Free Blind Beauty by K M Peyton

I reckon. Eh, Tessa?”
    She would not admit it, even to Jimmy.
    â€œGoing to keep up your lessons – the ones that matter?”
    â€œOh yes! Yes please!”
    â€œGood.”
    Tessa could not remember feeling so happy as she did at that moment, not since Declan and Shiner. She loved Jimmy – like Buffoon… it was all too much for her. She had to go out. She could not cope.
    â€œWhat did she do, to get thrown out again?” Jimmy asked the tack-room.
    Gilly, who knew all the local gossip, said, “She drew a knife on Jackie Barstow.”
    Wisbey’s eyes widened.
    â€œA knife! Blimey! You didn’t say she was dangerous! Only mad.”
    â€œShe’s dangerous if she doesn’t get what she wants,” Sarah said.
    Jimmy said to Sarah, “Give her Buffoon. She’s got nothing else in this life.”
    â€œBut to be so besotted – it’s dangerous – what will she do when he goes?”
    â€œFor now. She’ll grow up eventually.”
    â€œYeah, go on,” said Gilly. “Wisbey doesn’t want him – remember what he said when he saw him? Bloody cab-horse, he said. He only likes him now because he’s so easy to do. Give him something worthy of his talents!”
    Sarah said, “He can have God Almighty.”
    â€œYou’re joking?” Wisbey was uncertain.
    â€œNo, I mean it. He’ll give you something to think about.”
    Wisbey’s eyes shone. “I thought he was yours?”
    â€œI’m Head Lad, remember. I don’t ‘do’ horses.”
    â€œYou could have fooled me,” Gilly said.
    They all laughed.
    So Tessa got her wish, Wisbey got his heart’s desire in God Almighty and Sarah took over a new horse called Catbells. There were now fifteen horses in the stable, a few new ones and the ones that had been having a summer holiday. The others did three each and Tessa was given Buffoon and a gelding everyone called the Littlun, because he was scarcely fifteen and a half hands high. He was ponyish in his ways, quick and agile, and quite different to ride from the ponderous Buffoon. In fact, as Tessa’s expertise grew, she enjoyed her exercise on the Littlun because he wasn’t such hard work as Buffoon, he was so eager and keen to go. For all his hard food and new fitness, Buffoon was still like a double-decker bus, slowing down at every opportunity.
    The others all ribbed Tessa over Buffoon, but she learned to take it. She did not answer back, but her silences were no longer what Gilly had described as “evil”. Inside she smiled to herself. Nothing could budge her trust in him.
    To her, he was a great horse.
    Peter got worried because he was employing a twelve-year-old child and could get taken to court. Tessa refused to be paid, so said there was no problem.
    â€œYou won’t be able to stay – it’s only temporary, until you get yourself an education,” Peter said, to allay his own fears.
    But Tessa said, “I will stay.”
    She knew now that there was no school that would take her, not after the knife. Jackie’s father tried to involve the police over the knife, but Mrs Alston refused to co-operate with them. It was an in-house situation, she said. If Mr Barstow didn’t like it he could withdraw Jackie. She arranged for Tessa to have private tuition at home. As this was only a few hours a week, and in the afternoons, it did not interfere with Tessa’s stable life. The tutor was a hardened, retired battleaxe, of which sex Tessa found it hard to determine, but as Tessa was so happy with the way her plans had succeeded she worked with a will and made no trouble. So much so that the battleaxe told Mrs Alston that she ought to be reinstated, there was nothing wrong with her attitude.
    â€œThere will be, if she comes back,” Mrs Alston said. “What does she do in her spare time, I’d like to know?”
    â€œI don’t know, but she