The Ghost at the Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

so big it felt a bit like riding a camel, or an elephant. A piebald Clydesdale, he had pulled their dray before Gah had got the truck. She must feel like a flea on his back, Dorrie thought, but he never took advantage of his size. He’d been her great friend since she was tiny and was as gentle as a dove. Once at school, the children who rode let their horses and ponies loose in the adjoining paddock.
    The changeable island weather was starting to become stormy again, and the horses were spooked and skittish when the children went to catch them after school.
    Or, at least, they pretended to be.
    “You little horror!” Dorrie’s friend Sarah cried, as her pony, Treacle, snatched the piece of crust Sarah was offering, then wheeled away before the bridle could be put over his head. He trotted across to Sampson and stood behind him, peeking around from behind the big horse’s rump.
    “Hang on while I grab Sampson,” said Dorrie, “then he might give in.”
    There was a clap of thunder; several of the horses jumped and rushed about. Ned Brown didn’t help matters by sneaking up on his mare, Queenie, grabbing her around the neck with both arms and shouting, “Gotcha!” at the top of his lungs.
    Queenie took off straight through the other horses, Ned clinging on like a monkey.
    “Ned!” Dorrie and Sarah shouted in unison. “For goodness sake.”
    “Telling Miss Taggart on you,” screamed Sarah’s little sister, Annie, who was six.
    Ned was forever being told to watch it, or stop it, or behave himself. He couldn’t sit still. Miss Taggart, who always called him by his full name of Edward, said he had ants in his pants.
    By now he’d managed to scramble up onto Queenie’s back, where he proceeded to give an impromptu demonstration of rodeo riding. He whooped and hollered, clinging by the mane to his bucking horse.
    It took him about five seconds to be tossed off. He scrambled to his feet and bowed to his hooting, cheering audience.
    When the girls had finally caught the naughty Treacle, and Dorrie had slipped the bridle on Sampson (he obligingly lowered his great head, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to reach without standing on something), all three girls set off. Annie sat behind Sarah on Treacle. They never bothered with saddles – Sarah and Annie because there wasn’t enough room, and Dorrie because Sampson’s broad back was warm and comfortable without one.
    The thunder seemed to have rolled away a bit, but black clouds were massing to the south-west, and the air felt prickly and heavy.
    “Annie,” said Sarah after a while, “wake up.”
    The rocking motion of Treacle was sending Annie to sleep, her thumb in her mouth. Her head rested on her sister’s long red plait. “Tired,” she mumbled, through her thumb.
    “Yes, I know,” said her sister in a soothing tone, “but you’ll fall off in a minute. We’ll be home soon.” She smiled across at Dorrie and murmured, “I used to do the same thing myself when I was little, riding behind Bill.”
    Sarah and Annie’s fourteen-year-old brother, Bill, had finished school and was working on fishing boats. There was no high school on the island. Senior school meant attending boarding school on the mainland, something which most islanders, including Sarah’s parents and Gah, couldn’t afford.
    By the time they reached Sarah and Annie’s place, Sarah had moved her little sister to the front and clasped her freckled arm around Annie’s small frame. The sisters slid off Treacle at the gate, just as their mother, baby Charley in her plump arms, came out to meet them. Trixie the kelpie came too, barking a welcome.
    “Hello, girls. Have a good day?”
    “Bah!” shouted Charley, smiling and reaching out for them.
    “Was all right,” said Sarah. “What’s to eat, Ma? We’re starving.”
    Her mother raised her eyebrows. “How unusual.”
    Dorrie tied up Sampson, Sarah let Treacle go in the paddock, and then they made a beeline for the