Star Dancer by Morgan Llywelyn

they catch you lifting stuff?’ Anto sounded envious, as if he admired Ger for stealing.
    ‘They didn’t …’ Ger hesitated. ‘I mean …’ He looked at their eager faces. They wanted him to be a hero, a thief.
    They were his friends, these lads. His only friends. Suzanne wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him any more. Star Dancer probably wouldn’t forgive him either. Horses had good memories. Dancer probably knew Ger had made him sick.
    The stables and the life there was a lost world.
    Ger looked again at the faces clustered around him. He took a deep breath and said mysteriously, ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
    ‘He did!’ Danny crowed. ‘He took stuff and got caught! But he got away! You got away, didn’t you, Ger?’ He sounded admiring, impressed.
    Ger gave an elaborate shrug. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Will they be after you?’
    ‘They don’t know where to find me,’ Ger replied. ‘I never told them where I live.’
    ‘You’re dead cute,’ Anto said approvingly. ‘Nobody ever catches Ger Casey.’
    ‘Nobody,’ Ger agreed. They were taking him back, acceptinghim as their leader again. He was welcome back into their circle because they thought he’d done something dangerous and illegal and clever. ‘I made a fair few quid out of it,’ he said casually, letting them think he had stolen the money.
    ‘Yeah? How much?’
    ‘A bit.’ He folded his arms to let them know he wasn’t telling.
    They nudged each other. They were very impressed.
    But then Anto said, ‘What about the spying? You made all that up, then?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘And maybe not,’ Danny decided.
    They wanted to believe. They wanted to be impressed. Seeing the picture in the paper had done it. Now they thought he was really special.
    I could’ve been, Ger said to himself, remembering what it felt like to ride a horse. I could’ve been. Maybe. But I ruined it.
    He hated himself. But the gang would never know. They were looking at him hopefully, expecting him to come up with some exciting idea for a way to spend the day. He made himself jump to his feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said abruptly. ‘Let’s go and
do
something.’ He set off down the street at a run. The sound of their footsteps behind him told him they were following him once more.
     
    As the days passed and there was no sign of Ger, Suzanne grew more and more worried. She tried to tell herself she was being foolish. Ger was tough and smart, she knew that much. He could take care of himself. He’d probably just got tired of the hard work and scarpered.
    But she didn’t really believe that. Ger had loved Dancer, and he hadn’t minded the hard work. He had been proud of what he was accomplishing, and he had been devoted to his riding lessons.
    She couldn’t believe he had just thrown it all away.
    When she tried to express her worries to Brendan Walsh, the stable manager shrugged them off. ‘He’s no good, that one,’ he said. ‘I’d forget about him if I was you. There are a thousand more where he came from. We were all wrong about him, Suzanne, so just let it go at that.’
    But she couldn’t. There was a stubborn streak in Suzanne O’Gorman.
    Besides, she had another reason for wanting to find Ger. When Star Dancer had been over his colic for a week, Anne decided it was safe to start jumping him again, very easily and carefully at first.
    And Suzanne realised Ger had taken the magic stone away with him in his pocket. It was gone with him wherever he was gone.
    ‘I don’t think we should begin jumping Dancer again yet,’ Suzanne told Anne. ‘He might have a relapse.’
    ‘Nonsense. The vet said he could go back to normal exercise as long as we don’t overdo it. And that junior event is coming up faster than you realise, Suzanne. You need to practise. I’m not worried so much about the dressage phase, but the two of you have a lot of work to do over fences if you’re going to be ready.’
    ‘I know, but …’
    ‘No buts about it,’ Anne said briskly.