PONY CLUB RIVALS

Riding Star

STACY GREGG

Riding Star is dedicated to my riding instructor, the wonderful Nicola Ward, and to Kirsten Kelly who looks after my horse so well whenever he’s at ‘boarding school’. Also my equine support group: Sandra Noakes, Nicky Pellegrino, Fiona Curtis and Gwen Brown. I wrote the last chapters of this book in Gisborne – grateful thanks to showjumper Sarah Aitken and polo player Tom Lane who provided inspiration in so many ways. Lastly to my brilliant bay gelding, Ash – I couldn’t have done it without you.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Author

The Pony Club Rivals series

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

When Georgie Parker packed her bags for Blainford Academy she was the talk of Little Brampton. The local girl made good, she had aced the UK auditions and earned herself a place at the exclusive international equestrian boarding school in Lexington, Kentucky, USA. Everyone in her tiny Gloucestershire village agreed that she was destined to follow in her famous mother’s footsteps and take the eventing world by storm.

Now she was back for Christmas break after a term away. As she stood shivering in the snow at the gates of Lucinda Milwood’s riding school, Georgie wasn’t feeling quite as upbeat about her homecoming as she’d expected.

Above her head, the dark clouds promised another snowfall that evening. The yard was empty and Georgie figured the horses must be already tucked up in their loose boxes, waiting for their hard feed. She clacked open the gates to the yard and walked up the driveway, heading for the stable block.

At the front door Georgie stood for a moment, taking a deep breath, inhaling the smell of straw, horse sweat and liniment. These stables had been a second home after her mum had died. She would come here every day before and after school to help Lucinda with the ponies, grooming and mucking out in exchange for lessons on her black Connemara, Tyro.

After Georgie made it into Blainford, she had kept in touch with Lucinda, but over the past few weeks she had failed to email her old instructor. Afraid to tell Lucinda about what had happened last term, she had delayed the inevitable. But she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer.

Or maybe she could. Lucinda was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello? Lucinda?” Georgie’s voice echoed through

the empty stable block. She was about to turn and walk out again when the tack-room door opened and a woman with dark brown hair appeared, carrying three heavy feed buckets.

Struggling with her armful of buckets, the woman barely glanced up at the blonde girl in the corridor. “I’m sorry,” she grunted, “but if you’ve come to enquire about signing up for lessons you’ll need to come back next week. We’re closed until January the fifth…”

Georgie laughed. “Lucinda! Have I really been gone so long you don’t even recognise me?”

There was a moment of disbelief and then Lucinda Milwood let out a joyful shriek, dropping the feed buckets as she raced over to Georgie and enveloped her in the most enormous hug.

“Georgie!” she cried. “What on earth are you doing here? I thought you weren’t arriving until tomorrow!”

“I got an early flight,” Georgie grinned. “I told Dad and Lily not to say anything. I wanted to surprise you.”

Lucinda beamed at her former pupil. “It’s so good to see you. I swear you’ve grown taller than me – what are they feeding you at that school?”

“Ughhh! I do not want to even think about boarding-school food for the next few weeks!” Georgie pulled a face.

“Here,” Lucinda handed her a bucket. “Help me finish off the feeds and then I’ll make us a nice cup of tea and you can tell me everything about school. How are your classes?”

“Ummm… well, actually…” Georgie started to say, but Lucinda had already headed off down the corridor.

“Give your one to Dooley,” she shouted back over her shoulder. “He’s in the first box.”

Georgie headed for the first stall and swung open the bottom half of the Dutch door, ducking underneath the top half to hang the bucket in the empty bracket on the wall.

This first loose box held a big piebald cob: black and white patches with a thick mane, fluffy feet and one blue wall eye. When he saw Georgie, the cob strode straight up to her, nickering his grateful thanks.

“Hey, Dooley.” Georgie gave the piebald a firm pat on his broad neck. “How’ve you been?”

Georgie stepped aside and watched as the black and white gelding shoved his muzzle deep into the bucket and began snuffling up the chaff and sugarbeet.

“He looks good, doesn’t he?” Lucinda said, joining her in the loose box to admire the horse.

Georgie nodded. “He was always one of my favourites.”

“I’ve got a couple of new horses since you were here last.” Lucinda led Georgie back out into the corridor and passed her another feed bucket. “Shamrock and Jack Sparrow. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Shamrock turned out to be a rangy chestnut Thoroughbred with bony hindquarters and deep brown eyes, while Jack Sparrow was a small, fleabitten grey pony with a wilful look about him.

“They’re both for the school, but Jack is proving to be a bit of a handful for most of the riders,” Lucinda admitted. “He’s been getting away with murder. He raced off with Davina Pike the other day and deposited her over a fence. Not that I can say that I blame him – there are many times when I’ve wanted to do the same thing myself!”

She smiled at Georgie. “It’s so good to have you back! The horses have missed you terribly. Dooley and Billy could both do with some schooling work if you have time.”

Georgie nodded. “I’m yours for the next two weeks.” “Well I could certainly use your help,” Lucinda said. “It’s been impossible to find good grooms since you’ve been away.” Lucinda put the last feed bin in the loose box and shut the door. “So, is cross-country class going OK? I hope Tara hasn’t been too tough on you this term.”

Tara Kelly, an old school friend of Lucinda’s, was the head of the Blainford eventing department. Renowned for being the toughest teacher at the academy, Tara had been Georgie’s cross-country teacher for the past term.

When Georgie had arrived at the academy she had expected to excel in Tara’s class. After all, at the age of thirteen she was already the best junior cross-country rider in Gloucestershire. But things were different at Blainford. Thrust among elite, hand-picked equestrians from all over the world, she was facing real competition for the first time.

To make things even harder she had been forced to sell her beloved Tyro because she couldn’t afford to take him to America and pay his boarding fees. Georgie was trying to cope with a new horse, Belladonna, a talented but headstrong mare.

Struggling to click with her new mount, Georgie found herself at the bottom of the class rankings, fighting to survive the gruelling end-of-term eliminations. Tara Kelly was known for axing students from her freshman intake if they didn’t measure up to her exacting standards. Which brought Georgie to the big news that she needed to tell Lucinda.

“I’ve been dropped from Tara Kelly’s class.”

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. Lucinda stared at her in stunned disbelief.

“Georgie! But why? I thought you said that you had Belle going really well?”

“I do… now,” Georgie groaned. “Belle has been brilliant ever since the House Showjumping, but we had lots of trouble earlier in the term and then on finals day she would have been OK except Kennedy forced me off the course on the steeplechase. I had to pull Belle up or she would have got hurt.”

It sounded so lame, like she was making excuses for her bad performance. But she wasn’t. Her expulsion from class was unfair and it had been masterminded by Blainford’s own resident evil – Kennedy Kirkwood.

“Did you tell Tara what happened?” Lucinda asked. “If this Kennedy forced you off the jump then she should be reprimanded…”

“I tried,” Georgie sighed, “but Tara didn’t see it – she had no choice. I’d been at the bottom of the rankings all term and so she eliminated me.”

“Do you want me to talk to Tara?” Lucinda offered. “I could call her and—”

Georgie shook her head. It would only make things worse.

“I know I should just get over it and take another subject, but…” Georgie took a deep breath, “… eventing class is the whole reason I wanted to go to Blainford in the first place. I know it sounds so pathetic, Lucinda, but I just don’t know what I’m going to do…”

“Oh, Georgie! Why didn’t you tell me? You poor thing.” Lucinda put her arms round Georgie once more, hugging her even tighter, as the tears that Georgie had been fighting to hold back finally began to flow.

*

Two weeks in Little Brampton was just what Georgie needed to recover from that last dreadful term at Blainford. Even if not all of her friends were as understanding as Lucinda.

“It sounds awful at your stupid boarding school – getting dumped from cross-country class! I don’t understand why you want to go back!”

Georgie’s best friend Lily had never been one to hide her feelings. She’d been outright miserable when Georgie had decided to leave Little Brampton and now that she saw her chance to convince Georgie to turn her back on Blainford she wasn’t going to leave it alone.

“You always say that cross-country is the most important bit of eventing,” Lily said, “so you might as well chuck the whole business!”

“It’s not that simple,” Georgie insisted. “Lucinda says I shouldn’t give up. I should try to convince Tara to let me back into her class.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Georgie shook her head. “I don’t know yet. And I’ve got to choose a new subject to take in the meantime. I think I’ll do dressage…”

“I don’t understand dressage,” Lily sighed. “I mean, it’s just riding around in circles, isn’t it? It’s like ‘Look, everyone, I’ve got a horse!’”

Georgie groaned. It was impossible trying to explain riding to Lily. She was simply not horsey. Right now she was on her bike, cycling alongside Georgie who was riding Toffee, one of the horses from Lucinda’s stables. Georgie had tried to convince Lily to ride one of the other ponies, but Lily wasn’t having any of it.

“I’ll stick with my bike, thanks – at least it doesn’t bolt off or try to buck,” she said firmly, strapping on her cycle helmet.

The two girls rode through the village, heading towards the shops with five pounds to spend on fish and chips.

“We’ll get loads for a fiver,” Lily said confidently. “Nigel is working today.”

“Look at you! You’ve sold your love to Nigel for a piece of battered cod,” Georgie teased.

Nigel Potts’s parents owned the fish and chip shop, and he was constantly harassing Lily to go out with him. It seemed that his persistence had finally paid off.

“I’m not actually going out with him or anything!” Lily insisted as she cycled on. “It was just the one date. He took me to the cinema and he ponged so badly of fish and chips it was like sitting next to a deep-fat fryer.”

Lily sighed. “It’s hardly glamorous, is it? Not like you and your handsome polo player whisking you off for a romantic weekend in the country.”

“… a romantic weekend in which he dumped me with his hideous sister, and then ran off to snog her best friend!” Georgie clarified.

Her relationship with James Kirkwood had ended super-badly – even if he and Georgie had made peace at the School Formal at the end of term.

“Well, what about Riley?” Lily asked. “You’re going out with him now, right?”

“I don’t know,” Georgie groaned. “He turns up at the School Formal, and everything is great, but then he does a total disappearing act on me.”

That night at the School Formal when Riley had taken Georgie in his arms and assured her that they would find a way to convince Tara to take her back, she had felt so safe, certain that somehow everything would be OK again. Georgie wasn’t going to let Kennedy steal her future. She would fight her way back into the cross-country class.

But that confidence had begun to ebb away. Waking up in the cold light of day the next morning she realised she had no idea how to persuade Tara to reinstate her in the cross-country class. And Riley never called.

“But you’ll see him when you get back to school?” Lily said.

Georgie shook her head. “He doesn’t go to Blainford. He thinks the academy is full of rich snobs.”

“So let me get this straight,” Lily said, peddling harder so that Georgie had to push Toffee into a trot to keep up. “You’ve been dumped by two boys and one teacher and you’re still going back? Geez, Georgie! What’s it going to take to convince you to come home?”

*

Nigel was behind the till when the two girls arrived at the Fish Pott.

“All right then, Georgie?” Nigel greeted her. “Back from your la-di-dah school for the holidays?”

“Ignore him,” Lily said, looking pointedly at Nigel. “He got dipped in batter as a child and he’s never been the same since.”

Nigel smiled at her. “Have you come in to make an order, Lily, or have you just come in to see me?”

“Not likely!” Lily snorted. “We’ll have two fishburgers and chips, thanks.”

The burgers and chips were warm tucked beneath Georgie’s vest to keep them safe for the ride home.

“Is that what everyone thinks about me?” Georgie asked Lily as she mounted up again on Toffee. “That I’m some stuck-up posh girl now, just because I go to Blainford?”

“Don’t listen to Nigel. He’s just jealous because the furthest he’s ever been in his life is Tewkesbury for the late-night shopping.”

Lily sighed. “I wish you were coming home for good, though, Georgie. I really miss you.”

Georgie felt a lump sticking in her throat. It was so weird being back in Little Brampton again. Her dad had been beside himself with delight and Georgie noticed that he made sure he was home early every night. On Christmas Day he’d even cooked a massive Christmas dinner and invited Lily and Lucinda over.

Lucinda had been really kind too, encouraging Georgie to try out every single horse in the stables. Georgie had great new friends at Blainford, like Alice and Emily and Daisy, but she and Lily had known each other forever.

However, even though the past term at Blainford had been tough, Georgie was dying to get back on the plane to Lexington. She loved Little Brampton – but this wasn’t where she wanted to be. Blainford had given her a glimpse of the future and the rider that she could become. She was determined to become an international eventer like her mother, to travel the world and live a life full of excitement, glamour and horses – lots of horses.

“I have to go back,” she told Lily. “It’s not over yet.”

Chapter Two

It had been a white Christmas in Kentucky and when the students arrived back at Blainford Academy they found the entire school grounds covered in a deep blanket of snow.

“If we can’t actually see the quad, does that mean we’re allowed to walk on it?” Alice wondered as the girls headed to the dining hall. “Technically we wouldn’t be touching the grass.”

Blainford was a college steeped in traditions – and the square of turf in the middle of the school was deemed hallowed ground. Only prefects and schoolmasters were allowed to walk across the grass, as Georgie had found out the hard way on her first day at the academy.

Conrad Miller had caught her on the grass and given her Fatigues – a Blainford punishment that was a cross between detention and hard labour.

Conrad was the head prefect of Burghley House. There were six boarding houses at the academy, three for girls and three for boys. Each of them was named after one of the six famous four-star eventing courses in the world.

Georgie and her friends Alice Dupree, Daisy King and Emily Tait were all boarders in Badminton House. Kennedy Kirkwood, Arden Mortimer and their toxic clique of showjumperettes were in Adelaide House. Kennedy’s brother, James, was in Burghley House with the vile Conrad. Georgie’s eventing friends Cameron and Alex were in Luhmuhlen.

The third girls’ boarding house was Stars of Pau and many of its occupants belonged to the dressage clique. Unlike other schools where jocks and geeks ruled the cliques, at Blainford the social scene was defined by what kind of rider you were and dressage placed you firmly at the bottom of the coolness order.

The polo boys and the showjumperettes – rich, spoilt and good-looking – considered themselves to be at the top. The eventing clique wasn’t as flashy or glamorous as the showjumpers and polo players, but eventers still had an aura of undeniable cool about them. After all, to ride cross-country you needed nerves of steel and unshakable courage.

The first-year eventers came from all points of the globe, and although they were very different from each other, the riders had quickly formed a tight-knit bond. Their group included Georgie Parker, and her best friend Alice Dupree, a native of Maryland, and the third sister in her family to attend the college. Georgie’s friend Cameron Fraser was an eventing rider from Coldstream in the Scottish Border country. Then there was Emily Tait, a shy New Zealand girl who rode a school horse, a jet-black Thoroughbred called Barclay. Naïve and slightly nervous on the ground, Emily was a rock in the saddle and had won top placing in the mid-term exam.

Daisy King had been the only rider that Georgie actually knew before she arrived. Back in England, Daisy had been Georgie’s stiffest competition on the eventing circuit. Unlike Georgie, Daisy could afford to board her own horse at Blainford. She had travelled her big, grey Irish Hunter, Village Voice, all the way from the UK.

Apart from Cameron Fraser, the other eventing boys included Shanghai-born and Oxford-raised Alex Chang and his grey gelding Tatou; over-confident Australian riding phenomenon Matt Garrett with his stunning dun gelding Tigerland; and the arrogant but extremely talented French rider, Nicholas Laurent and his horse Lagerfeld.

The eventing riders gathered together at their usual table in the dining hall for the first lunch of the new term. They were close friends, but also rivals, each of them striving to come top in the class. Class rankings were considered important in every subject, but in Tara’s class they were especially crucial. Cross-country was the only class where the bottom-ranked pupil was routinely eliminated at the end of every half term.

Tara Kelly justified eliminations because of the very real danger involved with riding cross-country. If a student wasn’t making the grade in her first-year class then she needed to be eliminated before getting hurt – or worse.

As they sat down to eat lunch, Emily, Cameron and Daisy were vigorously debating the new school rule that made air-tech inflatable jackets compulsory at all times on the cross-country course. At the other end of the table, Nicholas, who had just returned from Bordeaux, was raving to Matt Garrett about his brand-new Butet, a French close-contact saddle made from tan calfskin leather, insisting that it gave him superior lower leg contact.

Georgie, meanwhile, sat and picked listlessly at her lasagne. She looked up at the clock. It was almost time for the afternoon riding classes to begin. In a moment they would all be heading for the stables to tack up for their first cross-country ride of the new year. But Georgie wouldn’t be joining them.

“So, you still haven’t told me,” Alice said, leaning forward conspiratorially across the table to her, “what option class are you taking now?”

The rest of the table suddenly went quiet. It was the question that they’d all been dying to ask Georgie, but none of them had been brave enough to broach the subject.

Georgie didn’t have to answer because at that moment Mitty Janssen came over to join them.

Mitty was a dedicated dressage rider who had aced the Netherlands auditions. Her two best friends, Isabel Weiss and Spanish rider Reina Romero were also dressage fanatics and boarders in Stars of Pau. All three girls were swotty and serious and known throughout the school as the ‘Dressage Set’.

“Hi, Georgie,” Mitty said.

“Oh, hey, Mitty, how are you?”

“So,” Mitty smiled, “I heard the news that you’re joining us! Do you need to borrow a pair of Carl Hester training reins? They’re compulsory for first years—”

“Uh, thanks, Mitty,” Georgie said, cutting her off. “I already bought some.”

“OK,” Mitty said cheerfully. “Well, I’ll see you in class!”

“Yeah,” Georgie muttered. She didn’t look up from her lunch. She could feel the eyes of the rest of the eventing clique staring at her with horror. Georgie Parker had joined the dressage class!

*

“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alice insisted as the girls walked towards the stables. “I mean, dressage is an important part of eventing. It’s one of the three phases. So of course it makes sense to join the dressage class!”

“Do you really think so?” Georgie was relieved, “I thought you’d think it was—”

“Wussy?” Cameron offered.

“Totally lame?” Daisy suggested.

The eventers snorted and giggled.

“Yeah, great, guys, thanks for that. I knew I could rely on your support…” Georgie groaned. “Look, what else am I supposed to do? Dressage is something I need to learn, and besides, it fits the options timetable.”

“It’s a good choice,” Emily said, trying to be supportive. “I mean, really we should all be taking dressage as an option. You live and die by your dressage points these days. Eventing’s not just about showjumping and cross-country any more.”

“Hey,” Georgie said, “if you wanted to drop cross-country and join dressage too, I know that there’re still a couple of spaces…”

“Are you kidding?” Emily was horrified. “Trotting in circles like a nana? I’d be bored to tears!”

Georgie knew what she meant. An eventing rider lived for the thrill of galloping across country, tackling any obstacle that presented itself. After the wild, reckless excitement of Tara’s class, she was well aware that Bettina Schmidt’s dressage lessons would be rather… sedate. Even so, she had to stay positive.

“Bettina is a great dressage teacher,” she told the others. “It’s going to be cool.”

*

“For our lesson today,” Bettina Schmidt said, “we will be spending the entire hour and a half at the walk to focus on our lower leg position.”

“Strangle me with a martingale and put me out of my misery,” Georgie groaned. Beneath her, Belladonna shifted about restlessly. The bay mare had just spent the past two weeks being spelled for the school holidays and this was their first ride together. What Belle really needed was a decent canter to blow out the cobwebs. Instead, they were going to spend their whole lesson at the walk!

Georgie joined the back of the ride and resigned herself to her fate, but Belle wasn’t so biddable. As the other dressage horses began to circle the arena, walking politely on the bit, their necks arched and their strides neat and regular, Belle began skipping about with frustration.

Despite Georgie’s best efforts to calm her, the mare kept racing past the others and spent the first half of the lesson in a constant jiggly-jog.

When she finally got the mare to walk on and could concentrate on what Bettina was saying, Georgie realised that she didn’t actually understand most of Bettina’s instructions anyway.

“Ride from the hindquarters!” Bettina kept telling her. “Now try to feel each stride. Volte! Stay off the forehand!”

For all Georgie knew a volte might be a handstand! As it turned out, it was just a little circle. They spent the lesson doing endless little circles at the walk, and then bigger ones, also at the walk.

It was all so precise, so detailed and so… very, very boring.

“That was a brilliant lesson!” Isabel Weiss’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm as they led the horses back to the stables after class. “I really noticed how deep my seat was by the end of the session, didn’t you, Georgie?”

“Uh-huh,” Georgie agreed, stifling a yawn. “Do you want to come back to Stars of Pau with us after we unsaddle?” Mitty offered. “We’ve got a DVD that shows you how to do a piaffe in ten easy steps. We were going to watch it before dinner.”

“Umm, maybe some other time,” Georgie said. “I’ll catch you guys later, OK?”

It was a relief to be alone again in the loose box with Belle. As Georgie unsaddled the mare she was surprised to see that she wasn’t even sweating under her numnah. Mind you, Georgie thought, why would Belle break a sweat when she had only been dawdling around for the past hour and a half?

Georgie looked at her watch. It was quarter to five. It would be dark by five-thirty; she should really be untacking and heading back to the house. But she felt as if she hadn’t really had a proper ride.

“Come on, Belle,” she murmured to the mare, flinging the saddle over her back again and tightening the girth once more. “Let’s go – just you and me.”

*

Snow had begun falling as Georgie set out along the bridle path at the back of the stables. She watched the white flakes floating down from the sky, landing on Belle’s jet-black mane. Georgie usually kept it neatly pulled so that it was short and tidy for plaiting, but over the holidays it had grown lustrous and long. Belle’s hunter clip was growing out too. It had been almost a term since Georgie clipped her in grooming class.

Georgie’s own hair was braided in two thick, blonde plaits and as she put on her helmet to leave the stables she came up with the genius idea of twisting her plaits and shoving the ends through the ear-hole sections at the sides of her helmet so her hair would cover and protect her ears from the cold. It looked a bit weird with her plaits poking out from her helmet at odd angles, but Georgie figured that no one was going to see her.

She rode past the snug indoor arena where they had spent their dressage lesson. It felt good to be outdoors, to feel the icy bite of the winter chill against her bare cheeks.

As soon as they were clear of the stables and had passed through the gateway where the bridle path led to the open fields, Georgie urged Belle into a trot. The mare had lovely, floaty paces and she lifted up beneath Georgie like a hovercraft, arching her neck and taking the reins forward. She snorted and pulled, keen to canter.

“Steady, girl,” Georgie cautioned the mare. The track was twisty and turny, and the ice had made the surface slippery – not ideal for canter work. Georgie decided to turn off the track, riding the mare across the open pasture towards an uphill stretch that led to the woods. As soon as they reached the hill Georgie tipped up into two-point position, put her legs on and Belle responded eagerly, her legs working like dark pistons making holes in the white snow.

Belle knew the terrain here well and, even though it was covered in snow, Georgie trusted the mare to be sure-footed as they cantered on. It felt so good to have some fun instead of walking around getting in touch with your seatbones!

As they crested the top of the hill, Georgie pulled Belle back to a trot as she saw the rider up ahead of her. At a distance all that Georgie could make out was the colour of the horse – a chestnut – and the rider’s jersey – ice blue, the colour of Burghley House. Knowing her luck it would be Conrad Miller, and he would find some pathetic school rule about not being allowed out in the snow and give her Fatigues.

She had just decided to turn round and give them a wide berth, when the rider on the chestnut horse waved to her.

Georgie steadied Belle and peered at the horizon. The rider on the chestnut waved once more and then urged his horse on into a canter, coming up the hill from the other side towards her. Georgie watched the way he rode, completely fearless, relying on his perfect balance to control the horse, with reins held so long they were almost at the buckle. And then she realised that she knew him.

It was James Kirkwood.

James cantered right up to her and pulled his horse to a halt. “Hi, Parker. Have a good holiday?”

Suddenly face to face with him, Georgie’s first thought was her hair. The hair earmuff trick had worked – her ears were nice and toasty. But she knew that she must look ridiculous, like some sort of demented Pippi Longstocking. And here she was for the first time with the boy who had dumped her last term.

“My holidays?” Georgie said, self-consciously trying to flatten her sticky-outy plaits. “OK, I guess.”

James grinned. “Don’t give me too much detail, will you? We might end up having a conversation.”

Georgie wanted more than anything to pull her helmet off and fix the plaits, but she was certain she would have helmet-hair underneath. Luckily James didn’t seem to have noticed the weird hairdo.

“I went back home to Little Brampton,” she said. “Dad cooked a massive Christmas dinner and everyone came over. Apart from that I was at Lucinda’s helping out at the stables. How about you?”

“The usual Kirkwood family Christmas,” James groaned. “The stepmom spent the whole time planning cocktail parties for people that she doesn’t even like. Dad disappeared with the hounds every day and Kennedy and I managed to stay in different wings of the house most of the time so we could avoid speaking to each other.”

“Sounds like fun,” Georgie said dryly.

“Belvedere misses you,” James added, referring to the big brown hunter that Georgie had ridden when she had stayed at the Kirkwood mansion. “I took him for a hack to cheer him up and we went down to the edge of the woods – you know, where we went that day?”

He gave Georgie that cute lopsided grin of his. She knew the woods that James meant. They had been out hunting and they had somehow ended up there alone. That was when he kissed her. Georgie felt herself blush. Was James flirting with her again?

“So anyway,” James tried to sound casual, “are you still seeing that guy? The one you were with at the School Formal? What’s his name again?”

“Riley,” Georgie said. She wasn’t about to tell James that she hadn’t spoken to Riley since the Formal, or that she wasn’t even sure if she was still dating him.

“He doesn’t go to Blainford, does he?” James asked.

“No,” Georgie said, “he’s at Pleasant Hill High School.”

“So this Riley,” James said. “How did you meet him if he doesn’t go to school here?”

“He’s Kenny’s nephew,” Georgie said. “He was helping me to school Belle.”

“So, he’s some kind of horse whisperer?” James sneered.

“No,” Georgie said, “He rides trackwork. Racehorses.”

“Does he have his own stables?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions about him,” Georgie frowned. “You’re acting like my dad.”

“Am I?” James said, a fraction too quickly. “I’m just wondering what you see in him, that’s all. A guy like that…”

“Like what?” Georgie said.

“You know,” James said. “He’s not one of us, is he?”

“I didn’t know there was an ‘us’,” Georgie said.

“Oh, yeah,” James said. “Totally. There’s a ‘you’, and there’s a ‘me’ and I definitely think there’s an ‘us’…”

As he said this he reached out a hand and gently touched Georgie’s cheek. “You’ve got a snowflake on you,” he said. “I thought I’d better wipe it off.”

Suddenly Georgie’s cheeks burned so hot they could have thawed a snowdrift.

“I better get back,” she somehow managed to get the sentence out. “It’s getting late.”

“I’ll come with you,” James said. “This snow is getting pretty heavy.”

They walked back down the hill, both of them staying off the subject of Riley. Instead, they talked about their new classes for the term. James was a year ahead of Georgie and he was a showjumper. But he’d already decided that next year he would switch his option and major in polo.

“I tried to fight it, I guess,” he said. “It was just such a cliché, what with my dad being on the school polo team when he was at Blainford. I wanted to be different, but I’m playing for Burghley this season and Heath Brompton, the polo master, thinks I could go pro one day. I guess it’s in the blood, you know. Like with you and your mom and eventing.”

“Not so much,” Georgie groaned. “I’m out of the cross-country class this term, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” James winced. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. What are you taking instead?”

“Dressage,” Georgie said.

“And it’s not going well?” “It’s so boring,” Georgie said. “And everything is complicated. It’s like she’s speaking a foreign language.”

“German?”

Georgie giggled. Bettina was also her German teacher. “I’ll get used to it, I suppose,” Georgie said, trying to sound positive.

They had arrived at the turn-off that led to her stables.

“Well, this is me,” she said.

“I guess I’ll see you later.” “I guess you will,” James said. He turned his chestnut to ride away and then he halted the horse and looked back at her.

“By the way,” he gave her that killer grin, “love the Princess Leia plaits.”

*

Georgie didn’t know quite what to make of her conversation with James. He’d seemed jealous at the mention of Riley – but he was the one that had split up with her! Although, it wasn’t actually James’s fault that they’d broken up – it was Kennedy’s meddling that had caused it.

Her heart was still thudding as she unsaddled Belle and rugged the mare up for the evening, letting her loose with her hard feed. Did James want to get back together again? And was that what she wanted too?

It must have been freezing cold as she walked back from the stable block to Badminton House, but Georgie didn’t notice. She felt as if she were floating like a snowflake, light and ethereal. It was getting late and the skies were darkening. As she walked along the driveway the lights above her began flickering on. They glowed overhead, lighting her way like a row of tiny moons illuminating the road between the school and the boarding houses.

Still walking on air, Georgie bounded up the steps of Badminton House. She was about to open the door when she heard the voice behind her.

“Georgie!”

She turned round. There was a boy, his dark brown hair squashed underneath a woollen beanie. He was wearing a blue and black checked shirt and dark denim jeans. Swinging the door shut on his red pick-up truck he walked up the path and that was when Georgie saw the bunch of white flowers in his hand that were clearly intended for her.

It was Riley.

Chapter Three

“Welcome back,” Riley said, holding out the white lilies to her.

Georgie had never been given flowers before – apart from the time her dad bought her a pot plant when she was in hospital having her tonsils out, but that didn’t really count. The lilies had a deep, musky perfume. Snow was falling on the petals. They were still standing there on the doorstep and no one was saying anything.

“Hey,” Riley broke the silence. “I’m sorry that I never called you after the Formal. I got really busy with the horses and—”

“I can’t ask you in,” Georgie blurted out. “We’re not allowed to have boys in the boarding house without a permission note. Besides, I have to get changed for dinner.”

They stood there for another moment or two, and then Riley raked a hand uneasily through his hair and grabbed his keys out of his coat pocket. “It’s OK,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at the pick-up truck. “I’ve gotta go anyway. I promised Uncle Kenny I’d bring the truck back straight away and I’ve been waiting here a while now.”

He smiled at Georgie. “I just wanted to say hi, you know, and that…” he hesitated, “I’ve missed you while you were away.”

Then he looked embarrassed. “Anyway,” he began, backing down the stairs towards the truck, “I better go now.”

He was halfway back down the path when Georgie called after him, “Riley, wait!”

He turned round. “Yeah?” “Thanks for the flowers. They’re really beautiful.” Riley smiled. “I’ll give you a call, OK?”

He got in the pick-up, slammed the door and drove off. Georgie watched the tail-lights disappear into the dark and then went inside. The clock on the wall said six-fifteen, which meant that all the boarders would be in their rooms getting ready for dinner. The first-year boarders all lived downstairs, and each of them shared a room with one other girl. Georgie had been sharing with Alice Dupree ever since Alice took the liberty of swapping her name for Daisy King’s on their first day of school.

Alice was lying on her bed when Georgie came in. She was studying a riding manual and had it open to a page about fitting martingales.

“Nice lilies,” she said without looking up from her book. “Riley must have spent a fortune on them.”

“How did you know they were from Riley?” Georgie asked.

“Because he’s been sitting out there in that pick-up truck for the past two hours waiting for you,” Alice said.

Georgie was shocked. “He’s been out there all that time?”

“I took him a cup of hot chocolate about an hour ago,” Alice said. “He looked really cold.”

Georgie had been so shocked to have Riley just turn up on the doorstep like that, she hadn’t known how to deal with him at all. He’d turned up out of the blue at the School Formal too. Didn’t he know how to use a phone?

“Why are you so late, anyway?” Alice asked. “School finished ages ago. Were you having so much fun studying dressage that you couldn’t drag yourself away?”

Georgie shook her head. “I went for a hack after class. And then I saw James.”

Alice frowned. “You mean Riley?”

“No. I saw James first. I took Belle out on the bridle paths behind the stables and I ran into James. And we… talked.”

Alice looked suspicious. “When you say that you ‘talked’,” she did air quotes round the word, “does that actually mean you really talked or do you mean… you know…”

Georgie’s eyes went wide. “No, Alice! I have not been out on a snog-a-thon with James Kirkwood!”

“Well, what about Riley then?” Alice asked.

Georgie shook her head. “There was no kissing! We hardly even spoke. I took the flowers and then I kind of ran. It was pretty bad. I was confused.”

“But you’re dating Riley, right?” Alice said. “I thought everything was all on with you two after the School Formal?”

Georgie flopped face-down on the bed and groaned. “Is it? I don’t know. I thought it was, but then he never even called me. I spent all the holidays wondering what was going on and thinking that maybe it was over and now he turns up with flowers.”

“Don’t complain. At least someone is buying you flowers,” Alice replied. “I’m giving up on Cam.”

“Really?” Georgie said. “I thought you guys were getting on really well.”

“We do get on well,” Alice said. “It’s just… he doesn’t think of me, you know, like that. I’m not some bombshell like Kennedy Kirkwood.”

“That’s not true,” Georgie said. “It is!” Alice insisted. “Cameron stares at her like a puppy looking at a bag of Purina. He doesn’t even notice me.”

“You just need to get his attention. You’ve got to do something to make him notice you.”

There was a knock at the door and Emily stuck her head in.

“Are you guys coming to dinner or what? We’ve been waiting for you for ages!”

*

When Georgie had first arrived at Blainford last September the walk to the dining hall each evening hadn’t been a big deal. It had been early autumn and the stroll up the tree-lined driveway had been kind of fun.

Now winter had set in and the five hundred metres from their boarding house to the main buildings of the school seemed like an intrepid hike up the Himalayas. It was freezing cold, and the girls were bundled up in school scarves, jerseys and blazers over their winter uniform of a navy wool pinafore and long black wool tights.

“I think we should be allowed to layer our jods underneath our pinafores in winter,” Alice said, teeth chattering with cold as they walked round the quad to the door of the dining hall.

“We could wear them underneath our tights,” Emily suggested. “Maybe no one would notice.”

When they reached the dining-room doors they were relieved to see that the queue didn’t stretch all the way outside and they were able to go straight indoors where it was warm. The dining room was one of the oldest buildings in the school. Outside, it was red Georgian brick, like the other buildings that surrounded the quad. Inside, the walls were dark-wood panelled, and hung with photos of famous riders who had once attended the academy. According to the blackboard menu, tonight’s dinner was ‘Meatloaf a la Betty-Lou’.

Alice wrinkled up her nose. “If the menu says meatloaf then why does it smell like fish?”

Daisy King shrugged. “I suppose it’s better than fish smelling like meatloaf.”

The girls took their loaded trays and stood in the centre of the dining hall, waiting for Georgie to have her food dished up. At the far side of the room, sitting at their usual table, were the rest of the eventing gang – Alex and Cameron and Matt and Nicholas. The girls began to walk over to join them when Georgie heard her name being called.

“Georgie, we’re here!”

Georgie saw Isabel Weiss waving at her, beckoning her over. Isabel was sitting with Mitty and Reina.

“Come and sit with us,” Isabel called out to her cheerfully.

Georgie didn’t know what to do. Daisy, Alice and Emily had all stopped and were watching her.

“Georgie?” Alice said. “What’s going on?”

Georgie looked at the eager faces of the Dressage Set.

“Don’t be silly,” Alice muttered to Georgie. “You don’t have to sit with them! It doesn’t make any difference if you’re not in the eventing class any more. You can still sit with us.”

Georgie shook her head. “I really should go and say hi,” she said, gesturing towards the dressages. “I’ll catch up with you guys later back at the house, OK?”

Alice looked upset. “OK, whatever.”

The dressage girls moved over to make room for their newest member.

“Hi, Georgie!” Mitty grinned at her as she sat down. “Fun lesson today, huh?”

“Ummm, yeah,” Georgie said, her voice tinged with sarcasm. “All that stuff with the walking? Awesome.”

No one else at the table laughed and Georgie realised that Mitty was quite serious.

“It will take you a while to get used to dressage class,” Isabel said. “Bettina says this is because cross-country ruins your position.”

Mitty agreed. “It’s true. I was only in Tara’s class for one term and it’s played havoc with my hands!” She looked deeply upset.

“I don’t know… I think my hands are OK,” Georgie protested weakly.

Reina Romero pushed her dinner tray aside decisively and looked at Georgie. “We were thinking that we should all get together for a ride after school. Maybe tomorrow?”

“That sounds great,” Georgie said. “I took Belle out for a hack today – the bridle paths are a bit frozen over, but we had a good canter up the hill behind the school. Belle took these really big canter strides through the snow – it was brilliant. We could go for a ride up there?”

“No,” Reina was adamant. “I do not think so. Let us meet at the arena and we can do some schooling.”

“It’s not that cold outside,” Georgie insisted. “If you wear a puffer jacket and gloves it’s fine, honest.”

Reina remained stony-faced. “I only ride Alba Clemante in the arena.” Alba Clemante was Reina’s horse, a grey Andalusian that had been bred from extremely rare dressage bloodlines.

“Oh,” Georgie was taken aback. “Well, maybe when the snow has thawed a bit we could go for a ride up into the hills one weekend.”

“Georgie,” Isabel said, adopting a schoolteacher-ish tone, “we don’t really like to hack the horses out. They are dressage horses. Back in Germany, I only ever rode in the arena.”

“You never hack out?” Georgie was amazed. “You mean you just ride around in the dressage ring the whole time?”

Mitty shrugged. “It is too risky for injuries otherwise. Even with boots on, you might damage their legs. Besides, the horses need regular schooling.”

“Horses get bored in the arena,” Georgie countered. “They need a break from their work – just like we do.”

“Dressage horses need discipline,” Reina said flatly.

“And I need a fruit juice,” Georgie sighed, admitting defeat and getting up from the table. “Does anyone else want one?”

Georgie sat back down with her juice and zoned out the conversation around her. She stared over at the eventing table where it looked like Cameron had constructed a puissance course on his dinner plate, building a wall out of mashed potato and carrot sticks, which Alex was pretending to jump with a bread roll while Emily, Daisy and Alice cheered him on.

“Georgie?” Reina’s voice jolted her back to reality and she realised that the girls were standing up with their dinner trays, waiting for her so that they could leave. She stood and picked up her tray.

“So shall we meet at the arena for that ride tomorrow after school?” Isabel said.

“Umm,” Georgie hesitated, “I just remembered I have a thing… to do tomorrow after school. Maybe some other time?”

*

The teachers’ staff room was in the main building of the college, just above the Great Hall. It was the end of the day and the room was filled with the sound of cups and saucers jingling as teachers gathered for afternoon tea. Georgie stood anxiously in the doorway, peering in. Eventually her loitering caught the attention of the school bursar, Mrs Dubois, who put down her teacup and came over to see what she was up to.

Mrs Dubois was a Lexington native. She had a swept-back bouffant of blue-grey hair and wore a lilac suit with a matching frill-fronted blouse.

“Is there something I can help you with, Miss Parker?” she asked.

“I’m looking for Tara Kelly,” Georgie replied.

“She’s not here,” Mrs Dubois said. Then she saw the pained expression on Georgie’s face. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I want to talk to her about changing classes,” Georgie said.

Mrs Dubois frowned. “You’ve only just changed classes, Miss Parker.”

“I know,” Georgie said. “I want to change back. I want to be in the cross-country class again.”

Mrs Dubois’ brow furrowed deeper. “I doubt very much that Tara will change her mind, but you’ll find her down at the stables.”

Georgie knew that Mrs Dubois was right. There was no reason why Tara would take her back. But she couldn’t bear another day of walking around feeling like a loser in Bettina Schmidt’s dressage lessons. She had to try and get Tara to change her mind.

She found Tara in the tack room, fastidiously checking the girth straps and the stirrup leathers on the cross-country saddles.

“Unbelievable!” Tara said, holding up a pair of brown stirrup leathers that she had just taken off a flat-seat saddle on the rack in front of her. “Look at these! The stitching is frayed! It’s so dangerous. Imagine riding at top speed on the course and that last stitch suddenly gives way! Deadly!”

She put the leathers aside and turned her attention to her former pupil.

“How are you, Georgie? Did you have a good Christmas break in Little Brampton?”

Georgie nodded. “It snowed a lot, but I managed to get some riding in with Lucinda.”

“I hope you gave her my regards,” Tara said.

Tara Kelly and Lucinda Milwood had been at school together at Blainford, along with Georgie’s mother, Ginny. Maybe it was because of her nostalgia for her own school days that Tara seemed to take a special interest in Georgie. It was Tara who had made sure that Georgie was assigned Belle, and she had worked hard to help Georgie to master the difficult but talented bay mare. Not that Tara played favourites – she made that clear when she eliminated Georgie last term.

“Lucinda was a bit shocked when I told her that I was dropped from class,” Georgie said.

Tara looked serious. “I know that was hard for you, Georgie. I know how much cross-country meant to you…”

“How much it means to me,” Georgie corrected her. She was surprised at her own boldness, but there was no going back now. “Tara, I would accept it if I deserved to be kicked out, but really it wasn’t my fault when Belle refused on the course.” Georgie bit her lip, her voice trembling. “So I was hoping you might reconsider your decision and let me back into the eventing class.”

Tara fell silent for a moment, stunned by the request.

“Georgie,” she said at last, “perhaps you were unfairly dealt with in that final assessment last term. But you had been failing in my class for some time before that.”

“I know Belle and I had problems,” Georgie said, “but we sorted them out. She’s going brilliantly now. If you just let us back in you’ll see.”

“I can’t make exceptions for you, Georgie,” said Tara, shaking her head. “How would that look to the other riders?”

“Like you cared,” Georgie said. She knew she was overstepping the mark, and she expected Tara to lose her temper, but her former instructor looked sympathetic.

“I do care, Georgie. But I can’t let you back into the class just like that.”

Georgie nodded mutely, her heart broken. She turned and was about to leave when Tara spoke again.

“Come back and talk to me about it at the end of term, Georgie. I may have a couple of spaces opening up in the class by then. If you’re excelling in your subjects maybe then we can talk to the headmistress about your possible reinstatement.”

“So you’d take me back next term?”

“You’d need to convince Mrs Dickins-Thomson. I’m not making any promises,” Tara said. “Do your best for the rest of the term and then… we’ll see.”

*

It was cold outside as she left the stables and Georgie was glad that she’d worn her new coat. The classic army-green Barbour her dad had given her as a Christmas gift was her prized possession.

She couldn’t believe her father would know enough to buy her the jacket. Her dad had a very bad track record at choosing her presents so it must have been Lucinda’s choice. Either way, Georgie didn’t care – she’d loved the look on her dad’s face when she had said with absolute honesty, “Thank you, Dad – it’s exactly what I wanted!”

As she headed along the driveway back to Badminton House, Georgie shoved her hands deep in the tartan-lined pockets of the Barbour. Her conversation with Tara had given her the smallest scrap of hope, but in a way that only made it worse. She would spend the whole term struggling with a new class – and for what? Tara might never take her back. What if the headmistress, Mrs Dickins-Thomson, vetoed her request? Maybe Lily was right. Why was she torturing herself like this? Tara had made it clear that she wasn’t promising anything – even at the end of term. And what was she going to do in the meantime? Dressage class was a joke and—

“Parker!”

Georgie groaned. She turned round to confront the two people she had been trying to avoid ever since she arrived back at Blainford: Conrad Miller and Kennedy Kirkwood.

If Georgie had thought that the concept of Conrad and Kennedy as boyfriend and girlfriend was creepy, the actual sight of them holding hands on the driveway was even more disturbing.

Both of them were wearing standard uniform navy wool blazers and scarves. Conrad, being a senior, wore long black boots. He also wore spurs, which denoted his status as a prefect.

“Hey, Parker!” Conrad called again. “Nice jacket.”

Georgie didn’t respond. Conrad hadn’t called out to her to give her a compliment. There was something else coming and she knew it.

“But it’s not regulation school uniform,” Conrad added. “Take it off now.”

The look of smugness on Kennedy’s face as her boyfriend gave the order was unbearable. Georgie scowled back at them.

“Don’t be a numnah, Conrad. I’ve had a tough day, I’m freezing cold and I’m going back to my dorm, OK? Just leave me alone.”

“I’m serious, Parker,” Conrad said, clearly loving the thrill that his prefect powers were giving him. “That jacket isn’t regulation. Take it off right now.”

Bristling with anger, Georgie did as he said, pulling the coat off.

“All right. Satisfied?” She was about to turn round and leave when Conrad spoke again.

“Parker.”

“What?”

“Give me the coat.”

Georgie couldn’t believe it. “I’ve taken it off, Conrad, I won’t wear it at school again.”

Conrad shook his head. “Not good enough. I’m confiscating it.”

He stepped forward to take the coat out of Georgie’s hands. For a moment she tightened her grip, but then realised that this was going to end badly for her, no matter what.

Conrad smiled as he snatched it from her and then left her with four spiteful little words. “Parker – you’re on Fatigues.”

Chapter Four

It wasn’t the fact that Conrad Miller had given her Fatigues that upset Georgie. The war between Georgie and Burghley House’s head prefect meant that it was almost a Blainford tradition for Conrad to dish out punishment to her at any opportunity.

What really irked her was the jacket.

“He only confiscated my Barbour so he could give it to Kennedy,” Georgie told Alice. “She’s probably wearing it right now.”

“I always wondered what Kennedy saw in Conrad,” Alice said. “Now I realise she’s in it for the power trip. He has the ability to seize Barbour.”

The two girls were on their way to the stables to saddle up for their afternoon lessons and Georgie had some big news.

“I’ve dropped out of dressage.”

Alice was wide-eyed. “But, Georgie, you’ve only had one lesson!”

Georgie shrugged. “There’s no point in kidding myself. I knew straight away that I didn’t fit in. It was all so uptight. No one seemed to know how to have fun.”

Georgie knew that she needed to find another sport that got her adrenalin surging in the way cross-country did. And when she looked through her list of options, one leapt out at her. She was taking her first Rodeo lesson today.

“Georgie Parker?”

“Yes, Mr Shepard!”

“Call me Shep,” the head of the Western department said affably, pushing back the brim of his ten-gallon hat to reveal a weather-beaten face.

“Georgie, it says here that you’ve transferred out of dressage class?”

“Yes, Mr Shepard,” Georgie said. “Well, kind of. I was only in it for a day. Before that I was in Tara Kelly’s cross-country class.”

“Have you ever done any rodeo riding before?”

“No, sir, I mean Shep,” Georgie corrected herself. “Apart from cattle roping in your Western class in the first term.”

Shep raised a grey bushy eyebrow. “We’ll give you a try in the bronc chute and see how you go,” he said in his languid drawl.

Georgie followed Shep over to the round pen where his first-year Rodeo class were perched on the railings waiting for their teacher. In the bucking chute beside the round pen an unbroken stallion thrashed like a great white shark.

Shep paid no mind to the stallion crashing and banging alongside him as he addressed the class.

“We’ve got a new girl joining us today from dressage.” He drew the last word out as he said it – ‘drey-ssage’.

“This is Georgie Parker.”

Georgie waved to the other riders sitting up on the railings. She recognised a few faces from her other classes. She knew Bunny Redpath and Blair Danner, and the two boys that they always hung out with – Tyler McGuane and Jenner Philips.

“Georgie, why don’t you take the first ride today,” Shep said. “You step on up here next to me on the platform.”

Georgie sidled along the railings to the platform above the bucking chute. From here she could see the black stallion right below her. He quivered with barely suppressed terror as he stood trapped inside the railings of the tiny space. All his instincts were screaming at him to run, to escape. But instead he was forced to stand there, with the surcingle round his belly irritating him, and the girl hovered above him on the platform, making him even more nervous.

“Crouch down low,” Shep told her, “and swing one leg out over to the other side of the chute like you’re doing the splits right over his back.”

Georgie went to do as Shep had told her, and then flinched as the stallion suddenly surged forward and slammed his chest straight against the barriers. Reeling back, the black horse pushed up on his hocks, trying to rear and Georgie felt her stomach lurch in fear as the wranglers on either side of the chute quickly sprang into action and grappled with ropes on either side to keep the stallion’s head down.

“It’s OK,” Shep insisted, “he can’t get loose. You can climb onboard.”

Georgie felt her legs turn to jelly as she did the splits over the chute. She didn’t know who was more terrified – her or the black horse beneath her. She wanted to pull out of this whole thing right now. But all the other riders in the rodeo class were watching her take her turn. There was no way she could back out without looking like a coward.

Still hanging on to the railing with one hand, she slowly lowered herself down into the chute, straddling the horse and gently putting her weight on his back.

As soon as the black horse felt her sitting astride him he surged forward in a wild panic, but there was nowhere for him to go. The chute was still shut tight in front of him.

“Just sit tight,” Hank Shepard reassured Georgie as one of the wranglers took a tight hold of the stallion’s halter. “We’re nearly ready.”

Shep did a last-minute check of the rigging, making sure that Georgie had her hand in the right position with the rope wrapped round and clasped in her palm. “The rope is your safety back-up in case you lose your grip,” Shep explained. “When you get thrown, remember to open your hand. That way you won’t get dragged.”

Georgie didn’t like the way Shep talked about being thrown as if it was something that was certain to happen. She’d spent most of her life until now trying to avoid falling. But falling off seemed to be the whole point of this sport!

“OK.” Shep seemed satisfied. “Remember, hang on with your right hand and keep your left hand up in the air for balance. The chute is gonna open in just a moment and this horse here, he’ll come flyin’ out with his head between his legs ready to throw-in his first buck. Remember to lean back and go with him and you’ll be fine.”

“Ready?” Shep asked.

Georgie gave him a quick nod and suddenly the chute opened. The black horse flung himself forward and gave the most almighty buck that Georgie had ever felt in her entire life. Jacking himself up so that all four legs came off the ground at once, the black horse began to throw one buck after the other.

“Lean back!” Georgie heard Hank Shepard shout out.

She felt the stallion beneath her execute a full body twist in mid-air and the next thing she knew the soil was rushing up to meet her face.

“Stand up!” Hank Shepard was shouting at her. “Get to the rails!”

Realising the danger she was in lying there on the ground, Georgie rolled over to keep out of the way of the stallion’s lethal hooves as he slammed his forelegs down into the dirt right beside her.

She stumbled to her feet, her heart racing as she ran to the side of the arena where she could climb the railing to safety.

Still shaking with the shock of the fall, she looked up at the clock on the wall above the bucking chute. Her heart sank. One point five seconds!

She had lasted on the stallion’s back for less than two lousy seconds.

“Not bad for a first-timer,” Shep said. He turned to the next pupil in line. “You’re up, Tyler.”

Tyler McGuane was a good-looking boy with lean legs, honey-tanned skin and sun-bleached blonde hair that constantly fell over his eyes. He stood above the bucking chute, chewing his gum and pulled a red bandana out of his pocket, tying it round his forehead to keep his fringe back. Then he lowered himself down on to the back of the next bareback bronc that had been lined up ready in the chute – a solid chestnut stallion by the name of Widowmaker.

Shep waited until Tyler gave him the nod and then the chute swung open with a loud bang. Widowmaker came barrelling out at top speed and flung his head down between his forelegs to start bucking. Tyler instinctively threw his torso so far back he was almost lying flat against the stallion’s rump to absorb the motion. Widowmaker lashed both hind legs out towards the sky. He was bucking as hard as he could and no sooner did his hooves touch the ground than he let rip again, spinning left and right as he did so, trying to dislodge the rider on his back. Tyler was rocking back and forth, one hand waving high over his head for balance, his backside glued to the saddle.

The clock positioned above the chute was counting down the seconds. For a bareback bronc rider to win they had to last ten seconds on the bronc’s back. Tyler had already reached eight seconds. Georgie watched the clock as it reached nine seconds, then ten and the bell rang. Tyler had made it!

At the far end of the arena the gates suddenly swung wide open and Tyler’s best friend, Jenner Philips, galloped in on a stocky grey Quarter Horse. In a few quick strides Jenner had lined his grey horse up alongside Tyler’s bronc. As Jenner pulled alongside him Tyler reached up his free arm and swung it round Jenner’s shoulders. Jenner suddenly slowed the grey horse up and as the chestnut bronc kept galloping forward the two horses parted company. Tyler was yanked free and clear off Widowmaker’s back so that he was dangling off the side of Jenner’s grey Quarter Horse. A few strides later, Jenner had lowered his friend to the ground and Tyler, nimble as a cat, landed on his feet in the middle of the arena.

It was a faultless dismount. On the sidelines the rest of the Western class applauded and wolf-whistled to show their approval. “Way to go, Tyler!” Bunny Redpath hollered out as Tyler loped out of the arena.

In the chute Blair Danner was preparing to ride. Georgie watched her wrap her hand tight in the rigging rope, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and a tense expression on her pretty face.

“Now this oughta be good.”

Georgie turned round. It was Tyler McGuane. He was leaning up on the railing right beside her.

“They don’t come much better than Blair,” Tyler said. “She’s ridden bareback and saddle bronc classes at Calgary.”

“Calgary?” Georgie said. “What’s that?”

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Tyler gave her a funny look. “The Calgary Stampede’s only the biggest rodeo in the world.”

Georgie shook her head. “Sorry. I’m more into English riding.”

“So why have you taken up this class?” Tyler asked suspiciously. “Are you a buckle bunny or something?”

“A what?”

“Buckle bunny,” Tyler said. “That’s what cowboys call the girls who hang around the rodeo circuit.”

Tyler lifted up his school shirt and at first Georgie thought he was just showing off the bull horn scars on his tanned, muscular torso, but then she realised she was meant to be looking at the buckle of his belt. It was made of bronze and imprinted with a steer head.

“I won this buckle at Calgary,” Tyler lowered his shirt again.

“That’s pretty cool,” Georgie said.

Tyler shrugged. “It’s a steer-roping buckle. The really good cowboys win their buckles for bareback or saddle bronc. The buckle bunnies all want to date a cowboy with a bronc buckle.”

“You’re kidding!” Georgie giggled. “You mean there are girls who honestly care about what sort of buckle you’ve got? Like rodeo groupies?”

“Totally,” Tyler said.

“Well, no,” Georgie said, more amused than insulted by the question, “I’m not a bunny.”

“Then what are you doin’ here?” Tyler said. “No offence, but you don’t strike me as a rodeo rider.”

“I got eliminated from cross-country and I needed a new option class,” Georgie said.

She would never have admitted it to Tyler, but she’d picked rodeo because it looked like fun – plus it seemed like an easy subject to ace an ‘A’ in the exams and impress Tara. Honestly, how hard could it be to ride like a cowboy? They just seemed to flap their arms and legs to make their horses go – as far as Georgie had thought, there was no real skill involved!

Now, as she watched Blair Danner come flying out of the chute on her bronc, hanging on like she was riding a tornado, Georgie realised she was just as much out of her element here as she had been in the dressage class. She could see the concentration in Blair’s eyes as she threw herself backwards with the movement of the bronc and the strength in her skinny, tanned arms as she gripped the rigging to keep her seat. As the clock ticked on towards the ten-second bell, Georgie marvelled at Blair’s skill. Even while the bronc was trying to buck her off, Blair Danner was still lazily chewing her gum.

Georgie jumped down off the railing of the round pen. “I’ll catch you later, OK, Tyler?”

Tyler frowned. “You’re going? But class isn’t over. Don’t you want another turn in the chute?”

“No, thanks,” Georgie smiled. “I think one humiliating fall per day is my limit.”

As Georgie walked back towards the stables, she knew that she was never going back. After her epic fail in the arena she doubted that Shep would be too heartbroken to lose her, but Mrs Dubois might be a different matter. She could only imagine the look on the school bursar’s face when she broke the news that she would be changing classes yet again this term. This was starting to get embarrassing.

*

“On the plus side, at least you’re sitting with us in the dining hall again,” Alice pointed out when Georgie joined the eventers’ table. “I could never really imagine you hanging out with the Westerns – line-dancing and Stetson-wearing is so not your thing.”

“I don’t know,” Daisy King said, “I always thought Georgie would suit those white leather boots with the tassels.”

Georgie got up from the table and picked up her tray. “I have to go.”

Daisy’s face dropped. “Hey, Georgie, I was only joking…”

“I know,” Georgie said. “I have to go and report to the library. Conrad Miller has put me on Fatigues, remember?”

The prefects at Blainford were ruthless, dishing out Fatigues each week and it didn’t matter how trivial or huge the crime had been, everyone got the same punishment – and this week that involved cleaning the library.

“Right!” Mr Wainwright the librarian addressed the group of twelve pupils. “The sooner we get started the sooner we’ll get this done. It’s quite simple. Take all the books off the shelf, then using the damp cloths you’ve been provided with, give the shelf a good dust before putting the books back again.”

The students groaned. Mr Wainwright pointed to the sign above his head that said ‘Silence’.

“I’ll also need some volunteers to help me sort out the archive section.”

No one put their hand up.

“I’ll do it, sir,” Georgie offered. “Excellent!” Mr Wainwright said. “Parker, come with me. The rest of you get dusting.”

The archive room was a small windowless space at the back of the main library. The shelves were filled with rows of bound volumes.

“This is where we keep student records, school information and rare books,” Mr Wainwright explained, pulling a book off the shelf and blowing the dust off the cover before he opened it up.

“These are the Blainford yearbooks,” he said. “They date back almost eighty years to when the academy first opened its doors.”

Mr Wainwright looked up at the shelves. “These books record our school’s history – and those records would all be lost if anything happened to the library.”

He plonked the heavy volume he had been holding into Georgie’s hands.

“Which is why I am assigning you the task of digitising it. I need these books scanned for storage.”

“All of them?” Georgie squeaked.

“Oh, there’s no way you’ll get through more than a few volumes today,” Mr Wainwright said. “If you got Fatigues every week for the rest of the year then you could finish the job!”

He smiled at Georgie. “That’s a joke, Parker.”

“Very funny, sir,” Georgie said. Wainwright didn’t realise that at the rate she was going with Conrad she would single-handedly have the whole library on a hard drive in no time.

Digitising the archives sounded complicated, but in fact it was really just a matter of turning the pages of the book one at a time and scanning each side as you went. In half an hour Georgie had worked her way through the first volume of the Blainford yearbook from 1930-1940. She was about to attack the next volume from 1940-1950 when she thought better of it and pushed the book back on to the shelf. It didn’t matter what order she scanned the books in – so why not choose the era that actually interested her? Her eyes skimmed the spines of the volumes until she found the yearbook from 1980-1990. She opened the book and skipped forward to 1986 – the year that her mother had been a senior at the school. She scanned the student list, looking under ‘P’ for Parker and then suddenly realised that her mother would have been called by her maiden name, Ginny Lang.

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