The Stacy Gregg 3-book Horse Collection: Volume 1
She canters like this for almost an hour. When at last she rides Solomon back up the rutted track from the arena, she sees Prince Hassan looking down at her from the yards. She realises he has been standing there watching her the whole time.
As she rides Solomon back up the hill to join her uncle, Haya can feel her heart racing. Solomon is his favourite polo pony. She will be in big trouble for taking him.
“That was quite a fall you took,” her uncle says. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Are you sure?”
Haya nods.
“Good,” Prince Hassan says. “You have only six more to go.”
“Six more?” Haya asks.
“They say it takes seven falls before you can call yourself a rider,” Hassan says. “I have fallen more than seven times myself, too many to count.”
He smiles at Haya. “You had better ride Solomon again tomorrow, eh?”
This is how Haya develops her skills, spending hours and hours cantering the big chestnut polo pony round and round the field. As the weeks go by, Hassan will occasionally come down to the fields and show her his polo tricks, how to use her reins to steer the horse by holding them against his neck, pushing him from side to side. Soon she can pull Solomon this way and that without ever losing a beat. She can canter like polo players do, rising up into the air on every second stride.
“No, no, no!” Mrs Goddard nearly has kittens when Haya tries the same thing in her riding lessons. “We are not in Argentina herding cattle like gauchos! I will not have you neck-reining your pony in my class. For heaven’s sake, will you please sit down properly and stop using your stirrups to stand when you are cantering! This is not a polo chukka!”
Mrs Goddard might lose her temper, but she cannot deny that Haya is her star pupil. With each day, her balance and skill are growing. By the time winter has been and gone and the spring is in bloom she is able to ride Solomon at a gallop bareback and coax the horse into twists and turns on the polo field, barely touching the reins. Solomon is too tall for her to practise vaulting tricks so when she wants to play cowboys and Indians and leap onboard at a gallop she rides the Tank.
She is learning to jump too – Mrs Goddard makes her stick to trotting poles and cavaletti in her lessons, but when her instructor’s back is turned, she jumps everything and anything in her path. Old forty-four-gallon drums, sacks of barley and packing crates all become show jumps to ride the Tank over. Haya imagines that she is showjumping at the Horse of the Year Show with the roar of the crowd in her ears just like she has seen on the TV.
She rides other horses in the stables too, and is learning how to be sensitive as a rider and accommodate their quirks. Santi tells her it is good training to ride as many horses as possible to develop your instinct and feel. Haya knows this is important because the horse that she plans to ride is not Solomon or the Tank. Her heart remains set on the pretty bay filly with one white sock and a white star on her forehead, who whinnies when Haya comes to visit her loose box each morning.
Bree is well past three years old now and she has yet to feel the weight of a rider on her back. She has never had a bit between her teeth or felt the girth tighten round her as the saddle is strapped on.
All that is about to change. It is time to break her in.
Princess Haya, would you please pass me the oyster fork?”
Haya sighs and looks down at the table. Laid out in front of her is the Royal Jordanian dinner service, each plate adorned with the crest and initials of the King, and beside it a long row of exquisite silver cutlery. It is just like a state dinner – except there is no food being served, and there are no guests in the room, just Haya and Frances.
The Princess looks at the six forks in front of her. She takes a guess and picks up the skinniest one with two pointy prongs.
“That is a snail fork,” Frances says with an air of despair. “The oyster fork is to the left of it. It has the three tines, do you see? The wide one at the side severs the oyster from its shell and then you use the slender tines to spear the oyster and carry it to your mouth …”
“But I don’t like oysters,” Haya says.
“That,” Frances replies, “is not the point. What if you are invited to a state dinner where oysters are served and you do not know which fork to use?”
“It won’t matter because I won’t be eating them.” Haya feels as if Frances is missing the point here.
“You mother Queen Alia had the most noble manners.” Frances busies herself rearranging the cutlery. “But then I suppose some apples do not fall so close to the tree.”
Frances smooths down the tablecloth primly and then clasps both hands together and looks up gravely at the young Princess. “Now tell me. Which piece of cutlery would one use for eating strawberries?”
There was a time at Al Nadwa palace when Haya could practise her cartwheels up and down the corridors and get muddy running around on the lawn playing football with Ali and no one said anything about having to be proper and ladylike. But now she is ten she is being given cutlery classes.
“It’s ridiculous,” Haya grumbles to Ali as she rifles through the cutlery drawers in the royal kitchen. “Frances acts as if the kingdom will rise and fall on my ability to recognise forks!” She grasps two spoons and passes one to Ali and then opens the freezer and scans the shelves. Finally she sees the tub of strawberry ice cream. Ismail must have shoved it to the back of the shelf to hide it from her. She takes the tub and digs out two big servings of it, one for her and one for Ali. Then she gets out the chocolate sprinkles.
“I’ve tried to explain.” Haya is shaking the sprinkles a little too vigorously and they fly all over the bench. Ali reaches out to grasp his bowl of ice cream, but Haya is not finished yet. “I told her that Bree is ready to be broken in now. She needs me. I should be at the stables – not stuck here!”
Haya absent-mindedly passes Ali his bowl. “Well, I don’t care what Frances says. I am going to be a champion showjumper and I will live with my horses and I won’t have a governess and no one will tell me what to do!”
Ali takes his bowl of ice cream and climbs up next to Haya on the kitchen bench. “I’m going to be a footballer,” he tells her. “And a soldier.”
“You might end up being a King,” Haya points out. “Like Baba.”
“Nah,” Ali says, swinging his legs over the edge of the bench. “Abdullah will be King.”
Haya and Ali have a much older brother from the King’s previous marriage.
“What about you?” Ali counters. “You might be a Queen.”
Like Mama.
Haya knows that is what her brother was about to say, but he doesn’t because talking about Mama always ends up with one of them getting upset.
“Uh-uh. I won’t be a Queen,” Haya says, “because I am never getting married. I am going to live with my horses instead.” She puts on a posh voice as she mocks Frances: “A Queen has noble manners. A Queen knows which one the oyster fork is.”
They are on to their second bowl of ice cream when Zuhair, the head of the Royal Household, finds them in the kitchen.
“Frances is looking for you,” he tells Haya. “Your violin tutor has been waiting for nearly half an hour.”
Haya doesn’t feel like playing her violin. “Can’t we stay here?” she pleads with Zuhair. The kitchen is her favourite place to hide when Frances is on the warpath. Frances may have her allies in the palace, but the kitchen staff and the waiters are like family to Haya and Ali. Zuhair, too, is always on their side. But today he shakes his head.
“You had better do as she says. The cooks won’t want you underfoot when they are working.”
There is a royal banquet on tonight and very soon Ismail and his team will be in to begin preparations for the meal. Ismail gets very grumpy when there are guests coming, and Haya decides she is better off facing Frances and the violin teacher.
Haya also has a tutor for singing and ballet, and a teacher who comes three times a week to improve her Arabic. Frances is in charge of the rest of her lessons. She teaches her maths and geography and English. When Haya’s father was a boy, he went to boarding school in England. Frances says that in England you receive the finest education and one day Haya and Ali shall go too. As much as Haya cannot stand Frances, she thinks being sent to boarding school, away from Baba and Ali, would be much worse.
That evening Haya and Ali sit upstairs on the landing outside her room and watch the guests arriving in the entrance hall. The men are all dressed in dinner suits and some of them wear military sashes.
Haya and Ali are eating in their rooms tonight and the meals are sent up to them in the dumb waiter, which is a very tiny elevator for food that travels up and down from the kitchen to the landing outside Haya’s bedroom.
Haya loves to use the dumb waiter. She likes to put the tray inside and press the button to send it back to the kitchen once she has eaten. It is like a magic trick the way the tray goes into the box and then, abracadabra, Haya opens the roller door a few moments later and the dirty plates have disappeared.
For dinner the kitchen sends up plates of delicious hummus and tabbouleh salads with pitta bread for Haya and Ali. After they have eaten, they put the trays in the dumb waiter and send the plates back down. They play paper-scissors-rock to see who is going to press the button and Haya wins. Ali is annoyed because it was really his turn, and when the dumb waiter returns empty, he has an idea. He races into Haya’s bedroom and retrieves Doll.
“We can put Doll in the dumb waiter,” he says. “We can send her down to the kitchen and then get her back again.”
Haya is not certain that she wants to put her old favourite dolly in the dumb waiter. She has a better idea. “You get in,” she says to Ali. “I will push the button and send you down to the kitchen.”
“Me?” Ali squeaks.
“It can be our secret elevator,” Haya tells him. “We can go down to the kitchen any time we want and get ice cream and no one can stop us!”
Ali is keen, but when Haya slides the roller door open, he hesitates.
“Come on! Get in!” Haya tells him. Her eyes are shining with excitement.
It is a small space, but he will fit if he curls up. “I don’t want to do it,” Ali says.
“Ali,” Haya says. “You remember that time you asked me to help you to steal Baba’s car so you could enter the driving rally?”
Ali nods.
“And I did it, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Ali looks uncertain, “but you crashed it into a wall …”
“But it worked out OK in the end,” Haya insists. “Honestly, you’ll be fine. You can’t crash in a dumb waiter.”
Ali is still grumbling as he squeezes inside and tucks up into a ball so that Haya can close the door.
“I’m going to press the button,” Haya tells him. “When you get to the other end, knock on the roof of the box and I will hear you. I’ll press it again and bring you back up.”
“Should I open the door at the other end?” Ali asks.
“No,” Haya tells him. “The kitchen will be too busy. We don’t want Ismail to see you. Just knock on the roof and I will bring you straight back up again, OK?”
“OK,” Ali agrees. He takes a deep breath as if he is about to be submerged underwater and Haya slides the roller door shut and presses the button. With a creak and a groan, the dumb waiter begins to move. Haya has never noticed quite how slow and noisy the thing is, but now that Ali is inside and she is waiting for it to reach the bottom it seems to be taking forever!
Downstairs at the dinner the guests have been served and Haya can hear their voices and the chink of knives and forks against the plates. She sticks her head back into the shaft. What is taking so long? Then she hears a heavy thunk. She peers into the darkness.
Bang, bang! It is Ali knocking on the box.
Haya slides the roller door shut and presses the button. The dumb waiter creaks into gear once more. It begins to move, slower than before, the pulley ropes groaning and whining. And then, with a shudder, the dumb waiter stops. This is not good. Haya presses the button again. Her fingers stab it a third time, then a fourth, but nothing happens.
Haya slides the roller door open and looks down the shaft. The pulleys should be grinding and turning, lifting the box back up to her, but they aren’t moving.
“Ali?” she shouts down the shaft.
Inside the box, Ali has begun to panic. “Haya! Stop being silly! Make it come up! Haya!”
“Ali!” She calls back down the shaft to him. “Wait! It’s stuck! I am going to get you out! Just stay there!”
She realises as she races down the stairs that her last words were pointless. Where else can Ali go? He is trapped inside the dumb waiter, wedged in the narrow shaft between the floors of the house.
Haya feels her heart pounding. The pulley ropes did not look very sturdy. What if they break? She has to find Zuhair.
Haya is almost at the kitchen when she hears the ominous clack of sensible heels behind her in the corridor. “Your Royal Highness?”
Oh no! Frances.
“Where are you going? You know you are not allowed in the kitchen when there is a dinner party under way.”
The lump in Haya’s throat is now threatening to choke her. “I, ummm, I left Doll in the kitchen,” she says. “I need to get her.”
It is not the best excuse in the world, but luckily Frances accepts it.
“Very well, but stay out of the way,” she says. “Get your doll and go straight back upstairs to bed.”
“Yes, Frances!” Haya is already off and running for the kitchen. Ali has been in the dumb waiter for at least two minutes and he is probably starting to wonder if Haya has forgotten about him!
In the kitchen, the clattering pots and pans are so noisy it is no wonder the chefs haven’t heard the knocking and cries of the nine-year-old boy stuck in the dumb waiter. But when Haya bursts in through the doors, Zuhair knows immediately that something is very wrong.
“It’s Ali,” Haya says, pushing up the roller door and sticking her head into the shaft. “He’s stuck in there.”
Zuhair looks at her wide-eyed in disbelief. “Prince Ali is inside the dumb waiter?”
“Yes!” Haya says.
“How did he get in there?” Zuhair asks.
“I put him in there!” Haya says with exasperation. “Only he was too heavy and it got stuck on the way back up.”
The whole kitchen has stopped work. The pots and the pans are silent as the kitchen staff realise what is happening. The Prince of Jordan is stuck in a tiny wooden box dangling precariously by a rope and pulley.
Zuhair puts his head in the shaft and looks up. He can see the dumb waiter, stuck about halfway up. He tries pressing the button on the wall in the kitchen. Nothing happens.
One of the kitchen porters stands by nervously. “Mr Zuhair,” he says. “Do you want me to fetch the King?”
“No!” Haya says. “Please! Don’t tell my father.” She looks up at Zuhair. “Help me to get him out!”
Zuhair takes a deep breath. Then he turns back to his staff. “You – go upstairs now!” he commands. “And you, go with him! See if you can work the pulleys by hand and lower the box back down. Be very careful!”
Haya suddenly looks worried. “Do you think Ali has enough air? Can he breathe?”
Her question is answered by vigorous thumping from inside the dumb waiter. “Let me out!” Ali shouts. “Haya! What’s going on?”
“Ali!” Haya calls back up the shaft to him. “It’s OK. Zuhair is fixing it. We’re going to get you out.”
Zuhair sticks his head up the shaft. “Stay very still, Ali!” he calls out. “We are trying to lower you down.”
It seems to take forever for the porters to reach the top floor, and then ages for them to get the pulley moving, but eventually they manage to make the gears turn manually and the dumb waiter lowers slowly back down the shaft.
“Wait!” Zuhair cautions Ali as the dumb waiter comes to rest. But, as soon as the gap is wide enough, Ali squirms through it and Zuhair grabs him tight in his arms and pulls him to safety.
Then Zuhair rounds on Haya. “That,” he tells her, “was a very foolish mistake.”
“It was a test run,” Haya says. “I was here to get help if anything went wrong.”
Ali grins. “That was fun. Can we try it again?”
Before Zuhair can answer, the kitchen door swings open. It is Frances.
“What is going on in here?”
Haya’s heart is racing. The kitchen staff do not say a word. Neither does Zuhair. He gives Haya a faint smile and she knows by the look in his eyes that he will keep this secret between them.
“Well?” Frances says, addressing them with an imperious tone. “Doesn’t anyone have anything to say?”
The room is silent. And then, from the floor above them, a voice echoes down through the chamber of the dumb waiter. “Mr Zuhair! Did you get Prince Ali out yet?” There is a pause and then it gets worse as the porter’s voice echoes again. “You better hurry up, Mr Zuhair! Frances is on her way to the kitchen …”
His voice is cut off mid-stream as Frances walks briskly across the room and slams down the door of the dumb waiter. Her face is full of fury as she turns on Haya and Ali.
Haya climbs up on to the windowsill and dangles her legs over the edge. Her bedroom is on the second floor and it is a long way to the ground.
“Haya,” Ali says anxiously. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
“If you don’t want to come, then stay home,” Haya says. “I can go on my own.” She shimmies out further on to the ledge and turns round so that she is facing the bedroom. Then, before Ali can say anything more, she drops from the windowsill and disappears into thin air.
“Haya!”
There is a fire escape about a metre below the sill and Haya lands on this and crouches low just out of his view. When Ali sticks his head out of the window looking for her, Haya is there smiling up at him.
“Gotcha,” she grins.
“Not funny,” Ali insists.
“Come on, Ali!” Haya taunts him. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“No,” Ali says indignantly. “But we’re already grounded for a month. If Frances catches us again...”
“She won’t,” Haya says emphatically. “Ali, I can’t just leave Bree at the stables alone.”
The filly is supposed to be broken in this week. Haya has promised that she’ll behave and work hard at her lessons and never, ever leave the house, except to go to the stables and see her horse. But Frances knows that the best way to punish Haya is to keep her away from Bree, and has refused to let her see the filly.
“I’m sure Señor Lopez will have his grooms take care of the pony while you are grounded. There’s no need for you to go anywhere near the stables.”
The fire escape is like a jungle gym. The last rung is two metres off the ground and Haya hangs by her arms and then drops. Ali follows, landing on his feet like a cat, and together they walk to the gates of Al Nadwa.
The guards at the gate are surprised to see the King’s son and daughter walking alone without their bodyguards. Haya gives them a confident wave.
“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness?” It is one of the guards. “Where is your security detail?”
“It’s OK,” Haya smiles brightly. “We are only going to the stables.”
She takes a few more steps and then the guard strides briskly after her. “Wait!” Haya stops and turns back to him. “I am not supposed to let you pass without a guard to accompany you.”
Haya knew this was coming. “Please,” she begs him. “I need to go and see my horse. Frances won’t let me.”
The guard looks worried. “Wait a moment.”
He walks back to his post and speaks with the second guard and then he returns once more to Haya’s side.
“Your Royal Highness,” he says, “I have served your father for many years. Your mother, Queen Alia, was very good to me. Once, when my wife was ill and in great pain, it was the Queen who came to our house and nursed her and took her to hospital …” The guard looks misty-eyed, lost in the memory. Then he pulls himself together. “If your mother were here, she would not allow you and Prince Ali to travel the road to the stables alone …”
Haya is crestfallen until the guard adds, “But perhaps I could accompany you to the stable gates to make certain you arrive safely?”
*
Heat waves shimmer on the road and Haya and Ali are thirsty by the time they reach the stables. Haya goes into the tack room and gets them both a can of fizzy drink out of the fridge and they go to Bree’s loose box.
“Bree? Bint Al-Reeh!” Haya calls.
At the sound of Haya’s voice, Bree thrusts her head over the loose-box door and whinnies madly to her.
“Hey, girl.” Haya strokes the filly as she unbolts the door and manoeuvres into the stall beside her. She slips on Bree’s halter and begins to undo the straps on her stable rug.
Ali hangs off the stable door and watches as Haya moves expertly, always talking to her filly, her movements spare and unhurried. Haya keeps her body close to the filly as she leads her out into the yard. Bree is all keyed up and full of energy; she high-steps beside Haya, her breath coming in short, vibrating snorts, her eyes wide.
“It’s OK, Bree, I’m here …”
The polo mares stick their heads out over the doors to see what all the fuss is about. Their attentions only make Bree even more excited and she begins to dance. Haya keeps a firm hand on Bree’s lead rein, using her voice to calm her.
“She looks scary,” Ali says. He is at least three metres away and reluctant to come closer as Bree frets and stamps.
“She’s just a little fresh,” Haya says, undaunted. “Come on.”
They walk down the track to the polo field, the filly springing off the ground as if there were hot coals beneath her hooves, tail high and neck arched. Haya walks Bree out on to the soft loam of the field and brings her to a halt near the wooden bench seats.
“What are you going to do?” Ali asks.
The truth is Haya has no idea how to break in a horse. She was supposed to take Bree to Al Hummar where there is a round pen and Santi and his grooms would be there to help her. But Frances ruined that plan. So now Haya is all on her own, trying to break in her filly on the wide-open polo field.
“I’m going to ride her,” Haya says. She feels the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “Here, come and hold her steady for me.”
Ali takes the lead rope with both hands and hangs on to Bree as if he were anchoring a ship while Haya climbs on to the bench seats.
Steadying herself, Haya prepares to jump. She feels like there should be something – a speech or at least a drum roll to signify the momentous nature of this occasion. She is going to ride Bree. Her horse whom she raised from a three-day-old foal. They are about to become united, two spirits joined as one at last.
Haya takes a deep breath and in one swift, catlike leap she throws herself on to Bree’s back. Beneath her, the filly feels the sudden weight, a strange sensation she has never experienced before, and her muscles tense.
“It’s me, Bree,” Haya reassures her with her voice. “It’s OK …” And then Bree starts to buck.
The filly bucks hard and fast, springing up on all four legs at once, doubling over beneath Haya, her feet pronging off the ground. Bree twists in midair as she goes up again and Haya loses her balance and begins to slip. It is the third buck that gets her. Haya is flung up and catapults through the air, then she hits the ground with such force that the wind is knocked clean out of her. She has never been winded before and it is the most horrible feeling. Shuddering and choking, she struggles to get the air back into her lungs, kneeling on all fours and gasping like a fish out of water. Ali runs to her side and asks if she is OK, but she can’t speak. The shock makes her begin to cry and now her sobs are choking her as she tries to breathe.