Read Online Secret Pony Society by Janet Rising - Free Book Online Page B

as I reached our tiny cottage, if Jazz wanted to run away then that was her business. How did I get involved, anyway? Oh, yes, I remembered, Epona’s magic touch and my big mouth. A lethal combination, as ever! Well, Jazz’s problems had nothing to do with me.
    So why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? Why did I feel that I was letting her down by turning my back on her? Why did it feel like I was abandoning her? What was it about Jazz that fascinated me? It was as though she held the same power over me as she did over the ponies.
    Darn it!
    I let myself in through the front door and yelled. Mom was home, and I could smell something delicious cooking, which was a change in these times of her getting fit. Good. A heavy dose of normality was what I needed. All this inner turmoil was making me hungry.
    â€œAh, hello, honey,” said Mom, an apron on over a little black number she’d managed to squeeze back into since embarking on her gym-fest. She was scooping some brown goo into a glass bowl.
    â€œI hate to do this to you, Pia, but any chance of you watching TV in your room this evening? Jerry’s coming for dinner—I’m cooking,” she added, aiming a wry grin in my direction.
    â€œOh, all right,” I mumbled. “What’s on the menu?”
    â€œWell, I’ve made this chocolate mousse for dessert—no fat, apart from what’s in the chocolate—and we’re having steak and salad before that.”
    â€œNo, I mean what’s for my dinner?” I asked.
    â€œOh. Well, I know you don’t like steak, so I got you some pasta. OK?”
    â€œNo chocolate mousse for me? I could use something to cheer me up.” Typical! No welcome distraction from my inner turmoil there.
    â€œWhat’s up?” said Mom.
    â€œHuh? Oh, nothing,” I said. I didn’t think Mom needed to know about me fraternizing with traveler folk. Things were awkward enough without her overreacting like grown-ups do when they don’t know the full story.
    â€œIn that case, eat your pasta and buzz off!” Mom told me with a grin, licking chocolate mousse off the spoon with a look of guilty glee on her face. “Jerry will be here any minute, and I can’t have you cramping my style!”
    â€œYou shouldn’t have led him to believe that you’re too young to have a daughter my age!” I teased her. What are things coming to when I’m forced upstairs so that my mom can entertain her boyfriend? And why hadn’t I been offered the chocolate mousse spoon? I gobbled down the pasta, made Mom promise to save me some chocolate mousse, and galloped upstairs.
    Throwing myself on my bed with a sigh, I looked up at my calendar. It’s a really nice one with a different horse on each month—and October was a stunning chestnut with a white blaze in a desert. The day after tomorrow was Monday, the first day of our mid-semester break, hooray! Our school breaks the year into quarters. Except that Monday and Tuesday were circled, and I’d written in red felt tip “ Two days of hell! ” And I wasn’t kidding either, because I was due to waste it by staying with my dad and his horrible girlfriend, Skinny Lynny. For a whole two days!
    Triple pooh.
    At least that meant I would be out of Jazz’s way , I thought. It seemed I was going to be the one running away.
    I went to bed, the occasional bursts of laughter coming from downstairs preventing me from going to sleep, and then still unable to drift off when the bursts stopped and it all went quiet. I didn’t want to think about what my mom and Jerry might have been doing then, but anyway, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jazz and Falling Snow and how they were both depending on me. Unfairly, I thought, when I still hadn’t been able to magically pull the ultimate hiding place out of thin air.
    But I must have drifted off in the end because suddenly I woke up with a start. It was