Read Charlotte and the Starlet for Free Online Page B

to have a horse.'
    Bevans didn't even look at her.
    'Try the second-last box on the left.'
    Charlotte was sure she'd walked down there
already but she went for another look, just in case.
The stall door was closed. There was no horse
standing above it. She was about to go back again
when she thought she heard ... what was that? Snoring? She pushed open the gate gently and there
lay a beautiful bay filly on her back, fast asleep.
    'Hello, beautiful. I'm your new best friend.'

    The noise woke Leila. She had feigned sleep while
those annoying riding kids had come around looking
for horses to torture and must have drifted off for real.
Now some kid was pushing some geeky smile into her
personal space.
    'We better give you a name. Let's see ...'
    Leila could almost hear the hard drive whirring in
the girl's mind. Britney, she was going to pick Britney
... oh no, anything but Britney.
    The girl smiled down at her.
    'Cher. I'm going to call you Cher.'
    CHER!!! Leila almost choked.
    'My mum had all her CDs. She thought she was
fabulous.'
    This rube obviously had never met Cher, thought
Leila, who vividly recalled the studio confiscating
Leila's trailer for Cher's second bedroom.
    'Okay, Cher, let's get acquainted.'
    Couldn't the kid just buzz off and leave Leila alone?
Leila let one eye flip open, shuddered at the rat's nest
hair that confronted her and closed it again. She'd go
away. Now, where was that dream she'd been in?
That's right, it was Oscar Night and she was partying
with that cute, Irish ...
    EEEEEEEE!
    Leila was suddenly wide awake, covered in
something cold and ... WET!!!
    Water.
    The last time she'd been hit with anything that cold
was playing water bombs at Hilary's pad. Hilary, now
there was a good little comrade to party with. Of
course, the water that time had been chilled Perrier.
But this wasn't Perrier, this was common garden
variety H 2 O. Leila stood quickly and shook herself
dry. And that's when she saw the rube smiling at her,
holding an empty bucket.
    'Thought that might get you awake. I'm Charlie.'
    No, kid, thought Leila, you're dead meat.
    The girl started drying her off. Mmm, well, that was
as it should be. She was rough, though, nothing like
those Korean girls in the bathhouse near the studio.
What did she think Leila was? Horsemeat?
    'You're a pretty girl, aren't you?'
    Duh. Course I'm pretty, you doofus.
    'A bit podgy, but we'll get that off you.'
    Podgy! From the look of her, this rube clearly
didn't even know how to use a cleanser or a lip-liner.
And here she was calling Leila podgy !
    'Tomorrow I'll take you for a canter and we'll see
how you handle the jumps.'
    Leila smiled at the naivety. Charlie thought she was
the boss? Well, let's see how she handled the old face-slap.
    Whack! The horse's tail swatted Charlotte hard in
the face.
    Charlotte was stung. It was almost as if the horse
had done it deliberately.
    'I hope that was an accident, Cher,' she joked.
    Whack, whack! This time, two swats.
    'Oh, it's like that, is it? Then let's see how you like
the bridle.'
    If there was one thing Leila hated it was a bridle.
But she didn't react. She let the kid get close. It was a
ruse Leila had used effectively in Hoofbeat Hero when
the bad guy was trying to escape from the police on
her. You relax, get them confident, then just as they
lean in and smile, like the rube was now, you suddenly
butt them in the chest.

    Caught completely off guard, Charlotte was
knocked backwards, her legs collecting something
behind her. She tumbled over the stool and hit the
ground but it wasn't as hard as it should have been.
It was soft and squelchy and foul smelling. Yuck!
She had landed slap in the middle of a pile of horse
poo.
    She had just gotten to her feet when the horsy
woman with the deep voice entered. She looked down
her very long nose at Charlotte.
    'Finish up here, girls,' she announced. Dinner in
forty-five minutes.'
    It took Charlotte a good five minutes to hose
herself off. Then she had to find her room.