Phantom Horse 6: Phantom Horse Wait for Me by Pullein-Thompson Christine

Author:Pullein-Thompson, Christine [Pullein-Thompson, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / Horses
ISBN: 9781841359304
Publisher: Award Publications Limited
Published: 2012-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

I fell out of bed and pulled on clothes, shouting, “Where? How? It can’t be true.” Daylight flooded the room. “They were neighing. We should have looked.”

“You mean Killarney was neighing,” replied Mum.

“We should have looked. I knew we should have looked,” I yelled in anguish.

Then Angus appeared, looking dishevelled and still in his pyjamas, saying, “Calm down. He’s probably gone to see Marli.”

“Along the main road!” I shrieked, thundering down the cottage stairs. The kitchen clock told me it was ten o’clock. Panic rose in my throat. Why did I oversleep? I wondered. But I knew the answer already. We had stayed out late, had not checked the horses, been selfish, hopeless … Killarney stood by the gate, neighing frantically when he saw me, imagining that I could wave a wand and Phantom would return. Or did the sight of me merely bring hope?

Angus stood beside me now. “You look down the road, while I ring up the abattoirs,” he said.

“The abattoirs?” I screamed.

“Yes, he may have been stolen,” he said, with awful calm.

I ran down the lane and called to old Mrs Cannaway in her flower-filled garden, which is so wonderful that she opens it to visitors every July in aid of the Red Cross.

“Have you seen Phantom?” I called. She put down her secateurs.

“Phantom, dear?” she asked.

I saw that she did not belong to my world, for hers was filled with begonias and bulbs, by crocuses and snowdrops.

“Yes, my horse.”

“No, dear.”

I was already running on. The main road was full of traffic – thundering lorries, salesmen driving too fast, women on their way to shop. There was no sign of Phantom, and if he had been there, it might have been as minced meat on the tarmac …

I returned home. Angus was talking to Dominic on the telephone. “He’s coming over immediately in the Land Rover. We’re going to do a clean sweep. Have you got a head collar and oats?” he called.

Mum was ringing up the police station as we fled the cottage.

“What about the abattoirs?” I asked.

“I rang three. I warned them not to destroy him. One manager said there’s a sale on Saturday we ought to attend,” replied Angus.

“Saturday?” I yelled. “But he must be back by then!”

“We’ll go to Hill Farm House first,” Angus told Dominic through the Land Rover window when he arrived in overalls, still bleary-eyed from the night before. “Phantom may have gone to see Marli.”

“Surely the Winters would have telephoned?” suggested Dominic.

“They’re hardly ever there,” Angus said.

“Don’t worry, Jean. He’ll turn up; he’s probably having a rare old feed of grass somewhere at this very moment. How did he get out?” Dominic asked, starting the engine as Angus slammed the passenger door.

“We didn’t look.”

“You should have done. You don’t want Killarney out too,” Dominic said a minute later, driving full speed along the lane.

“No, we don’t. But he could have been stolen, couldn’t he?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear anything? What about your mother?”

“She was watching television, and our walls are thick,” I said.

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