Untitled- Teen Fiction

Sophie ran her hand across the stall plate. She was so jealous of Lina and all her beautiful horses. She wanted to be like her, but without all the annoying things about her. She was stuck-up, everyone knew that. Sophie had problems, everyone also knew that. She was lucky her mom still let her ride. No one would let her forget about “stealing” Larkey and galloping through the large pasture. Lina’s mom was understanding, the horse was just fine and actually seemed to like it, it reminded him of his old days on the Irish tracks, but Lina, that was a different story. She hated Sophie and wanted her banned from the stables. She threatened to get a restraining order and press charges, but settled for a more humiliating punishment.
Roger and Elsa came to an arrangement that seemed to work for everyone- they agreed to knock money off Lina’s board bill to get her to stay, and punished Sophie by having her clean Lina’s stalls three days a week. And if anymore “joyrides” happened, she would be banned and charges would be pressed. At least she could still ride and be around the horses there. Soph was sure Lina loved having her as a personal groom. This was a mixed blessing for Sophie. She hated Lina, but loved her horses. The one on one time she got with them cleaning their stall and brushing them made her so happy and yet made her so sad. Her mom barely had enough money for one lesson a week, let alone a horse of her own. A classic conundrum from teen-age fiction books.
Lina had three horses, one for each of her disciplines. Only one horse was good enough to take to a 3 day event, and that was Malarkey. The Irish Thoroughbred was imported from Ireland by his previous owner. He was a cast off racehorse who didn’t run as well as they wanted him to. He excelled at cross country, and wasn’t bad at lower level dressage. Prada was Lina’s dressage mare, a sleek almost black Dutch Warmblood with a star as her only decoration. The rumor was that that the Sharlem’s, Lina’s parents, paid $25,000 for the mare. While she typically had a sweet personality, the mare could sometimes be very bratty and stubborn, a trait Lina didn’t appreciate and didn’t have patience for.
The third horse in Lina’s collection was Just My Style, or Style as he was known around the barn. Style was the “guest” horse, he was a talented hunter, but was so quiet under saddle that pretty much anyone could ride him. He was a teenager and Lina’s first horse. The Sharlem’s had owned him for 10 years and kept him around for Lina’s friends to ride, which was not often. Elsa used him as a lesson horse one day a week, but he was not allowed to go to shows as a student horse. Lina didn’t want anyone to get ribbons on her horse.
It wasn’t that Lina was a mean girl. Quite the opposite really once you got to know her. She unknowingly watched Sophie as she stroked the stall plates and felt bad for her that she couldn’t have a horse of her own. She had tried to have a friendship with her once, but somehow something went wrong and Sophie ended up hating her and thinking her a snob. And every encounter they had since seemed to end the same way. It was almost useless to try anymore. When Sophie stole Larkey it became impossible. Her mom was very upset that “that little barn girl” would attempt to “steal” one of her horses. Lina begged her mom not press charges. It was Lina’s idea to have mercy on the girl, but somehow it came off bad for Lina, and forgiving of her parents. When Lina tried to be nice to Sophie it came off as condescending, and she did have to admit she was jealous of Sophie, nothing was expected of her the way it was of Lina. She was tired of constantly hearing about the money her parents invested in her “career”. She didn’t want to be a professional rider, she wanted to be a horse vet, but do you think her parents would listen.
“Of course, dear, we’ll send you vet school, but college is second to your showing” her mother would say. At lease, that was how Lina imagined it, so she didn’t bring it up. She would love to have someone to talk to about it, but who would understand? Sophie would not feel sorry for her, and her “friends” were like her parents. She only had one person in her life she actually liked, and that was a girl named Shannon. Shannon was wary of Lina, but she loved to ride and would take any opportunity to ride one of Lina’s horses for free. Lina knew Shannon wasn’t a real friend, but she wished she was.
Sophie grabbed the stall rake and started picking out Prada’s stall. Prada was a dainty mare, if not small, and only messed one corner of her stall.