Greener Pastures - Alyssa Brugman [5]
'That's not the point, though, is it? Maybe sometimes I would like to go clothes shopping, or to the beach.'
'What would you want to do that for?'
'You can't ride horses all the time,' Erin said.
Shelby blinked. Why would you want to do anything else? she wondered. 'Well, I'll be there all the time now,' she muttered, mashing the bananas in a bowl.
She looked up to see one of the other girls from her class, Lydia, staring at her.
'What?' she said to Lydia, more peevishly than she meant.
Erin and Shelby had been hanging out together pretty much since the beginning of high school. She hadn't paid much attention to the other girls. Some of them teased her because she wasn't into clothes or boys. They would whinny at her and make stupid jokes, sometimes hurtful practical jokes designed to humiliate her. Shelby had decided long ago not to let it bother her, but she'd learned to be suspicious of someone seeming to be friendly.
Shelby hadn't paid much attention to school generally, except earlier in the year she and Erin had got an A for a science experiment that they made up in the holidays. Their Science teacher Mrs Singh had written, Excellent grasp of the concepts, wonderfully inventive. Great to see you incorporating science into your life!
Since then Shelby had started to look forward to Science classes and her marks were going up. Socially, though, she and Erin were still low in the pecking order. They didn't care. Their real friends were at the stables.
'I have a horse too,' Lydia said, smiling. 'I got it for free.'
'Oh?' said Shelby. Suddenly Lydia seemed much more interesting. Shelby examined her as if for the first time. She was an ordinary girl, like Shelby and Erin. She wasn't one of the super-smart kids who always worked in class, or one of the ones who spent all day flirting with the boys either. Shelby thought they could probably be friends – especially if they had horses in common. Shelby and Erin talked about horses a lot.
'What do you mean free?' Erin asked, forgetting her irritation as well.
Lydia smiled coyly. 'These people my dad knows were giving it away. Their daughter had lost interest and they said it needed to be exercised more often.'
'I wish someone would give me a horse for free!' Erin said.
'What do you need another horse for?' Shelby asked.
Erin's Bandit was a good all-rounder. He wasn't flashy, but he was useful. Bandit picked up whatever they were doing at Pony Club without much fuss. He usually placed in a few classes at the local hack shows the girls went to, and he was relaxed on trails as well. Shelby thought he was a bit boring. Sometimes Erin would say, 'Quick! Look what he's doing!' and when Shelby looked Bandit would be standing there. Yawn! He was just a horse, but she would never say so to Erin.
The Food Tech teacher sidled up the aisle with an imaginary bowl on her hip. She was holding the whisk, mimicking the action. 'Whisking, whisking, whisking, girls!' she said.
Erin held her egg bowl and did some frenzied whisking until the teacher looked away again.
'Mashing, mashing, Lydia!' the teacher instructed.
Lydia picked up her banana bowl and mashed half-heartedly.
'Where do you keep it?' asked Shelby, after the teacher had passed.
'Just in the back yard.'
On the other side of the Gully from the stables there were many small acreages. Most of the families from the Gully Pony Club kept their horses on properties there. Shelby guessed that's what Lydia must mean.
'It must be a big back yard. Or is it a miniature?' Erin said.
Lydia tilted her head on the side. 'It's not miniature. It's about this high.' She held her hand up to her eyebrow.
'About thirteen hands? Fourteen?'
Lydia looked uncertain.
'You know what a hand is, don't you?' Erin asked.
'Yeah! Of course!' Lydia laughed. Her face reddened, and a little furrow crossed her brow.
Erin raised an eyebrow, but Shelby was willing to give Lydia the benefit of the doubt. Knowing what a hand was on paper was quite different to assessing the height of a real live horse. It could be