A Horse for Angel Page 8

  I had put some pieces of the carousel in the wrong place and had to take it apart again. I wasn’t going to give up, but it suddenly seemed too complicated.

  I stood up, took a big breath and punched my hands on my hips. “Angel!” I shouted. “I want you to help me make this. I can’t do it by myself.”

  Instead, Lunar came in. He lowered his head to get a closer look. I watched him shudder and skitter and come back to look again. His ears twitched and turned. I crouched and he lowered his face close to mine. He was the most beautiful animal I’d ever seen, face to face like that.

  “Lunar was going to be put down.”

  Angel was half hidden behind the door, watching the shock on my face. Lunar staggered from my arms, back to Belle, to suckle his mother’s milk. Angel sat cross-legged, facing me, her head down, her hair falling over her face. She talked, much more than she had before. She told me that she had been hiding out at Old Chambers’ farm and that she had seen Lunar being born. Just then Mrs Barker and Old Chambers had looked in over the stable door, so Angel hid behind some hay bales. They saw Lunar couldn’t stand, they saw his wonky legs, they said he wasn’t right. She heard Mrs Barker say that nobody would want Belle with a foal like Lunar at her heels.

  “She told him she knew a breeder, somewhere abroad, who would pay a lot of money for Belle, but they wouldn’t want her if they knew she’d had a foal with bad legs. Old Chambers had to make sure that Mrs Barker bought Belle at the auction, then she’d make it worth his while. She wasn’t interested in helping Lunar. She didn’t even go in and look at him properly. She told Old Chambers to have him put down.”

  Her eyes looked hollow and scared as she stared over at Lunar. I hated hearing it, I felt sick, but something else was bothering me too.

  “Why were you hiding there?”

  She kicked at the straw, but wouldn’t look me in the eye or answer. She just wanted to tell me the rest of what had happened. It was nice that she talked to me easily, like we had known each other for a long time. But that feeling wouldn’t go away. Was she still hiding something? Was she lying? I screwed up my eyes to try to see her differently.

  “I took your Aunt Liv’s cart. Lunar couldn’t walk far because of his legs, so I laid him in the cart and pushed him over here so nothing would happen to him. I went back and got Belle. That’s when I saw you with the case.”

  We looked at each other for a moment. I felt so guilty then for what had happened to Belle. I’d dropped the case and spooked her. It had been my fault that Lunar was without his mother. No wonder Angel had been so mad at me. I squirmed; even my skin felt uncomfortable.

  “The foal’s safe now,” I said.

  Her eyes locked with mine. But she wasn’t going to say any more.

  I went back to the carousel. I concentrated, overlapping the metal pieces so they fitted together correctly. I felt the carousel horses wanted to spin, wanted to move, wanted to live. The shape grew and held. My hands seemed to know what to do. Somebody would want Lunar if his legs were better. What could I do? And like magic the answer was there in my hands.

  “Look,” I whispered.

  I held up the tall cylinder from the middle of the carousel.

  “We could make Lunar something to go round his legs, to help them stay straight. Surely, if his legs get healed, then someone will want to keep him. Won’t they?”

  Angel seemed to be sinking. Right into her coat. She was breathing heavily, shaking her head. I had a horrible feeling I had got something wrong again.

  E, ALFIE AND GEM HUNTED FOR CHOCOLATE EGGS. We looked for shiny foil under dense hedgerows, in the nooks and crannies of the trees, in the crumbly terracotta pots in the greenhouse. We gave each other Easter cards and rabbit-shaped chocolates. I raced around to Rita’s while Alfie and Gem hid all their painted eggs and played the game again.

  Rita was at her sewing machine with Angel hanging over her shoulder, hurrying her, until Rita said to leave her be. Rita had cut up her green velvet curtains to make some padding for the foal’s legs.

  I could tell by the way Angel turned her back and looked through Rita’s boxes that she was still hiding something from me.

  The sewing machine buzzed. It made the air in the room feel uneasy.

  Angel led Belle to the porch door, brought Lunar inside the farmhouse. He shied, stumbled and snorted at everything until Angel put her hands on him and made him calm.

  We strapped the padding round the tender skin on Lunar’s legs. We worked together fixing some splints to help straighten them. Rita used some leather straps from an old bridle to hold it all together. I wondered if Lunar minded that he was wearing an old blue cardigan and green trousers. I wondered if he felt different, like I did, wearing someone else’s clothes.

  “Will it help, Rita?” I said.

  She smiled. “I’ve seen this sort of thing with foals before. He’ll grow out of it soon enough.”

  And the one thing I thought about just then, the one thing I didn’t want to think about, was how Rita, Angel, the horses and me would all be gone from the farm by this time next week. I wasn’t waiting for the two weeks to be over any more, I wished they’d stretch out forever. But I was scared of wanting something impossible.

  I watched Lunar while his hooves stomped on the floorboards and echoed round us. Angel paced round the edge of the room and I knew she was looking at me. And I could feel something uncertain prickling the hairs on my skin. Somehow it was too much and I wanted to be there with them, but I didn’t. I don’t know why, but right then I needed to phone Mum.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  Angel ran after me, caught my arm as I was about to leave. She held my arm tightly and I wondered then if she was just as scared as I was of our time together being over. She had a cardboard box stuffed with straw. In the middle was Rita’s tea cosy.

  “What is it?” I said.

  Angel lifted the edge of the cosy. Underneath were six white eggs, but not for boiling. Their delicate shells were chipped and cracked, pink creatures wriggled inside them.

  “The fox got their mother,” Angel said. “Keep them warm. They’ll be out of their shells soon.” She didn’t look at me. “I know you’ll look after them.”

  Me, Alfie, Gem and Aunt Liv spent all afternoon gathered round the eggs as they rocked and cracked. Aunt Liv lit the stove and put the box in front. The damp, strange creatures struggled to get out of their shells. We watched them dry, their feathers puff and lighten. We listened to their quiet whistles. Gem made up a song and sang it to them. It was called the baby geese song and it was funny and because I laughed Gem hugged me and said, “You’re like our big sister-cousin.” And I liked that a lot.

  We held the goslings between us and made safe places for them on our laps; their soft feet padded on our palms.

  In the evening they followed us outside and mingled with the other geese in the yard. We collected them up and laid them in the nest of a different mother goose. But she wouldn’t settle with them. In the end, Aunt Liv said to put them with her special broody hen. The hen gurgled and clucked and fussed. She took the goslings under her wings. She spread her feathers and wiggled to cover them and keep them safe and warm. Then Gem told me a story about geese and I phoned Mum and told her too.

  I said, “When geese are emigrating—”

  “Migrating.”

  “Migrating, and one gets sick, two more geese fly down to the ground and look after it.”

  And Mum said, “Is that true?”

  And I said, “Yes. They look after it until it can fly again.”

  And then she was quiet and told me she loved me more than anything.

  ITA HAD A MESSAGE FOR ME. ANGEL SAID TO meet her at the oaks. As if we’d done it a hundred times before.

  She was there with Belle. She held my arm and helped me up behind her.

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “To see my family.”

  Belle carried us down the other side of the valley, along na
rrow lanes where the hedges burst with bright new leaves and bobbles of buds. Our legs swayed against Belle’s sides.

  I’d really thought we were going to see her family and the people she was staying with. But she hadn’t meant that at all. A herd of black-and- white horses grazed by a river in wide, open fields. They were just like Belle. Some more black, some more white, with long manes and long hair round their legs like feathery cuffs. We were near Old Chambers’ farm.

  Angel slid off Belle’s back, opened the gate and went in.

  “Yeeyeye,” she called.

  I saw their heads rise, their curious eyes and ears turning to her. I saw the horses come, slowly at first. They gathered and moved. I felt fear trembling in me as their hooves quickened. They came to Belle as she whinnied. My skin shivered with the sound and the rumble of their hooves. They came and surrounded us. I held tight to Belle’s mane.

  “What are you scared of?” Angel said.

  I looked into the sky, into Angel’s eyes. I saw the vastness there, the same wide-open space, electric blue. I didn’t know what I was scared of.

  The horses came to Belle; they blew on me. Belle walked through the herd, taking me with her.

  “Belle’s their leader, they follow her,” Angel said as the horses came to her too.

  “When I speak to them, I don’t talk and they don’t talk. You can just trust them because they understand that.”

  She walked among them as if she was one of them; she touched them all. She passed the young horses and they didn’t run or shy.

  “People are mostly scared of themselves,” Angel said. “They get scared of their own brilliance.”

  People didn’t know Angel at all. But the horses did. They trusted her, even if she was a liar and a thief. They knew her in a different way.

  “We have to get Belle back now,” she said, climbing up. “We can’t leave Lunar for long.”

  We moved out of the field. The horses followed us to the gate, watched us leave. Angel’s huge family. Maybe because of what she showed me I wanted to tell Angel everything.

  “I live with my mum. Just us two,” I said.

  Angel kept looking ahead, at where we were going.

  “I don’t see my dad. He used to travel a lot because he worked on shows doing the lighting,” I continued, knowing she wouldn’t be mean this time. “I think he was clever and imaginative, but then he went away and didn’t come back.

  “He made the carousel, but I don’t want Mum to know I’ve got it. I don’t know why he left it behind, why it was still there. It’s the only thing I’ve got of his – well, most of it. There’s a piece missing.”

  “How do you know it’s missing?”

  She turned round. She seemed to really want to know.

  “Because I know it was there before,” I said. “And I think he took it.”

  “Like the moon?”

  “The moon?”

  “You thought a bit of the moon was missing. But it’s not.”

  Angel turned away and Belle gently clipped along the lane.

  And I wondered then if I’d looked properly. Had I looked in all the corners, under all the lining? Was it there and I just couldn’t see it?

  “Do you think I might be like him? Like my dad, I mean.”

  “Do you want to be?”

  “He was…”

  What was I supposed to say? He didn’t care about us; he betrayed us and left us. That’s why none of his things, none of him or the bits of me that were like him, were allowed in our house any more.

  “No,” I said.

  Belle stopped walking. Angel turned round and smiled.

  “Mostly you’re like you. Sometimes you’re not, though. Sometimes you pretend you’re nobody, just in case you are like him.”

  Then I heard her breath catch the rattle and rumble of a car coming towards us. I could see the top of a Land Rover with a horsebox attached coming down the lane. In a moment Angel slipped to the ground, vaulted a gate and ran.

  RS BARKER STOPPED HER LAND ROVER IN the middle of the lane. She stared through the windscreen for a long while before she got out and came over.

  Belle lifted her head away from Mrs Barker’s hand as she tried to stroke her nose. Angel had told me not to do that, that horses like to come to you first and then you’ll know whether they want you to touch them or not.

  “Liv’s niece, isn’t it?” Mrs Barker said. “What are you doing with this horse?”

  Before I could even think what I was saying, I said, “I found her.”

  I was turning into a liar like Angel! Mrs Barker hadn’t seen Angel though and somehow that was the most important thing.

  She was smiling now, her voice gentle.

  “I’ll take her back to Old Chambers’ farm. That’s where she’s meant to be, ready for the auction on Saturday.”

  I couldn’t think what to do. Mrs Barker held my arm as I slid off Belle’s back. She slipped a halter over Belle’s head, led her into the horsebox. She told me to get in the Land Rover, that she’d take me home afterwards.

  *

  Mrs Barker drove to Old Chambers’ farm. She left me in the car and talked to a man with a mucky overall and he nodded towards the stable where she had put Belle. They argued, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Mrs Barker glanced at me, then came over.

  “Do you know where this horse’s foal is? Is it at Rita’s farm?”

  Mrs Barker tapped her lip when I didn’t answer.

  “The horses are going to auction on Saturday.” She hesitated. “Belle’s foal didn’t look too good when it was born, but I persuaded Old Chambers here to keep it and I’d take them both on when they come up in the auction. So you see, if you could tell me where the foal is, then I’ll make sure he gets looked after and stays with his mother.”

  That’s not what Angel had told me. But people said Angel was a liar, and I knew she was too. Was it true what she had told me, that Mrs Barker wanted the foal put down? I was so confused. Something was bothering my stomach and my head and all my insides. And I couldn’t think which secrets I was supposed to be keeping, and then I remembered how Angel looked when I said if Lunar was healed then somebody would want him. I didn’t know what it all meant. But then I remembered those eggshells in my hands.

  I looked everywhere but at Mrs Barker. As if I could find an answer somewhere, anywhere, in the sky, in the trees.

  “Can I say goodbye to Belle?” I said, stalling.

  I got out of the Land Rover and went into the stable. Belle hung her head and pushed her nose into my shoulder. I ran my hand along her neck. Lunar needed his mother. What should I say? What should I do? I looked into the dark glass of Belle’s eye and I saw me. Scruffy, my hair unbrushed, but I was still shining there in Belle’s eye. I knew the most important thing was to protect Angel.

  “Mrs Barker… I’m not saying anything.”

  HE NEXT MORNING MRS BARKER TELEPHONED Aunt Liv.

  She told Aunt Liv that her goat had gone missing, again, and she seemed to think it might have something to do with me. I hated being blamed for something I hadn’t done. I hugged my elbows in, feeling like I was shrivelling to nothing.

  I guessed Angel must have stolen the goat again because Lunar needed the milk now that Belle was back at Old Chambers’ farm. It was too complicated inside me. I didn’t want to tell on Angel. I had promised I wouldn’t tell anyone else she was here. Because she asked me. And because I wanted to. But it was so hard not to tell.

  Aunt Liv sat beside me on the sofa in the kitchen so I didn’t have to look her in the eyes. The soft middle of the sofa tipped us together. She asked me if I had anything to do with the missing goat.

  “What if it’s really important and I can’t tell you?” I said. “What if it’s a matter of life and death?”

  “Life and death?” she said, lowering her head so she could look at my face.

  “What if,” I said, “you trusted me?”

  Aunt Liv was as startled as me that I aske
d that.

  “I mean, if I promise you I’m doing something for the right reason, and I promise by Saturday it will all get sorted out, would you?”

  I found Angel in the stable with Lunar and the goat. She spun round as I went in.

  “You let her take Belle! What about Lunar? What do you expect him to do without his mother?” Her lips trembled.

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  Angel gritted her teeth and glared. “You could have—”

  “No, I couldn’t! I couldn’t do anything!” I yelled. “And I’m in trouble and I’ve made my Aunt Liv trust me and I don’t really know why. But I didn’t tell anyone you’re here with Lunar and Dorothy. So you’re going to have to trust me as well!”

  Angel smiled. Not the sort of smirky smile she usually had. Her eyes were watery and sad. She slid down the wall and crouched in the straw. She knew I was right. For once.

  I undid the braces on the foal’s legs so he could lie down and sleep. Already his legs looked straighter. Dorothy nestled beside him, chewing the hay. I looked at Angel crouched beside them, her arms wrapped tightly round her knees, the shoulders on the big coat sloping halfway down her arms. It was somebody else’s coat, someone much bigger than her. She’d probably stolen it anyway. And it didn’t fit, just like nothing fitted for her.

  Angel’s eyes were vivid. She moved away from me, climbed on the straw bales and sat at the top. She could see what was coming.

  “Tell me the truth about Lunar,” I said. “Tell me why I can’t tell anyone else you’re here.”

  She picked at some loose cement between the bricks, not looking at me, studying each bit as if it was important. Stalling. Thinking of another lie?

  “If I tell you,” she said, “then you have to do what I say.”

  “Like what?” I snapped.