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Against the wall there was a bookshelf full of folders with handwritten spines – Accounts payable, Insurance forms, Agisters 001–049, Agisters 050–099. Shelby inspected them with her hands neatly crossed behind her back.

There were more folders on the desk. Shelby wondered exactly how many horses lived on the property. If there were more than one hundred agisters, and some people, like Hayley Crook, had more than one horse, then surely Ms Edel couldn't remember them all? What was one little chestnut pony amongst the rest?

Mrs Edel put down her pen and raised an eyebrow. 'Are you girls up to something?'

'No! I'd better go now.' Shelby walked out and stood on the veranda. She saw a swish of tail as her friends led the chestnut behind the feed shed.

'I'll figure it out, you know,' came Mrs Edel's voice from inside the office.

Shelby ran through some possible responses in her head. Good for you? Too cheeky. There's nothing to figure out? A lie. I know you will? Too close to the truth. Instead Shelby said nothing at all.

4 Arabetha Bella or Bess

The three girls perched on the top rail of the fence and watched the pony. The wind had picked up, making the tree boughs creak and lifting Shelby's hair from her forehead.

They had decided that the back spelling paddock was the best place to keep the pony for now, even though most of the horses were racehorses, or broodmares – big thoroughbreds or standardbreds – so the tiny mare with her fancy white legs stood out.

It had taken them a while to coax her along the laneway between the paddocks. She shied at everything, but Shelby accepted that this was a new place and she'd had a very scary day so far. Who knew where she had been before, or what had happened to her?

At the sales, with all of those people crowded around, she must have felt like a pack of wolves were surrounding her, ready for the kill. She had no way of understanding that they weren't going to hurt her.

Now the mare was cantering up and down the fence line and whinnying. The girls weren't so worried about her making a fuss and drawing attention to herself way out here. This paddock was seventy-five acres with lots of trees and two huge dams. It was criss-crossed with paths where Lindsey or Shelby led the beginners on trail rides on the weekends.

There was a ridge running along the middle, and you couldn't see the far side of it from the house. Lindsey's mum didn't come out the back very often, anyway – only to check on the fences and the broodmares when they were close to foaling.

'I think we should call her Princess Arabetha Bella,' said Erin.

'Just off the top of your head?' asked Shelby.

Erin giggled. 'No, silly! I was thinking about it on the way back in the truck.'

'What about Bess?' Lindsey suggested. 'Bess is a good name.'

'For a Clydesdale,' said Shelby. 'She's too small to be a Bess. I think it should be something pretty.'

'OK, what do you think of Minuetta Farfalla Flora?' asked Erin.

The pony galloped along the fence, ears back, shaking her head and swishing her tail. She skidded to a stop and whinnied again – her belly shaking with the strain. She was working herself up into a nice frenzy. Shelby wondered if the little mare had a best friend where she'd come from and she was only just now realising that it wasn't there.

'Tess,' added Lindsey, shrugging. 'Or Ness.'

'How about Countess Simonetta Cecilia Songbird?' offered Erin.

'Then she could be Tess,' said Lindsey.

Shelby laughed and rolled her eyes.

'Only for short,' Lindsey added.

Shelby groaned. 'No more "ess" names!'

'Well, you haven't come up with anything, Shel,' Erin retorted.

'We should call her Hot Potato. That's what Lindsey called her at the sales, and that's what she is. We can call her Hotty for short.'

The two girls stared at her. Erin curled her lip. 'And you thought Arabetha Bella was bad?'

'Don't forget she called her horse Blue,' observed Lindsey.

'He was already called Blue when he arrived! I couldn't change it, because he answered to it.' Shelby frowned. There