Hoof Beat

by Bonnie Bryant

  “What’s up, Stevie?” Max asked as he stepped out of the stall and fastened the door behind him. “I saw you heading for Samson’s paddock; everything okay there?”

  “Oh, sure, Samson and I had a great workout,” she said. “But I do have a problem.” She told him about her wallet and Carole’s money.

  “Boy, that’s tough,” he said. He shook his head sadly, sympathetically.

  “Sure is,” she said, sensing that Max would find a way to solve the problem. “I knew you’d help me out.”

  “Oh, I’m not sure there’s anything I can really do to help, Stevie,” Max said. “But you’ve learned something.”

  This was definitely not what Stevie was hoping he would say. He was saying exactly what her parents would say.

  “That’s not fair, Max,” Stevie wailed. “The money got stolen. In your stables. I couldn’t help it.”

  “Stevie, this is a public place. There are no locks on the cubbies. They are there for the convenience of our riders—not for security. I’m sorry about Carole’s money, but it was careless of you to stash that much money in an open area. Next time, just remember that I can lock valuables in my desk.”

  He walked toward his office. Stevie trailed after him. She just had to get him to help her.

  “Next time? There won’t be a next time, Max! Carole will never speak to me again! It’s money for her dad’s birthday! Do something!”

  “Maybe I should,” he said thoughtfully.

  Stevie waited. The fact that it was Carole’s money had swayed him, she was sure. Max scratched his head thoughtfully.

  “I know,” he continued. “As soon as we finish with the paint job, I’ll put another sign up in the locker room about locking valuables in the office.”

  A lot of good that’ll do me, Stevie thought. Angry and disgusted, she went home.

  THAT EVENING, LISA sat on the comfortable chair in her room, her legs over one of the soft arms, her back against the other. She was thinking.

  She’d already made a list of things she could write about in her first column. That was good. The problem was that there were more than fifteen items on the list and there was no way she could write about fifteen things in five hundred words. Mostly she wanted to write about Samson’s training, but there was so much to describe about it that she hardly knew where to begin. She needed an angle. Then she got an idea.

  The New Student, she wrote.

  Pine Hollow Stables’ newest student is also its youngest. His name is Samson. He’s two months old. He’s about four feet tall, has short black hair, pointed ears, and a cute tail. He is Delilah’s colt.

  Lisa liked it. She thought it was a good idea to make the point that it wasn’t just the riders who learned at the stable. The horses had to learn, too.

  Lisa was about to describe the colt’s first lessons when her mother called upstairs to tell her the phone was for her. She’d been so interested in what she was writing that she hadn’t even heard the phone ring. She reached across to her bedside table and picked up the receiver.

  “Oh, Lisa, I’m so glad you’re there!” Stevie said. Lisa recognized the frantic tone in Stevie’s voice immediately. It didn’t concern her too much, though. Stevie often had a frantic tone.

  “What’s up?” Lisa asked, still gazing proudly at the paragraph she’d written.

  “It’s Carole’s money—it’s gone!” Stevie said.

  Then Lisa knew Stevie had a good reason for the frantic tone.

  Stevie told her what had happened. “It just wasn’t there when I came back from the training session. Did you see anybody lurking near the cubbies when you were there?”

  Lisa thought for a minute. “The place stank so much from the paint job that I just ran through,” she said. “I didn’t see anybody, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have been there.”

  “I know they could. They were. And you know, I’ve been thinking. Remember the time Polly Giacomin couldn’t find her riding crop?”

  Lisa did remember. Polly had been so upset about it, she’d cried all through their class. “What a baby she was!” Lisa said.

  “Maybe, but it never did show up. And remember when Meg couldn’t find her keys?”

  “Sure, but who would take her keys?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll bet you anything it was the same person who took my wallet.”

  “You think there’s somebody stealing stuff from the cubbies?” Lisa asked, now very interested.

  “Let’s just say that I think it looks suspicious,” Stevie said.

  Suspicious was just the word. And when there was something suspicious going on, people needed to know about it. Lisa tore a piece of paper from her pad and picked up her pen again.

  Suspicious Thefts at Pine Hollow! she wrote.

  On the other end of the line, sitting in the Lakes’ kitchen, telephone at her ear, Stevie waited for Lisa to offer to lend her money. But Lisa was quiet. “So, listen,” Stevie said. “Can you help me out?”

  “You bet I can!” Lisa said.

  The words she’d been waiting to hear. “All fifteen dollars?” Stevie asked.

  “Oh, no. Not that way,” Lisa said. “Sorry. I’m broke now. But I’ll help you another way.”

  “You sound just like Max,” Stevie said grumpily.

  “Huh?” Lisa responded.

  “I suppose you think it’s my fault, too,” Stevie said.

  Lisa didn’t answer. Stevie thought she’d sounded kind of distracted. She was about to give her a piece of her mind when there was an interruption. Her mother entered the kitchen and with her was the most amazing girl Stevie had ever seen.

  “Stevie, this is Trudy,” Mrs. Lake said. “Trudy, this is my daughter, Stephanie.”

  “Lisa, I’ve got to go,” Stevie said, hanging up the phone hastily, all thoughts of Carole’s fifteen dollars fleeing from her mind.

  She spun on the kitchen stool to face Trudy and then blinked her eyes to be sure it was for real. Trudy was a girl about her own age, and that was where the resemblance between them stopped, for Trudy was dressed in the most outlandish outfit Stevie had ever seen.

  First of all, she was wearing an oversize Hawaiian-pattern shirt, over a black spandex skirt. She wore purple tights blotched with yellow splatters, with black bobby socks over the tights, and black gym shoes. On each wrist there were at least ten plastic hoop bracelets of bright colors to match her shirt. Her earrings were big yellow plastic hoops. She wore eye shadow that picked up a lot of the colors from her Hawaiian shirt and the bracelets. And then there was her hair. Her hair was bleached blond and cut straight. On her right side, it was cut above her ear. It got longer and longer as the hairstyle continued around her head, until on her left side it hung below her chin line. She wore a bow smack on top of her head, made of the same material as her Hawaiian shirt.

  Stevie decided she looked wonderful. “Is it Halloween already?” Stevie asked with a grin.

  “You like it?” Trudy responded.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Stevie told her. “Even when we were in New York, where there were some pretty wild looks, nobody dressed like that!”

  “I put the outfit together myself,” Trudy said.

  Stevie slid off the stool, picked up one of Trudy’s suitcases, and said, “Come on, I’ll show you to our room. We’re sharing. Hope that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” Trudy said. She picked up the other bag and followed Stevie up the stairs.

  Stevie dropped Trudy’s suitcase in the corner of her room. Trudy piled the one she was carrying on top.

  “That’s your bed,” Stevie said, pointing and sitting down on her own bed. Trudy sat on hers. “Does your mother actually let you dress like that?” Stevie asked enviously.

  “Not really,” Trudy said, smiling mischievously. “I mean, she wouldn’t exactly choose these clothes for me, but see, I’m on a clothing allowance, so I get to buy what I want. And this is what I want.”

  “Cool,” Stevie said
. “But how do you do the eye makeup?”

  Trudy offered to show her. Within ten minutes, the bathroom was littered with little plastic containers and foam-rubber applicators. The two girls stood side by side, stretching to be close to the mirror. Trudy demonstrated how to mix colors for the most interesting effect.

  “I’m getting this funny feeling,” Stevie said, admiring the pink and blue butterfly she’d just drawn over her right eye.

  “What’s that?” Trudy asked.

  “I have a suspicion that our mothers thought that if you and I got together for a couple of weeks, I might be a good influence on you.”

  Trudy exploded into a fit of giggles. “We’ll show them,” she said.

  “Yeah, but that’s not even the funniest part,” Stevie said. “The funniest part is that I think it’s the first time in my life anybody’s ever thought I would be a good influence on anybody! Hey, what do you think about a little silver lining on the lower wing of the butterfly?”

  “I think gold would be better,” Trudy told her. “It’ll match the sparkles we’re about to put on your cheeks!”

  “Outrageous!”

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Stevie lay back in bed, watching the patterns that car headlights made on the ceiling of her room. Trudy slept soundly in the bed next to hers. It had been such a busy day that she really needed some time to think about everything that had happened. At first, all she could think of were the wonderful things that had happened, training Samson and meeting Trudy. Then she recalled the bad news about Trudy. She didn’t ride horses. She’d never ridden horses, and she wasn’t especially enthusiastic about learning to ride horses. Stevie would change that, she was sure.

  Then there was the matter of Carole’s money. Nothing was going right on that. Max wouldn’t make it up to her. Lisa wouldn’t give it to her. She just had to get fifteen dollars for Carole. There was no way she could earn it in time. She was going to be much too busy having fun with Samson and Trudy to take on any old baby-sitting jobs. Besides, she’d tried to earn money in the past and hadn’t been awfully successful at it. And she certainly couldn’t steal it like the jerk who had taken Carole’s money in the first place. That left only one possibility. She would have to borrow it. From whom?

  Her mother? No way. Once her mother learned how it had gotten lost, she wouldn’t lend her any money. She’d say exactly what Max had said. Her father? Ditto. Her brothers? Now there was a possibility. She knew that her twin brother, Alex, still had some of his birthday money left. He might lend it to her—but he would want interest. Maybe Michael, her little brother, could be talked into a loan. Her oldest brother, Chad, was out of the question. She didn’t call him Scrooge for nothing! She decided to approach Alex and Michael first thing in the morning.

  There was something else she had to do first thing in the morning. She had to begin working on Trudy to get her to ride. Trudy was a really neat person, but it would be hard for her to be a close friend unless she could ride. The image of Trudy on horseback made Stevie smile to herself in the dark of her room. She just hoped that horses were color-blind!

  THERE WERE TIMES, Lisa thought, when Stevie was just too much. This was one of them.

  It was the day after the disappearance of Stevie’s wallet and the appearance of Trudy. Their riding class was over and The Saddle Club was about to give Samson his next lesson. Stevie was in the locker area of the stable where their classmates were changing out of their riding clothes. Stevie was telling absolutely everybody about the theft of Carole’s money, asking them if they could lend her some, and telling them not to tell Carole. Lisa was quite certain that a secret shared by fifteen girls would not be a secret for long!

  And to top it off, Stevie had talked Trudy into keeping Carole away.

  “Don’t let her out of your sight,” Stevie had said. “Stick to her like a tattoo.”

  Lisa thought that it was an appropriate phrase. Trudy, after all, was dressed like a tattoo! In any event, Trudy and Carole were well out of earshot and Stevie was doing her sales pitch.

  “It’s money she’s been saving for months for her father’s birthday!” Stevie told Anna McWhirter, one of the girls. “It was stolen in broad daylight!”

  “I don’t have a penny to spare,” Anna told Stevie. “I’m saving up to buy myself a new riding hat.”

  “What happened to the old one?” Stevie asked.

  “It just disappeared one day. It was getting too small for me anyway. But until I buy a new one, I have to use the ones here and I’d rather have my own.”

  Just disappeared? That seemed very mysterious to Lisa, and strangely consistent with some other things she’d been observing recently.

  “It seems like things are always disappearing around here,” Veronica diAngelo said. “I’ve never found the riding gloves I used for the gymkhana. They were very expensive, too. I know somebody stole them.”

  Usually, Lisa instantly dismissed everything snooty Veronica said. In this case, she thought she might make an exception.

  Stevie spun to look at Veronica. Lisa knew just what was on her mind. Veronica was very rich. She was the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in town. She was also an unbearable snob and The Saddle Club girls despised her. Nevertheless, in Stevie’s current state of panic, all Stevie was going to be thinking of was how rich Veronica was. Lisa knew Stevie was going to ask Veronica to lend her the fifteen dollars. Lisa knew she wouldn’t be able to watch Stevie with a straight face, so she left the locker area. Stevie gave her a dirty look.

  Lisa headed through the stable and across to Samson’s paddock.

  Trudy stood next to the fence, outside the paddock. She watched Carole silently.

  “Isn’t he cute?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah,” Trudy said. “Nice pony.”

  “He’s actually not a pony,” Lisa said. “A pony is a small horse, not a young horse. Samson is a foal or a colt. When he grows up, he’ll be a horse.” Lisa liked explaining horse facts to other people. It didn’t seem like it was so long ago that she didn’t know anything—when she would have made a mistake like that. She was proud of all she’d learned. It was going to be fun to have somebody new to teach about horses.

  “Looks like a pony to me,” Trudy said.

  Lisa decided to hold off on the lessons for a bit. It was just possible that Trudy wasn’t as eager a student as Lisa had been.

  Carole finished putting the halter and lead rope on Delilah. She handed the lead to Lisa, who looped it around the cleat on the outside of the ring. Lisa knew that the cleat was on the outside for the horses’ safety, and she was all ready to explain it to Trudy, but Trudy didn’t seem very interested. Lisa just did the small chore and returned to Trudy’s side.

  Once again, Carole patted Delilah’s neck to show Samson that they were friends. She held the colt’s halter and lead in her other hand behind her back. Carole was aware that Samson was watching her alertly. As before, she approached him calmly, expecting him to stay by his mother’s side where she could put the halter on him.

  It didn’t go that way. As soon as she rounded Delilah’s rear, Samson took off. That was odd. He didn’t seem frightened of her, he just seemed to want to run. Since she’d rarely seen him run before, except when his mother was also running, she was surprised. She stood still next to Delilah. Samson returned, taking shelter on Delilah’s other side.

  Carole peered around Delilah’s rear. Samson peered around Delilah’s rear. Carole spotted Samson. Samson spotted Carole and hid again quickly. Carole smiled to herself. It was just as if he were playing peekaboo. She squatted down to look at the colt from under his mother’s belly. Samson lowered his head and looked through Delilah’s legs at Carole. As soon as he could see her, he withdrew. Carole laughed again. He was playing peekaboo.

  It was fun, but it wasn’t training.

  Carole stood up and walked calmly around Delilah’s rear. She paused for just a second, but it was enough. Samson took off like a shot. He circled the paddock and then return
ed to his mother’s other side. Carole tried again. So did Samson.

  “What’s going on with you?” she asked. His answer was to run away again.

  It didn’t seem as if he was frightened. He didn’t run in fear. Instead, it was more as if he were playing a game—just the way he’d played peekaboo, only this time, it was tag and she was It.

  When Samson went to circle the paddock yet another time, Carole decided to show him she wasn’t playing the game. She left Delilah’s side and walked over to Trudy and Lisa.

  “What’s going on with him?” Carole asked.

  “I wonder if you could teach him to fetch,” Trudy said. “I got my dog to do it very easily. That kind of game seems to come naturally to a lot of animals.”

  Carole ignored the suggestion. The purpose was not to teach Samson games, but to teach him to wear a halter.

  “Was he doing this yesterday?” Carole asked Lisa.

  “Oh, yes,” Lisa said. “Stevie had a great time with him.”

  “Did she get the halter on him?” Carole asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa answered. “I couldn’t stay very long. But I know she spent a lot of time with him, so she must have.” Lisa glanced at her watch. “Oops, I’ve got to get going now. See you!”

  Carole noticed that there was something secretive about Lisa, and she seemed to be doing a lot of disappearing lately. Normally, Carole would have been very curious. Today, however, she was much more interested in what was going on with Samson.

  “Okay, see you,” she said. She returned her attention to Samson. “Come on, boy. It’s time for you to learn some manners.”

  If Samson thought that the proper way to respond to somebody who was walking toward him was to run, then she’d just have to teach him to walk toward somebody who was standing still. He had to learn to come to a call.

  She stood next to Delilah and whistled. Samson’s ears perked up. He looked at her, interested. She whistled again. She continued that until, finally, the colt walked over to her. As soon as he was within an arm’s length of her, she reached out to pat him—his reward. It was the signal he’d been waiting for, so he bolted, playing tag again.