Horse Fever (9 page)

From the moment she gathered up the reins, Carole realized her mistake. She should have trusted her instincts. Starlight could sense what kind of mood she was in. It was almost as if he
wanted
to make her look bad in front of Pat. He wouldn’t walk, he wouldn’t halt, he hedged away from one corner of the indoor ring—every time they passed it. “Would you behave?” Carole muttered through clenched teeth. As she drew near the door, she saw Mrs. Reg standing with Pat, watching her intently.

Having Max’s mother there annoyed Carole. It made her nervous, though normally she wouldn’t have cared.
I’ll show them
, she thought. She turned Starlight toward the vertical. As they approached, the wind whistled through the rafters of the roof. Starlight shied violently and ducked out of line. He got the bit between his teeth and bolted.

Carole was so stunned she couldn’t react right away. Her champion jumper had
run out
before a fence! That was one of the worst faults there was. At last she sat back in the saddle and reined him in. She brought him back to
a trot and made a circle. Her face burning with shame, Carole reapproached the jump. Starlight ran out again.

The third time, Carole was ready. She opened her outside rein and used her inside leg. She made Starlight go forward. He dodged right and left. Finally he got in under the fence and popped it. The awkward jump unseated Carole. She managed to hang on, but barely. When she had recovered herself, she was embarrassed beyond belief. She didn’t want to ride anymore. She also didn’t want to ride over to Pat and Mrs. Reg.

“I’d better call it a day!” she yelled.

“All right!” Pat called anxiously. “I hope I didn’t mess him up!”

“No—oh, no; you didn’t do anything wrong!” Carole assured her, her voice choked with shame.

As she slowed to a walk, she heard Mrs. Reg asking Pat if she would like to ride Barq and Pat saying she would. The two women left the side of the ring together.

Only then did Carole dare dismount. She halted right away and got off. How could she have made such a fool of herself? In front of Pat, her new friend, and Mrs. Reg, who would probably tell Max! Fighting off tears of frustration, Carole dejectedly led Starlight to his stall. She untacked him as quickly as possible and went to the tack room.

Mrs. Reg was inside, straightening up. Carole looked at
the floor, humiliated. “Say, where are your other two thirds?” Mrs. Reg asked.

“Huh? Oh—Stevie and Lisa? They must be coming this afternoon,” Carole said. She was so upset, she hadn’t even noticed their absence. Anyway, she was glad they hadn’t been around to witness her second horrible performance. First the lesson and now this.

“Bad day?” Mrs. Reg asked quietly. When Carole didn’t answer, she said gently, “Everyone has them sometimes.”

Carole’s frown only deepened. She wasn’t in the mood for the older woman’s cheery wisdom.

“The other day,” Mrs. Reg went on, oblivious, “I was in a bad mood because I had to clean out my attic. But you know what? It paid off. I found a dress up there that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a dress I’d made myself. I wore it, oh, for years. Everyone complimented me on this dress, and I was very proud of it. It was blue gingham with— Well, never mind. The fabric’s not important. The point is, I found it again! I was so excited because I thought I had passed it on ages ago. Now I can’t wait to start wearing it again. Funny how that works, isn’t it? You think you’re through with something and then—”

“Mrs. Reg?” Carole broke in. “Can I use the phone?”

Mrs. Reg paused in midsentence. She gave Carole a searching look. The phone in Max’s office was to be used
only for very important calls. “If you need to, dear … Yes, of course you can,” she said.

Carole fled the room before Mrs. Reg could change her mind. She ran to the office and drew a slip of paper from her pocket. Her hands were trembling. She dialed the number. After several rings, Jenny picked up. “Sorry!” the older girl said breathlessly. “I was in the barn!”

“It’s Carole Hanson,” Carole said, getting right to the point. “I—I was wondering if I could come ride King again.”

“S
URE
!” J
ENNY SAID
after a slight pause. “In fact, I’m on my way over to the tack shop in Willow Creek, so I can give you a ride. Where are you?”

“I’m at Pine Hollow,” Carole said.

“Perfect. I know just where that is.”

“I’ll wait at the end of the driveway. It’ll be easier that way,” Carole added hastily.

The moment the call ended, she grabbed her things from the locker room and trudged out to the road. She knew it would take Jenny half an hour to get there, but she didn’t want to wait around Pine Hollow. She didn’t want to answer questions about where she was going—or why.

“I’m so glad you changed your mind!” said Jenny when she pulled up in a white pickup. “Hop in—and watch out for all the tack. I just had a bunch of stuff repaired.

“You know, I meant what I said about you and King,” the older girl continued once they were on the way. “You’re a good rider, and you and he could go far.”

“Thanks,” Carole mumbled, embarrassed by two things: one, the compliment, and two, the fact that Jenny seemed to think she was seriously considering buying King. And why wouldn’t she? Carole had said nothing to reveal the true situation: that though she could never, ever afford King, she longed to ride him again.

“Have you ever thought of doing top-level dressage?”

Carole swallowed. She nodded.

“Well, then, King is your horse,” Jenny replied.

“I—I would probably still ride in Pony Club events and other shows,” Carole said hesitantly, “I mean, for
fun
 …”

Jenny gave her a smile. “You really think so? I’ll tell you, when I started riding dressage—I mean for real, none of this backyard stuff—I never looked back. Carole, every rider has to choose sometime. Every great rider, that is.”

Carole shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
She
did “backyard stuff.” On the other hand, she knew Jenny was right about the need to specialize. If you looked at the Olympics or any of the top international competitions, all
the riders did one thing and one thing only. Some were show jumpers, jumping high, technical courses in a ring. Others rode at the highest levels of dressage.

“There is three-day eventing,” Carole said aloud. Eventing, or combined training, was a sport that combined dressage and jumping. The first phase was dressage, the second was a cross-country jumping course, and the third was stadium jumping (not unlike show jumping) in a ring.

“That’s true,” Jenny said, sounding unconvinced. “But their dressage is nowhere near as good as ours, and for all I know, their jumping isn’t, either. I guess if you want an all-around sport …” she added doubtfully. “Do you?”

Carole looked out the window before answering. The problem was, she didn’t know what she wanted. All her life people had been telling her she was talented. Nobody had told her in which direction to take her talent. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I just don’t know.”

J
ENNY HAD TO
get some paperwork done before her first lesson, so after bringing King in from the pasture, she told Carole to make herself at home and ride wherever she liked. “There’s a trail that makes a loop beside the pasture,” she suggested.

Carole tacked up and led King out to the ring. When she mounted, she had the same incredible feeling as before.
She felt privileged just to be sitting on his back. It reminded her of when she was little and used to go to big horse shows as a spectator. Once in a while, one of the competitors would give her a ride. King felt as special as those horses.

Carole warmed him up slowly, taking her time. “Imagine if I brought you to a dressage lesson!” she murmured. “Max wouldn’t be able to find a single thing wrong with us!” Carole walked and trotted. Even a simple exercise like trotting a circle was a joy. Then she pretended she was riding a grand prix dressage show. She trotted down the center line of the ring to an imaginary
X
—the center point. There she halted, took off her hat, and saluted the imaginary judge. Starlight was usually difficult to keep in place during the salute. He was impatient, ready to be off across the cross-country fields. But King stood rock solid. One ear moved back, asking for Carole’s next request.

“You’re so perfect, I don’t know what to do with you!” she said, laughing. Remembering Max’s advice to keep things interesting, Carole spied the set of cavalletti at the end of the ring. They were still in place from Pat’s ride. Carole turned King toward them. This time around, instead of avoiding them, she urged the horse over them. King’s ears went forward. Carole tensed in the saddle, waiting for the takeoff over the first jump. But King
moved unsteadily, weaving from side to side. At the last minute he half jumped, half stumbled over the obstacle, falling heavily against the bit.

Her stomach turning over, Carole felt the wrench against the reins. She was so embarrassed she glanced involuntarily toward the house, praying that Jenny had not seen. Here Jenny had trusted Carole with her extremely valuable horse, and Carole was messing up his training. Obviously she hadn’t prepared him correctly for the jump. Horse sense told Carole she should go around again, but she didn’t want to. She was too afraid of doing something wrong. With Starlight, over fences, she was used to just sitting tight, head up, heels down, and checking him when he got too strong. A horse like King probably expected a lot more precision, guidance, and control.

“Let’s just take a nice trail ride, why don’t we?” Carole said, giving the brown neck a long pat. She loosened the reins and headed out of the pasture.

It was a magical ride. The winter sun had finally come out. It glinted on King’s rich coat and shone through the trees. King walked and jogged comfortably. True to his warmblood breeding, he was powerful but steady. Alone in the quiet of the woods, Carole could almost pretend that King was hers.
She
could be the “right rider” to go
“all the way”—maybe even to the Olympics! With a horse like King, she could be a junior dressage
star
. Imagine Max’s face—imagine Stevie, Lisa, her father, Mrs. Reg—when she got chosen for the team!

Lost in her daydream, Carole didn’t see the fallen log in the path. She was trotting along when all of a sudden King stopped dead. Carole was thrown forward onto his neck. A wave of fear washed over her. Why had King stopped? If something had happened to him … Then she saw the log and let out a sigh of relief. “It’s only a tree, silly boy!” she said. “Come on, over you go!” She clucked to him and used her legs, but King did not want to move forward. He did not want to step over the log. Suddenly Carole was afraid again. What if he knew something about this trail that she didn’t? Could there be danger on the other side? Feeling nervous and unsettled, she turned King around and headed back the way she’d come. She certainly wasn’t going to take any chances.

The ride back to Jenny’s was no fun at all. Carole dreaded telling Jenny the truth—that she adored King, thought he was perfect, but couldn’t afford him in a million years. She felt sick with anxiety. Jenny was a professional. She wanted to sell King. She wouldn’t be pleased to hear that Carole had been riding with no intention to buy.

In the time left, Carole composed her speech. When
King was untacked and put away, she walked up to the house. Her palms sweaty, she knocked on the door.

“Come in! I’m in back!”

“King is probably the best horse I’ve ever ridden,” Carole said to herself, rehearsing. She found Jenny in her office.

“Up to my elbows in bills!” Jenny said cheerfully. “How’d it go? Did you try any airs above the ground?”

Carole tried to smile. She tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. Her feet seemed rooted to the floor. “I—” Then all at once, forgetting her speech entirely, she blurted out, “I love King but I can’t afford him! I’ll never be able to afford him!”

“But Carole—”

Carole rushed on before Jenny could get upset with her. “I couldn’t resist the chance to ride him again, but I—I have a horse already and my dad and I could never afford another and even if we could he wouldn’t let me have two horses and—and—I hope you’re not mad!” she finished with a convulsive sob.

Jenny stood up and put an arm around Carole’s shaking shoulders. “Of course I’m not mad!” she said. “I was happy to have you ride King. But sweetie, there’s a solution to your problem.”

Carole raised a tearstained face. “There is?”

Jenny laughed. “Boy, are you silly! You don’t even see
the answer and it’s staring you in the face. What’s your horse like?”

“Starlight?” Carole said, confused.

“Yes. Tell me about him.”

Carole sniffed. “He’s—He’s great,” she began falteringly. “He’s half Thoroughbred. He’s won a lot—I mean, not at the biggest shows, but he’s won a lot of Pony Club events and been champion at local shows. He’s a great jumper. I—I trained him myself,” Carole added.

“So in other words, Starlight is a very successful children’s hunter with a show record to match. He’s probably worth a lot—a lot more than you know, even.”