Stella and Kate arrived first, and when Avery dashed briefly out of the clubroom to grab the stack of trip itineraries he’d left in his car, Stella instantly lunged at Issie and bombarded her with questions.
“So, have you spoken to Aidan? Are you back together with him? Has he called you? Have you called him?”
Issie groaned. “No,” she said. “No, he hasn’t called me. And I don’t think he’s going to.”
It was three weeks since she had broken up with Aidan. Twenty-two days, nine hours and seven minutes to be exact—not that she was counting.
Issie was the one who had decided that they should break up—but that didn’t make it any easier. It should have been one of the best moments of her life when she was chosen to compete in the Young Rider Challenge against Australia. But when they called her name at the Open Gymkhana prize-giving, Issie knew it was good news for her—and bad news for her relationship with Aidan.
“It’s hard enough trying to see each other with you at Blackthorn Farm and me living in Chevalier Point,” Issie explained to him, “but now that I’m in the squad, I’ll be away in Melbourne, which makes it more than hard, it’s—”
“Impossible?” Aidan finished her sentence. “Yeah, I know. You’re right. We’ll never see each other.” He pushed his long dark fringe back, and Issie caught a last glimpse of those hypnotic blue eyes. “The horses and I aren’t going anywhere,” he said softly. “We’ll still be there at Blackthorn Farm, and there’ll be other summers.”
Issie hoped that he meant it. But he hadn’t called her since. Mind you, she hadn’t called him either. What was there to say?
“Well, I think it’s stupid,” Stella said. “He still loves you. And you still love him, don’t you? You should—”
“Stella!” Issie said. “Can you stop talking about it? Please?”
And so Stella began talking about Chevalier Point’s fourth member of the Young Rider Squad, Morgan Chatswood-Smith, instead.
“Do you really think Morgan should be in the team?” Stella asked. “You know, after everything that’s happened in the past?”
“She’s the most experienced showjumper out of all of us,” Issie reasoned, “and she’s had lots of competition experience.”
“Yeah,” said Stella, “but what if she goes crazy again and pulls one of her weird stunts?”
Morgan’s mum was the international showjumping rider, Araminta Chatswood-Smith, and Morgan was driven to follow in her mother’s famous footsteps. In the past, though, Morgan’s bitter determination to win had made her go off the rails.
“Stella’s right,” Kate agreed. “How do we know that Morgan won’t totally lose it again?”
“Hello? Remember how she cut Annabel’s stirrup leathers in half and nearly killed her?” Stella added bluntly.
“That was a long time ago,” Issie said. “Morgan’s changed. She’s not like that any more…”
“I’m not like what?”
A girl with long, dark hair stood in the doorway. She looked a bit like Issie at first glance, except she was fair-skinned and blue-eyed.
“Hi, Morgan.” Issie smiled at her.
Morgan looked about the room anxiously, only too aware of what they had been talking about.
At that moment, Avery came bounding back in. If he sensed the tension in the room between the teammates, then he didn’t let on.
“Good! We’re all here now? Excellent!” he enthused. “I just wanted to run through a few of the travel details for the trip. As you know, I’ll be accompanying the team as chef d’équipe…”
Stella stuck her hand up. “Can I put in a request now? I want to have pancakes every morning.”
“Pancakes?” Avery gave the bubbly redhead a level stare. “Stella, what in blue blazes are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying I want pancakes. If you’re going to be our chef…”
Avery sighed. “Chef d’équipe doesn’t mean cook. It’s got nothing to do with food. It means I’m the team coach.”
“I knew that,” Stella said, looking miffed as the other girls stifled their giggles.
“As I was saying,” Avery continued, “as chef d’équipe, I’ll be accompanying you to Melbourne. There are eight members in the team, so having four of you chosen from Chevalier Point is quite an achievement…”
“Marsh Fields had three members in the team last year and we never heard the end of it!” Stella pointed out. “This will shut them up!”
Avery ignored this comment, but looked quietly pleased. The girls knew he must have been secretly thrilled to have topped Marsh Fields’ record.
“In fact, Marsh Fields don’t have any riders who made the team this year,” Avery continued. “The four other riders in our squad are all from the south. There are two from Wellington region: Charlotte Grimley is from Hutt Valley Pony Club and Dee Dee James is from Franklin Heights. And then there’s Emily and Laura Swinton, both from the Brighton Pony Club near Christchurch.”
“Are they sisters?” Stella asked.
“Brilliant deduction, Stella,” said Avery. “Yes, they are and very accomplished cross-country riders, by all accounts. You four will be travelling with me,” Avery explained. “We’ll fly to Melbourne and then it’s not far by rental van to Havenfields Station, just outside Lilydale. The other four riders arrive the day after us on a separate flight.”
“Why do they call them stations?” Stella interrupted again. “Why don’t the Australians just say farm, like we do? They should speak English!”
“They do speak English, Stella!” Avery said.
“Yeah, but they’ve got funny accents,” Kate pointed out.
“They eat feesh and cheeps!” Stella shrieked. All the girls burst into giggles.
Avery shook his head in disbelief. “Oh, very mature!” he groaned. “You’re going to be spending two weeks training with the Australian team. I don’t want you lot being reduced to fits of giggles every time one of them speaks!”
“Gidday, mate!” Stella called out and the girls fell about laughing again.
Avery looked at his watch. “I’d like to wrap this meeting up quickly, please, so if you could all stop giggling…” The girls managed to pull themselves together and Avery continued.
“The Young Rider Challenge changes every year,” he explained. “This year we’re doing Express Eventing.”
“Is that like regular eventing?” Issie asked.
“The essence of it is the same. It still has the three basic phases—dressage, showjumping and cross-country—but it’s much, much faster,” Avery said. “You’ll be training at Havenfields and sharing the facilities with the Australian riders. Then there’ll be a friendly competition at the end of your stay, to see who takes home the cup.”
“Well,” said Morgan icily, “if there’s a cup to be won, I don’t imagine the competition will be all that friendly.”
The others looked at her in surprise and Stella surreptitiously elbowed Issie, as if to say, I told you so—she hasn’t changed one bit!
“The whole point of the Young Rider programme is to foster and develop young talent. You’ll be given intensive coaching with specialist instructors in all three eventing phases, alongside the Australians,” Avery continued.
“Mum is going to come over to coach us for a few