Free Riding on Air by Maggie Gilbert Page A

and ask why) so I couldn’t muck around getting Jinx worked or I’d run out of time.
    As I looped Jinx’s reins out of the way around his neck and sent him out to start circling around me, I wondered for about the thousandth time if William really liked me. Obviously he didn’t hate me or anything. I wasn’t a moron (well, not all the time) and even I couldn’t believe he’d spend time with me or help me with Jinx if he thought I totally sucked. But I couldn’t help wondering. I couldn’t help coming up with all sorts of crazy theories. Like maybe Jennie had asked him to be nice to me, or Gary had put him up to it; he’d certainly acted a bit weird when William told him he wanted to ask me out. Or maybe it was even worse—maybe William just felt sorry for me.
    I swallowed a sigh and stepped forward to stop Jinx and turn him around in the other direction. Maybe I should just stick to riding. It was about the only thing I had any clue about.
    Twenty minutes later, I wasn’t even sure about that anymore. Jinx was fresh and silly, despite the lunging, and he wanted to jog and go faster, faster, faster. I kept trying to put him on my aids, get him between my leg and hand and he kept sort of oozing out.
    I circled him in walk, changing to the right rein where things were usually a bit easier for us. I took a light hold of the outside rein with my left hand, wrapped my right leg a little more firmly around his ribs, then gave him a squeeze with both legs, on-off, to tell him to go into trot.
    Jinx obeyed with way too much enthusiasm, bouncing into trot, poking his neck forward and grabbing at the bit, leaning on my hands. Wincing at the strain this put on my swollen joints, I clamped my aching fingers around the reins and braced my back in a firm half-halt, before releasing the tension I’d created in my spine and moving with him to encourage him forwards. But Jinx didn’t take the cue and shift his weight to his hindquarters to move forward in trot with energy and lightness. Instead he just sort of sucked back into himself even as his legs moved faster, a bad old habit from the early days, where he dropped his back and ducked his head behind the bit, tucking his nose towards his chest.
    â€œShit,” I ground out, my hands killing me. The frustration boiling up inside was almost worse than the ache in my knuckles and wrists. I clamped my legs around him, pressing my weight down through my knees, into my lower legs and to the stirrups, as I set the reins and pulled Jinx back to walk.
    Sweat itched down my face from beneath my helmet and I tilted my head to wipe my face on my arm, breathing hard, my mind racing, going back over what I’d just done. I didn’t think I’d made a mistake with my aids, so I gathered myself, set Jinx into a small circle to get his attention and then asked again.
    And again, he took off like a steam train, yanking on my arms, sending scalding red-hot daggers of pain shooting though my hands and wrists. I drove him forward, circling again, inside leg on the girth, outside hand holding as tight as I could, but I couldn’t close the door, the pain bringing involuntary tears to my eyes and sucking all the strength out of my hand. Jinx tugged at the contact and because he didn’t meet the check he needed to tell him to slow down and gather himself, he set his neck against the bit and pulled, taking the left rein straight through the weak grip of my left hand.
    I bit my lip against the shriek of pain and frustration that wanted to burst out of my mouth and let Jinx spiral in to the centre of the circle in response to the hold I still had on the other rein, cradling my abused hand to my stomach. Jinx, unsettled, threw his head up, banging me sharply in the face. As I finally dragged him to a crooked halt I could only pray the rush of wetness down over my lip was tears or sweat, not blood.
    I pressed the back of my forearm gingerly to my