Secret of the Stallion (19 page)

Next came Tessa. This sort of race wasn’t as familiar to her as it was to the Virginia girls, but there was something infectious about their weirdness. She took aim with the red pistol.

“Bingo!” Stevie shouted proudly from the starting line, where she was waiting her turn.

Blue hit the target just as surely as green and red had done, and only a few seconds later Carole completed the picture with purple. First place. It made up for some of the misery they’d suffered the day before.

“Oh, I hope we don’t have to carry eggs again,” Carole moaned as they waited to find out what the second race was.

“I don’t think so, and I’m getting a good feeling about this,” said Stevie. She could see the judges dragging cartons of costumes to the finish line. Each player had to ride to the far end, dismount, put on a costume that consisted of pants, a shirt, and a hat, and then remount to return to the starting end. When the entire team was at the starting end in costume, they had to reverse the process, undressing at the far end.

“I think I invented this race, too,” Stevie said.

“Well, if you didn’t, you should have,” Tessa said. “It’s perfect for you!”

It seemed to be perfect for the whole team. Everything went absolutely smoothly, and they would have taken another first except for the fact that the British team was
riding ponies instead of horses and they were easier to mount and dismount.

“Second place is good,” said Lisa.

“First is better,” Stevie reminded her.

“Two races to go,” Carole said, bringing them both back to the present challenge.

The next race involved Hula Hoops. Each rider had to roll a hoop along the ground from horseback and then catch up with the hoop. Carole was grinning from ear to ear when she heard the rules of this one. Her father loved everything from the 1950s, and Carole had been raised with Hula Hoops. She could spin one with the best of them.

“It’s all in the wrist,” she told her teammates. “You flip it forward almost like a Frisbee, only, of course it’s going to roll on the ground, not float in the air.” She showed the girls what to do. They mimicked her gesture. “Perfect,” she told them.

They did it pretty well, too. Horse Wise was neck and neck with the Italian team, vying for first place, when it was Carole’s turn to do the final leg. In the lane next to them, Enrico took the Hula Hoop from Marco at the same instant Carole got hers from Stevie.

“Go for it!” Stevie called out to her best friend.

Carole did. She flipped the Hula Hoop twenty feet ahead of her, and it spun rapidly above the ground, spinning backward, so that when it touched the ground it
seemed to roll back to Carole. Her pick-up was smooth as glass. Enrico had to chase his hoop all over the arena.

“Yoweeee!” Lisa yelled.

“Hip hip, hurray!” Tessa cheered.

Carole grinned broadly. They took another first place.

“The weirder the race, the better this team does, have I got that right?” Tessa asked.

“Perfectly,” said Lisa. “See, when we do games at home, mostly they’re ones Stevie invents. So we just got used to weird games. I hope this last one is the weirdest of all.”

It was. It was almost too weird. The riders had to race to the far end of the course, eat a slice of pizza, and return to the starting area.

“We may have to disqualify ourselves,” said Lisa, genuinely wondering if she could eat one more slice of pizza.

“We’ve got to do this for our Pony Club,” said Stevie.

“Our stable,” said Carole.

“Your country,” teased Tessa. “I mean everybody thinks you Americans never eat anything but pizza and cheeseburgers. Show them they’re right!”

“Okay,” the Americans agreed.

And they did. The horses seemed inspired by the scent of the gooey cheese and tomato sauce. Pip even tried to take a bite of Lisa’s pizza. She wouldn’t let him have it. She thought it might not be allowed. She and her teammates did an inspired job of eating pizza. Even Tessa was good.

“Very good for a lady,” Stevie remarked while she helped Tessa wipe the tomato sauce off her chin.

Then they all turned to cheer Carole across the finish line. She was still chewing, but the pizza was all gone and they’d come in first.

“I told you—it was the good-luck horseshoe!” said Stevie.

They were all sure she was right.

Then the judges handed out the final awards. The Saddle Club was afraid the ghastly day they’d had the day before would put them out of the running, but they’d done so well on the final day of the competition that they took an overall first. The Italians took second place; the British came in third; and the Dutch took a respectable fourth. Even though they were last, it was respectable because they’d worked so hard. The Saddle Club was glad they’d won, but they were even gladder that they’d had so much fun.

After the races were finished, the girls took their horses back to the paddocks and gave them a quick grooming. The Dickens grooms would pick them up later and take them home, where they’d get a more thorough cleaning. For now they needed hugs, treats, water, and rest. Each girl produced a couple of carrots and bid a fond farewell to the horse she’d ridden. Once again, they thanked Tessa for bringing the horses.

“We couldn’t have won without them,” Carole said, expressing the thought for all the girls.

“I don’t know about that,” said Tessa. “I think you’re all wonderful riders no matter what horses you’re riding.”

That made them give Tessa a hug, too.

They spent the rest of the morning watching the final riders in the stadium jumping competition. There were a lot of great horses and wonderful riders, but when all was said and done, Nigel and Sterling were very nearly the best. They took a second place.

“A perfect day!” Lisa declared when she’d finished clapping for Nigel. “Nothing could improve on it.”

“Lisa Atwood? Miss Lisa Atwood?” Lisa looked around to see who was calling her name. People around her did the same.

“I’m Lisa Atwood,” she said, identifying herself to a young woman in a business suit who seemed oddly out of place at the horse show.

“You? But you’re just a girl!” said the woman.

“I guess I am,” Lisa said. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Oh, no,” the woman said, blushing. “It’s just that I was expecting—well, first let me introduce myself. My name is Sallie Latham. I’m from Equine Sureties. We’re an insurance company for horses, many of the horses here, in fact, but most specifically, Pound Sterling.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Lisa asked, afraid she might have hurt the horse.

“Wrong? Oh, not at all, my dear girl,” said Sallie Latham. “You saved the horse’s life and you saved a lot of
our other clients’ horses as well. I’ve come to give you a reward. From what I understand, you, personally, are the primary reason my company isn’t paying out millions of pounds in claims today.

“Now, I’ve been authorized to give you this check, but I’m also authorized to take you and your whole party—all the brave young riders who helped—out to a celebration dinner tonight. Would you be available?”

Lisa looked around at her friends and all the other Pony Clubbers in the stand. “What do you say, guys? Are we free for dinner?”

“Absolutely!” everybody agreed.

“Good, then, it’s set. I’ve reserved a room for our party at this wonderful pizza place …”

“O
H, DEAR, WHERE
are the boarding passes?” Max asked, shifting his raincoat from his right arm to his left and dropping a bagful of guidebooks at the same time.

“Your left inside jacket pocket,” Lisa said.

“Your passports. What did I do with them?”

“You gave them back to us,” Lisa told him.

“Then I guess it’s time to go through security and get on the plane.” Max and Mrs. Reg went first, followed by The Saddle Club. Veronica came last.

“After we go through security, I’m going to the first-class lounge,” Veronica said. “I’ll see you all in Washington.”

“Grrrr,” said Stevie, only somewhat under her breath. She was about to say something more loudly, but was
stopped by the sound of a buzzer. Veronica had set off the alarm at the security gate.

“Please step back and empty your pockets,” a guard asked her politely.

Veronica glared at the guard, but it didn’t do any good. She had to empty her pockets.

The rest of the Pine Hollow group waited and watched.

Veronica reached into one pocket and removed a metal ashtray taken from their hotel. From the other she took an envelope. It was the hotel stationery, and it was sealed.

She walked through the security gate again and there was no buzz. She picked up the ashtray and put it back in her pocket.

“Open the envelope, please,” the guard said.

“But—”

“Veronica!” Mrs. Reg said.

Veronica opened the envelope.

There, for all the world to see, was a “pearl,” a “diamond,” and a chunk of “gold.”

“Oh!” said Stevie. “It’s the fake pearl I lost from my necklace!”

“And there’s the rhinestone from the button I found!” Lisa said.

“I never thought I’d see that chunk of fool’s gold again!” Carole chimed in.

The Saddle Club grinned proudly, and at that instant Veronica knew she’d been had. Without a word, she
turned on her heel and made a beeline for the first-class lounge, leaving the treasure behind.

“Pity the poor first-class flight attendants,” Lisa remarked.

Max and Mrs. Reg tried hard not to laugh with The Saddle Club, but they couldn’t help themselves.

“
H
ELLO
, D
ADDY
? … It’s Veronica … No, I’m calling you from the airplane. There’s a telephone right here. Isn’t that cool? … No, nothing’s wrong, exactly. I just thought you should know that there was a little mistake … Right, well it has to do with those—the jewels, I mean, so maybe it would be a good idea if you canceled the order for the bulldozers … Not exactly. See, Daddy, well, it turns out that they aren’t as precious as I thought … Actually, they were more like costume jewelry … Yes, I guess fakes is another way to put it, but there was no way I could tell, Daddy. Daddy? Daddy? Are you there?
”

B
EFORE LONG, THEY
were halfway across the Atlantic, halfway home from a trip they couldn’t believe was over.

“It was wonderful. I loved every single minute of it,” said Lisa.

“Oh, you don’t mean that,” Stevie said. “Like you didn’t really enjoy our second day of competition, did you?”

“Or risking your life to fight a fire that might have killed all the horses?” Carole reminded her.

“Well,” Lisa conceded, “maybe not
every
minute. But it’s nice to have that reward check—it’s going straight into my savings account for a horse of my own. And I sure loved those last few minutes when Veronica realized that we’d fooled her about the duke’s treasure.”

“It would be nice if there were such a thing,” Stevie said. “Can’t you just see us all dripping in jewels and gold?”

Lisa looked out of the window of the plane for a moment, lost in thought. Then she turned to her friends. “Maybe we did find the treasure after all,” she said.

Stevie looked for pearls and diamonds, but didn’t see any. “What are you talking about?”

“It was something Tessa said about Nigel when he and Sterling were competing over the jumps. She said that he was a rider with fire in his heart. That was what the old guy—’Ank—said the legend was about. The treasure would be found by a rider with fire in his heart.”

“You mean, like, Nigel got his treasure because he made Sterling perform brilliantly.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” said Lisa.

“Then what about us?” Stevie asked.

Lisa knew she was still thinking about jewels, but she also knew that Stevie recognized a real treasure when she saw one. “For me, I think I had the most fire in my heart when I was in the middle of a fire and managed to lasso Sterling on my first try because I knew that was the only
try I’d get. It made me feel better about myself than almost anything I’ve ever done.”

Carole thought about what Lisa had said. “I felt good about doing such a wonderful job on the last day of the mounted games,” Carole said. “It wasn’t the blue ribbon. It was doing my best.”

“And for me, I guess it was finding that the four of us—with Tessa, of course, not Veronica—could ride so wonderfully together,” Stevie said. “What a team! There were other wonderful things, too, like the prank we played on Veronica and the good-luck horseshoe I found—”

“You
found
?” Carole said, echoing Stevie’s words. “You mean that wasn’t the real thing?”

“I thought it looked a little dirtier than I remembered,” Lisa said.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Stevie asked. They had to agree that it had. “So maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.”

“Maybe,” Carole admitted. She wasn’t annoyed with Stevie. She and Lisa actually counted on Stevie to come up with silly things like that just when they most needed them. There was no point in being annoyed, especially when it
had
worked.

“Okay, so back to the fire in a rider’s heart,” Lisa said. “If I’ve got this right, we all think we had some of this fire, and in every case it had to do with riding and being with friends.”