Beach Ride (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 9) Read online

  There was nothing good on TV, meaning that there was nothing that had anything to do with horses but I settled on a movie that had zombies in it and although there was plenty of action, including zombies eating people’s brains, it wasn’t enough to stop me from falling asleep.

  I woke to someone shaking me.

  “Get off,” I mumbled.

  “Fine.” It was Cat, standing there, still wearing normal looking clothes. “I just thought you might want to know that your washing has exploded.”

  “Exploded?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes and wondering how long I’d been asleep.

  “You’ll see.” She smirked. “You’re going to be in so much trouble.”

  “How can I be in trouble?” I said. “I didn’t have any clean clothes. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Not shove them all in at the same time,” she said. “And how much soap did you use anyway?”

  “Enough.”

  She had to be exaggerating. Washing machines couldn’t actually explode. Besides, I did Bluebird’s laundry all the time and the washing machine had never exploded. It wasn’t like I was a complete laundry idiot. But as I opened the door to the laundry room and a wave of water and bubbles flowed out to greet me, I knew that Cat was right. I was going to be in big trouble and apparently I didn’t know how to do laundry at all.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “What on earth is going on in here?”

  Mom had walked into the laundry room right when I was in the middle of trying to clean up my mess. I had a pile of wet towels and there was still a puddle of water on the floor. I didn’t know where it was all coming from.

  “I was doing laundry,” I said. “I didn’t have any clean clothes.”

  “And so you thought it would be a good idea to wreck the washer in the process?” Mom put her hands on her hips. She only did that when she wasn’t amused.

  “How was I supposed to know that I did it wrong?” I said, blinking back tears.

  Mom opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again when she saw what I was wearing.

  “Where did you get that shirt?” she asked, her voice flat.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I’ve had it for ages. It was the only thing I had left that was clean. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  She stepped forward and slipped in the soapy water. I reached out to grab her and also slipped. We tumbled down together, landing in the water with a splash. I looked at her and she looked at me and for a split second I thought that she was going to start yelling at me but instead she started to laugh and so did I. We were still sitting there in hysterics with tears streaming down our faces when Derek walked in. He stood there looking down at us like we were idiots.

  “What is going on in here?” He didn’t look amused.

  “Laundry,” we both said, still giggling.

  “But…” he started to say, his face turning red.

  “Just forget it, Derek,” Mom interrupted. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Well it doesn’t look like you have it under control,” he snapped. “And I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”

  “Why don’t you go and look in the refrigerator,” Mom said. “There are lots of things to eat in there.”

  “Yeah, mystery leftovers,” he groaned. “I’m ordering pizza.”

  “Suit yourself.” Mom got to her feet and pulled me up with her.

  I scowled at Derek as he turned to leave. The fact that he didn’t want to eat the leftovers either meant that there was something we had in common and I didn’t like the idea of that one bit. I promised myself that I wouldn’t touch the pizza and would instead try and give the leftovers a chance, even if it was just to spite my stepfather.

  It took an hour to clean up the mess, during which Mom told me that you should never, ever put three times the amount of soap in the machine and if you overload it then you are asking for trouble. I also figured out that I should have separated my darks from my lights because half my clothes had turned a dingy gray, although it was hard to tell if that was from my epic laundry failure or the fact that I’d worn them too many times to the barn.

  “Is it ruined?” I asked as Mom split the clothes into smaller loads.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “I know.” She looked at me and smiled sadly. “But next time you get the urge to go all domestic, ask me first, okay?”

  “Alright.” I nodded.

  I didn’t like to tell her that domestic urges had nothing to do with it and that it was only out of necessity for clean clothes that I had even bothered in the first place.

  “Mom?” I grabbed her arm as she went to go into the kitchen. “Is Cat really going to be allowed to go to the beach party?”

  “It’s not really up to me,” she said. “It’s Derek’s decision.”

  “Then she’ll be allowed to go, won’t she? Because of the rich people who might want to invest in his business.”

  “It would be good if they did.” Mom sighed. “He’s sunk everything into this business and if it doesn’t take off soon, I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  I knew what he’d do. He’d go back to moping around the house, scrounging off my mother. Only now she’d have a mountain of extra debt to deal with as well.

  “So, can I go to the beach party?” I said.

  Mom was silent for a moment. “I know you want to go but do you really think that it’s a good idea? You and Cat don’t exactly get along. Being at the same party sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

  “But I asked first,” I cried. “And it’s a horse thing. Cat doesn’t even ride.”

  “She wants to,” Mom said.

  “She only wants to because she’s trying to annoy me. Can’t you see that?”

  “How do you know that?” Mom said. “Deep down maybe she really likes horses.”

  “And deep down she may have no soul,” I groaned.

  “That’s enough of that,” Mom said.

  We stood there all wet and dripping while Mom thought about whether she was going to let me go or not. I knew she thought that it was a bad idea and that if Cat and I got into a fight then she wouldn’t be around to break it up but I didn’t want to have anything to do with Cat and I was going to stay as far away from her as possible. Except for the part when I was going to put her off horses for good but Mom didn’t need to know about that.

  “If Derek gets to decide for Cat then you should get to decide for me and you know how much this means to me. It’s a horse thing and Mickey will be there. There won’t be any trouble, I promise.”

  “You really promise?” Mom asked seriously.

  “Yes,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Alright then.” She sighed. “You can go. But if I hear anything about you two fighting, you’ll be grounded for a really long time and that will mean no going to the barn. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I cried, giving her a big hug.

  Mom looked relieved, like she’d finally solved everything. Too bad she didn’t know that I had my fingers crossed behind my back.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  All anyone could talk about was the beach party. Mom kept voicing her concerns at the lack of parental supervision that was or was not going to be there. Cat was sure to rub it in my face every chance she got that she was going to be there and Mickey just kept raving on and on about how awesome it was going to be because I was going to be there. What had for a moment seemed like it would be a nice, fun, safe beach ride, had morphed into something that I wasn’t even entirely sure that I wanted to take Bluebird to.

  “It doesn’t sound very safe,” I told Mickey. “Where are we going to keep the horses tied up?”

  We were riding in the front field. I was on Bluebird and Mickey was riding Daisy bareback because she had shown up to the barn in shorts and flip flops and Esther refused to let her ride in a saddle. Even though I’d tried to ignore her, I knew that she was in th
e barn tacking up Saffron so that when I came back in, I would ride her.

  “I don’t know all the details.” Mickey shrugged.

  “Well, I don’t exactly think I want to take my pony to some crazy party unless I know there is going to be a safe place for him. You know how quickly these things can get out of control.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, trying to sound all innocent.

  “Remember the middle school prom?” I said. “The food fight that got out of hand and spilled out into the parking lot but not before someone set off the sprinklers and we all got drenched. And that was supervised,” I added. “What do you think is going to happen when a bunch of teenagers are running around the beach setting bonfires and letting off fireworks?”

  “What are you, like an old lady or something?” Mickey shook her head, obviously disappointed in my lack of spontaneity. “Besides, it won’t be like that.”

  “It will be exactly like that.” I sighed. “Maybe I just shouldn’t bother and go at all.”

  “But you promised,” Mickey cried. “You said you’d go with me. We never do anything together anymore and this is the one thing I really want to do so you have to come.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well what if we go and see where it is going to be? Then you could check it out and make sure that it is safe for Bluebird and if it’s not then maybe you could leave him behind but still come.”

  “Maybe,” I said, thinking that it probably wouldn’t be a half bad idea to make sure that the party wasn’t going to be held in some ghetto part of the beach where the drug dealers and gang members hung out.

  “Want to try a cross rail?” I pointed to one of the low jumps.

  “Very funny,” Mickey said. “Daisy is sleeping right now thank you very much.”

  I looked at Mickey sitting on the big gray horse in the shade. The mare had her eyes closed and head down. Any minute it looked like she was about to just keel over.

  “Chicken.” I laughed.

  I took Bluebird over a few of the fences but my heart wasn’t in it. I was too worried about the party. I wanted to show off my pony and let everyone see how great he was. To prove he was better than whatever horses Cat’s rich friends had but I wasn’t about to do that and let something bad happen to him in the process.

  My mind was still on the party when we went back to the barn.

  “She’s all ready for you,” Esther said, holding out Saffron’s reins. “I thought today you could try her over some cavalletti.”

  “Are you serious?” I said. “She’s nowhere near ready to jump.”

  “Cavalletti aren’t really jumps,” Esther said. “Besides, it will be good for her.”

  “If you say so,” I groaned.

  But now that Saffron had accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to let her get away with anything, she’d become a pretty decent horse to ride and Esther was right, a lot of her training was still in there. She was just a bit rusty.

  “More leg,” Esther called out as we trotted over the poles that were nailed to small wooden crosses. You could turn them so that they were low or high but even at their highest they were only really a foot off the ground.

  Saffron’s trot got all big and springy and despite my best intentions, I cracked a smile.

  “There is the horse I fell in love with when I bought her,” Esther cried.

  I slowed Saffron to a walk and took her over to where Esther was standing. She reached out and patted the mare and then gave her a sugar cube.

  “I can tell you still like her,” I said. “So why are you selling her?”

  “Because I have to,” Esther said.

  “But why?”

  “You don’t need to be burdened with every one of my problems.” Esther wiped the crumbs of sugar on her legs. “Besides, it’s none of your business.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. Now she just looked kind of sad.

  “Want to take her for a spin?” I asked, hoping that if Esther rode the mare then she would feel better.

  “No,” she said, walking away. “I have work to do. You carry on.”

  I worked on the cavalletti a little longer but Saffron was funny, she had a short attention span and got bored very quickly. I finished on a good note before she decided that she’d had enough of poles to last her a lifetime and refused to go over them again.

  “Maybe jumping you would be fun after all,” I said as I ran up my stirrups.

  The mare turned and looked at me with her blue eye. It was always more expressive than the brown one, like it could see right into your soul. Right now it looked like she was saying that cavalletti were plenty, thank you very much.

  I patted her neck.

  “You should think yourself lucky,” I told her. “I bet you were bred to chase cows or something. You’ve got a pretty good thing going on here and I’m going to try and do everything I can to talk Esther into keeping you so don’t blow it. Okay?”

  Saffron just lifted her tail and farted. I wasn’t sure if that meant she understood or not.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mickey didn’t know much about the girl who was hosting the beach party, other than the fact that her name was Sasha and she didn’t go to our school. She jetted around the world with her rich family and had a private tutor. She also had a stable full of expensive horses that she showed on the A circuit. Only they weren’t down here. They were up north with some fancy trainer. All except one, which was apparently kept at her parent’s house just for the purpose of racing on the beach.

  “I can’t believe you’re only just telling me all this now,” I said to Mickey as we rode our bikes along the beach road. “Don’t you think it’s the sort of thing I should have known about before?”

  “Lifestyles of the horse rich and famous?” she said.

  She was wearing this ridiculous romper that had pink flowers all over it. You had to take the whole thing off when you went to the bathroom. I thought it was just as bad as wearing baby clothes but she swore it was the best thing she’d ever bought. Plus she said it made her butt look cute. I wasn’t so sure about that and I didn’t really know why it mattered what her butt looked like anyway but it did to her so I just nodded and smiled when she told me. After all, I was dragging her over to the beach house just so I could make sure it was going to be safe for my pony so I guessed we were even.

  “If they are so rich and famous,” I said. “Why are they throwing a party for common people like us?”

  “We’re not common,” Mickey said, standing on her pedals as we went down a slight incline.

  “Fine,” I said, doing the same. “But we’re not exactly flying in on our private jets or anything, are we.”

  “You have a point,” she said. “But I guess this beach race is a big deal. Sasha’s been winning it every year since she was like five or something. Apparently they used to race out to this old shipwreck when the tide was out but a couple of people got stranded over the years and then somebody drowned so now they just race along the sand.”

  “So what do you get if you win?” I asked Mickey. “A silver cup? A big check? A crown made out of solid gold?”

  “No, just the glowing satisfaction that you have beaten the richest girl on the Florida coast.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much to get excited over,” I said.

  “Sasha always wins anyway,” Mickey said. “In fact last year the girl who came in second claimed that Sasha had cheated but she couldn’t prove it.”

  “I still don’t get it,” I said.

  “I think it’s something to do with her Dad. Proving her worth I guess.”

  It suddenly made sense and I felt kind of sorry for Sasha because I knew that having to prove yourself worthy of a parents love again and again was a hard thing to live with.

  As we cycled past the rocky entrance to my secret cove I peered down, trying to see if the horrible surfer boy was there again, hogging my private place. But I couldn’t tell.

 
“What are you looking at?” Mickey said when she noticed me peering over the edge.

  “Nothing,” I replied.

  Mickey didn’t know about my secret cove and I wanted to keep it that way. I needed some place in the world to call my own, even if I did have to share it with that annoying boy.

  Summer was in full swing and that meant tourists were everywhere. They were slathering sunscreen onto their already burnt skin and lining up for ice-creams that would melt before they even got back to their towels. But as we got further out there were less tourists as the hotels thinned, replaced by private homes that fronted the beach.

  “Wouldn’t it be awesome to just step out your door onto the beach?” Mickey said.

  “You can practically do that now,” I told her.

  “But I have to cross the street,” she said. “It’s not the same.”

  “We can trade if you like,” I told her. “You could come and live in my house where the only thing you cross the street for is to chase the feral cats away from the dumpster.”

  “It’s not that bad.” Mickey laughed.

  “Okay, so you’ll trade then?” I said.

  “Not a chance,” she replied.

  “Thought not,” I said.

  Just when I thought we were going to be cycling for hours, we got to a house that had a high stone wall around it. The black gates were closed but through them I could see a massive house and two horse statues, rearing up over a sparkling fountain.

  “Wow,” I said. “Impressive. Where is the maid’s entrance because I don’t think they’ll be letting us in the front gate dressed like this.” I pointed to my denim shorts that had bleach stains on them.

  “Why do you always have to wear gross things?” Mickey rolled her eyes.