High Horse (5 page)

Joe held up one finger to indicate first word and put his hand over his eyes and looked around.

“Search?” Stevie said. “Hunt? Pursue? Seek?”

Joe shook his head and made the same motion again. Stevie groaned in frustration. If they hadn’t gotten his clue the first time, how would they be able to get it the second?

“Lookout?” Carole said. At least she was trying.

“Try another clue,” Stevie urged.

Max frowned. “Team members are only allowed to guess solutions, not give directions,” he said. “You’re risking disqualification.”

Joe pounded his heart with his fist and spread his arms.

“True love,” Amie yelled.

Joe put his hands in his pockets and pretended to look for something, and all at once Stevie had an inspiration. “Miss,” she yelled. “Little Miss Muffet. Mississippi.” Of course, these were not book titles,
and they didn’t have anything to do with horses, but Joe was nodding wildly, so she knew she was on the right track.

“Miss …”

“Time,” Max said. “Now the other team is entitled to try.” He gave the answer to Betsy Cavanaugh, who read it and gave it back to him. With a big grin Betsy nodded and crooked her little finger, pretending to drink from a cup.

“Cup,” Veronica said. “Dainty.”

Betsy shook her head and pretended to dunk something in the imaginary cup.

“Tea!” Phil said.

Betsy nodded and then pointed at Joe’s team to show that Phil should say the word they got.

“Miss,” Phil said. “Tea.”

Betsy made a putting-together gesture.

“Miss-tea. Misty,” Phil said.
“Misty of Chincoteague.”

Betsy gave a whoop and fell into his arms.

“Hey, charades is fun.” Phil grinned.

“Especially when you have a genius on your team,” said Betsy, smiling at him.

“Give me a break,” Stevie muttered. Carole’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything.

“Next round will be movie titles,” Max said. “The
title does not necessarily have a horse in it, but there are horses in the movie. Losing team goes first.”

“I’ll do it,” Stevie said to Joe.

Max gave Stevie a slip that said
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
, one of her favorite movies. The only thing was, how could she pantomime the title?

She indicated that she was starting with the first word. Then she pretended to dig a hole in the ground and pointed at the hole.

“Boulder?” Joe said. “Dirt?”

She shook her head and pretended to open a box and then marvel at its contents.

“Lunch box,” Amie said. Stevie knew that Amie was only six, but Amie’s answer annoyed her because the team was getting further and further away from the true answer. Stevie looked at Carole. This was one of her and Colonel Hanson’s favorite movies, but Carole’s eyes had that blank, dreamy look they got when she was thinking about horses.

Stevie pretended she was carrying something in both hands. Then she unloaded imaginary things from it, which were supposed to be teacups, and held up the thing itself, which was supposed to be a tray.

“Platter?” Joe said.

“Shelf?” Amie said.

“Time,” Max said.

Stevie sat down and folded her arms around her knees.

Phil took over for the other team. Stevie could hardly bear to hear Phil act out the title—the worst part was that he did exactly what she had done. He pretended to dig for something and pointed at the ground.

“Gold?” Betsy said.

Phil waggled his fingers to show that she should keep on trying.

“Silver,” she said. “Oil.”

Phil pointed at the trees.

“Tree,” Betsy said.

“I’ve got it,” Veronica said. “Treasure!”

Stevie buried her face in her arms. If a moron like Veronica could get “treasure,” why couldn’t Joe?

Phil spread his hands to show that Betsy should expand on treasure.

“Treasure Island?”

Phil shook his head and there was silence. For one moment Stevie thought he was stuck, but then he indicated fourth word and began sketching waves with his hand.

“Waves,” Betsy said.

Phil grinned to show she was on the right track.

“Ocean. Water. Sea.”

Phil nodded and then sniffed and pointed at the space beyond his nose.

“Odor. Smell. Stink.”

“Air,” Betsy yelled. “Sea air. Treasure Sea Air. Treasure Sea Air.” She frowned, stuck.

“Treasure of the Sierra Madre,”
Veronica shouted.

“Yes!” Phil said, leaping toward her. He and Veronica and Betsy put their arms around each other, with Peter and Jackie hanging on to their waists, jumping up and down.

A disgusting sight. Stevie turned to Carole, who had come back to life when the name of the movie was mentioned. “That’s one of my favorites,” Carole said. “My dad’s, too.”

“No kidding,” Stevie said bitterly. “I guess you were too busy to watch my clues.”

“I watched them,” Carole said. “I just didn’t understand them.”

It continued downhill from there. Betsy’s team won the TV-series title and the comic-book title. The only charade that Stevie’s team got was for a movie star, Skye Ransom, whom The Saddle Club had taught to ride.

“The results are four for the Cavanaugh team and one for the Novick team,” Max said.

Betsy’s team went wild with applause.

Max raised his hands. “It’s late. Younger Horse Wise members go to their tents and turn in. Older riders, please bank the fire and check the horses.” He turned to Stevie. “You’re in charge of the horses. Get someone to go to the paddock with you.”

Stevie involuntarily glanced toward Phil, hoping he’d volunteer. She was still angry at him, but she realized she missed him, too. So far the MTO was nothing like she’d imagined.

But Phil was already busy laying logs on top of the smoking fire. “They’ll burn all night,” he said. “Hickory lasts forever. Someone pass me some pine cones.”

As a rule there was no way Betsy would sully herself by picking up pine cones, but now she went over to the neat pile of logs and kindling that the riders had made earlier and scooped up an armload of cones. She carried them over to the fire and said, “Is this what you want?”

“Yeah, great,” Phil said, taking the pine cones from her arms. “They’ll start the logs burning.” Artfully, Phil tucked cones into the spaces between logs.

There was a plume of smoke, and then the cones burst into blue and purple flames.

“It’s gorgeous,” Betsy breathed.

Phil smiled down on her upturned face. “Thanks.”

Before she even knew what she was doing, Stevie
had grabbed the rest of the pine cones and kindling. “You think that’s gorgeous, get a load of this.” She threw her arms wide open, scattering pine cones and kindling into the fire.

There was a shocked silence as the pine cones and kindling caught flame. Suddenly the fire was dangerously large.

“Everybody back,” Max said in a grim voice. All the riders except Stevie retreated until they were standing in the dark.

Max turned to her. “Younger riders come on overnights so they can learn from older riders,” he said in a low tone. “I guess you decided to show them how
not
to behave.”

“I …,” Stevie began. But then her words got stuck. How could she possibly explain why she’d done what she’d done?

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled finally.

By this time the flames had receded and the fire looked under control. The flare-up had lasted less than a minute. Stevie looked at it, relieved. “I’ll go get some more kindling,” she offered. After all, they were camping out at the edge of a pine forest. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of pine cones.

“Not in the dark,” Max said. “Go check on the horses and then turn in.”

Stevie walked toward the paddock, feeling as though she’d just been sent to her room. The last thing she saw before she left the campfire had been Betsy grinning with satisfaction.

“Hey,” came a voice from behind her. “Wait up.”

For a moment Stevie thought it was Phil—and that he’d come after her to say he was sorry. But it was Joe.

“Need some help?” he asked.

“Yeah. I guess so,” she replied reluctantly. Actually, she just wanted to be alone to drown in her own sorrows.

Joe seemed to sense this.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Stevie said. “Great.”

“It’s a beautiful night,” Joe said.

Despite her bad mood, Stevie couldn’t deny it. Overhead the stars seemed especially bright, and the moon was rising from behind the trees.

“Will you tell me what to do?” Joe said. “I’ve never inspected horses at night before. What do you look for?”

“You feel their backs to see if they’re hot,” Stevie said. “And you run your hands down their legs to see
if they’re sore. And then you go eyeball to eyeball with them to make sure their eyes are clear.”

“Got it,” Joe said.

When the two riders reached the temporary paddock, the horses raised their heads to look at them. In the slanting moonlight the horses seemed to have tiny heads, and legs as thick as tree trunks.

“You go left, I’ll go right,” Stevie said.

The first horse to greet her was Topside, the beautiful Thoroughbred that Stevie always rode. He butted her with his nose. She put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his mane. She had been looking forward to this MTO so much. And now it was so dismal.

“Topside,” she whispered to him. “Why is everything coming out so different from what I expected?”

But Topside didn’t answer. He went back to pulling at the silvery grass with his teeth. Stevie felt his back, which was cool, and pulled his head up so she could look into his eyes. Then she ran her hands down his legs. He seemed fine. She patted him gently. “Night, boy,” she murmured.

Next she moved on to Starlight, Carole’s horse. “Starlight in the moonlight,” she said to him. “Starlight, star bright.”

Starlight snorted. He seemed to think she was being silly.

She checked Comanche and Garnet. In the moonlight Garnet looked even sleeker than during the day. Her dark brown eyes looked at Stevie soulfully. “Just think,” Stevie said to her, “you’re going to have to spend the whole day tomorrow with Veronica, you poor horse.”

“Take a look at that moon.” It was Joe, who was only a few feet away.

“Beautiful,” she said, looking at the silvery disk of the moon and at the hazy circle surrounding it.

“You know what they say?” Joe asked. “Ring around the moon, rain coming soon.”

Fifteen minutes later, when Stevie finally got to her tent, she was not only still grumpy, she was exhausted. As she pushed the tent flap back, she saw that Carole was sound asleep and Lisa was bent over her journal.

Lisa looked up as Stevie entered. “Everything okay?” she whispered.

“Fabulous,” Stevie muttered as she took off her riding clothes and put on her pajamas. “Fantastic. Glorious.” She crawled into her sleeping bag and pulled it over her head. Now she knew what MTO stood for—Most Terrible Overnight.

“E
XCUSE ME
.” A loud voice cut abruptly into Carole’s dream. “This is not my favorite way to wake up.”

Carole opened her eyes to the light of morning. Stevie was sitting up in her sleeping bag, rubbing the side of her head. “Ouch,” Stevie said.

“Sorry,” Carole mumbled. She rubbed her eyes. “I was having this bad dream about giant mosquitoes.”

“Well, you must have squashed every single one of them,” Stevie said. “You hit me harder than any of my brothers ever have!”

At that Carole giggled. “I must have really walloped you, then.”

She stretched and listened to the rain outside
pounding their tent. The air felt chilly and damp. Did this mean they wouldn’t be able to ride today? Carole hoped not.

She wiggled out of her sleeping bag, then stood to pull on her jeans. Stevie was surveying her critically.

“Frankly, Carole, I think this is going to be a bad hair day for you. You look like Wanda the Witch.”

Carole grinned. “Well, thank you for that boost of confidence. But may I remind you that according to Veronica,
I’m
not the one who needs the beauty makeover.” She ducked as Stevie chucked a wadded-up T-shirt at her.

When Carole was fully dressed, she pulled back the flap of the tent and peered outside. “I’d better check on Jackie and Amie,” she said. “Has it been raining long?”

“I don’t know,” Stevie said. “I was sleeping soundly until this giant mosquito hunter attacked me.”

They both glanced over at Lisa, who was lying in her sleeping bag. She was wide awake and staring at them with bright, watchful eyes like a cat.

“When did it start raining, Lisa?” Stevie asked.

Lisa shrugged. “I haven’t been paying attention,” she said. “I’ve been thinking.”

Stevie raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
If Lisa wanted to tell them what she’d been thinking, she would have done so. Stevie didn’t want to pry.

When Carole left to check on the younger girls, Stevie rolled her sleeping bag to keep out the dampness. She couldn’t help remembering how Phil had rolled up Betsy’s bag yesterday and how foolishly Stevie had acted last night. What’s the matter with me anyway? she wondered. She decided that as soon as she saw Phil this morning, she’d apologize, and they could start to enjoy themselves together on the MTO.