Cedar Wood Riding Academy by Alaina Fornal (smart ebook reader .txt) 📖

Screams echoed through the house. The family dog was barking loudly downstairs. People who walked by saw this as a loving family’s house, but that was not necessarily true. No loving family lived here.

“I’m not living here anymore! I will get my social worker to come get me,” I said, my voice cracking with anger. “It’s not like you care what happens to me! You don’t give a damn! All you care about is that money the state gives you!”

“You bitch! Don’t you talk to your father like that,” my foster father, Daryl, said.

“You are NOT my father,” I yelled back at him. With that, I ran down the stairs, and to the front door. My hand gripped the front doorknob, twisting it, and going outside. I slammed the door shut behind me, and went straight to the mail box. I grabbed the mail, and went through it, seeing nothing but bills, magazines, and more bills.

Then, something caught my eye. I looked at the intricate handwriting, almost calligraphy, on an envelope. Aleah Chettle it read. I set the other mail down on the top of the mailbox, opening the envelope.

Inside was a letter, with an official stamp on the top. My eyes scanned over it, reading the first paragraph.

Dear Aleah,

We are honored to inform you that you have been accepted to Cedar Wood Riding Academy. As you may know, we are a prestigious academy, and admission is tough. You have been awarded a full scholarship for your stay here. Please be checked into the Academy by the end of this month, where you will begin school here, and learning how to be a top class equestrian.

Signed,

Louisa Archin

My mouth dropped open.

I had applied for this riding academy as a hoax… a way to get away from the families I have been living with. I didn’t know I would be accepted! I knew the admission board there was very critical, and given my background, I didn’t think I would ever be good enough to get to Cedar Wood.

I took the paper, folding it into a square, and stuck it in my back pocket. I took out my cell phone, and called the social worker.

“Hello? Yes. . . I would like to report that the family I am living with is very abusive..." I said into the phone.

Cedar Wood Riding Academy. It didn’t seem real. The landscape was beautiful. Pasture lined with whitewashed fences covered the rolling green hills. Horses dotted the pastures, all of different colors.

            I snapped out of my daydream as a middle aged woman walked up to greet me and my social worker.

            “Why hello, dear! You must be Aleah Chettle. I am Mrs. Louisa Archin,” she said. “I am the owner of Cedar Wood. I am very glad you could attend here!”

            I smiled and nodded. I wasn’t in the mood to say anything, seeing as I have never been here before. At least Mrs. Archin seemed nice enough.

            “Alright, now, Aleah. Why don’t you come with me, and we will go get you set up in your room,” She said, taking a bag of mine.

After we walked across the campus, we came up to the buildings that housed the students and some faculty. Rooms lined the walls, some with open doors, and some with closed.

“How many students are here, exactly,” I asked Mrs. Archin.

“Oh, roughly around two hundred ten,” She said, smiling brightly.

This was a prestigious school. It was even smaller than the school I had went to when I was living in Del Rio, Texas. I put on a happy smile on my face, and walked with her towards the end of a hallway named Athens Hall.

“This, Aleah, is your room. You will be sharing it with a new student who has yet to arrive. Her name is Katarina,” she said, pulling my bags through the door and setting them on the bed.

“Alright… thank you. I can unpack in here. What time should I be out for dinner,” I asked her nicely, sitting on the bed.

“Dinner begins at six. It is in Delaney Cafeteria,” She said.

I nodded as she walked out of the room, leaving me to unpack my things. I sighed, and looked around the room. It was a nicely sized room, with two single beds, two dressers, two nightstands, and one big closet. Outlets lined the room walls where ever there was space. I picked up my suitcase, setting it on the bed. I unzipped it, looking inside. I took out my shirts, stacking them neatly on the bed space beside the suitcase.

I walked to the closet, grabbing a handful of hangers, and set them down on the bed. I took my shirts, neatly putting them on the hangers. When they were all on hangers, I put the loop of the hanger on my hand, bringing them over to the closet. I took the side closest to my side of the room, hanging up all my shirts. I took my riding jeans, and breeches, doing the same thing. Once everything was hung up, I took all my socks and set them all in a drawer in the dresser. My undergarments went along with them, finding myself almost filling up my entire dresser. I smiled, and slid the suitcases under the bed. I took out my tall boots, cowboy boots, and paddock boots. I went to the closet, setting them neatly on the floor under my clothes. My half chaps went on the floor next to the paddock boots.

Now that the most important things were put up, it was time to start hanging up my jeans, nicer shirts, and anything I wouldn’t use for horseback riding. That didn’t take long. I set my alarm clock on the bedside table, as well as plugging in my laptop and cell phone charger. My laptop lay on the floor under the bed side table. I smiled and got started on making my bed. The sheets went on first, and they were of course, horses. Then the bedspread went on, and just extra blankets I always kept. Some had sentimental value, others were just blankets I had found at a thrift store and loved.

I sat on the bed, and looked at the clock. Five thirty it read. Wow. I stood up, and went to the huge mirror standing over the dresser. I looked at my reflection in it. My dark hair fell past my shoulders. I made a face, and pulled it up into a pony tail. It was time to go see all my new classmates, and see who I was up against.

Eyes looked across the lunch room. Girls had already established cliques. Guys all sat together. Then there was me. I took my trey of food, and sat down at an empty table. I didn’t really mind being alone, since at all my previous schools I had eaten alone because I hadn’t bothered on making friends with anybody knowing I was going to be placed into a new home at any given moment.

            The grilled chicken sandwich they had prepared looked amazing. It made my mouth water. I took a bite of it, and instantly felt it melt in my mouth. I had never tasted anything as good as this. If all their food was this delicious, then I would be constantly buying it instead of going off campus to buy Subway. A chair across from me was pulled away by a group of girls. I rolled my eyes, and continued eating. Then, the chair next to me moved, and I was expecting it to be dragged away by somebody, but instead it stayed there, a blue shirt filling its place.

            “Hey… sorry, I just assumed it would be okay if I sit here,” a girl with blonde hair said. She reminded me sort of a pixie.

            “Yeah, its fine…I really don’t mind,” I said, and took a bite of my heavenly chicken.

            “Well, I’m Allyson,” said the pixie girl. “But my friends normally call my Ally.”

            “I’m Aleah,” I said, taking another bite.

            “Well, it’s nice to meet you. What seat are you riding?”

            “Hunter Jumper, what about you,” I asked her.

            “Western… I heard they give us a chance to ride all the seats the first week, though,” She said with a smile.

            “That’s dangerous. I don’t think they’d want some saddle seat rider trying to jump a warm blood… That just doesn’t happen in the real world anymore,” I laughed. “I can imagine them flying off as the horse lands after the jump.”

            She laughed. “Yeah, that may happen, but that’s when you get out your video camera!”

            I laughed. I had a feeling I was going to really like this girl. She had a sense of humor.

            “Alright everyone! Everybody who is enrolled seems to be here. In that case, after dinner, we will go to the barns, just to get to know all the horses,” Mrs. Archin said.

  “Good. I can’t wait to meet the trainer, and the horses that could possibly be assigned,” I said with a smile.

            “I know, I can’t help but wonder what kind of horses they’ll have in all the barns,” She said.

            “Defiantly in the saddle seat barn will be Arabians, Saddlebreds, and maybe a Friesian or two,” I said. “There could be a range of breeds in the Hunter Jumper and Western barns, though… even in the dressage barn.”

            “My bet is that they’ll have Quarter Horses, Paints, and Appaloosas in the Western barn… the more stocky horses.”

            I nodded. “Yeah, and maybe in the hunter jumper barn, possibly quarter horses, maybe a paint or two, but defiantly warm bloods of some sort, or thoroughbreds.”

            I finished my dinner about the same time as Ally did. We threw the garbage away, and went on to our seats again. When it was all over, everybody made their way over to the barn. For the first time, I felt like I actually belonged here… that I actually made a friend.