Sleepover Girls on Horseback
Join the Sleepover Club: Frankie, Kenny, Felicity, Rosie and Lyndsey, five girls who just want to have fun – but who always end up in mischief!The Sleepover Club is 'Friends' for 7-9 year olds! A group of girls, each with their own forceful personality, who have sleepovers at each other’s houses, laugh, gossip, plot revenge on their deadly enemies, the M&Ms, and always manage to find themselves at the centre of trouble.In 'Sleepover Girls on Horseback', the girls start a campaign to save their local riding school. After various disastrous attempts at fund-raising, they arrange a stable fun day which, for timid Fliss, becomes a never-to-be-forgotten experience!
Читать Sleepover Girls on Horseback онлайн беплатно
by Fiona Cummings
Hi there. Do you want to come and see the horses with me? Thatâs where Iâm going now. Look, I know youâre thinking, Lyndz is going to bore us with all that dreary stable stuff! The rest of the Sleepover Club used to think that as well. And tut and sigh and make neighing noises. But not any more. Not after our latest adventure. In fact, theyâre coming to see the horses too. Iâm going to meet them there â honest!
I havenât told you before, but I have a riding lesson once a week and I help out at the local stables whenever I can. I donât talk about it too much in front of the others because they start getting bored and yawn a lot. Still, when you hear about their riding experiences, itâs not surprising really. Take Fliss for a start.
Whenever I even mention mucking out, she puts her hands over her ears and starts squealing. Sheâs far too anxious about staying clean and tidy to get involved in things like that! Actually I enjoy all those bits â the mucking out and the grooming â almost as much as the riding. You feel kind of close to the horses and they smell all sort of sweet and leathery and warm.
Sorry, there I go again! Where was I? Oh yes, Fliss. She can be a bit of a wimp sometimes and she actually admits that sheâs frightened of horses. I suppose I can sort of understand that â they are kind of big. But theyâre just so gentle! Even Fliss understands that now, but boy did she find out the hard way! I think we all feel a bit guilty about what happened, but sheâs OK now.
Frankie is more sensible. She went for riding lessons with Kenny once. Can you imagine that? Kenny on a horse acting the fool and pretending to be a cowboy! It was all âYee-ha!â and âHi Ho, Silver!â
You know Kenny: she always wants to do everything as fast as she can. She expected to be out hacking on her first lesson and jumping fences by her second. She just didnât realise that riding isnât like that. Itâs all about communicating with the horse. You and the horse have to work as a team. Riding is very hard work. And Kenny doesnât like hard work at the best of times. So she gave up.
Frankie lasted a bit longer, but you could tell that she wasnât in love with horses in the way I am. I think you really do have to love them to want to work at getting everything right. You have so much to think about â squeezing your legs here, holding the reins there, sitting just so. Itâs not just about trotting along and looking pretty. Which is just as well because I never look pretty. Thatâs what my four stupid brothers tell me anyway. Even Spike, and heâs only a baby!
Rosie is the fifth member of the Sleepover Club and she didnât take to riding either. She went along after her brother, Adam, started. You rememer Adam, donât you? Heâs a year older than Rosie and has cerebral palsy. Riding is a form of therapy for him. He started going once a week with his school and when his mum realised how much it was helping him, she arranged for him to go with two of his friends on another afternoon.
He rides at the same stables as me. Mrs McAllister, who owns it, is a qualified instructor for the Riding for the Disabled Association. Sheâs brilliant because as well as knowing everything there is to know about horses, she knows exactly what kind of horse someone like Adam needs to ride. She says that a little pony like Bramble would have too choppy a stride, so he goes on Marvel, who is a chestnut mare. Her walk is much smoother, but Adam still has to squeeze his legs very hard to make her obey his commands. And when you think about it thatâs really tough for Adam because he spends all day in a wheelchair so heâs not using his leg muscles at all. Just balancing on Marvel gives him a really tough workout.
Crikey, I sound like some kind of doctor, donât I? Kenny would be proud of me!
Adam was so thrilled about riding Marvel, he told Rosie all about it. Of course, she wanted to have a go then. She was put on Alfie, the most gorgeous bay with a white star on his forehead and eyelashes to die for, but poor Rosie just couldnât get it together at all. First she had trouble mounting him, then her legs wouldnât stay in the right position in the stirrups. And Alfie just did his own thing, no matter what Rosie tried to tell him to do. In the end she told her mum that riding wasnât for her and she never went again.
I bet youâre wondering what this has to do with our latest adventure, arenât you? Well, quite a lot actually â come with me to the stables and Iâll tell you all about it on the way.
It started when we were round at Rosieâs one afternoon after school. We were working on some dumb geography project.
âI donât know why Mrs Weaver doesnât just send us all on holiday if she wants us to find out about other countries,â snarled Kenny, stuffing yet another chocolate biscuit into her mouth.
