Phantom: One Last Chance Read Online Free Page B

wish, Charlie,” Rosie said, “not asking for a miracle.”
    “What about Pirate?” Alice asked, scratching Scout’s withers as they waited.
    “That one’s easy,” Charlie smiled. “I wish that the perfect rider appears out of nowhere, who loves having fun, just like he does.”
    “Two miracles!” Rosie cried. “This needs to be one seriously powerful Christmas cake!”
    “Oh, and the person who finds the coin once it’s been baked gets a whole extra wish on top!” Mrs Honeycott beamed. “And I’m making some mince pies too – I’ll put some in a tin for you in the hay barn.”
    She took the mixing bowl and the spoon back inside the cottage as the girls gathered up their ponies’ reins and set off between the turnout and schooling paddocks. Pirate, who was turned out on his own, lifted his head from the grass as he heard the ponies. He took off, galloping and bucking, then skidding to a halt at the gate, his hooves sliding across the crisp frosty grass. His huge mane stuck up in every direction. Charlie stopped her bike and found him a mint from her pocket.
    He hoovered it up, and as he crunched it noisily, Charlie gave him a hug. Then she jumped back on her bike and cycled on, looking back over her shoulder as the other Pony Detectives headed towards the woods. Her heart ached when she saw Pirate’s little face. His ears were pricked and his eyes bright as he stood right up against the fence, watching them disappear without him, and not understanding why.

    Mia led the group as they entered the woods. Charlie cycled at the back, weaving the bike along the path behind Dancer. She giggled as the unruly pony attempted to clamp her teeth around any bit of foliage that looked even slightly green, much to Rosie’s frustration. It was as Dancer dived off the path and towards a bush for about the hundredth time that Charlie noticed a flash of something white on the ground, poking outfrom under some leaves that Dancer’s hoof had disturbed. Charlie braked.
    “Hang on,” she called forward to the others. “I think I’ve found something!”
    As the rest of the Pony Detectives pulled up their ponies and turned round to look, Charlie stepped off the bike and leaned it against a tree. She shuffled the damp, mulchy leaves to one side with her gloves and picked up a rectangle of pale, whiteish shiny paper. It looked weathered, and the corner had a big crease from Dancer’s large hoof. Charlie turned it over.
    “It’s a photo,” she said, puzzled.
    “What of?” Alice asked, peering to get a look.
    “A horse,” Charlie replied quietly, staring at the picture. For a second she was transfixed. “That’s so weird – it looks just like Phantom!”
    “It does, too,” Rosie said, leaning over and squinting at it. “How odd is that?”
    They all crowded together to get a better look at the photo of a beautiful but thin, wild-lookingblack thoroughbred in a red headcollar. The horse was being held by a small woman, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her black hair tied back. The shade from a riding hat almost covered her face.
    “Look, there’s a date on the back. It looks like this was taken… six years ago,” Charlie said, flipping the picture back over and showing the others.
    “I wonder who it belongs to?” Alice asked. “I can’t see any clues in the picture.”
    “Ooh, hang on,” Mia said, leaning down from Wish to study the photo more closely. “Do you think that might be Hope Farm in the background? Look! You can just see the corner of the sign on their gate.”
    The others peered at the picture which, like the writing on the back, had faded slightly with time. The edges were bent and scuffed.
    “It might be,” Rosie said uncertainly.
    “Well, we’re riding there to drop off a card anyway, so we can ask,” Mia suggested. “If that is Hope Farm in the background, Fran Hope, who runs the place, might recognise the horse. Then we might be able to find out who the owner of the photo