Hide & Seek - Alyssa Brugman [34]
Zeb pulled Blue to a stop at the end of the arena. 'Good boy, Fandy.' He patted Blue on the neck.
Fandy? Shelby thought.
'This is the station,' he explained. 'You canter around the arena, do your trick in front of the audience.' He waved his hand, indicating one side of the arena where the audience would be. 'You stop back at the station. Then the next girl goes around, does her trick and stops here. Then the next. After that it's your turn again. Get it?'
Shelby nodded.
They practised cantering around the arena and stopping at the station.
'Now we do our first trick. We'll start standing still. The key to trick riding is balance. You have the horn of the saddle, and you have your horse's mane. You will use them both for balance. OK?'
Zeb kicked his left foot out of the stirrup. Holding onto the horn, he stood up in his right stirrup and swung his left leg over the back of the saddle, so that he was standing up in the stirrup on the right-hand side of the horse.
'This is called a "stand-aside",' he said. 'Now your turn. Number one: hand on the horn. Two, kick your foot out of the stirrup. Three, over the back and tuck it in place. Underneath. Lovely! Hips forward. That's right! Now wave to the audience with your other hand. Don't let go altogether. Beautiful!'
It felt weird to be standing on the side, as though she was about to jump off. She worried that the saddle was going to slip around Tex's belly, but it didn't.
'Again!' Zeb instructed.
Shelby went through the steps in her head.
'Very good! This time when you hop back in the saddle swing your leg straight. It looks better that way. Clever! Smile. You are a natural, I think.'
Shelby grinned. It did feel natural to her – much more natural than the things she had been doing with Miss Anita. More than that, she was having fun. She was glad she'd come here instead of going back to the stables.
Shelby practised again and again, and then she did the stand-aside with Tex walking around the arena. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Keisha return. Shelby waved to her, but the girl didn't wave back. Instead she jogged into the house. Shelby was having such a good time that she was willing to consider that Keisha hadn't seen her.
Molly and Zeb didn't notice Keisha. They thought Shelby was waving to an imaginary crowd.
'That's showmanship!' Zeb said, clapping. 'See that, Molly?'
Molly smiled and nodded. 'Yep, she's doing really well.'
Shelby lifted her chin, proud of the compliment.
'Next we do trot, which is harder, then canter is easier again, because of the rhythm,' Zeb explained.
Shelby was about to trot when she heard a yell.
'Hey!' On the veranda was the man with the dark hair who Shelby had seen doing the liberty work with the matched ponies.
'Hey you!'
He looked so serious that at first she thought he'd seen something – maybe a snake, or that some of her equipment was loose. She looked around, trying to figure out what the problem was.
'Yes, you!' He stalked across the paddock with his hands rolled into fists.
'What?' she asked. As he came closer she could see that he wasn't just serious, he was furious.
'You!' The man shouted louder still, pointing to Shelby. 'Get off my property!'
22 The Great Fandango
'They did it,' Shelby said, climbing into the car. 'They
stole Diablo.'
'Did they confess?' her mother asked.
'No.'
'Did you see evidence?'
Shelby fastened her seatbelt. 'Kind of. Not exactly.'
The car rattled as it sped up, joining the flow of traffic. 'Then how do you know?' her mother asked, grimacing as the gears crunched.
Shelby's father had been playing around with the clutch again after their trip up the coast. Sometimes he took apart bits of the car because they needed fixing, but Shelby thought he took it apart this time simply because he had the week off over Easter, and the Alfa was