Tammy

By Ken Vincent

When the Campbell family move to the country, eleven-year-old Jane spends all her spare time watching the horses in the paddock next door. Realising they need to do something about her obsession, her parents sign her up for riding lessons. When they see that Jane has a flair for riding, her parents decide she should have a horse of her own &ndas

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Dec 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781760410681

Ken Vincent

Ken Vincent was much-loved South Australian writer of poetry; novels and short stories. Tammy was his first book for children.

Book preview

Chapter One

Obsession

Jane leant over the fence of the paddock opposite her home, staring longingly at the horses grazing quietly in the distance. They would often come up to the fence so she could give them a pat and feed them the grass she had picked from her side of the fence.

There were four of them and Jane had given each of them a name. The brown horse was called Bossy, as he always pushed the others away so he could be first to eat her grass. Then there was Sandy, the chestnut; Cloudy, the grey; and her favourite, Goldie the palomino, who was the smallest of them all and the most affectionate.

Jane spent all her spare time at the fence, wishing she had the courage to climb over it and go to the horses. They didn’t always come to her. Their owner fed them further down the road, parking his truck on the grass verge. So at this time of the day they stayed where they were most likely to be fed. Their water trough was opposite Jane’s house, which brought them wandering along around dusk each evening when they wanted to drink. This was what Jane was now waiting for.

Jane was eleven years of age and she and her family had moved into the new house six months ago. It was on the very edge of the urban sprawl.

‘We won’t lose our view. This is where the city will end,’ her father had said optimistically.’

She had taken one look at the paddock and the horses and had decided the move was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

‘Jane! Jane! Where are you, Jane?’

She heard her mother calling. The horses were just starting to move. She had her grass ready in a small bundle at her feet. She had walked up the road to get the bundle. There wasn’t much left where she usually stood.

‘Jane, darling, tea’s ready!’ called her mother.

Jane wanted to wait for the horses but they weren’t hurrying. She decided she had better go. Of late, the family had been teasing her about the time she stood at the fence. Her father had said she was becoming obsessed, whatever that meant. It sounded serious because he didn’t smile when he said it.

Reluctantly, she turned towards her home, crossed the road and went inside to find the family about to sit down for the evening meal.

‘Is Scarecrow still alive?’ asked her brother Jeremy.

Jane had told him about the names she had given the horses, but fourteen-year-old Jeremy considered himself a bit of a wit and had named them himself. To him, they were Scarecrow, Sandpaper, Foggy and the Dumb Blonde. It was not very clever but it annoyed Jane, which was what he had set out to do.

Jane ignored him. He was diverted by his mother placing in front of him a huge plate of macaroni cheese, his favourite food.

Jane loved her parents, Bob and Rose Campbell. She loved her older sister, sixteen-year-old Frances and her younger brother, Bob junior, who had just celebrated his eighth birthday. She didn’t love Jeremy; she hated Jeremy, who teased her the most about the horses and about everything else.

‘Dangerous both ends and uncomfortable in the middle,’ he would say. He had heard his father say that once and had claimed it as his own.

Bob Campbell was a successful wine maker and the family had moved to the outskirts of Gawler to be near Bob’s new work in the Barossa Valley. They had moved from Seaford in the south, where they had been surrounded by a new estate. At Seaford there were no paddocks nearby, just houses and the sea. The family had moved a lot over the years, as Bob worked hard to become established in the wine industry and to gain a reputation. He had been successful and had just been headhunted by a large company to lead their team of winemakers in the Barossa Valley, giving special attention to the premium wines for which they were famous.

The move had other attractions for Bob and Rose. Gawler had a number of very good schools and they had chosen to send all four children to one of the private colleges. Gawler was still a large regional town and had a rural feel about it and they sensed it would be a safer place for their children than the southern suburbs. Their new home was modern, large enough to meet their needs, and was on two hectares of land. Bob didn’t know what he would do with the land as yet but was vaguely toying with the idea of growing a few vines.

All the children had their own room, which they considered to be the very best, having shared rooms in their old house. At first, they had found sleeping alone to be strange and had missed the company and the after-lights-out chat but none of them would have admitted it. When they adjusted, they thought it was cool to have a room they could decorate as they wanted. Frances plastered posters of the latest teen pop idols over her walls, Jeremy had posters of his football and cricketing heroes, Bob junior was into Harry Potter in a big way and Jane covered every inch of the walls of her room with pictures and posters of horses. Posters of the cast of Saddle Club competed with pictures of the latest Olympic dressage champion or, more importantly, her horse.

My Pony, a present from her grandmother for her tenth birthday, stood in pride of place on the top of her dresser. Copies of Black Beauty, The Silver Brumby and a set of Pony Club manuals stood next to My Pony. The manuals were a present from a much older cousin who had been an avid pony-clubber but was now married and out of horses. She had also given Jane the bridle and the old saddle that sat on a chair in the corner along with the riding hat which hung on the wall. Jane kept them properly cleaned and oiled, having taught herself how by reading the pony club manuals. She had bought the saddle soap and leather oil with her pocket money.

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After the children had gone to bed that evening, Bob and Rose settled down to talk.

‘We have a problem,’ Bob said as a conversation opener.

‘We have many, so which particular problem are you talking about?’ asked Rose.

‘Jane and her obsession with horses: it’s getting worse. She spends every moment she can hanging over the fence looking at four broken-down hay-burners. I thought she‘d get over it.’

‘I was just as dotty about horses at that age, then I discovered boys and that put an end to it,’ replied Rose.

‘Well, I don’t want Jane to discover boys just yet. What’ll we do? Any suggestions?’ Bob asked.

Rose and Bob sat silently while they each considered what was the best thing to do.

Eventually Rose said, ‘Why don’t we see if she’d like to go to a riding school for a while and see where it goes from there?’

‘Is that wise? Riding is very expensive.’

‘Yes, I know, but we can afford it, and remember Jane’s the only one without a sport. Frances has her netball, Jeremy his football and cricket, and Bob his soccer.’

‘I’d have no idea where to start. Have you?’

‘Not a clue, but I bet Jane will know,’ Rose responded. ‘Let’s talk to her tomorrow.’

The talk didn’t happen as planned.

After school, Jane went to the fence, hoping to feed the horses when the owner arrived to check the water trough. She had seen him in the distance and had always wished she could to talk to him about the horses.

From close up, she wasn’t so sure if she wanted to. He was a rough-looking old man, unshaven, wearing clean but old and patched work clothes. She noticed his hands; they were large and rough as though he had worked hard all his life.

She watched him clean the trough and check that the float valve worked properly. The four horses arrived to see if he had any feed and then came over to her at the fence when he ignored them.

She plucked up her courage. ‘What are their names?’ she asked.

The owner looked up and stared at her. ‘Never mind their names. You keep away from them. I’ve seen you feeding them and I want you to stop. I don’t want to be sued by your father because you get nipped by one of them and go blubbering to him, telling tales.’ This speech was delivered aggressively and in a loud and rough voice.

Jane was shocked by this angry outburst. She stood there staring at the man, trying to think what she had done wrong. She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t mind being nipped by the horses and she didn’t ever go blubbering to her parents, not even when Jeremy was really horrible. She wanted to tell him that she knew how to feed a horse without being bitten, but she could say none of those things. It was so unfair. He doesn’t know me so why does he think I would do something so silly, she thought.

She turned away and walked back to her house, close to tears. In her room, she lay on her bed and cried quietly to herself. It was the first time Jane