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    Spud & Charli
    Spud & Charli
    Spud & Charli
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    Spud & Charli

    By Samantha Wheeler

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Does your imagination ever run wild? Charli is at riding camp, where her dream is about to come true she will finally learn to ride a real, live horse. But when show-off Mikaela picks the horse Charli wants, her heart bungees to her toes. Instead of the beautiful palomino Razz, Charli’s stuck riding the massive retired racehorse Spud. And what about the bats that fill the night sky? Don’t bats spread deadly diseases? Riding camp isn’t turning out the way Charli planned, especially when she finds herself in the middle of a life-threatening disaster. An action-packed adventure about horses, bats and getting carried away by your imagination.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Queensland Press
    Release dateAug 27, 2014
    ISBN9780702252914
    Spud & Charli

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      Book preview

      Spud & Charli - Samantha Wheeler

      Samantha Wheeler lives in Brisbane with her family and many animals. Her first story took shape during a writing course at the Queensland Writers Centre in 2009 and was accepted into the inaugural Allen & Unwin Children’s Manuscript Development Program in 2010. She went on to write Smooch & Rose, her first children’s book, inspired by a local strawberry farm and her concern for Queensland’s koalas, followed closely by Spud & Charli, a story imagined while riding her horse Oscar in the bush.

      www.samanthawheeler.com.au

      Also by Samantha Wheeler

      Smooch & Rose

      To Bethany, for loving horses too.

      1. Camp

      ‘Kill it!’

      ‘Quick! Make it die!’

      The girl perched on the top bunk was practically emptying a whole can of fly spray into the corner of the room while three others stood watching, their backs pressed flat against the wall. By the looks on their faces, the monster receiving the blasts must have been nothing less than a spiny-legged cockroach – like the ones that lurked around our bin in the middle of the night.

      Each of the girls took turns screaming instructions.

      ‘Here it comes!’

      ‘Spray it! SPRAY IT NOW!’

      I peered inside the door. A tiny brown spider about the size of a ladybird was huddled helplessly in the corner, making a feeble attempt to hold out its front legs while being drowned in torrents of Mortein Fast Knockdown.

      ‘You shouldn’t use so much,’ I said in my most encyclopedic voice. ‘The chemicals in fly spray are extremely poisonous. They can paralyse the muscles in your lungs, and when that happens you won’t be able to breathe.’

      The screaming stopped, and the girls spun around. Four pairs of eyes stared at me while the ninja on the top bunk held the can at the ready.

      ‘What makes you the expert?’ muttered one of them.

      I was about to tell them that I’d Googled ‘Can fly spray kill humans?’ only last week when Matt and Gus, my brothers, had chased me around the house with a can of Baygon. They’d told me I was exaggerating when I said fly spray could kill people, so I’d Googled it to prove them wrong.

      But the glares on the girls’ faces made me swallow my words. I sighed and continued down the hallway.

      The two girls in the second room were dressed all in pink. Pink T-shirts, pink shorts, pink socks. Even their sleeping bags were pink.

      ‘Eww, pink. Gross,’ I muttered.

      The girls spun around. They were twins. Pink twins. I tried not to groan.

      ‘What did you say?’ one of them asked.

      My face grew hot. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. ‘Oh, pink, great,’ I said, squeezing out a smile. ‘Pink’s my favourite colour.’ Thank goodness Matt and Gus couldn’t hear me. They’d pin me down and make me take it back.

      The third room was dark and gloomy. Two sets of bunk beds were pushed against opposite walls, their mattresses thin and lumpy. A set of wooden drawers, a broken-handled cupboard, and a small dirty window finished off the miserable scene.

      There was no fly spray and no-one dressed in pink. No giggling, no screaming. Just a tall, slim girl who was unpacking her bags in silence. She wore shiny black riding boots all the way up to her knees. Real horse-riding boots.

      I stepped into the room. ‘Hi, I’m Charli Priestly,’ I said, stretching out my hand like Dad always told me and the boys to do. ‘Nice to meet you.’

      The girl stopped unpacking. Long blonde hair hung like silk down her back, and her thick eyelashes made little verandahs over her frowning blue eyes. She didn’t shake my outstretched hand.

      ‘Mikaela,’ she said instead, glancing over my borrowed jodhpurs, dirty fingernails, unruly hair and slightly crooked, definitely not pretty, freckly face. I can’t be exactly sure when, but at some point in the inspection, her top lip curled. And not in a friendly way. ‘Do you jump?’

      ‘Well … no, obviously, seeing as I haven’t ridden before. But, yeah, I’ll jump. As soon as I learn to ride.’ I pointed to the spare beds. ‘Anyone using those?’

      Mikaela’s eyebrows practically squished her nose. ‘There’s space in the room next door,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t share with beginners.’

      I pursed my lips. No way I’d survive all that pink. ‘Keep your hair on.’ I pulled my bag into the room. ‘It’s not like I’ll be a beginner forever.’

      The website said there would be a gymkhana on the last day of camp, and I’d already promised Matt and Gus I’d be bringing home a trophy. I’d made a space in the trophy cabinet, beside their shiny hockey ones, and I didn’t plan on arriving home empty-handed.

      Mikaela had been inspecting the perfectly cut ends of her hair, but now she flung her ponytail behind her back as if she didn’t really care. ‘Suit yourself. But I won’t be hanging out with you.’

      I threw my pillow and sleeping bag on the empty top bunk, creating a cloud of dust, which made me sneeze. The wardrobe and the drawers were full of Mikaela’s stuff, but I didn’t complain. It seemed too good to be true. Thanks to Uncle Ralph’s surprise birthday money, I’d finally made it to riding camp.

      And now all I had to do was learn to ride. Once I’d done that, I’d convince Mum and Dad to buy me a horse, and then I could ride whenever I wanted.

      When Mikaela and I finished unpacking, we joined the others around the big mango tree out in the yard.

      ‘Welcome, everyone!’ The camp owner, Mrs Bacton, flashed us a friendly smile, showing off her straight white teeth. ‘Hope you’re all excited!’

      Excited? Just a bit. The website had promised that even the most beginning beginners would learn to ride at the week-long camp. My stomach was doing double pikes.

      ‘We’ll go meet the horses in a second, but first we need to talk through the rules.’ Mrs Bacton wasn’t much taller than me, but by the look of her strong brown arms, I guessed she did more than just read out the rules around here.

      There were murmurs and shuffles among the group. No-one wanted rules. Rules were for school.

      ‘Most important: everyone must stay within the boundary fence,’ she said, looking around our group. There were eight of us altogether – the pink twins, the four fly-spray fanatics, me, and my brand-new roommate, Mikaela.

      ‘Our neighbour, Mr Shearer, has had a bit of trouble with bats,’ said Mrs Bacton. ‘And we don’t want anyone getting hurt. So, no wandering off, please. If you happen to find a bat, absolutely no touching. Leave it where you found

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