Dora at Follyfoot Read online

  ‘She’s too old.’

  ‘She’s disqualified.’

  ‘My boy was second.’

  ‘No, I was.’

  ‘Tortoiseshell was second.’

  ‘Without a rider, stupid.’

  ‘Mr Wheeler, Mr Wheeler, it isn’t fair—’

  ‘Quiet, everybody!’ he bellowed with surprising volume for so old and small a man. ‘Dora won, but she can’t win. We know that. So whoever came second—’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘It was me.’

  ‘My daughter was well ahead.’

  ‘I saw it, I tell you, it was Bazooka.’

  ‘I was in front of him.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Bazooka … me … my daughter…’ But since the race had no second prize as nobody had really seen, in the excitement, who was next in the bunch behind Dora and the loose pony.

  Mr Wheeler took her arm and walked with her and Barney under the trees, away from the lights and the squabble.

  ‘I can’t give you the money,’ the old man told her, leaning on her arm, ‘so I’m going to give it where it’s needed. I’m going to give it to Follyfoot. You won it, you can spend it how you like. For the old horses.’

  The boy he had sent down to the brook panted back.

  ‘The roan pony pulled a tendon. Not a break, but it’s pretty bad. The Nicholsons are wild. They say the grey jumped across her.’

  ‘She knocked into the Grey Lady!’ Dora was furious. ‘I saw it. It was delib—’

  ‘I saw it too.’ Mr Wheeler cut her short. ‘But let it go. The pony’s badly hurt.’ He sighed. ‘A sad ending to something that perhaps I never should have started. I’m not going to run any more Steeplechases, Dora. Not at night. Not for money, anyway. Money spoils everything, doesn’t it?’

  Dora didn’t know. She never had any.

  *

  When Dora gave Ron back his sixty pounds for Amigo, he pulled a bulging wallet out of the inside of his jacket and added the money to a considerable wad of notes.

  ‘Ta,’ he said. ‘And for the rest of it. Always a picnic for the bookie, when an outsider wins.’

  ‘But the race was a washout,’ Steve objected. ‘Those people may want their money back.’

  ‘They can sue me then,’ Ron said smugly, ‘and admit they placed illegal bets.’

  ‘Money spoils everything.’ Dora echoed Mr Wheeler.

  ‘Speak for yourself.’ Ron put the wallet back inside his jacket and swaggered off.

  By the time Jim’s broken wrist was healed, and the plaster cast had been taken off, Grey Lady had been sold to a hunting family who would use her well. Jim was to have Barney back.

  ‘But don’t worry,’ he told Dora. ‘I’ll ride him over to the Farm mostly, and he can see all his friends. I’d let you keep him, but Steve says he knows you can’t keep a fit pony here.’

  ‘I know we can’t,’ Dora said. ‘Steve’s not the boss. We both are. We both know what Follyfoot is for.’

  It was very sad when Mr Bunker rebuilt his stable, and came for Barney with the trailer behind the red minibus.

  Dora watched it pull through the gate, and went out into the road to see the last of Barney: rounded bay quarters, black tail hanging over the ramp, the net up front swinging as he pulled contentedly at the hay with a horse’s trusting ignorance of parting.

  The trailer disappeared round a corner. Dora went back into the yard and got a wheelbarrow and fork and joined the others at work.

  As she backed out of Amigo’s stable, a man’s voice behind her said, ‘Excuse me, miss.’

  Dora set down the barrow.

  ‘I’ve got my cattle truck outside,’ the man said. ‘I found this wretched horse. Belonged to a neighbour of mine, who went away for a bit. I thought he’d told somebody to look out for the horse, but when I went by his place, I saw he’d simply left him. In a little yard. No grass. No more hay. Water all gone.’

  ‘How can people—’ Dora started out with him towards the truck.

  ‘They do.’ The man shook his head. ‘I’ve been abroad. Egypt, South America, India. I’ve seen how they treat horses. But this poor fellow… I can’t take him, so I thought of you. When I couldn’t get an answer on the phone, I pushed him into the truck and brought him over. I know there is always room here for a horse in trouble.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dora called Steve, and they went out to the horse. He was so starved and weak, they could hardly get him out of the cattle truck. He walked with them slowly on his shaky legs into the loose box that used to be Barney’s.

  ‘Here!’ Slugger was filling a bucket at the tap. ‘I just cleaned that stable out.’

  He brought the water over, and they watched the horse suck it in through his wrinkled lips, and then he sighed, holding the last of it in his mouth, and dribbled it slowly over Dora’s hand.

  ‘One day,’ Slugger picked up the bucket and turned to fetch more water, ‘one day we’ll keep an empty loose box here. That’ll be the day.’

  Follyfoot farm is a home for rescued and unwanted horses, and the animals are cared for by the stable-hands Callie, Dora and Steve. There’s plenty of work to be done around the farm, but there’s still always time for the mysteries and adventures that happen at Follyfoot.

  Visitors are welcome at the farm, but when two boys come snooping round and obviously aren’t interested in the horses, Callie is suspicious. She’s sure she recognises one of them. But where from? The mystery deepens and it’s up to the young stable-hands to get to the bottom of it.

  The long-awaited reissue of the novel that inspired a generation of horse-lovers!

  www.follyfootbooks.co.uk

  9781849391306 £4.99

  Grace put out her hand, almost touching the mirror. Her image did the same.

  ‘There’s another world in there.’

  ‘We could float in and out of it.’

  Deep in a Derbyshire valley live two girls, twins, so alike they seem like one person, even their family can’t tell them apart. But tragedy is waiting. When the valley is sold to be flooded for a huge dam, the villagers are forced to leave their homes and the twins’ lives are about to change forever. Deep secrets are uncovered and desires, love and grief come to the surface.

  ‘Beautifully written and compulsively readable’ Independent

  ‘This is Doherty at her best and her many fans will love it’ Guardian

  9781849392358 £6.99

  ‘Peoples are strange!

  The things they are doing and saying – sometimes they make no sense. Did their brains fall out of their heads?’

  Angel is having an identity crisis when he meets Zola – a talkative young girl who moves into Angel’s tower high in the Swiss Alps. ‘This Zola is a lot bossy,’ Angel thinks. But out of their bickering an unexpected friendship forms, and their teamwork is about to benefit the entire village …

  Sharon Creech won the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal, and was shortlisted for the Costa Award. She has sold over one million copies of her books worldwide.

  ‘Inventive, sassy and gutsy … The Unfinished Angel … is an endlessly witty and life-affirming read.’ Booksellers’ Choice, The Bookseller

  9781849390835 £5.99

  When Robert arrives in town with his film-star looks and mysterious background, he sends Emily’s heart a-flutter. It’s almost enough to take her mind off this year’s school play …miserable old Wuthering Heights. Urgh!

  But Robert wastes no time in stamping all over Emily’s dreams. Is there no escape from his spectacular mean ’n’ moodiness? While Emily is trying to make up her mind what she really thinks of the new boy, no one else stands a chance.

  It was never this tricky for Cathy and Heathcliff.

  Jane Airhead, by Kay Woodward: ‘A humorous look at teen life and relationships’ Bronteblog

  9781849392990 £5.99

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