The Colt Challenge (A Horse Story)

Chapter Nine

An hour later, Lacey appeared at my doorstep. On a horse. My mouth fell open, mimicking a dark cave, and I stared incredulously out of my room’s main window. Lacey’s vibrant eyes scanned my cozy house before they rested on me. I spluttered and coughed loudly, unable to believe the sight in front of me. Lacey burst into hysterics and collapsed on the fidgety bay gelding’s neck. Her laughter was a nice sound, like Christmas bells. Suddenly, I found that despite everything, I was guffawing alongside her.

I didn’t recognize the chocolate colored horse, not even when I limped up close to him. At first he was extremely wary of me, well, my crutches. He seemed convinced they were going to eat him. When I leaned one up against the fence of my front yard, he jumped backwards like I had thrown the thing at him.
“His name is Fire.” Lacey informed me, a wide grin glued to her face.
“He’s a sweetie!” I answered, studying the alert little horse. “He’s not a Shadow Hill horse is he?”
“Actually he is.” She replied, running her hand through his dark mane. “They got three new horses, this guy, a grumpy chestnut mare named Switch and a shy blue roan filly called Flicker.”

A short pang of annoyance bubbled in my stomach. Why hadn’t Mr. Ross told me? He had promised to keep in touch and for the most part he had. Every email he sent contained little information other than how Bullet was doing. He told me nothing interesting was going on. However he somehow managed to miss out the arrival of three new horses!?
“What!? Oh my gosh what are they like?” I exclaimed, giggling at my own obsession with the horses.

“Well, obviously Fire here is very fidgety and green. He’s six and Mr. Ross decided it would be good for him to have some experience out on the road.” Lacey explained, gesturing to the gelding who snorted quietly in reply. I frowned for a moment. It was dangerous to ride alone on the roads. Especially so with a green six year old.
“The mare, as I said, is quite grumpy. She’s about 17 and is Flicker’s dam.” Lacey told me happily. Like me, she loved to babble on about horses. “And then there’s Flicker. She is super sweet! Her and Arrow are basically best friends! They’ve even put her in the empty stall next to his!” Lacey explained, brimming with glee. Once again, I gazed at her, wide eyed.
“Arrow? A friend?” I blurted skeptically.
“Yes!” She answered joyfully. “He stops wrecking things when she’s around! It’s super cute!”
“If she stays around and he behaves Mr. Ross won’t have to put him down right?”

A grin flew onto her face. “I didn’t think of that! That’s actually a really good argument! We just have to make sure he doesn’t sell Flicker…” When she finished, her glow started to fade. She stared at the dew dropped lawn and clicked her fingers repeatedly.
“Why would he sell Flicker if he only just bought her?” I wondered, confusion creeping across me.
“Well, Flick’s really sweet but she’s also very shy and she doesn’t trust anyone other than this girl called Aria. I don’t know why. Mr. Ross might need to sell her if she’s not going to let people near her and stuff.”
“I know Aria.” I say, despite its irrelevance.
“You do?” She replied, her blissful smile crawling back. “Perfect. Now can we go inside? I’m freezing to death!” She giggled.

I rolled my eyes mockingly. “It’s only autumn Lacey!”
“And it’s cold!”
“Alright let’s go in… oh wait.” I stammered, realizing the flaw in our plan.
“What?” She asked, completely oblivious to the dozing horse beside her.
“Where are we going to put Fire?!”
“Your backyard…?”
“We haven’t got anywhere to tie him up.”
“The garage?” She suggested hopefully.
I eyed the plain white door of the garage. Fire would be able to fit in there, the room was completely empty other than the car and my mom was out shopping so the vehicle wouldn’t be in there.
“Okay. Wait here, I”ll open the door.” I said, making my way inside. All those stupid crutches did was get in the way. I swung the door open and headed for the garage. Once inside, I flicked the switch and watched as the door folded to reveal a startled Fire. He did not look optimistic about staying in the garage.

Lacey had lost her joking around attitude and was quietly coaxing Fire inside. Reluctantly, the horse put one hoof in front of another and slithered in. Lacey then signaled for me to close the door. I did so as she held his reins firmly and patted him softly. She then pulled off all his tack and told me to grab him a bucketful of water. Not too cold. Fire wasn't sweating at all, but he was a little tense after his encounter with my crutches. Oh wait. My crutches.
"Lacey I can't carry a bucket of water on crutches!"
"Oh. Forgot about that. No worries! I'll do it, you just keep him happy okay?" She said as she raced for the water.

"Ally?!" A yell escalated from the room above. 
"What Lacey?"
"One, where are the buckets? And two, where is the kitchen?"
"Get the water from the tap down here..."
"That's not why I wanted to know where the kitchen was."
"What?"
"I want to know so that next time I come I can raid your fridge."

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Once Fire had been taken care of, we hopped up to my room. Literally. Since I had to hop on my crutches, Lacey decided it was only fair if she hopped too. Hannah shot us a strange glance then continued playing with her Littlest Pet Shops. We crashed in my room and began to talk again. Lacey flew out of the room to check on Fire every few minutes, but other than that, we talked consistetly for about two hours.

"So when can you ride again?" She asked, hanging upside down off my bed, her long chocolate hair cascading down to the floor.
"Two to three months." I sighed unhappily. The thought of not riding for even two weeks was foregin to me. She glanced symapthtically at me.
"That stinks."
"I'm allowed off the crutches in a couple of weeks though, and I can go to the barn then!" I told her, trying desperatly to grasp at positive strings. An injury was unfortunatly, a very unpleasant thing.

We spoke then about saving Arrow, about the chances of Flicker staying and about the Colt Challenge in general. As we spoke, I found the desire to meet this little filly grow inside of me, like a strange bubble dying to pop.

Lacey was about to say something when a loud crash and a strangled whinny silenced her words in a split second. The next thing I knew, Lacey had rocketed away whilst I tried desperatly to follow her. A terrible scream pierced the air. Hannah.

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CLIFHANGER. I'm so evil...
I don't know how to write good cliffhangers so excuse me if it sounds stupid :P
Anyway... Thoughts on Fire? Flicker?
This actually wasn't supposed to happen...
UNEXPECTED. Yeah it kind of just came as I was writing.
Fire and Flicker and Switch I mean... They just popped out of thin air.
(Picture of Flicker to the side!)

Unedited as always :(

This chapter is dedicated to horseloverxox
Her book 'Rookie' is EPIC.