The Fox Hunt (5 page)

Stevie opened the sandwich and the apple juice and began eating slowly, thinking about the very weird things that were going on. Around her, her friends talked about other things: the history test coming up next week; the Emerson Circus; and the fox hunt.

Stevie concentrated all her thoughts on her brothers. They’d been mean to her and Phil, and she’d been very angry with them. She’d gotten even. And now that they were even, her brothers were being nice to her, saying they got her joke and didn’t want her to play any more practical jokes on them. That’s what being even meant.

Stevie was pretty sure she understood now. After all, they were her brothers and they were a good lot, even if they were sometimes hard to take. Brothers and sisters had to stick together most of the time, and the Lakes were all good brothers and sister. There was nothing to worry about at all.

Or was there?

“I
SN
’
T THIS WONDERFUL
?” Carole asked Stevie and Lisa. Her friends had to agree. In spite of the fact that it was seven-thirty in the morning, it was definitely wonderful. They were at Pine Hollow, and the riders from Cross County had just arrived, accompanying vans filled with their own ponies and horses. Everywhere anybody looked, there were horses and riders, tack and equipment. There was a flurry of activity, riders tacking up, grooms grooming, mothers and fathers delivering unnecessary instruction, and Max and Mr. Baker scurrying around. Both carried clipboards and were busily making notes about everything they saw—and didn’t see.

“I can’t wait for it all to begin,” Lisa said.

Carole looked around and smiled. “It already has
begun,” she said. “Remember that riding is more than being on a horse. It’s also taking care of the horse and preparing for being on the horse.…”

Sometimes Carole could be almost too serious about horseback riding. When that happened, her friends thought it was their responsibility to remind her about it. “Oh come on, Carole,” Stevie teased. “We know that as well as you do. But the mock hunt won’t really begin until we’re all here and on our horses.
That’s
what Lisa and I can’t wait for.”

“Me, neither,” Carole admitted graciously.

The three girls had been at Pine Hollow for more than half an hour. They were each dressed in proper hunt attire, which meant that they were wearing riding pants and boots, white shirts and ties, and jackets, as well as their usual safety helmets. Their horses were tacked up and ready to go. Carole was riding her own horse, Starlight. Stevie was on Topside, the show horse she usually rode. At her friends’ suggestion, and with Max’s approval, Lisa had agreed to try Diablo, the tall bay gelding who had gotten his name because of his unusually small pointed ears.

While the three of them were all ready to go, it seemed that nobody else around them was—or for that matter ever would be. Everywhere was mass confusion.

“Isn’t that my saddle?”

“The horse tried to bite me!”

“Where’s my horse?”

“Does anybody have a crop I can borrow?”

The Saddle Club secured their horses to the paddock fence and joined the fray. They figured that if they helped the other riders get ready, it might actually speed up the entire process so they could begin the mock hunt sooner. It seemed to work. Within about fifteen minutes, just about everything was done for all the riders.

There were more than forty Pony Clubbers from Horse Wise and Cross County who were there for the mock hunt. The Saddle Club thought it was exciting just to see so many riders all saddled up and ready to go at once. Stevie looked over her shoulder. Phil was behind her. He smiled at her. She winked at him. That made him smile some more.

“Pony Clubs come to order!” Mr. Baker commanded. Everybody was quiet. Then Max spoke.

“I am now ready to assign parts to all of you,” he began. He explained that most people were going to be in the field, but that some would have special jobs. “First of all, we need a Junior Master of the Hunt. This job is going to the person who has been the most serious student of fox hunting—the person who worked hardest at understanding all the aspects of it.”

Me? Stevie wondered. No way. Carole? Not really. Carole knew a lot about hunting, but she hadn’t worked all that hard to study it now. Lisa? Of course.

“… and that is Lisa Atwood.”

Most of the members of Horse Wise clapped politely. Stevie and Carole were much more raucous about it. Stevie even cheered.

“Then we need to have a huntsman. I conferred with Mr. Baker on this and chose one of his riders, Phil Marston.” The members of Cross County clapped. Stevie cheered again.

Max named five whippers-in, including Carole, and told them that they would be working closely with Phil. That was good, because though Phil was a good rider, he wasn’t so familiar with the land around Pine Hollow, and he’d need Carole’s help to figure out where the fox could be hiding.

“… and now we come to the fox. For this, we needed to find somebody who could be wily, clever, devious, cunning, sneaky, shrewd, sly, and deceitful.” He paused. Stevie took the opportunity to look around and was surprised to see that absolutely everybody was looking straight at her.

Carole clapped her hand over her mouth to try to contain her giggles, but it was no good. They simply exploded. Lisa joined in, and within seconds, all forty riders were laughing.

Stevie blushed bright red.

“
Moi?
” she asked, trying to sound innocent.

“If the shoe fits,” Max said, himself laughing. “Now, next is the matter of where we can ride and where we
can’t ride. Stevie and most of the Pine Hollow riders are familiar with the land that we can use. I have made a small map for each rider to carry—”

Max was interrupted by the sound of a car door slamming and a familiar voice shouting, “Re-ed! I need your help! Where are you?”

It was Veronica. She’d arrived late and now expected Red O’Malley, Pine Hollow’s head stable hand, to help her groom Garnet and tack up.

A pained look crossed Max’s face. Mr. Baker seemed a little confused. “One more rider,” Max explained.

Red excused himself from the group and went to tack up Garnet. Veronica seemed to think he could do it very well without any help from her, so she joined the riders and waited for Red to bring Garnet to her. That was very typical of Veronica, and if Max hadn’t thought it was more important right then for her to hear what he was going to say, he would have shooed her into the stable and told Red to leave her to her own devices.

“As I was saying,” he continued, “I have made up a map which all the riders should carry with them. There are a few farmers who have specifically asked us not to ride on their land, either because they simply don’t want us there or because they still have some crops in the ground. We must always respect their wishes. Not only would it be trespassing to disobey, but
it would also jeopardize the permission we’ve received from other landowners. In other words, don’t break this rule. Do you understand?”

Everybody nodded. All of Pine Hollow’s riders had had this basic rule of riding pounded into them from the first time they’d ever been on horseback. Everybody understood and agreed.

“Okay, then, I think it’s about time for our fox to get going, so all you animals, come get your ears.”

Stevie thought the ears were just a little bit silly as she saw some of the kids designated as “hounds” put them on. However, when she saw her own “fox” ears, she changed her mind completely. They were adorable!

Proudly she slipped the ears on over her helmet and adjusted them until she was pretty sure they were straight. When Phil saw her with her ears on, he whistled.

“That’s a wolf whistle,” she joked. “Totally wrong for a fox.”

“Well, let’s see just how good a fox you are,” he told her. “I can promise you, you haven’t got a chance against a really terrific huntsman such as myself.”

Stevie grinned. She loved nothing better than a good contest, and she could tell that this would certainly be that. “We’ll see,” she said evasively. “We’ll just see.”

On that note, she mounted Topside and walked him over to where Max was waiting for her.

“This is right up your alley,” Max said. “I know you’ll be a great fox.”

“I hope so,” Stevie said.

“Don’t worry. You’re a natural. Now, here’s what you want to do.…”

He explained that she had two jobs. The first and most obvious was to try to avoid capture by the huntsman and the hounds. Max suggested that she try to think of a way to make all the other riders think she had gone one way while she actually went another. Stevie’s mind was racing already. Max was right. This job was tailor-made for her. Her other job, and really the more important one in a way, was to lead everybody on a ride that would be fun.

“That’s what this is about,” he said.

“Fun is my middle name,” Stevie said.

“Sometimes I think it’s your first and last names, too,” Max told her. Stevie wasn’t absolutely sure that was a compliment, but she decided that for present purposes it was pretty good.

“I’m going to keep all the riders in the stable while you get a ten-minute head start.” Then he handed her a bag of confetti. He told her it was her “scent.” To be fair to the huntsman and the hounds, she had to drop a small handful of “scent” every five minutes. “Of course, they won’t necessarily know when you dropped
it, or in what order the handfuls were dropped,” he said. “You can use those facts to confuse them as much as you want.”

“Oh, I intend to do that,” she promised, a wicked grin crossing her face. Then she solemnly shook Max’s hand and told him good-bye. As soon as he was inside the stable, she dropped her first handful of confetti and headed for the woods.

“W
ELL, THEN, IF
I can’t be the Junior Master, I’ll be the huntsman,” Veronica announced.

“Phil is the huntsman,” Carole told her. “If you had managed to be here on time, you would have known that. You are a rider in the field. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“We’ll see about that,” Veronica said. She spun on her heels and made a beeline for Max and Mr. Baker, who were guarding the door to the stable so that nobody could see where Stevie had gone.

“What’s the matter with her?” Phil asked Carole.

“She thinks that just because she comes from a wealthy family, she ought to be in charge of everything. She wants your job, and unless I’ve sadly misjudged the situation, she is now going to ask Max and Mr. Baker to remove you as huntsman and install her in the position.”

Phil and Carole watched. They couldn’t hear what was being said, but they could see the surprised look
on Mr. Baker’s face as Veronica tried to make her case. She was gesturing toward her own breeches and riding jacket.

“You know what she’s doing?” Carole asked.

Phil shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly guess.”

“She’s showing Mr. Baker and Max that she’s perfectly dressed for a hunt, and she’s telling them that you are not. Therefore,
she
should be the huntsman.”

They couldn’t see Veronica’s face as Mr. Baker and Max answered, but Carole was quite certain she knew what was being said and how Veronica was reacting.

“Max just told her that the huntsman is a person on horseback, not a clotheshorse, and that it’s a job given to somebody responsible, who arrives on time, tacks up his or her own horse, and who can be counted on to be a leader.…”

“I don’t think they said that much,” Phil said, watching Veronica’s every move. “She walked away too soon. But you probably covered the high points.”

Lisa came over to Carole and Phil. “I don’t believe what Veronica just did,” she said.

“Believe it,” Carole said. “The girl will never change.”

Carole saw Max look at his watch, wait for a moment, and then look up. “Riders up!” he called out. It was now time to try to figure out just how clever Stevie was going to be today. Carole hoped Stevie would be in top form.

The mock hunt had been organized very much like the real thing, and the participants were expected to act their parts just as they would in a real hunt. Therefore, Lisa took the lead, along with Mr. Baker, who was serving as the grown-up Master.

Lisa instructed Phil to get the hounds in order and to see if they could pick up the “line,” or scent of the fox.

The whippers-in stayed at the edge of the pack of five hounds, and Phil told the hounds when to begin the hunt.

It took only a few seconds to find the first pile of scent. That was easy. The question, then, was what direction Stevie had taken from the back of Pine Hollow.

“That way,” Lisa suggested, pointing to the section of woods nearby. Something—most likely a horse—had made a trail in the grass leading toward the woods that way.

Phil didn’t move. He jutted his lower jaw forward thoughtfully. “That would be logical,” he said. “But we’re not talking logical. We’re talking Stevie. Let’s go
that
way first.” He pointed to a section of woods across a series of fields separated by wooden fences with gates through them. The whole section was crisscrossed with horse-made trails. “She would know that would be much more confusing for us.”