White Lies and Music Notes

Chapter Four

I had been in the truck for 3 hours, and Aunt Caroline had said we were nearly there. My heart was fluttering with excitement as I anticipated what the next six months of my life might hold.

Riding.

Friendship.

Excitement.

Perhaps even romance.

The truck rumbled to a halt and my eyes flew open. What the hell? Did I actually just fall asleep?

"Honey? Are you getting ready back there?"

Whoops! I was meant to make sure I had everything - tack box, medication, suitcase, special feed.... Instead I dozed off.

"Yeah, just a minute!" I squealed, as I ran around trying to be quick. Once I had everything ready, Aunt Caroline helped me get it all out of the truck. As I handed her my things, I looked up in amazement, before me was the biggest house I had every seen. No - biggest MANSION I had ever seen.

Four big towers were in each corner. The gate-way was at least three meters wide and had a huge metal barrier. The bricks where a reddish-brown, and they looked old. But I had no doubt they would hold up the huge building. The windows were all quite small, and the frames were painted yellow. Not my favourite colour, but in this occasion, it worked really well with the red bricks. But only as I looked up, I saw the full extent as to how big this was.

My school was at least 15 floors high.

There was a stable to the left of the building, and I ran towards it to explore. There was a long corridor with stables either side. One side or the corridor was labeled with names of some horses. The school ones, I presumed. And the other side seemed empty. Probably meant for all the people who were bringing horses.

I heard voices in the yard, and saw three more trucks pull up. Aunt Caroline was chatting to a lady with long dark-brown hair tied back into a pony-tail. She had soft features and as I walked over to her, she gave me a friendly smile.

"You must be Leah, correct?" She said with a strong Australian accent. She was definitely NOT from here.

"Yes," I said, shyly.

"I'm Alexandra Moore, the head of the riding school. Welcome to the Wichita Mountain Boarding School."

Wait, what? Did she just say she's the head of the riding school? She looked way to young for that. She looked as though she still went to school! She must have seen my confused face.

"I'm a senior." She said, proudly. "I help Mrs Sanders with the riding school." Oh right! That made more sense.

She looked down at her clipboard and found my name. "So you have a horse called Harris?" I nodded. His name sounded funny when she said it. She pronounced it more like 'Harrees'. "Okay then, if you would like to unload him and we can put him in a stable, then Ashley will show you around the stables, arenas, taking rooms etc."

Ashley? Ahh! This is so confusing. Who's Ashley? I didn't want to seem rude, so I silently went to the back if the truck to unload Harris.

"Hi Melanie." A male voice said in my ear, making me jump. As I turned around, I saw a pair of handsome dark eyes and a mop of brown hair. His face fell.

"I'm not called Melanie." I said with an amused smile.

"Oh right, sorry!" He walked away. Was that it? No, 'Hello' or 'Whats your name'? Oh well. I had six months to get to know this guy.

I turned back to Harris and I slowly lead him down the ramp. A bird flew up from a bush behind me and Harris jumped. I looked up to see the guy I just met laughing at me with his friends. I gritted my teeth. I could not let myself be embaraced. Harris was breathing deeply and heavily, and I placed my palm on his neck. Once he accepted my touch, I started making small circled with my hand, applying pressure on the his muscles - essentially giving him a massage.

After a few moments of this, I could feel him relaxing. His tired eyes looked at me and I smiled. I love my horse so much.

Once I was sure Harris was completely relaxed, I lead him on, towards the stables. He seemed immune to everything now. He didn't care about a plastic bag, or a screeching wheelbarrow. And when yet another two birds flew up, he didn't do so much as flinch.

I slowly looked up at the group of guys and saw Brown-Haired-Guy looking at me with his mouth gaping open. All his friends were looking at me. I felt self-conscious. And yet I had the dire need to show those guys what I was made of.

So, instead of just taking Harris to his stable, I stopped him and looked into his eyes. He was anticipating something. He knew I had something planned. I whispered soothing words into his ears to calm him down. If he was too hyper this could go wrong.

Once he had calmed down a little, I took off his lead-rope and walked away, Harris following me obediently. In one swift motion, I stopped, clapped my hands twice, turned around and Harris went up into a beautiful rear, holding it for a few seconds before hitting the ground again with a thud.

I grinned happily, stroking his fore-head while getting out a mint to reward him for his excellent show. I turned to the guys and was surprised to see that quite a group of people had gathered to watch my show. And yet, a magician only ever shows his trick once....