Horse-Sitters (14 page)

“Uh, no, of course not,” Stevie said, her face turning pink as she remembered falling asleep in class that day.

“It has been a lot of work,” Carole admitted honestly. “But somehow I guess we’ve managed so far.”

Max smiled. “Somehow you have,” he said. “And I just want
you to know, Red and I will help you out as much as we can from now on. The polo ponies are leaving tomorrow evening, but how about if Red and I see that they get some exercise tomorrow morning?”

“That would be great,” Lisa said with relief. She paused. “Although I think we already owe Red one favor,” she added, thinking of the way Red had helped them get the horses ready for inspection.

“That’s all right,” Max said, chuckling. “I’m sure he’s not keeping track.”

“But, Max,” Stevie said, still curious. “Why did you let Eugenia say all those horrible things to you in the first place?” She hoped he wouldn’t be angry with her for asking, but she really wanted to know. “We were beginning to think you’d been taken over by aliens or something.”

“Not quite,” Max said, looking embarrassed. “I guess you deserve an explanation. But I’m afraid it’s nothing as interesting as an alien invasion. Do you remember when Deborah and I went to visit Eugenia after our wedding?”

The girls nodded. “It was a couple of months later, right?” Lisa remembered.

“Right,” Max said. “And unfortunately, that had given me just enough time to break her wedding gift to us.” He grimaced. “Not that it was such a loss. It was a big, swirly glass bowl of some sort, but I’m sure it was very expensive.”

“Did she find out you broke it?” Carole guessed.

Max nodded. “Deborah told her during that visit,” he said.
“She meant it to be a joke, but Eugenia didn’t take it that way. And I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.”

“Why bother?” Stevie said. “She’s such an old grouch. Who cares what she thinks of you?”

Max shrugged. “She’s family now, Stevie,” he said. “I want all of Deborah’s family to like me.” By this time they had reached Honeybee’s stall. “Why don’t you let me take care of her this time,” he said.

“Thanks, Max,” Carole said, surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he said, sounding a little irritable—in other words, just like his usual self. “You girls have a lot of work to do before you leave tonight, so you’d better get cracking.”

The Saddle Club exchanged grins. It was official. Max was back.

A
N HOUR LATER
Polly found Stevie in the outdoor ring exercising one of the polo ponies. “I’m back,” she called cheerfully. “How did it go?”

“No problem,” Stevie told her, riding over the fence. “Romeo missed you, but he’s been practicing his trotting half-pass and he’s doing great.”

“Thanks, Stevie,” Polly said. “I’m going in to see him.” She rushed away.

Carole saw Polly hurry past as she was emerging from the tack room. She stepped back inside, where Lisa was cleaning tack. “Polly’s back,” she announced. “Let’s go get Mr. Munch.”

They carried the cage between them and set it down in front
of Romeo’s stall. Polly was inside. She poked her head out. “Oh, was Mr. Munch here the whole time?” she asked. “I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” Carole said. “He made lots of new friends.”

“Good. Billy can’t wait to see him.” Polly reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a crumpled check. “Here’s the money from my parents,” she said, handing it to Lisa. “Thanks again for taking care of these guys.” She turned to give Romeo a hug.

Carole and Lisa looked down at the check, then at each other. They smiled. They had been working so hard they’d almost forgotten one very important thing: They were getting paid for it. “You’re welcome,” they said in one voice.

“I
T
’
S HARD TO BELIEVE
our careers as horse-sitters are finally over,” Carole commented, tightening Starlight’s girth one more time before mounting. It was several days later. The Saddle Club had finally said good-bye to the last of their clients two days earlier when Mr. French had returned. Now they were about to set off on a well-deserved trail ride.

“For now, anyway,” Stevie said.

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Don’t even think it,” she warned. “I’m looking forward to some time off.” She was already mounted and waiting on Prancer.

Stevie straightened Belle’s new bridle before mounting. “Well, it was all worth it in the end, wasn’t it?” she said. “Belle has her bridle, you have your chaps …”

“And I love them,” Lisa said, glancing down at the chaps she was wearing. As soon as they had finished talking to Mr. French on Friday, the girls had gone to the Saddlery and bought the things they wanted.

“And I have my videos,” Carole added. “I watched the first one last night after dinner. It was really good.” She grinned. “I would have watched the second one, too, but my dad made me go to bed.”

“So I guess it
was
worth it,” Lisa said as the girls rode out of the stable yard and headed across the fields at a walk. “Still, it’s not a week I’d like to repeat.”

Even Stevie couldn’t disagree with that. “But you’ll have to admit, it would have been a lot easier if it weren’t for dear old Aunt Genie,” she said.

“Well,
easier
might not be quite the right word,” Lisa said. “Less outrageously hard, maybe.”

“And anyway, it was Aunt Eugenia who started us off, remember?” Carole pointed out. “She was our first client.”

“True,” Stevie said. “Still, I have to say I wouldn’t mind if I never saw her again. Or her grumpy old horse, either.”

“Me too,” Lisa said. “But we probably will. She’s Max and Deborah’s relative, remember?”

“How could we forget?” Carole said. “I’m just glad Max finally stood up to her. I still don’t quite understand why he was acting so weird. It didn’t seem to make her like him any better, anyway.”

“That’s true,” Stevie agreed. “He acted like his regular self for the end of her visit, and she didn’t change her attitude
toward him one bit. She didn’t even seem to notice the difference.”

“I think Deborah noticed, though. And I think she liked it,” Lisa said.

“I’m not surprised,” Stevie said. “She doesn’t tiptoe around Aunt Eugenia, so why would she want Max to?” She shuddered. “I just can’t believe someone as nice as Deborah could put up with that old grump.”

Carole shrugged. “She’s related to her. She has to.”

“Well, I’m just glad
I’m
not related to her,” Stevie declared. By now the horses had reached the smooth, wide path leading into the woods. “Come on, enough talking. Let’s trot!”

A
FTER A LEISURELY
ride along the twisting forest trails, The Saddle Club reluctantly turned and headed for home.

“That was fun,” Lisa said with a contented sigh as the girls walked their horses slowly across the fields. “It feels good just to relax and have a good time in the saddle for a change.”

Carole nodded and leaned forward to pat Starlight on the neck. “I know what you mean. I wouldn’t want to be a full-time horse-sitter—not right now, anyway. I still don’t think we could have managed at all without the help we got from Red. But you have to admit, it was kind of nice to know we were helping people out as well as making money.”

Stevie frowned. “Although you’d hardly know it the way some of our clients—the human ones, I mean—acted. After all the hard work we did for her, Aunt Eugenia didn’t even bother to thank us.”

“And of course good old Luke barely grunted when he picked up the polo ponies,” Lisa added.

“Polly and Mr. French thanked us,” Carole pointed out. “And Billy Giacomin called me to thank us for taking care of Mr. Munch.”

“Still, it would have been nice if the others had said something,” Stevie grumbled. “We did work awfully hard, and they should have acknowledged it.”

“Public praise shouldn’t matter,” Carole said. “What’s important is that we did the job we were hired to do and earned the money we were paid.”

Stevie brightened a little. “Well, that’s true. At least they paid us.” She shrugged. “But still …”

“I know what you mean, Stevie,” Lisa put in. “We were super-responsible and hardworking all week, and hardly anyone seemed to notice. It doesn’t really matter, but it doesn’t quite seem fair, either.”

“You know what really isn’t fair?” Carole said. “That Veronica isn’t getting punished for what she did.”

“You can say that again,” Stevie said. She had confronted Veronica the day after the tea party with their suspicions. Veronica hadn’t exactly confessed—even she wasn’t that stupid—but she hadn’t exactly denied anything, either. The Saddle Club was more certain than ever that she had been behind Honeybee’s disappearance and Mr. Munch’s escape. “You know, I bet she actually planted Mr. Munch on the tea table.”

“Do you think so?” Lisa said. “She seemed awfully scared of him. I don’t know if she’d pick him up—or even touch him.”

“She would if she thought it could get us in trouble,” Stevie said with certainty.

They were walking into the stable yard by this time. Carole squinted at a strange car in the driveway. “Who could that be?” she asked. There weren’t any lessons scheduled for the rest of the day as far as she knew.

“Maybe it’s Aunt Genie, back for more,” Stevie guessed.

“Ha ha,” Lisa said. The girls dismounted and started to lead their horses inside. Max came to meet them in the doorway.

“Hurry and put your horses away,” Max said. “Just make sure they’re cooled down and untack them. You can do everything else later. There’s someone here to see you.”

“Who is it?” Carole asked.

“You’ll see,” Max said mysteriously. “Just come to the office when you’re ready.” He gave them a wink, then hurried away.

“I wonder what that’s all about,” Lisa said.

“Maybe someone else wants to hire us as horse-sitters,” Stevie suggested.

The other two groaned. “I hope not!” they said in one voice.

Moments later the horses were comfortable and The Saddle Club was hurrying to Max’s office. When they arrived, they found Max talking to Mick Bonner, the younger polo pony groom.

Carole gulped. Was there some problem with the horses? Had they done something wrong? She glanced at her friends and guessed by their worried expressions that they were thinking the same thing.

But Mick soon put their minds to rest. He grinned at them.
“Hi, girls,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here. I guess I should have called before I came over, but I was so excited I had to rush over and thank you in person.”

“Thank us?” Lisa said. “For what?”

“I wanted you to be the first to know—I got a promotion,” Mick said. “I’m Mr. Haverford-Smythe’s new head groom.”

The girls gasped. “That’s terrific,” Stevie exclaimed. “But what about Luke?”

Mick shrugged. “It turned out my boss had been keeping an eye on Luke for a while,” he said. “You may have noticed, he’s not exactly the most responsible guy in the world.”

“I suspected that,” Carole confessed. “He seemed a lot more interested in his vacation than he was in the horses.”

“He was,” Mick said. “In fact, you might be interested to know that he only pulled that surprise second inspection here because his plans for that day got canceled.”

Stevie rolled her eyes. “It figures,” she said.

“It was hard working under him,” Mick said. “He’s careless, and he likes to blame his mistakes on others—usually me. I was afraid I would be the one to get fired. But it turns out that Mr. Haverford-Smythe was on to him. He saw exactly what was happening: Luke was messing up, and I was trying to fix all his mistakes. He was just waiting until he was sure I had enough experience for the job before he fired Luke.”

“What finally convinced him?” Carole asked.

Mick laughed. “Believe it or not, it was the lightbulbs,” he said.

Carole and Lisa looked confused, but Stevie’s eyes widened. “You mean my tour?”

“Yep,” Mick confirmed. “After we brought the horses back, Mr. Haverford-Smythe came to see them. He started asking about Pine Hollow, and of course Luke couldn’t answer half the questions because he hadn’t been paying attention.”

“But you could,” Lisa guessed, “thanks to Stevie’s tour.”

“And because I was paying more attention the whole time we were here,” Mick admitted. “But it was right after I mentioned where you all keep the spare lightbulbs that Mr. Haverford-Smythe asked to speak to me privately.”

“Wow,” Carole said. “So now you get to be in charge of all those gorgeous horses yourself.”

“Hey, I figured if you three could do it, so could I,” Mick teased. “But seriously, I’ve been waiting for a chance like this. I’ve been working toward it all my life. And it just goes to show, hard and honest work always pays off in the end.”

“I’ll second that motion,” Max put in, giving the girls a wink.

“Well, I’d better get going,” Mick said, standing. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.” He shook Max’s hand, then each of the girls’.

“Come on, we’ll all walk you out,” Max offered. They left the office and headed outside.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Mick said, stopping in front of the stable door. “I’m not the only one who wants to thank you for taking such good care of the ponies. My boss was really impressed when he heard that three girls were doing all the work themselves.”