Do you see this, Josie? Look at me go!
I laugh out loud again and am wondering vaguely whether I should start a new career in something competitively equestrian, and also whether adults can get those rosettes that my pony-loving friends got when we were kids, when something darts out in front of us across the path. It’s some kind of small woodland creature, maybe a squirrel. But either way, Frosty Tops is not happy about it. She rears back with a loud whinny, hooves reaching towards the sky. I already know that I’m going to fall off before I even start to. It seems to happen in slow motion – a tumble from what feels like a great height, although FrostyTops can’t be more than four feet tall. I land on the hard dusty ground, my ankle twisting in a direction that it is absolutely not designed to twist in. There’s blackness for a moment, a wave of nausea and sickening pain in my foot. I’m definitely going to pass out … A weird noise emits from my throat, somewhere between a groan and a howl. I open my eyes and see leaves and snatches of sky, and then a face above me – River, looking absolutely horrified. He crouches down, brows furrowed.
‘Oh, God. Gertie, are you okay?’
‘Hurts.’
‘Fuck. Have you hit your head? Can you move?’
‘My head is fine,’ I say, slowly sitting up and taking a steadying breath. ‘But my ankle really hurts. I think I might have … oh God. I do not have a high pain threshold, River!’
‘Don’t move, okay? Fuck. I’m sorry, Gertie. I got carried away.’
Sharon trots up and quickly dismounts, not having witnessed what happened but seeing the sorry result of it. ‘Oh dear! Did you take a tumble, dear? Are you okay? You’ll have a fair bruise tomorrow.’
‘My fault,’ River says. ‘Entirely my fault. Okay, Gertie, I’m gonna carry you and we’ll get a cab to the emergency room.’ His voice is gentle and calm, but his face is pale with worry.
‘You’re very efficient,’ I say, my teeth starting to chatter at the sickening pain in my ankle. ‘I might puke, fair warning.’
‘Puke if you need to,’ River says.
‘But the puke would get on you.’
‘I work a ranch. I’ve had a lot worse than puke on me.’
‘Ew.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll try really hard not to puke.’
I’m clearly not trying hard enough, though, because about half a second later I throw up all over his beloved cowboy boots.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
When I woke up this morning, I would never have guessed that I’d be spending the evening sitting next to an interdimensional cowboy in a central London hospital. Before we left the stables, Sharon poured her entire bottle of fancy mineral water over River’s pukey boots and begged us not to sue her, even though we were clearly in the wrong, completely ignoring the rules and instructions she gave us.
I glance around the waiting room. Everybody is miserable, and anyone who can bear to look around is looking directly at River.
‘Can you take the cowboy hat off?’ I say. ‘Everyone’s staring and it’s weirding me out.’
‘That’ll happen even if I take the hat off,’ River tells me calmly.
‘No, no. It’s because you look so much like a cowboy, but with a sequin ribbon on your hat. It’s jarring.’
‘I like the ribbon.’
‘But it’s making everyone stare at you,’ I snap, the pain making me tetchy.
River sighs. ‘Fine, but … they will still stare either way. It just happens.’
He takes the hat off, placing it on his lap, his ash-brownhair flopping silkily over his forehead. Even more people look up to stare at him.
He shrugs in a sort ofwhat can y’do?way.
Jeez.
*
