The runaway

Okay I may have got a bit over excited about the foals but this year was different, I always helped my dad with the springtime mares and foals, fed watered and introduced them to the other horses but my dad finally agreed to let me have a horse of my own!!!! He said I could have one of the springtime foals, so cute. they were always mares and fillies until now, my dad very rarely got colts and if he did, he sold them off straight away but this year he got one and one only. He was steel black with one white hoof at the front left and a white streak in his tail. He was amazing and galloped like a friesen. My father decided to keep him.

He grew up fast and my dad tried breaking him in several times but it was really hard ss the colt just wouldn't respond. Little did my father know every night after he and my mum had gone to bed I snuck out into the school and did lunge work with him but no matter how much free lunging I find with him he didn't listen to my dad, he pulled and bucked, reared and bit but only to my dad and my mum who tried to help as well. Still to my father's dismay every night I snuck out the house and took Jet into the school and did lunge work with him. Jet, that's what i called him due to his colouring jet, black.

Then came the day I woke up as usual at 7:45am, got dressed and came downstairs to my mum in the kitchen. I made myself some eggs before eating them rather fast so I could get to helping dad. I looked at mum as I put my dish in the sink. "Did I do something wrong? You've been smiling at me since I woke up! '' I said as she smiled again and said dad was waiting outside for me in the school to pick my horse. I gave her a huge hug then I pelted outside, but when I saw my dad said goodbye to a man in a truck who had a horse box attached to the back, the horse screamed and cried in the trailer. No way, he wouldn't, he couldn't. My eyes widened.

"Nooooo! '' I screamed, I ran to Bubble, foot in stirrup, and jumped on him. I rode on Bubble when I went out on hacks with my mum and Jasmine (she's my best friend). Once I was on Bubble and cantered over to the box being towed away by the man, I asked Bubble for a faster gallop and as I pulled up alongside the horse box I could see the stallion inside, it was jet, the foal I had grown up with. I understood he was worried; I undid the pins on the side door and pulled it down.

As I jumped off Bubble and into the quickly moving horse box, Jet stopped whining and looked sorrowful but happy to see me. I told Bubble to run home and not stop till he got there. But Jet was a wild horse, never broken, never ridden or even had a rope around his neck. After a few more weeks of trying to break Jet my father gave up and turned him out on the 52 acres of wild hills we owned with a small herd of 5 mares. Still, I couldn't let the man take Jet to the slaughter houses, but how would I get him off the trailer whilst it was going over 50mph.

JUMP!!!! it sprung into my head like a bad dream on a stormy night, the only way to get Jet off this trailer and go back to the ranch was to jump. I looked at him straight into his deep blue eyes like rivers flowing through a valley, and I could tell we were thinking the exact same, 1 brain, 1 chance, 1 goal. HOME. I took a deep breath and gulped hard, I undid the bar that held Jet in place, he slowly walked toward me, the man slowed to 40mph but still it was fast, he was coming up the main roads.

" It's now or never, boy."

I kicked the back door down until it hit the road with a spark, the jet looked out, then at me. I grabbed a tight hold of a piece of his thick silky black mane, lent over his back and slowly pulled myself up onto the bold stallion.

We walked to the edge and stood looking out at the road beneath us, he straightened his back legs out slightly and bent his front ones. We stopped for a second and thought about our life before today. Then in a hot second he jumped, I held on laying flat on his back, my arms wrapped around his neck. His hooves hit the tarmac like mini bombs wrapped in tap dancing shoes, as soon as we hit the road, I sat up straight and looked behind me, we did it. Jet never looked back; he just cantered along the road track until we reached my father's field, I could tell what he thought. No matter how dumb or stupid or simple-minded horses were, they have feelings and a heart as well as a brain. He knew where that box was going, and he wasn't giving up without a fight. (Also: just a recap, I am currently galloping through a harvest field on a wild black stallion, no saddle, no bridal, no reins. I was free, and Jet was too!!)

I said after we got off the trailer we would go home, but 1 question, where was home, daddy betrayed me mother did too, she knew all about the arrangement of the man coming to take Jet away but said not a word of the sort. I knew because a few days prior i overheard her talking about delivery/pick up times and something about parking for a single box. I just thought she was about to deliver a parcel delivery!? So, it was decided, we would leave, leave home, leave family, and never look back.

THE RUNAWAY