The Summer Of My Life

Chapter 1

"Oh my gosh! Look at all those cutie-pie ponies!"

"How cuuuuute!"

"Ahhhh!"

Fearing that the frown would stay permanently, I slouched down even deeper into the uncomfortable bus seat, staring out of the window grumpily - into the exact opposite direction the overly pink and girly girls on the bus were looking. On my side of the bus, wide-open fields spread out over the hilly landscape, making me wonder how it would feel to race full speed over the gravel roads leading over one hill to the next.

"Awww. Look! It's rolling around in the grass!"
No, it's rolling around in dirt, making the poor person who is to ride it afterwards have to brush it for hours. That's not aw-able.
Letting an annoyed glare swerve around the bus, I returned to staring out of the window, feeling the need to keep the bus in balance as about twenty girls were sticking to the opposite side's windows, gaping out with their noses squished to the glass.

Mon dieu, were they 5 or 15?

I turned my head around again, deciding that their age wasn't something worth thinking about. They all were probably younger than me, at least the ones surrounding me.
I also noticed that I stuck out like a dog under cats. With my beige trousers and blue polo shirt, I was like a dolphin in between piggies. Every single one of the piggies wore at least a pink shirt and pink hair bands. Some even heightened the piggy-fit: pink brown riding trousers, pink shoes.

Just the thought brought me to shiver. Too much pink, too much girlie-ness, too little rational thinking.

Ponies here, foals there, horses everywhere.
And on the other hand, behind me, the repeaters, how they liked to call themselves, resided. A group of people in my age and a little older and t o t a l experts. About the stud, the owner family and of course – horses. They didn't baulk at showing off their wealth, their priced horses and whatever their family had except horses, which made me do a runner within the first few minutes.

But, sitting in front of them, gave me some knowledge about the family, me not quite understanding everything as they were repeaters and often just spoke in half sentences, breaking out in a giggle afterwards ("Do you remember the time Bianca tried to seduce Levi...?"). And then the great giggling started.

It made me go mad after half an hour, leaving me with ear buds in for the next couple of hours.

The bus eventually got off the main road that led over the numerous hills, driving through a little forest, the piggies sitting down again as the horses disappeared from sight.
But the noise rose again as the forest ended and we were heading straight up to a stud, making me realise that this was where we were supposed to stay. On the left and right side of the street were giant paddocks with countless amounts of horses in them, making the piggies squish their noses against the windows again. The stud, from what I had seen, was surrounded by beautiful giant chestnut trees and ivy was ranking up the sides of the multiple houses. The main house, more like mansion, was easily spottable and instantly radiated off a feeling of safety and some kind of home.

Closing my eyes for a brief moment as one of the piggies fell onto me, squealing highly as she stuck her nose to the window left to me, kneeling more or less on my lap, I pressed myself back into the chair, waiting for her to get off me. The thing she was observing left her field of sight, making her turn to me and mutter a short apology before getting off of me.
Nodding cantankerous, I accepted her apology, as there wasn't really anything I could do about it.

The bus came to a halt, making a wild squealing erupt and me storm for the exit. I was beaten to it by three quarters of the piggies, and more or less left the bus in a fall as they were rushing to get out. Stepping a few metres away not to get overrun again, I watched them storm off to the paddocks close up.