Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel Read Free Page B

wild. She looks timeless, noble, magical, as though she could have ridden out
of the Dark Ages, been the pony of a princess warrior or a Celtic queen from thousands
of years ago.
    She is my perfect pony, but I have never
ridden her because unlike most Exmoors, who are steady and calm and trustworthy, Caramel
can be hard to handle. The bosses at the riding school, Jean and Roy, think she was
ill-treated in the past – she can be jumpy, unpredictable, flighty. There have been a
couple of unpleasant incidents with Caramel this year, and Jean and Roy are wary. Theymake sure that only older, more experienced riders take her out
these days.
    It’s the story of my life – everybody
thinks I am too young for everything. They don’t take me seriously at all.
    For example, a couple of weeks ago there was
a part-time job advertised at the stables for someone to help with mucking out and
grooming, just a few hours for a couple of days a week after school. When Mum picked me
up after my lesson that day, I was full of it – how I could spend more time with
Caramel, get more experience with horses, cover the cost of my lessons and bring a
little cash in on top of that. I thought she’d go for the idea for sure, but I was
wrong.
    Surprise, surprise, she said I was too
young.
    ‘You’re only twelve,’
she’d said on the drive home, as if I might have forgotten this vital fact.
‘They probably wouldn’t consider you for the job at that age, and besides,
there’s no need to start thinking about part-time jobs just yet! Just focus on
your friends and your animals and your studies!’
    ‘But …’
    ‘No buts,’ Mum insisted.
‘Don’t be in too much of ahurry to grow up, Coco. Enjoy
your freedom while you can! If it’s the money you’re thinking about,
I’ll have a word with Paddy – now that the chocolate business is starting to take
off, we might be able to give you a bit more pocket money.’
    Pocket money? Honestly, I felt about five
years old. As far as my family is concerned I might as well be – it’s as if there
is one rule for my sisters and another for me.
    OK, I’m twelve. So what? At twelve
Summer had been a regular student helper at the dance school for years. By the time she
was thirteen she worked a whole week there in the summer holidays in exchange for extra
lessons, and Skye was thirteen when she helped out with the costumes on the TV film they
made in Kitnor a few months back. The twins aren’t all that much older than me,
but they get to do what they want.
    As for Honey, she may not have had a job at
twelve but she had way more freedom than any of us. She was a pre-teen drama queen – she
didn’t bother to ask permission for the things she wanted to do, she just went
ahead and did them anyway. She still does. Maybe I should take a leaf out of her
book?
    I push through the gates of the Woodlands
Riding School, breathing in the smell of fresh hay and happiness. I am a little early,
but I like it that way. I wave at Kelly, one of the teenage instructors who sometimes
takes the paddock classes or leads the treks, then step into the warm office building,
stash my rucksack in a locker and nip to the loos to change into my riding gear. Folding
away my school uniform and replacing it with outsize jumper, jodhpurs and waterproof, I
am the happiest I have felt all day. I leave my uniform in the locker and scoop up my
riding hat, pulling it on as I wander back out into the stable yard.
    Then I see a familiar figure in the doorway
of one stall, gruff and grim in wellies and muddy jeans, forking manure into a
wheelbarrow.
    Lawrie Marshall looks up at me and his face
registers surprise and then disgust. I am pretty sure my face mirrors those emotions
too, and then some.

5
    ‘What are you doing here?’ Lawrie
Marshall asks, and I swear I am so cross at this comment that if I could I would tip
that barrowload of manure right over his head, then jab him with his own pitchfork, just
for good measure.
    ‘I am here