Horse and stay strong script on forearm

That winter the money ran out faster than the coal. Tessa Quill, who rode bareback and could stand on a galloping horse while eating a toffee apple, stopped sleeping in the wagon and started sleeping in the stable with the mare. Each night she leaned her forehead against Ember's neck and said the same two words, stay strong, the way her gran used to say them from the kitchen door when the men came with the bailiffs' papers. Nobody else knew what they meant, but the horse did.

On the last night at Hollin Common, the wind tore a hole in the canvas and the crowd of six went quiet. MrOttery stood in the sawdust, ready to tell them the show was cancelled. Ember Lil had other ideas. She broke from the ring gate, went round the tent once at full stretch, mane streaming through the gap in the roof, and the families who had paid their pennies swore afterwards it was the finest thing they had ever seen. Tessa rode her out into the dark field and did not come back for an hour.

Next morning the mare was gone, and so was the big top, folded into a lorry nobody could afford to sell. The caravan still carries the sign on its side, the cursive letters running over the old painted horse. Sometimes, when the lane is quiet and the hedges are full of wind, I swear I can hear hooves going round and round a ring that isn't there anymore.