Phantom: One Last Chance by Belinda Rapley Read Free Book Online

out of the woods between the turnout and schooling paddocks, Charlie’s heart sank again. She’d expected to see Pirate’s head poking over the gate to welcome them back. Only he wasn’t there. Instead, she saw him standing in the far corner, looking away from them.
    “Sulking,” Rosie announced knowingly. Charlie sighed and called out to him, suspecting that Rosie was right. While the others took their ponies into the yard, Pirate turned, his ears pricked, then trotted jauntily across the field to the gate. Charlie picked up the headcollar from the post, where she’d slung it earlier, and went to put it on. Then she noticed that the lead rope wasn’t attached to the central ring as normal: it was clipped onto the side ring. Charlie frowned, trying to remember if she’d changed it that morning, but she was sure she hadn’t. She moved the lead rope back into its usual place, then slipped theheadcollar on Pirate. Charlie patted him and did a double take. His mane normally spiked up all over the place, and fell both sides of his neck. But now it was lying smoothly on just one side. He lifted his nose to nuzzle her.
    “You’ve eaten some mints!” Charlie gasped, as she smelled the coolness on his breath. It was ages since she’d given him that mint before they’d all gone out riding – the smell wouldn’t have lingered that long. She turned and quickly trotted Pirate back into the yard. She popped him in his box then ran straight over to the tack room, where the girls had just dumped their saddles and bridles. She got to the door, just in time to hear Mia tutting loudly while she stared at her grooming kit.
    “ Another long black hair! In my dandy brush this time!” she cried. “What’s going on?”
    “It’s hardly a mystery, Mia,” Rosie said. “Hairs do float about and there are ponies with black hair on this yard.”
    “Considering I cleaned all my brushes lastnight and brought them in with me this morning, free from black hairs ,” Mia huffed, “I think it is a mystery.”
    Rosie and Alice exchanged a smile, but Charlie chipped in.
    “I think Mia’s right,” she said.
    “Are you being serious?” Rosie asked, half laughing.
    “Totally,” Charlie nodded. “Someone’s been here while we’ve been out.”

Chapter Eight
    “IS the hair in place?” Mia asked the next morning before the Pony Detectives set out. Alice and Charlie nodded. They were going to test Mia and Charlie’s theory that someone had been into the tack room and used Mia’s grooming kit while they were out riding. So they’d set a trap and taped one of Scout’s grey tail hairs, which was almost see-through , across the tack-room door.
    “Okay,” Rosie said sceptically. “So now we go out and pin up adverts for loaning Pirate in the post office and on various trees – again . And, when we get back, if the hair isn’t broken but there are black hairs in Mia’s grooming kit, we know it’s just the air that’s been moving the hairs about.”
    “Correct,” Mia agreed, “but if the hair is broken,we know Charlie and me are right – someone’s been sneaking onto the yard.”
    Rosie looked unconvinced, but the others felt a tingle go up their spines as they mounted. Charlie got onto her bike again, having turned out Pirate on his own in the paddock. They rode out onto Duck Lane and stuck to a walk all round the lanes on their way to the village. Then they cut back across the bridleway and into the woods, and pinned up postcard-sized adverts on a few of the big trees where bridleways forked off, hoping that as many people as possible would see them. Charlie sighed.
    “This is the third time we’ve done this,” she said, pressing in the final pin.
    “Hopefully it will be the last,” Mia said, trying to sound optimistic.
    Suddenly Wish, Dancer and Scout all raised their heads at exactly the same time and stared into the depths of the woods.
    “What have they seen?” Alice said, peeringthrough the lightly hanging