Star Dancer Read Free Page B

thank you!’ Suzanne hurried on to Dancer’s box and wentinside. He came to meet her, stretching out his neck so he could touch her cheek with his velvety muzzle. It was the way he always said hello. His breath was warm and sweet.
    ‘Are you showing today?’ asked a boy just entering the loose box next to Dancer’s. His pony was a black mare who had won a jumping class the day before. The first place rosette gleamed proudly from the door where it was fastened.
    ‘I’m in the dressage, just after lunch,’ Suzanne said.
    ‘They’re mostly grown-ups. Why don’t you ride in the hunter classes with kids your own age?’
    ‘Kids do dressage too,’ Suzanne said stiffly.
    ‘Don’t you like hunting? Don’t you like to jump fences?’
    Why doesn’t he mind his own business? Suzanne wondered.
    She didn’t answer the boy with the black pony. She pretended she hadn’t heard his question.
    Don’t you like to jump fences?
    Suzanne busied herself with a stable fork, mucking out Dancer’s loose box, separating piles of manure from the golden bedding straw. She put the manure in a manure basket outside the door.
    Don’t think about the nightmare, she warned herself as she worked. Don’t, don’t, don’t!
    Sometimes days, even weeks went by without the nightmare. She would almost forget. Then one night she would wake up in bed with fear cutting her stomach like a knife. The nightmare would be all around her, more real than her bed or her room.
    A nightmare of falling and pain and awful things happening.
    She would sit clutching her blankets and shivering, afraid to go back to sleep. ‘It’s just a dream,’ she would tell herself over andover, like a magic spell to protect her from harm.
    ‘Just a stupid old dream.’
    But it was more than a dream. It seemed terribly real, and the memory lasted for a long time. Standing close to the comforting bulk of Star Dancer, Suzanne admitted to herself that the dream was haunting her.
    ‘I’m scared, Dancer,’ she whispered to her friend. ‘I’m scared.’
    Being able to say the words helped a little. She could say anything to Dancer.
    She couldn’t tell her parents about the dream or her fear. They had made sacrifices so she could have a horse. All her life she had wanted a horse more than anything else in the world. There were pictures of horses cut from magazines on the walls of her room, and statues of horses on every windowsill.
    Now she had a horse. A wonderful horse.
    And she was afraid.
    It wasn’t fair!
    ‘Did you remember to get your parents’ permission to groom for me today?’ Brendan asked as Suzanne returned from emptying the manure basket outside the stable.
    ‘I forgot,’ she said guiltily. ‘Oh, Mr Walsh, I’m sorry!’
    Brendan pursed his lips in an expression of disapproval. Suzanne felt awful. She couldn’t bear to have anyone angry with her. ‘I meant to ask,’ she said, ‘only I was thinking about the dressage test today, and I just …’
    But Brendan had turned his back on her and was walking away. She gazed after him, stricken.
    ‘Suzanne O,’ said a voice behind her.
    Suzanne whirled around. There stood the red-haired boy fromyesterday, grinning at her. ‘What did you call me?’ she asked.
    ‘Suzanne O.’ Ger was too embarrassed to admit he had forgotten the rest of her name.
    Suzanne giggled. ‘I like it. No one’s ever called me that before.’
    Standing beside her, Ger looked into the loose box at Dancer. ‘How’s he doing today?’
    ‘Grand.’ Suzanne looked at her horse too. He was so big and strong, so sure of his own power. ‘Will you be watching his class this afternoon?’ she asked Ger. ‘The dressage, at three o’clock?’
    ‘Yeah, of course. But … er, d’you think I could … I mean … well, sit on him, like? First?’
    Suzanne stared at Ger. ‘Sit on him? On Dancer?’
    Gazing at his feet, Ger mumbled, ‘It’s sort of hard to explain, but …’ He twitched his shoulders and scuffled his