Rise House Academy: The New Start

Chapter 1

As the jeep drew closer to the enormous wrought iron gates, Cassie did a sharp intake of breath. This was it. Rise House Academy, the place she'd dreamed of going to for years. Well known for it's horse riding programme, Rise House was a boarding school in Kent. The school took students from age 12 to 18 and allowed pupils that took part in the riding programme to either take their own horse and board it there or students could use one of their school horses. Either way Cassie had had her heart set on going there ever since she'd found out about it. Thankfully her parents had been quite cooperative, even letting her take her striking 16.2hh Irish Sports Horse gelding Prince Charming, better known as just Prince, along with her too.

"Here we are" Cassie's mum interrupted her thoughts as they pulled up to the academy. When they reached the gates, a small plump woman wearing a hi - viz jacket and holding a clipboard smiled at them as they pulled up next to her. "Ah hello there, welcome to Rise House Academy, may I have the name of your child and the name of their horse please" she said, managing to sound brisk but friendly at the same time. Cassie's mum smiled and replied " Hi, my daughter's name is Cassandra Wells, her horse is Prince Charming" The plump lady scanned her clipboard

"Ah there we are" she looked up and smiled " Your allocated stable is in barn one stable twenty four. Once you get onto the yard there should be someone there to show you and your horse there." Cassie's mum nodded and thanked her, and they drove on following the back of the horse box in front. Cassie craned her neck round so she could see their horse trailer hooked up to the jeep, with Prince inside. " Busy isn't it" her mum commented.

"Yeah I suppose so" Although she didn't want to come off rude to her mum, Cassie didn't feel up to conversation at the moment with all the mixed feelings of nervousness and excitement buzzing around inside her.

When her mum pulled up in the busy car park, Cassie couldn't help but stare in aw at all the horses and riders buzzing around her. All kinds of horse breeds, a tall dark Friesian and a an elegant grey Arab, were being loaded off their trailers, some behaving, some... not so much. After being shown to her stable by a busy young woman, Cassie and her mum unloaded Prince. Being led out of the lorry after over an hour of travelling, the tall dark gelding was naturally hyper, trotting off the lorry and nearly hauling his young mistress to the ground was included in that kind of behaviour. "Woah, easy there boy, almost at your new home for the rest of the term" Cassie murmured to him.

Once Prince was in his stable and settled, Cassie took her tack to the cosy tack room. Looking around the saddle racks, she found the ones allocated to stable twenty four. After spending five minutes deciding whether Prince's jump saddle or his dressage saddle should go on the top saddle rack, she finally decided that since she used his jump one more it should go on the top, leaving her dressage saddle on the bottom. She then slipped her bridle onto the hook next to them. After finally putting her big box full of Prince's bits and bobs and putting her feed bins in the feed room, Cassie said bye to Prince and went to her dorm, where her mum had already dropped her stuff off as she needed to be away quickly.

"Right, let's get this mess sorted" she said to herself and began unpacking. The dorm was in Southwood house, and she was in dorm M. There were to single twin beds, one near the door and another next to the window. Two closets were placed at opposite ends of the room, and matching bedside tables were on the right side of each bed. Everything seemed so organised. Not something Cassie was used to. Suddenly a thought struck her as she unzipped her first suit case. What about her dorm mate? According to the whiteboard on the door of dorm M, Cassie's dorm mate was a girl named Natasha, who hadn't made herself shown yet.

At that moment a there was a loud knock on the door, and without waiting for a reply a girl about Cassie's height came through the door, dragging at least three suitcases with her. Her long straight ginger hair hung loosely around her shoulders and she wore lots of mascara. " hey, you must be Cassandra?" She asked in a questioning voice.
"Uh... yeah that's me, but call me Cassie. So I guess your Natasha?"
"Yep that's me" she paused " you have a horse here?"
Cassie was slightly intimidated by Natasha but was determined not to show so " Yes, actually, he's a black Irish Sports called Prince. Do you?"
Natasha looked impressed  " Of course! She's a Hanoverian, Velvet she's called. We're in stable twenty three, I'm guessing your twenty four, since were dorm mates?"
"Yep that's where we are"
" Then we're going to get along just fine!"