Fact or Fiction - 30

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The story yesterday - Here

Was...

All...

TRUE! - INCLUDING the horrible nail falling off thing. It looked EXACTLY like the picture (apart from the fact that I picked at it, bent the nail back from the side of my finger and scraped out the black, scabby blood particles). It was GROSS! Disgusting and horribly painful!

Anyway...

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I was a bad kid. I never did as I was told, I was disobedient, unruly and wayward as a child. If an adult told me off in the street, I'd get into an argument with them because I loathed being told off, even by my parents, and no one else had the authority to tell me off... wow... what a kid - and not in a good way!

I'm so relieved my kids didn't end up like that!

I also adored ponies and would do just about anything to be around them.
One of my new friends had a pony and she asked if I wanted to ride it for her. She had to go somewhere that evening and couldn’t ride it. Her dad had told her that if the pony wasn’t ridden every day, he’d get rid of it, so it seemed like the perfect trade-off.

Apart from the fact that she lived miles away.

The deal was made. She’d come to my house on the school bus with me, and explain the situation, then I’d go with her to her house, ride her pony and be back by a reasonable hour – nothing specific, I made sure of that.

The girl was related to our neighbour (two doors away) and she went to say hello to them.

While she was gone, I explained to my mother that she was the neighbour’s cousin – that set a seed in my mother’s mind that the girl came from the village where we had moved from, half a mile away.

See? Devious!

We set off for my friend’s house. It didn’t take too long, across the fields. She went in, changed out of her school uniform and came back out. We went to fetch her pony – caught the pony in the field, put the bridle on and off we went (no saddle).

She showed me this neat trick her pony did.

The pony came up beside her and laid its head on her shoulder. Then it tickled her ear gently by moving its lips and blowing. It made my friend laugh because it really did tickle. If ever you’ve felt a horse or pony’s mouth, you’ll know exactly how mobile and soft it is.

Back in the village, we met up with a few people we knew from school – some with their own ponies and my friend went to the thing she had to go to (Guides, or something, I don’t remember).

I was on an enclosed playground, chatting with the others from our school – of course, having ‘sole ownership’ of the pony for the time being made me really cool…

A girl from school came across to say hi. She recognised the pony and asked why I had it. After explaining, she started chatting to me. I got off the pony to chat to her easier.

She’d never spoken to me before at school, and as she was older than us, she was of course, automatically more ‘cool’.

“Have you seen the trick the pony does?” she said.

“Yeah, Angie showed it to me,” I said.

“Have you tried it?” she said.

“No… would it do the trick with me?” I asked.

“Yeah, course it would.”

She encouraged the pony closer to me and it got into the same position it had with Angie – to the side of me, facing the same way.

It leaned its head on my shoulder and started to make the soft whickering noises they make.

I was starting to think I was the Horse Whisperer when it tried to take a chunk out of me. Ponies’ lips are soft – their teeth are NOT!

“The fucking thing tried to bite me!” I said, not pleased.

The older girl laughed – she knew exactly what the pony was like and she’d set me up.

Eventually, Angie, the pony’s owner came back. I had to go, I was VERY late! I should have been back home way before dark and I still had miles and miles to walk – across fields in pitch black – not a great prospect.

My friends chipped in and we had enough money for bus fare so I wouldn’t have to walk home – better than nothing, I figured.

I went to wait for the bus and it didn’t bother stopping. It sailed right on past me! My friend couldn’t do anything and it was time for her to go home too, so she left me alone.

Back in those days, there were no mobile phones and even the public phone boxes were few and far between.

I was stuck miles from home, alone, just about enough bus fare to get home and in for a thrashing when I finally got back.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I remembered that my mother had told me I had a relation in the same year at school. She’d shown me approximately where the relatives lived and it just so happened that their house was in sight!

I went across the road, knocked on the first door I came to and asked if the woman was my Aunt.

I told her who I was and who I believed she was and as luck would have it, she was indeed, my mother’s cousin!

I used the phone to ring my grandmother – notice I didn’t ring my home number and risk speaking to my father.

Eventually, my grandmother turned up in her car. She knocked on the door, worried, a little angry and told me she’d been waiting for half an hour!

We’d been looking for a red car, but under the sodium glow, we couldn’t tell that it was her car out there.

At least I was safe.

She took me home and here’s where my strategy kicked in.

She came into my house where my parents were ready to ‘read the riot act’ (and then some).

Because my grandmother was there, they didn’t give me the punishment they would have. I escaped a beating that night – not to mention a multitude of other dangers.

Still, I didn’t repeat that trick… at least, not for a few years.

Today's story, is it truth or fiction? Tell me in the comments.