The Thunderbolt Pony by Stacy Gregg

Author:Stacy Gregg [Stacy Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-08-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Helen of the Hundalees

The glassy-eyed Cyclops rumbles round the bend in the road in front of us. It’s a giant earthmover. I feel the tremors as it shakes the ground beneath us, as turbulent as an aftershock.

I think we’ve been seen and hold my breath, but then the Cyclops reverses and begins to go backwards, retreating along the same stretch of road. We need to get out of the way now, because next time we might not be so lucky!

“Gus!” He’s frozen with fear in front of the massive earthmover, but I give him a vigorous kick and that wakes him up. With Jock at his heels I ride to the shoulder of the road and straight off the edge, careening down the steep bank that leads into the trees beyond.

Hidden by the trees, sheltered from the rain, I pull Gus back round so that we’re facing the road and peering back out through the low-hanging branches. The earthmover really does look like a Cyclops, the gigantic glass bubble-eye cab containing the driver, like a tiny Lego man at the controls.

Behind the gigantic earthmover I can see the rest of the road crew – a couple of other smaller earthmovers and a ute and a landcruiser parked to one side, and half a dozen men in fluorescent vests calling each other on walkie-talkies and setting up road cones. They are moving away a mudslide that covers the whole of the highway and the Cyclops is working back and forth, shifting the mud and giant boulders.

I knew that eventually I would be bound to run into a road crew. I’ve thought about this moment, about how they would react. If State Highway One is closed to all cars, I figure it’s a pretty certain bet that they’re not going to make an exception for a twelve-year-old travelling on a pony – even if Gus is a better off-road vehicle than any of their four-wheel drives. If they see us, they’ll have no choice. They’ll make us turn round and escort us home.

I’m sure the man driving the Cyclops didn’t see me and Gus and Jock, or he’d already be telling the others and they’d be hunting for me. So I’m safe. They don’t know we’re here.

I stay there beneath the trees, bent down over Gus’s shoulder, and watch the Cyclops working back and forth, scooping the dirt away, piling it up in a great heap on the side of the road, then reversing and beginning the process all over again.

The rain is getting heavier now. Maybe the weather will make the men decide to pack up their things and leave. But I doubt it. They’re all in heavy raincoats and brimmed hats to keep off the weather. As the rain begins to fall even harder, I see the steam coming off the engines and I hear the roar of the diggers and I know I don’t have a choice. We can’t go back to the highway now, we must stick to the trees, stay in the woods where the ground is rough and hilly.

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