Maze Running and other Magical Missions Read Online Free Page A

phone with his hoof. No one else had any reception, so I couldn’t call back. Sorry.”
    “And how is the horse?”
    “He’s … he’s fine. I overreacted. The wood only went in a centimetre or two. It must have hit avein, because there was lots of blood, but once I remembered how to take a horse’s pulse properly I realised his heart was beating fine. So we eased the stick out, cleaned and covered the wound, and the horse is being kept warm and calm to deal with the shock.”
    Helen’s mum nodded, but she still looked worried.
    Helen kept talking. “Sorry I panicked. Lavender loves her ponies and she was crying, which made me overreact. Sorry.”
    “That’s a lot of blood though, Helen.”
    “It’s not that much.” She glanced down. Her legs were dark red from her knees to her ankles. It looked like she’d been wading in blood. “Ah. Some of that is mud, really. It’s not so bad.” Her mum didn’t look convinced. And her dad and little sister were staring at her jeans.
    Helen noticed her ripped scarf and hid it in her fleece. “I’d better get ready for school.” She stepped away from the table, wondering if she had got away with that. She’d been getting away with lots of lies recently, because her parents believed that Helen had a new friend at high school with a passion for ponies, and that Helen went out early most mornings to help exercise them.
    The pony story would collapse if her mum ever spoke to anyone at school, and discovered that the Lavender in Helen’s maths set was far happier at a computer than out of doors and only had a goldfish. But Helen was hoping she would think of a way round that before parents’ night.
    Her mum stood up. “Not so fast, Helen. Is there a vet attending the pony? Should I go round?”
    “No. Yes. No, you don’t need to go round. Really, Mum, it was only a flesh wound, and you’ve shown me how to deal with those, and Lavender’s granny has owned horses her entire life, so she knows what she’s doing.” Helen thought of her real friend Lavender’s real granny, who was so tiny she could boss everyone around from inside a rhododendron flower. “It’s fine. I panicked. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for a new phone.”
    “And new jeans, I suspect,” said her dad.
    “These will wash out. I only use them for adventures anyway.”
    “For what?”
    “Oh. For riding, going for walks, messing about in mud … and blood,” she muttered as she left the kitchen.
    “You have fifteen minutes before the school bus goes!” her mum yelled after her.
    Helen had a quick shower, wincing as the water hit her bruises, then got dressed without bothering to tie her tie. She pinned her dark curly hair back and grabbed her schoolbag.
    Then, moving so fast she didn’t have time to worry about Yann, she ran out of the house and down the lane to the main road through Clovenshaws, where she skidded to a halt on the grass verge. Two minutes early.
    She had time to get her breath back before the bus drew up. Then she jumped on and sat beside her best human friend, Kirsty.
    Helen knotted her tie and pulled out her French homework. “Can we revise this vocabulary, Kirsty? I didn’t have time last night.”
    “Why not? I did it all before teatime.”
    “I was out on the hills, looking for new birds’ nests.”
    Helen had invented several hobbies recently, including birdwatching and horseriding, to explain why she wanted to be outside in the evenings, early mornings and most weekends. She’d also become expert at doing her homework on the bus, at lunchtime and at the tea table. She was still getting good marks, because she was concentrating on getting it right first time, so her parents didn’t have any excuse to keep her in.
    “Birds’ nests?” said Kirsty. “Really? That’s a bit pathetic. Who is he, Helen?”
    “Who is who?”
    “Who is it you’re seeing?”
    Helen bit her lip. “What are you talking about?”
    “Come on, Helen. I know this ponyriding thing is a lie