Stable Groom

Veronica jumped to the ground, flinging her reins angrily at Red O’Malley.

“Did you hear me? Garnet behaved horribly, and it was your fault. You intentionally put this harsh bit on her to make her uncomfortable. Obviously a horse this sensitive doesn’t need a bit like this! Poor thing, she was so nervous and scared, she could barely walk.”

Red sighed. In a quiet, polite voice, he reminded Veronica that she had specifically asked him to switch Garnet’s usual bit for the more severe one.

“I did
not
!” Veronica exclaimed. She eyed Red menacingly. “How dare you say that! How dare you talk back to me! Or have you forgotten who’s the paying customer around here and who’s the stable hand? I guess I’ll just have to have my father talk to Max about you.” With that final threat, Veronica stormed off into the barn.

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S
TEVIE
L
AKE PAUSED
to catch her breath. She had been running all the way from home to Pine Hollow Stables to make it in time for her Pony Club meeting. Unfortunately, a glance at her watch revealed that she was a good five minutes late already. Stevie sighed. To the average person, five minutes might not seem like very long. But to Max Regnery, the owner of Pine Hollow and the instructor of the local Pony Club, Horse Wise, five minutes might as well be five years. Once you were late, you were late. Period. Prepared for the worst, Stevie hurried to Max’s office, where Horse Wise was meeting.

Bursting through the office door, full of apologies
and explanations, she was dismayed to find the room empty. That was even worse. That meant the other Pony Clubbers had already moved out to the stables to discuss the topic of the day’s unmounted meeting.

“Stupid closet!” Stevie muttered. Her closet was the reason she was late. Just as she had been about to leave, it had erupted in a mountain of clothes, shoes, schoolbooks, riding equipment, and stuffed animals. The noise had attracted the attention of Stevie’s mother. Mrs. Lake, a stickler for housework, had taken one look at the wall-to-wall clutter and said, “Of course, I don’t need to remind you that you’ll clean this up before you go to Pony Club, dear.”

There had been no getting around her mother, and there would be no getting around Max. Gritting her teeth, Stevie turned to go find the group. She knew she had better rush in order not to miss any more of the meeting. However, Stevie thought, pausing for a second, she didn’t have to rush
so
much that she couldn’t stop to look at something that caught her eye on Max’s desk.

For months there had been a pile of cruise brochures sitting on a corner of the heavy oak desk. Stevie and her two best friends, Carole Hanson and Lisa Atwood, had assumed that Max and Deborah, his fiancée, were planning to go for a cruise on their honeymoon.
But since nothing had been said about their wedding date—and the brochures had stayed put—the girls had figured it must still be a long way off. Obviously, Max and Deborah were just gathering preliminary information. But now the pile of brochures was gone, and there was only one brochure left. Taking a quick look around to make sure she was still alone, Stevie grabbed the brochure. She knew she was being nosy, but she just had to find out what was going on with Max and Deborah.

“Sail the Caribbean on the magnificent cruise ship
Ocean Pearl
!” Stevie read, glancing over the pictures of plush suites and decadent banquets. Then she inhaled sharply. The departure date of the cruise was less than a month away. That could mean only one thing: Max and Deborah were finally going to be married! Stevie was delighted with the news. The couple had had a somewhat rocky courtship—no thanks, Stevie remembered wryly, to The Saddle Club.

The Saddle Club was a group that Stevie, Lisa, and Carole had started. Its rules were simple: Members had to be crazy about horses and willing to help one another in any situation. But the situations themselves were often quite complicated. For instance, when Deborah first came to Pine Hollow, The Saddle Club had been convinced that she was unfriendly—even
cold. They hadn’t realized that she was just insecure around horses because she didn’t know much about them. They
also
hadn’t realized something much more important: The reason she kept coming back to the stables was to see Max! The three girls had behaved rudely toward her. Luckily, when they figured out that Max and Deborah were in love, The Saddle Club concocted one of their famous plans and reversed all the damage they had done. Stevie smiled to herself at the memory of Max’s face when he saw the Fourth of July fireworks display that they had helped Deborah think up. It had read simply, “Marry me, Max!” Stevie was the one who usually got the three of them into—and out of—mix-ups. Her sense of fun and adventure almost always overrode her common sense.

Lisa and Carole weren’t quite as prone to scheming as Stevie. With her straight-A average and her other interests besides riding, Lisa was just too busy. Carole, meanwhile, was so devoted to horses that she often forgot the rest of the world existed.

Stevie could hardly wait to share her discovery about the cruise with Lisa and Carole. They would be just as excited as she was about Max and Deborah. Sometimes, she thought, being late had its advantages.

Taking a final look at the date on the brochure, Stevie charged out to the barn to catch up with Horse Wise. She found the group assembled inside the grain room. At unmounted meetings Max usually chose some aspect of stable management to talk about. As Stevie approached, she could tell that today’s topic was feeding. Sidling up to the group, Stevie kept her eyes down, hoping Max wouldn’t notice her arrival.

“When I was in Pony Club, we didn’t have mixtures like pellets and sweet feed,” Max was saying, “which is why everyone fed pure oats and corn. Of course, some trainers—” He paused, mid-sentence. Stevie froze. She looked up. Max had fixed a disapproving eye on her. He let it linger for a moment while she squirmed. Then he cleared his throat and continued. “Of course, some trainers still prefer to mix their own feed, and we keep oats available …”

Stevie let out a sigh of relief. Strangely enough, Max hadn’t given her a lecture about tardiness. She smiled to herself: It was incredible how much being about to get married could improve some people’s personalities.

“So how would you know what a proper feeding schedule for your horse is? Veronica, let’s start with you. How would you know what and when Garnet should be eating?”

Veronica diAngelo’s face wrinkled into a frown. She shrugged. “I’d ask Red. That’s his job, isn’t it?”

The Saddle Club looked at one another, rolling their eyes. It was a typical answer for Veronica, the stable snob. The girl never cleaned a piece of tack, groomed, or, evidently, fed her own horse if she could help it. Instead, she depended on the head stable hand, Red O’Malley, to do all her work for her. It worked fine at horse shows, where she showed up with Garnet looking immaculate every time, and the judges never knew any better. But in Pony Club, where horsemanship and stable management counted as much as riding ability, her attitude made her look ridiculous and kept her from passing higher ratings.

Max clenched his teeth, visibly trying to control his annoyance. “Never mind,” he said curtly. “Why doesn’t someone else answer the question.”

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole were in shock. It was one thing for Stevie to get away with being ten minutes late. But it was quite another for Max not to reprimand Veronica for such a typically rude answer. Even his upcoming wedding couldn’t have affected him that much.

In response, Lisa whispered, “He’s trying not to lose his temper in front of the guest.” She pointed to an attractive young woman leaning on the grain bins behind
Max whom Stevie hadn’t noticed. Before she could whisper back to Lisa and ask who the woman was, Max’s words broke through her thoughts.

“And now I’d like Denise to tell you about planning an overall diet for your horse,” Max said. He turned and gestured to the woman. “But first, Denise, why don’t I officially introduce you to Horse Wise? Everyone, meet Denise McCaskill. She knows all about Pony Club, since she is an A-rated member. She’s also a certified riding counselor and instructor”—Max waved his hands to quiet the excited chatter that had broken out—“and Denise can fill you in on the rest.”