Horse Play (5 page)

“You know,” Carole said. “We’re trying to help Max, but I’m not sure it’s working. When I was rinsing Diablo’s bucket today, I heard Mrs. Reg tell Max that ‘that man’ called again. Max said he hoped she’d hung up on him. That’s no way to treat a diAngelo!”

They nodded in solemn agreement.

Carole sighed, then turned and lay on her stomach,
soaking up the late summer sunshine. As usual, Stevie was talking nonstop. She chattered about how she could call other people and tell them about Pine Hollow, then suddenly switched to the subject of Veronica diAngelo.

“On a scale of one to ten, I hate her twelve and a half,” Stevie said.

“Fifteen,” Lisa said, without lifting her head from her towel.

“Yeah, fifteen,” Stevie agreed. “Maybe more.”

Carole listened, amused by her friends. She thought about Pine Hollow and how much it meant to her—to all of them. “You know what I’d really like to do,” she said, interrupting the auction, which by then had advanced to twenty-five on the hate scale. “I’d like to find a way to show people all the really good things they can learn at riding classes.”

“You mean a horse show?” Lisa asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

Carole turned over and sat up. “Maybe, I guess,” she said. She tugged a piece of grass out of the lawn and began chewing on it methodically. “Sort of.”

“But the stable already had a horse show this summer,” Lisa reminded her.

“And our gymkhana!” Stevie added. “Don’t forget that. Wasn’t that good enough?”

“Oh, it was great, especially when we won,” Carole said quickly. “But those things were more for people who already know about Pine Hollow. The only people in the
audience were our families and other riders. No, I was thinking of, like, a demonstration for other people in the town so that they might decide to come ride at Pine Hollow.”

Stevie swung around and sat up, too. “I think she’s on to something,” she said to Lisa. “Can you see it now? Our names in lights!”

“Actually, I was thinking more of posters,” Carole said. “Like if we come up with a neat idea for a show of some kind, we can put posters all over town.”

“And we can charge admission and get money for Pine Hollow that way,” Stevie said.

Carole shook her head thoughtfully. “We can’t charge admission,” she said. “The whole idea would be to make people want to come for fun—not because they have to pay.”

“Well, they’ll have to pay to take lessons,” Stevie thought aloud. “And they’ll want to once they see our demonstration.”

“Of course we’ll do something,” Lisa said. “It’ll be so neat.”

“Yeah, but what? That’s the question,” Stevie said.

“How about a drill team performance?” Carole said.

“Do you think we could do something worth watching?” Lisa asked dubiously.

“Why not?” Carole answered. Then she turned to Stevie. “You never did get to ask Max about starting the team up again, did you?”

Stevie shook her head. “I got too upset about that phone call, but we can all go together before our next class.”

“I really liked those practices,” Lisa said. “Even when we all ended up practically bumping into each other. But it was fun—and with a little bit of imagination, you could see how good it could be.”

“
Could
be if we practiced like crazy,” Carole added.

“Well, why not?” Stevie asked. “We’re crazy, aren’t we? Horse crazy, anyway, right?”

“We’re going to have to practice a lot,” Carole continued. “Drill routines are awful if they’re not done right. At least three times a week until … When are we going to do this?” she asked Stevie.

“Two weeks?”

“Never mind horse crazy, you’re just
plain
crazy,” Carole announced. “Lisa, I think we should throw her into the water until her head clears.”

Lisa’s eyes lit up. “Great idea,” she said.

The two of them stood up and grabbing Stevie’s hands, began pulling her over to the pool. Stevie laughed a lot and didn’t put up much of a fight, but just before her friends began to push her into the water, she jumped, yanking them into the pool with her. The three of them made a tremendous splash, landing in the waist-deep water. Carole and Lisa were so surprised that they couldn’t help shrieking when they hit the water.

Stevie took a big breath and ducked under the surface.
Carole and Lisa were standing in the water giggling when Stevie jumped up out at them, splashing wildly.

The three girls spread out in the water and began splashing each other. Lisa discovered that if she stood in one place and spun around, running her hand on the surface of the water, she could douse both her friends at almost the same time. They discovered the same thing. Soon it was almost impossible to tell who was splashing whom, but it felt wonderful.

After a few minutes, the activity subsided. All three girls lay back in the water and floated contentedly, gazing up at the blue sky, brushed white here and there by some clouds.

Carole turned over and lifted her head out of the water. She looked closely at Stevie. “Has any of this cleared your foggy brain?” she asked.

Stevie nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “Two weeks is out of the question. How about three?”

Carole was about to pounce on her and dunk her when Alex, Stevie’s twin brother, yelled from the house.

“Lisa, phone for you! It’s your mother!”

Of course it’s Mother
, Lisa thought to herself. She pulled herself out of the pool with a sigh, wrapped herself in her beach towel, and proceeded into the kitchen, dripping as little water as she could manage.

Five minutes later, she stomped back to the pool. Lisa, normally cheerful and optimistic, looked very angry.

“What’s the matter?” Carole asked.

“Bad news?” Stevie asked.

“My mother is the bad news,” Lisa said, grimacing. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She was phoning from down the block, just to ask me if I had put on any sunscreen. Can you believe it? I’m thirteen years old and I don’t need to be told what to do every second.”

“Maybe she’s just showing she cares,” Carole said.

Lisa regarded her carefully. Carole’s own mother had died when she was younger and Lisa didn’t want to hurt her friend’s feelings. Lisa hadn’t met Carole until after Mrs. Hanson’s death, but she was pretty sure Carole’s mother would never have pulled a stunt like that.

“Maybe,” Lisa said. “But enough is enough!” Lisa was a little surprised to hear herself saying that. For years, she’d always done exactly what her mother wanted her to do. That was why she started riding in the first place. Now that she’d discovered riding and The Saddle Club, she didn’t want her mother to interfere. “There’s caring and there’s being a bother—which rhymes with mother.…” she mused. “Sort of, anyway.”

“Four weeks?” Stevie said, interrupting Lisa’s thoughts. “Think we could be ready then?”

“Maybe,” Carole said. “It’s a possibility, anyway. Let’s see.”

Lisa used her towel to dry her hair and then sat down again and began putting sunscreen on her arms.

“Think Max will let us do it?” she asked.

“We won’t tell him,” Stevie said. “He’ll be so surprised!”

“Shocked might be a better word,” Carole said. “We’re going to have to tell him sometime. And, after all, he’s going to know that we’re practicing and he’s going to have to help us, isn’t he?”

“We can worry about that later,” Stevie said, dismissing the problem lightly. “For now, let’s see what we can remember about the drills we were working on. First, there was the cloverleaf.…”

L
ISA SMOOTHED HER
clean white blouse and adjusted her riding jacket. She stood outside Max’s office with Stevie and Carole. The three of them had arrived early, done their chores, and dressed quickly so they could have a few minutes to ask Max about drill classes before their regular class began. Lisa ran her fingers through her soft brown hair. She wanted to impress Max, though she knew that the only way to impress him was to ride well. She glanced at Stevie and Carole. Carole looked just fine. She always did. Stevie, on the other hand, looked a little bit messy. There was a smear of dirt on her jeans. Her shirt hadn’t seen an iron in several washings, and her boots were
dusty. In short, she looked just like Stevie. Lisa smiled to herself, knowing Max wouldn’t care about that at all.

The door to Max’s office opened. A woman who looked vaguely familiar stepped out. She smiled at the girls as if to say hello and then walked toward the door to the stable.

Stevie peered into Max’s office.

“Can we see you?” she asked.

“What about?” Max asked, sounding slightly irritated. The phone rang. Max answered it and while the girls waited, he scheduled a new rider for a first lesson.

Max looked at Stevie expectantly as he hung up the phone. There was no time to waste. Max was obviously busy and Lisa knew they’d better not make him late. Lisa nudged Stevie.

“We want to start our drill team again,” Stevie began. When Max looked interested, Stevie went on. “We got so busy with the gymkhana before that we just couldn’t work on it, but we liked it and we want to do it some more. Can we have drill team practice? Please?”

“Yes and no,” Max said after a moment’s consideration, but before he could explain himself, the phone rang again. He picked it up. It was another hopeful new student. Lisa noticed that Stevie was smiling when she saw Max write down the name. It must have been one of the people she’d called.

Max looked up at them again after he’d finished talking on the phone. “I’m glad you want to get back to drill
work again. It’s fun and it’s excellent practice. If you had asked me this a week ago, I’d have jumped at the opportunity to teach you. However, just in the last few days, I have been absolutely flooded with new students. I can’t turn these people away, I’m sure you understand.…”

Do we ever!
Stevie thought.

“Anyway … I’d like you to be able to do drill work. Could we make a deal? Could you check with Mrs. Reg and see if there’s a time when you could use the ring to practice by yourselves and if and when I have a few minutes free I’ll come give you some tips?” He looked at the girls apologetically. “I have a good book here,” he said. “I know it’s not the same thing as an instructor, but if you read it carefully …” He turned around and took a volume from his full bookshelf and handed it to Stevie. “I think you should start by reading the section on beginning drills. The man who wrote the book was a student—” The phone rang again. Max answered it. He listened for a while and the girls waited patiently.

As they watched, though, Lisa noticed that Max’s face was getting red as it did when he was angry about something. His eyes got steely. She had the awful feeling he was about to explode. But he didn’t. He stayed calm. Too calm.

“I’ve already told you,” he said, coldly. “It’s an issue of money and time and I don’t have enough of the first and you won’t allow me enough of the second. The answer is no!” He hung up and looked up at the girls. Lisa thought
he seemed surprised to see them still standing there. That meant it was time to go.

“Thanks, Max,” she said, speaking for The Saddle Club. “We’ll see you in class.”

“Yeah, thanks for the book,” Stevie said.

The girls glanced at one another and left Max’s office quickly.

“See what I mean?” Stevie said when they reached the tack room. Lisa saw. So did Carole. It sure sounded like Max was in trouble. Lisa was very glad that they were already at work to help him out.

C
AROLE TOOK A
velvet-covered hard hat from the wall where they hung. All the riders were required to wear them at all times when they were working with the horses and riding. She checked the size and put it on. Her friends did the same.

Then, they turned to retrieve the proper tack for their horses. Each horse had tack that had been specially selected and adjusted to it. It meant that when the rider tacked up the horse, she didn’t have to adjust every single strap—just the ones needed to put on and remove the tack. In the tack room, there were saddle racks and bridle brackets with each horse’s name above the equipment, arranged in the same order in which the horses were stalled.

As soon as Carole took the bridle off Diablo’s bracket, she knew something was wrong. Diablo was a spirited
horse who needed a bit that would get his attention. Diablo would have a picnic with this bit!

“I think those little Scouts messed up the tack!” Carole said furiously.

“They sure did!” Stevie responded. “Look at this pony-sized saddle on Comanche’s saddle rack. It would look like a postage stamp on my horse!”

“There’s no way Max can let those brats ride here if this is what they do when they just come to visit the place!” Carole said indignantly.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Lisa interrupted the tirade and tried to calm her friends. “Something may be a little messed up, but it can’t have been those girls. In the first place, Red was with them and he wouldn’t have let them mess up. In the second place, the girls were here two days ago. There have been other classes in between. So, it’s just a little confusion. Somebody made a mistake.” Lisa turned to pick up her own tack. “And that somebody also messed up Pepper’s tack. Look at this!” Suddenly all reason fled and she was furious. Lisa held up a Western bridle. It was definitely not the right bridle for Pepper. “Give me a break!” she said, now as angry as her two friends.