Free Phantom: One Last Chance by Belinda Rapley

fro and the odd smoky-grey pigeon looking for loose feed in the yard.
    Charlie sighed as she sat down with the others. She knew how much Pirate hated being cooped up, especially when his friends were out.
    “It’s only for one day,” Mia reminded her as Rosie picked up the Christmas Pony Mad and started to flick through it. Alice was snuggled up next to Rosie, looking at the pages with her until they got to the classifieds.
    Rosie was about to turn the page when Alice put out her hand to stop her, frowning. Part of the page was missing – just a tiny square from the bottom, and it was barely noticeable, but there was still a bit of pink highlighter on the page around the tear. Her mouth dropped open and she looked up at the others.
    “You know that advert for the dressage pony we thought would suit Megan,” she said quickly. “It’s missing…”
    The others looked over and gasped.
    “Well none of us would’ve taken it,” Charlie said, looking round at her friends, “which means…”
    “It has to be Megan,” Mia concluded with a frown. “When her dad said she was spending time with her bay loan pony, we just assumed he meant Pirate!”
    “When he might have meant a different pony altogether.” Rosie shivered. “But how do we know if that dressage pony is bay or not?”
    “We call Rockland Riding School,” Mia said quickly. “The pony was from there – has anyone got their number?”
    Rosie ran to the cottage and came back with it. She rang it, but when the manager answered she suddenly went blank. She threw the phone like it was a hot potato to Mia, who caught it,put it on speakerphone and, rolling her eyes at Rosie, took over the conversation.
    “Hi, I was wondering if the dressage pony advertised in Pony Mad’s still up for loan?”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, no. A young girl took him on a few days ago,” the voice at the other end told them.
    “I know it’s an odd question,” Mia continued, as the others held their breath, “but could you let me know what colour the pony is?”
    “Of course!” the man laughed. “Mistral’s a very handsome bright bay. Megan, his new rider, is over the moon with him.”
    Mia thanked the manager for the information, then ended the call and took a deep breath.
    “It looks like this has just turned into a proper case, after all,” she said to the others. A sudden chill gripped her and she pulled the blanket close.
    The girls sat in stunned silence for a moment as the sky outside started to darken, until Charlie’s phone buzzed, frightening them all half to death.
    “It’s Mrs Millar,” she whispered before pressing the speakerphone button and answering, her heart still racing. Mia flipped to a new page in her notebook, ready to take notes for Charlie.
    “Ah, Charlie, Mrs Millar here,” Mrs Millar began, after Charlie had said hello. “I’ve done a bit of digging around and this is what I’ve found. You know some of it, but I’ll go through it all anyway. So, Pixie’s father bought Phantom in March this year. Before that, I had him on the yard for about eighteen months. He was a tricky horse but he settled after a while, helped by the friendship he got when Wish Me Luck arrived. Only, she was sold to your friend Mia pretty quickly, and he got fretful again after that.
    “Now, I bought him off a woman called Liz, who was desperate to sell at any price. She’d got him as a four-year-old from a dealer, who promised that he was an amazing jumper. He was that all right, but he was a handful too, even by that age. Liz only had him a few months beforedeciding that she couldn’t cope. The dealer refused to have him back, saying that he’d had Phantom since he was two and a half and he’d been backwards and forwards on trials the whole time. He’d been glad to get rid of him. While he was with me we took him right back to the start and he was going really nicely by the time he left. Spirited and quirky, always living on his nerves and fretting all the while,