Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
1 May’s News
2 Jasmine’s Model Horse
3 A Very Bad Day
4 Riding Lesson
5 Untacking
6 Samurai Makes Trouble
7 Samurai Goes to School
8 May Goes to School
9 Samurai’s Homework
10 Saturday Morning
11 The Scavenger Hunt
12 Time to Think
13 A Change for the Better
14 The Rewards of Hard Work
15 Getting Even
16 The Final Lesson
Jasmine’s Tips for Plaiting a Pony’s Mane and Tail
About the Author
Also by Bonnie Bryant
Copyright
Don’t miss all the titles in the PONY TAILS series:
1. PONY CRAZY
2. MAY’S RIDING LESSON
3. COREY’S PONY IS MISSING
4. JASMINE’S CHRISTMAS RIDE
5. MAY TAKES THE LEAD
6. COREY IN THE SADDLE
7. JASMINE TROTS AHEAD
8. MAY RIDES A NEW PONY
9. COREY AND THE SPOOKY PONY
10. JASMINE HELPS A FOAL
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First published Bantam, 1996
This ebook published 2016
Copyright © Bonnie Bryant Hiller, 1995
Illustrations copyright © Kim Harley, 1995
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978–1–448–19789–7
All correspondence to:
RHCP Digital
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
May Grover couldn’t wait to get to the school-bus stop. She had something really good to tell her best friends, Jasmine James and Corey Takamura. The three girls lived next door to one another, and they all went to the same school, though they were each in different classes. They were such good friends, they did everything together – especially riding their ponies.
Corey was at the bus stop when May arrived. So was Wil McNally.
“Oh, no,” muttered May. Wil was the biggest tease and bully in school. He never missed a chance to tease May and her friends.
May decided to ignore Wil. Instead she talked to Corey.
“Max called my mum last night,” May began. “And wait till you hear this!”
“I bet this has to do with your ponies.” Wil smirked as he interrupted their conversation.
“Yes, it does have something to do with our ponies,” May replied. “Not that it’s any of your business . . .”
That made Wil step back a little. But it didn’t make him stop listening.
“Anyway,” May went on, turning her back on Wil, “Max called.” Max Regnery was the owner of Pine Hollow Stables, where the girls’ Pony Club had its meetings. “He wanted to borrow our instant camera. He told Mum we’re going to have a special kind of scavenger hunt at the next Pony Club meeting. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“It certainly does,” Corey said. “But what’s a scavenger hunt?”
Wil snorted.
May turned around to glare at him before she answered Corey’s question. “It’s a game. The leader – that’ll be Max – gives us each a list of things we have to find. And the team that gets the most things from the list wins a prize. Best of all, we’ll get to do the whole thing on our ponies.”
“So what will we have to look for?” asked Corey.
“A scavenger hunt can be for anything,” May replied. “Mum said she was on a scavenger hunt once, and she had to get an eagle feather and a 1958 penny. I don’t know what Max will put on the list.” May glanced at Wil. “But if he asks us to find an obnoxious boy, I know just where to look.”
Wil glared at May. She decided not to talk about the scavenger hunt in front of him any more. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to talk about ponies, though.
She and Corey began talking about the riding lesson they would have that afternoon with Jasmine. The three girls were so pony crazy, they called themselves the Pony Tails. They each had their own pony, and they had lessons on Wednesdays at Pine Hollow. Then, on Saturdays, they had Pony Club. The name of their Pony Club was Horse Wise because that was what the members wanted to become – wise about horses.
Even though they all loved ponies, the three girls were very different from one another. May could be stubborn. She usually said exactly what was on her mind. Not everybody liked that, and it sometimes got her into trouble.
Jasmine was almost a complete opposite of that. She was gentle and a little shy. She had a lot of model horses that she let her friends play with.
Not long ago Corey had moved into the house between May’s and Jasmine’s. Corey was very logical and reasonable. When May and Jasmine couldn’t find a way to agree on something, Corey could usually find the way for them. Not only that, she loved ponies and riding as much as the other girls did.
Each of the girls had her own pony. May had a golden-coloured pony named Macaroni. Macaroni was as sweet and gentle as May was strong-willed. Jasmine’s pony was named Outlaw, because he had a white face that looked like a mask. He was sometimes hard to control. Corey’s pony was named Sam, for Samurai. He was a dark bay with a blaze on his face that looked like a Samurai sword.
“I wish Jasmine would get here,” May said, glancing over at Jasmine’s house. “I want to tell her about the scavenger hunt, too.”
“I hope Max puts brains on the list,” Wil said. “You girls could really use them.”
“Is he always like this?” Corey whispered to May. She was still getting to know Wil.
“Always,” May sighed.
A few minutes later May and Corey heard Jasmine’s front door bang shut. Jasmine waved to her friends and skipped down the walk.
May could see that Jasmine was carrying something. It was one of her model horses. Jasmine had eighteen model horses and ponies. May and Corey had some, too. The girls often brought their horses over to one another’s house and played with them. Jasmine liked to make saddles, bridles, and all kinds of equipment for her horses. Today she was carrying a model of an Arabian.
“Look what I’ve done!” Jasmine said proudly. She held up the horse to show her friends the Arabian-style outfit she’d made for it. The outfit even had golden tassels.
“That’s great,” said Corey. “Did you do all the sewing yourself?”
Jasmine nodded. “We’re studying the Arabian Peninsula in class. I thought everyone would like to see a real Arabian horse. Mum let me use these scraps to make a costume for him.”