Purebred (8 page)

A
T THE UNMOUNTED
Horse Wise meeting at Pine Hollow the next day, Karenna showed up with Betsy and Meg just as Max called the room to order. She waved to Stevie and Lisa, but she sat down with Betsy and Meg, and she seemed to be having a great time. The three of them whispered and giggled throughout May Grover’s entire presentation on winter stable management.

Finally the girls’ chattering attracted Max’s attention. “Meg, do you and Betsy have something you wish to share with the group?” he asked in a stern voice. He didn’t single out Karenna, but his glare included her. Max hated it when students talked during lessons or Horse Wise meetings. May looked indignant too.

“No, no, I don’t think I do,” said Meg. Stevie thought
Meg looked as if she were having trouble keeping a straight face. She wondered what the joke was.

“Perhaps you and Betsy can present a topic at our next meeting,” Max suggested. “Let’s see … Stall Cleaning and its Role in Parasite Control.” He wrote it down in his pocket calendar. “January thirteenth, okay?”

This time Meg barely suppressed her groan. “Uh, sure, Max,” she mumbled. “Sorry if we bothered you, May.” They quieted down, but a few minutes later Stevie saw them giggling again.

“I wonder what’s so funny,” she whispered to Lisa.

“I don’t know, but I wish I knew,” Lisa answered. “It doesn’t seem right that Karenna is spending so much time with Meg and Betsy, does it?”

Stevie shook her head. “If she’s Carole’s friend, she ought to be sitting with us. If she’s got a good joke to tell, she should be telling it to us.”

Lisa agreed, but figured they could ask Karenna about it after the Pony Club meeting, when they all met for Prancer’s birthday party.

When the meeting was over, however, she couldn’t find Karenna anywhere. Lisa had stepped into the locker room for a moment and when she came out Karenna was gone. Exasperated, she gave up and went to meet Stevie outside Prancer’s stall.

They had not managed to come up with a very interesting plan for the birthday party—even Stevie’s famous brain
had had to admit defeat. The carrot cake idea had failed, because neither of their mothers would let them attempt to make one, and the cakes in the bakery cost too much. Instead, they had just brought a lot of apples, carrots, and other treats to give to the Thoroughbreds.

“That’s an
awful
lot of carrots,” Lisa said as she sat down on a hay bale next to Stevie. “Do you think Prancer can eat that many?”

Stevie grinned. “The ten-pound bags were on sale. Besides, I think Prancer would say that there’s no such thing as too many carrots.”

Lisa agreed. “I couldn’t find Karenna. We’ll just have to wait for her.”

They waited and waited. Finally Karenna ran up to them breathless, with Meg and Betsy in tow. “We’re going on a trail ride; Max said we could,” she said. “Do you two want to come?”

“I don’t think so,” Lisa said indignantly. “We’ve got Prancer’s—”

“No, thank you,” Stevie cut in. She gave Lisa a warning look and Lisa understood and was quiet. If Karenna had forgotten about the party, they weren’t going to remind her.

Karenna shrugged. “Okay. Guess I’ll see you later. Anyway, it was nice meeting you guys. Tell Carole I said hi, okay? Tell her I’m sorry she wasn’t here.”

“We will,” Lisa promised. “I know she was sorry not to
see you.” She watched as Karenna followed Meg and Betsy into the tack room. “She did forget about the party,” Lisa said.

“Then we’ll do just as well without her,” said Stevie. “No use trying to make her stay.” As she spoke, Karenna came out of the tack room carrying Carole’s saddle and bridle. She disappeared into Starlight’s stall.

Lisa stared. “She’s not riding Starlight, is she?” She couldn’t believe that Karenna would do such a thing without telling them!

“Max must have said she could.” Stevie sounded doubtful. “He said they could go on the trail ride, and he would have told them which horses to take. Besides, Karenna’s not foolish. She wouldn’t take Starlight out without Max’s permission.”

“I don’t know if we should let her,” Lisa argued. “We’re supposed to be taking care of Starlight. If anything happens to him it’ll be our fault.”

“On the other hand,” Stevie argued back, “she is Carole’s friend, and we know she’s a good rider. I agree with what you think, but Max must have said it was okay.”

“Yeah.” Lisa paused. “I still don’t like it.”

“Me either,” Stevie sighed. “I guess it’s time to start the party, not that it feels like much of a party. The problem is, since Karenna is Carole’s friend, we’ve been hoping she would be like Carole, and she’s not. What we need, really, is Carole herself.”

Lisa nodded. There was nothing she could say to that. They opened Prancer’s stall door, and the beautiful mare came toward them, her ears pricked forward. She always seemed glad to see the girls.

“Happy Birthday to you,” they began to sing.

When they were finished, Lisa offered the Thoroughbred a carrot, and Stevie gave her an enthusiastic hug. Prancer ate the carrot delicately. Then Stevie gave her an apple, which she ate in several bites, and Lisa put her arms around the mare’s neck.

“Happy Birthday, you beautiful darling,” Lisa murmured into Prancer’s ear. She had always loved Prancer, and she hoped to ride her well—and in horse shows—someday. Lisa knew that both she and Prancer needed a little more training before that would be possible. Green horses and green riders were always a bad combination. Prancer had been a racehorse only a short time ago, and Lisa, though she rode a great deal now, had not been doing it very long and her relative inexperience sometimes showed. Still, Lisa felt they would make a good team when they were both ready. “In a year or two, darling,” she promised Prancer, and hugged her again.

They moved down the aisle to Topside, the champion Thoroughbred that Stevie had always ridden until she got No-Name a few weeks ago. They sang “Happy Birthday” to Topside, and offered him treats and hugs.

“Do you think he misses me?” Stevie asked. She rubbed
his neck affectionately. “He’s a great horse, and he taught me a lot about riding. I do miss him, but I’d rather be riding my own horse than any other horse in the world.”

Lisa nodded. Though she didn’t have her own horse, she could imagine how it must feel. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said to Stevie. “He might miss you, but other people have always ridden him, too, and soon Max will find someone like you to ride him most of the time. He didn’t seem to miss Dorothy too much when he first got here, did he?” Dorothy DeSoto, a former championship rider, had owned and ridden Topside until an accident had ended her competitive career. Dorothy was a great friend to all the girls.

“He didn’t seem unhappy. He’s always seemed to like Pine Hollow.”

“He’s still at Pine Hollow, so he should still be happy. Don’t worry, Stevie. I’m sure Dorothy didn’t worry when she sold Topside to Max. Besides, you can come visit him whenever you want. All you have to do is walk down the aisle.”

“True,” Stevie said, brightening. “Good boy, Topside.” With another pat to his sleek brown neck, she closed his stall and they went on to the next Thoroughbred.

They were singing to their sixth Thoroughbred, a leggy mare named Calypso, when they noticed that they had attracted the attention of all the other horses in the barn. The smell of fresh-chewed carrots and apples had every single horse in Pine Hollow hanging its head over the open
part of its stall door, and when Lisa and Stevie looked around, the horses, from the tiny pony Penny to the giant half-Percheron Cocoa, started whickering in chorus.

Lisa and Stevie looked down each aisle, then at each other, and laughed.

“We’ve started something,” Lisa said. “They all think that they’re going to get carrots. They don’t realize that it’s only the Thoroughbreds’ birthday.”

“Well, there’s only one logical solution,” Stevie said cheerfully.

“After all,” Lisa agreed, “it’s not really fair to leave out the rest of the horses just because they aren’t Thoroughbreds.”

“Therefore,” Stevie concluded, “as two thirds of the members of The Saddle Club, we henceforth declare today to be the official birthday of all the horses in Pine Hollow. Saddle Club birthday treatment for all!”

“Hear, hear!” Lisa waved a carrot in the air in confirmation. “Good thing you brought too many carrots, Stevie.”

“Too many? I brought
enough
.”

It took a long time to sing “Happy Birthday” to every single horse at Pine Hollow, but the girls made sure that they did a thorough job and gave every horse lots of attention. They all were good horses and they all deserved to be fussed over.

“Why didn’t we think of this before?” asked Stevie. She
wiped carrot slobber off the sleeve of her jacket. Cocoa had thanked her with a messy nudge.

“I don’t know, but we’ll definitely have to think of it again. I declare this to be a new Pine Hollow tradition—New Year’s birthday celebrations!”

“A new Saddle Club tradition,” Stevie corrected her.

Lisa grinned. “A new Saddle Club tradition at Pine Hollow,” she said.

They had just finished the last horse when Lisa’s mom arrived to take them home. Stevie was spending the night at Lisa’s house, and since it was New Year’s Eve they had decided to stay up as late as they could. Lisa’s mom and dad were going to a party, so Lisa and Stevie had the VCR all to themselves. They’d rented
National Velvet
,
International Velvet
,
Phar Lap
, and
The Black Stallion.

“Horses and popcorn until dawn,” Stevie said enthusiastically.

“Maybe brownies too,” said Lisa. “Horses and popcorn and brownies—perfect.”

As they were getting into the car, Stevie pointed toward the woods. “Look.” Meg, Betsy, and Karenna were just returning to Pine Hollow. “They sure took a long enough ride.”

“And poor Starlight didn’t get his birthday treats,” said Lisa. She waved at the girls, but they were too far away to notice her. “At least Starlight looks okay. Nothing happened to him.”

“If we had really thought something would happen to him we wouldn’t have let Karenna ride him. We’ll give Starlight his treats tomorrow,” said Stevie. “I’m glad Carole is coming home soon.”

“So am I,” said Lisa. “The Saddle Club isn’t The Saddle Club without her.”

T
HAT NIGHT THE
Foleys went to the New Year’s Eve party at Christina’s house. The party had been a neighborhood tradition for many years, and since traditions were an important part of family history, Carole brought her notebook with her to take notes.

Christina’s parents, the Johnsons, were the Foleys’ nearest neighbors, but they lived nearly four miles away. The night was bitterly cold—even Carole, who had thought that every night in Minnesota was bitterly cold, could recognize an extra piercing quality to the air—and the sky was crystal clear. More stars were shining than Carole had ever seen. Uncle John explained to her that clouds acted like a blanket to keep the earth warm. Clear nights were always the coldest.

The cold didn’t keep anyone home, however. Even Grand Alice bundled up and came along, and from the number of four-wheel drives and snowmobiles parked in the driveway, Carole guessed that most of the town of Nyberg was celebrating with them.

They entered the house by a lean-to off the kitchen. The large country kitchen was bright and warm, and full of good smells.

Christina came running to greet them. “We’ll put your coats upstairs,” she said, gathering them as the Foleys took them off. “Most of the guests are in the living room right now. Food is on the buffet in the dining room, drinks are here in the kitchen, and dancing starts soon in the family room. If you need anything, just ask. And Louise, Emile’s coming!” Christina dashed upstairs with her arms full of coats.

“Who’s Emile?” asked Carole.

“Her boyfriend,” said Louise. “He’s French-Canadian. He plays hockey for the high school.”

While Uncle John and Aunt Lily greeted friends and introduced Colonel Hanson to them, Carole took out her notebook and made a few notes.

Carole closed her notebook. She was finished writing; it was time to have fun.

The door opened. Aunt Jessie blew in with a whirl of frigid air. She had driven over separately because she had said she wanted to finish developing some pictures first, but she had finished pretty quickly. Carole watched her aunt take off her coat, greet a few friends, and help herself to some food. Then, to her surprise, Jessie walked over to her and smiled. “Happy New Year, Carole,” she said. “Are you having fun?”

“Sure,” Carole replied. “Everyone here has been super nice.” She meant it; she felt very comfortable in Christina’s home.