Puzzle: The Runaway Pony Read Free Page A

down.”
    At first the bridleway looked quite promising and they managed to have a few strides of canter before trotting for quite a way. Lots of small paths criss-crossed the path they were riding along and Charlie peered down each one. She couldn’t remember if they were meant to turn off, so she decided to keep going on the winding path, dodging between trees and bushes. But they soon faltered to a walk.
    “Are you sure this is right?” Alice asked as another narrow path crossed with theirs.
    Charlie nodded unconvincingly. With every step it was becoming less distinct and more overgrown, and they were forced to ride in single file as she forged ahead on Pirate to clear a path.
    They stepped carefully for a while, listening to the rain plopping heavily on the last of the brown and red autumn leaves that clung to the branches and bushes all around them, and the constant crackle and snap of twigs and branches beneath the ponies’ hooves.
    “Charlie, this can’t be a bridleway,” Mia said, peering down the gloomy, narrow way ahead.
    “I thought you said there’d be a good stretch to canter,” Alice commented as another bramble snagged her jacket so hard that she almost got pulled out of the saddle backwards as Scout kept walking forwards. Thunder rumbled again, only this time louder.
    “No one in their right mind would want toride down here,” Rosie complained, ducking down onto Dancer’s neck to avoid branches. “Do you even have a clue where we are?”
    “Erm, I think so,” Charlie replied, knowing that, actually, she was totally lost and had no idea where this path was taking them. She rubbed her frozen hands together as Pirate ignored the spiky branches on either side of him. “I think if we just keep going a bit further…”
    Suddenly, the bushes started to peter out and the shelter of the trees overhead thinned, exposing them to the lashing rain and allowing them to see into the distance. Ahead of them the path dipped down into a dense patch of wood.
    “Look!” Mia gasped. “What’s that?”
    The others wiped their faces to get a better look through the heavy downpour.
    “Ooh, I bet I know what it is,” Rosie said, her voice going all quivery.
    “What?” Alice asked, feeling goose-bumpy all of a sudden as she stared ahead.
    “I… I think it’s the Old Forge!” Rosie whispered loudly.
    Lightning flashed in the sky ahead and thunder echoed above them. In the distance, beyond the dip into the woods, they saw a small, overgrown circular clearing. In the middle of the clearing, a stone barn rose up eerily out of the darkness. Its crumbling grey brick walls almost merged with the heavy sky as the rain swept down. One side was overrun with fading ivy and the windows were gaping black holes. Part of the moss-covered tiled roof was missing and one corner of the ancient, isolated barn had collapsed.
    “Okay, so this is definitely not the way I meant to come,” Charlie finally admitted. She shivered, and for the first time that day it had nothing to do with the cold.
    “It’s meant to be haunted,” Rosie announced in a dramatic whisper that creeped them all out.
    “Ghosts aren’t real, Rosie – and that’s a fact,” Mia said, trying to convince herself as much asthe others as the thunder rumbled again. “They’re just made up in fairytales.”
    Wish, who was normally totally bomb-proof and responsive to the lightest of aids from Mia, suddenly snatched at the bit fractiously. She started to paw the ground, shaking her head as Mia touched the reins and gave her a pat.
    “They are actually… Real, I mean,” Rosie replied, pushing her soaked straggly hair out of her pink face. “I read about the Legend of the Old Forge in a book at school, for that project about local folklore we did last year, remember? Apparently, a blacksmith used to live all alone in the Old Forge in the days when a cobbled road brought him passing trade like coach horses to shoe. Then about a hundred years ago him and