English Rider (10 page)

“Y
OU KNOW
, I hate to admit it,” Carole commented to Stevie and Lisa the next day, “but I’m actually kind of glad that Tessa decided to go on that trail ride with Veronica.”

“I don’t hate to admit it at all,” Stevie replied, swinging Belle’s empty water bucket at her side as the three girls left the tack room together. “I’m definitely glad. By the way, Lisa, are you absolutely, positively sure that Tessa didn’t make any phone calls last night?”

Lisa frowned. “I’m sure.” She knew that Stevie was worried that Tessa might have called Phil. But on this point, at least, Lisa could reassure her. “Like I told you, she was positively
exhausted
when she got home from dinner at Veronica’s place last night.” The words came out
sounding more sarcastic than she’d intended, but she couldn’t quite make herself feel guilty about it. “She went straight to bed,” she went on. “Never mind that Mom and I were up half the night working on the point-to-point.”

Carole didn’t seem to be listening. She was staring down at Starlight’s water bucket, which she was carrying. “Listen, you guys,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I think we should stop by Topside’s stall to make sure everything is okay.”

Stevie shrugged. “Why?” she asked. “He’s not there. Tessa has him out on the trail, remember?”

“I know.” Carole hesitated. “I just want to check, that’s all.”

Lisa nodded. Carole had told her and Stevie about the incident with the water bucket. She really couldn’t blame her for being worried. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s meet there in fifteen minutes.”

E
XACTLY FIFTEEN MINUTES
later, Stevie poked her head over the half door of Topside’s stall. “Uh-oh,” she muttered.

Carole and Lisa walked up at that moment. “Uh-oh what?” Carole asked. “What’s wrong this time?”

“Take a look for yourself,” Stevie said, stepping back to give her friends room. “Or rather, take a
smell
.”

The others immediately saw the problem. Topside’s stall clearly hadn’t been mucked out in hours. Clumps of manure were everywhere. “Oh no.” Carole sighed. “I
guess Tessa decided to wait to muck out when she got back from her ride.”

“If she plans to do it at all,” Stevie muttered.

Lisa shook her head in dismay. “We can’t leave it like this,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the dirty, matted bedding. “If Max sees it, he’ll have a cow.”

“Great,” Stevie said. “Maybe Tessa would take better care of a cow.”

Carole gulped. Stevie and Lisa sounded really angry with Tessa. She couldn’t really blame them. It seemed that every time they turned around these days, Tessa was causing extra work. Carole knew that Lisa hadn’t gotten to sleep until very late the night before. And she suspected that Stevie hadn’t slept much better—she had probably been up half the night brooding about Tessa and Phil.

Carole was angry herself at the thought that Tessa could have been responsible for the mess in the tack room the day before—and especially for that loose water bucket in Topside’s stall. And now Tessa seemed to have left another mess that would have to be cleaned up by her friends.

Still, something was bothering Carole about this whole situation. How could they have misjudged Tessa so completely? Back in England—and even last week here in Virginia, for that matter—Tessa had seemed just as responsible and hardworking as any of them. She had pitched in willingly to do her own work and help with
everyone else’s. Carole had thought she knew the British girl. She had trusted her. Could she really have been so wrong?

She thought about it as she worked beside her friends to clean out the dirty stall. But she couldn’t come up with any good explanation for Tessa’s behavior.

She was rolling a wheelbarrow full of droppings and dirty straw out of Topside’s stall when she suddenly noticed something. She stopped and frowned down at her cargo. “Hey, you guys,” she called. “Did you notice anything strange about this manure?”

Lisa poked her head out of the stall. “What did you say?”

Carole carefully backed up and stopped the wheelbarrow in the open stall door. “Check it out,” she said. “It looks kind of dark. And soft, or something.”

Stevie, broom in hand, glanced at the wheelbarrow and made a face. “Come on, Carole,” she complained. “It’s almost lunchtime. Do we really have to study Topside’s manure right now?”

Carole shrugged, still feeling bothered by the unusual texture. “Sorry,” she said. “It just looks kind of weird …”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lisa said a bit impatiently, leaning on the handle of the shovel she was using. “I’m sure the manure is fine. You’re just looking for trouble because—well, you know.”

Carole shrugged again. She glanced down at the soiled
straw, wondering if Lisa was right. Topside’s manure really didn’t look
that
strange. Still …

Lisa noticed her hesitation. “Look,” she said. “We can check on Topside later, okay? If you still think there might be something wrong, we’ll tell Max.”

“Okay,” Carole agreed, feeling a little bit better. She picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and started down the aisle toward the back door of the stable.

When she returned from her trip to the muck heap, Stevie and Lisa were talking about the scurry race. “We were just saying it might be fun to enter a team in the race,” Lisa told Carole.

Carole nodded. “I was thinking that, too,” she said, glad her friends had changed the subject. She was tired of talking and thinking about Tessa, Phil, and Veronica. “And since the event was added at the last minute, it probably won’t attract nearly enough really good scurry teams like the Penningtons’ …”

Stevie grinned, guessing what Carole was thinking. “So even a bunch of rank beginners like us might have a chance to land in the ribbons,” she said. “That decides it. Let’s do it!”

Lisa, too, seemed relieved at the change of subject. “Do you think Max would let us use his pony cart?” she asked.

“Sure.” Stevie shrugged. “Why not? He’s not
that
mad at us.”

“Which horses would we use, though?” Carole asked worriedly. “None of ours are trained to harness, and that’s
a pretty specialized thing. There’s no way we could get them ready before Saturday.…”

“I think we should use ponies,” Lisa said. Besides the horses ridden by the older riders, Max kept some ponies for younger children to ride during lessons. “Most of them are trained to pull a cart. We’ve seen them do it lots of times. And remember, Mrs. Pennington said it was okay to enter ponies so long as you have a pair.”

“Perfect!” Stevie grinned. “Besides, smaller horses will be an advantage. They’ll be able to turn quicker and be less likely to run into the cones.”

The girls continued to discuss their scurry team as they finished working on Topside’s stall. When they were finished, they headed toward the office to find Max.

“Just pray he says yes,” Lisa said, crossing her fingers. “After all, we’re still on probation.”

But instead of Max, they found his mother, known to one and all as Mrs. Reg. She was seated behind the desk working on some papers.

“Hello, girls,” she said as they knocked and entered. She listened quietly to their request. Then she smiled. “I can’t say this is a complete surprise,” she said. “Max warned me you might come along and ask something like this.”

“And?” Carole held her breath.

Mrs. Reg chuckled. “And it’s fine,” she said. “Consider yourselves the official Pine Hollow scurry team.”

“W
HOA
, N
ICKEL
!” S
TEVIE
called in frustration forty-five minutes later. “Can’t you tell your left from your right?”

Carole giggled as the sweet-faced gray pony turned to give Stevie a look of reproachful surprise. “I think he’s saying he knows left from right very well,” she joked from her seat beside Stevie. “He just can’t tell which you want when you have his reins and Dime’s all twisted up like that.”

Stevie had to laugh, too, as she glanced down at the four reins she was trying to keep straight in her hands. “This driving stuff isn’t as easy as it looks,” she admitted ruefully.

“No,” Lisa said, leaning forward from the backseat of the pony cart. “But it’s fun, isn’t it?”

Both her friends had to agree with that. Scurry driving definitely wasn’t easy, but it
was
fun. Best of all, it was actually taking their minds off their other problems.

Lisa shaded her eyes with one hand and peered over the fence of the outdoor ring to the fields beyond. “Look,” she said. “I think Tessa and Veronica are finally coming back from their trail ride.”

“Hmmm,” Carole responded. She glanced at her friends. “Am I the only one who’s thinking maybe we were a little too hard on her before?”

“Yes,” Stevie said quickly. But she immediately looked guilty. “Well, no,” she admitted. “I was sort of wondering the same thing. After all, the law is still ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ ” Both of Stevie’s parents were lawyers, so
they were always saying things like that. This time, Stevie thought they might be right. They couldn’t write off Tessa completely until they found out for sure what was going on, no matter how suspicious things looked.

Lisa nodded. “I guess you’re right.” She took a deep breath of the fresh summer air and glanced at the approaching riders. “Come on, I think the ponies have had enough for today. Let’s take them in and then see if Tessa needs any help with Topside.”

“T
HERE YOU GO
, boy,” Tessa said cheerfully, snapping the hook shut on the handle of Topside’s plastic water bucket. She patted the horse fondly on his well-groomed flank, then left the stall to join Carole in the aisle.

Carole smiled. She had watched Tessa’s every move carefully, and she had to admit that Tessa had taken perfect care of the horse ever since arriving back at the stable after her trail ride. In fact, things almost seemed to be back to normal, except for the minor unpleasant fact that Tessa had agreed to have dinner at Veronica’s house that evening. Still, Carole supposed, that could have been written off to good manners.

“Stevie and Lisa should be finished grooming the ponies by now,” she said. “But we still have to clean their tack. Want to join us?”

“Absolutely,” Tessa replied with a grin, hoisting Topside’s saddle onto one shoulder. “Topside really worked up a sweat out on the trail—Veronica and I did some jumping
so that she could practice for the junior hurdle. This tack will need a right good scrubbing today.”

Carole smiled again. This was more like it. Whatever had happened the day before, the
real
Tessa seemed to be back.

The two girls found Lisa and Stevie already at work in the tack room. Soon all four of them were busy cleaning tack, chatting as they worked. Tessa told them about the meeting with Mrs. Pennington the day before.

“She’s really eager to help,” she said. “It’s obvious she’s mad for scurry racing and all sorts of driving, and she wants everyone else to love it as much as she does.” She looked up from Topside’s bridle and winked. “Plus, it didn’t hurt that Miles hung around the entire time we were there.” She blushed and giggled. “I know he’s a bit older, but I’m starting to fancy him a bit. He’s rather cute, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.” Stevie smiled. This was good news. If Tessa had her eye on Miles, that meant the scene with Phil yesterday must have been all a big mistake.

“Anyway,” Tessa went on, “now that I’ve got to know Miles better, it makes me feel happier about being a fence judge on Saturday.” She grinned and stopped working to gaze steadily at her friends for a moment. “Actually, I can’t wait. The point-to-point is going to be wonderful.” Her eyes danced gleefully. “I can positively guarantee it.”

“You don’t have to convince us,” Stevie replied happily. She was already wondering if Phil had noticed that
she was mad at him the day before. She hoped not. Maybe she would call him that night to make sure. “We’re totally psyched. Especially now that we’re entering the scurry race.”

“Oh, yes,” Tessa said with a short laugh. “I just know the scurry race is going to be the best of all.”

Lisa looked up from the breast collar she was cleaning. Something about Tessa’s voice sounded a little strange.