Hide & Seek - Alyssa Brugman [28]
'One afternoon last week. I can't remember.' Monica shrugged.
'Was it Good Friday?'
'It could have been. Yes, I think it was. Kim was helping Mrs Edel with the poo vac.'
Shelby remembered seeing Lindsey's mum drive through the breezeway on the quad bike while she had been talking to Mrs Crook.
'I'll tell Mrs Edel,' Shelby said. 'She should probably replace this latch.'
'Good idea. Although the baling twine seems to be working for now. They can only escape into the back paddock, so it's not a huge risk, and besides, none of the other horses seem to have mastered the trick.' Shelby nodded. She wondered if Diablo knew a trick like that – or maybe he had help.
18 Contradictions
That night Shelby updated the timeline on the blackboard.
'Friday 5 pm – Kim finds accomplice equine in alleyway.'
Afterwards, she lay in bed thinking it through. The mare must have opened the gate again later on Good Friday night, and opened both the electric and metal gates to Diablo's paddock, and then the two of them must have gone back into the mare's paddock, and down to the far gate. Then the mare opened the gate to the back paddock – the one with the latch that Shelby had seen that day – and somehow Diablo got through before the mare did. Then he headed over the broken fence and into the Gully, and miraculously, out of all the trails he could have chosen, he took the path to the far side and turned up at the property belonging to the circus people.
Shelby rolled over. That didn't make sense either! Only one of the gates was self-closing. How did they manage to lock the other three gates behind them – one of them electric? There was no churned-up grass in the alley, as you would expect if the two horses were galloping up and down in a storm. Why would the stallion leave all those mares to go into the back paddock? And then leave those horses to go into the Gully? Why didn't the others follow him? If the mare had opened the second gate into the alleyway twice on that night, then why hadn't she done it again since?
Shelby tossed over again. There was no way Diablo escaped on his own. She was equally convinced that the circus people weren't after the stallion specif-ically. Someone set Diablo free.
Who would do that? Why?
Shelby kicked back the covers and lay in the dark, watching the shadows play over the ceiling.
The gate mystery wasn't the only thing troubling her. Shelby had been so wrong about Lindsey not having much money. Now she had time in the quiet to think over the things Lindsey had said that day – her 'poor people' philosophy. It was so different from the beliefs and values that Shelby had grown up with. She had always been taught to respect people for who they were rather than how much they earned. Her parents had always showed compassion for people who were worse off.
Shelby remembered once a woman had approached her mother in the shopping centre. She had wild eyes and smelt of old sweat and cigarettes. She had several facial piercings and Shelby couldn't help staring. The woman said she had lost her wallet and need some change to catch the bus. Shelby's mother gave her five dollars. Shelby waited until the woman walked away and then she said, 'I don't think that lady was telling the truth. She'll spend it on cigarettes or drugs.'
Shelby's mother had sighed. 'You're probably right, honey, but it would be so awful to have to beg from strangers.'
When she said that Shelby had thought about what it would be like to feel so desperate that you would ask a complete stranger for help, and then to have people sneer at you and turn their heads away as though you weren't even worth looking at. Shelby couldn't imagine how bad that would feel from the inside.
She wriggled with discomfort. Was it possible to remain friends with someone whose attitudes to people were so different from your own? Should she tell Lindsey that she thought her way of thinking was wrong?
Shelby linked her fingers behind her head. She had been so shocked to discover that Lindsey was rich – and disappointed too. Were their beliefs so