The Wild Boy and Queen Moon Read Online Free Page A

turned the horse and came down the wall in one bound and headed for the lane where Julia had ridden earlier, the lane that came up close to the farm and past Flirtie Gertie’s. If she were to go down now, run, she might see him at the corner of the lane, coming up from the river.
    Sandy ran. She jumped down the stairs three at a time and ran down the passage and through the kitchen, where her father was just coming in.
    ‘Whatever—?’
    But Sandy shoved past and out of the door. She ran as if she were being chased, as fast as she could, past the back of the stables and down the farm drive towards its junction with the lane. She heard the hooves coming up the lane, still galloping, and ran till her heart nearly burst, but all she saw was the tail of the grey horse passing and the silver glint of its flying shoes. There was a slim boy bareback, leaning forward, with black hair flying, and no saddle, and only a rope for a rein: that much Sandy saw, but no more. The horse was gone and the thudding of its hooves receded into the silent autumn night.
    There was a mist curling up slowly over the water-meadows and nothing moved again, only a heron kraaked from the reeds, and Sandy walked slowly home.

‘HURRY UP, JULIA! You’re number ninety-four, and eighty-five is just going in now – you’ve got to warm him up!’
    It was always a rush, getting home from school, boxing up and getting frustrated in the rush-hour traffic on the way to the Equestrian Centre . . . trying not to forget anything. Once she had forgotten her jodhpurs. Julia scowled as she pulled up Minnie’s girths.
    ‘He doesn’t need warming up. He needs cooling down!’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
    Julia’s mother was a hyperactive, leathery lady in her forties who drove her family with passion to achieve the heights in the sport she had once excelled in herself. A bad accident had stopped her riding several years ago but hadn’t stopped her drive. She held the dancing Minnie’s head while Julia mounted.
    ‘It’s your attitude that’s wrong, Julia,’ her mother snapped.
    Julia was perfectly well aware of this. As she rode out of the horsebox area through the big doors into the collecting-ring, she was also perfectly well aware of the spectators’ eyes fastening on her entry: Julia Marsden on Big Gun from Minnesota, the one they all had to beat. The big tan-bark indoor ring was occupied by the next ten or so ponies to go, warming up, taking turns over the practice jump. Julia knew them all well, and knew she had only one to fear – a boy called Peter Farmer on a strongly bitted grey gelding called Spaceman. His father had put the practice bar up to a ridiculous height and Spaceman was flicking over it contemptuously.
    Julia despised such ritual as showing-off. Father Farmer was an unpleasant goader, interested only in winning (rather like her own mother). Peter was all right, but a bit thick. Julia was not friendly with many of her fellow competitors and knew they thought she was stuck-up too, like the people at school. She rode round miserably, putting Minnie through his beautiful paces, circling in both directions, slowing and quickening, and the spectators leaned over the wall and admired her cool, her professionalism.
    It was a cold evening. The ponies’ breath smoked in the hangar-like indoor school and the lights glared harshly. From the adjoining arena where the competition was taking place came the familiar frantic thud of hooves, the occasional hollow booming of a falling pole, and the sporadic applause. The usual group of parents and hangers-on clustered round the entrance between the ring proper and the collecting-ring, criticizing and gossiping.
    Just as Julia was riding past this group, a competitor came out. The round had been audibly unsuccessful and Julia looked to see who had wrought such disaster on the ring. It was no-one she knew, a slightly too large boy on a sweating bay pony. Not unusually, the parents went to meet him and