Read Online Pony Rebellion by Janet Rising - Free Book Online Page A

James, and everyone else murmured in agreement.
    Things didn’t get any better: Cat was suddenly unable to keep Bambi at a steady pace, which meant that one minute we were all squished behind her, the next, all strung out like laundry on a line. Moth missed another two broom handles, Drummer jumped one broom handle then stopped altogether, putting his head down to scratch his knee with his teeth so that I practically dive-bombed over his head, and Dolly landed badly and actually dropped to her knees, giving Sophie cause to clutch her heart in dismay as she ran over to check that she was all right. She was.
    We were, as James had said, awful.
    â€œRight, that’s enough for tonight,” said Sophie, shaking her head again. She was doing a lot of that lately. “We’ll try again tomorrow—just for a short ten-minute session to run through the whole ride. Let’s hope we can all do better than tonight. Thanks, everyone! Oh, there’s my phone. Hello. Hello.”
    Everyone was despondent, and we hung around miserably after Sophie, Mrs. Bradley, Leanne, and Nicky disappeared back to the yard.
    â€œI don’t know what’s happening!” declared Cat, scowling. “We should be getting better, not worse.”
    â€œI hope Moth’s not coming down with something,” said James, rubbing his hands up and down Moth’s mane. “She’s never, ever behaved like that before.”
    â€œOh, let’s go in and think of something else,” suggested Dee. “I eat, sleep, and dream activity ride. I’m so frightened of going the wrong way or falling off when I go over onto one stirrup over the jumps.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” I agreed. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t help thinking it went further than just us being bad. Something else wasn’t right. Something else was out of place. What was it?
    â€œLet’s just hope we’re better tomorrow,” said Katy, dismounting and running up her stirrups.
    â€œYou don’t have anything to worry about, Katy. Bluey was great, as he always is,” remarked Bean.
    Mmmm , I thought. Bluey was always good. Bluey always tried his hardest. I couldn’t help thinking that was significant. What was it that was wrong? I had a lingering feeling that there was something else, something I was missing. We put the ponies away in an atmosphere of gloom. As I put on his green stable rug, Drummer stood angelically, waiting for me to fasten all the straps before he attacked his hay net.
    â€œAre you all right?” I asked him. He never waits—food is his passion. I’m lucky to get his bridle off before he’s stuffing his face.
    â€œWhat? Oh yes, thank you, just fine.”
    I frowned and chewed the inside of my mouth. Something was amiss—and not just with Drummer. The ponies had been very quiet this evening during practice. Usually, I heard them arguing and grumbling, but I hadn’t this evening. Was it that that was bothering me?
    Thoughtfully, I hung up Drummer’s tack in the tack room, jostling around Bean and James and avoiding Twiddles Scissor-Paws, Mrs. C.’s killer cat, asleep on the one decent chair. James was still complaining, and Cat joined in when she arrived with Bambi’s tack. Bluey had been good, I remembered, and that seemed significant. Why had it? I knew it was important. I just didn’t know why.
    I bumped into Dec as I went out. He was hanging around under the pretense of waiting for Cat or James, but everyone knew he couldn’t take his eyes off Bean. Everyone but Bean, that was.
    As I road my bike along the drive toward home I thought I could hear someone snickering again. I couldn’t imagine what anyone found to laugh about because it was getting too close to the date of the extravaganza for us to be struggling. We needed to be better at practice tomorrow. Frankly, we just had to be!

We weren’t better. We were