@DuneMadGirl
Chapter One-
“Mom!” Lindsay called “Why do we have to move?”. Lindsay was a young girl, who was an average size in height, with straight brown hair and she was totally horse crazy! She lived on a farm with her Bay pony, Prince. “Because,” her mom replied, “Your dad has been offered a job in Wilton as a hoof smith, as you well know”. Violeta, Lindsay’s mom, was a tall woman with long curly brown hair. She looked quite young for her age
As her dad, Victor was putting the last box in the moving van, he said “does any of you guys know where that silly boy Ben is?”. “I know!” Violeta said with a chuckle. “He’s saying goodbye to his room and Lindsay is with Prince. She’s heartbroken that she’ll never see him again”.
Ben was Lindsay’s younger brother. He had short curly
brown hair and like his mom, was quite tall for a nine-year-old and his dad also had short brown hair but instead of it being curly it was straight. Lindsay took after him as he was also medium in height.
One hour later the Yellowwood family was on the road to Wilton. Ben was asleep with his tablet on his lap, Lindsay was reading a book (about horses) on her phone, her mom was looking out the window while dad was driving.
As they entered the driveway to their farm Forest Creek,
they were greeted by a lady somewhere in her 80’s, she was walking a bit lopsided, with greying hair. “Hello, you guys must be the Yellowwoods. I’m Tory”, she said. “Pleased to meet you”, Victor said. “I am Victor, and this is my wife Violeta and my children Lindsay and Ben”. “Pleased to meet you too, I hope you will settle in well” she said. Then she climbed slowly into her yellow ,90’s Beetle car and drove off. “what a surprise to see her here I wonder what she was doing? “Violeta said with question in her voice.
Upon entering the farm house, they noticed that it was all clean and that there was a note on the floor saying, “Welcome Yellowwoods!”
A few weeks later, after all the boxes were unpacked, they decided to visit the next-door neighbours. As they rang the bell, a young girl of about 13, which was Lindsay’s age, with long wavy black hair answered the door. “Hi,” she said. “I am Scarlet, you must be the next-door neighbors, the Yellowwoods.” “Yes, that’s us. I’m Violeta this is my Husband Victor, Lindsay and Ben are our kids.” “Shall I introduce you to my family?” “That would be wonderful” Victor said with excitement. As Scarlet was leading them into the farmhouse the Yellowwoods were breath taken by the beauty of the home
“Welcome, welcome” A lady, which everyone presumed was Scarlets mom, stood up and greeted them “Hello, I’m Abigail, Scarlets mom” “Visitors I see, welcome, I’m George” Everyone was caught by surprise when a tall, well-built man walked through the doorway behind them, with a fox slung over his arms “Found this old thief trying to steal one of my hens, the little rascal” George laughed “Have they met your brother yet, Dear?” “I was going to do so now, mommy” Scarlet replies, with a flustered expression on her face “Follow me guys”
“As the children (the adults are socializing) go upstairs they pass by 3 rooms: one, a shiny polished bathroom and the other two where bedrooms, which they assumed belonged Scarlet and her parents. “Edward!” Scarlet screamed down the hallway “Come here, now!”, “Coming” a voice hollered, almost as loud. And then, not to anyone’s surprise, a red head boy slumbered out of a room at the end of the hallway. “What do you want now Scarlet?” “These are our new next-door neighbors, Lindsay and Ben. He is 9 like you” Edward stares blankly into the distance “So?” He says “So… go show him your room, duh!” she replied in annoyance
While the boys walked down the hallway, the girls went to Scarlet’s room. “Boys can be such an annoyance” Lindsay said, rolling her eyes. “so, what do you want to do?” Scarlet asked. “Well… I don’t really know, what can we do?” “I have a horse board game that I got for my 10th birthday called Herd the Horses. Wanna play that?” “Yeah that sounds cool.” Lindsay nervously replied.
While Scarlet was looking for the game box Lindsay looked around the room and spotted some russets on the wall and a picture of a dappled grey horse with 4 black socks. “you ride?” “oh… yeah” Scarlet said “his name is Spartan, he is an Andalusian and loves dressage. Any ways here are the game I told you about”.
While the girls are playing their game, the boys have been busy setting a trap for the girls. “Lindsay, Ben where going, come downstairs!” their mom yelled. The boys run as fast as possible down the stairs.
In Scarlets room the girls are busy packing away the game and the when they open the door a huge bucket of water falls on their heads and they are soaked from head to toe. “Boys!” Scarlet and Lindsay screech as loud as possible. The parents rush upstairs, and the boys hide in Edwards treehouse.
When the parents see the soaked girls the moms rush and get towels and the dads go look for the boys. When the moms returned with the towels they started helping the girls get dry and find new and dry clothes for Lindsay “What happened, dear?” Abigail asked. “We were walking out the door and then this bucket fell on us and we were soaked.” Scarlet said with chattering teeth. At that moment Victor came running in and said, “Scarlet do you know where the boys are?” “Have you checked the tree house” “no I have not, Thank you.” The Fathers turned around and left for the treehouse, and the moms went to dry the wet floor.
“So, what happened to Spartan? Can we go look at him now?”, enquired Lindsay. “he got hurt okay, so no, you can’t.” “Oh, okay I didn’t know.” “No, you didn’t know!” barked Scarlet. Lindsay slowly started backing away and was almost in tears
“No Lindsay, please I didn’t mean to shout at you here’s what happened, we were at a show and he had an accident, so you know the horse in the field behind our house that’s him he just hasn’t been the same since the accident, Tory says he’s waiting but we don’t what for” “oh, okay how did he get hurt you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I see it’s a sensitive topic” “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t tell you” “no its cool, let’s go and see if the adults have caught the boys yet!” she said.
As the girls approached the tree the where astounded by what they saw, the two fathers trying to climb the tree, reason being that the boys rolled the rope ladder up. Scarlet who knew all the secrets of the tree (having spent the most time in there) said “Can I trust you?" "Well of course you can!" "Come on then I know a secret way in, follow me.” The girls with much stealth walked to the back of the tree.
When they reached the back of the tree Scarlet removed some leaves and branches that where tied together to hide a hole big enough for a person. “C’mon what are you waiting for I’ll go first then you follow.” Scarlet whispered, she then disappeared into the hole. Nervously, Lindsay followed, she could then see that the tree was hollowed out and metal was supporting the treehouse. On the metal where little foot and handholds made out of wood all the way round.
Lindsay looked up and saw that Scarlet was already halfway up the tree. Lindsay followed and did the same. When they reached the top Scarlet whispered, “we will open the door, grab them from behind, then cover their mouths with this cloth, making sure that they can’t scream, you got that, Lindsay, oh and I will do my brother and you do yours how does that sound to you?” “okay let’s do this” Lindsay murmured.
The boys had no idea what had hit them. As soon as they were gagged Scarlet said, “you will let down the rope ladder and leave also you will pretend that we were NEVER here do you hear me boys” The boys who were still in shock nodded their heads “Good now get moving!”. Slowly the boys let down the ladder and the girls returned to the house.
The moms had made some tea and fished out some cake “looks like we are all going to have some tea and cake together, would you please fetch Quintin from his man cave Scarlet?" Abigail inquired “Ok mom, let’s go Lindsay!”
Once the girls were out of earshot of the parents Lindsay said “So, if the parents do not know about the tree house, how’d you get it so fancy?” “Oh, the people who lived here before us had two kids, them and their parents did it when we moved here my parents asked the old owners to stay and have a Cup’O’ Coffey, you know how adults are, well anyways while they were doing that the kids showed me and my brothers the treehouse and told us to not tell our parents.” “Ohh that sounds wonderful. I wish I had a cool treehouse like that, where we used to live there was this massive tree but there was only a plank or to for us to climb” Lindsay declared “Oh that not very good, hush now my brother doesn’t know that you guys are here. Quintin?”
“What do you want Scarlet?” a husky voice replied. “Mom says you must come upstairs for tea you’ve been sulking about your ex for long enough now, we also have guests”. “Ok, ok I’m on my way, just wait for me.”
Not long after a teenager walked out the door and was astounded by the beautiful girl with his sister and felt a bit embarrassed, he was wearing a sloppy pair of shorts and the worst shirt ever. His hair was untamed, and his face was a bit tear stained.
“Hey, I’m Quintin” he said shyly “Oh, hey, I’m Lindsay. We moved here a month ago”. She replied apprehensively whilst shaking his hand.
Once the Yellowwoods had arrived home, everyone went to their own room to get some alone time before dinner started. Lindsay decided to unpack the last box in her room, in it, she found the picture of Prince and her beloved diary. She immediately turned to the page marker and started writing.
Dear diary Wednesday April 2 2016
We have moved to a new place now, it’s a ranch called Forest Creek. I love it here. I have a room all to myself now and it’s also at the back of the house, a major improvement from last time, why? because I can’t hear what happens in the living room downstairs!
We met the next-door neighbors today and they have a girl my age. Her name is Scarlet, isn’t that a beautiful name? There is also her younger brother Edward and her older brother Quintin. Quintin is so cute but he wouldn’t like a girl like, I mean, he’s only just met me and I’m not the prettiest person alive. I also don’t know his personality but he seems funny.
A week before we left my parents gave me my first phone! so I went to school and got all my friend's numbers so that I could stay in contact with them.
The car drive was long and very boring, at least I had my phone and lots of data, yay. The scenery, from what I saw, was beautiful. Lots of forest and open fields. I wish that Prince was here, he would have loved to gallop trough those fields.
We stopped at a restaurant called The Little Garden. We had to sit in grass on Turkish towels in a garden that looked like it came straight from a fairy tale book. It was an amazing experience I ordered a Rose Chocolate (this was a strawberry hot chocolate with a fake rose on top) and a Sandwich Bouquet (sandwiches that where cut with a flower shaped cookie cutter)
I have to go and eat dinner now, bye!
Lindsay (Lizzy)
CHAPTER 2-
“So, do you guys want to hear the story that Abigail and George told us?” Violeta enquired. “Oh yes, story time!” Ben said, not bothering to hide his excitement. “Ok let’s all be quiet so that can tell his story” Violeta said
“In the year 1946 the entire moor was covered with herds of wild horses, but then, (no one knows how) they slowly started disappearing. There are, however some people with theories. This one from a man named Jason is my is their favorite. He lived in the house on the other side of the moor.
The guy, Gordon was his name, who lived in a house in the middle of the forest, seemed in the beginning very poor. His house looked like an old ruin and the garden like a wild jungle. He never let anybody come inside and he hated all the people who lived there as he scowled whenever you walked by.
Then one sunny day, he left with a strange foreign man and only came back a week later.
While he was gone all the other farmers went to go and check out his house. In there they saw the most unbelievable things. This guy is actually very rich!
“But how did he get so rich, he looked so poor.” “That’s exactly what he wanted people to think Ben” his dad said ‘now let me continue with my st
He didn’t want them to know he was rich, for fear of them finding out his secret” “What was his secret then dad?” “Keep quiet to find out Lizzy.”
“David, the guy who was in charge of the whole investigation, then suggested they should form groups and split up, investigating the house for clues to find out how he got so rich and why he was hiding it. He himself went upstairs in hope of finding the secret out by himself because he was a very selfish guy and loved being important.
A while later he heard woops of joy and his heart sank. He thought they had found the secret of his riches. He rushed downstairs and saw everyone gathered around the youngest girl in the whole group. She was 9 years old.
She was holding a piece of paper. It was a signed document that Gordon had agreed to sell the moor horses for a fortune to somebody overseas. It had details regarding delivery and shipping and everything. As the horses seemed to disappear overnight, nobody suspected that he was selling them.”
“That’s a pretty smart scheme,” Lindsay noted. “It indeed was,” Violeta replied. “Hush now, let me finish the story,” her husband said.
“Six days after their discovery Gordon came home. He was surprised, and angered, to find his agreement document being held up by a police officer in his front yard.
He was found guilty of illegal exporting and of exporting livestock that wasn’t his to start with. After this he was sentenced to ten years in jail and a fine so high, he had to sell his house.”
“That’s an interesting story Dad, but is it real?” Lindsay questioned “We don’t really know, but it is a very good explanation for why the horses went missing.”
