“Can we not talk about this?” Emily said, getting upset. “I don’t want to lose any of my friends.”
“Geez, Emily, it’s only getting kicked out of cross-country class,” Daisy told her. “It’s not like life and death!”
“Isn’t it?” Alice questioned.
All the girls knew that at Blainford, where the cliques ruled the school, being Tara Kelly’s eventers was like a badge that you wore with pride. While the polo boys were rich and arrogant, the showjumperettes were glamorous and stuck-up, the westerns were laidback and the dressage geeks intense and uptight, the eventers stood out as fearless and loyal.
Apart from Kennedy and Arden, who had transferred from showjumping and had always made it quite clear that they wanted nothing to do with their classmates, Tara Kelly’s first-years were a tight-knit bunch.
The danger that they faced on the cross-country course gave them a sense of camaraderie. But there was also a fierce rivalry amongst them for class rankings. Tara Kelly went through her ruthless elimination cull of her pupils in the first year to make sure that only the very best were allowed to continue up the grades. The way Tara saw it, elimination wasn’t about ruining young lives, it was about saving them.
Eventing was a demanding subject – and a deadly one for any rider who wasn’t skilled enough to meet the challenge. Travelling at a fast gallop over solid fences meant huge risks for both horse and rider. Even the rodeo class had a grudging respect for the broken bone count in the eventing department. Incredibly, so far the first-year eventing class had avoided any major injuries.
Or at least they had done until now. As they left the stables and walked up the school driveway the girls spied Nicholas Laurent ahead of them. The French rider was one of their cross-country gang and he was on crutches and sporting a bright blue plaster cast on his leg that went all the way to the knee.
By the time the girls reached the dining hall, Nicholas was already in the queue, trying to hold his dinner tray whilst balancing on a single crutch. The other eventing boys – Cameron Fraser, Alex Chang and Matt Garrett – were all with him but none of them were offering to help. Instead, they were greedily dishing burgers and fries on to their own plates.
“Don’t you guys ever think about anyone else?” Alice said casting a dark look at Cameron and the others as she stepped forward to relieve the grateful Nicholas of his tray. “Nicholas, you go and sit down. I’ll get your food and bring it over for you.”
“Merci, Alice,” Nicholas said. “Get me extra frites, OK?” He hobbled off to take a seat at the eventers’ usual table while Alice piled his plate and her own. As soon as Laurent’s back was turned the girls began whispered speculations on the cause of the broken leg.
“Do you think he did it practising cross-country?” Emily asked.
Georgie shook her head. “I bet he did it on the hunt field in Bordeaux.”
“I hope the horse was OK,” Alice said looking back over her shoulder at him as she dished up the fries. “It looks like it must have been a bad fall.”
When the girls finally joined Nicholas and the other boys at the table, however, he refused to tell them anything about the accident.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Nicholas was adamant.
“Why not?” Matt Garrett frowned.
“Because…” Nicholas paused. “Because… it is no big deal. There is nothing to say.”
“Nicholas,” Alice was insistent, “you’re in a cast. You have crutches. It looks like a big deal to us.”
Nicholas shrugged.
“Come on,” Cameron persisted. “Tell us how you did it.”
Nicholas cast a sideways glance, checking the room to see if anyone else was near the eventers’ table.
“OK,” he said, leaning in over the table, his voice hushed in a conspiratorial tone. “I will tell you what happened.”
The riders all leaned in and waited in silence for him to speak. Nicholas looked serious. And then, in a quiet voice he said, “I was playing tennis.”
There was a choking sound as Matt Garrett almost snorted his orange juice out through his nose. “Tennis? Seriously? You did it playing tennis?”
Nicholas looked around the room nervously. “Please don’t tell anyone,” he said. “I’ve already had three girls ask to sign my cast. They think I did it falling off on a three-star course in Saumur. If they knew that I tripped making a backhand shot it wouldn’t be good for my reputation.”
The whole eventing table were laughing.
“It’s not funny,” Nicholas said indignantly. “It’s a hairline fracture at the ankle. I’ll be in this cast for seven weeks.”
“You’ve got to see the irony, Nicholas,” Alice said. “You’ve survived three terms in Tara’s class and then you go home for two weeks and manage to break a leg playing tennis!”
“Shhh!” Nicholas hushed her. “Someone will hear you.”
“Bad luck, mate,” Matt Garrett drawled in his heavy Australian accent. “I suppose this means you’re eliminated since you can’t ride?”
Nicholas glared at him. “No, actually. Tara’s offered me a place in the second year already based on my class ranking.”
“Is that so?” Matt looked less than impressed with this news. “Smart move, man – instant upgrade without any final exam pressure. Maybe I should have broken my leg too.”
“There’s plenty of time for that,” Nicholas shot back.
“I don’t think so, Nico,” Matt replied, turning back to his burger. “I don’t fall off.”
“If you were handing out a prize for arrogance how could you choose between Nicholas and Matt?” Alice said as they walked to class the next morning.
“I feel sorry for Nicholas,” Emily said. “It must be awful not being able to ride.”
“Totally,” Georgie agreed. “Tough as Tara’s classes are, it’s even worse when you’re not in them.”
Today, at last, Georgie was returning to cross-country class. But first she had regular morning school lessons to get through.
Blainford Academy split the school day into two halves. The morning classes were held in the main grounds of the college in the red brick Georgian buildings that surrounded the green square of grass in the middle of the school known as the quad.
Mornings were taken up with science and maths, French and German, geography and English – during which the Blainford girls dressed like students at any other exclusive private school, in blue pleated pinafore dresses and navy blazers with the school crest in pale blue and silver on the breast pocket.
But after lunch the pupils headed back to their boarding houses and changed into their ‘number twos’ – their riding uniform of navy jods and a pale blue shirt – in preparation for their afternoon lessons with their horses.
For Tara Kelly’s class the pupils were also required to wear back protectors, and as Georgie did up the Velcro straps on hers that afternoon she felt like her old self once more: back in the eventers’ ranks, where she belonged.
In the loose box beside her, Belle was tacked up and ready to go in her cross-country saddle and martingale. Georgie was bent down adjusting the tendon boots on the mare’s forelegs when she caught sight of someone leaning over the Dutch door. Georgie looked up expecting to