Star Dancer Read Free Page A

thought of Star Dancer with every hair smooth and polished and perfect. Star Dancer taking every step just so, with his rider sitting up there on top like she owned the world.
    ‘Star Dancer.’ He said the name softly to himself, just to hear it.
    Coming to a road he knew, he found Anto with Danny kicking cans at a dead tree in front of an abandoned shop. ‘Where’ve you been?’ Danny asked Ger.
    ‘At the RDS,’ Ger said.
    ‘Go ‘way out of that! You were not.’
    ‘I was so! I’ve a friend there, at the Spring Show.’
    Anto snorted. ‘You do not.’
    ‘I do too. Her name’s Suzanne O … O something. She’s got a horse in the show and she’s going to let me ride it.’
    The two boys looked at him. They didn’t quite believe him, butthey weren’t sure. Ger was a chancer, he might do anything.
    ‘If you ride a horse I want to be there,’ said Anto.
    Ger replied quickly, ‘You can’t, you have to have a ticket.’
    ‘How’d you get in then? You had no ticket and no money either.’
    Ger grinned. ‘I snuck in.’
    Danny said, ‘We will too, then.’
    Ger began to feel trapped. ‘Suzanne mightn’t like it. Look it, she gave me a ticket so I could come back tomorrow and ride her horse, but if you two snuck in it might make trouble, and …’ He trailed off. His friends were staring at him with growing disbelief.
    ‘You don’t know any Suzanne O with a horse,’ Anto said firmly. It was the first time he had ever challenged Ger.
    Ger stuck out his jaw. ‘I do too. Come on tomorrow and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. But I can’t get you a ticket.’
    ‘Oh, we’ll get in if you did,’ Anto promised. ‘We’ll be there all right. Just wait and see.’ He made it sound like a threat.
    Next morning Ger was up and out of the flat before anyone else was awake. There was nothing to eat in the kitchen but cereal and half a carton of milk. Nothing in the cupboard but his mother’s vodka bottle.
    There was always vodka, even if there wasn’t food, Ger thought sourly.
    A torn plastic bag slumped on the stairs, vomiting out its rubbish. Ger edged past the mess and ran down the stairs and out into the morning.
    Suzanne was in a hurry too, that morning. Her father drove her to the RDS from their home in Stepaside, but he couldn’t stay at the showgrounds with her. He had to go to work. ‘I’ll take theafternoon off and come and watch you show,’ he promised.
    ‘Will Mum be able to come too?’ Suzanne asked hopefully.
    Mr O’Gorman frowned at the steering wheel as he drove. ‘I don’t think so, Suzanne. The tourist season is just starting and she’ll need to stay home if she wants to make a go of this Bed and Breakfast idea of hers. Can’t afford to miss a potential customer, you know.’
    Suzanne knew. A horse was a luxury her family could hardly afford. Suzanne was their only child and they made sacrifices for her, but she must not ask for too much.
    Besides, Mum hardly ever wanted to watch her ride, which was strange. Suzanne’s mother had been a rider herself once.
    Mr O’Gorman let his daughter out of the car at the gates of the RDS, then drove on to the newsagent’s he owned in the city. There wasn’t much traffic on the road yet. Many people were still in their beds.
    But the grounds of the RDS were a-bustle. Everyone was busy preparing for the events of the day to come. Booths were being set up, gardens watered, horses groomed. When Suzanne entered the stable, she could hear the ponies and horses nickering for their breakfast and banging their feed buckets. Grooms were pouring scoops of horse nuts into feed buckets and breaking open bales of hay. Some of the ponies who would be in the morning classes were already fastened in crossties, being curried and brushed.
    Brendan Walsh was rubbing saddle soap into the flaps of a saddle. He glanced up as Suzanne passed by. ‘Your horse has been looking for you. I gave him a bucket of fresh water when I did the others.’
    ‘Oh,