Stacy Gregg - Issie and the Christmas Pony - Christmas Special

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2008

Text copyright © Stacy Gregg 2008

Illustrations © Fiona Land 2007

www.staygregg.co.uk

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007288748

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 9780007341443

Version: 2017-03-29

For Hayley and all the kids in Room 10, Merry Christmas

Cover

Title Page Pony Club Secrets Issie and the Christmas Pony Stacy Greeg

Copyright Copyright Copyright Map Dedication 1 A Summer Christmas 2…Four Years Earlier 3 The Perfect Pony? 4 Winterflood Farm 5 Bombproof Bert 6 Dream Pony 7 The Chevalier Point Pony Club 8 Auction Day 9 Going Once…Going Twice… 10 The Worst Christmas Ever 11 The Christmas Present 12 Forever Keep Reading Glossary The Pony Club Secrets Series About the Publisher HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2008 Text copyright © Stacy Gregg 2008 Illustrations © Fiona Land 2007 www.staygregg.co.uk The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007288748 Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 9780007341443 Version: 2017-03-29

Map

Dedication For Hayley and all the kids in Room 10, Merry Christmas

1 A Summer Christmas

2…Four Years Earlier

3 The Perfect Pony?

4 Winterflood Farm

5 Bombproof Bert

6 Dream Pony

7 The Chevalier Point Pony Club

8 Auction Day

9 Going Once…Going Twice…

10 The Worst Christmas Ever

11 The Christmas Present

12 Forever

Keep Reading

Glossary

The Pony Club Secrets Series

About the Publisher

Issie Brown was just a little girl when she realised that Christmas was all wrong. Not wrong exactly, but sort of mixed up, muddled. Not the way it should be.

Christmas on TV was always cold and wintry. There were sleigh bells and snow and you crowded round a roaring fire with hot chocolate while your mum cooked roast dinner with turkey and plum pudding. You’d wrap up warm in coats and mittens to sing carols and then tuck yourself up indoors and watch the snowflakes patter against the window while you waited for Santa to arrive.

Issie couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Because Christmas wasn’t like that at all in Chevalier Point. It wasn’t snowing for starters-in fact, it was positively baking hot, the middle of summer, without a cloud in the bright blue sky. And there wasn’t any turkey or plum pudding. Issie couldn’t remember ever eating that sort of food for Christmas. For as long as she could remember her family had cooked their Christmas lunch on the barbecue down at the beach. They would wake up on Christmas morning and open their presents, which nearly always included a beach toy like swingball or a boogie board. Then they’d race down to the beach, where Issie would meet up with Stella and Kate.

While their dads put crayfish and scallops on the hotplate to sizzle and their mums set out the picnic blankets, the girls would swim in the sea, riding the waves in on their boogie boards. When lunch was ready, they’d sit down on the blankets, still wearing their swimming costumes, letting the hot sun dry their backs as they ate. Their plates would be piled with bright red crayfish claws, which they would smash open with nutcrackers, prising out the juicy white flesh, dipping it in hot melted butter and mopping up the juice with crusty bread.

For dessert there would be pavlova and strawberries and ice cream, and afterwards Issie, Stella and Kate would lie back on the grass in the hot summer sun until their mums were convinced their food had been digested and it was safe to swim again.

No roaring fire, no snowflakes. It was a very different Christmas. A New Zealand Christmas.

It was hard to believe that when it was summer here in Chevalier Point, on the other side of the world it was winter. Right now, it was midnight in Europe and all the kids were fast asleep. Here, it was midday on Christmas Eve. The weather, as usual, was gloriously sunny, and Issie was in the kitchen at her house with Stella and Kate. The girls had come up with the genius idea of making Christmas cakes-with their own very special recipe.

“I need more oats!” Stella was using a wooden spoon to stir the mixture in the mixing bowl. It was already so thick that the spoon actually stood straight up in the bowl even when she wasn’t holding it.

“Here!” came a voice from underneath the bench. Kate, who had been rummaging around below the sink, popped her head up and passed the bag of oats to Stella.