Diamond Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page B

get away from me.’ Jess’s face was throbbing so hard she could barely think straight. Behind Shara, she saw Lawson Blake turn on his heel and walk away. She did the same, heading towards home.
    Shara called after her. ‘Jess! Wait! You’re bleeding!’
    ‘ Leave me alone! ’ Jess screamed.

7
    WHEN JESS ARRIVED HOME, Caroline had fifty conniptions. She buried Jess’s swollen face under a packet of frozen broad beans and raced her off to the closest hospital. After several hours in the waiting room among vomiting, bleeding and groaning people, Jess was sent home with a fresh icepack and some painkillers and told to rest for a week.
    Craig hit the roof. First he rang Shara’s mum, ranting about Shara being so irresponsible. Then he stormed down to the police station to have Lawson Blake arrested.
    The next day the police paid a visit to Lawson, who came up with some half-baked story about his cattle – the same story that he phoned Craig with afterwards, smarmily apologising and inviting him over to ‘discuss it’.
    Now, two days later, her parents seemed to think Jess was having some sort of breakdown because of Diamond. Her father was making appointments with school counsellors and psychologists, while Caroline insisted she needed a spiritual healer. Jess was refusing point-blank to go and see any of them. With only a week left until the summer holidays, she told her parents she would be fine so long as she had that week off school.
    Buzz rumble.
    Shara: we need to talk
    Jess flipped her phone shut.
    ‘I hope she gets into that stupid school,’ she grumbled to herself. ‘I hope I never have to talk to her again! For at least a month!’
    Jess would be only too happy to lock herself in her bedroom and never come out again, but her parents were adamant that she keep up with her chores, and for some perverse reason that included looking after Dodger. Some stupid ‘getting back on the horse’ way of thinking – obviously thought up by someone who had never ridden a horse, let alone fallen off one, and definitely had never been headbutted by a total psycho like Dodger.
    But her protests only earned her a karmic forgiveness lecture from Caroline. ‘You must cultivate love, darling; fight evil with goodness. Don’t destroy yourself with anger.’
    The lecture made Jess feel even crankier. In the end she gave up protesting, choosing instead to storm to her room and count her miseries. She couldn’t believe they’d listened to that Lawson Blake. They needed to wake up and smell the gunpowder.
    In the afternoon, at her father’s insistence, she set about fixing the fence that Dodger had broken. Hateful creature!
    She pulled some pliers from her back pocket and twisted the wire back to keep it off the ground. That horse just had no respect for fences. He had no respect for anything.
    Two horses walked down the road towards her. She recognised their riders: Rosie and Grace Arnold from Valley View Pony Club. The two sisters had the same tawny-blonde hair, olive skin and brown eyes. She had seen them at gymkhanas many times but had never actually spoken to them. In Coachwood Crossing, everyone knew everyone. Or at least, everyone knew everything about everyone.
    Jess knew that the Arnolds had a stud farm and bred Australian stockhorses. Rosie was the elder sister and she always rode a chestnut horse called Buster. Grace was younger and never rode the same horse twice. Their stud farm, Jess imagined, must be huge.
    Rosie sat neatly in the saddle with her heels down and her back straight. A short riding crop sat at a perfect angle across her thigh and a tidy plait poked out below her helmet. Buster’s saddlecloth was clean, blue and matched his shin boots.
    Grace wore jeans that looked like they had been worn for days. She held her reins in one hand and kicked her gangly-legged grey horse up into the uneven trot typical of a freshly started mount.
    As the sisters approached, it became obvious they were going to stop