The Harriet Bean 3-Book Omnibus by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

slightly,expecting him to rear up and strike out at me again, but—to my astonishment—all he did was shake. For some reason, it seemed as if he was stuck to the spot.
    I moved again. This time I stuck a leg out. Black Lightning watched it and shook his head from side to side. But once again, although all his muscles seemed to ripple and quiver with effort, his feet stayed exactly where they were.
    Suddenly I realized what had happened. I had thought that Black Lightning was stuck to the spot. Well, he was! Black Lightning could not lift his hooves because the paste that had been put on them by the mysterious person in the riding boots was a powerful glue!
    I now knew that it was safe for me to crawl out, and I did this. Black Lightning watched every move I made, but he was powerless to do anything about it. I left the stall quickly and went back into my room. There I lay down on my uncomfortable bed and thought about what I had seen. Why would anybodystick Black Lightning’s hooves to the floor? And, even more importantly,
who
had done this peculiar thing? Was it Ted, Fred, or Ed? And how could I possibly find out?

At the Races
    I was woken the next morning by the sound of Mr. Fetlock’s voice outside my door.
    “Time to get up,” he called. “We’ll be leaving for the races in half an hour. No time to waste.”
    I leapt out of bed and climbed into my jockey clothes. It was hard work putting on the riding boots, as boots like that are always tight, but at last I succeeded and made my way out into the yard. I wanted very much to talk to Mr. Fetlock—to tell him what had happened and to warn him that Black Lightning’s hooves were stuck to the floor of his stable—but the trainer was busy talking to Ed and Fred.
    I picked up a bucket of oats that looked as if it needed to be carried somewhere, but at just that moment, Ted came around the corner, and to my absolute astonishment I saw that he was leading Black Lightning! So the hooves had become unstuck overnight, or even been unstuck by somebody while I lay sleeping next door. It was all very mysterious.
    “Hey!” shouted Ted. “Leave those oats, please. They’re for Black Lightning. He’s got a big race ahead of him today.”
    Mr. Fetlock looked over in my direction.
    “Get into the truck with the other jockeys, Harry,” he called out. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
    So I would not have the chance to warn Mr. Fetlock about what had happened. Still, I thought, I might be able to speak to him about it later, if I managed to get him by himself. Or I could tell my aunts. But where were they? There was no sign of them in the truck.
    I climbed into the cab of the truck with Mr. Fetlock and the other jockeys. The horses had already been loaded into the back, andnow that Black Lightning was also on board, we were free to leave.
    “We’ve got three runners today,” Mr. Fetlock said as he started the engine. “Fred, I want you to ride Silver Streak. Ted, you ride Nifty Dancer, and, Ed, you’re on Black Lightning again. Harry, you just watch today.”
    “Right-oh, boss,” said Fred. “That suits me. Silver Streak’s due for a win.”
    “All my horses are due for a win,” sighed Mr. Fetlock. “I can’t understand why they’ve been losing so badly. Can any of you?”
    I glanced from under my helmet at the faces of the three jockeys, wondering whether one of them would give himself away as the cheat. People often go red in the face if they’re trying to hide something, but not one of them moved a muscle.
    It could have been any of them, I thought. Ted looked honest, though. He had a cheerful grin on his face, and he smiled nicely whenever I looked at him. I wasn’t so sure about Ed, and when it came to Fred, well, there was something about him that I just did not trust.He looked a little bit like a rat, I’m afraid to say, with sharp teeth at the front of his mouth and little whiskers growing out of his ears.
    I tried to look down at the boots