Horse Blues (12 page)

A
T FIVE OF NINE
the next morning, Lisa, Carole, and Stevie arrived at Pine Hollow with their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Atwood, Colonel Hanson, and Mr. and Mrs. Lake began chatting happily right away. The three girls hung back and kept their eyes to the ground. None of them dared look at the others as they walked behind their parents to the tack room.

Posted on the door of the room was a note that said,

“That’s good news!” Mrs. Atwood exclaimed. Still silent, the girls followed their parents to the indoor ring, where they joined the large group of families assembled for the meeting. Mr. Lake grabbed folding chairs from against the wall and handed them to the others. Carole began to set her chair up next to her father, but Colonel Hanson said loudly, “I know you kids want to sit together, so you go on with Stevie and Lisa.”

Stevie’s and Lisa’s parents jostled them and edged them out of the parental row, so the girls had no choice but to set their chairs up next to one another. Once seated, Lisa began to examine her nails intently. Stevie stared at the cobwebs in the rafters. Carole waved hello to the other Pony Clubbers. They were all grateful when Max called the meeting to order at nine on the dot.

“Welcome to this special Sunday meeting of Horse Wise,” Max began. “Now I understand why so many Horse Wise members were eager to get out of yesterday’s meeting early! The bake sale, as you all know by now, was a huge success. To every parent and child who fit time into their busy days to bake or sell, thank you!” He paused, a twinkle in his eye. “I haven’t eaten this many sweets since I raided
my mother’s cookie jar! And three hundred dollars—” Max waited as the crowd whooped and cheered before continuing. “Three hundred dollars is a great beginning for our spring season. A fantastic beginning. We—or I should say, you—also raised two hundred dollars raffling off the helicopter ride. I’d especially like to thank the diAngelos for that generous donation.”

“Yeah, my mother told me that Veronica bought a hundred tickets herself!” Lisa muttered.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Stevie said automatically.

“Me either,” whispered Carole. “She had to make sure she could win and take Simon.”

“Hey,” Stevie ventured nervously, “does this mean we’re talking to one another again?”

“Shhh!” said a parent in front of them.

For once Lisa was glad for the reprimand. It saved her from having to respond to Stevie. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t stay
not
talking to her best friends, but part of her was still upset about the fight. Why couldn’t Stevie and Carole have realized that she was only trying to help them? She focused her eyes back to the front of the ring. Max, she noticed, looked as awkward as she felt. She waited as he cleared his throat several times. Finally
Max said quickly, “I guess it’s nice that Veronica diAngelo was, ah, also the lucky winner of the raffle.”

“Nice,” Lisa murmured, suddenly understanding Max’s embarrassment, “and shocking to everyone else! And yes,” she added hesitantly, eyeing Stevie warily, “I guess we are talking.”

“So, do you see what I see?” Stevie whispered, pointing. Lisa and Carole looked. Ten feet in front of them, Veronica and Simon were sitting on folding chairs, holding hands!

As Max continued praising the Pony Club’s recent efforts, The Saddle Club relaxed the tiniest bit. It was clear from what he said that, despite their ugly fight, the bake sale had been more than enough to convince him to keep Horse Wise going. The members and parents had not only raised money, they had also generated a lot of interest in Horse Wise. Max’s phone had been ringing off the hook with parents wanting to make sure their children could join in time for the spring season.

“So let’s have a round of applause for Mrs. Atwood!” Max concluded. The crowd clapped loudly. “Mrs. Atwood, I was completely in the dark until I happened to show up yesterday, but a little bird told me that you’re the one who thought of the
bake sale and got everyone interested and ran the thing, too. Great job!” Lisa stole a glance at her mother. Mrs. Atwood looked pleased and was busy brushing off the praise and trying to quiet the applause.

When Max finished, a few of the parents stood up and expressed their new commitment to supporting the club. They had enjoyed getting to know one another during the past two weeks and were eager to stay involved. Almost everyone who spoke mentioned Mrs. Atwood’s name to praise her organizing skills.

“This is off the subject,” said Mrs. McLean, after a few minutes, “but I was wondering: Colonel Hanson, could I get your recipe for double-chocolate chippers?”

“Me too!” Mrs. Reg called.

“I want to know what you add to your oatmeal cookies, Mrs. Reg!” Stevie’s mother spoke up.

As the meeting degenerated into a recipe-swapping session, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole drifted out of the ring. None of them wanted to talk to anyone at the meeting, they were so ashamed of their fight the day before. They didn’t want to meet the curious stares of the other Pony Clubbers. They didn’t want Mrs. Reg to tell them a story, even if it
did have a point. They didn’t want Max to make a blunt remark about behaving themselves in public. They didn’t want their parents to watch them to see if they were getting along again. And, more than anything, they didn’t want to see Veronica and Simon holding hands!

Outside, though, the silence was deafening. Stevie picked up some snow and let it fall from her hands. Lisa folded her arms across her chest. Carole wished the TD’s waitress would appear out of nowhere and say, “Wha’s a matter? Cat got your tongues?” Even that would be better than not talking. Thinking of the waitress and their last visit to TD’s made Carole clench her hands into fists. If only she had said something then, they never would have kept the resolutions, they never would have had the fight, and everything would be normal. Hardly thinking, she packed some snow into her hands, just to have something to do with them. The snow was cold and soothing. Suddenly Carole straightened up. She eyed Lisa. “Say, Lisa?”

“Yes?” Lisa turned.

“New Year’s resolutions were the worst idea you’ve ever had!” Carole yelled, shattering the silence. Without stopping to think, she formed the snow into a snowball and hurled it at Lisa.

As the snow broke on her jacket, Lisa’s face froze in shock.

“Lisa, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s too late for that, Carole!” Lisa shouted. As quick as could be, she made two snowballs and threw them at Carole. Carole missed one by ducking, but the other got her on the back of the neck and the snow slid down inside her jacket.

“Aaahhh!” Carole yelped.

Stevie stood with her hands on her hips, watching Carole prepare to retaliate. “Excuse me? Aren’t you two forgetting something? You made me have a resolution!” she cried. “So don’t you dare leave me out of this!” Stevie knelt down and began packing snowballs one after another.

Before she could launch one, Lisa gathered a load of snow in her arms and dropped it on top of her. “You didn’t have to have a resolution if you didn’t want to!” Lisa yelled.

“Well, I felt like I did!” Stevie cried. She was up like a flash, pelting Lisa with her premade ammunition.

“Stop! Stop!” Lisa yelled, her mouth full of snow.

Stevie paused, snowball in hand. “Yes?”

Lisa giggled. “Thanks!” she said, slinging a now perfectly aimed, perfectly formed snowball at
Stevie’s upper body. Carole followed suit. In a matter of seconds, the girls were having an all-out snowball fight. They ran and threw and slid and finally shoved one another into the banks of snow left by the plow.

“Why didn’t we do this before?” Lisa asked, panting, when Carole and Stevie had wrestled her to the ground.

“I don’t know, but I think it would have solved a few problems,” Carole said quietly.

“It was like we all wanted to call it quits, but none of us knew how,” Lisa said.

“Even you did, Lis’?” Carole asked. She’d assumed that it was easier for Lisa somehow since she had such strong self-discipline.

Lisa nodded. “Especially at the beginning, before Mrs. Reg started helping me. And then when I saw how cute Simon Atherton is now,” she kidded, “I
really
wanted to quit!”

Stevie shook her snow-covered head. “I should have known who Veronica’s private French tutor was! And who her ‘friend’ for New Year’s Eve was!”

“I should have known who she was waiting for at the mall,” Carole said.

“I should have known that ‘some breeds mature
more slowly than others’!” Lisa joked. “Mrs. Reg kept trying to tell us.”

Carole grinned. “Do you mean to say that if Simon were a horse, he’d be a German warmblood?”

The girls giggled, partly at Carole’s joke, but mainly because it was such a relief to be talking and laughing again—to be The Saddle Club again. Lisa was sorry she’d pressured Carole and Stevie into making their resolutions. Stevie was sorry she’d been so competitive that all she’d thought about was winning. Carole was sorry she’d been too nervous—around her own best friends—to say what she really felt. Sometimes after a fight, it wasn’t possible to make everything one-hundred-percent perfect, but a simple “sorry” could help clear the air. The three girls took deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” they all said in unison.

“No, I’m sorry,” Stevie joked.

“No,
I’m
sorry,” Carole insisted.

“Well, then—apology accepted,” Lisa declared. They all laughed.

Stevie stared up at the winter sky. “It’s so great out here. What do you think our parents would say if we went for a quick ride?”

Carole glanced in the direction of the ring. “Do you think they’d even notice?”

Lisa smiled. “We could always make something up about having neglected our horses for the past—oh—ten days or so.”

“We have been neglecting them,” Stevie said promptly. “All
year
.”

“And that goes against everything Pony Club stands for,” Carole reminded them.

“That’s right,” Lisa said, as they retraced their steps and headed toward the tack room. “And why have a Pony Club if you’re not going to try to live up to its standards?”

“Why, indeed?” Stevie asked. “That would almost be like—like breaking a resolution.”

B
ELLE
, S
TARLIGHT
,
AND
P
RANCER
were full of energy. Out on the trail, the girls trotted through the brisk air, happier than they had been in days. Eventually they came to a stretch of ground covered with fallen branches. They slowed to a walk.

“I hate to ask this,” Carole began, turning in her saddle, “but am I right in thinking that we’re hereby forgetting about our res—”

“Don’t! Don’t even say the word!” Lisa broke in. “I may never embroider another day in my life.”

“What are you going to do with the napkins?” Stevie inquired.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Lisa asked. “I’m going to give them to Mrs. Reg and Max as a peace offering from The Saddle Club. As soon as I finish the second one, that is.”

“So then you are going to embroider at least one more time,” Stevie teased her.

Lisa smiled. “Actually, I have to admit I kind of like embroidering. In spite of everything, I’m glad I learned how.”

“You know,” Carole said thoughtfully, “I think your resolution was the best, Lisa. Whoops! I said the
r
word!”

“That’s okay,” Lisa responded, “because I think you’re right, Carole. I think if I’ve learned one thing about resolutions, it’s that they should be positive and specific. Vague ones don’t work because you never know if you’re ‘cheating’ or not. And to be honest, I now think it’s harder to stop doing something—like to stop eating junk food—than to
start
doing something.”

Carole explained how she had recast her own resolution. “It was easier to try to eat good food than to quit eating bad food. Once I thought about it like that, I actually learned something from my resolution. I convinced my dad to make salads, and I started eating fruit for snacks sometimes instead of
chocolate bars. But quitting something just makes you want to do it more.”

“You can say that again. I’ve never wanted to kill Veronica more than I have these past two weeks,” Stevie said.

“And I wanted to kill her for you!” Lisa chimed in.

“In the end, Veronica won the day, though, didn’t she?” Carole asked reflectively. For once, Veronica had come out smelling like a rose.

“Yes, and I know why,” Lisa said. She swallowed hard and then went on, feeling slightly silly but knowing she had to say it. “When the three of us put our heads together, we can always beat Veronica. But we were so busy fighting—the whole time she was sinking her claws into Simon—that we were helpless to stop her. We were so worried about checking up on one another that we forgot to check up on her.”

“Don’t forget that Simon had something to do with it,” Carole said wryly.

“You’re right, Carole. Simon must actually like Veronica, too,” Stevie remarked.

The girls were silent a moment, trying to comprehend that utterly mystifying fact. None of them could.

“There’s no way—”