Hot Potato Read Online Free PDF

into
the bag hooked on the wall.
    For safety, they always put the feeds in the stables
before bringing the horses in from the day-paddocks
one at a time, and then once they were eating calmly,
the two girls put the horses' rugs on. All the horses
knew the routine, and that made their behaviour more
predictable.
    One by one Shelby emptied the buckets into the
waiting bins, until she reached the last stable in the row.
A woman named Tammy rented this one. She had a
stock horse gelding called Ajax that Shelby didn't like
very much.
    Shelby loved most horses, but she was wary
around Ajax. He was kept in a day-paddock on his
own because when he was left with other horses he
would herd them into the corner and kick them. He
also smelt funny – more like a dog than a horse. You
could see the whites of his eyes, even when he was
resting, and his rump was short and sloping – not
round, like an apple – so he always looked tucked up
at the back.
    Shelby wasn't such a big fan of Tammy either. If
she had been a Disney cartoon she would have been
drawn all angles and dark shadows.
    Tammy only came to the stables once a fortnight.
She didn't always ride. She often brought friends with
her and she always had some complaint to make. She
wanted extra rice hulls for her stable floor. She didn't
think the girls were cleaning it properly. She wanted to
know exactly what time Ajax's rugs came off in the
mornings, and insisted that they took his off last when
the weather was cooler.
    One time Tammy had written a letter of complaint
about Lindsey and Shelby because she overheard them
laughing in the feed shed. She had said that the whole
place would run more efficiently if the two girls were
made to work separately.
    'What a witch!' Lindsey had said. 'You know she
pulled me up the other day for not hanging her rugs
straight? She said they were getting damaged from
being scrunched!'
    'She's a witch who pays two months in advance,'
Mrs Edel had remarked. 'She's not asking for anything
we can't do with a little bit of effort.'
    'She's only got a horse so she can say that she has
one,' Lindsey added under her breath.
    Shelby opened the gate and walked though Ajax's
yard into the stable, wrinkling her nose. She could
smell his faintly doggy aroma. The tack room door at
the back of the stable was open a fraction. Shelby
moved to close it.
    Lying on the tack room floor, in the gloom,
crumpled like an autumn leaf, was a fifty-dollar note.
    Shelby looked over her shoulder. There was no one
around. She stared at the note for a second and then
slipped it into her pocket.
    I will give it to Mrs Edel , she told herself.
    Shelby tipped Ajax's feed into the bin and then,
while she pushed the trolley around the corner to the
next row, she thought about Tammy's nasty letter. As
long as everything was done safely, did it really matter
if they laughed while they worked?
    She also remembered seeing Ajax kick an
appaloosa filly half his size while the filly squealed
with fear and pain. It had been awful.
    Tammy received special treatment all the time.
Shelby didn't know if she paid extra. She doubted it,
but even if she did, Shelby and Lindsey were the ones
who actually had to do the extra work, and they
didn't get anything more for it.
    Besides that, who leaves fifty dollars lying around?
Tammy must be pretty rich not to have noticed that
it was missing.
    Maybe I should consider it payment? she thought.
A one-off tax – a 'levy', as they'd learned in Commerce
at school.
    Shelby prised another biscuit from the bale. No,
she couldn't do that, but she could borrow it for a
while, just until she had figured out another way of
getting the money.
    She was pretty sure she could remember seeing
Tammy at the stables on the weekend just past, so she
had two weeks to put it back. Two weeks was ages!

8 Sensible
    'How's Lindsey's new horse?' Shelby's mother asked as
she climbed into the car. Shelby had finished work for
the day. Lindsey and Erin hadn't returned from the
back