Ruby Ferguson: Jill's Pony Trek

Jill is 17, and having to take life seriously, so she decides to tell her readers about another episode in her youth: the pony trek. Jill and Ann are helping the Horse Protection Society Flag Day, and they call at Miss Crombie’s house to sell flags. They are invited in and find that until her back injury, Miss Crombie was a leading light in the equine world. Miss Crombie goes to help Jill and Ann at a local gymkhana. Ann and George bolt on the way home, and are stopped by Mrs Folds, who invites them to go on a pony trek. They invite Jackie Heath, Wendy Mead, Diana Bush and Mercy Dulbottle to go too. Their first night they spend at a farm; the second is in the open air. The third day the trek just manage to avoid a speeding lorry, and spend the third night at a farm. Wendy suggests the speeding lorry has stolen televisions in it, and that the farmer’s lost calves have been let out by trippers: she is right on both counts. Their night under the stars comes to an abrupt end when the rain comes down with a vengeance. They set off again in the morning, but Jill and Ann have to stop to have Ann’s stirrup leather stitched. Alas, when they set off to re-join the trek, neither of them can remember where they are to go. They set off in what they think is the right direction, and rescue a woman marooned in her house with a broken leg. The police re-direct Jill and Ann to the rest of the trekkers, and the trek ends with a gymkhana, at which Jill and Rosevale (another trekker) share first place in the jumping. They return home to a huge welcome from their friends and families.