Horse Sense (8 page)

“Judy!” Estelle called from the fringe of the group. “Before you go, could you take a look at Nero? He has been misbehaving terribly.”

Judy glanced up at Estelle. “Old Nero? What’s his trouble? Max didn’t say anything to me—”

“Well, I didn’t have time to tell him yet,” Estelle explained.

“Sure, I’ll look at him now,” Judy agreed. “Describe his symptoms to me, will you?” While Judy packed her medical bag, Estelle explained the problems the horse had given her.

“Sounds like he’s just cranky,” Judy said.

“
Le mot juste!
” Estelle declared. Then she blushed, realizing nobody had understood her. “Excuse my French,” she said. “It means that that is just exactly the right word.”

Judy picked up her bag and followed Estelle to Nero’s stall.

Stevie and a couple of the other girls tried to stifle giggles. They’d seen Estelle riding, and they knew it wasn’t Nero who had the problem.
Le mot juste
was
phony
, Stevie thought.

Living near Washington meant that there were a lot of diplomats’ children of all nationalities around. Stevie usually found them interesting and fun. Estelle was definitely an exception to that, though. Stevie didn’t believe a word of her fantastic stories, and the idea that she’d been riding for a long time was just laughable.

Stevie looked for Lisa to continue their talk, but, much to her surprise, Lisa was following Estelle and Judy to Nero’s stall.

Now, what’s that about?
Stevie asked herself. Shrugging for lack of an answer, Stevie headed for Nickel’s stall. Carole was still busy with Delilah, and besides, she had a full hour at lunch to work on a game with a baton. A baton couldn’t frighten a pony, could it?

“Hi, boy!” Stevie greeted Nickel cheerfully. Slowly, she pulled the baton out of her bag and showed it to the horse. Without hesitating, he reached for the white rubber tip of the baton and bit. Hard.

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
, Lisa and Estelle sat together near the paddocks, eating their lunches.

“Gee, I’m glad to know Nero’s okay,” Lisa said. “When a horse gets sick, it can be big trouble, you know?”

“Of course I know,” Estelle said quickly. “I have taken care of my horse when he was sick. Sometimes it’s not pretty, either. Just last year, before the vet could treat him, he even threw up on me. It was awful, but he is my horse, you know, and I care for him like a child.” Suddenly, Estelle changed the subject. “What was that you were talking with Stevie and Carole about?” she asked.

“Oh, they were explaining what happened yesterday, why they missed The Club meeting at TD’s.”

“Club? What is The Club?” Estelle asked.

Lisa had never spoken about the Club to anybody else. It wasn’t exactly a secret. It just had always been more like a name for her friendship with Stevie and Carole, and until the rules had come along, that’s really all it had been. Now Estelle wanted to know about it, and suddenly Lisa was terribly afraid Estelle would think it was silly.

“Well, we call it The Saddle Club,” she explained. “It’s sort of silly, I guess.” That’s all she could think to say.

“But what do you
do
?” Estelle asked insistently.

What did they do? Lisa asked herself. Until she’d written the rules she really would not have been able to answer that question, but now that there were rules,
and they had been passed—sort of—she could answer it—sort of.

“Well, we have meetings once a week or so, like yesterday afternoon, only since it was just me, it wasn’t much of a meeting. But we plan projects, and help each other, and talk about horses, you know?”

“Oh, it sounds wonderful!” Estelle said. “You know, Lisa, it hasn’t been easy for me, being new in America, to meet people and make friends. But a club like
that
 … how many members are there in this club?”

“Well, just the three of us so far,” Lisa told her.

“Three? Only three? Well, that’s too bad, then,” Estelle said.

Before Lisa could ask her why it was too bad, the bell sounded, signaling them to get ready for the next class. Estelle stood up quickly. “I must go see Max right away,” she announced. “I will not ride Nero this afternoon.
Adieu
.” She walked off toward Max’s office.

L
ATE THAT AFTERNOON
, as soon as drill class was over, Lisa untacked Pepper, gave him something to eat and drink, and went in search of Stevie and Carole. Unlike the day before, she found them right away. Carole was already in Delilah’s stall, carefully grooming her.

“Ready for the meeting?” Lisa asked.

“You bet,” Carole said. “I still need to make up a batch of Delilah’s special mash, but that’ll just take me a few minutes. You and Stevie go on ahead. Don’t wait for me. I’ll join you at Stevie’s, okay?”

“Sure,” Lisa agreed. “Know where Stevie is?”

“I think she’s having a serious talk with Nickel. She can’t get that poor pony to do anything she wants him to.”

“I’ll go cheer her on,” Lisa said. “See you in a little while.” Lisa jogged over to Nickel’s stall. There she saw Stevie holding a mangled drum majorette’s baton.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Depends on your point of view,” Stevie said. “Nickel, for instance, thinks it’s dinner, since he already had a piece of it for lunch.”

Stevie looked so serious that Lisa couldn’t help laughing. “You’re funny, you know that?”

“Boy, I wish it were funny,” Stevie said. “This old guy is supposed to be the backbone of the pony-game team, and I’m having a heck of a time convincing him to have any fun.”

“If anybody can do it, you can,” Lisa said encouragingly. “And speaking of having some fun, Carole said we should go along to your house ahead of her. She has to make the special mash for Delilah and will be a couple of minutes late.”

“You all ready to go now?” Stevie asked.

“Yup.”

“I’ve got to finish up here first. It’ll be about ten minutes. I’ll meet you in the tack room, okay?”

Lisa had an idea. “Since you and Carole are each working on something for a few minutes, I think I’ll go on ahead. I’ve got an errand to run at the shopping center. It’ll only take me about twenty minutes. I can
meet you at your house because it’s practically on the way. Okay?”

“Sounds fine to me. If you get there first, get my mom to show you where the chocolate chip cookies are, okay?”

“Deal,” Lisa said.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, Lisa was back in the jewelry store at the shopping center, once again looking in the case where the horse-head pin was kept. In her pocket was the birthday cash she’d gotten from her mother’s sister. Aunt Elizabeth, after whom she’d been named, was her godmother, too, and a pretty generous one at that. Lisa hoped the money she had would be enough to buy a pin for every member of The Saddle Club. Maybe even more than rules, that would make it a
real
club.

“C
AROLE, THAT DOESN’T
look right,” Max said. “Are you sure you followed the recipe that Judy gave you for Delilah’s bran mash?”

“I think so, Max. Look, here, I put a scoop of concentrated grain into the boiling water, then four scoops of wheat bran—”

“No, no, that’s not a one—that’s a four. You have to start with four scoops of grain. You’re going to have to throw this out and start again.”

“But
Max
!” Carole said in exasperation.

“You wanted to know how to take care of a mare, Carole,” he reminded her.

“Yes, Max,” she said, dumping her mistake into the garbage. It wouldn’t be at all fair to Delilah to give her a mistake when she and her foal needed wholesome, nourishing food. “But I’m supposed to be somewhere now. Can I use the phone?”

Like all good stables, Pine Hollow had phones near the stalls so someone taking care of a horse wouldn’t have to leave it alone to summon help. It was a special privilege to make a call from the stable. Max agreed.

Carole thought it was odd that Stevie and Lisa hadn’t gotten to Stevie’s when she called, but she left the message with Stevie’s brother Chad. He promised to tell Stevie and Lisa that she just couldn’t make it.

“N
ICKEL
? N
ICKEL
? You didn’t really swallow that, did you? Nickel?”

Stevie glared at the pony and he glared back at her dully. He swished his tail uneasily and then stomped at the floor repeatedly. She didn’t like the way he was behaving. She’d seen horses with colic before and Nickel was showing signs of it. A colicky horse was one with a digestive problem, a stomachache, but in a horse it could be a very serious problem—especially when it might have been caused by the horse eating something like the rubber end of a baton!

Stevie slipped her fingers into Nickel’s mouth and twisted them to make him open up. He didn’t like that at all. Nickel pulled away and tried to nip at her.
There was no way she’d be able to see if the rubber was still in his mouth. This was going to take an expert, maybe even a vet. How on earth was she going to explain to Max or Judy how Nickel had eaten a piece of rubber?

But his health was a lot more important than her embarrassment. Stevie secured his stall and went into Max’s office. She
had
to tell him what she’d done. He listened carefully while Stevie described Nickel’s symptoms and he waited while she explained what might have caused it.

“I’m not sure, Max. I didn’t actually see him swallow it. But it could be in him now.”

“No time to waste,” Max said. “I’ll go to Nickel. You call Judy and tell her to get here right away. We’ll talk about how it happened later.”

Her heart thumping with worry about Nickel, Stevie sat down at the phone at Max’s desk and dialed Judy’s number. She was so relieved when Judy answered it herself, and even more relieved when Judy told Stevie she was only about five minutes away. She’d be right there.

Before returning to Nickel’s stall, Stevie made one more call. She knew Carole and Lisa would understand. She had to stay with Nickel until he was better. It was her responsibility.

“Oh, Chad?” she said when her brother answered the phone. “Listen, I’m in a rush. There’s an emergency here at the stable. Tell Carole and Lisa that Nickel’s sick and I’ve got to stay here. I don’t know
when I’ll be home. I’m sorry, but they’ll understand. Bye.”

She hung up quickly and headed back to Nickel’s stall.

L
ISA WALKED HAPPILY
up the stone stairs that led to Stevie’s front door and rang the bell. She’d been able to buy four pins with her birthday money. There would be one for each member of The Saddle Club and one for the first new member they voted into the Club. And Lisa knew just who she thought that should be.

Chad Lake opened the door. “Hi there, uh, Lisa. Come on in.”

“Carole and Stevie here yet?” she asked, stepping through the doorway.

“Well, not exactly,” Chad began uncomfortably. “Both of them called. I mean each of them called. But they didn’t know that the other wasn’t coming. Say, why don’t you come in anyway? I mean, I’m sure Stevie would want you to come in and anyway, if it had been me, I wouldn’t have missed a meeting with you.” He grinned warmly at her. Lisa was a little surprised by the way he was acting toward her, but she was more surprised by what her friends had done. Even from Chad’s slightly garbled message, it was clear that neither Stevie nor Carole was going to be able to make it to
this
meeting either.

Furious, and shrugging off Chad’s offer of cookies, milk, or video games, she stomped back down the
stairs, shoving The Club pins deep into her pants pocket.

“They’ll see,” she muttered to herself as she turned toward home. “They’ll see.”

She barely got the door to her own room closed before the hot tears began streaming down her cheeks.

What had happened to The Saddle Club?

N
OBODY EVER SAID
Lisa Atwood wasn’t resourceful. She always managed to find a way to accomplish things—even when they seemed impossible. Lisa knew this about herself, but she was beginning to think that The Saddle Club would be her greatest challenge.

She stopped crying after a few minutes. Then she sat sullenly on her bed, glaring out at space. She could have gone on doing that for a while, but Dolly scratched at her door. One look at that cute little face with its golden fur, and she couldn’t help smiling a little.

She’d worked for hours and hours on the rules for the Club, just to make it a
real
club. Now that she’d accomplished that, it was beginning to look as if it
didn’t matter to Carole and Stevie what she did. In her orderly mind, the possibilities began slipping into place. If Carole and Stevie wanted out of the Club, she couldn’t stop them, and if they left, one of two things would happen: The Club would stop altogether, or—
or
it would continue only if there were other members.

That had to be the answer. Lisa pulled the set of rules out of her desk drawer. Right there, Rule Four in the New Members section said that new members could be voted in at any Club meeting by a majority of the members present. Well, there
was
a Club meeting, right? Just because Carole and Stevie hadn’t shown up didn’t mean it wasn’t a Club meeting.