Snow Foal--the perfect Christmas book for children Read online

  ‘You could have killed yourself, idiot!’

  ‘Nah. Not me. Not with my circus ancestry and all.’

  Addie stared at him.

  ‘OK,’ Gabe said, ‘that one’s a fib.’ He brushed bits of bark from his hair, swept his fringe back and studied Addie’s face. ‘But I know this old tree like the back of my hand. It was my hiding place once.’

  ‘I’m not hiding,’ Addie said. ‘I just like it up here.’

  Gabe studied her face. His eyes grew greener than ever, as if he was part of the tree itself. ‘This old oak knows all my secrets,’ he said. ‘But it has never told a soul. What comes out in the tree, stays in the tree. Oak-tree ethics or something.’

  ‘You talked to a tree?’

  ‘Used to. It helped. All this muddled stuff in my head, it got sorted somehow up here. I dunno: got smaller. Other times, it all just floated away in the air, like it was nothing really.’ He grinned. ‘But then, as you know, I’m weird.’

  Addie smiled back. She hadn’t known she was going to. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘You are.’ She looked away, back towards the dark tops of the distant pines. She thought of the foal, how she had told him things. How he had listened and understood. The hollow spaces inside her filled with cold, heavy stones.

  ‘Pretty impressive, you being up this high,’ Gabe said. ‘Sunni only got as far as . . .’ he leaned forward, pointed to a short fat branch further down the tree. ‘That one there.’

  Addie shook her head. Sunni in a tree? No way. Never.

  ‘Cross my heart,’ Gabe said. ‘Took some persuading. But, man, did she need to be up here when she first came to us. Think she might have spontaneously combusted without this tree. She might have been small, but whoa . . . was she big trouble.’

  ‘Why?’

  Gabe raised an eyebrow, as if Addie already knew the answer to her question. He pulled a packet of cherry sweets from his pocket, held it out to Addie. ‘Sustenance for tree creatures,’ he said.

  Addie took one. She folded it inside her palm. It was sticky against her skin.

  Gabe tucked a sweet inside his cheek ‘Proper little spitfire, was our Sunni,’ he said. ‘Worse than Widget when Mum gets the brush and comb out.’ He nodded at Addie, that eyebrow raised again. ‘Even worse than you. And the Sunni death stares? Major.’

  Addie remembered Sunni, back there at Tarr Steps: remembered her fierceness. Her fear.

  ‘I’ve seen it, the death stare,’ she said.

  Gabe nodded, smiled. ‘Lucky to survive then.’ He crunched, grinned again.

  ‘So how come Sunni just stays here? You know, like you’re her family now? She nearly killed me when she thought she might have to leave.’

  ‘That’s Sunni’s story to tell, Addie,’ Gabe said. ‘You’ll have to ask her.’ His leaf-green eyes were on Addie’s again. ‘But maybe she learned a few things up here in the tree. Or maybe she learned them when she went back home for a bit, like she wanted back then.’

  A pair of swallows appeared. They looped and swooped over the meadow, their forked tails streaming behind them like small banners. They looked happy, Addie thought; perfectly at home together in the endless sky. They dived down, sailed low against the ground. Gabe and Addie leaned forward, followed their easy glide.

  Flo darted out across the grass. She ran in circles and barked as the birds sailed upwards again, far out of her reach.

  ‘For a working sheepdog,’ Gabe said, ‘she’s pretty daft.’

  ‘Sunni reckons she’s going to be a shepherd,’ Addie said. ‘With her own dog and everything.’

  Gabe smiled. ‘Reckon she might be, too. A sequined shepherd.’ He crossed one leg over the other, closed his eyes. Like being half a mile up a tree with his feet dangling into space was nothing, was normal for him.

  Like he could never fall.

  ‘Reckon she’ll be whatever she decides to be,’ he said. He pointed at Addie, his eyes still shut. ‘Same as you will.’

  Could that be true? For her? Addie wished she could believe it. She watched leaf shadows play across Gabe’s face, making him more a part of the tree than ever.

  ‘That stuff in your head,’ she said. ‘When you used to hide up here . . .’

  Gabe opened his eyes.

  ‘School stuff, mainly.’

  ‘You don’t go to school.’

  ‘Used to. And will do again soon. Exams and all. He shrugged. ‘Infants was great. I loved it. Juniors – well, that didn’t work out so well. There were these kids. These three boys.’

  ‘Bullying you?’

  Gabe nodded.

  ‘Why? What about?’

  ‘Being adopted. Having red hair. Being me.’ He shook his head. ‘Anything. Turned out two of them had their own stuff going on. You know, difficult stuff at home. Good job I told, in the end. For them as well as me.’

  Darren Oates’ freckled face flashed in front of Addie. Became his dad’s face: red and angry; his mam’s face: blue shadows leaking through her thick orange make-up. Had Darren picked on Addie because he had been afraid too?

  What about the kids at Greenbank with their constant questions – their wasp-sting words?

  A shrill note split Addie’s thoughts: rising, falling. Lifting through the trees.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Addie craned her neck in the direction of the sound.

  Gabe pulled his lips back in mock fear. ‘The Beast of Exmoor!’

  Addie shivered, suddenly back on the night-time moor. ‘Funny,’ she said.

  Gabe’s face was serious again. ‘Sunni told me, Addie. About those kids.’ He rested a hand on her arm. ‘If they keep giving you a hard time, tell Ruth. OK? Or Sam. They’ll help. Like they helped Sunni. Before the wonders of BFF Mira!’

  Addie looked away. Sunni. She should keep her nose out of Addie’s business.

  ‘Unless you can face the alternative, that is.’

  Addie looked back at Gabe; sighed. ‘What?’

  He grinned. ‘I wade in, pants over my trousers. Full Superman thing. I blast the enemy to oblivion.’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ Addie said. She felt the rise of tears again. Different tears, softer. Something warm washed over the cold stones inside her, swept words up through her throat and out into the air before she knew what was happening.

  ‘At home,’ she said, ‘at my last school. There was this boy, Darren. Well, he was the worst.’

  Gabe was still. The tree was still. Addie clenched her fist round Gabe’s sweet, as if to crush it.

  ‘I told Mam. She said she’d make it stop. She said she’d come into school and speak to my teacher.’ Addie unfolded her hand, poked at the melting red stickiness there. ‘So she did. The next day. At lunchbreak.’

  Gabe waited.

  ‘She – there was this big argument in the playground. Mam shouted at one of the teachers. It wasn’t even my teacher. And she nearly fell over. Twice.’

  The stones were cold again. One of them had lodged in Addie’s throat.

  ‘Everybody saw. Everybody knew . . .’ Addie’s breath was ragged. Like the stones were in her lungs now, too. She flicked the remains of the cherry sweet from her palm and steadied herself with both hands on the branch. ‘Everything just got worse after that.’

  Gabe put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘She promised,’ Addie said. Her voice caught on a fragment of stone; cracked. ‘She promised she wouldn’t drink that day, but she did.’

  Gabe pulled a leaf from the end of a thin twig. He twirled it in his fingers.

  ‘You’d think it was simple, being a tree, wouldn’t you?’ he said.

  Addie sighed. She watched the leaf spin back and forth. She didn’t want to talk trees. Not now.

  ‘You’d think: trees, they just are,’ Gabe said. ‘They just know how to be trees.’

  ‘What? ’ Addie shook her head.

  ‘But sometimes, things go wrong. Even for trees. Take Ma’s apple trees, right: two years back, not a single apple on half of them. The next year
, hundreds of ’em. Ma was making pies and chutney for weeks.’ He looked up into the canopy of leaves above their heads. ‘Except there was this one tree, it just sort of withered. Until Dad dug it up and planted it somewhere else. It still doesn’t make many apples, but it’s pretty, you know: a proper tree. After some help from Dad.’

  ‘I don’t see . . .’

  ‘Being a person, right, that’s a whole lot harder than being a tree.’

  Addie stared at him. He was nuts.

  Gabe looked straight into her eyes. ‘It’s just, maybe your mum chose the wrong kind of help to get her through, that’s all.’ He shrugged. ‘Now she’s getting the right kind. In the right place. She’s brave. Like you are.’ He let go of the leaf.

  Addie watched Gabe’s leaf drift from side to side. It floated softly to the ground. A small parachute. ‘That’s what Penny said,’ she whispered.

  Gabe nodded. ‘She knows things too then, doesn’t she?’

  He stretched, patted his stomach. ‘We should go in,’ he said. ‘Dad’s pizzas. You don’t want to miss those. And anyway –’ he wriggled – ‘my bum’s gone numb.’ He shifted his position on the branch, readied himself to climb down.

  The shrill sound came again. Closer this time. And louder. It rippled through Addie, echoed inside her bones.

  She caught hold of Gabe’s sleeve. ‘Wait. Gabe. Help me stand up.’

  ‘You don’t need to stand to climb down. Best if you twist on to your stomach and feel with your feet for the next branch. I’ll help you.’

  Addie was already struggling to her feet, her arms reaching round the trunk. Could she see from here?

  Her heart fluttered, lifted and jumped like a fledgling bird. That sound: she was right. She knew she was.

  She strained to see through the mesh of leaves, stretched up on to her toes.

  ‘Hey, steady on.’ Gabe’s hands were round her ankles. ‘It’s me that’s the trapeze artist!’

  Addie cupped a hand to her mouth. ‘Wait! I’m coming!’ she shouted. She looked back over her shoulder at Gabe, still hugging the tree. ‘Show me the best way down. Quick!’

  ‘Calm down first. I don’t fancy getting Ma on my case when you end up with two broken legs.’

  ‘It’s him,’ Addie said. ‘Don’t you get it? It’s the foal. He’s back.’

  ‘Addie, I know you miss him, but it won’t be –’

  ‘If you’re not going to help . . .’ Addie slithered on to her stomach, legs dangling into nothingness.

  ‘OK. OK. I’ll go first. Follow me. And be careful !’

  Addie’s descent was more of a slide than a climb. Her hands and feet skidded over the bark, snatched briefly at each anchor point as Gabe moved on to the next. Her palms stung. There was a trickle of hot blood down her right wrist. Her knees throbbed under her jeans as they moved against the trunk of the oak. She didn’t care.

  She felt Gabe’s eyes on her the whole time; heard his voice guiding her like a rope. But she had no idea what he was saying. Her ears strained above his words, above the sigh of leaves, the scratch of bark, the whine of the sheepdog beneath them.

  ‘I’m here!’ she yelled into the air. ‘I’m coming.’

  Addie’s legs thrashed through the thick field grass behind the meadow; through the golden buttercups and clusters of purple clover. Nettles brushed across her hands. She barely felt their sting.

  ‘Addie! Slow down a minute . . .’

  Gabe was catching up with her. She’d made him stay back and tether Flo, so she couldn’t race on ahead and spook the foal.

  ‘Do you even know where you’re heading?’ His words came staccato. He was out of breath already.

  Addie looked back over her shoulder. ‘Yes. But don’t shout.’

  An invisible thread pulled Addie onwards, over a stile and into the second field. Sheep scattered as she and Gabe appeared. Half-grown lambs bleated and skittered towards the protection of the flock.

  ‘Go careful!’ Gabe drew level with her. ‘Don’t upset them.’

  Addie slowed slightly.

  She pointed to a ragged line of conifers, just beyond the fence at the bottom of the field. ‘There,’ she said. She ran on. Her eyes scanned the fence for the best place to climb over. She couldn’t waste time searching for the gate.

  Gabe caught at her sleeve. ‘No, Addie. That’s electric fencing. To keep the foxes out and the sheep in. The wires run behind the wooden slats. You can’t climb over it.’

  Addie’s heart was loud in her ears. With it, another, remembered, beat. She stood still.

  ‘Shhh! Listen!’

  Twigs snapped. She heard the soft thud, thump, thud of hooves on the matted ground beneath the trees. A snorted breath.

  ‘I’m here. It’s me!’ Addie lunged forward.

  Gabe gripped her arm. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Don’t. I’ll lift you, all right? I’ll lift you clear of the fence.’

  Addie looked at him for a moment; nodded. ‘Quick, then. Quick.’

  Gabe scooped her up, one arm round her back, the other under her knees. ‘I’m aiming for that mossy bit there,’ he said. ‘Landing technique’s down to you.’ He heaved her high against his chest, held her above the fence for a second and then she was on her bottom on the other side. Nowhere near the mossy bit.

  ‘You OK?’ Gabe grinned his lopsided grin. ‘I’m useless at throwing.’

  Addie stood up, brushed bracken and bits of bark from her hands. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘For telling me.’

  She took a step closer to the trees. Another step.

  The crackle of twigs; the thump of hooves again. Louder, closer now, blending with the thump of Addie’s heart.

  A pale muzzle pushed through the branches to Addie’s right. Black, almond eyes peered out beneath a heavy fringe of mane. Between them, a white shape – a snowflake shape – clear and bright in the dappled light beneath the trees.

  Addie stared. The foal stared back.

  He lifted his head and whinnied softly. He emerged from the trees, his eyes locked on Addie’s as he walked slowly towards her.

  Addie stretched out a hand. The foal pushed his nose against it; came closer, nuzzled her face. He leaned in, rested his head on her shoulder. Addie wrapped her arms round his neck. She breathed him in.

  He smelled different: of dust and earth and forest pine; of something bitter and stale.

  He felt different. Bonier. Taller. His coat was rough and tight against his body.

  But he was the same.

  Addie entwined her fingers in his mane, closed her eyes. ‘You came back,’ she whispered. ‘You came back.’ She felt her breathing slow and slip into a shared rhythm with the foal.

  The foal lifted his head. His ears pricked and swivelled.

  Gabe appeared behind them, his face almost as red as his hair.

  ‘That gate’s bloomin’ miles away.’ He pushed damp locks of hair from his forehead.

  ‘Blimey,’ he said. He nodded towards the foal.

  ‘Told you,’ Addie said.

  The foal turned away from Gabe. He nudged at Addie’s pocket with his nose.

  ‘Haven’t got anything for you in there this time,’ Addie said. She reached round, patted his side. ‘Hungry, are you?’ She turned to Gabe. ‘He’s really thin.’

  Gabe moved towards the foal. He backed away, looked at Addie for reassurance.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Addie said. ‘You know Gabe.’

  A fly buzzed around the foal’s eyes. He blinked his long lashes. Addie wafted it away with her hand.

  Gabe smoothed his hand along the foal’s back. ‘His spine’s a bit prominent.’ He stopped. ‘Ah. Had some trouble, have you, little guy?’

  ‘What? Let me see.’ Addie leaned round. She winced. There was a jagged wound on the foal’s right flank, its edges black with dried blood. Damp, red flesh was visible between them. It looked very sore. Addie felt the sting of it on her own skin.

  The foal flicked his tail, swung his head round and nudged Gabe away. />
  ‘He’s not going to touch it,’ Addie said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Looks a bit like a bite,’ Gabe said. ‘Or he might have snagged himself on something, I suppose. Either way, that wound needs cleaning up.’

  ‘Let’s go then. Get him home – I mean, back to the farm,’ Addie said.

  Gabe scratched his head. ‘If he’ll come with us. We haven’t got a rope or anything to lead him with.’

  ‘He’ll follow me. Which way’s the gate?’

  Gabe pointed to the right. ‘Let’s try it then; see if he’ll come. But he’s been back in the wild for a couple of months now, Addie. He’ll have changed.’

  Addie ignored him. She made a clicking sound through her teeth. The foal blew down his nose and stepped forward.

  He walked slowly at Addie’s side, more slowly still by the time the tall farmhouse chimneys came into view beyond the meadow. His skin glistened with sweat. He kept stopping. Addie thought of him gambolling in the grass with her and Jude, agile as a spring lamb – rolling on his back, kicking his legs in the air for the sheer joy of being alive. Now, he was moving like one of Sam’s lumbering, reluctant cows. She touched Gabe’s arm.

  ‘He doesn’t look right,’ she said. ‘D’you think he’s just tired? Or really hungry?’

  Gabe stooped, snatched up a blade of grass and chewed on it.

  ‘He’s tired, for sure. He must’ve been walking for ages before we found him. But there’s no shortage of food for him along the way, Addie. I reckon it’s more than that.’ He placed a hand on the foal’s neck. ‘He’s hotter than he should be now.’

  Addie took the foal’s face between her palms, pressed her forehead against his. Gabe was right. He was way too warm. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You have a rest for a bit.’

  ‘He can’t walk any further,’ she whispered to Gabe, Gabe shook his head. ‘No. And I reckon he needs a drink, sharpish.’

  Addie looked around her. Grass, bracken, trees: tinder-dry in the warmth of early summer. Only the grass to offer the foal any moisture at all. That wouldn’t be enough. He needed fresh water.

  ‘Ring Sam,’ Addie said. ‘Tell him to bring his truck – as close as he can get it, anyway.’

  Gabe took his phone from his pocket, held it up; stepped from side to side. ‘No signal, as per. Mind you, if there was, there’d be a hundred calls from Dad about tea being on the table.’