Hide & Seek - Alyssa Brugman [55]
'You let him out for a school assignment?' Mrs Edel repeated. There was no mistaking her expression now – Mrs Edel was furious. She stepped over to Bandit and removed the halter that he was wearing over his bridle. Her voice was low and shook with anger. 'I think you should go back to the stables now, girls. Wash down those horses and then get to work, because I don't trust myself to speak to you right now.' Lindsey's mum set off down the hill towards the herd.
'She swears when she's cranky,' Erin told Monica and Kim, nodding sagely.
On the flat Diablo and the colt were playing a rearing, biting game. Diablo was distracted when he saw his mistress approaching with the halter. The colt bit the stallion on the neck, and then he squealed and ran with his short tail high in the air. The little buckskin stopped about twenty metres away, looking over his shoulder to see if the older horse was chas-ing him, but Diablo had lost interest. He was deciding whether he wanted to be caught.
'You too, Lindsey,' Mrs Edel called over her shoulder.
'What did I do?' Lindsey protested.
'Go!' her mother said.
Her daughter stood still with her hands on her hips, unbelieving, but Shelby understood that Brenda Edel wasn't mad with Lindsey, she was angry with herself. Sometimes when you're in the wrong or you're enraged it's better to take time to cool down so you don't say things in the heat of the moment that you might regret later. Mrs Edel had jumped in before. This time she was doing it differently. Shelby admired that.
'Do you want a lift?' Kim asked.
Lindsey used Kim's stirrup to climb up behind the saddle. The girls set off across the back paddock.
'What's this about a video?' Kim asked.
Erin told the other girls about how Shelby's mum had unravelled the mystery, and how she and Shelby had designed the experiment. 'We were going to show you and your mum after we had finished,' she told Lindsey.
'You should have told us straightaway,' Lindsey grumbled.
'You wouldn't have believed us,' Shelby said. 'You weren't trying to find out what really happened. You'd already decided who was to blame.'
Lindsey opened her mouth and shut it again.
'She's right, Lin,' Erin said. 'It's like our assign-ment. You can have a theory, but you don't know for sure unless you test it. You would always have been suspicious of Chad and the troupe. And Diablo only got into the back paddock so it wasn't that bad.'
Lindsey frowned, but she didn't answer.
Erin continued to prattle on as they walked along the lane. 'You know, I never really got Science before. You do an experiment in class and everyone knows what's going to happen, because it's in the textbook, or the brainiacs do it faster, so by the time Shel and I finish we've seen it, like, fifteen times already, but this was exciting! When Diablo jumped that gate it was like, you know, discovering germs, or dinosaurs or something. I think I'm actually going to listen in class from now on, instead of just writing down stuff.'
Shelby smiled. She could imagine Erin's resolution lasting for about twenty minutes.
'You know in CSI when they do the experiments there's always funky music playing? I'm going to suggest that to Mrs Rowels. When we get out the bunsen burner she should put on something with one of those slap bass riffs, like the Seinfeld theme.' Erin did her best bass guitar impersonation. 'Dow, dow dowow. Do you guys remember that show? It was so unreal.'
They reached the wash bay and the girls dismounted.
'So your mum will drop the charges now, right?' Shelby asked Lindsey.
'I suppose she'll have to, but don't expect her to say sorry. She never will. Neither will I.' Lindsey stormed away.
Lindsey might not apologise, but Shelby thought Mrs Edel would. She was gruff, but in Shelby's experi-ence she was also fair.
While she hosed down Bandit Shelby could see Lindsey talking to Hayley. Hayley looked across to the wash bay, but Shelby couldn't see her expression.
'Don't worry about it, Shel,' Erin said with a sunny smile. 'Lin's