Michael Duggan feels lost. After the death of his younger sister in a riding accident, his parents have relocated their family and their horse-dealing business to Scotland. Days and nights are taken up with caring for the horses and ponies, showing them to buyers, and competing in shows. School is a blur—Michael has no friends and no clear sense of who he is. He feels completely alone in the world, until he meets Annie, a girl who, like him, seems to want to flee from something; a girl who has dark secrets of her own. Michael desperately wants to be with Annie. But she lives on the opposite side of the treacherous Annan Water . . .
Michael Duggan feels lost. After the death of his younger sister in a riding accident, his parents have relocated their family and their horse-dealing business to Scotland. Days and nights are taken up with caring for the horses and ponies, showing them to buyers, and competing in shows. School is a blur—Michael has no friends and no clear sense of who he is. He feels completely alone in the world, until he meets Annie, a girl who, like him, seems to want to flee from something; a girl who has dark secrets of her own. Michael desperately wants to be with Annie. But she lives on the opposite side of the treacherous Annan Water . . .
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Overview
Michael Duggan feels lost. After the death of his younger sister in a riding accident, his parents have relocated their family and their horse-dealing business to Scotland. Days and nights are taken up with caring for the horses and ponies, showing them to buyers, and competing in shows. School is a blur—Michael has no friends and no clear sense of who he is. He feels completely alone in the world, until he meets Annie, a girl who, like him, seems to want to flee from something; a girl who has dark secrets of her own. Michael desperately wants to be with Annie. But she lives on the opposite side of the treacherous Annan Water . . .
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781480424258 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media Teen & Tween |
| Publication date: | 06/18/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 181 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 12 - 14 Years |
About the Author
Switchers, Midnight’s Choice, and Wild Blood. She has won the Whitbread/Costa Children’s Book Award and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, and has been awarded the Children’s Books Ireland (CBI) Book of the Year Award four times. Thompson lives on the west coast of Ireland.
Read an Excerpt
Annan Water
By Kate Thompson
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2004 Kate ThompsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-2425-8
CHAPTER 1
Michael was in no doubt that the mare would jump the gate. Even though he had turned her head away from it, he could tell that she was still thinking about it. She fretted and snatched at the bit, her hocks under her, her front feet barely making contact with the wet ground. Beside her the big chestnut cob stood like a rock, wasting no energy. Michael tugged at his bridle, trying to wake him up and prepare him for what he was required to do.
The mare plunged forward, wrenching Michael's shoulder and almost tearing the cob's reins out of his hand. He pulled her up. She was getting into a stew, defeating the whole purpose of the exercise. He slackened the reins and spoke softly. The mare relaxed, but her ears still twitched. She hadn't forgotten the gate.
Michael hadn't either. He looked back at it.
There was no way of opening it without the right tools. Wire had been wrapped around the posts at both ends and stapled to the wood. It no longer functioned as a gate, but as part of a boundary, separating the land his parents were renting from the next farm. But there had been a time, not all that long ago perhaps, when the green lane he could see on the other side of it had been a thoroughfare. It was overgrown now with low branches and reaching brambles, and it was impossible for Michael to see how far it went before it petered out, or met a metalled road. He wanted to find out.
'Take her out for a hack today,' Jean had said. 'Sweeten her up a bit.'
After yesterday. For two hours he had ridden her in the jumps paddock beneath his mother's expert eye. Circling and circling and circling; winding the mare down, trying to get her steady and concentrated. Every time she came within reach of a fence she gathered herself, her head went up, she began to track sideways. And every time, Jean had said the same thing.
'Circle her again. Nice and tight. Outside leg.'
The mare was brilliant; a jumping genius. She never stopped, and never touched a pole unless it was the rider's fault. But she was giddy as a gadfly; perpetually on the boil. She was already a Grade A jumping pony when they bought her, but she was cheap all the same. She had changed hands some time before, and her new rider had been too inexperienced to handle a pony with her temperament. She had been over-jumped and under-schooled. When Jean and Frank bought her six months ago, she was completely unmanageable. It was Michael's job to sort her out.
She was getting there. In a few days' time they would be taking her to a show for the first time since they got her. That was why they had worked her so intensively the day before. That was why Jean had sent her out with Michael for a quiet hack.
'You can take Bandit with you,' she had said. 'If he doesn't steady her, nothing will.'
Michael looked at him, standing patiently beside the fidgeting mare, resting a hind leg. If ever a horse was misnamed, it was him. There was no more gentlemanly horse in the yard. From time to time Michael rode him in the Grade D and E classes at the shows. He jumped perfectly every time; never put a foot wrong. But his size was against him. He was a heavy cob, not far from a draught horse, and he didn't have the speed and agility that was needed to win a jump-off. Out hunting he was like a tank; anything he couldn't get over, he went through. He would have made a brilliant horse for a keen amateur rider, but his type was out of fashion. He'd been in the string for a year, and despite their best efforts they couldn't find a buyer for him.
Michael wouldn't have considered jumping the gate leading any other horse. It was a seriously risky undertaking. But Bandit had brains and he used them. If any horse would do it, he would. Michael glanced back at it again. If they didn't go over the gate, he would have to go back to the yard and hack out along the main road. It was the one thing his parents hadn't taken into account when they rented the farm at the beginning of the year. In Yorkshire, where they had lived before, there was a maze of small country lanes around their yard, ideal for riding out. But although there were small roads here, there was no way of getting to them without going a good distance along the trunk road.
It didn't seem to bother Jean and Frank. Horses had broken most of the bones in their bodies. Horses had broken their hearts as well, when their youngest daughter had been dragged to her death by a bolting pony. Only their nerves remained intact. They both seemed immune to danger. Michael had never seen either of them afraid of any horse in the yard, and there had been some pretty bad ones, even within his memory. When it came to the roads, their attitudes corresponded to their general philosophy. If a horse was afraid of traffic, what better way to cure him than to take him into the thick of it?
Michael didn't share their views. Hunting or jumping, he was as courageous as either of them, but he'd had some close calls out exercising on the roads, and he saw no sense in looking for trouble. That was why he was there, measuring up the gate yet again; longing to explore the peaceful lane beyond it.
He made up his mind; backtracked a short distance, tightened his girth, gave Bandit a few digs with his toe in the hope of waking him up. It made no perceptible difference, but the pony picked up on the tension and was already bouncing on the spot when Michael turned her. She reared and leaped forward into a bucketing canter. There was a momentary resistance from the cob, and then he was alongside. Two strides before the jump, Michael sat deep into the saddle and pushed the mare on. She stood way off the gate; took a great lion's leap at it; cleared it by yards. The gelding was in the air beside her, taking the five bars in his usual, economical style.
They were over.
The green track stretched away ahead of them, and the little mare reached for it like a thoroughbred on the gallops. Michael wrestled with her and, when all else failed, turned her head into the hedgerow. She fought him, trying to keep racing on crabwise, but she couldn't keep it up. She had to stop.
It wasn't until then that a tide of emotions, entirely unexpected, rolled in upon Michael. There was relief, at having got over the gate so easily, but even stronger than that was a sense of elation, as though that jump had freed him from a lot more than the traffic on the A72. There had been something illicit—illegal even—about the decision; the leap; the secrecy of it all. Between these high hedges he was invisible; a free and independent spirit in a world of his own, new and unexplored.
He praised the mare and tugged at her ear. He flattered the cob as well, liking him suddenly; sorry for him because his plain looks concealed such an honest and generous heart.
CHAPTER 2It was clear that the track hadn't been used for years. Beyond the first bend it narrowed even further. Ash and hawthorn reached in from either side and made an irregular arch, beneath which Michael had to duck from time to time. At the most overgrown parts, even the horses had to drop their heads and push through, ears first. Brambles and blackthorn snagged Michael's jacket and leggings. He had to keep his arm up to shield his face, and could hardly see where he was going. But the mare seemed to be as thrilled by the adventure as he was and pushed impetuously on. Bandit fell in behind her, taking the slaps from the whipping-back branches with no complaint beyond the occasional long-suffering sigh.
Michael was afraid that the path would end too soon, and his freedom along with it. For a stretch it became even more choked, with tall, dark weeds underfoot and every kind of thorny shrub competing for the scant light. Then, without warning, the way ahead was clear. There was a gateway into a field on the right-hand side, and tractor tyres had formed deep ruts right up to it from the other, unknown end of the track. Scraps of black silage wrapping clung to the roughly trimmed hedges. A few muddy cattle stood in a corner of the field and watched the horses with mild curiosity.
Between the tyre tracks, the grass was short and the ground was firm. The mare was already skittering sideways, itching to get up some speed. Michael shortened his reins and let her canter on, but cautiously; steadily. The cob fell in alongside, foot perfect despite being half in and half out of the muddy ruts.
The lane swung this way and that, almost animate in its twisting and turning and tempting. Through gaps in the bushes, Michael could see farmland on either side, tired grassland mostly, waiting for the spring. There were sheep with new lambs in one of the meadows. They scattered in surprise, making the mare shy, then bleated after them reproachfully.
The grassy lane invited them on. The pony would have lobbed along for ever, enjoying the novelty, if Michael hadn't noticed that she was breaking into a sweat and remembered that she was supposed to be having an easy day. He pulled her up.
She was reluctant to stop, but as soon as she did, she relaxed, as though she had let off her surplus steam and was grateful for the rare opportunity to walk. Michael kicked his feet out of their stirrups and let his long legs dangle. His feet almost reached the mare's knees. It embarrassed him that he was so tall, but still not out of ponies yet.
The track wandered on between the fields. Michael found a contentment he hadn't known for years, and as though to confirm him in it, the sun found a gap in the clouds and spilled through, marbling the ground with the shadows of the bare branches. After another half a mile or so they came to a narrow, tarmacked road, but even that wasn't the end of the path. On the opposite side it ran on again and, as though the pony was as curious about it as her rider, she looked neither right nor left along the road but crossed straight over.
More hedges, more gates, more twists and turns. The sun went in again and a few drops of rain splashed off Michael's oilskin. It didn't matter. He had learned not to care about rain. His parents rarely took account of the weather. Like traffic, it was one of the irritations of the business, not to be allowed to interfere with routine.
'If God had intended us to stay out of the rain, why did He make us waterproof?'
Michael had heard Frank say it far too often. Even thinking about it threatened to put him in a foul mood. He looked at his watch. He had already been out for more than an hour, and it would take him as long to get back. He must have covered three or four miles already.
He decided to give it another fifteen minutes, but it didn't take that long. As they rounded a long, sweeping curve Michael saw the wet grey gleam of another metalled road, bordered on its far side by a stone wall. When they reached it, the mare hesitated, as though bewildered by the sudden return to the present day. She didn't stop, though, but turned to her right and set out purposefully, her feet clacking on the tarmac.
Michael tried to turn her back, but she resisted, drawn on by a curiosity that was stronger than his own. He swore at her, but fondly. He had been riding since he could walk. There were times when his parents had twenty-five horses and ponies in the yard, buying and selling two or three every week. Out of all the hundreds he rode, he rarely came across one that wasn't noticeably happier when its head was turned towards home. He had never before come across one who point-blank refused to turn back.
He let her go on. They passed a small cottage on the left with a battered van parked outside it. Soon afterwards, the road forked. One branch led into a farmyard, presumably belonging to the cottage. The other, to the right, ended at a little wooden landing stage. Beyond it a dark expanse of water stretched away. There was no bridge. The road went no further.
A boat was pulled up against the jetty; not an elegant pleasure boat but a functional working vessel with greasy water in the bottom. A few yards downriver a concrete slipway led gently down to the water's edge. Beyond that, the bare banks of the river ran into the distance.
The mare stopped dead, her curiosity replaced by a clear anxiety about the dark water ahead. She tried to swing round, but Michael wasn't ready yet. He turned her firmly back. She shook her head hard, wrestled with the bit for a moment, then consented to stand.
There was something about that river. Michael had never seen it before, but he felt that he knew it. Somehow it had always been with him; in him even; a dark thing waiting, like despair, for him to come to it. Stray words passed through his mind.
Wondrous deep …
Woe betide you …
The mare turned again, but Bandit was pulling in the opposite direction, making for the river; thirsty perhaps. Michael tried to manage the two pairs of reins. It wouldn't be the first time he had been pulled off a horse by the one he was leading. He managed to turn the mare, and was just hauling Bandit back into her side when she stiffened and jumped, and wheeled round to face the way they had come.
Michael dug his heels into her sides, annoyed by her wilfulness. But it hadn't been a ploy. She had been startled by something that he hadn't heard. They weren't alone.
CHAPTER 3The girl had come up behind him. It was the rustle of her plastic bags that had spooked the mare. And when Michael got a proper look at her, she spooked him as well. She was like someone who had just beamed in from another world. The horses seemed to think so too. All three of them stared.
Michael had never seen anything quite like her. The clothes she was wearing made no sense in the foul weather. They were all black, and tight; everything short and close-fitting. Her hair was an impossible shade of red and her skin, in stark contrast, was waxy and pale. She looked wet and cold.
She walked on past, interested in the horses, not in him. She had rings and studs and bolts all over her face; through her eyebrows, her lips, her ears, her nose.
'Did your mother never teach you not to stare,' she said.
He dropped his gaze.
The mare backed up and began to fidget again. Michael knew he ought to make a start for home, but the girl intrigued him. It was a strange place to encounter someone. There seemed to be nowhere for her to go with all those bags.
He was suddenly aware of how tall he was; how stupid he looked on the little mare. He slipped off.
'Are they your horses?' the girl asked him.
'They are.'
'Why do you have two of them?'
He shrugged. 'I have twenty of them at home.'
'You don't.'
'I do.'
She turned away from him dismissively, as though he wasn't worth talking to. Her arms were stretched by the supermarket bags she was carrying, and where they emerged from her sleeves he could see a number of white scars. He was struck by a vivid image of the girl strengthening herself with steel, then trying to fight her way out of some kind of enclosure. She was battling against razor-wire and carrying the scars.
She walked over to the boat and dropped the bags on to a storage crate.
'Are you going across the river?' he said.
She looked back the way she had come. 'In a wee while. Can I have a ride on your horses?'
'You can't ride in that skirt,' he said. It was so tight that he couldn't see how she could even walk in it, let alone ride. Beneath it she was wearing black tights and heavy leather boots with big silver buckles.
'I'll take it off then.'
He surprised himself by what he said. 'Go on, then.'
The girl laughed. 'Horses are cool,' she said. 'Will you come another time? I'll wear jeans.'
Michael was enchanted by her laughter. He would probably have agreed to anything she suggested, but at that moment the horses threw up their heads together and looked along the road. Someone else was coming. A woman in a wheelchair, pushed by a man. The woman's lap was laden with more supermarket bags.
'That's my mother,' said the girl.
Michael was trying to think of something to say when the mare, terrified by the sight of the wheelchair, spun round and tried to take off along the river bank. He held on to her, but had to drop the gelding's reins to avoid being torn between the two of them. The mare dragged him along for a few metres before she fetched up against a wooden fence and had to stop. She turned and stared at the wheelchair as if she expected it to pounce on her.
'Fat-head,' he called her. 'Idiot.'
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Annan Water by Kate Thompson. Copyright © 2004 Kate Thompson. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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