Greener Pastures - Alyssa Brugman [9]
Shelby laughed again. 'Why are you asking me?'
Erin raised her voice to be heard over a truck that drove past. 'I don't even know what it is. I just think about him all the time, and I can't stop even when I want to, and sometimes I just say his name by accident. Like, yesterday I said, "Pass the Ethan", when I meant tomato sauce, because it's an obsession. And sometimes I'm not really even thinking about him, like, I have been thinking about the hair thing for ages. Don't you think that's weird?'
'Lots of things are weird about you,' Shelby said.
'It's such a relief to finally tell someone. It's been boiling away inside my head, but whenever I tried to say it I just couldn't.' Erin sighed.
The two girls steered their horses off the main road and into a side street. Erin hurried Bandit along so the two girls rode side by side. Since there was no traffic around at this end of the industrial estate the two girls rode down the middle of the road with their horses on a loose rein.
Blue and Bandit watched each other, pulling faces, talking to each other in horse while the girls talked in human above their heads.
Shelby wondered what they might be saying.
Never been here before. What do you think of this surface?
Not bad. I prefer gravel though. Those cars were noisy, eh? I hope there's kikuyu where we're going.
Yeah? I'm a clover man, myself.
'How do you know, anyway?' Erin asked.
'I could tell when you looked at Ethan yesterday in Food Tech. You have a see-through face, Erin. You're like a real-life emoticon. And then last night you were going on about cinnamon. Who would remember that?'
'Do you think he knows? Because I don't want him to know. I am just happy to love him from afar. Not even love. It's just a crush. I know it's dumb. Last year he was just Ethan, and now he's Ethan. The idea of actually speaking to him makes me want to leave the country. Did you have that with Chad?'
Shelby started to speak, but Erin interrupted. 'Shh!' Erin blushed. She fanned her cheek with her hand, as if to cool it. 'See what happens? Let's not talk about it! Tell me something else.'
Towards the end of the street the workshops and warehouses gave way to weed-infested lots surrounded by hurricane fencing, and vacant land strewn with rubble.
'OK, here's something else.' Shelby took a deep breath. 'Yesterday I quit the trick-riding troupe –'
'No way!' Erin said. 'I'm glad. I mean, you were good at it, but it looked dangerous. And you would have missed heaps of school, and then who would I sit next to?'
'And Zeb offered to buy Blue –'
'Pfft!' Erin interrupted. 'In his dreams! As if you are ever going to let Blue out of your sight again!'
'For ten thousand dollars.'
'Is he joking? No offence, Shel. I don't think he was being serious, because really, Blue has many good qualities – maybe a few years ago . . .' She reconsidered. 'No, not even a few years ago, and he's not even young now. Are you sure he didn't say ten hundred, which would be a thousand?'
'Have you ever heard anyone say, "ten hundred"?' Shelby asked.
Erin shrugged. 'They say eleven hundred and twelve hundred. And Zeb is some funny nationality, isn't he?'
'He said ten thousand,' Shelby assured her.
'Wow! Are you going to?' Erin held her hand up like a stop sign. 'I hope you are going to say, "No way, Erin, that would be crazy. After all we have been through together, Blue is the love of my life."'
Shelby nodded. 'I did say that at three thousand, which was his opening offer, and at five thousand, but ten thousand, Erin. That's a big holiday overseas.'
In her head Shelby was all ready to tell