Horse Blues

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Look, I’ll vow to embroider every day!” Lisa said exasperatedly. “Would that be satisfactory? Or I’ll—I’ll—” She floundered, trying to think of something that would convince Stevie that learning embroidery was at least as tough a resolution as being nice to Veronica. After all, Lisa wasn’t a lagger! Why, she worked harder than anyone she knew at school. She certainly didn’t intend to bring up the rear when it came to these resolutions. “I know,” she said, with a sudden inspiration. “I’ll vow to embroider something for the bake sale, okay? How about a tablecloth and napkins? We can sell them at the end of the sale.”

  “That’s a great idea, Lisa!” Carole said. “Then your resolution would have a real purpose. You’ll make your mom happy and you’ll also earn some money for Horse Wise.”

  Stevie had to agree that Lisa’s suggestion was a good one. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “That sounds fair.”

  “Of course, we haven’t thought up an incentive yet, so maybe we should just …” Lisa let her voice trail off. The resolutions were her idea. So she, of all of them, shouldn’t be the one to suggest that they forget about keeping them. Besides, they were a good idea! It would be good for Stevie to lay off Veronica for a while, it would be good for Carole to eat better food, and, Lisa thought with a sigh, it would be good for her to learn embroidery.

  “Maybe we should just what, Lisa?” Stevie challenged her.

  “Maybe we should—should think of something really terrible to prevent ourselves from breaking our resolutions,” Lisa said in a hurry, trying to keep herself from sounding as defensive as she felt.

  “Maybe we should change the subject,” Carole said more quietly.

  That was all the urging Stevie and Lisa needed. As soon as they switched to a new topic, the girls began to chat amiably. They compared notes on their morning rides, agreed that Mrs. Reg was as loony as ever, and eventually began to discuss the bake sale. Lisa suggested that they spend some time at Pine Hollow going over the Horse Wise equipment to see what they needed. “And I also told my mom that we would make the signs for the bake sale,” Lisa said, “and then give them to other members to distribute around Willow Creek.”

  “Great. We can do that Monday,” Carole volunteered.

  Stevie said that she thought Lisa’s mother would do an excellent job of running the sale.

  “If she runs it anything like she runs the PTA Holiday Wreath Sale, Horse Wise is going to rake in the money,” Lisa predicted. “I just hope she has enough volunteers.”

  “Speaking of which, we absolutely must recruit members. We should call every single person who’s ever been a part of Horse Wise and make them rejoin the club,” Carole said.

  “I agree,” Stevie said, hazel eyes twinkling, “and I think there’s one call that Lisa should make.”

  Lisa burst into laughter. “Just when I thought it was safe to forget all about Simon Atherton, he’s back!” she said, mocking an advertisement for a horror movie.

  “And if you don’t watch out,” Carole said menacingly, “he’s going to get you!”

  The girls found their joke so amusing that they spent the next ten minutes thinking up fake scenarios involving Simon Atherton. “Picture this,” Stevie said. “You’re at the water fountain, taking a drink. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a pair of feet approaching in sturdy, sensible shoes. You look up—it’s him! And he wants to eat lunch with you!”

  “No, no, no.” Lisa waved her hands. “It’s like this: You’re at Pine Hollow. It’s deserted—or so you think. All of a sudden, behind you, someone says, ‘Excuse me, Miss Atwood? Would you do me the honor of discussing tomorrow’s algebra assignment on horseback as we wend our way down a local trail?’ ”

  Stevie and Carole snorted with laughter. Lisa could perfectly imitate Simon’s formal speech and his upper-class, English way of talking. “I guess for the sake of Horse Wise, though, we have to call him if he’s back in town as Mrs. Reg says,” Lisa commented.

  “Attagirl,” said Stevie, toasting water glasses with Lisa. “Do it for the club.”

  “Me? Who said anything about me?” Lisa joked.

  Carole sighed with relief—not because she knew that one of them would relent and call Simon, but because Stevie and Lisa were acting normal toward each other again. Usually Stevie’s and Lisa’s opposing personalities complemented each other. Even though Lisa got straight As and Stevie barely got by, both girls were smart. Both were funny, too, though their senses of humor were very different. But on the rare occasions that the girls clashed, they clashed hard. Then it fell to Carole to act as the peacemaker between them. When her best friends argued, it was upsetting. She often thought how much simpler it would be if they could just bare their teeth at one another the way horses did. Then everything would be out in the open. There would be no hidden tensions that surfaced all of a sudden.

  “What do you think, Carole?” Lisa asked.

  Carole focused on Lisa’s expectant face. “Huh? What do I think about what?”

  “Have you been spacing out again, Carole?” Stevie teased. “Thinking about Starlight’s smooth canter again?”

  Carole grinned. “Actually, this was one of the few times I was thinking about people and not horses. What did I miss?”

  “Stevie has come up with a brilliant idea,” Lisa announced.

  “For the bake sale? For Horse Wise?” asked Carole.

  “Nope. For us,” said Lisa. “So we don’t break our resolutions.”

  “What?” asked Carole nervously, afraid that the idea was going to be something that would create more aggravation among the three of them.

  Lisa and Stevie twittered for a moment. Then Stevie burst out, “Simon Atherton!”

  “Simon Atherton?” said Carole, not comprehending.

  “Yes, Simon Atherton,” said Lisa. “Whichever one of us breaks our resolution first has to call up Simon and ask him out on a date!”

  “A date?” Carole asked. “You mean a real date?”

  “Yup, a real date, like going to the movies together,” said Stevie.

  Lisa and Stevie watched to see how Carole would react. Slowly Carole began to grin. First she grinned a little, then a lot. “I can tell you one thing: I sure as heck am not going to be the one to lose!”

  “That’s exactly what I said!” Lisa agreed.

  “Imagine what Phil would say if I lost!” Stevie wailed. “Imagine if I had to tell him that I was going out for an evening with someone else, and that the someone else was Simon Atherton!”

  Lisa and Carole shrieked with delight. Phil Marsten was Stevie’s boyfriend. The two had been going out for a while, but it wasn’t so serious that if Stevie really wanted to (or in this case, had to) go to the movies with another boy she couldn’t. Phil would probably be annoyed, but Stevie would make him put up with it. And, as Stevie always said, just because she was going out with Phil didn’t mean she couldn’t be interested in other boys. Of course, usually when she said that, she didn’t have Simon Atherton in mind.

  “So, problem solved,” Lisa declared.

  “Problem solved,” Stevie agreed.

  Carole took one last sip of her lemonade. She peeled the lid off the cup and looked at the ice in the bottom. She sighed. Right about now she would really have enjoyed a big chocolate chip cone. Instead she slurped up some of the sugary water. “You guys?” she said. “I have a suggestion.”

  Lisa and Stevie looked up readily.

  “Lisa,” Carole continued, “maybe you can embroider every day from here until eternity, and Stevie, maybe you’ll never be mean to Veronica again, but personally, I need to put a time limit on my resolution, because there’s no way I’m giving up junk food for life.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Stevie said at once.

  “Of course there should be a time limit!” Lisa said. “Without a doubt!”

  “Oh, good,” said Carole, relieved that she had at least partially expressed her opinion. “How about three months?”

  “Three mo
nths? How about two?” Stevie said.

  “Forget two. One month is plenty,” Lisa jumped in.

  “One month, then?” Carole asked. There was a pause as the three girls looked at one another. Carole had the funny feeling that there was something they weren’t saying—that somehow they were still being dishonest with one another.

  “You know—” said Stevie.

  “We could—” said Lisa.

  Both of them broke off abruptly and looked down at their empty dishes.

  “I guess I’d better get home,” Carole said finally.

  “That’s what I was going to say,” Stevie said right away.

  “Me too—got to get home and start that embroidery,” Lisa said, doing her best to smile at the prospect. After making a plan to meet at Pine Hollow the following afternoon, the three girls put money down for the check and left—even more quietly than they had come in.

  “WHAT THE—?” Lisa sat up in bed, disoriented.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Mrs. Atwood knocked on the door and then poked her head in.

  “Oh, yeah, Mom.” Lisa rubbed her eyes. Scattered over the bed were scissors, needles, thread, and a paperback entitled Embroidery Made Fun and Easy. “I was just doing some background reading,” Lisa explained hastily.

  “All right, I don’t want to disturb you. I just wanted to tell you that dinner’s in half an hour, so you can set the table in fifteen minutes or so.” Mrs. Atwood began to close the door behind her.

  “Mom?” Lisa asked, remembering her thoughts before she had fallen asleep. “Do you think the bake sale will be a success?”

  “I hope so, Lisa. If I have anything to say about it, it will be. I called a few more mothers and fathers this afternoon, and everyone seems very willing to help. Oh, and I ran into Connie Atherton uptown, and she said that her son is—”

  “Connie who?” Lisa cried, fully awake at once.

  Mrs. Atwood gave Lisa a strange look. “Connie Atherton, sweetheart. You know the Athertons, don’t you? I think Simon is about your age. Anyway, they’re just back from Texas, and Mrs. Atherton said that Simon is very eager to start riding at Pine Hollow again, so I told her you’d give him a call.” Mrs. Atwood beamed at her daughter. “There’s a new Horse Wise member right there,” she said. “Right?”

  As soon as the door closed, Lisa lay back against her pillows and covered her eyes. Here it was, the first of January, and already the year was horrible! For starters, Max’s surprise announcement that Horse Wise was in jeopardy. Then her own stupid promise to embroider a whole tablecloth—not to mention a set of napkins—in two weeks. And now the whole world seemed to be conspiring to throw her back together with Simon Atherton. She was not going to end up calling him for a date, no matter what. Whoever did lose the bet, Lisa thought wryly, was going to be in for an evening she would never forget.

  First of all, to get the conversation going, Simon would probably want to talk about the advanced calculus class he was no doubt taking by now. And forget going to a movie—that was way too normal for Simon. Lisa was sure he’d suggest staying home and looking at the stamp collection he was so proud of.

  But there was something else bothering Lisa, too—something that, by comparison, made Simon Atherton seem like a pleasant problem to have. Lisa couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but it seemed as if Stevie and Carole were angry at her. But what had she done? Yes, she had suggested the resolutions, but they could have said no or backed out any time. And why should they care, when Lisa’s resolution was by far the most difficult? All Carole had to do was say no to chips and dessert; all Stevie had to do was treat Veronica like a normal human being. Yet they’d been acting as if they had agreed to run a marathon! Obviously, they just weren’t used to discipline.

  Lisa set her lips in a thin line. Let them keep up their complaining. Lisa, at least, was going to make something of this new year. She was going to get something accomplished and help Horse Wise while she was at it. She’d amaze Stevie, Carole, her mother, Mrs. Reg, Max—everyone—with how fast she’d learn to embroider! Not just to avoid Simon, but to win.

  Lisa grabbed the embroidery book. She turned to the first page. It had a picture of a smiling woman wearing a turtleneck and jumper. The jumper was embroidered with animals, trees, and flowers in a complicated pattern. “Impress your friends with beautifully embroidered clothing and linens!” read the caption underneath the photograph.

  Lisa grinned. She liked the sound of “impress your friends.” Humming excitedly, she turned to the index at the back of the book. There was no entry under “tablecloths,” but after a minute’s searching she found “kitchen and bath linens.” Under that heading, the book suggested the fishbone stitch:

  Bring the thread through at (A) and make a small straight stitch along the center line of the shape. Bring the thread through again at (B) and make a sloping stitch across the center line at the base of the first stitch. Bring the thread through at (C) and make an overlapping, sloping stitch, which you will alternate with the French knots and previously mastered fly and coral stitches. Then return to point (A) and …

  Lisa’s eyes began to swim. She couldn’t concentrate. She had a sudden flashback to a school day the year before. She’d misread her assignment pad and found herself sitting in class, taking a math test that she hadn’t studied for. Only the math test had been easier to figure out than these stitches.

  CAROLE’S STOMACH GRUMBLED loudly. She hadn’t heard her father go into the kitchen, but it had to be almost dinnertime. After getting home from TD’s, Carole had eaten a turkey sandwich and an apple, forgoing her usual snack-sized bag of chips. Then, for an afternoon snack, she’d eaten a pear instead of the chocolate bar she would have preferred. Now she was starving. If only her father would—

  “Carole! Hungry yet?”

  Carole jumped up at the sound of her father’s voice. “Coming!” she yelled.

  “Grab a coat. We’re going out tonight!” Colonel Hanson called.

  Even better, Carole thought. At restaurants it was easy to eat a lot of food that wasn’t junk. “Where to, Dad?” she asked, coming downstairs.

  “To Willow Creek’s finest,” Colonel Hanson joked. “Pizza Town!”

  Carole’s face fell.

  “Bundle up, it’s cold out,” her father said.

  As she put on mittens and a scarf, Carole tried to think of a polite way to tell her father that she couldn’t eat pizza. Maybe she could just suggest a different place.

  In the car on the way over, Carole said, “Are you sure you want to go to Pizza Town, Dad?”

  “Yes sirree!” Colonel Hanson answered. “I can taste that pepperoni and sausage now—mmmmmm. Maybe we should get two mediums instead of one large for more variety. Plus we could have the leftovers tomorrow. What do you think?”

  Before Carole could reply, Colonel Hanson rushed on. “Say, we still have to discuss the bake sale, too, don’t we? What do you want to make?”

  Carole smiled in spite of herself. Colonel Hanson was definitely not one of the parents who needed to be coaxed into putting more time and energy into Horse Wise! “I thought we could make lemon squares,” Carole suggested.

  “My feelings exactly,” Colonel Hanson said seriously. “And I know someone else is bringing chocolate chip cookies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make double-chocolate chippers, does it?”

  Carole laughed at her dad’s solemn tone. “No, Dad, I don’t think that would be a problem.”

  “Phew. So, it’s decided then. I’ll run our choices by Mrs. Atwood as soon as possible. Boy, am I glad that woman is organizing it. Wow, all this talking about food has gotten me hungry.… Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let’s get the pizza to go. Then we can stop on the way home and rent a movie. How does that sound?”

  “The movie sounds good,” Carole said slowly, stalling for time. “But maybe we should go to the vegetarian restaurant and get take-out salads instead.” She held her breath to see what her father would say.

 
“Ha-ha! Good one, Carole!” Colonel Hanson slapped his thigh. “And after that, I’ll steam some brown rice and vegetables!”

  “But Dad—” Carole stopped. Her suggestion hadn’t produced exactly the reaction she’d expected.

  Still laughing at what he thought was a joke, Carole’s father continued, “For breakfast, we can eat raw carrots! Or some of that hot wheat cereal, right? No more Sugar Pops. And then …”

  In vain, Carole tried to interrupt as her father went on making fun of “rabbit food.” After listening for a few minutes, Carole realized that she should have known better. Other friends’ parents had been hit by the health kick, but not her father. His idea of a healthy meal was ordering fried chicken instead of fried steak! Since her mother had died, Carole had pretty much gone along with her father’s eating habits. But now, with the New Year’s resolution, it was time to make a few changes.

  “Dad,” Carole said, in a clear, firm voice.

  “Don’t worry, honey—I haven’t forgotten the movie snacks! We’ll pick up some chocolate-covered raisins and microwave popcorn and Jujyfruits, too.”

  Carole studied her father’s profile. He looked as excited as a little boy. She couldn’t wreck his plan with her silly resolution! Why had she ever let Lisa talk her into it in the first place? It was easy for Lisa. All she had to do was pick up a needle and thread for half an hour, not change her whole diet!

  “It’s your last night of vacation. Might as well make it a classic Hanson movie night, huh?”

  “That would be great, Dad, but listen, I have something to ask you.”

  “Yes?”

  Tell him, Carole said to herself. No more junk food! “Can we make one of the pizzas mushroom and pepper?” she asked instead. How sinful could a vegetarian pizza be?

  Colonel Hanson grinned. “Great. That ought to balance the pepperoni and sausage. Say, do you want to invite Stevie to join us?”