Horse Business

• Aimeé Bowden, Grade 7, Oonoonba State School
• Short Story
• 2013

Excellence Award in the 'Dream Big 2013' competition

Today has been a long and tiring day. I was riding on my friend’s beautiful chestnut mare called Lady, when I found myself talking to an old friend of the family, James Gloster. Gloster was a poorly dressed but friendly man. I told him about my holiday in Wangaratta and my experiences with Lady; how she would show off with all her fancy stunts and prances to the local towns people, how after we would get several whistles and applause's, how I would let the publican’s daughters ride her and she would toss her head for some extra attention.
James, Lady and I strutted over to the old rickety bridge into Greta. James and his horse strolled into the dimly lit pub. I was about to follow James inside when Constable Hall’s hand flung up and waved me over to the dingy old police station. Lady and I trotted over to the station to see what the problem was. Hall was a big, fat, greedy pig, always in a foul temper. Hall started talking about some papers I had to sign. To keep the peace with the police, I got ready to jump off Lady to sort out the paper work. Before I could, Constable Halls’ massive big hands grabbed my newly cleaned shirt shouting, “I’m arresting you for stealing this horse”. I was in trouble yet again! I let his hands yank me down to the dry, dusty earth; luckily I landed on him instead. With all the commotion Lady reared up with fright, kicking more dry earth with her hooves into Halls eyes making it harder to for him to get up off the ground. Lady frantically galloped away while I scrambled off Constable Hall, who was now sweaty with the exertion. I ran off after poor frightened Lady, leaving Hall struggling to get up off the dry earth. He finally scrambled up and managed to yank his revolver out before I could even take 5 steps. “I will have all the pleasure in the world of shooting you dead Ned Kelly,” he roared at me. All the local towns’ people stood in shock and excitement at all the commotion between Constable Hall and I. Hall clumsily took a shot and narrowly missed me. He took a second shot but missed again. This was pure luck on my behalf. I leapt at Hall, one hand grabbing the gun and the other grabbing a handful of Halls fat neck. Hall started screaming like a girl, all the local towns people lunged onto my back making it ache so much that it felt like it had been cracked. Hall reached out and snatched the gun out of my sticky, sweaty, grubby hands and brought the heavy wooden gun crashing down over my head making my head throb. I had dark sticky red blood mixed with sweat pouring out of my skull and dripping down onto my filthy face making me feel woozy with unconsciousness.