girl of about five had gone to hold her mother’s hand.

‘Pip’s very quiet — she’ll keep Danielle safe and sound,’ Jade assured her. ‘But my helmet will be far too big.’

‘Would bike helmets do?’ Mrs Hodge asked, looking at her children’s different-sized heads.

‘They wouldn’t be regulation for pony club, but I reckon they’d be fine for riding at home.’

Where will ‘home’ be for Pip if you take her? Jade wanted to ask, but she didn’t know how to do it without sounding nosy.

However, Danielle, to Jade’s relief, decided that she didn’t want to ride the ‘big horse’. But then came the awkward question of money. Two-thirds of the Hodge children were happy with Pip, and Mrs Hodge had always wanted a pony, since she was a little girl (something Jade found hard to imagine), so, yes, they were definitely interested in taking Pip. What was Jade’s price?

‘Well,’ Jade began, completely unsure of what to say. Of course she had considered this moment. She had planned to say, Because of Pip’s age and state of health, I would rather give her to a good home, than sell her to a bad one, but it was hard to say this to the Hodges. They seemed like nice people, but incapable of caring for an old pony, even one as amenable as Pip.

‘I can offer $200 — that’s what my husband and I agreed on.’ Mrs Hodge looked worried, as if deep down she knew this pony would cost more than a one-off payment of $200. It would cost time and effort, bags of chaff, vet bills and more.

‘Pip is a very old pony, and she could get sick again really quickly if she isn’t looked after carefully,’ Jade said, trying not to sound accusing.

‘We’d take the best care of her,’ Crystal said. ‘We love animals — we’ve got two cats, a dog, three birds and three mice. The mice are mine.’

‘A pony is a bit different.’

‘Crystal knows,’ Mrs Hodge interjected. ‘I told the kids that when we moved to the lifestyle block, they could get a horse. Since I made that promise, they’ve borrowed piles of horsey books from the library. They’re really keen. We would give Pip a very good home.’ Mrs Hodge looked hard at Jade.

‘Okay,’ Jade paused. ‘I think I have to talk to my dad about it before we agree on anything.’

‘Fair enough. We’ll give you a call tonight then.’

The phone kept ringing. Jade’s dad and granddad stared at her.

‘We’re eating dinner,’