Stevie (7 page)

CAROLE
 (interrupting)
Give me that.

LISA

Hey! I haven’t had a chance to tell him the news yet.

CAROLE
 (ignoring Lisa)

Hey, Phil, I just remembered something I wanted to ask you. It’s very important, so listen carefully. Okay, you know Starlight, right? Do you think he’s better at stadium jumping or hunter seat equitation?

PHIL

Uh, well, I don’t know. What do you think, Carole?

CAROLE

I’m glad you asked! I think he shows so much natural talent that he could be great at any kind of jumping. Why, just the other day I was working with him in the indoor ring, and Max had left up a small course—let’s see, I think there was a post-and-rail, a double oxer, a chicken coop …

CAROLE
 (still on the phone; speaking very quickly)

 … and so then I took him through the course one more time, and do you know, his hooves didn’t so much as touch a single rail on any of the jumps! Starlight is perfect. Did I ever tell you about the time he …

CAROLE
 (leaning against the wall, still talking fast)

 … and then another disease I just learned about is lymphangitis. That’s problems with the lymphatic tubes, which drain fluid away from the tissues of a horse’s hind legs. Their legs can become terribly swollen and may even start to ooze fluid if left untreated. Fortunately it’s treatable, as well as being easy to prevent by cutting back on the horse’s feed on days he won’t be getting much exercise. Then there’s lungworm, which is—

LISA
 (interrupting)

Carole! Carole! We have to tell him about Stevie, remember?

CAROLE
 (to Lisa)
Oh, yeah! I guess I forgot about that.
 (into phone)

Listen here, Phil. Stevie can’t come to your Pony Club meeting. She’s away. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Lungworm …

PHIL
 (interrupting Carole)

What? What do you mean, Stevie can’t come to the meeting?

CAROLE
 (shrugs)

Huh? Oh, she’s in Vermont or someplace. Maybe it’s New Hampshire. Or New Mexico. What difference does it make? Anyway, I know there’s a stable there, so at least she’ll get to ride while she’s away.

PHIL (offscreen; through phone)

But that’s terrible. I really wanted her to come to my meeting. It won’t be the same without her. Things are never the same without her sparkling personality and brilliant
wit, of course, but this time they’ll be even less the same.

CAROLE
 (shrugs again)

Hey, what can I say? Tough break. So anyway, how’s your horse, Teddy? Have you taught him any more dressage moves or anything? By the way, did you know that the word “dressage” comes from a French word that means “training”? Also, it has been around for ages. In the fourth century B.C.…

PHIL (offscreen; through phone)

Wait! Carole, I have to ask you something. Something important.

CAROLE

What? Does it have something to do with Starlight?

PHIL

No, not really. I just wondered if you and Lisa would like to come to my meeting instead. You know, in Stevie’s place. That way you can tell her about it when she gets back.

CAROLE
 (confused)
Uh—wha—ah … Okay.

Carole hangs up the phone and turns toward Lisa.

CAROLE
Phil just invited us to the meeting.

LISA
 (looks worried)
Us? But Stevie is his girlfriend.

CAROLE
Oh yeah. I guess I forgot about that.

LISA

Oh dear. This is truly a moral quandary. I certainly hope Stevie doesn’t think we’re trying to steal her boyfriend. Oh dear. Oh dear.

Carole Hanson and Lisa Atwood
c/o Pine Hollow Stables

Willow Creek,
VA      ________

Hi, guys!

You’ll never guess what happened today! I almost got caught in an avalanche!

Don’t worry, I’m okay. But it was really scary.

What happened was, Dinah and I went for a trail ride on this mountainous trail called the Rocky Road Trail. There’s still lots of snow around up here, but the weather is getting warmer, so it’s starting to melt. And when big clumps of snow melt and fall from trees and stuff, they make a lot of noise. So does melting ice,
though I’m not exactly sure why.

So while we were riding, there’s this huge BOOM! from some ice melting. And Dinah’s horse, Goldie (you guys would love him, by the way. He’s a palomino, so of course he reminds me a little of
Delilah. He’s almost as sweet as she is, too) freaks out and races off. Then he stops and starts rearing, and to make a long story short, ends up dumping Dinah on the ground, right in the path of this huge avalanche of rocks and snow. I guess the melting started it, or maybe the noise. I’ve heard they can start that way.
In fact, I think my science teacher
may have spent some time droning on about
that a few weeks ago. Of course,
I had better things to do
than listen; like catch up on my sleep, for
instance. Ha ha.

I was totally petrified, as you can imagine. But I knew I had to do something to help Dinah. I could already tell she was at least stunned by the fell, maybe hurt. And all these rocks and stuff were rolling and bouncing toward her down the steep hillside.

I had already started chasing Goldie after he spooked. I was worried about Dinah getting control of him again. (Between you two, me, and the wall, Dinah isn’t quite as good a rider as she could be. But she tries hard, and she’s getting better.) But then when I saw the avalanche, I had to stop. I couldn’t endanger myself and Evergreen (he’s the horse I was riding). That wouldn’t do any of us any good. So I felt totally helpless as Dinah sort of crawled behind this big boulder to shield herself from the avalanche. (Actually, I guess it was more of a rockslide than an avalanche, but at the time I wasn’t worrying too much about what to call it. I was too busy hoping we’d all get out of it in one piece!)

Carole, before you ask, don’t worry about Goldie. He had already run well out of range of the rocks, so he was safe.

Dinah was another story. The big rock she was hiding behind was maybe three feet across, so it was shielding her from the worst of the shower of little stones and clumps of snow that were flying down the hillside, though I could see that a few of them were bouncing and hitting her arms and legs—hard. At
least Dinah was wearing a riding helmet and her head was pretty well protected behind the rock, and she had her arms wrapped around it, too. (Her head, not the rock.)

Still, as I watched and waited, hardly daring to breathe (and hardly able to keep Evergreen from turning and bolting away from all the noise), I couldn’t help thinking some really scary thoughts. For one thing, it had taken us a really long time to ride this far. What if something really bad happened to Dinah? What was I going to do? It was getting warmer but it was still awfully cold up there. You get the picture.

But a new, even scarier thought popped into my mind after a few seconds. At first the rockslide had been made up mostly of pebble-sized stones. But I noticed more and more larger rocks mixed in with the shower, and that made me wonder. Maybe the slide had been caused at the top by something big.…

It didn’t take long before I found out that that was true. Peering up the mountainside as far as I could see, I spotted THE ROCK. Actually, it was more like a boulder. It was at least as large as the rock that Dinah was hiding behind, and it was lumbering down the hill among the smaller rocks and pebbles, slowly but steadily.

And it was heading straight for Dinah!

I screamed at her to move, knowing that if that rock hit her (or even the rock in front of her), she was doomed.

Luckily, Dinah listened. She moved as she had never moved before. She shot out from behind that protective rock, dashing for safety. I just kept yelling for her to run faster. I had one eye on her and the other on that big rock, which was getting closer … closer …

Dinah was yelling for help and sort of stumbling and crawling. I wasn’t sure if the deep snow was keeping her from running normally
or if she was already hurt, and I didn’t bother to think much about it. I shouted, “Here! This way!” or something like that, so she would know which way to go. It was the only help I could give her, and that was a really horrible feeling.

But then I realized there was something else I could do. Mo, actually it was something else I
had
to do. Dinah wasn’t moving fast enough, and that boulder was practically on top of us by now, bouncing back and forth crazily but coming closer and closer.

I gave Evergreen a sharp kick—I didn’t want to waste any time arguing with him. Luckily, I didn’t have to. He sprang forward bravely, breaking into a canter even in that deep, mushy snow, and headed right where I was aiming him, despite the still-falling rocks.

“Give me your hand!” I yelled to Dinah, hoping against hope that she would understand what I was doing.

She stuck her hand in the air. I shifted both reins to my left hand and leaned over to the right. Closer and closer. It was going to be tricky. I was directing Evergreen with my legs, and he was doing everything I asked. Dinah’s face looked frozen, not from the cold, but from horror and fear and pain. But she kept her hand up, reaching toward me.

I leaned out of the saddle, straining toward her as we thundered past. For a second I thought I was going to miss. But I strained down a little more, and at the last possible second I felt Dinah’s hand grasping mine. I gripped it as hard as I could and yanked upward. I thought my arm was going to rip out of its socket, but I kept pulling. Dinah was pushing herself at the same time, and as soon as she was high enough she grabbed at the saddle with her other hand and held on tight. She somehow managed to haul herself up onto the horse’s rear as we cantered on as fast as Evergreen could go.

That was when I dared to look uphill again.

The boulder was almost on us. It struck a tree, bounced right, and crossed the trail just a yard or two behind us. It smashed into the rock Dinah had just been hiding behind, shattering it and sending chunks of it flying. One chunk barely missed Evergreens rump. Then the big boulder continued on down the hill into the flat meadow below us, where it finally lost momentum and stopped, leaving everything around us silent again, except for the sound of Evergreens snorts.

It was over. We were safe. I could hardly believe it.

“Is it really over?” Dinah asked.

I nodded and told her we were safe, then asked if she was okay. She said she was, basically, but she got hurt when Goldie threw her.

As if on cue, Goldie poked his head out from the trees ahead of us, looking kind of sheepish. So we knew he was okay.

Dinah was another story. When she tried standing, one of her ankles gave out. She was covered with scratches, and we could tell she was going to have a lot of bruises very soon.

I thought the first thing we should do was get her to a doctor, and I said so. But Dinah said, “No way.” She was afraid we would get in trouble, and that we would get Jodi in trouble.

Oh, wait, you don’t even know who Jodi is, do you? Well, she’s Betsy’s older sister—Betsy is the third member of our sugaring-off team. She’s nice, I’ll tell you more about her in my next letter (My hand is getting tired already, and I really want to tell you the rest of this story.) Jodi works at Sugarbush Stables, and she’s not exactly nice. She’s not exactly
not
nice, either; but I can’t say I’m crazy about her. Anyway, I definitely don’t like her as much as Dinah does—she practically worships the ground Jodi rides across. So she was totally against the whole doctor thing because she knew everyone would find out we’d gone riding alone,
when actually Jodi should have come with us (or not let us go at all). And they would probably figure out that she had only let us go so she could be alone with her boyfriend, and, well, you get the idea.

So Dinah promised me that shed be okay. After all, if we had avoided being killed by the rockslide, we could certainly take care of a few cuts and bruises.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I know everybody thinks I’m kind of daring and adventurous and everything, but I’m not completely irresponsible,
no matter what people like my parents and Miss Fenton might think
. So I was worried about Dinah and her injuries. Still, she could move and talk. And she’s my friend, and I’m
definitely
not a squealer. If she didn’t want me to tell, I wouldn’t tell.

But there was more to it than that. I recently found out that Dinah’s parents are really paranoid about her riding. They’re sure she’s going to be horribly injured every time she sets foot in a stable, and I know they’d love nothing more than for her to stop riding altogether. And I have the funniest feeling that if they find out about this, they’ll decide to ban her from riding.

So I promised not to tell, and we started homeward—very, very slowly. Dinah couldn’t ride because she was super sore in the spot where she’d landed, which happens to be the exact same spot that sits in a saddle. So I led Goldie and Dinah walked, slowly and carefully. She didn’t mount until we were within sight of the stable again, and then she kind of rode standing up in the stirrups. We hoped that would fool anyone who saw us.

It didn’t fool Jodi. She started to freak out until we promised her we weren’t going to breathe a word to anyone. (Well, I guess I’m telling you guys. But you know what I mean) She was totally relieved, although I was kind of annoyed that she didn’t even seem that worried about how Dinah was feeling. I let that go,
though, since she did offer to take care of the horses for us. She also told us Betsy was waiting for us at the Sugar Hut so we could get started collecting sap. (Which is really interesting. I’ll tell you all about it in my next letter.)

It didn’t take a genius to see that Dinah was in no state for collecting sap. She could hardly walk without wincing. So she suggested I go ahead to the Sugar Hut without her while she went home to soak in a long, hot bath, hoping that would make her feel better. I was afraid that her mother would get suspicious, but Dinah loves to take baths, so she thought it would be okay.

Collecting sap with Betsy was loads of fun, although I kept worrying about Dinah the whole time. Also, it was kind of awkward having to lie to Betsy about where Dinah was. I like Betsy, and I don’t like lying to people I like
(which is why I usually only lie to Veronica, my brothers, and Miss Fenton. Ha ha!
). But I didn’t really have much choice.

But I pulled it off somehow, and before long I was back here at the Slatterys’ house. Dinah wasn’t feeling too hot, and she couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the Sugar Hut later for the next step. Besides that, she looked like a total mess. With all her bumps and bruises, not to mention a limp and this huge, red scrape down one side of her face, there was no way people wouldn’t notice there was something wrong. But Mr. Daviet had told me that all the team members had to show up that evening to get credit.

That’s when I came up with my brilliant idea—to give Dinah a makeover!

She was kind of skeptical at first. But what choice did she have? We got to work.

Mr. Slattery was the first one to see the new Dinah, and he was pretty surprised. I guess he didn’t think much of my
makeover. But I thought it was awesome. I had dressed her in baggy clothes to cover most of the scratches and bruises on her arms and legs and to keep them from hurting any more. That also covered her leg injury, as long as she tried to keep from limping while anyone was watching.

Then there was her hair. Makeup just wasn’t going to be enough to hide that big scrape on her face. So I came up with another way. I piled most of Dinah’s hair up on top of her head. Then, on the right side, I arranged it so that a hand-sized curl swept down across her right eye, past her jaw, and back up again. It was fastened behind her ear with a large bow. It took me about half a can of hairspray and a lot of mousse to get it to stay that way (and of course, Dinah had to adjust to seeing out of only one eye), but the end result did what it was supposed to do. It hid that scrape completely.

Mr. and Mrs. Slattery kept giving me funny looks as I explained that this look was all the rage in Virginia. But I guess they believed me, because they didn’t say another word about it all through dinner.

At the Sugar Hut, I had a lot of fun watching Mr. Daviet boil the sap to create the syrup. It was kind of a complicated process, though it seemed simple, and I’ll tell you about it some other time. The important part is, at the end we used part of what he made to make something called on snow. You make it by dribbling some hot syrup over fresh snow, which almost magically creates these twisty, stringy bits of chewy maple-flavored stuff that’s just about as delicious as anything I’ve ever tasted.

We had a few close calls during the evening. For instance, when everyone went inside the Sugar Hut, which was really warm from all that boiling, I realized that Dinah couldn’t take off
any of her warm, baggy layers without someone noticing her injuries. So I convinced everyone to head back out for a moonlight Frisbee game. That did the trick. And everybody seemed to believe that Dinah just had a stomachache earlier (when she was supposed to be collecting the sap with us). One other weird thing happened, though, and I’m kind of worried about it. I think Jodi said something nasty to Dinah. I saw Jodi hurrying away from a spot in the woods near the hut, looking angry, and when I went to investigate, I found Dinah there crying her eyes out. I was afraid her injuries were hurting her worse, but she claimed that wasn’t it. But she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.

By the way, I’m writing this in Dinah’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Slattery wanted us to stay downstairs after we got back from the Sugar Hut. But I could tell that Dinah really needed to get to bed right away. So I told Dinah’s mom I needed to spend an hour or two reading
To Kill a Mockingbird
, and I wanted Dinah to explain some fraction problems to me since she studied the same thing last semester
Ha! As if I could even think about homework on an action packed trip like this!
Anyway, Dinah fell asleep ages ago, and it’s getting late, so I guess now I’ll sign off and hit the sack, too. It’s been a long day. I miss you guys—I hope you remembered to explain things to Phil for me. I’m sure you did.
I miss him, too. I was hoping we’d get a little quality time together after his Pony Club meeting, if you know what I mean. But oh well. My love life will just have to wait.