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Authors: Bonnie Bryant

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BOOK: Horse Blues
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Stevie motioned wildly for him to forget the small talk. “It’s almost nine-twenty!” she hissed.

Max looked at his wristwatch. “Ah, so it is. I guess I should start the meeting, shouldn’t I?”

At that, The Saddle Club stared at one another in disbelief. Max prided himself on his organization and efficiency, as well as his respect for his students
and their parents. Now he was behaving like the bad kid in school.

“Okay, what gives?” Carole whispered.

“I don’t know, but I have the feeling we’re about to find out,” said Lisa.

“And it doesn’t look good,” Stevie muttered.

Max had finally made his way to the front of the room. But now instead of joking, his expression was grim. He held up a hand for silence, cleared his throat, and began.

“As some of you so kindly pointed out on my way in, this special meeting was supposed to start twenty minutes ago.” Max paused dramatically. Then he continued, speaking clearly and emphasizing every word. “I came late on purpose—to show you what it’s like to come on time only to find that someone else is late and holding up the whole meeting.”

Stevie shifted uneasily in her seat. She knew that she had been that “someone else” more than a few times.

“That happens a lot at Horse Wise. Of course, if lateness were the only problem besetting this Pony Club, I wouldn’t have much cause for concern. But it’s the tip of the iceberg. Look around the room. It probably looks packed to you. But does anyone remember
that a year ago I held meetings in the indoor ring because Horse Wise was too big to meet in the tack room?”

A few people nodded and murmured among themselves.

“Well, I do. The fact is, membership has fallen off. Some riders dropped out formally; others just stopped coming. And a few prefer mounted meetings to unmounted,” Max added, under his breath.

The Saddle Club eyed one another. They knew Max meant Veronica. The girl was so spoiled that she didn’t see the point in learning the horsemanship—grooming, conformation, and basic veterinary skills—that the unmounted meetings taught.

“And parents: I’m sorry to have to say this since so many of you made the effort to come today, but the truth is, parental support in this club is way, way down.”

Now it was the parents who looked at one another guiltily, mumbling apologies and excuses, as Max let his words sink in.

“I understand that it’s winter, and we’re all less interested in riding now than we will be in three months. But winter is the time for us to get our act together for the spring rallies and other competitions.” Max looked down at the clipboard he was
holding and consulted a list. “At the very least, we must beg, borrow, or steal the following for the spring season of events: new matching saddle pads and cross-country hat covers; new tires on the two vans; money to pay whoever teaches our dressage clinic in April; entry fees for the events on our summer schedule.… I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

“Now, I don’t want to make the situation sound worse than it is. This club has a lot of talent and dedication. But my mother and I have been working double time to fill in the gaps you all leave, and we can’t anymore.” Max gestured to his mother, Mrs. Reg, who was listening in the back of the room. Mrs. Reg was a favorite among The Saddle Club. It was no surprise that she had been helping Max run Horse Wise. She could always be counted on in a pinch. If The Saddle Club happened to be hanging out at Pine Hollow, Mrs. Reg would put them right to work cleaning tack, scrubbing buckets, or giving the stalls a once-over. She worked right beside them. If there was anyone whom they hated to disappoint more than Max, it was Mrs. Reg.

“And so,” Max was saying, “after a lot of thinking, I’ve decided to put the club on trial for an indefinite period of time. You—all of you—are going
to have to show me that you want this club as much as I do. If it turns out that that’s not the case …” Max paused and cleared his throat, then continued, his voice strained with emotion, “then we’ve all learned a lot and had a good time up until now. At least,” he added softly, “I know I have.”

Lisa, Stevie, and Carole exchanged looks of dismay. None of them had missed the note of resignation in Max’s voice. “He’s really choked up!” Carole whispered.

In a moment, Max had regained his composure. He surveyed the room briefly, looked down at his notes one more time, then concluded, “That’s really all I have to say. I’ve got horses to exercise, so I’ll be on my way.”

After Max left the room, there was a moment or two of stricken silence. Everyone seemed to realize that they had taken Max and Horse Wise for granted. Nobody seemed to know what to say. They were used to Max telling them what to do. Carole was lost in thought. Stevie knew that a joke at a time like this would be inappropriate. Lisa racked her brains, trying to think of something practical that would rally the Pony Clubbers and their parents.

“Excuse me?” a woman said timidly.

The group turned. It was Mrs. Atwood. Lisa did a double take. Usually Mrs. Atwood left the riding to Lisa and concentrated her energies on school fairs for the parent-teacher association. She wasn’t like the mothers who knew about horses and helped look after their children’s ponies. She looked out of place in the stables—even today she was wearing a wool suit and high heels. But, Lisa thought, listening to her mother’s words, she
did
know a heck of a lot about organizing people.

“I don’t know anything about horses,” Mrs. Atwood began, “but from what Max said, it sounds to me as if the main thing we need right now is money. I have a suggestion for how to raise some. It’s not a new idea, but it’s simple and it’s fast and it works.”

“Yes, Mrs. Atwood?” one of the parents asked politely.

“We could have a bake sale,” Lisa’s mother said. “On a Saturday,” she added. “At the Willow Creek shopping center.”

Stevie raised her eyebrows. “Now, that’s my kind of suggestion!” she murmured to Carole and Lisa.

Mrs. Atwood looked around the room. “So, do I have any takers?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Mrs. Reg responded
immediately. “What does everyone else think?”

“Hear! Hear!” said Colonel Hanson.

Mrs. McLean, the mother of one of the younger girls in Horse Wise, spoke up. “I think that’s a super plan. That way we could all get involved. Both Pony Clubbers and parents can bake things, and we can take turns manning the sale table.”

“Can I make my famous double-fudge brownies?” said a woman from the back.

“Mom, I want to make peanut butter cookies!” a young boy piped up.

“I’ve got a German chocolate cake that will knock your socks off,” Betsy Cavanaugh’s mother boasted.

All at once, everyone was talking excitedly about the bake sale plans. Lisa looked at her mother with new appreciation. With one suggestion, she had turned everyone’s mind from worrying to productive planning. No wonder she was such a hit at PTA meetings.

“This will be great,” said Colonel Hanson to Carole. “We can have an all-day bake-a-thon!”

Carole smiled but grimaced inwardly. Like everyone else, she thought the idea of the bake sale was great. But why did it seem like all of a sudden, wherever
she turned, there was junk food? “Sure, Dad, we can bake up a storm,” she replied, trying to muster enthusiasm.

When Mrs. Atwood volunteered to organize the sale, Lisa thought happily of her New Year’s resolution. It would be a perfect thank-you for Lisa to present her mother with a piece of embroidery … at some time in the very distant future!

“I say the sooner we can hand Max a check, the better,” Mrs. Atwood was saying. “So why not have this sale on Saturday in two weeks? That ought to give us plenty of time.”

“Boy, like mother, like daughter,” Stevie commented, watching Mrs. Atwood start to take down volunteers’ names.

“Yeah, I guess hyper-organization runs in the family,” Lisa laughed.

As the meeting broke up, Lisa’s mother started a sign-up sheet so that people could list their names, numbers, and the baked goods they wanted to bring. Before long, the sheet was practically full. Carole read down the list of food items: brownies, blondies, hermit cookies, fudge, lemon cake, devil’s food cake—

“Here, Carole,” a voice said.

Carole turned, glad to be distracted. The list of
baked goods was making her crave sweets. She looked up. It was Mrs. Reg, smiling warmly, holding out a tray of miniature doughnuts.

“Mrs. Reg?” said Carole, momentarily confused.

Mrs. Reg held the plate out closer to Carole. “I brought these for the meeting, so enjoy them, dear!”

A
FTER THE MEETING
, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole decided to go riding in the indoor ring. None of them could bear to come to Pine Hollow and not ride. They went their separate ways to groom and tack up Belle, Prancer, and Starlight.

While she was brushing Starlight, Carole thought about her resolution. She had already broken it by looking around guiltily for Stevie and Lisa and then eating half of a miniature honey-dipped doughnut and washing it down with cocoa. Mrs. Reg had looked so pleased with her offering that Carole hadn’t known how to say no.

“Maybe sweets aren’t the same as junk food, boy. What do you think?” Carole asked the bay gelding. She put down her currycomb and picked up a soft brush. Maybe desserts really belonged in their own category. And what about soda? Was that junk
food?
And hot chocolate? Those were drinks, so they couldn’t count, could they?

“At least I can tell you, Star.” Carole sighed. She knew she should, but Carole didn’t want to admit to Lisa and Stevie that she had cheated. It seemed pathetic to fail on the very first day of the new year! Lisa and Stevie would think she had no willpower.

Carole sighed again as she laid the saddle gently on Starlight’s reddish-brown back. “Imagine how you’d feel if you’d given up sweet feed and could eat nothing but boring old pellets and hay,” she told the young Thoroughbred. Starlight swiveled his ears back and forth. “You horses are so lucky,” Carole muttered. “You’re too smart to make resolutions!”

I
N THE RING
, Stevie seemed to have had a similar thought. “I guess Belle didn’t make any resolutions to behave,” she said cheerfully. “She’s pulling like a train!”

Stevie’s horse, Belle, was an Arabian-Saddlebred
cross. Like Stevie, she was very feisty and spirited, sometimes even stubborn. She liked to go fast, too. “Whatever gait we’re going, she wants to go one faster,” Stevie commented, sitting down firmly in the saddle to settle the mare. “She wanted to trot so I let her, and now that we’re trotting, she wants to canter. What do you think would happen if I let her gallop full out?”

“She’d probably take off, run around the ring, buck several times, tire herself out, and quit,” Carole said seriously. “The problem is that if you let her take off once, she’d want to do it again, and then again, and pretty soon she’d be uncontrollable.”

“Thanks, Carole,” Stevie said with a touch of sarcasm. Carole was so passionate about horses that sometimes she failed to see when someone was only kidding. She was famous for her long-winded answers to horse-related questions.

Lisa came in leading Prancer, a bay Thoroughbred mare. Officially she was owned by Pine Hollow, but Lisa had long been her usual rider.

Lisa paused to tighten Prancer’s girth and roll down her stirrups for mounting. “I would have been here sooner,” she said, springing into the saddle, “but, thanks to you, Stevie, I had to spend ten minutes
convincing my mother that I wanted to ride just as much as I wanted to go home and start embroidering.”

Stevie and Carole laughed, and Lisa finally did too, but she didn’t find the situation all that funny. She had made the resolution, and she would learn to embroider, but she didn’t intend to make it a high priority. If her mother thought she was genuinely interested, she would be on her case even more than she usually was. It was typical of Stevie to tease without realizing what the consequences would be. Typical and annoying, Lisa thought, tightening her reins.

Lisa joined Stevie and Carole at the rail. Usually if they were riding in the ring at the same time, the three of them would school together, too, making up games for the others or helping one another with problems. But this morning, each of the girls seemed content to do her own thing. The combination of Max’s lecture and the New Year’s resolutions wasn’t doing wonders for their camaraderie. Stevie stayed on the outside rail, practicing downward transitions from canter to trot, trot to walk, and walk to halt. Carole did bending exercises in a circle at the far end of the ring. And Lisa worked
on her position, riding without stirrups at the trot and canter.

The three of them were concentrating so hard that they lost track of one another. All of a sudden, they ended up in the middle of the ring at the exact same time. “Heads up!” Carole cried, as both Belle and Prancer almost collided with Starlight.

By sitting up hard and snapping the reins, Lisa and Stevie managed to stop their horses short of a collision.

“That was a close one!” a woman’s voice called. The girls turned in their saddles as Mrs. Reg entered the ring. “Do you have a minute?”

BOOK: Horse Blues
8.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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