Soul Music

She'd explained to other girls how good she was, and demonstrated her skill, and pointed out just how stupid they were in not picking her. For some exasperating reason it didn't seem to have any effect.

This afternoon she went for an official walk instead. This was an acceptable alternative, provided girls went in company. Usually they went into town and bought stale fish and chips from an unfragrant shop in Three Roses Alley; fried food was considered unhealthy by Miss Butts, and therefore bought out of school at every opportunity.

Girls had to walk in groups of three or more. Peril, in Miss Butts's conjectural experience, couldn't happen to units of more than two.

In any case it was certainly unlikely to happen to any group that contained Princess Jade and Gloria Thogsdaughter.

The school's owners had been a bit bothered about taking a troll, but Jade's father was king of an entire mountain and it always looked good to have royalty on the roll. And besides, Miss Butts had remarked to Miss Delcross, it's our duty to encourage them if they show any inclination to become real people and the King is actually quite charming and assures me he can't even remember when he last ate anyone. Jade had bad eyesight, a note excusing her from unnecessary sunshine, and knitting chain mail in handicraft class.

Whereas Gloria was banned from sport because of her tendency to use her axe in a threatening manner. Miss Butts had suggested that an axe wasn't a ladylike weapon, even for a dwarf, but Gloria had pointed out that, on the contrary, it had been left to her by her grandmother who had owned it all her life and polished it every Saturday, even if she hadn't used it at all that week. There was something about the way she gripped it that made even Miss Butts give in. To show willing, Gloria left off her iron helmet and, while not shaving off her beard - there was no actual rule about girls not having beards a foot long - at least plaited it. And tied it in ribbons in the school colours.

Susan felt strangely at home in their company, and this had earned guarded praise from Miss Butts. It was nice of her to be such a chum, she said. Susan had been surprised. It had never occurred to her that anyone actually said a word like chum.

The three of them trailed back along the beech drive by the playing field.

'I don't understand sport,' said Gloria, watching the gaggle of panting young women stampeding across the pitch.

'There's a troll game,' said Jade. 'It's called aargrooha.'

'How's it played?' said Susan.

'Er… you rip off a human's head and kick it around with special boots made of obsidian until you score a goal or it bursts. But it's not played any more, of course,' she added quickly.

'I should think not,' said Susan.

'No-one knows how to make the boots, I expect,' said Gloria.

'I expect if it was played now, someone like Iron Lily would go running up and down the touchline shouting, 'Get some head, you soft nellies',' said Jade.

They walked in silence for a while.

'I think,' said Gloria, cautiously, 'that she probably wouldn't, actually.'

'I say, you two haven't noticed anything… odd lately, have you?' said Susan.

'Odd like what?' said Gloria.

'Well, like… rats…' said Susan.

'Haven't seen any rats in the school,' said Gloria. 'And I've had a good look.'

'I mean… strange rats,' said Susan.

They were level with the stables. These were normally the home of the two horses that pulled the school coach, and the term-time residence of a few horses belonging to gels who couldn't be parted from them.

There is a type of girl who, while incapable of cleaning her bedroom even at knifepoint, will fight for the privilege of being allowed to spend the day shovelling manure in a stable. It was a magic that hadn't rubbed off on Susan. She had nothing against horses, but couldn't understand all the snaffles, bridles and fetlocks business. And she couldn't see why they had to be measured in 'hands' when there were perfectly sensible inches around to do the job. Having watched the jodhpured girls who bustled around the stables, she decided it was because they couldn't understand complicated machines like rulers. She'd said so, too.

'All right,' said Susan. 'How about ravens?'

Something blew in her ear.

She spun around.

The white horse stood in the middle of the yard like a bad special effect. He was too bright. He glowed. He seemed like the only real thing in a world of pale shapes. Compared to the bulbous ponies that normally occupied the loose-boxes, he was a giant.

A couple of the jodhpured girls were fussing around him. Susan recognized Cassandra Fox and Lady Sara Grateful, almost identical in their love of anything on four legs that went 'neigh' and their disdain for anything else, their ability to apparently look at the world with their teeth, and their expertise in putting at least four vowels in the word 'oh'.

The white horse neighed gently at Susan, and began to nuzzle her hand.

You're Binky, she thought. I know you. I've ridden on you. You're… mine. I think.

'I say,' said Lady Sara, 'who does he belong to?'

Susan looked around.

'What? Me?' she said. 'Yes. Me… I suppose.'

'Oeuwa? He was in the loose-box next to Browny. I didn't knoeuwa you had a horse here. You have to get permission from Miss Butts, you knoeuwa.'

'He's a present,' said Susan. 'From… someone…?'

The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind. She wondered why she'd said that. She hadn't thought of her grandfather for years. Until last night.

I remember the stable, she thought. So big you couldn't see the walls. And I was given a ride on you once. Someone held me so I wouldn't fall off. But you couldn't fall off this horse. Not if he didn't want you to.

'Oeuwa. I didn't know you rode.'

'I… used to.'

'There's extra fees, you knoeuwa. For keeping a horse,' said Lady Sara.

Susan said nothing. She strongly suspected they'd be paid.

'And you've got noeuwa tack,' said Lady Sara.

And Susan rose to it.

'I don't need any,' she said.

'Oeuwa, bareback riding,' said Lady Sara. 'And you steer by the ears, ya?'

Cassandra Fox said: 'Probably can't afford them, out in the sticks. And stop that dwarf looking at my pony. She's looking at my pony!'

'I'm only looking,' said Gloria.

'You were… salivating,' said Cassandra.

There was a pattering across the cobbles and Susan swung herself up and on to the horse's back.

She looked down at the astonished girls, and then at the paddock beyond the stables. There were a few jumps there, just poles balanced on barrels.

Without her moving a muscle, the horse turned and trotted into the paddock and turned towards the highest jump. There was a sensation of bunched energy, a moment of acceleration, and the jump passed underneath…

Binky turned and halted, prancing from one hoof to the other.

The girls were watching. All four of them had an expression of total amazement.

'Should it do that?' said jade.

'What's the matter?' said Susan. 'Have none of you seen a horse jump before?'

'Yes. The interesting point is…' Gloria began, in that slow, deliberate tone of voice people use when they