The Wish Pony by Catherine Bateson Page B

chair against it so that if someone was inside and tried to get out, I’d hear them first.
    I stayed awake for hours, with my eyes glued to the wardrobe but I didn’t hear the voice again and eventually I must have fallen asleep because I woke up when Mum tapped on my door.
    Dad had to leave early, she didn’t feel well, we were running late. Could I just eat the yoghurt in the car and take an extra tub for lunch? There was sleep sticking my eyes together and I didn’t even have time to wash my face or brush my hair properly. I barely had time to grab my bag.
    â€˜I wish ...’ I said and stopped. There was no voice exactly, but I thought I heard something else. A noise I didn’t know. A kind of thudding noise as though someone – no something – was running. Or galloping?
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    â€˜Oh dear,’ the Wish Pony shook his mane as soon as Ruby left the room. What was he to do now? She’d done it. It was her fault. It had nothing to do with him, but who would believe that? He longed for Magda’s safe lounge room and the company of Egypt, who always knew the right thing to meow.
    â€˜That’s the problem,’ he thought, ‘she should never have called me that. What’s in a name? Let me tell you what’s in a name – a whole life and more. Lives, going right back. She should have changed my name when she had a chance.’
    People could be so stupid. That was the pity of it. Horses, now horses could be cantankerous, yes, if mishandled. Some were sensitive and needed jollying along. But mainly horses – and particularly ponies, although the Shetlands could give some trouble, he had to allow – mainly horses were an easygoing lot. Fond of company, affectionate and playful.
    Not that she’d believe that any more. Oh dear, what was he to do?

I’d found the ideal place to read down near the Preps/One playground. No one from the older grades would be seen dead around there, and provided I stayed on the edge everyone left me alone. There was a bench there, but the Preppies didn’t use it – they were too busy building sand tunnels and mines in the sand pit or trying to swing all the way across on the monkey bars.
    The bench had its back to a raised flower bed filled with grevillea – which I knew because we had it in our garden, to attract birds – and clumps of what looked like green grass but were really flowers in spring time. I could see the whole playground from where I sat and no one could snatch my book or sneak up on me.
    I’d already got in trouble for reading The Cuckoo Clock – Sarah and Bree had made cuckoo noises at me all through the morning.
    â€˜ The Cuckoo Clock ,’ Bree had grabbed the book from my desk, ‘a cuckoo girl reading about old mad clocks! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!’ and she’d rolled her eyes and pretended to be crazy.
    â€˜Give it back, Bree! It’s not my book and it’s really old.’
    â€˜Yeah, sure is,’ Bree dangled the book by its spine and shook it. ‘Eeh!’ she said. ‘Earwigs!’ A gentle scattering of dead insects rained down at her feet. She gave a melodramatic shudder – they were dead after all – and threw the book at me. It hit the side of my face and fell to the floor. It really hurt, but I was more concerned about the book and picked it up quickly, checking the less robust illustrations. The front one, the one Mum told me was called a frontispiece, was okay, but the butterfly one – my favourite – seemed to be a little more unstuck from the spine.
    â€˜I hate you,’ I hissed at her, just as Ms Wardel walked into the room, ‘I’ll get you for this, Bree. It’s not even my book.’ My cheek stung and I could almost feel a bruise forming but I didn’t say anything to Ms Wardel, just took out my spelling like everyone was doing, though I could hardly see a word because I was so angry.
    That was what made