‘Do you ride?’ she asked, and Steven shook his head dumbly. ‘Want a go?’
He wondered what the right response would be. He didn’t want to look scared, but he also didn’t want to fall off.
‘I’m scared I’ll fall off,’ he said, immediately stunned by his own stupidity.
But Em only nodded in understanding. ‘Yeah. Falling off is crap.’
She put on a flared jacket with a blue velvet collar and swung into the saddle. ‘You can ride home,’ she said. ‘Then if you fall off it won’t ruin the whole day.’
When he looked up in surprise, she was showing him her little white teeth.
‘Deal,’ he laughed.
The black gates clicked shut behind them and they meandered through the lanes, the air buzzing with summer and her polished boot nudging his arm. Em cooed to the horse and flicked flies off his twitching skin with her whip. Or she just left the silence to settle, reflective and clear, until one of them felt like throwing a little pebble of conversation into it. The ripples seemed effortless, and the closer they came to the show, the better Steven’s allergy got.
15
CHARLIE PEACH WAS USED to sitting and waiting in the minibus. He didn’t mind it. In fact, he liked it. Charlie liked things just the way they were. He liked things not to change. When his dad put him to bed, he liked being in bed; when his dad got him up, he liked being up. So whenever he was in the minibus, he preferred not to get out.
He
But Charlie never made a fuss. When the time came to get out, he would sit still while Mrs Johnson or Mr King un buckled his harness, and let them help him from the minibus.
This minibus was new. It was much more comfy than the old one, which had ripped vinyl seats and smelled of toilets. Charlie would happily sit here all day – even though it was hot.
Robbie and Miranda had gone ahead because they always went first, so that just left him and Teddy and Beth. Teddy was the cleverest of all of them. He couldn’t speak right but everyone knew he was clever. He even wrote stuff using a proper computer.
‘Teddy?’ said Charlie, and the boy beside him jerked his head awkwardly and pointed his shiny, spit-covered chin at Charlie.
Cocking his head to keep eye-contact, Charlie sang:
Charlie waited for Teddy to join in, but he didn’t, so he looked at Beth. He couldn’t tell whether she was looking back because her eyes were so squinty, but she said ‘Shut up, retard’ – so he just continued quietly by himself.
Teddy Loosemore turned his head away and looked out through the windscreen at the rows of cars reflecting the high sun in the middle of the field. They were parked a little distance from the other cars – closer to the tents and the toilets. Beth always needed to be close to the toilets.
They were late. They were always late wherever they went in the minibus. Teddy hated it but he had no control over it. He tried to look at the watch his mother had bought him for his birthday, but couldn’t make his wrist turn the right way. He gripped it with his other hand and turned the watch face towards him. Almost 11am. The day was half over. The other kids didn’t care, but Teddy did. When he had a day out, he wanted it to start when it did for normal people. The others probably didn’t even know they were at a horse show.
In his head, Teddy sighed. In his mouth, it sounded like a weird grunt.
In a minute Mrs Johnson, whose name was Mary, and Mr King, whose name was Michael, would come back for him and Beth. The other two volunteers would stay with Robbie and Miranda. Teddy wished they would hurry up. It was hot and he wanted to see the horses. He was glad he was next off the bus. Charlie would be last, as usual, because he never made a fuss.
Poor Charlie.
Teddy knew what had happened to Charlie, although nobody had ever told him. Because he was twisted and couldn’t get his words out and was usually covered in drool, people talked about private things right in front of Teddy. So he knew that the umbilical cord had got stuck around Charlie’s neck when he was being born, and that was why he had the brain of a four-year-old, even though he was fourteen.
Teddy knew all kinds of things that people didn’t know he knew. He heard things and remembered them. He knew that Mrs Johnson’s daughter-in-law drank too much and then drove the children to school; he knew Mr King’s wife had left him for a man twice his size and with half his IQ. And he knew that Beth’s mother had been in prison for soliciting, although he was hazy on why being a solicitor was a crime.
