The Promise Horse Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Harry is tired of being the tall new kid with red hair, big feet and freckles; the one with the dead sister whose voice follows her wherever she goes.

  Everyone says she’s imagining it, but she knows they’re wrong. If she was making Sissy up, wouldn’t she make her less of a pain? When Harry’s wish for a horse comes true and Marksman comes into her life, she isn’t sure that the impressive horse is the one for her. She doesn’t need another challenge. But could he be just what she needs to learn the difference between standing out and standing up?

  CHAPTER 1

  “Shut up about it, would you, Sissy?” Harry sighed, swishing at the sticky black fly that wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Sissy wouldn’t be silenced. “I don’t see why you couldn’t let that Josie girl help you. She’s nice.”

  Sissy was right. Josie was nice, and she was one of the few kids who’d been kind towards Harry from her first day at school. Nice as she was, she had lived here her whole life, knew everyone, rode at the local pony club and seemed to have more than enough friends.

  Harry didn’t try explaining that to Sissy, she simply said, “You know why.” She heard the frustration in her own voice.

  “No, I don’t,” Sissy snipped back.

  “If I start talking to other kids,” Harry said, “how do I go on having conversations with my big sister, who, by the way, is a ghost? We’re in the country for a fresh start because that was meant to stop me talking to you. But you came too.”

  The move to the country was supposed to be the end of Harry’s conversations with Sissy, but that hadn’t happened. Everyone thought it had, because Harry learned to not let on. Sissy had never left. She even kept up a running commentary on the long trip to their new home, talking about everything: the landscape, the small towns and the horse Harry had been promised when they moved.

  After years of going to the riding school for lessons on Saturdays, rain, hail or shine, and spending more of the day travelling to and from the horses than actually riding them, Harry and Sissy had never thought they would have a horse of their own. They may have dreamed about it, talked about it and imagined how it would be, but they never believed it would become a reality. So when her parents had started talking about moving and Harry had been so dead against it, it was the one thing they could promise that made leaving everything Harry knew seem like it might have a plus side. Harry realised it was also meant to distract her and stop her thinking she could talk to Sissy.

  But there was no leaving Sissy behind, not even for a horse.

  “Don’t blame me for the fact that you won’t stick up for yourself, and won’t make friends,” came Sissy’s response, firm and not unsympathetic.

  Sticking her fingers in her ears, Harry replied, “I can’t hear you.” She started humming like a five year old.

  The counsellors and Harry’s parents had tried telling her the voice of Sissy was her imagination. Harry had been talking to Sissy for quite a while, and given Sissy rarely said what Harry wanted to hear, Harry was pretty sure they were wrong. If she was making up the conversations, she’d make her sister less of a pain.

  “How are you going to explain those legs?” said Sissy, cutting right through Harry’s humming.

  Exasperated because she knew Sissy was right about her not making friends, Harry pulled her fingers from her ears. She stretched her long legs out, looking not at her big, black school shoes, instead at the two angry red and purple bruises growing on her knees. Poking one and then the other she watched the skin turn white, then back to red. They were a farewell gift from Billy Johnston during the last bus ride home for the year. He’d tied her shoelaces to the seat leg and when she stood to get off the bus she’d gone sprawling, landing with a smash.

  “Everyone saw your undies,” said Sissy.

  Harry winced, not sure what hurt most – her pride or her knees.

  “They’re my sports pants,” she responded, not sure what difference that would make, but it sounded better. Billy and his mates had still been laughing as the bus pulled away. Harry’s face flushed at the memory of it. Not only was it the last day of school, it was her birthday today, too. Her first birthday without Sissy. In the flesh, anyway, seeing as she was well and truly still here in nagging spirit.

  “You might have warned me about my shoelaces,” Harry pointed out. In fairness, she often ignored Sissy when she was with other people, so she may not have heard the warning. But she didn’t mention that.

  “Starting over” had sounded so promising and easy. It was harder than Harry had thought it would be. She was the new kid and the tallest in her class (by a lot). She had thick curly hair the colour of carrots and a face full of freckles. Add in her untraditional name and blending in at school wasn’t an option. It made her an easy target for teasing.

  Harry thought the kids at school might have moved on to someone else by now, apparently not, according to her bruises. They’d stayed away from saying anything about her having a dead sister. Most people pretended they didn’t know why the Gleeson family had left the city and Harry was fine with that.

  “You should have given him a whack with your bag or something,” Sissy chipped in. “It’s not like there’s much to him. He’s only a scrawny, weedy, nothing kind of kid. We should call him bland Billy. And as for you, you used to be feisty. He’s bullying you, you know?”

  She was right. It’s not like Harry didn’t know it. She did used to be feisty. But that was before.

  Changing the subject, Harry threw back, “If you’re really talking to me and not a ghost voice I made up, then you should send me a sign for my birthday.”

  Silence was the reply. When Sissy went quiet, Harry felt relief and fear in equal measure. Relief at the silence; fear one day the voice would be gone for good.

  Knees whinging, Harry rose from the splintery plank. She scanned the shimmering horizon, looking for a whirly-whirly, the little spinning tornado Sissy had promised she would send as a sign whenever Harry needed her. “Where is my whirly-whirly?” pushed Harry.

  Her heart jumped; she thought she saw one. But no, it was her grandma driving up the road, dust flying out from the tyres of the ute when she strayed off the bitumen, probably dodging a dead roo or a blue tongue sunbaking out on the hot tar. Harry shook her head, exasperated at herself. Sissy was gone, and she shouldn’t be having conversations with a ghost. She certainly shouldn’t be asking for signs.

  With a yank, Harry picked up her schoolbag. She turned her head in time to avoid the grit that flew up as the ute pulled in.

  School bag tied on the back of the ute, Harry flopped into the front seat. “Hey, Gran,” she said, tucking her red knees out of sight. She yanked the ute door extra hard, determined to leave Sissy at the bus stop. The air conditioning was going flat out; Harry felt it trying to push her hair back from her sweaty face. Gran always said the air con was about the only thing that worked well in the ol
d farm ute and the day it stopped working she wasn’t driving it any more.

  “Hello darling girl,” Gran said. She unclipped her seat belt and reached across the wide bench seat to give Harry a hug, making Harry realise how hot and sticky she was. No matter the weather, Gran was always cool and tidy, like a bird: crisp and neat, her feathers all where they should be. Harry didn’t know how she did it. In summer the country was always very hot and in the winter it was freezing. The heat made Harry feel enormous and disorganised in her own skin.

  “Happy birthday. Had a nice day?” asked Gran.

  Harry heard two questions: the one spoken out loud and the other one her grandma dared not ask. Was she coping without Sissy?

  Harry could have told her grandma about Billy and the bus disaster. Or his latest thing, which was pretending to be a giraffe every time Harry passed by, walking with his arm stretched up high, taking big slow steps. She’d had enough of Billy Johnston though, and enough of people worrying about her all the time. People meant well but it was suffocating.

  So, tucking her hair behind her ears, Harry simply said, “Yes.”

  She looked at her grandma, the desire to unload and tell her about Sissy almost overwhelming. Gran would probably get it. But it wasn’t worth the risk. Everyone was happier thinking the conversations had stopped.

  “Good,” said her grandma. “Now we better get this show on the road or we’ll be rushing to get our shopping done. And it’s too hot to rush in this heat.”

  “Where is Esky?” Harry asked, looking into the back of the ute. Esky was Pa’s ancient working dog. His rickety old legs weren’t up to chasing sheep any more, still the ute never went anywhere without him; it was more Esky’s ute than Pa’s. Esky got his name when, as a pup, Pa left him in the cab of the ute while he checked a water trough. The pup had gotten the lid off Pa’s esky and eaten his lunch. Gran said Pa should have called him “Lunch”. Then, when he called him, he could have yelled, “Lunch! Lunch! Where’s Lunch?”

  Gran said, “He’s home sulking because I wouldn’t bring him. It’s too hot. I can’t take the chance of not being able to park him in the shade. He’ll forgive me at dinnertime. Dogs don’t hold a grudge.” She smiled.

  As Gran redid her seatbelt she went on. “I thought we would first go to Horse House, the saddlery shop, and get your boots. Then have birthday afternoon tea. Or we can do it the other way round?”

  “No,” said Harry. “Saddlery first.” Harry loved Horse House.

  The move had meant Harry also moved away from her school friends and all the familiar stuff she had known and loved. She hadn’t made it easy for her parents to start with. She was almost ashamed at how badly behaved she had been in the months after Sissy died. People excused her behaviour, saying it was grief over Sissy. Maybe, in some ways, it was. Harry remembered being angry that everything was changing. And her parents expected her to move to a place that meant nothing to her, aside from long hot trips at Christmas time and being home to her grandparents. No wonder, really, her parents had promised her a horse of her own to ease the way. In the end, Harry had wanted to come, and not only for the horse. She hoped it would make her parents a bit more like they used to be. It seemed they needed the fresh start more than she did.

  They’d been looking for a horse since they’d arrived, and were struggling to find anything suitable. The problem was that Harry was so tall for her age. Beginners’ horses were mainly ponies and Harry’s stirrups were down to their knees. She had turned twelve today, and she already needed a quiet horse at least fifteen hands or bigger. It was like trying to find a unicorn. And it wasn’t helped by her mum not seeming to want her to have a horse, despite the promise. Harry didn’t know what had changed with her mum and she hadn’t pushed to find out. She simply needed them to keep their word.

  Even without a horse, Harry loved the saddlery. Who wouldn’t love a shop full of horse gear and a noticeboard of horses for sale? One day she would be coming in for lots of stuff for her horse, today it was for riding boots. Gran had said even without a horse they were a safety necessity on the farm. What with farm equipment, grass burs sharp enough to stick into the soles of your shoes (let alone your bare feet) and always the possibility of snakes. As Gran said, “You don’t want to take them on in thongs.”

  “Right,” said Gran “Horse House it is, then.”

  As she let the clutch out, the ute did a wheel spin, pulling out of the red dirt. If Harry had glanced back she would have seen the little whirly-whirly spinning, holding its own in the flying gravel. Instead, Harry stared straight ahead, determined to try to not be sad this birthday, and to not have any conversations with a certain person she couldn’t see, who should have been not only dead and gone, but most certainly shouldn’t have been an opinionated ghost.

  CHAPTER 2

  Friday afternoons were always busy in the bustling country town, though usually you could still park outside the front of the shop you were heading to. Today everyone wanted a park under the trees, or anything that threw shade. Gran swung in under a big oak tree. She never parked between the lines, and always said, “Near enough, good enough.” Today, “near enough” was so near the trunk of the tree that Harry had to slide across the bench seat, swing her legs to avoid the gear stick and hand brake, and get out the driver’s side.

  As Harry pushed back the glass door of Horse House, a nasty electronic buzzer sounded. She was hit by cool air and the smell of leather coming from the racks of saddles and bridles. She was also hit by the number of people; half the cars outside must belong to the shoppers in here.

  A girl with “Horse House” across the back of her shirt shot past, arms full, smiling. “Won’t be long and I’ll be with you,” she said, standing on tiptoe to pass an arm load of jodhpurs over the door of the change room. “Everyone’s come in celebrating end of school. Must have been some good school reports.” She laughed and rushed back the other way. That was the thing about having a birthday at the end of the year; it got all mixed up with end of school and Christmas.

  “Hello,” a booming voice said from behind Harry, making her jump. She recognised it as belonging to the lady who owned the shop. Bumping awkwardly into a rack of shirts, Harry spun to face her.

  “Help you with something?” the lady questioned Gran, completely ignoring Harry, who stood closer to her. The woman sounded like the last thing she wanted to do was help anyone.

  “Well, yes,” said Gran. “We are after some riding boots for my granddaughter Harry. It’s her birthday.”

  “Right,” boomed the woman. “Sit there.” She pointed Harry to a little vinyl-covered chair outside the change room door. Gran wandered off to hunt for a bargain on the sale rack at the back of the shop. Harry wished she had stayed, as the woman said, “I suppose I need to measure your foot,” sounding exhausted at the thought.

  “And a happy birthday to you, too,” quipped Sissy. “I bet her nickname is sweetness.”

  Harry caught herself before she chuckled out loud. Maybe not completely though, given the dirty look the woman shot her. Not a good start.

  Perched on the hard edge of the little seat, Harry held her breath and waited. She hated this bit. Would the woman make a comment about the size of her feet? Shop assistants always had something to say about her big feet. Fine for her dad to say she was lovely and tall and had to have feet to match. Harry could have put up a great argument for being short with small feet. It hadn’t been so bad when she and Sissy had gone together. They’d been the “Big Foot Girls”, which seemed so much less embarrassing than being a lonely girl with large feet. Harry could never figure out why people mentioned it. What did they think she could possibly do about it?

  Sissy had once told a woman who wouldn’t stop going on about the size of her feet that she was going to hospital to have her feet shrunk. Sissy had been so convincing that as they had paid for their shoes the woman had wished her luck and said to come back for new shoes when she had her new feet. Sissy had always been the one to
stir a situation. Gosh, how she missed her sister.

  The shop owner awkwardly lowered herself onto the floor; the sound of her knees cracking brought Harry back to the present. She let the foot measure clunk down onto the carpet. Harry kicked off her school shoes and placed her foot on the cool metal. The woman slid the toe bit down and the side in for the width, puffing as she did and tapping Harry on the foot to tell her to swap feet. As she fiddled about with the slides, Harry stared over the woman’s greasy hair.

  Out of nowhere, the lady barked at Harry, “Do you have a horse?”

  “No,” replied Harry, “but I am going to get one.”

  “Right,” said the woman, leaning hard on Harry’s bruised knee and heaving herself up. Looking down on Harry, she sneered with a voice that spread out to every corner of the shop, “Well, no wonder you like horses. You’ve got feet as big as hooves, don’t you?”

  Everyone in the shop had to have heard her. Eyes on the floor, Harry could feel the entire shop now looking over at the girl with the feet as big as hooves.

  The woman swung a pair of chunky men’s work boots down from a hook. “There’s nothing in that size in a girl’s boot, but I have these.” The black boots, with their thick, black, layered rubber soles looked like evil clown shoes.

  Seeing the horrified look on Harry’s face, the woman said, “Well, it isn’t like you have a horse, anyway. What does it matter what kind of boots?”

  Harry felt sweat break out on the back of her neck. Desperately she started scrabbling around for her school shoes. She needed to get out of the shop. She was certain every single person in the shop must be looking at the silly girl who doesn’t even have a pony. At the silly, tall, freckly red-headed girl with enormous feet who doesn’t have a pony. Her fingers struggled with her laces and tears started to well up. She needed to put her school shoes back on and get away from the mean lady, and the proper pony kids looking at halters and lead ropes and things for their ponies. Normal kids with normal-sized feet, with riding boots at the back doors of their houses, ponies in paddocks and without the ghost of their sister hanging around.