by Doree
(Canada)
**Here is the intro:**
****Callie Hankins is new in town. New school, new friends and new house. From day one, Callie seems to have made an enemy of Hannah Trueman, the most popular girl at West Fall Heights--And she wants to keep it that way.
Callie's Mom signs her up for lessons, and Callie meets Stardust. A beautiful mare who soon becomes her best friend. As Callie get's closer to a boy, and closer to the horse, she soon thinks maybe that living in Canada isn't as bad as she thought.
But then Tragedy strikes and Callie is left feeling more alone then ever, well she finally get that feeling back of happiness? Callie soon learns, that in order to make something stop, you must stand up and speak out, and that everything happens for a reason, and eventually you have to move on.****
Like it so far? Great! Comment below if you want me to post the book here!! No comments, and I won't because I don't know if anyone will read it...etc. so please comment!! Thanks, <3
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by Doree
(Canada)
Chapter One - "You just made yourself a new enemy”
“You’ll be fine Callie!” Mom assured me for the one hundredth time.
I grabbed my back pack from the car and stared at the new school I’m about to enter. We moved yet again, and here I was starting all over. I have never made friends easy, so fear ran through me as I moved from the car.
“See you at 3:30,” I said softly.
“Oh, I have to work today till 5:00. You both have to ride the bus.” She glanced at my sister, Jenny, then at me and she must have seen my face turn white, because she added, “Is that OK?”
I nodded.
I can’t act like a baby. My younger sister ran ahead of me, calling at me to hurry. She’s not gonna have any trouble making friends, she’s perfect and everyone loves her.
I opened the doors, and glanced unsurely around. I spotted Jenny already at the front desk, her blonde hair swirls around her as she talks to the lady there. I walked up beside her and the lady smiled at me.
“Hello, you must be Callie Hankins?” I nodded and she broke into a wider smile.
“I am Mrs. Kanosh, I hope you enjoy coming here to West Fall Heights, it’s a good school!” She handed me a piece of paper.
“That’s your classes for today, and includes where your locker if and combination of the lock on it.” Jenny flashed a perfect white smile at Mrs. Kanosh and moved off, I followed her.
“I have to keep going,” Jenny says slowly, “So see you later!” Jenny scooted off and I was left alone in the hallway. I got some curious stares from the students around me, probably wondering who the new girl is.
I quickly scurried away from the stares, and headed towards my locker. Finally, I found it. It was right across from the bathrooms, and some vending machines. Just as I turned towards my locker, I felt myself slamming into someone else.
“Watch it!” Snapped the voice.
“S-sorry,” I stammered, “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” I grabbed the books on the floor and handed them to the girl. She glared at me, her blue eyes narrowing.
“Obviously.” She gave me a look that sent a chill down my spine. “Who are you?”
“I-I’m new here. Callie Hankins,” I shoved out my hand. She stared at it as if there was dirty vermin climbing all over it. I slowly withdrew my hand.
“Hannah! We are like, gonna be so late let’s go!” A pretty Asian girl hurried over to Hannah, than stopped, spotting me. “Who’s she?” The girl stage whispered, giving me an once-over.
“Like I know, just some freak who decided to like bump into me and knock over all my books.” The tone she was using let me know she was mocking me. Her gaze stayed on mine the whole time.
“Well let’s like, go.”
“I’m coming Lindy,” Hannah turned and walked away, Lindy following.
I shuddered and opened my locker, putting away my books I didn’t need tell after lunch and headed to my first class, Math.
“Class, this is our newest student, Callie Hankins. Please make her feel welcome.” Mrs. Adams—my math teacher—turned and smiled at me. “Tell us about yourself Callie.”
I took a deep breath in and nodded. “I am fifteen, I just moved here for California. Which is a lot different from here in Canada,” I gave a weak laugh. “I have one dog and three cats, and a little sister and I—”
A hand went up, cutting me off mid-sentence. I followed the hand to the face and felt weak as I recognized the girl with bleach blonde hair and icy blue eyes.
“Yes, Hannah?” Mrs. Adam started off.
“Just like wondering,” She slowly slurred out her words, “Why is uh, Callie, in our math class if she’s only fifteen? This is grade eleven math.” She turned her gaze to me, “Shouldn’t you be in grade eight or something?” Laughter exploded throughout the room.
“Quiet!” Mrs. Adams commanded.
I felt my face grow red. I was really short for my age, and I looked younger then what I was.
“I-I um,” I gulped trying to make the words come out. Hannah raised her eyebrows in a mocking manner. “I skipped a grade.”
Hannah held up her hands. “Wow. Looky here people, we got us a—” Another smirk, “A super genius on our hands.”
“That is quite enough, Hannah. Go to the principal’s office. Now.”
The room instantly went quiet. Hannah’s face turned red and as she walked out, she purposely bumped into me, making me drop my books.
“Sorry.” I felt sick to my stomach as I leaned down to pick them up.
“You just made yourself a new enemy my friend.” She whispered to me and stalked away.
After two more classes, it was finally lunch. My stomach grumbled as I picked up a lunch tray and began filling it with all sorts of yummy food.
“Pig,” Someone whispered in my ear. I snapped up right and glanced around and saw Lindy standing behind me. She gave me a smirk and looked down at my tray. All hers had on it was some salad, an apple and a water bottle.
I suddenly didn’t feel as hungry and instead just grabbed a salad and a bottle of Orange Juice.
Almost all the tables were filled up, I spotted one with only a few people and moved to join them.
“Callie!” Hannah stepped into my path. “Come sit with me.” The look in her eye and sound in her voice, warned me not to disagree, so I followed her.
As we neared closer, I saw Lindy and three other girls, and five guys, all who looked up at the same time, disgust in their eyes all expect for one guy. He actually gave me a welcoming smile.
“This you guys,” She started off, gesturing at me, “Is Callie Hankins. She just moved here from California.” I set down my tray and sat down between Hannah and the guy who smiled at me.
“You already know Lindy, right?” Hannah asked. I nodded. “Well the red head girl right there is Justice, the brunette is Ann-Marie, and the blonde is Kelly. The guy with blonde curly hair is Nick,” She gestured at the guy with the kind smile, “He’s my boyfriend.”
I knew the sound in her voice all too well. It was telling me to stay away from her guy, or else. “The guy with brown hair is Joe, red head is Landon, and other blonde is Justin and last but not least is Lindy’s boy, the Asian. His name is Cody.”
I saw the way Cody sort of flinched the way she spoke of his race rudely. I wanted to say something about how she said it, but I couldn't. So I just nodded, taking in all the names.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Ann-Marie asked.
I blushed and shook my head. “I-I did once, but we broke up when I moved.”
“Ooo! Come spill. We need some dets!” Kelly insisted.
“His name was, um, Andy. We dated for a year, so it was hard moving away.”
“Awe that must have really sucked,” Nick said, “That happened to me once.”
“But now you have me!” Hannah laughed, her eyes narrowing slightly at me. The bell rang, startling me.
“Let’s go, we don’t want to be late like we were for math.” Spoke Hannah. I knew she was still holding that against me, what I didn’t get was why she invited me to sit with them. She had told me, that I had just made a new enemy.
My head started to ache from thinking about it so much, so I decided to just forget about it. But the words still lingered in my mind:
“You just made yourself a new enemy my friend.”
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Return to Horse Training Stories.
by Doree
(Canada)
Chapter Two
“What does that mean!?”
“You just did what?” My jaw dropped open in shock.
“You have always wanted riding lessons, so since we moved I thought it’d be a nice gift for you and your sister.” Mom started to open a new box, and scrunched up her nose as she studied the box, trying to figure out what was in it. I did tell her to mark them.
“Mom, I was like eight. Nobody my age who is cool does it anymore.”
Mom sighed loudly as she began cutting open the box. “Well sweetie, I signed you up for ten lessons. After that if you don’t want to do it anymore, fine. But see how these go at least.” She looked over at me, a piece of tape in between her teeth. “Ocol?”
“What?” I snapped impatently
She grabbed the tape out of her mouth and began re-taping the box. “I said, Okay?”
“Ok, whatever, when does the riding lessons start?”
“Today at 7:00, I bought you some riding clothes for it. You’re taking English, so you should look the part!”
I rolled my eyes, yeah this would be something.
I stepped out of my room ten minutes later. My charcoal black hair was in one long braid, and I wore light brown riding pants and a white sleeved shirt with a jacket matching the pants.
“Mom, I am not riding in this!” I looked down at my feet. I was wearing tall English riding boots and on my head a black helmet. I felt ridicules.
“But you look so cute! At least just wear the pants. You can save the shirt and jacket for later.”
If I didn’t agree to this, she would probably find something even more humiliating for me to wear. I nodded.
“Fine,” I grumbled.
“Let’s get going!” She said in a sing-a-song voice.
“What about Jenny?”
“Her riding lessons are Tuesday and Thursday, yours are Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Your sister has joined more clubs then you, so she’ll not always have a lot of time.”
I bit back angry words and just followed her into the car.
We pulled up at a red stable. It looked all very beautiful, many horses grazing in the fields.
“I’ll pick you up in an hour and a half.”
“Okay, see ya then.” I jump out and started towards the stables. I breathed in the air, a perfect mixture of horses, sawdust, tack and wood.
“Hey welcome to—Callie?”
I glanced away from a pretty palomino horse and up into the face of Nick.
“Nick! Hi! What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” He grinned, “Great place to work too. Are you starting lessons here?”
I nodded. “My Mom signed me up for lessons.”
“Cool, cool. I’m gonna be your instructor today, Tammy—Owner of Sunrise Stables—is sick today, so all the workers are filling in for here.”
“Okay, just to warn you though, I have never ridden a horse before. Like, never.”
Nick looked confused. “Your Mom said you would be an intermediate rider?”
I laughed and rolled my eyes, “She really likes to exaggerate.”
“Nick, I like gotta show you what Jerry just—what are you doing here?” Disgusted was heavy in Hannah’s tone as she rounded the corner to find me. She tightened her grip on the saddle she was holding and her smile tightened.
“Hannah,” His tone warned her to be nicer,
“Callie is a new student here. I’m giving her a lesson today.”
“Oh.”
“Hey Hannah,” I tried giving her a smile, all I got back was a glare. “I-I think I’m going to take a look around if that’s fine?” When Nick nodded, I quickly moved off. I was really starting to get the feeling, Hannah really hated me and I have never been really hated by someone before. This was an odd feeling, especially since I was feeling attracted to Nick. I had a feeling, things were not going good.
“Let’s go pick you out a horse!” Nick exclaimed, startling me from looking at a beautiful saddle.
“I thought one was already picked out?” I asked, walking beside him down the aisle.
“We let our students here at SS pick out the horse they feel a connection too. As long as the horse is broke and not to green,” I gave him a confused look. “A green horse means a horse that has mostly just finished or started his training, and unsuitable for a beginner.”
“Ooh…Ok.”
“A lot to take in, I know.” He laughed, “I was like you when I first started. But you’ll be cantering bareback and galloping fields before you can say ‘giddy-up.’”
I held my head in my hands. “I’m so confused,” I moaned, “What the heck is cantering? Galloping?”
“Like I said, you’ll learn in time!”
“This is Freddie. He’s pretty good for beginners, someone you can really trust.”
I shrugged, “I guess he’s OK.”
“Let’s keep going,” He instantly spotted my disinterest. “This is Star Dust. Dusty for short, she’s really sweet, getting pretty old but can still rough it like any other horse. Ain’t that right pretty girl?” He smooched and patted her neck.
The horse was really pretty; she was gray with little freckles all over her, which were a darker grayish gold.
“She’s beautiful,” I murmured, patting her neck.
“And I think we found your horse! I’ll go get her tack and help you saddle her up.”
“What does that mean!?”
“Ok, so take the reins, yeah just like that. Be very gentle with Dusty, she gets her mouth tugged all the time by younger kids.” Nick instructed me as I began at a soft walk.
Her walk so smooth and she never made any move to try and make it so she was the leader.
“You ready to trot? You have been walking for 20 minutes, Callie.”
I gave a nervous gulp. “I-I don’t know…”
“Come on, you can do it. I know you can.”
I looked up at Nick, his gold brown eyes looked right back and for a second, I felt lost in them, before Dusty sneezed, making me yelp.
“I’ll do it. I’ll trot.”
“Great! Now just hold on, squeeze her sides and tell her to trot.”
“Dusty, trot,” I commanded. Instantly she went into and up-down bounce which made me go all over the place. Nick laughed and slowed Dusty back to a walk.
“Ok, so maybe we need to work on that…”
I pretended to kick out at him, and he bounced away, letting out another burst of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Hannah trotted into the arena, on top of a beautiful black horse.
“Nothing,” Nick’s smile tightened slightly.
Hannah trotted beautifully around the arena, way better than I did.
“She’s been riding since she was six,” Whispered Nick. I glanced down at him in surprise; it was like he had read my thoughts.
Suddenly, I felt Dusty burst away from under me, I scrambled to hang on. The wind whipped at my face; ahead I saw a stream of blonde hair.
“Hannah, slow down!” Yelled Nick, scrambling to get Dusty back under control.
Hannah stopped her horse, and Dusty stopped a second after, sending me flying over her head.
Then everything went black.