Читать книгу A HORSE FOR ANGEL - Sarah Lean, Sarah Lean - Страница 12

RAN BACK TO THE CAR AND LIFTED THE BROWN leather case out of the boot.

I’d just wanted to see the carousel built again. That’s all. And I wanted to build it myself this time. I’d hidden it in the boot when Mum wasn’t looking. She wouldn’t know and then it would only matter to me. Only I hadn’t thought about how to get it into Aunt Liv’s house without anyone seeing. I couldn’t think how to do it without getting found out and I was about to put it back in the boot, cover it with the picnic blanket and forget the whole stupid idea, because now it was actually happening it wasn’t easy or like I had imagined. And then I heard something. The thunder of thumping hooves.

I spun round. Galloping round the corner, pounding straight towards me, was a black-and-white horse, a dark rider hidden behind its flying mane. They hadn’t seen me.

I dropped the case. All the metal pieces inside clanked as it slammed to the ground. The horse swung its side round towards me, skidding on the gravel. I leapt back to flatten myself against the car, but missed and fell. The horse screamed, reared up, its long mane billowing around it like a storm. I covered my head, curled up, held my breath.

And when you believe you’re going to die because the flying hooves are going to crush you, you can’t help what you think. And what I thought in that moment was that I’d be dead and Mum was going to find the carousel next to me and then I wouldn’t be able to explain and she wouldn’t understand. She’d think I’d been hiding it all along. She’d be unhappy forever thinking I had betrayed her too. And then the tin girl was there in my mind and she whooshed around and turned her back and I shouted, “No!” because I thought she was going to leave me and somehow it mattered more than anything.

Instead, there was a cry, a thud, as the rider hit the ground. The horse stamped down beside me, brushing my arm with the long feathery hair on its legs as it kicked away from me.

For a moment the startled horse stood over me, throwing its head, its skin quivering. I could see me in its wide dark eye, a tiny me lying there on the ground. It snorted, its nostrils flaring. Then it turned and galloped away, its white tail streaming behind it.

From the verge behind the car I heard the footsteps of the rider.

“Help,” I said.

Nobody came. But from where I was lying I saw a pair of small feet in black pumps tiptoeing past the other side of the car. I saw a hand reach out to the brown leather case and drag it away.

“Hey!” I said.

But the feet were running, running away with the case and the carousel.