was amazing!” Stella said as Marius and Wolfgang left the arena.
Issie opened her programme again. “The Dance of the Seven Veils is next,” she told the others. “It says here that the riders perform the dance on Anglo-Arab mares…”
Snake charmer music started up and six spotlights shone on the arena as the dancing horses entered down the centre of the ring, following each other nose to tail and then pivoting on their hind legs and facing the audience. The riders were women this time, all dressed like belly dancers in Arabian Nights costumes made out of flowing chiffon. The girls wore harem pants instead of jodhpurs and veils covered their faces. Each of them wore a different colour and their throats and wrists sparkled with jewels that matched the colours of their outfits—emeralds, rubies, sapphires, aquamarines, gold and silver.
While the riders all looked different, their six horses matched so exactly you could have sworn they were clones of each other. They were all the same height, around fourteen-two, with deep liver chestnut coats, white socks and flaxen manes and tails. Their legs were as finely turned as ballet dancers, and their delicate Arab blood showed through in their arched necks and dished noses.
“Ohmygod!” Issie gasped. She stared at the horses, too shocked to speak. Then she turned to Stella. “Is it just me or do you see it too?”
Stella nodded, “Totally!”
“Issie,” Kate said, “those horses…they all look just like Blaze!”
It was almost midnight by the time the audience had finally filed out of the pavilion after the show.
“Where is she?” Stella whined. She was standing by the doorway of the main tent with Kate and Mrs Brown. They were waiting for Issie, who, supposedly, had just popped off to the toilet, but was taking ages.
“Sorry I took so long!” Issie yelled out to them. She came running now, not from the direction of the toilets after all, but from the other side of the arena. A dark-haired woman in fawn jodhpurs and a pink cashmere jersey, her hair tied back in a smart chignon, was striding across the sawdust behind her.
“Mum, Kate, Stella, this is Francoise D’arth.” Isadora introduced the woman with the dark hair.
“Bonjour” Francoise said in a syrupy French accent. She smiled coolly as she shook hands with each of them. “I hope you did enjoy the show?”
“Francoise was one of the riders with the Arabian mares,” Issie explained to the others. “She trained at the Cadre Noir de Saumur in France.”
“Oui” Francoise smiled. “But that was a long time ago, Isadora. I have been now with El Caballo Danza Magnifico for many, many years. I train all the horses at their riding school back in Spain, and when the school goes on tour I come along too and I ride in the shows.”
She smiled at Mrs Brown. “Your daughter, Isadora…such a pretty name. She tells me that her horse, Blaze, is very much like my own dancing horses? Is this so?”
“I expect it is,” Mrs Brown nodded, “but I’m hardly the one to ask. I can hardly tell one end of a horse from the other. It’s the girls that you should be talking to.”
“Blaze is exactly the same as them!” Stella blurted out uncontrollably. “She is the same size and the same colour and she’s totally beautiful just like them. Honestly! You should see her!”
“Perhaps I will,” mused Francoise. “Why not? We are in town for several weeks putting on the show It is not far from the city here to Chevalier Point, is it? I will be able to come one day to see you, no?”
“No—I mean yes!” Issie laughed. “Yes please, Francoise. I would love it if you came to the pony club to meet Blaze.”
“Then it is a date.” Francoise smiled. “À bientôt! I must go now and help my girls to groom the mares and put them to bed. It can be very tiring when you are doing two shows a day! See you soon.”
Francoise waved goodbye and headed back towards the stables.
“Come on, girls, we need to get you home. Look at the time!” Mrs Brown said, holding out her watch. It was five minutes past twelve.
“Hey, Issie! It’s after midnight. That means it’s your birthday!” Stella laughed.
“So it is!” Mrs Brown smiled. “OK, let’s go home, birthday girl.”
Issie paused and stood there for a moment, watching the dark-haired Frenchwoman as she disappeared through the vast stable doors on the other side of the arena. Then she turned and ran to catch up to her mother and her friends. She couldn’t believe she was actually thirteen. It felt different somehow. Something told her this was going to be a very big year.
The first rally of the new pony-club season had finally arrived and Stella was fizzing with excitement. “It’s so great to be back!” she grinned as she tied Coco up next to Blaze underneath the big plane tree at the far end of the Chevalier Point grounds.
“Coco is totally psyched to be here, aren’t you, girl?” Stella giggled and gave her chocolate mare a slappy pat on the neck.
Coco, who never got excited about anything ever, looked at Stella with a sleepy expression and immediately shut her eyes and began to doze away in the shade, her tail lazily flicking away the odd fly that happened to buzz by.
“Yeah, Stella, she’s thrilled,” Issie laughed.
Even if Coco wasn’t excited by the prospect of the new pony-club season, the girls certainly were. This summer the club schedule was jam-packed and the most important event on the competition calendar was the Interclub Gold Shield.
The Interclub was a huge event involving all the clubs in the Chevalier district, from Chevalier Point in the north to Garnet Ridge in the south. Teams trained for the competition throughout the season and then the six district clubs competed in the grand event to see who would take away the trophy.
“St Johns, Mornington, Marsh Fields, Westhaven and Garnet Ridge!” Stella rattled the names of their rivals off by heart.
“Have you seen the Gold Shield? I’ve seen it. Whoever wins gets all their names engraved on it!” Stella was raving to Issie. “It’s not actually a big gold shield at all—well, it is big, but it’s made of wood and then it has all these little gold shields all over it and each shield has the names of that year’s winners engraved on it. It’s like, centuries old. OK, maybe not centuries, but really, really old. Even Avery has his name on it! He was in the team way back in, like, the seventies or something—”
“It was 1985 actually, Stella, thanks for making me feel even older than I usually do,” Tom Avery said stiffly.
“Oh no,” Stella groaned. She hadn’t noticed their riding instructor standing right behind her.
“Hi, Tom!” Issie grinned. Most of the riders at Chevalier Point were scared of Avery. He had a brisk, authoritative manner. But Issie
