Horse Games (2 page)

“Ready for inspection?” Max asked.

“I am now,” she said, smiling.

Max smiled back weakly. “Proceed to the meeting,” he said, approving her tack. She and Topside entered the outdoor ring.

A few minutes later, Max appeared with the final rider and the meeting began.

“Today,” Max said, “we are going to learn a new game. It’s called polocrosse.”

Stevie almost cheered out loud. She wanted to tell everybody what had happened. It had been very eerie to appear in Max’s office to talk about polocrosse only to find that he had already bought the equipment, marked off the field, and was planning to teach it to Horse Wise this very same day. It was just great. All they’d need to do
was to have a few practice sessions and then they could compete with Phil’s team—and beat them, of course! She’d show him a thing or two about scoring points. He’d see!

Carole had already heard about polocrosse, but she’d never played it or seen it being played. She watched with excitement as Max displayed the equipment: a rubber ball about the size of a softball, and a long-handled racquet with a shallow net used to scoop up, carry, and throw the ball.

“This is going to be great!” she whispered to Lisa, who was next to her in line at the meeting.

“Just three people play on each side at a time?” Lisa whispered back.

“Three’s always been enough for us, hasn’t it?” Carole asked.

Lisa smiled, remembering that three was, indeed, a very special number for The Saddle Club.

“Are you listening or talking?” Max asked, glaring at Carole and Lisa.

“Listening,” they answered in a single voice. Then they turned their full attention to everything he was saying.

“This is what the field looks like,” Max said, pointing to a chart that he had tacked to the fence of the ring. “All six players are allowed in the center area. Only Attack and Defense—from opposite teams, of course—are allowed in the goal-scoring areas. There’s one at each
end of the field, behind the penalty line. Attack must be in the goal-scoring area to score, and nobody can carry the ball over the penalty line. They have to throw it to another player on the other side of the line, or bounce it and pick it up themselves—like dribbling in basketball. Got it?”

“Can the Attack just carry the ball into the goal?” Lisa asked.

“Good question,” Max said. “And the answer is no. The ball has to be thrown or bounced between the goalposts, and the Attack is not allowed closer to the goalposts than eleven yards. There’s a large semicircle marked on the ground around the goal. So, now, you’ve got the general idea. Who wants to try it first?”

Every single hand went up.

Max regarded his riders studiously. His eyes darted around. Lisa could feel her excitement rising. She really wanted to play.

“Well, that’s good news,” Max said, “because we need twelve players. Six will be on each team, with three playing at a time. What we have here is twelve volunteers.”

Within minutes, Max had six players on the field that adjoined the ring. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole were all on the same team, but they were going to play the second “chukka,” as Max told them the six-minute periods were called.

“Go, Blue!” Stevie shouted encouragement to her teammates on the field.

“Max hasn’t even tossed out the ball,” Carole said. “Why are you yelling already?”

“Because we need to encourage our teammates to do the best they can,” Stevie told her. “I was talking to Phil this morning and he told me about this game. The really funny thing is that at practically the same time I decided I had to learn it, Max had decided the same thing—”

“That
you
had to learn it?” Lisa teased.

“No—that all of us had to learn it, of course. Anyway, I can’t let Phil go on thinking all his life that he’s this super polocrosse player, you know?”

Carole and Lisa exchanged doubting looks. When Phil and Stevie had first met at riding camp, their friendship had almost been ruined by the competition between them.

“Are we looking at another bout of ‘I can do anything better than he can’?” Lisa asked Carole.

“Sounds like it to me,” Carole said. “Let’s ask her.”

Stevie glanced at both her friends. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s just that he was boasting and I hate it when he does that.”

“I don’t know,” Carole said. “I’m not so sure you hate it when Phil says he’s better at something than you are. What I think you hate is when you think he might be right.”

The moment Carole said that, she was sorry. It wasn’t that it wasn’t true. It was just that she knew Stevie didn’t want to hear it.

“Shows how much you know,” Stevie said.

“Okay, second squads!” Max called out.

Stevie kicked Topside and pulled away from her friends.

“Saved by the instructor,” Lisa said to Carole when Stevie was out of earshot.

“Maybe,” Carole said, but it turned out that Lisa was right. Stevie’s burst of temper at Carole disappeared almost as suddenly as it had arrived, for as soon as the three got onto the playing field, Stevie’s attention was focused on mastering a new sport. She was too busy to be angry.

Max gave each of the girls a number. Stevie was 1, so her position was Attack. Lisa was 2—the Center. Carole was 3, Defense. He handed them each a racquet, lined them up next to the other team, and tossed out the ball.

“Got it!” Stevie yelled, but she didn’t have it at all. The other team’s Attack had it. Before Stevie could even get Topside turned around to try to get the ball from the Red Attack, he’d passed it to his Center. Lisa rode hard, trying to catch up with the Center, reaching for Red Center’s stick, to hit it upward with her own. That was the way Max had told them they could get the ball from another player.

Lisa reached out and flailed at Red Center’s stick with hers. She wasn’t even close.

“Get it!” Stevie screamed.

“I can’t!” Lisa screamed back.

“I can!” Stevie yelled with determination.

She then proceeded to dash after Red Center, waving her racquet as she approached.

The whistle blew.

“You can’t threaten another rider with a racquet,” Max scolded Stevie. “Remember, you can attack the ball, but not the ballcarrier.”

Stevie nodded. Play resumed.

It seemed impossible to Lisa that the chukka was only six minutes long. How could it be that the players could make so many mistakes in six minutes? In that very short time, the ball was tossed out-of-bounds five times, and absolutely lost twice. On two occasions, five riders had chased one rider into the scoring area only to find that none of them had the ball, or even had any idea where it was!

The whistle blew.

“Whew!” Lisa said. The chukka had been fun, but it had been very hard. She was pretty sure her friends were feeling the same way she was, but she was wrong.

“Wasn’t it wonderful?” Carole asked, clearly exhilarated.

“Boy, have you guys got a lot of work to do so we can beat Phil’s Pony Club!” Stevie said.

Sometimes it amazed Lisa how three girls could be such good friends and so different all at once.

“I’
LL JUST BE
a minute, Dad,” Carole said, hopping out of the car. She picked up Crystal’s teddy bear and entered the children’s hospital. Max had asked her to do this as a favor to him, but, really, it was something Carole was glad to do. A few weeks earlier, Carole had been running pony-cart rides for patients at the hospital during a festival sponsored by Stevie’s school. She hadn’t noticed when five-year-old Crystal left her bear under one of the seats. Max had come across it and asked Carole if she remembered to whom it belonged. There was no way Carole could forget the frightened little girl who clutched her teddy bear getting into the cart—or the excited and smiling child who got off the cart a few minutes later. Returning Crystal’s teddy was more like a special honor than a favor.

Crystal was sleeping when Carole entered her hospital room. She looked so peaceful and contented that Carole couldn’t bring herself to wake Crystal up. Instead, she put the teddy bear by the sleeping child’s arms. Instinctively, Crystal hugged the stuffed animal and drew him to her chest. A smile crossed the child’s face. Carole smiled, too, and tiptoed out of the room.

“Hi, there.” A familiar voice greeted her as she approached the elevator. The words were warm, but the tone was oddly flat and ironic. “Have you come to spread more cheer?” Carole turned. It took her a second to recognize the girl who was talking to her. Then it came to her.

“Oh, hi,” Carole said. “I remember you. Marie Dana, right?” Carole was trying to sound casual, but the fact was, she couldn’t forget the girl. When she’d seen her at the festival, Marie had been confined to a gurney—a stretcher on wheels. She’d had to lie absolutely flat on her back because of a broken pelvis. She’d been grumpy and almost rude at the festival. Now, she was up and walking, with the help of some crutches. Carole hoped that was improving her mood, too. “Looks like you’re getting better, huh?”

“I guess that’s what it
looks
like,” Marie said. From the way she said it, Carole knew that although her physical state was clearly better, emotionally she had not improved.

That was what Carole remembered the most about
her. Marie had resisted all attempts to help her. It was almost as if she were determined to be unhappy.

“Are you still in the hospital now?” Carole asked.

“No. I’m just here for physical therapy. It’s something they make me do four times a week to keep my mind on how much it hurts to walk.”

Carole laughed. Marie smiled weakly in spite of herself.

“Are you still running pony-cart rides?” Marie asked.

“No, that was just for the day,” Carole said. “But I am riding a lot. In fact, I just came from there.”

“I know,” Marie said. She pointed to Carole.

Carole looked down and then blushed. No wonder Marie could tell she’d been riding. She was still wearing breeches and high boots. Her riding gloves poked out of her pocket. The only thing that was missing was her hard hat.

“It’s sort of a giveaway, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah,” said Marie.

There was a
bing
then, and the elevator arrived. Carole stepped on first and held the door while Marie walked on slowly, using crutches.

There were a lot of other people on the elevator. Carole didn’t feel like talking as they rode down, stopping at almost every floor. She stood quietly, but her eyes watched Marie’s back and her mind raced. There was a very special quality about Marie. Carole didn’t know what it was, but she instinctively recognized that they
had things in common and that Marie wanted to talk to her. Marie’s sharp tongue and grumpiness couldn’t hide the fact that she needed a friend. Carole wondered if she could be the friend and, if she could, what good it would do Marie.

The elevator drew to a stop at the ground floor. Marie stepped off slowly. Carole followed her.

“Is somebody meeting you?” Carole asked. “I mean, my dad is waiting for me outside. We could give you a lift.”

“No thanks. I just finished up my therapy a little early today, so my mother isn’t here yet. That’s funny, too, because since the accident, she’s barely wanted to let me out of her sight.”

“Is she afraid it will happen again?” Carole asked. She was trying to make a little joke out of it. After all, she knew what it was like to have a parent who sometimes cared too much.

“No, I don’t think so,” Marie said. “It’s more like she’s afraid she’ll lose me, too. See, my father was killed in the same accident that put me in the hospital.”

That was it, then. That was what Carole had intuitively sensed that was their common bond. They had each had a parent die, Carole’s mother from cancer, Marie’s father in an accident. Carole wanted to say something, but an odd thing happened. She and Marie had the most important thing in the world in common and she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to tell
her that she really did know how much it hurt. Sharing her own sadness didn’t seem like the right thing to do just then.

“I’m sorry,” was all Carole said. “Really.”

“Thanks,” Marie said. Then she winced and Carole got the feeling her legs were hurting her.

“Want to sit down a minute?” Carole asked.

Marie nodded. Carole led her to a bench in the lobby of the hospital and sat down next to her. It was an awkward moment. There was a lot Carole wanted to say and even more she wanted to ask, but she had the feeling that Marie didn’t want to talk about what she had just told Carole. Carole switched the subject to the one she always felt the most comfortable with.

“Have you ever done any horseback riding?”

Marie laughed. “That’s funny,” she said.

Carole didn’t think it was funny at all. She certainly hadn’t meant to be funny. “How’s that?” she asked.

“Well, you’re the second person to ask me that in just a few minutes. The therapist upstairs wanted to know, too.”

“And what’s the answer?” Carole asked expectantly.

“I guess it’s yes. I used to ride before the accident. Not much, just a little,” she said.

“Did you like it?” Carole asked, though even as she asked it, she thought it was a strange question. She, herself, could not imagine not liking horseback riding.