Hide & Seek - Alyssa Brugman [32]
The man who had been wearing the waistcoat (Shelby guessed he was the one Chad had called Zeb) was collecting manure with a rake and barrow.
He nodded to her, and then when she didn't move on he walked towards her.
'Can I help you with something?'
He did have an accent, but hardly the incomprehensible 'Arabic or whatever' that Erin had described. Shelby took a deep breath. Boldness wasn't in her nature, but politeness hadn't worked with Keisha.
'I thought you might like to teach me how to do trick riding,' she told him.
'Why would I want to do that?'
'I'm a natural,' she answered. 'I could join your troupe. I have my own horse.'
He looked at Blue. 'Is he a natural too?'
Shelby nodded. She waited for the man to tell her to get lost, but instead he said, 'What can you do?'
Shelby ran her fingers through Blue's mane. 'The other day I was on a trail and I leaned over to the side to avoid a tree.' She saw that Zeb wasn't impressed. 'Nothing much yet,' she confessed.
'Do your parents know you're here?'
'My mother sent me,' Shelby improvised. 'She told me not to come home until I've joined the circus.'
'Well, we'd better get cracking then!' He grinned and opened the gate so that Shelby and Blue could enter. He cupped his hands around his mouth. 'Molly!'
A blonde woman came out of the house and stood on the veranda, frowning, hands on hips.
'This girl . . .' He turned around. 'What's your name?'
'Shelby.'
'Shelby here is going to be our new Keisha.'
Molly shaded her eyes with her hand. 'Have you finished the manures, Zeb?'
'What happened to the old Keisha?' Shelby asked.
'Bad attitude. We had to have her put down,' he joked as he walked towards the fenced arena.
Shelby and Blue followed. In the makeshift paddock the Clydesdale stopped munching on his hay and a sprig dropped from the side of his mouth and onto the head of the miniature pony, like a hat. Those two were clowns without even trying. The miniature trotted up and down the fence line, and gave a shrill whinny. Blue rumbled in reply.
'She's even got her own pony,' Zeb said as Molly approached. 'Look! Festive colouring!'
Molly eyed Blue sceptically. 'Are you sure this isn't just a ploy to get out of poo pickup?'
He shrugged. 'Anyone can pick up manure, but who else has my trick riding skills? It's the burden of my remarkable talent. Go and get a saddle then, girl!' Zeb directed.
Molly disappeared into a shed at the side of the house and Shelby sat astride Blue, silent and awkward, unable to believe that she had bluffed her way in. Up in the stables one of the white horses kicked the door.
Soon Molly reappeared with an enormous saddle. Up close it looked quite like the western saddle that she had been riding in, but flatter across the back, like a roping saddle, and with a large, metal horn on the front.
The saddle was huge on Blue. Shelby helped Molly with the girth, and then Zeb slipped a noseband over the pony's muzzle. It had a leather strap with a clip on the end. He knelt down ready to clip it to the girth.
'What's that?' Shelby asked.
'It's called a tie-down. It stops them from lifting their head up. If you're doing a trick over his neck, and something spooks him, he'll break your nose, or maybe your jaw.'
'I don't believe in tying my horse's head down.' Shelby flicked her hair out of her eyes.
'Do you believe in broken faces?' Zeb asked, holding her gaze.
'How do you know they lift their heads if you tie them down? They might not even do it, and then you're tying it down for nothing.'
'If he doesn't lift his head then it doesn't matter either way.' He started to laugh. 'Listen, little girl, if you want to do tricks he wears a tie-down. If you don't want him to wear a tie-down, you don't do tricks.'
Shelby stared at him. She had always been against side-reins, running-reins, and martingales. Miss Anita often had to re-school horses that had been taught with these kinds of devices. Miss Anita explained that persistent