Winter Wonderland (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 13) Page 4

  “And you don’t think that is kind of messed up?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well shouldn’t your father care more about your education than horses?”

  “Why?” I said. “I don’t.”

  Mickey shook her head and laughed. “You have come to the right place.”

  “I know.” I grinned. “And later you get to help me decorate the whole barn.”

  “Oh no,” she groaned. “More decorating?”

  “What do you mean more decorating? We haven’t even started yet.”

  “You should see my house.” She sighed. “It looks like Santa’s workshop.”

  “That’s kind of cool,” I said, trying to keep a straight face.

  “No it’s not. My mom has all these nutcrackers and they keep staring at me and I hate those awful teeth. I have nightmares that they’ll come to life and chew my fingers off or something.”

  “Why don’t you just ask her to take them down?”

  “I tried that but she won’t. She thinks it’s funny and now she keeps moving them around like they’re real. This morning I woke up with one laying on my pillow glaring at me. I started screaming and she didn’t even care.”

  “Your mom is messed up in the head.” I laughed.

  “I know.”

  “Well if you help me decorate, I promise I won’t make you put up any nutcrackers,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said but she didn’t sound convinced.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It took us a long time to find all the Christmas decorations because they obviously hadn’t been used in ages. They were all stuffed in a back room in a dozen dusty cardboard boxes. We dragged them out choking and wheezing and trying to dodge the spiders that came scuttling out from underneath them.

  “This is so gross,” Mickey said. “Can’t we just buy new ones?”

  “With what?” I said, clapping the dust off my hands.

  “Well doesn’t Fox Run have a budget for that sort of thing?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I don’t even know who is in charge.”

  “What do you mean?” Mickey asked as we started to look through the boxes for suitable decorations.

  “Well, who owns the place? No one seems to know. Dad and Missy are the head trainers and they also manage the barn but who writes the checks?”

  “Why don’t you just ask your Dad?” Mickey said.

  “I did. He said that the owners preferred to stay in the background and didn’t want their names spread around.”

  “That is kind of weird.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “Well I guess if you don’t know who they are then you can’t ask them for Christmas decoration money and we are stuck with things like this.”

  She held up a plastic angel with glitter wings and an evil smile.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Definitely not.”

  “We could put it on Hashtag’s stall.” Mickey laughed.

  “Yes but I’m the one who’d have to look at it all day long so I’d only be punishing myself,” I said. “There must be something else in here that we can use.”

  We went through the boxes and finally came up with some strings of white fairy lights, a couple of really long garlands made of fake pine needles and some spools of red ribbon.

  “See,” I said. “Elegant and sophisticated. My dad can’t complain about that.”

  “Are you sure you know how to make bows out of that stuff?” She pointed to the ribbon.

  “Of course.”

  But making bows was harder than it sounded. They kept coming out all lopsided and scraggly. In the end Mickey took over the bow production since it turned out that she had a knack for that kind of thing and I got the step ladder and started stringing the lights along the fronts of the stalls where the horses couldn’t possibly try and eat them.

  “What are you doing?” Jess snapped.

  I looked down to see her standing there with a mad look on her face and a nasty smear of clay on her butt. She must have fallen off during her ride, which had obviously put her in an even worse mood than she was already in.

  “Decorating for Christmas,” I said.

  I wasn’t too keen to get into another argument with her. I just wanted to try and enjoy the holiday season and get ready for the big show. I didn’t know why she couldn’t just leave me alone.

  “Well don’t put any of that junk on my horse’s stalls,” she said.

  “You can’t have the only stalls that aren’t decorated,” I said. “What will your horses think?”

  “They don’t care about Christmas and neither do I,” she said.

  “How can you not care about Christmas?” Mickey looked up from where she was sitting surrounded by yards of ribbon. “It’s the best time of the year.”

  “Maybe if you’re five,” Jess said. “Christmas is for little kids.”

  “What’s the matter?” Mickey said. “Didn’t Santa bring you everything you wanted last year?”

  “My father buys me everything I want, not some stupid fat man in a red suit who needs to go to Weight Watchers.”

  I didn’t realize but Faith and Ethan had arrived and they overheard everything Jess had said. I heard Faith gasp.

  “Jess,” she cried. “How could you say that about Santa? Now you’ll get coal in your stocking.”

  “Oh get real,” she snapped before storming off, kicking the evil angel in the head on her way. It skittered across the aisle and ended up upside down, its evil eyes winking at us.

  “You should have let me put that on her stall,” Mickey said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  But deep down I felt kind of bad for Jess. What kind of person didn’t like Christmas? After all, it wasn’t really about the presents and how much stuff you got to unwrap, it was about being part of a time of year when people seemed to be a little nicer to one another. Only Jess just seemed to want to be even more horrible.

  “Can we help decorate?” Faith asked, picking up a bow that Mickey had made.

  “Sure,” I said. “The more the merrier.”

  Ethan said he couldn’t help because he had a lesson but really I think that he thought that decorating was for girls. Still, we didn’t mind. We hung the lights and draped the garlands and Faith rain up and down, tying the bows. When we’d finished we stood back and plugged in the lights.

  “It looks like a Christmas card,” Faith cried.

  She was right, it did.

  “What about the stockings?” Mickey said.

  “Yes, Santa needs somewhere to put all the carrots and apples,” Faith added.

  “I didn’t see any stockings in the boxes,” I said. “But I’ll keep looking.”

  For the rest of the evening, people kept coming up to us and saying that we’d done a wonderful job. And Dad agreed that the decorations added a certain festiveness to the barn that hadn’t been there before. He even went and got Missy and dragged her down to look at them. We stood there in the dark with only the twinkling lights illuminating the aisle. The horses all had their heads out, looking almost in wonder at what we had done to their home. And standing there with my new family, I suddenly felt that this was my home more than any other had been but I couldn’t help wondering if my mom had put up our ratty old fake tree and whether or not the star had fallen off like it usually did. I stepped away from the others and pulled out my cell phone to call her number but it clicked through to her voicemail. She was obviously still mad at me and all I wanted for Christmas was for her to talk to me again. Well, that and to win the Winter Wonderland show of course.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I didn’t go to school all week and Dad and Missy didn’t seem to notice. I worked in the barn in the mornings, doing the work of the groom that was out sick and then after lunch I was able to ride both Bluebird and Socks. Missy said that I might as well keep working him since he went so well for me and even though she hadn’t said anything yet, I was hopeful that she’d let me ride him i
n the Winter Wonderland show.

  Jess wasn’t happy about it. She stomped around the barn telling anyone who would listen that I was an imposter and a poser and an all-around horrible person but I just ignored her. It was easier to just keep my head down and do my job and hope that people would make their own decisions about me and not listen to a spoiled brat like Jess. Besides, I had friends here now. Ethan and Faith, Fern and Vicky and of course Mickey. We all rode together when we weren’t taking lessons with our respective trainers and it was turning out to be so much better at Fox Run than I could have ever imagined it would be. In fact I’d almost forgotten about Esther and Sand Hill when she texted me to say that I needed to go and pick up the cat because she was leaving in a few days.

  I asked Mickey if her mom wouldn’t mind taking me since I didn’t think Meatball would be too happy stuffed in a box and strapped to the back of my bike.

  “But I thought we already did the whole goodbye thing,” she whined when I asked her. “Now that means we’ll have to do it all over again and it was pretty bad the first time. Can’t you ask your dad?”

  “He has lessons and then he has to drive Missy to a doctor’s appointment,” I said.

  “Well can’t you just get Esther to mail you the cat?”

  I gave her a withering look and she finally relented when I told her that this was the absolute last time we’d have to go over there because I didn’t really want to go either but I promised Esther that I’d take care of the cat and I wasn’t about to let her down.

  When we got there she was already standing at the end of the barn with Meatball firmly secured in his carry box. He was known to disappear when things were happening, a sixth sense that told him he should run away and hide like he did before the hurricane hit. This time Esther had made sure he wouldn’t be left behind.

  “Here’s his bowl and the food he likes.” She shoved a bag at me. “And a couple of his favorite cat toys.”

  “Cat toys?” Mickey said. “Esther, I didn’t know he was that kind of barn cat?”

  “He isn’t,” she said gruffly. “It’s just sometimes, when the mice are in short supply, he likes to play with his fluffy, catnip one.”

  I nudged Mickey in the ribs and winked at her. It turned out that Esther was an old softie after all. We were just turning to take Meatball out to the car when I heard a soft whinny.

  “Saffron is still here?” Mickey said.

  Esther sighed like she’d hoped to get us in and out without talking about it.

  “No one bought her yet?” I cried. “What are you going to do?”

  “She’s going to the auction tomorrow,” Esther said, looking at the ground and not at us.

  “What? No. You can’t do that,” I said.

  “What am I supposed to do with her?” Esther said. “Are you going to take her?”

  I shook my head. “I asked my father but he said no.”

  “Well there you go. No one else wants her either and believe me, I’ve tried every rescue and retired horse farm I could find. They are all full. No room at the inn.”

  “But it is Christmas,” I said sadly.

  “You never know,” Mickey said, trying to sound bright. “Maybe someone nice will buy her.”

  “And maybe the dog food men will,” I said.

  I went and stood in front of Saffron’s stall. She was all neat and clean, like Esther had given her an extra good bath. I knew that she didn’t want her to end up at the slaughter house but you couldn’t just set a horse free and hope that it would fend for itself. You just had to hope for the best and that was something that I was good at since I’d had a lot of experience with bad things happening and trying to make the best of them.

  “We’ll go,” I told Esther. “And we’ll make sure someone nice buys her.”

  I hugged her tight before running off to the car. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see Esther crying.

  “How are we going to make sure that someone nice buys her?” Mickey asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But we’ll find a way. I owe it to Esther.”

  “You don’t owe her anything,” Mickey said.

  “Fine, then I owe it to Saffron. She’s a nice horse. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

  “You could just smuggle her into Fox Run,” Mickey said. “There are so many horses there, I bet your Dad would never notice one more.”

  “Jess would,” I said. “And she is out for my blood, you know that. She’d never keep a secret to help me.”

  “True.” Mickey sighed. “But I still don’t see how we are going to save Saffron.”

  And I didn’t either but I knew we had to try.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The horse auction wasn’t the sort of place you wanted to go right before Christmas. It made you feel too depressed about the state of the world and the fact that there were more horses in it than there were good homes for them. I looked around the crowd, desperately trying to find someone who would be a good match for Saffron but all I saw were the usual suspects. The slaughterhouse guys, all big and gruff and just how you’d expect them to be, ready to take on anyone who verbally or physically attacked them for their right to be there. The resale people, who were basically low level trainers looking for a cheap bargain to put a little training on and sell for a profit. And then you had those of us who wanted to save every single horse there even though we didn’t have the money or land to do so. There were also a group of people that hadn’t been there before, the ones that seemed to be looking for a Christmas present for their kids.

  “People like that shouldn’t be buying horses from auctions,” Mickey said.

  She pointed to a family of five who were all wearing rubber boots and dirty jeans. They were leaning over into a pen of ponies, the kids swinging on the gate and sticking their outstretched fingers in. Most of the ponies were crowded into a corner, looking like they were trying to make themselves invisible. One giant hairy ball so that you couldn’t distinguish where one pony ended and another began. But one feisty, muddy little chestnut surged forward with pinned ears and barred teeth. The kid shrieked and managed to pull his hand out just in time. The pony’s teeth chomped together on thin air.

  “That was a close one,” I said. “Come on, let’s go and check on Saffron.”

  “Okay but as soon as she’s sold can we go?” Mickey groaned, dragging her feet behind me. “This is so depressing. I hate it here. I don’t see why we had to come. If we’d stayed home, we could have just imagined that she had been sold to a nice family with a pretty barn but now, if she goes to someone horrible, then we’ll know the truth.”

  “I know,” I said.

  I was starting to think that coming to the auction was a bad idea too. Mickey was right. If Saffron was sold to someone horrible, there wasn’t really much we could do about it and we’d just go home feeling even more awful than we had before. We should have had a plan. We could have made Saffron a Facebook page or Twitter account. Set up a Save Saffron fund. There were so many things we could have done but now, here at the auction our options were limited to outbidding anyone we didn’t like with money we didn’t have or telling anyone who came to look at her that she was a bad horse, which wouldn’t do Esther any favors.

  Only it seemed like the Christmas miracles were in full swing this year because when we got to the pen where Saffron was being held we found Esther shaking hands with a cowboy. He was handing her a wad of cash and she was smiling.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “She’s been sold,” Esther beamed.

  I looked at the cowboy. He wasn’t one of those fake, wannabe ones with brand new boots and a hat that was too big for his head. He was the real deal. He had a weathered face and a kind smile. He patted Saffron on the neck and she made this sappy face that I’d never seen her make before.

  “She likes you,” I said, surprised.

  “I’ve been looking for a horse for my son and this little lady fits the bill perf
ectly,” he said as Saffron reached over the gate and rubbed her face on his shirt.

  I’d never seen her act that way before. I couldn’t believe it. It was like she’d found her long lost love or something. It looked like she was going to be really happy in her new home.

  We said goodbye to her but she didn’t care. She even pinned her ears at me as I tried to hug her.

  “Oh okay then, silly mare,” I told her. “I get it. You don’t need us anymore.”

  “I’m glad that’s over,” Mickey said as we walked away. “I don’t think I could stand sitting through that auction.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  Esther went to withdraw Saffron from the sale and we stood by the entrance. I tried not to look at any of the horses. I wanted to imagine that they would all end up with nice new owners like the old cowboy.

  “Please let’s never come to another auction again,” Mickey said as we heard a horse squeal and kick out, its shoe connecting with steel and ringing out above the noise of the crowd.

  “Agreed,” I said. “Although if I’d never been to an auction. I wouldn’t have ended up with Bluebird.”

  “That was fate,” she said. “And luck. Things like that only happen once. You found your diamond in the rough. There won’t be another.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  But even though the auction was depressingly sad and awful, it was also a place of wonder and possibility. You never knew what you were going to find there. Sometimes really great horses were discarded for no good reason at all. They weren’t all sour or dangerous or damaged goods and for someone who didn’t have the money to buy expensive horses, it was one of the only places you could go and find something with potential for next to nothing. It was a risk though, a big one and Mickey was right. I got lucky with Bluebird. Really lucky. He could have ended up lame or sick and I’d have been left with a pony that I couldn’t ride or even sell. Buying a horse at auction was taking a chance and I wasn’t ready to do it again anytime soon until I saw a flash of dapple gray.