Show Judge (6 page)

Michael took a sip of his drink. “Lemonade,” he said delightedly. “Cheese pizza and lemonade. My favorite!”

“You ordered this before we even got here?” Alex asked, staring with wonder at his root beer.

“I thought it might get us all off on the right foot,” Stevie answered.

Alex took a huge bite of his pizza. “Very cool, sis. Thanks.”

Chad looked at his own meal, and then at Stevie. “You know, as a sister you’re not always a
total
disaster.”

“Thanks, Chad, same to you.” She relished the rare moment of warmth with her siblings even more than her first bite of pizza. “Okay!” she said, talking with her mouth full. “Let’s hit the stores after this. Things are going so well, maybe we’ll get lucky and find something for Mom and Dad.”

For once the Lake kids were in full agreement.

L
ISA AND
C
AROLE
stayed only long enough at TD’s to establish that they were not being driven out by Veronica and Betsy. Nevertheless, they were both relieved when they were outside again.

“You want me to walk you to the bus?” offered Lisa.

Carole started to say yes but suddenly realized she wasn’t carrying her clipboard and judging papers. “Oh no!” she cried in dismay.

“What is it?” Lisa asked.

“My papers! I must have left them in my cubby, and it’s not locked! I don’t know how I could have been so careless.”

“Don’t worry about it. Nobody will bother them,” said Lisa.

“I need to work on them tonight. I’ll have to go back.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Lisa asked.

“No thanks. I can take care of it. See you tomorrow,” said Carole.

She ran all the way back to Pine Hollow, arriving in the locker room anxious and out of breath. It was with great relief that she spotted her clipboard and folder on one of the benches, but as she reached out to retrieve them it suddenly occurred to her that they weren’t
where she had left them. She had put them in her cubby. With growing concern she quickly thumbed through the papers. Something was wrong. She was almost certain that someone had been going through them.
Why would someone do such a thing?
Carole wondered. An even better question was:
Who
would do such a thing?

S
TEVIE ARRIVED AT
Pine Hollow on Sunday morning, running behind schedule as usual. She spotted Carole standing in the stable yard, clipboard in hand. Even though there was no official class scheduled, young riders were hustling here and there, trying to get in as much training time as possible. Stevie hurried over, attempting to retuck her shirt as she went. “Hi, Carole. Have you seen Corey around?”

“A little late, aren’t you?” Carole said, scribbling something in her notebook.

Stevie felt a twinge of resentment as she watched Carole write. “A little,” she admitted reluctantly, “but the good news is I think we’ve figured out a present for my parents.”

Carole looked up. “Excellent. What did you decide on?”

Before she could answer, Stevie spotted Corey coming out of the stable, looking a little forlorn. “We’ll talk later,” she said, rushing off to help Corey before Carole could make any more notes.

Corey’s face flooded with relief. “Stevie! I thought maybe I got the time wrong.”

Stevie felt a little guilty. “No, it’s my fault,” she apologized. “How’s Samurai coming?”

“I think he’s ready to be saddled, but I wanted you to check to make sure I groomed him right first.”

“Let’s go look him over,” Stevie said, cheerfully putting an arm around her charge. “Then I think we’ll start with some ground work in the indoor ring.”

It was almost an hour later before Stevie felt she could leave Corey to practice on her own. She spotted Lisa and Carole over by the outdoor ring and hurried to join them. “Good news, guys.”

“I hear you’ve solved your problem,” Lisa said. “What did you and your brothers decide on?”

“And how did you all ever manage to agree on
any
thing?” Carole teased.

“I think the pizza did the trick,” Stevie said, grinning.

“I’m sure they never saw that coming,” laughed Lisa.

“Anyway, after we ate we were wandering around the mall when Michael started complaining about having to get dressed up for all the pictures Mom and Dad would want to take that day, and that did it!” Stevie snapped her fingers. “We’re going to buy them a camera. A digital camera!”

“Oh, wow! I’ve seen those things demonstrated at the store,” cooed Lisa. “They’re amazing.”

“The way your parents love to document every moment of your lives, I’m surprised they haven’t bought one for themselves before now,” Carole said, nodding approvingly. “Congratulations, Stevie. It really is the perfect present.”

“I didn’t realize you and your brothers had that kind of money saved up,” Lisa said.

Stevie shrugged. “Apparently they’re not that expensive.”

Lisa looked surprised. “You don’t think three hundred dollars is expensive?”

Stevie was puzzled. “Who said anything about three hundred dollars? Chad said it would be around eighty.”

Carole put her hand on Stevie’s shoulder. “I think he meant apiece. Eighty from each of you would come to around three hundred dollars.”

Stevie went pale, then red. “Where does he think I’m going to get that kind of money? He may have that
kind of cash, but Alex, Michael, and I sure don’t!” she fumed.

“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked sympathetically.

“I’m going to the office to make a phone call,” she answered grimly.

“Mrs. Reg won’t let you use that phone, Stevie. It’s only for emergencies.”

“This
is
an emergency!” Stevie declared, striding away.

L
ISA
’
S EYES WERE
drawn back to the ring, where Jasmine was working over four cavalletti set at their lowest level. The idea was for the rider to adjust the length of her horse’s stride so that it would arrive three clear paces in front of the first pole. After that, the horse was to step, with one foot only, between each pole. The pair had negotiated the course fairly easily at a walk, but the posting trot was giving them trouble. Outlaw knocked one of the poles down with his back foot, then, turning to see what had happened behind him, he practically stepped on top of the next one. Not helping matters was the fact that Jasmine was completely off balance in the saddle and pulling too hard on the reins in an attempt to regain control of the situation.

“I’d better go talk to her,” Lisa said, climbing through the fence.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Carole agreed. Interested in hearing what kind of advice Lisa was going to give, she tagged along.

Jasmine was close to tears with frustration. “Lisa, it’s hopeless. I can’t make him do it.”

Outlaw was also looking unhappy. Lisa put a soothing hand on his neck. “You’re not adjusting his stride correctly before he reaches the three-out position. You two have to work together.”

Carole was trying to be subtle about her eavesdropping, so she made herself useful by putting the cavalletti back up.

“I know,” Jasmine said, obviously discouraged. “I can’t make up my mind if he should be going slower or faster.”

Lisa, who had already explained this several times, could feel her patience slipping. “Jasmine, I told you, it’s not a matter of slower or faster, it’s about the size of the step you’re asking him to take.”
I have to think of another way of describing what Jasmine needs to do, but how?
Her eyes fell on Carole. “Look, sit up straight, shoulders back, chin up, heels down. Good. Now get Outlaw collected, and I’ll be right back.”

Lisa hurried over to Carole and began helping to
reset the poles. “I can’t seem to explain to Jasmine what she’s doing wrong,” she whispered urgently. “What can I say to her that will help?”

This was the moment Carole had dreaded. She was going to have to choose between being an impartial judge and being a supportive friend. She straightened up and looked Lisa square in the eyes. “I can’t tell you that,” she said firmly.

“What? Why not?” Lisa looked genuinely puzzled.

“Because it would be unfair to the other teams.” Her friend’s hurt expression made her feel terrible. Look, Lisa.” She reached out to touch her shoulder. “This isn’t like after the Horse Wise meeting. I’m not here to give advice. My job now is to see how you handle situations like this.” She gestured toward Jasmine and Outlaw.

Lisa began to protest. “But Carole, you’ve always helped—”

Carole cut her off. “That was Carole your friend. Right now, I’m Carole the judge. We should both keep that in mind.” Just then she spotted May at the far end of the ring. She and Macaroni were also working over cavalletti, and, as usual, Veronica was nowhere in sight. “I’m sorry, Lisa, I have to go.”

Lisa watched Carole’s retreating back with a mixture of hurt and anger. She was obviously going off to help
May—why wasn’t that against her precious rules? Apparently now that she was a show judge, she didn’t have time to help her old friends, only impress new ones.

Lisa returned to Jasmine and Outlaw, determined to solve this problem without Carole’s help. That would show her.

“What did Carole say?” Jasmine asked.

Lisa thought quickly. “That she has every confidence in you and Outlaw mastering this technique.”

“She does?” Jasmine said, obviously encouraged.

“Of course, and so do I.” Lisa assured her. Even as she talked, her mind was racing furiously, trying to think of any training techniques from all the books she had read that might be useful in this situation. Then it came to her. “You know, Jasmine, Outlaw is looking a little frustrated,” she said, patting his neck. “He was doing so well at the walk, I may have rushed it asking him to try it at the trot so soon. That’s a lot to learn in one day.”

Jasmine looked a little disappointed. “Do other ponies learn both in one lesson?”

Lisa tried to sound very casual. She wanted to take the pressure off both the pony and the rider. “Oh, there may be a few, but not many. Anyway, we’re in no big rush. For Outlaw’s sake, let’s go back to cavalletti at the walk a few more times, then maybe I could saddle
up Prancer and we could take a trail ride and talk about what we want to do in the next couple of weeks.”

Jasmine brightened at the suggestion. “I think that’s a good idea.” The little girl smiled and patted her mount. “For Outlaw’s sake.”

Lisa smiled back.

S
TEVIE WAS FUMING
. Mrs. Reg had reluctantly let her use the phone, but only for one short minute. She’d managed to get Chad on the line, but with Mrs. Reg nearby she’d been unable to bawl him out satisfactorily. He, on the other hand, with no one listening, had started yelling at her. As if this were her fault!

She had come out of the office looking for someone to air her grievances to when her eyes had fallen on Lisa and Carole. The two of them were in the outside ring, apparently deep in conversation. Carole was obviously passing on some great tip to help Lisa with her Pony Partner’s schooling. Even as she had watched, Carole gave Lisa an encouraging pat on the shoulder before she left. Stevie felt a pang of jealousy.
Leave it to Lisa to appeal to Carole’s soft heart
, she thought sullenly.

“Stevie?” Corey approached from behind. “I rode Samurai over the cavalletti at least ten times clean, then all of a sudden he started knocking them over. Can you come and tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

Stevie began to walk back to the indoor ring with her. “If he’s already done it that many times right, then he’s probably getting bored. Most likely we need to give him something harder or new to work on.”

As the two of them passed by the gate to the outdoor ring, they met up with Lisa. “Have you got a minute, Stevie?” Lisa asked. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Frustrated with her brothers and feeling resentful toward Lisa for taking advantage of Carole, Stevie failed to notice that her friend was genuinely upset. “Sorry, Lisa, can’t do it right now,” she said, breezing past her. “Why don’t you ask Carole? I’m sure she’d be happy to help you out. Again.” With that, she continued on her way.