Stable Groom (10 page)

“I’m Stephanie Lake,” Stevie said.

“And what exactly is your role in all this?” the woman asked.

“I take riding lessons at Pine Hollow, board my horse here, do Pony Club—everything, I guess you could say, so I’ve really gotten a great chance to get to know the people who work here,” Stevie said.

“How nice for you,” the woman said vaguely.

Stevie felt that some explanation was in order. “If I seem a little overenthusiastic, it’s because we’ve been waiting and waiting for you.”

The judge gave her a look. “Really? But I’m right on time,” she said.

“You’ve got that right,” Stevie said. “We couldn’t have asked for better timing.” Another couple of days, she thought to herself, and Red might have been gone.

The judge looked through her stack of papers quickly. “Well, I guess I’m all ready to go. Where is the lucky man?”

Stevie pointed to the schooling ring, where Carole
and Lisa were waiting in anticipation. “He’s right out there, teaching a lesson.”

“Oh, I see. Teaching riding must be
very
important to him,” the judge observed, half smiling.

“It is. He’s a wonderful instructor,” Stevie gushed.

“And is that the fiancée?” the judge asked.

“The fiancée?” Stevie repeated.

“Yes, riding the horse,” the judge said.

“That’s right,” Stevie said. She was amazed that the woman had done so much preliminary research that she knew about Red’s present to Deborah. Then again, the more the examiner knew about Red, the less they would have to fill her in on his character.

There was an awkward pause. The woman seemed to be waiting for Stevie to say something. “All right, then,” the judge said finally, “why don’t we get them to come over here.”

Stevie was ready for this. After they had hurt Red’s pride by trying to stand up for him, she wasn’t about to let him know what was going on until the test was finished and his certification was a done deed. That way he couldn’t get annoyed. “Oh, no,” she said. “It’s really better if you stay over here. They’d both appreciate it—better for the nerves, you know,” she said.

The judge looked skeptical but said, “I do know
how nervous some people get. But the procedure doesn’t take long at all.”

Stevie thought for a minute. Unable to contain their curiosity any longer, Carole and Lisa came up and joined her. They introduced themselves politely. “When’s it going to start?” Carole asked.

“Why, as soon as possible,” the judge said.

“I was just explaining to the judge that Red would be happier if she stayed over here,” Stevie said, elbowing the two of them.

Catching on right away, Lisa came to the rescue. “Oh, definitely. When it’s all over, Red will thank you.”

“Besides,” Carole put in, “if you stay here, you can see how perfectly the two of them work together. That’s important, isn’t it?”

“Certainly. But, really, there are some formalities to be observed. I have a few questions to ask them,” the woman said firmly.

“Oh, that’s no problem. We can answer any questions you have,” Stevie said.

“You can?” the woman asked.

The girls nodded. “You see, we’ve known Red for years and years,” Lisa said.

“Well, all right,” the judge said dubiously. She took
out her book and began to fill in spaces. “What did you say the man’s name was?”

“Red O’Malley,” Stevie answered promptly.

The judge looked surprised. “Is that some kind of a nickname? It doesn’t sound like what I was told.”

“Oh, of course!” Carole exclaimed. “How could we be so silly. It’s
Redford
O’Malley. That’s his full name.”

Lisa and Stevie exchanged glances, relieved. They had completely forgotten about changing Red’s name in the letter. Carole’s quick thinking had saved them.

But the woman frowned. “That doesn’t sound right either,” she said.

“Yes, it’s a strange name—a family name,” Lisa said as casually as she could. She sneaked a look at Carole and Stevie. They looked as ill as she felt. Not only were they certifying Red without his knowing it, they were also making up names for him.

After an agonizing pause, the judge shrugged and wrote down “Redford O’Malley.” Then she asked, “And the fiancée?”

“You have to know her name too?” Stevie said. “She’s just a beginning student.”

“Whether she’s a beginner or an Olympian makes no difference to me,” the woman said, starting to sound exasperated. “I still need to know her name.”

“It’s Deborah Hale,” Lisa supplied hastily. She shot a warning glance at Stevie. The less fuss they made, the more quickly Red would be certified. Now was no time to question the judge’s demands.

“So, I guess you’d better get started, huh?” Carole suggested. They were all petrified that Max would appear at any minute and ask what was going on. Then Red would be embarrassed again, since it was none of his doing, and their whole plan to help him would be ruined.

“I suppose so. Although it’s going to be very difficult to communicate. The whole thing is highly irregular.” The woman paused to sigh. “People get stranger and stranger—they want to do it all sorts of ways these days.”

“Listen,” Lisa began, thinking on her feet. “We could relay the information back and forth. It will be much more accurate that way.”

“Accurate?” the judge asked. “I would think just the opposite.”

“No, you see, if you stood by the rail, they would both get nervous, and you wouldn’t see them as they really are. This way, they’ll stay as relaxed as always,” Lisa said.

“I suppose that makes sense,” the judge agreed finally. “I’m not eager to get my suit dirty, and it seems
to be quite dusty in the ring with all the wind. I must say, I wasn’t expecting them to be having a riding lesson when I arrived.”

“So, you usually start off unmounted?” Carole asked with curiosity. She wanted to understand the certification process as fully as she could in case she was ever up for it.

“Of course we usually start off unmounted!” the judge snapped. “And finish that way, too!”

Carole bit her lip. She hadn’t realized it was such a stupid question, but now that she thought about it, she realized that the examiner would naturally want to see how the candidate started his lesson—whether he could teach his students to tack up and mount, two of the most fundamental elements of riding.

“But in this case,” the judge continued haughtily, “I suppose I’ll have to make an exception.”

Lisa jumped in. “Great, then we can begin whenever you’re ready,” she said. She knew these examiners could be extremely picky about running things their way, and she didn’t want to give the judge a chance to change her mind. She and Carole and Stevie spread out in a fireman’s chain between the judge and the ring with Lisa closest to the judge.

It seemed like a good idea, but the minute the woman asked her first question, Lisa knew that there
was a problem with her plan. With the high winds, she could barely hear the judge. The human “telephone” was a bad connection. Lisa made a split-second decision not to say anything. Max could figure out Stevie’s prank any minute and come to find out what they were all doing. It just wasn’t worth the risk.

The first thing the judge asked was some lengthy question having to do with Deborah’s wanting to spend time with Red. Obviously the center was interested in finding out if the instructor was popular with his students. “Just ask Deborah if she thinks Red is a good teacher!” Lisa yelled. Carole and Stevie passed the question down the line to Deborah.

Deborah looked surprised by the sudden interruption of her lesson, but she responded with a resounding yes. Red glowered at Stevie, the closest to the ring, but continued with the lesson. So far, so good, Stevie thought. Obviously Red thought that the question was a stupid reason to disrupt the lesson, but there was no way he could have guessed what it was leading to.

When the next question came, it sounded to Lisa like “Mumble, jumble, blah, blah, Redford O’Malley, blah, blah, blah.” Trying to keep Red’s annoyance to a minimum, she shouted, “Just tell Red to say yes!”

Stevie tried, but Red walked angrily over to the rail. “What are all these questions about?” he called.

“Routine testing!” Stevie called back, hoping it sounded okay. She knew that Red would want to avoid disrupting Deborah’s lesson at all costs, and she was betting on that to keep him relatively quiet.

“Can’t it wait?” Red cried.

“Sorry, no—the woman has to leave as soon as possible!” Stevie yelled.

Red shook his head in disgust but said nothing further.

Then, all at once, two things happened. Max came out of the stable and headed for Stevie, a menacing expression on his face, and a huge gust of wind whipped through Pine Hollow.

The strange scene Max saw stopped him in his tracks: His fiancée was taking a riding lesson with his head stable hand, The Saddle Club was standing in a line, yelling to one another, and a well-dressed adult whom he had never seen before was trying desperately to hold on to a stack of loose papers that were fluttering all over the place. Registering all these particulars, Max’s expression changed from pleasant surprise to annoyed curiosity to total confusion.

As he stared, dumbfounded, the gust picked up one of the woman’s papers. She swatted at it but missed. It
floated high in the air above the girls’ heads. Carole reached up and snatched it. She scanned a few paragraphs, hoping to find some information about the sneaky questions the judge would be asking Red when they got to the hard part. But when she realized what she was holding, she let out a shriek. It was a nearly complete State of Virginia marriage certificate, uniting Red O’Malley and Deborah Hale in matrimony!

The next question came from the judge. Lisa yelled to them to tell Red to say yes once again. Carole stood frozen, staring at the certificate. In the back of her mind she heard Stevie instructing Red to say yes.

“No!” Carole yelled at the top of her lungs.

“No what?” Stevie cried.

“Tell Red to say no!” Carole shouted.

“But I just told him to say yes!” As she yelled to Carole, Stevie suddenly caught sight of Max. He was running toward them. The examination would fail unless Red answered at once. “Red—say yes!” Stevie yelled.

At the same time, Carole hollered, “Red—say no!”

And that’s what he said, just in the nick of time.

“N
O
,
NO
,
NO
—I will not answer any more questions until somebody tells me what on earth is going on!” Red declared.

“Exactly what I was going to ask,” Max said, rushing up.

The judge folded her arms across her chest expectantly.

The Saddle Club ran to join the group. Explanations started bubbling. Nobody seemed to know who had the answers. Hearing the commotion, Denise emerged from the stables, bridle pieces, saddle soap, and sponge in hand. When she saw the group, she hurried over. “Is anything wrong?” she asked.

“We’re waiting to find out,” Max replied.

Red managed to get the floor first. “As far as I’m concerned, I was just trying to give Deborah her wedding present,” he said.

Deborah looked down at Max, embarrassed, from Delilah’s back. “Thanks to Red’s generosity, I was just trying to learn to ride before our wedding. Red is teaching me, and I’ve had to take lessons whenever the two of us could squeeze them in. It was supposed to be a secret from you until we were married.”

Max gazed up at Deborah, delighted with the news. For a moment the two smiled at each other as everyone else suddenly found something fascinating to look at off in the distance. Then Max remembered the rest of the day’s activities. “So that explains why—”

“Why I had to distract you for an hour while Deborah rode,” Stevie finished for him, “by making up a ridiculous story about the grain being bad—”

“—and emptying the contents of your lunch into the grain buckets to keep me occupied,” Max said, trying to get the last word.

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Stevie said, grinning.

“Anyway, during the lesson the ‘judge’ arrived,” Carole continued.

“That much makes sense,” Max said.

“Only our ‘judge’ was supposed to be here to certify Red as a Riding Counselor, just like Denise.”

“A what?” Red asked, astonished.

“I was?” the judge exclaimed simultaneously.

Lisa cleared her throat and looked at Red. “We were trying to get you certified as a Riding Counselor so that Veronica would get off your back and then Max wouldn’t believe all the awful things she said.” She looked up at Red, steeling herself for the worst.

But instead of being annoyed, Red looked shyly pleased. “I guess I never appreciated the lengths you three were willing to go to in order to help me out,” he said quietly.

Then they all started talking at once, filling in details for each other. Soon it all became very clear to everyone—except the poor judge. She had been standing quietly, listening to everyone’s explanation. Finally she threw up her hands in confusion. “Excuse me,” she said. Her low, authoritative judge’s voice put a halt to the chatter. “I am Judge Emily Stilwell,” she said. “Just exactly what does this riding certificate have to do with marriage, and exactly who
is
getting married today?”