The Wish Pony Read Online Free PDF

away in the top drawer. ‘No way he could leap over those bristles!’
    â€˜But he could have leapt over the handle,’ I told her, caught up for a moment in the idea of him galloping down the length of my dressing table, leaping over obstacles, stopping to have a drink at the small bowl in which my mother sometimes floated camellia flowers or scented candles for me those nights we’d cuddle up in bed and read stories together.
    â€˜True, he might enjoy that when he feels more comfortable living here. For a long, long time – many years ago, before you were born, maybe before even your mother’s mother was born – he has lived in Glass Cabinet No. 1 with Egypt, the Emperor and the Red Soldiers.’
    â€˜Egypt?’
    â€˜The cat, you know.’
    â€˜Oh, and Emperor’s the penguin?’
    â€˜That’s right,’ Magda nodded.
    â€˜The Red Soldiers?’ There had been no soldiers that I had seen.
    â€˜My mother’s Venetian glass. There were six when I grew up but one was captured and died.’
    â€˜What’s the wish pony’s name?’
    â€˜You can name him – but I admit for as long as I’ve had him, he’s been the wish pony.’
    I couldn’t think of a different name though I ransacked through all the names I thought would suit. Magda must have seen me thinking furiously, because she laughed and patted my shoulder.
    â€˜Not everything needs to be done at lightning speed – names and friendships happen more slowly. Come on, let’s watch telly and eat some toast.’
    When Dad came home, Magda pronounced me much better and Dad bought us all takeaway noodles for tea. After Magda left, Dad let me ring Mum and when I heard her voice on the phone it was almost possible to think she was just away visiting or on a holiday, rather than sick in hospital. We talked until Dad told me it was time to say goodnight and then Mum and I said that to each other over and over before she finally hung up.
    When I went to bed that night I could see, in the dim streetlight through the window, the Wish Pony, his nostrils slightly flared and his wild mane and rippling tail standing at the edge of my dressing table as though he could take one crazy jump out into the world. But I knew he wouldn’t. He was mine. Magda had given him to me.
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    Magda rearranged things so there was no space where the Wish Pony had stood. She separated the dark red Venetian glasses so they no longer stood in a tight little cluster and moved the curled cat forward so she was in the centre front of the cabinet.
    â€˜That doesn’t look so bad,’ she told the old grandfather clock, ‘not bad at all.’
    The clock didn’t so much as tick or tock but Magda nodded to it anyway.
    â€˜It’s good to give things away,’ she said, ‘it makes you feel rich.’
    Then she carried a small straight-backed chair into the hallway and had an earnest if one-sided conversation with the portrait of her last husband. Every so often she leant forward and laid her hand on his black and white cheek.
    When she had finished she carried the chair back and checked – as she did every night – that no messages had been left on her phone.
    â€˜Oh well,’ she said, hearing just the dial tone and not the agitated twitter the phone made if a message had been left, ‘nothing,’ and she put the phone gently back in its cradle.
    She read for the rest of the evening. It was an old book with beautifully coloured illustrations. It was an odd book for an adult to read as it seemed to be about a girl. But Magda enjoyed it and marked her place with a fluoro orange shoelace when she went to bed.

The next day at school, Waddle gave me a sealed note to give Dad. I opened it on the way home and read it.

    Dear Mr Logan,
Much and all as I don’t like to trouble you at such an anxious time in your own life, I am afraid that Ruby’s behaviour of