It Comes Naturally

chapter one

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"Good morning everyone!" A nasally voice ran through the hall of. "My name is Mrs Cadrock, I am the headmaster at Oakwood Equestrian Academy. "Congratulations on making it this far, we have narrowed down over 100 applicants down to the top 20. I will be handing over to Mr Rodney, our director of academics. I wish you the best of luck for your auditions." Mrs Cadrock and her high voice then descended the stairs gracefully and sat down in the front row next to a few other people either dressed in suits or the prestigious uniform of the academy.

"Good Morning, my name is Mr Rodney. To begin the day all of you will be sitting a 3 hour exam, consisting of maths, english, science, history and geography. We take academics very seriously at this academy and if you do not receive a minimum of 70 percent on this exam you will unfortunately not be accepted into the academy." Everyone sighed at the sound of that, we all wanted to get to the horses, the fun stuff, not sit in a room sitting a 3 hour exam but I was willing to do if it gave me a chance to get into the academy. "Now if you will all follow me, we will continue to the classrooms where you will be sitting the exam, parents you are welcome to stay here and enjoy morning tea, or if you would prefer you may go out and explore the local town, we will be finished by midday." The old teacher then walked down the stairs and out of the hall all of us dawdling behind him.

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"Urgh that was horrible!" Lisa groaned as we finally left the classroom we were sitting the exam in. Lisa was my best friend who, coincidently also had a passion for horses. Her neat pony tail bounced side to side as we walked back to the hall where our parents were waiting.

"I know!" I signed relived to finally be out of the small classroom, "I can't wait until we can ride this afternoon!" I said excited to be able to ride, to show what I could really do. I wasn't that bad at school, I'd always received B's for majority of my subjects. However I had no idea how I went on the exam, some off the questions I found really difficult and some were really easy!

"Yeah, but I need something to eat first I'm so hungry." She said clutching her stomach in a dramatic way.

"How did you go buddy?" My Dad asked when we finally managed to find our way back to the hall, it was hard to navigate our way back, everywhere you looked there were either towering, glass and brick buildings or square, green paddocks lined with neat white fencing.

"Alright." I smiled giving him and my Mum a hug, "Hopefully I got at least 70 percent!" I said optimistically.

"I'm sure you did fine honey." My mum smiled. "And how did you go Lisa?"

"Good, I think." She said returning the smile, her parents were with my parents the whole morning, and we decided to go out for lunch as we had just over an hour before our riding session began.

"I'm sure you did better than good, you're so smart!" I said, Lisa was definitely the smartest person in our class if not our year level and if she didn't get into Oakwood because of her academic exam I think me being shocked would be an understatement.

"Oh shush you." She laughed.

"Come on girls lets go before we run out of time!" Lisa's Mum, Liz called from ahead of us. We quickly ran to catch up the thought of food was making us excited, we were that hungry!

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We arrived at a small cafe just outside of the closet town to Oakwood. It was very cute, little knick-knacks were dotted around the cafe, on shelves or in the centre of tables. We sat in a horse shoe shaped booth with soft beige pillows on it, Lisa and I immediately dive for the menus, eager to order.