Hot Potato (Shelby and Blue) - Alyssa Brugman [9]
Shelby didn't answer. Instead she took a long drink of her milk.
'It must be just for herself.' Her mother pressed some mashed potato onto the back of her fork. 'The Edels usually buy bigger horses for the riding school because they have a longer stride and are more flexible in terms of the size of the riders they can put on them.'
Shelby put down her glass and stared at her mother. Typical! she thought. As soon as she needed them to be ignorant, everyone's an expert!
6 Bareback
The next day after school Erin's mum drove the two girls to the stables, as usual. Shelby could hardly sit still in the car. She and Erin had talked about the pony all day and Shelby had been dreaming about her so much that she couldn't remember what she really looked like.
They stopped briefly to pull on jodhpurs and grab their helmets, and then they headed to the riding school ponies' paddock to catch Blue.
He was standing in the very far corner, resting. A round, shaggy pony called Hiccup grazed nearby. Since she'd moved Blue from the paddock near her house to the riding school, he and Hiccup had become firm friends. She'd noticed recently that when she let Blue loose in the paddock after a ride Hiccup would whinny to him, and they would canter towards each other and have a dramatic reunion, as though they had been separated for years instead of a few hours.
At the gate Shelby called out, 'Come on, little man!' Blue pricked his ears for a moment and then closed his eyes again. He wasn't as easy to catch as he used to be. In the old days, when he was by himself, Blue used to wait for her at the sliprail, but these days he was more likely to be standing with Hiccup near the dam, or under the trees at the very back of the paddock.
It made her sad that he wasn't so keen to see her any more, but at the same time she was also glad that he was in a herd, the way horses were supposed to be. She knew that he was much happier than before.
Shelby slid the bridle over his ears, and then she and Erin doubled bareback along the laneway to the back paddock, leaving a bereft Hiccup neighing behind them. Shelby drummed her heels on Blue's sides and Erin laughed at his rumbling, bumbling, teeth-chattering canter.
Along the way Shelby looked around for Lindsey but she couldn't see her anywhere. On Mondays Lindsey's school finished earlier than hers and Erin's. Normally Lindsey went straight to work making up the feed buckets, or lunging horses, but today Shelby thought she might be down at the back paddock already. That's where Shelby would be, if she had arrived early.
She and Erin had talked about the pony all day, and had got in trouble in almost every class for not paying attention. Like Shelby, Erin had dreams about great show-ring victories and champion ribbons, but they had been careful to avoid two topics – the pony's name, and who was going to ride her first.
Shelby wasn't sure if it was because Erin was scared to ride her first and embarrassed to admit it, or whether she wanted to be the one and didn't want to argue with Shelby about it.
Lindsey was the most experienced rider of the three. Erin was probably the most technically correct, even though she had started riding later than the other two girls, but that was because she had lessons with Miss Anita every weekend. Neither Shelby nor Lindsey had instruction.
Shelby thought she should be the one to ride the mare because she saw her first. She was the one who felt the special connection when they were at the sales. She was the one who had bid.
Hopefully they wouldn't have to argue about it. Shelby had been optimistic that the other two might nominate her to go first – Erin because she was scared, and Lindsey because she was wise – but now that she couldn't see Lindsey around the stables, Shelby thought it was unlikely that she had waited. Lindsey didn't think there was anything special about riding a new horse. She had no sense of ceremony.
When they reached the gate Erin swung off Blue's back to unlatch it, and then she