Free Scout and the Mystery of the Marsh Ponies by Belinda Rapley Page A

Common and were onto her, she’d have had to sell Scout in a serious hurry. Mrs Valentine must have picked him up really cheaply, I bet.”
    “And now she’s trying to sell him on for a huge profit,” Rosie tutted.
    “This doesn’t just mean there’s a link between Mrs Valentine and all the ponies on Dragonfly Marsh,” Mia said. “It confirms what we’d all suspected – that there’s also a link between Mrs Valentine and not just any old dealer, but a very dodgy one in Mrs Hawk.”
    As the four girls sat among the boxes and discarded paper they suddenly realised that the case had taken a sinister twist. They sat stony-faced, until Rosie glanced sideways and suddenly perked up.
    “Bingo!” she cried, pulling some old baseball caps out of a box. “Our disguises!”

Chapter Eleven
    Jock hooted outside Blackberry Farm’s gate at seven thirty the next morning, ready for the hour’s drive ahead. The girls had all slept over at the farm ready for their early start, and they’d already been out in the yard, mixing feeds and taking them out for their ponies to eat in the field. After they’d got back in, Rosie, Alice and Charlie had groaned as they lounged across the kitchen table yawning, their dusty baseball caps pulled low over their faces. Mia, who was refusing to wear hers until the very last possible moment, had piled her glossy black hair up first thing in preparation while Mrs Honeycott made everyone tea and thick slices of toast with melted butter and strawberry jam.
    “Mia, it’s officially wrong that you can look so neat and together this early in the morning,” Rosie sighed as she heard the toot and scraped back her chair. She called out goodbye to her parents, and kissed Beanie, who was rustling round the kitchen, and Pumpkin, who was curled up near the Aga.
    “I don’t know how you do it,” Charlie agreed sleepily as she pushed her brown fringe under the peak of her hat.
    “It’s a talent, I know.” Mia smiled sweetly as they bundled out of the cottage and clambered into Jock’s jeep, clanging shut the rattly door and saying hello.
    As Jock drove, the girls chattered away, laughing as they got bounced around on the hard seats every time they went over the tiniest bump in the road. They told him what they’d uncovered about Mrs Hawk, which he remembered hearing about at the time, and described Mrs Valentine to him. He agreed to keep an eye out for her too.
    Rosie somehow managed to doze as they rattled along until Charlie, realising they were getting close, gave her a nudge. She’d caught sight of the brush fences and white rails curling around the smooth green turf of their local point-to-point racetrack where the auction was being held. As they craned their necks, they saw a huge, slightly grubby-looking marquee with ‘Roger Green Auctions’ emblazoned in a rich emerald green across the arch of a tunnel, which led to a circular main tent.
    Jock wound down his window as they turned off the busy road and bumped across an uneven field. He announced himself as the official farrier, making the girls feel very important, before being waved off to park on the right. He rumbled forward, then ground to a juddering halt in the area of the car park reserved for ‘officials’, away from a huge mass of ancient trailers and old horseboxes. As the humming engine was switched off, its noise was replaced at once by the buzz of hundreds of voices.
    As soon as they jumped out into an already sweltering day, Alice, Charlie, Mia and Rosie were almost swallowed up by the people bustling backwards and forwards. It was still early but the air was filled with the smell of burgers, horse manure and lots of people packed in together. They made their way through the crowds from the car park, past ponies which were already being exercised in far corners of the field, with numbered stickers on their rumps. They continued past the temporary stables where they could hear the shrill neighs of hundreds of nervous