The Quicksand Pony by Alison Lester

Author:Alison Lester [Name, Author]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-7426-97307
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2012-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

Something was dragging Biddy out of a long tunnel. She was so tired, dead tired, but something was insisting that she wake up. And then she remembered. Bella. She opened her eyes. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it was light enough to see.

She flew out of bed, dumping Tigger onto the floor, raced down the passage and out the back door, and there at the garden gate was . . . nothing. Maybe the pony was at the shed, or the yards. She ran, hobbling on the gravel track in her bare feet, not feeling the freezing wind, calling, calling, ‘Bella! Bellaaaa!’

She looked behind the shed, the cypress trees, the chook house. Last year she had found Bella in the chook house, eating pellets, and Dad had joked that she might start laying eggs. She kept picturing the white pony, bedraggled and exhausted, but she was not there. Bella had not come home.

She walked back down the track to the house, not crying silent tears now but howling in despair. She slammed the back door and burst into her parents’ bedroom. ‘Bella hasn’t come home! She’s not here! I knew I should have stayed with her!’ She kicked the wardrobe door. ‘You knew she wouldn’t be able to get out, didn’t you? You told me bullshit so I’d come home, but you knew. I hate you both. All you care about are your cattle!’

She stayed in her room all morning, cursing and sobbing. She could hear her parents moving about the house and talking in the kitchen with Grandpa, but they left her alone.

At lunch time her father came in. Biddy looked up from the bed, her eyes red and swollen. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. Sorry for saying that this morning.’

He stroked her hot head. ‘Don’t worry, mate. Listen, Bid, the tide will be out again now and your mother and I are going to drive back down the beach and have a look, just in case she managed to get free. Do you want to come? I’ll understand if you don’t.’

‘Do you think there’s still some hope?’ Biddy’s teary face showed a glimmer of excitement.

‘No, I don’t, to be straight with you. Not now. But I want to know for sure.’ Her father always told the plain truth. ‘I suppose we’re looking for her body. That’s why I said you might not want to come.’

‘No, I’ll come!’ Biddy started to get dressed. Any chance was better than none.

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