Page 50 of For the Love of Animals

Poor Picnic stood there looking so dejected, his head hanging almost to his knees. But it was his eyes that got me. He’d never known kindness.

“Thirty pounds?”

A man on the other side of the ring raised his hand, seemingly reluctant, and I glimpsed his eyes under his tweed cap. They looked as if they didn’t know the meaning of kindness either, and my heart broke. So little for a life.

“Thirty-five pounds!”

Good grief. Did I just shout that?

The hammer came down.

“Sold to the lady on my right. Congratulations, love. He’ll be a right cracker.”

Now what? I’d never had to transport a pony before, but I was fairly sure it wouldn’t fit into the boot of a Toyota Prius. I didn’t even have a headcollar.

I was still standing there, dazed, when a young lad handed over a piece of frayed baling twine with Picnic attached to the other end and held out his palm for the cash.

“You look confused, lady.”

“I’m just not quite sure how I’m going to get him home.”

He jerked his thumb to the side. “Try old Joe. He’s got a trailer.”

Turned out old Joe was delighted to help. For the bargain price of eighty-five pounds, he delivered Picnic on his piece of string right to my garden gate.

“You keeping him in there, love?”

“I think so. Yes. Yes, I am.”

“But there’s a big hole in the back fence.”

I followed his finger as he pointed. So there was. I hadn’t ventured outside much, and the garden was enormous. More like a jungle, really, and the inside of the house depressed me quite enough already.

“He was a bit of an impulse buy.”

For another thirty pounds, Joe fished around in my tumbledown shed for some old planks, then nailed them over the gap. He waved cheerily as he drove off with my pile of money.

Fantastic.

“Okay, Picnic, it’s just you and me. Please don’t eat the door handles, and if you could avoid scratching your bottom on my car, I’d be much obliged.”

Never again would I act on impulse.

CHAPTER 2

FAST-FORWARD THREE months, and Picnic was a little on the chubby side. He had his own bucket instead of drinking from the washing-up bowl, and thanks to the support of my new buddies on the Horse and Hound internet forum, I’d begun riding him.

Which led us to our current predicament.

Theoretically, it should have been possible for me to navigate by the stars, which were now beginning to twinkle in the rapidly blackening sky. But I didn’t know my Polaris from my elbow, so we’d run out of luck there.

“Do you know the way back, boy?”

I’d once read an article about horses and their sense of direction. According to the author, if you gave a pony its head, it would always find its way home. I dropped Picky’s reins and crossed my fingers, only for him to take two steps to a particularly juicy clump of grass and start noshing. So much for that idea.

How cold did it get at night? Sure, it was only early September, but I still needed my duvet, and my little portable heater had been on for the last fortnight.

“Picky, just walk, okay? You won’t get carrots if we can’t find our way home.”

---