Goodbye,
Chocolate
Charlie
Marga Jonker
Tafelberg
For my mom, Anita Visser.
1
The nightmare journal
Charlie’s black mane sweeps across Nicky’s face. She leans further forward against his warm, sweaty neck. His chocolate-brown coat has turned a glossy black and she can smell a whiff of saltiness.
Charlie gallops down the rocky mountainside. Fear grips Nicky, taking her breath away, her shaky hands clinging to the reins. She must get away from the darkness behind her . . .
Charlie thunders ahead, taking big, powerful strides. The mountain slope is stony and uneven. She clamps her legs tightly and pushes the heels of her boots sharply into his sides. Charlie obeys with no hesitation.
Then he raises his forelegs to jump the rocks that are coming up ahead. Suddenly Charlie comes crashing down, and she’s falling, falling, falling . . .
Nicky woke up with a start. Her mom, Helen, was sitting next to her on her bed.
Big Boy, their Great Dane, put his front paws on the bed and nuzzled Nicky’s leg.
“Same dream?” asked her mom.
“Yes. I’m riding Charlie high up Snowy Mountain, then we turn around – and start racing back down!”
“Maybe something frightened Charlie?”
“No! I’m the one pushing him to gallop as fast as he can down a steep mountainside!”
“You’ve always been such a careful and considerate rider, Nicky, ever since you started. You’d never force Charlie down a dangerous slope for no reason.”
Nicky didn’t respond.
What had possessed her to push Charlie into jumping those rocks on such dangerous terrain? Why would she ever have done such a thing? Had she ever done it?
You freak! Horse murderer! You made your horse jump to his death on a dangerous slope! A voice in her head screamed the words; a crazy voice that had been taunting her ever since that day in hospital when her mom had first told her that Charlie was dead.
Sitting there, staring into space, Nicky realised she was covered in goosebumps. She slid her fingers from her temples into her hair, where she felt the edges of the hidden scar.
“Here’s your diary.” Helen passed Nicky a journal with a little lock. “Dr Dave said you should jot down all your dreams.”
“Mom, this wasn’t a dream; it was a nightmare!”
“Well, at least you can remember it,” her mom said encouragingly. “Doing this could really help you remember, you know.”
Nicky didn’t respond.
She wished her mom wouldn’t try so hard to make her feel better.
She wished everyone would just leave her alone. After all, maybe she didn’t want to remember what had happened that day.
Reluctantly, Nicky picked up the journal and fidgeted with the pen that was attached with a ribbon. Her mom quietly left the room.
With a huge sigh, Big Boy flopped down on the mat next to Nicky’s bed. He’d never been a cheerful dog, but these days it seemed to Nicky that he only ever sighed and frowned. She stared dully at the empty pages in the journal and then scribbled on the first one:
Nightmare Journal
Nightmare 1
I’m racing my horse down the mountainside, which causes him to break his leg.
I made my horse fall to his death to his death
TO
HIS
DEATH . . .
You freak! Horse murderer! No one can help you – not even your dreams! The voice in her head began again.
2
The Barbie-doll pony
Luke was draped over the fence of the small paddock, his arms resting on the top beam and his feet perched on the bottom one. For a thirteen year old, he was a bit on the short side. His straight dark hair was neatly cut, but his fringe stuck up in a cowlick. He had lively dark-brown eyes and a sprinkling of freckles over his nose and cheeks.
“She’s like a blonde pony. Man, she’s gorgeous!” Luke was in a great mood: not only was it Friday, but it was also the last day of term before the April holidays. He was looking forward to spending it here, at home, on the family’s Cederberg stud farm.
“She’s not blonde; she’s a palomino.” Nicky’s elbows rested on the fence’s middle beam, her chin on her hands as she too watched the new horse. Nicky looked more like Luke’s sister than his cousin. Just a year older, she was taller than him, but she had the same dark-brown hair, also cut short. Her eyes were dark against her olive skin, and she had the same spray of freckles across her nose.
“Looks blonde to me,” Luke teased, trying to get a reaction. “Yep, our very own Barbie-doll horse-pony!”
“My dad says your grandpa got an old nug when he bought this horse,” André chipped in, with his Afrikaans accent. Standing next to Nicky, his tall, lean frame easily reached the top of the fence. He’d grown his blond hair long – he was in grade 10, and his private school in Cape Town didn’t have the same strict rules as Snowy Mountain Primary, where Luke was in grade 7.
“It’s ‘nag’, not ‘nug’, André. N-A-G,” Nicky corrected him.
“Are you calling André a nag, Nicky?” Luke asked innocently.
André looked confused. “Me? A nag? But I didn’t say anything!”
“No, André, no one’s calling you anything!” Nicky sometimes had to help André with his English. “A nag is an old, useless horse. It sounds like your dad thinks our grandpa shouldn’t have bought her.” Nicky tried to return to the conversation at hand.
“Oh, a nag – ja, okay, I get it. And look at her grey hair!”
“She’s not grey, man; she’s blonde!” said Luke.
Nicky glared at her cousin and their friend. Sometimes it took her a while to realise when she was being teased.
“Well, if you two aren’t interested in hearing what Doc has to say about our new palomino, then I’ll just tell Colette,” she snapped. “She’s on her way from Stellenbosch and she’ll be here any minute.”
Nicky had been the only one around when Grandpa and Doc had delivered the pony to her new home earlier that day.
“Okay, sorry, Nicky. What did Doc say?” Luke said quickly, not wanting his older sister to hear the news before he did. Not that Colette was all that interested in what went on here at Solitaire Stud Farm, unless it affected her two sport horses. To Colette, Diana’s Duchess and Red Ace are the be all and end all of life on the farm.
“Yes, sorry, Princess,” André apologised.
Nicky liked it when he called her Princess. In his Afrikaans accent the word sounded different and interesting, making her feel good for a brief moment. One good moment in all the seconds, minutes and hours when she’d felt so bad about herself.
“Well, Doc said Grandpa’s bargain buy is a pet horse that’s too old to learn anything new,” Nicky told them.
All three stared intently at the new mare. Dr Tonie Smit, known to everyone as Doc, was the local veterinarian, and also André’s father.
“So has she never been trained? Is she wild?” asked Luke. For him, there was nothing more exciting than helping to train a horse. He was interested in everything about his father’s stud farm, from breeding horses to training and breaking