Greener Pastures - Alyssa Brugman [31]
'What do you think of her?' Mrs Edel asked.
Hayley replied, 'She got a bit nervous when she wasn't sure what I was asking for but after that it was like she wanted to show me what she can do. I think she has talent. She's going to be great.'
Shelby could see Hayley formulating a dream in her mind. She was picturing the year ahead – the techniques she would practise and perfect, the goals she would aim for at each individual competition, scores she was hoping to achieve. Hayley was imagining this filly growing stronger and braver, and a partnership developing between them.
Shelby got it in a way she didn't think Lindsey did. It wasn't about winning really. The winning was just someone else agreeing that you've done a good job.
She understood why Hayley wasn't so interested in Smarty or her foal. It would be cute and nice, but they were a backwards step for Hayley. She'd already done Pony Club and hack shows. She'd mastered all that. Hayley was working towards a new dream.
That was what Shelby missed. There was no dream with Blue. And she wanted desperately to be the sort of rider who could just ignore a massive, young warmblood rearing underneath her, because it was part of the process, because she was focused instead on the year ahead.
'I'm going to do it,' she mumbled.
'What?' asked Lindsey.
'I have to sell Blue,' Shelby said. She grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow, leaving a shocked Lindsey behind.
Shelby was in the paddock with Blue when her mum came to collect her after work.
'Are you ready, sweetheart?'
Shelby stroked Blue's face. 'Remember how you said we wouldn't move if I came up with ten thousand dollars? Well . . .' She was trying to hold it together. 'I've found someone who will pay ten thousand dollars for Blue.'
'Oh, honey!' said her mum. 'We would never make you sell your pony!'
'But . . .' Shelby's throat felt swollen and burnt. 'But you said if I could come up with the money we wouldn't have to move.'
Her mother climbed through the fence and put her hands on Shelby's shoulders. 'Blue is your pony. Even if you do sell him, we're not going to take the money from you. If you want to sell him, that's up to you, but Shel, we are moving house.'
Then Shelby burst into tears because it wasn't fair. She had spent so long agonising over this decision. Finally she'd made it, and it didn't make the slightest difference. In fact, it was worse. Now that she had decided to sell him it wasn't for a good cause. It was just her selfish wish to have something bigger and better.
'Blue is my best friend in the whole world – my loyal friend. He does every little thing that I ask him to. He nibbles my fingers. He's never, ever been cross with me, even when I've done something stupid, and I do stupid things all the time.'
Shelby's mum wrapped her arms around her. 'Don't be so rough on yourself. You're learning. You can expect to make mistakes. And Blue forgives you. That's why he has been such a good pony for you.'
Shelby sobbed, because she was starting to understand that it was really, truly over. They were really going away. She would be living up the coast, and then overseas, and Blue would be somewhere else. She would go for days, and then months, without seeing him at all.
It would be the way Erin had described what had happened with her primary school friends; she might even stop missing him. She would realise one day that it had been years since she thought about him at all, and maybe in the meantime he would have gotten old and lain down in a paddock, gone to sleep and never woken up, and Shelby wouldn't have been there to say goodbye, like she had always promised him.
She had made all those promises to him when he was new and the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, and now she was going to break them.
And she sobbed and sobbed, because it was already over. She had broken them already.
16 A Dinner Cut Short
Chad was at Shelby's place when she and her mother arrived home from the stables. He was playing French cricket in the backyard with Connor