Horse Blues (5 page)

“Yeah, boy, have you got willpower,” Stevie said. She surveyed her sundae happily from all angles before digging in.

Carole grumbled something incoherent as she sipped her lemonade.

“What was that?” Lisa asked.

“I said, I don’t have the willpower you think I do,” Carole repeated. In a rush she told Stevie and Carole about breaking down and eating the doughnut earlier. The minute she said it, it seemed like the silliest thing in the world to get worked up
about. Carole giggled as she finished, adding that she didn’t know whether the hot chocolate “counted” or not. “Anyway, I felt bad not telling you guys, so …”

Stevie was the first to speak. “Uh, Carole? I wouldn’t feel too bad, considering that I’ve already broken my resolution, too. You both saw me lose my temper with Veronica when she came waltzing in hours after the meeting was over.”

Lisa nodded. “Right. And I should be home doing embroidery right now.”

“Yes, but you haven’t actually broken your resolution, Lisa,” Carole pointed out.

“Well, that’s because—” Lisa started to say.

“That’s because hers is harder to break,” Stevie finished.

Annoyed, Lisa put her spoon down and looked at Stevie. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s simple,” Stevie replied. “Your resolution is harder to break because you vowed to learn something new, whereas we vowed to change habits that we already have; so to break ours, all Carole and I have to do is slip up and do it, whereas to not do yours all you have to do is not do something. I mean, to do yours. No, wait, I mean to not do yours. Oh, you know what I mean!”

“Yes, I do know what you mean,” Lisa said coldly, “and it’s not exactly fair. I mean, I have to learn a whole new craft! All you have to do—”

“You guys,” Carole broke in, “the point is, these resolutions are harder than we expected, right? That’s all anyone is saying. Right? You guys?”

There was a stony silence as Stevie and Lisa ate their ice cream. Then Lisa said, more to herself than to anyone, “Maybe what we need is some incentive.”

“You mean something to help us keep the resolutions?” Stevie asked. She had been going to suggest that maybe what they needed was to drop the resolutions altogether, A.S.A.P.

Lisa nodded. “Yeah, some reward—no, a penalty for whoever breaks hers first.”

“But how will we know if you’ve broken yours?” Stevie asked pointedly. “You could learn embroidery tomorrow and then have nothing left to do.”

Lisa fought against the impulse to toss her ice cream into Stevie’s lap. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been so irked by a member of The Saddle Club. She wasn’t going to try to cheat on her resolution. Why couldn’t Stevie just believe that? Probably, Lisa thought cynically, because Stevie was going to cheat on hers—or at least bend it a bit.

“Look, I’ll vow to embroider every day!” Lisa said exasperatedly. “Would that be satisfactory? Or I’ll—I’ll—” She floundered, trying to think of something that would convince Stevie that learning embroidery was at least as tough a resolution as being nice to Veronica. After all, Lisa wasn’t a lagger! Why, she worked harder than anyone she knew at school. She certainly didn’t intend to bring up the rear when it came to these resolutions. “I know,” she said, with a sudden inspiration. “I’ll vow to embroider something for the bake sale, okay? How about a tablecloth and napkins? We can sell them at the end of the sale.”

“That’s a great idea, Lisa!” Carole said. “Then your resolution would have a real purpose. You’ll make your mom happy and you’ll also earn some money for Horse Wise.”

Stevie had to agree that Lisa’s suggestion was a good one. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “That sounds fair.”

“Of course, we haven’t thought up an incentive yet, so maybe we should just …” Lisa let her voice trail off. The resolutions were her idea. So she, of all of them, shouldn’t be the one to suggest that they forget about keeping them. Besides, they were a good idea! It would be good for Stevie to lay off
Veronica for a while, it would be good for Carole to eat better food, and, Lisa thought with a sigh, it would be good for her to learn embroidery.

“Maybe we should just what, Lisa?” Stevie challenged her.

“Maybe we should—should think of something really terrible to prevent ourselves from breaking our resolutions,” Lisa said in a hurry, trying to keep herself from sounding as defensive as she felt.

“Maybe we should change the subject,” Carole said more quietly.

That was all the urging Stevie and Lisa needed. As soon as they switched to a new topic, the girls began to chat amiably. They compared notes on their morning rides, agreed that Mrs. Reg was as loony as ever, and eventually began to discuss the bake sale. Lisa suggested that they spend some time at Pine Hollow going over the Horse Wise equipment to see what they needed. “And I also told my mom that we would make the signs for the bake sale,” Lisa said, “and then give them to other members to distribute around Willow Creek.”

“Great. We can do that Monday,” Carole volunteered.

Stevie said that she thought Lisa’s mother would do an excellent job of running the sale.

“If she runs it anything like she runs the PTA Holiday Wreath Sale, Horse Wise is going to rake in the money,” Lisa predicted. “I just hope she has enough volunteers.”

“Speaking of which, we absolutely must recruit members. We should call every single person who’s ever been a part of Horse Wise and make them rejoin the club,” Carole said.

“I agree,” Stevie said, hazel eyes twinkling, “and I think there’s one call that Lisa should make.”

Lisa burst into laughter. “Just when I thought it was safe to forget all about Simon Atherton, he’s back!” she said, mocking an advertisement for a horror movie.

“And if you don’t watch out,” Carole said menacingly, “he’s going to get you!”

The girls found their joke so amusing that they spent the next ten minutes thinking up fake scenarios involving Simon Atherton. “Picture this,” Stevie said. “You’re at the water fountain, taking a drink. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a pair of feet approaching in sturdy, sensible shoes. You look up—it’s him! And he wants to eat lunch with you!”

“No, no, no.” Lisa waved her hands. “It’s like this: You’re at Pine Hollow. It’s deserted—or so you
think. All of a sudden, behind you, someone says, ‘Excuse me, Miss Atwood? Would you do me the honor of discussing tomorrow’s algebra assignment on horseback as we wend our way down a local trail?’ ”

Stevie and Carole snorted with laughter. Lisa could perfectly imitate Simon’s formal speech and his upper-class, English way of talking. “I guess for the sake of Horse Wise, though, we have to call him if he’s back in town as Mrs. Reg says,” Lisa commented.

“Attagirl,” said Stevie, toasting water glasses with Lisa. “Do it for the club.”

“Me? Who said anything about me?” Lisa joked.

Carole sighed with relief—not because she knew that one of them would relent and call Simon, but because Stevie and Lisa were acting normal toward each other again. Usually Stevie’s and Lisa’s opposing personalities complemented each other. Even though Lisa got straight As and Stevie barely got by, both girls were smart. Both were funny, too, though their senses of humor were very different. But on the rare occasions that the girls clashed, they clashed hard. Then it fell to Carole to act as the peacemaker between them. When her best friends argued, it was upsetting. She often thought how much simpler it
would be if they could just bare their teeth at one another the way horses did. Then everything would be out in the open. There would be no hidden tensions that surfaced all of a sudden.

“What do you think, Carole?” Lisa asked.

Carole focused on Lisa’s expectant face. “Huh? What do I think about what?”

“Have you been spacing out again, Carole?” Stevie teased. “Thinking about Starlight’s smooth canter again?”

Carole grinned. “Actually, this was one of the few times I was thinking about people and not horses. What did I miss?”

“Stevie has come up with a brilliant idea,” Lisa announced.

“For the bake sale? For Horse Wise?” asked Carole.

“Nope. For us,” said Lisa. “So we don’t break our resolutions.”

“What?” asked Carole nervously, afraid that the idea was going to be something that would create more aggravation among the three of them.

Lisa and Stevie twittered for a moment. Then Stevie burst out, “Simon Atherton!”

“Simon Atherton?” said Carole, not comprehending.

“Yes, Simon Atherton,” said Lisa. “Whichever one of us breaks our resolution first has to call up Simon and ask him out on a date!”

“A date?” Carole asked. “You mean a real date?”

“Yup, a real date, like going to the movies together,” said Stevie.

Lisa and Stevie watched to see how Carole would react. Slowly Carole began to grin. First she grinned a little, then a lot. “I can tell you one thing: I sure as heck am not going to be the one to lose!”

“That’s exactly what I said!” Lisa agreed.

“Imagine what Phil would say if I lost!” Stevie wailed. “Imagine if I had to tell him that I was going out for an evening with someone else, and that the someone else was Simon Atherton!”

Lisa and Carole shrieked with delight. Phil Marsten was Stevie’s boyfriend. The two had been going out for a while, but it wasn’t so serious that if Stevie really wanted to (or in this case,
had
to) go to the movies with another boy she couldn’t. Phil would probably be annoyed, but Stevie would make him put up with it. And, as Stevie always said, just because she was going out with Phil didn’t mean she couldn’t be interested in other boys. Of course, usually when she said that, she didn’t have Simon Atherton in mind.

“So, problem solved,” Lisa declared.

“Problem solved,” Stevie agreed.

Carole took one last sip of her lemonade. She peeled the lid off the cup and looked at the ice in the bottom. She sighed. Right about now she would really have enjoyed a big chocolate chip cone. Instead she slurped up some of the sugary water. “You guys?” she said. “I have a suggestion.”

Lisa and Stevie looked up readily.

“Lisa,” Carole continued, “maybe you can embroider every day from here until eternity, and Stevie, maybe you’ll never be mean to Veronica again, but personally, I need to put a time limit on my resolution, because there’s no way I’m giving up junk food for life.”

“Hear! Hear!” Stevie said at once.

“Of course there should be a time limit!” Lisa said. “Without a doubt!”

“Oh, good,” said Carole, relieved that she had at least partially expressed her opinion. “How about three months?”

“Three months? How about two?” Stevie said.

“Forget two. One month is plenty,” Lisa jumped in.

“One month, then?” Carole asked. There was a pause as the three girls looked at one another. Carole
had the funny feeling that there was something they weren’t saying—that somehow they were still being dishonest with one another.

“You know—” said Stevie.

“We could—” said Lisa.

Both of them broke off abruptly and looked down at their empty dishes.

“I guess I’d better get home,” Carole said finally.

“That’s what I was going to say,” Stevie said right away.

“Me too—got to get home and start that embroidery,” Lisa said, doing her best to smile at the prospect. After making a plan to meet at Pine Hollow the following afternoon, the three girls put money down for the check and left—even more quietly than they had come in.

“W
HAT THE
—?” Lisa sat up in bed, disoriented.

“Are you all right, honey?” Mrs. Atwood knocked on the door and then poked her head in.

“Oh, yeah, Mom.” Lisa rubbed her eyes. Scattered over the bed were scissors, needles, thread, and a paperback entitled
Embroidery Made Fun and Easy
. “I was just doing some background reading,” Lisa explained hastily.

“All right, I don’t want to disturb you. I just wanted to tell you that dinner’s in half an hour, so you can set the table in fifteen minutes or so.” Mrs. Atwood began to close the door behind her.

“Mom?” Lisa asked, remembering her thoughts before she had fallen asleep. “Do you think the bake sale will be a success?”

“I hope so, Lisa. If I have anything to say about it, it will be. I called a few more mothers and fathers this afternoon, and everyone seems very willing to help. Oh, and I ran into Connie Atherton uptown, and she said that her son is—”

“Connie
who
?” Lisa cried, fully awake at once.

Mrs. Atwood gave Lisa a strange look. “Connie Atherton, sweetheart. You know the Athertons, don’t you? I think Simon is about your age. Anyway, they’re just back from Texas, and Mrs. Atherton said that Simon is very eager to start riding at Pine Hollow again, so I told her you’d give him a call.” Mrs. Atwood beamed at her daughter. “There’s a new Horse Wise member right there,” she said. “Right?”

As soon as the door closed, Lisa lay back against her pillows and covered her eyes. Here it was, the first of January, and already the year was horrible! For starters, Max’s surprise announcement that Horse Wise was in jeopardy. Then her own stupid promise to embroider a whole tablecloth—not to mention a set of napkins—in two weeks. And now the whole world seemed to be conspiring to throw her back together with Simon Atherton. She was
not
going to end up calling him for a date, no matter what. Whoever did lose the bet, Lisa thought wryly, was going to be in for an evening she would never forget.