Barefoot Read Online Free Page A

understand how people liked to browse. If she needed anything she got in and out as quickly as possible.
     
    ‘I don’t think so, thanks anyway.’
     
    But B wasn’t put off so easily. ‘OK, if not Cheltenham, how about a mini-trip out. Just to Poplar Farm. We haven’t been there for ages.’
     
    Toni smiled in spite of herself. Poplar Farm had lambs for toddlers to bottle-feed and Shetland ponies to pat. She was fifteen, but it reminded her of when she was really young, and her eyes suddenly swam with tears. She weighed up the options.
     
    Staying around the yard. Arabella sticking the knife in at every opportunity.
     
    Or go out with B – who was embarrassing but well intentioned. Always kind. No contest.
     
    ‘OK. Poplar Farm it is.’
     
    ‘I’ll pick you up in an hour.’ B sounded hugely relieved. Toni knew she would be straight on the phone to her father, reporting her success.
     
    It would have been so easy to go to Cheltenham. And then she would never have met Cal.
     
    When they arrived at Poplar Farm they were both shocked.
     
    ‘Gracious.’ B looked round in awe. ‘This place has certainly changed.’
     
    Gone was the old wooden shed which had been the café. In its place a purpose-built oak and glass building stood proudly, with tables spilling out onto a patio. Young children swarmed through an adventure playground, and mothers pushed buggies along neat pathways around the animal pens.
     
    Happy families, Toni thought bitterly, instantly regretting her decision to come.
     
    ‘A farm shop!’ B’s voice was loud and Toni gritted her teeth as several heads turned. Her aunt was a large woman, who tried to disguise her weight by wearing huge multi-coloured cardigans she knitted herself, with the end result she always stood out in the crowd.
     
    Toni suddenly wanted to be as far away from her as possible. ‘You shop. I’ll go and sit down.’
     
    B frowned and Toni knew she had sounded rude. ‘I’m sorry,’ she tried to rescue it. ‘My ribs hurt – that’s all.’
     
    ‘Of course. You must be in so much pain, darling.’ Her aunt looked relieved by the explanation. ‘Do whatever you want. I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished.’
     
    Toni couldn’t find an empty table outside in the early spring sun and, giving up, wandered down by the animal pens instead. Children crowded round the lambs, shrieking with excitement. At the far end, several Highland cattle grazed in a field alongside the same two Shetlands Toni remembered from when she was young.
    A horse lorry was parked in the farmyard beyond , and in the far right corner something else caught her eye. Instead of the usual arena, there was a circular pen constructed out of high post and rail fencing.
     
    And in it, a boy and a horse.
     
    A sign on the five-bar gate clearly said ‘ Private’ . Toni considered it for a minute, then opened the gate anyway and edged cautiously into the yard. Away from the public’s gaze, everything suddenly seemed tired and dilapidated. She picked a path over crumbling concrete and past a pile of rusty machinery.
     
    A gust of April wind lifted up an empty fertiliser bag, then deposited it in front of her, making her jump. She took a deep breath and moved on in the direction of the circular pen, finally stopping where she was shielded by the horse lorry and couldn’t be seen.
     
    The boy was between sixteen and eighteen, she reckoned, his light-brown hair worn a bit too long. He was wearing old jeans instead of jods, a checked shirt and no riding hat. The horse was a skewbald cob, perhaps a cross, as it seemed less stocky than most and stood at a good seventeen hands. The boy wandered around the pen, and the horse followed him. Toni puzzled over what exactly he was doing. There didn’t appear to be a pattern to his movements, but it left an impression they were dancing together. She found herself holding her breath as she watched them.
     
    It was mesmerising.
     
    Graceful and