Horse Show

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Great idea, if you’ve got about three hours to unload your suitcases!”

  Lisa considered the size of the task and made up her mind. “All right, let’s explore and never unpack!”

  The girls hurried downstairs.

  They found Max and Dorothy having a heated discussion, almost an argument, about whether the girls could go out into the city by themselves.

  “I’ll give them a map, Max. They can find their way around the neighborhood by themselves.”

  “But their parents!” Max protested. “I promised them the girls would be safe!”

  “They will be,” Dorothy said calmly. “It’s broad daylight. It’s a warm afternoon and the streets will be filled with pedestrians.”

  “Or muggers,” Max said darkly.

  “No self-respecting mugger is going to take a wallet from a thirteen-year-old girl. They know from experience that all they’ll get is a couple of dollars and a picture of Tom Cruise clipped from Teen Month.”

  “Skye Ransom,” Stevie corrected her. “Tom Cruise is too old.”

  Max and Dorothy looked at her in surprise and then burst into laughter. Max shook his head. “You win,” he said to Dorothy. “Give them the map. Give them your phone number. Out they go!”

  “Don’t worry, Max,” Lisa reassured in her straight-A-student voice. “After all, we’re country girls. We’re used to following cow paths. Greenwich Village will be a breeze.”

  “Okay, already.” Max relented totally.

  It took a few more minutes for Dorothy to arm them with everything they needed. She highlighted streets on the map where they could find quaint houses, and then she marked where the best shopping would be for them and showed them where they’d find the city’s famous Washington Square Park. Dorothy was obviously a history buff, as well as a championship rider, and she told them more interesting things about the development of the neighborhood.

  “This whole section, where you’ll find the fun stores, is in the heart of a big university. It’s a really fun area, so enjoy yourselves.”

  “And don’t talk to strangers, don’t buy anything that’s not from a store. Don’t cross streets against the light. Always have a quarter handy for a phone call. Keep your money carefully put away at the bottom of your purses. And stay together,” Max said. He paused to take a breath.

  Lisa thought he was about to add to his list of warnings, but Dorothy cut him off. “What he means is use your common sense, girls.”

  That was something they could understand.

  It took them exactly three minutes to get lost. They left Dorothy’s, went to the corner of her block, turned right, and then turned left at the next corner.

  Lisa consulted the map. “We’re supposed to be here,” she said, but when she looked at the street signs, they were nowhere near “here.”

  “I don’t care,” Stevie said boldly. She peered around a corner. “Look, there’s a fun-looking shop. Let’s go see what they’ve got.”

  It was a fun shop. It had a great selection of sweaters, all of which the girls liked and none of which they could afford.

  “Look at this gorgeous turtleneck,” Lisa said, picking up a heather-colored angora. “I wish I could get it.”

  “That’s all she needs,” Stevie said. “Something else to pack!”

  “Come on,” Carole told her friends. “Let’s get moving. We’ve got so much to see.”

  “If only we knew where we were,” Lisa said.

  “It doesn’t matter where we are. When the time comes, we’ll figure it out and get back. For now, let’s go!” Stevie said, cheering on her friends.

  The rule when they were riding horses was that the person in the lead was in charge. They followed the same principle adventuring in New York. Lisa was glad Stevie was in the lead. If she’d been in charge herself, she would have insisted on following the map, and it turned out to be much more fun to wander.

  “Check that out!” Carole said, her jaw dropping open.

  Lisa looked in the direction Carole was pointing. There, coming toward them, was a man with short cropped blond hair—at least most of it was blond. The longer part along the top of his head, Mohawk style, was actually a bright pink.

  “Nice,” Stevie said. “See how the pink perfectly matches the feathers in his earrings!”

  Lisa snorted with laughter. The man was close enough to hear, but he did not appear to notice the girls gaping at him.

  “I wonder how he did it!” Carole said.

  “I think it’s the kind of thing you have to get done,” Lisa said. “After all, nobody’s best friend would do that for them, would they?”

  “Worst enemy, maybe,” Stevie suggested. “Do you suppose he actually paid money to have that done?”

  “Yeah, and here comes another one, too,” Carole said.

  The girls stopped walking and looked. This time the hairdo was on a woman. She probably actually had a lot of hair, but it had been moussed flat against her head on the sides. At the top, it stood straight on end, from ear to ear, and had been fashioned into large green spikes.

  “And I thought we had to take a boat to get to the Statue of Liberty!” Stevie said. The girls giggled to themselves.

  This time, the subject of their laughter did notice the attention. “Like it?” she asked.

  “It’s interesting,” Stevie offered.

  “Well, there’s this place,” the woman said. “It’s right around the corner. They’ll do anything you can describe. I couldn’t make up my mind between this and a sort of rainbow look, you know? Think I made the right choice?”

  Even Stevie could not think of anything to say to that. The girls just nodded.

  “We’ve got to see this place,” Carole said. The girls followed directions and found themselves standing in front of a large barbershop filled with customers.

  “There must be a hundred people in there!” Lisa noted. “Are they all getting colored spikes?”

  “I dare you,” Stevie said to Lisa.

  Tentatively, Lisa felt her long hair. She could use a cut. She didn’t think spikes were a really good idea.

  “I double-dare you,” Carole said. “Your hair’s getting shaggy. You do need a cut.”

  There was something about being alone with her friends in New York City that gave Lisa a surge of energy. She didn’t really feel like straight-A-student Lisa Atwood, quiet little junior-high-school girl of Willow Creek, Virginia. She felt positively daring.

  “Okay,” she said. “Wait for me here.”

  Leaving two astonished friends outside the barbershop, Lisa entered. Although there had been some weird hairdos coming out, there were plenty of normal-looking customers emerging, too. Lisa was determined to be one of them.

  “Just a regular cut,” she told the woman sitting on a ladder inside the shop. The woman directed her to an operator named Joyce at the back of the large room.

  It only took a few minutes. Lisa had never had her hair cut so fast in her life. And Joyce was good, too. First she trimmed Lisa’s long hair to about shoulder length. She also cut one side at a slight angle, longer in the front than in the back. “The wavy bob is really popular,” the woman told her. It made Lisa look mature and worldly and that was exactly the way Lisa was feeling that day.

  Feeling very grown up, she paid for the cut, gave Joyce a tip, and emerged from the shop.

  “Cool!” Stevie said enviously. Carole nodded agreement. Lisa smiled happily. There was a whole new her emerging in the magic of the city.

  “If my watch is right, it’s time to head back toward Dorothy’s, so we’d better get unlost now,” Lisa said. She pulled out the map and did some serious work.

  It took a few minutes to locate themselves. They stopped six people to ask where they were. Two did not speak English. Three were from out of town. The sixth showed them that they only had to cross the park and walk a couple of blocks to get to Dorothy’s. It seemed like a long walk, but they set off.

  The park turned out to be
the one Dorothy had talked about, Washington Square Park. As soon as the girls saw it, they recognized the arch from movies and television shows about the city.

  “We’ve got to check this out!” Stevie said, leading the way. It was a warm late afternoon and the park was filled with people. The first thing the girls noticed were crowds gathered in circles. One crowd watched a juggler tossing burning torches in the air while sitting on a unicycle. Stevie put a quarter in his hat.

  “Isn’t that the quarter you’re supposed to use to call Max if we can’t find our way home?” Lisa asked.

  “Sure, it is,” Stevie said. “But who cares if we ever find our way home? I love this place! And look, something else is going on over there!”

  They went over to the next crowd and found a group of four men dressed as the Beatles doing old Beatles songs.

  “I wish Dad could see this!” Carole said. “They’re great!” Carole’s father loved old music from the fifties and sixties.

  “There’s another crowd!” Lisa said, tugging at her friends’ sleeves. “Let’s see what’s going on over there.”

  The threesome walked to the other side of the big fountain in the center of the park to see why a crowd had gathered. It was a bigger crowd than any of the others. As they got closer, they could see that the ground was almost covered with thick black electrical wires. There was a small section of railroad track and on it was a little seat and camera.

  Someone was making a movie!

  On further examination, they realized that the whole area of the park was roped off. Six trailers were lined up at the edge of the park, and nearby, in the park, there were empty director’s chairs with names printed across the backs.

  “Hey, if we can read the names, we can see who’s in the movie,” Stevie said, edging around.

  “We could ask, too,” Carole suggested.

  “Yeah, we could,” Stevie said, but she continued to move toward the chairs.

  Lisa didn’t have to. She knew what movie was being filmed in New York and she knew who was starring in it.

  “It’s Skye Ransom’s movie, City Cowboy,” she informed her friends.

  “Do you think?” Stevie asked. She squinted at the chairs. An astonished look crossed her face. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “It just had to be,” Lisa explained. “Remember when we were talking about Skye and how his movie is being filmed in New York? If we wait long enough, we’ll probably see Skye Ransom in person.”

  “There’s no guarantee of that,” Carole reminded Lisa. “And there goes a pizza being delivered to one of the trailers over there. That must be where they have the wardrobe and makeup rooms—and the stars’ dressing rooms, too! If they’re getting pizza, they must be on dinner break. No way we can wait until their break is over. Max will have kittens if we’re late. I think Dorothy’s taking us to Chinatown for dinner.”

  “No problem.” Lisa shrugged. “This trip is perfect, so I just know our paths will cross. It’s fate!”

  Stevie glanced over at Carole and they both laughed. Lisa wasn’t usually this excitable.

  “Anyway,” Lisa continued, “we can come back tomorrow morning and we’ll see Skye Ransom then, for sure. For now, we’d better go back to Dorothy’s.” She consulted the map again. “This way!” she said, and led her friends through the rest of the maze of the park—past another juggler, a rhythm-and-blues band, and the most unlikely collection of chess players they’d ever seen.

  Her new haircut bounced as she walked. She liked the feel of it. In fact, she liked everything about New York.

  THE NEXT DAY began with a big disappointment for The Saddle Club. They were up and out of the house before breakfast. Lisa just had to get back to Washington Square Park for a glimpse of Skye Ransom on the set. Carole and Stevie came along, as eager as Lisa to see their idol.

  The park was almost totally empty at that early hour. Not only were there no jugglers and musicians, but there were no wires, lights, director’s chairs, or trailers. It was clear at a glance that they were not going to see Skye Ransom at work in the park.

  “Oh, drat,” Stevie said. “Maybe we should have stayed yesterday.”

  “If we’d stayed yesterday, Max would still be yelling at us,” Carole reminded her. “We didn’t really have a choice.”

  “She’s right,” Lisa told Stevie, but she wished it were not true.

  Dejected, the three girls returned to Dorothy’s. They found the adults discussing the day’s plan.

  “The show doesn’t really start until tomorrow,” Dorothy was saying. “And when I told the Mallendorfs you were coming up for a visit, they insisted on taking us out on their boat. The trouble is, they just don’t have room for the girls to come, too.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to cancel, then,” Max said. “We certainly can’t leave the girls here alone.”

  “Max, whatever turned you into such an overbearing fuddy-duddy?” Dorothy asked. Stevie hid a smile. Max seemed to be taking the weight of the responsibility for The Saddle Club very seriously. He was turning into a worrywart before their very eyes.

  “Well, if anything happened to them …” he began.

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” Dorothy assured him. “You wouldn’t be worried if they were spending the day on horses, would you?”

  “Of course not,” Max said. “They know what they’re doing on horses!”

  “That’s just what I thought you’d say and so it’s what I arranged.” She turned to the girls. “You brought riding clothes, didn’t you?” The girls nodded. “All right. I’ve made arrangements for you to ride in Central Park today. The owner of the stables is my friend and I’ve guaranteed him you girls know what you’re doing on horses.” She turned back to Max. “Satisfied?” she asked.

  He smiled at her. “You always could outfox me, you know. And I have a certain grudging admiration for any student of mine who thinks she knows more than I do. I give up. You’re in charge of this ragtag bunch of riders. You’re going to win all the arguments anyway, so go ahead. Make plans without consulting me.”

  “Don’t worry. I will,” Dorothy said. Then she winked at the girls.

  The girls changed into their riding clothes. Dorothy gave them complete instructions on how to get to the stable and what to expect, then gave them money for taxis (and lessons on tipping). Dorothy’s mother wasn’t going on the boat trip, so she’d be home to let the girls in when they got back.

  Max put them in a taxi. Stevie was relieved to see that he refrained from giving them another long list of “don’ts.” Apparently, when he’d relented to Dorothy, he’d meant it. All he said was that they should have fun—and they already intended to do that.

  They soon discovered that a stable in New York was very different from one in Willow Creek. This one was actually an old garage. It had no pasture and no paddocks. They looked around while the owner talked to another new rider. The ring was indoors. It was dark and small. The horses were apparently housed both above and below the ring. The girls expected to tack up their horses, but they saw that when other people’s horses arrived, the tack was already on. Everything had been done but tightening the girths. The riders were not even allowed in the stabling area.

  “What a way to go!” Stevie said.

  “I don’t know,” Carole said. “I sort of think taking care of the horse, like tacking up, is part of riding. It’s nice to have somebody else do the work sometimes, but I think I’d miss it if I never got to tack up.”

  “Feel the same way about mucking out?” Stevie asked.

  “Well … I think I can draw the line there,” Carole said quickly, laughing. Nobody liked mucking out—not even horse crazy people.

  The owner glanced up at them questioningly, and they introduced themselves. He was expecting them. He looked them over carefully, as if he could tell whether they were good riders by the way they stood in the waiting area. Dorothy had promised him that the girls were skilled riders and definitely trustworthy. The look on
his face showed doubt.

  “But Dorothy said you girls were good and if anybody knows what she’s talking about, Dorothy DeSoto does. Besides, I’m too busy now to spend time second-guessing Dorothy. Your horses will be down in a few minutes. Your instructor is Marta. She’s the one in the green pants, over there in the ring.”

  They left the office and walked through the soft dirt that covered the ring’s concrete floor and introduced themselves to their instructor. It was not that they really needed or wanted a lesson, but this was not Willow Creek and they were not permitted into Central Park without an instructor—at least not until they’d proved to Marta that they were good riders.

  Marta was really nice. She told the girls that she’d been riding since she was a little girl and all she’d ever wanted to do was to ride. She came from Ohio, where she could ride all the time, and when her husband had gotten a job in New York, she didn’t know what she’d do. She’d been pleased to learn that people actually ride horses in the city.

  “There’s your horse, Carole,” she said, pointing to a pinto who lumbered up the stairs from the basement.

  Stevie’s and Lisa’s horses arrived from upstairs a few minutes later. Stevie was on a bay and Lisa’s was a roan. Marta was riding a big chestnut. When everybody had mounted, the owner opened the big electric garage door and they were off.

  The park was a few blocks from the stable. They walked slowly, obeying the traffic laws. Stevie was unsettled by the cars whizzing by, to say nothing of the sirens and the noises of garbage trucks. The horses didn’t seem to notice. Stevie asked Marta about it.

  “Oh, these horses have seen it all,” she said. “They know about New York traffic—even the crazy drivers. They might act up if they hear something weird like a crow cawing, but an itty-bitty siren won’t worry them at all.”

  Stevie knew Marta was joking, but she also knew that Marta was right. Her horse was as calm as could be. It gave her some confidence.

  Central Park was in the heart of Manhattan. Stevie knew it as a big square of green on a map, and now she was greeting it in person for the first time. It wasn’t quite what she’d expected.