Foxy: Rivalry at Summer Camp (5 page)

“What do you all think of Freddie?” she asked. “I thought he was really picky.”

Charlie was about to reply that she thought Freddie was pretty spot on when the blue team descended on their paddock. Amber groaned under her breath.

“We kept getting told off in our lesson,” Watty giggled as she flumped down on the grass. “And it was all your fault, Amber!”

“Really? How come?” Amber frowned.

“Because we were gawping at your riding,
that’s why!” Emily laughed. “We couldn’t take our eyes off you and Copper! You looked a-ma-ZING!”

“Thanks!” Amber beamed, now looking genuinely pleased. For a while she soaked up all the admiration from the blue team, but she soon glazed over when Watty started rabbiting on about Lily again. Then, when Watty asked about Lily’s favourite warm-up routines for Firestorm, Amber quickly made an excuse to disappear back to the tent. The blue team lost interest after their mini celebrity had disappeared, and they wandered back to check on their own ponies. The Pony Detectives headed to their tent, just as Holly was disappearing in through the door flap ahead of them. Amber was lying on her camp bed.

“Watty doesn’t stop, does she?” Charlie said with a sympathetic smile, as Holly grabbed a packet of Polos from her bag.

Amber smiled back at Charlie. “I guess
that’s a downfall of having a famous sister.”

“She’s exactly the same at school.” Holly grimaced. “She drives our teachers mad too!”

Amber acted like she hadn’t heard Holly, instead checking her watch.

“Right, time for stable management,” Amber announced. “Are you all coming?”

Alice nodded, but she noticed that Amber had only looked at the four Pony Detectives. She glanced across to see if Holly had realised. The hurt look on Holly’s face told Alice that she had.

The afternoon demo was all about nutrition and feeding different kinds of ponies for different kinds of work. The teams sat together on the grass by the feed room, looking through all the sample feeds that the instructors handed round. Holly put her hand up and asked about laminitis, and
Freddie explained the causes and the symptoms.

“Laminitis is a painful disease which can, in some cases, be fatal,” he said, as the teams listened intently. “There are different causes, like eating too much grass, or concussion. Blood flow is restricted to the sensitive tissues inside the hoof wall, which causes the tissues to swell and the hoof to become really sore. A pony will rock back on his heels to take the weight off the front of his hooves. It’s much better to prevent laminitis than treat it, and that takes careful management.”

Alice noticed Holly’s face fall she listened to Freddie talk, and she wondered if her new friend was worrying about Skylark.

Next, Rosie asked which feed could give a pony more bounce, then the session ended with an activity where everyone had to work out how much food their ponies needed each day.

The afternoon riding lesson was flatwork again. Freddie made it his mission to wake
Dancer up and get her springing forward from the lightest command. Rosie worked so hard that by the end of the lesson she was complaining that her legs felt like jelly. But it was worth it – Dancer may have been disgruntled to begin with, but under Freddie’s sharp gaze her step had become far more lively. Alice wasn’t sure who was most surprised at the transformation: Dancer or Rosie.

Phantom produced some stunning work in between his excited outbursts. Copper had looked top class from the start, but Alice began to notice what Freddie was picking Amber up on. It was like Amber was just sitting on top of Copper, while Holly and Skylark were moving as one. The riding-school pony finished the lesson looking even more responsive than he had that morning. His neck was thick, but he arched it nicely, and his steps under Holly were deliberate and balanced.

As the purple team gathered round Freddie
at the end of the lesson, Rosie looked over at Skylark admiringly.

“He’s so light on his hooves for a heavy pony,” she puffed to Holly, wiping the sweat from her face. “The complete opposite of Dancer! You rode him brilliantly.”

“Yes, you two definitely look like a winning combination,” Freddie agreed, the first hint of a smile playing on his lips.

Holly flushed pink and jumped off , giving her hot, damp pony a hug. Alice noticed that, as Amber dismounted, her nose looked seriously put out of joint. They led their ponies in a group back to the hosepipe, where the rest of the camp had already gathered. Alice walked next to Amber, trying to think of ways to cheer her up.

“We’ve got our first jumping lesson tomorrow,” Alice said, patting Scout’s hot neck. “I bet that’s Copper’s speciality, isn’t it? He looks really springy when you ride him.”

Amber was about to reply but Watty was
eavesdropping and suddenly butted in.

“I so bet Lily’s jumped massive fences! What do you reckon’s the highest?”

The girls from the green and blue teams crowded round again to hear Amber’s answers. They “ooohed” at each other as Amber told them about Lily jumping fences so big that she could stand under the top poles without her head touching them.

“Have you jumped that big too?” Emily gasped. Everyone stared at Amber.

“Well, not quite
that
big…” she said.

“How big then?” Emily insisted.

Amber held up her hand a bit uncertainly, at shoulder height. “About this.”

As everyone gasped, Amber lowered her hand a tiny bit.

“Just think of the fences that Lily’ll be jumping at Burghley,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “She must be so brave. They look like the most massive, solid fences in the universe!”

“She does get a bit nervous,” Amber said. “And she’s definitely feeling the pressure more this week because of the whole thing in the media about her becoming the youngest rider to win.”

“And that was before she had Foxy to worry about, too!” Watty added in.

Alice saw Amber wince, like she’d just been reminded of something she’d tried hard to forget.

Holly was standing in the sun, waiting quietly for her turn with the hose. Listening to the conversation, her face was anxious, like she had something on her mind. But then Skylark lifted his pink muzzle and rested it on Holly’s shoulder. Holly broke into a huge smile as his big eyes closed sleepily, and she dropped a kiss on his whiskery muzzle.

“Those two have totally clicked,” Charlie grinned as she scraped the excess water off Phantom. He danced away, crossly shaking his head as she squirted his mane and tail with fly
spray. “It looks like they’ve known each other for years, not one day.”

Next to her, Amber held onto Copper as she put sun cream on the end of his muzzle. “That’s the difference between riding-school ponies and privately owned ones,” she said, glancing over to where Holly was hosing down Skylark. The grey pony dropped his head to snuffle Holly’s hair as she cooled his lower legs. “They’re so docile, anyone can handle them really easily.”

Alice picked up on the edge in Amber’s voice. Holly had her back to them, but Alice saw her stiffen slightly, and she was sure she’d overheard.

Once the ponies had been fly-proofed, the girls turned them out in their paddocks. For the rest of the afternoon, everyone decided to collapse by the pool and laze in the baking sun.

“Are you coming?” Rosie asked Holly, as they headed back to the tent.

Holly hesitated, as if she was thinking about it, until she looked across at Amber and then seemed to change her mind. “Maybe not,” she said, blushing.“I’ll just read in the stables, I think.”

She grabbed her book and wandered off on her own as the rest of the team made for the pool.

As the orangey sun began to dip towards the treeline, everyone was still splashing about in the water or lounging on their towels.

Rosie checked her watch. “Snack time,” she announced. “I’m like Dancer – I need feeding little and often.”

She slid her flip-flops on and headed back to the tents. She walked through the stables,
expecting to see Holly. Skylark’s inquisitive face bobbed over his stable door and he whickered to Rosie. Holly wasn’t there.

“Where’s Holly, Skylark?” Rosie said, glancing round the empty stable. Rosie gave him a pat, then headed off to the tent. That was silent and empty too. Rosie found a cereal bar and was about to leave when she saw Holly’s pony care book partly hidden under her pillow. Rosie frowned, then headed back to the pool.

“What’s up?” Charlie asked, as she climbed out of the pool and saw Rosie’s concerned expression.

“I can’t see Holly anywhere,” Rosie said, and explained about the book.

“Maybe she nipped into the Hall for something,” Charlie suggested.

“We’d have seen her if she had,” Mia said, sitting up.

But when it got to the ponies’ feed time, there was still no sign of Holly.

The Pony Detectives wandered back from the pool. Behind them they heard a mobile phone neigh with an incoming text. They turned to each other and grinned, recognising Amber’s message alert.

Amber was flanked by the blue team as she walked along, reading the text.

“Any update on Foxy?” Mia asked over her shoulder.

Amber looked up from her phone and shook her head. “Nope, no news yet,” she said, “but Lily said that Firestorm’s settled really well, which is brilliant.”

Watty shrieked, and the blue team demanded to see the text for themselves. Mia turned back, leaving them to it, as Rosie, Alice and Charlie continued to talk about where Holly might be.

As they neared the tent, they saw the door flutter, like someone had just ducked through it. When they stepped in, Holly whipped round. She was puffing slightly, and had a sheen of perspiration over her face.

“Here you are!” Rosie exclaimed. “We wondered where you’d disappeared to. We were about to send out the search party.”

Holly flushed and looked away. “I didn’t disappear anywhere,” she said. “I was here.”

Rosie frowned. “Oh, right. Must’ve just missed you. Did you manage to read loads?”

“Erm, a bit,” Holly replied, not quite looking at Rosie. But the pony care book was still tucked under her pillow, in exactly the same place Rosie had seen it over an hour earlier. Holly seemed distracted, and glanced over at Amber a couple of times. She took a deep breath, like she was steeling herself to speak. Then she braved it. “Um, Amber, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”