Phantom Horse

by Bonnie Bryant

  The horse skidded to a stop, and the red glow faded a little from his eyes. Carole concentrated, smiling and talking soothingly. She pictured Starlight the way she had always known and loved him, willing the creature before her to revert to that familiar shape.

  Carole wasn’t sure exactly when or how it happened, but after a few moments had passed the phantom horse turned back into plain, lovable Starlight. At the same time, the entire mood of the dream shifted from forbidding and frightening to normal, even pleasant. Carole heaved a deep sigh of relief. She had the funniest feeling her nightmare week was over. As her dream horse stepped forward to take the carrot from her hand with his soft lips, Carole reached forward to fling her arms around his neck for a long, well-deserved hug.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING a well-rested Carole arrived at the stable early. Barely taking the time to dump her jacket and bag in the locker room, she hurried to Starlight’s stall, her heart in her throat. She had solved the problem of the dream Starlight. Would that solve her problems with the real one?

  As soon as she saw him she knew that it would. Instead of the feelings of dread and nervousness that had followed her to his stall for the past week, she felt joy and affection when she looked at his calm bay face. She knew everything was going to be all right.

  When Stevie and Lisa got to Pine Hollow a half hour later, they found Carole giving Starlight an extralong grooming.

  Lisa, trying to be tactful, decided not to mention the nightmares. But Stevie had no such qualms.

  “So did you have another bad dream?” she asked Carole, not even bothering to say hello first.

  Carole smiled. “Sort of,” she said. “I mean, I had the beginning of the same kind of dream. But the ending was different. I made sure of that.”

  “What do you mean?” Lisa asked, leaning against the wall outside Starlight’s stall.

  “I finally figured out what Mrs. Reg’s story really meant,” Carole explained. “Something Phil said yesterday made me realize it. Remember when he was talking about being himself and shaping his life and everything?”

  Her friends nodded.

  “Well, that made me realize that that was exactly what I wasn’t doing with those dreams,” Carole said. “If I wanted them to turn out differently, I was the only one who could make that happen. So I did.”

  Stevie looked confused, but Lisa just looked surprised. “You mean you changed the dream while you were having it?” Lisa asked. “I’ve read about people doing that, but I wasn’t convinced it would really work.”

  “I wasn’t sure, either,” Carole admitted. “That’s why I didn’t tell you guys yesterday. But I was pretty sure Mrs. Reg believed it would, so I figured it was worth a try. You see, I realized the guy in her story didn’t give up riding because he had a superstition, but because he wasn’t willing to work to change it. So I knew I had to work to change what the dreams were doing to me, and the only way I could think of to do that was to take control of them while I was having them. And it was actually pretty easy once I made up my mind to do it. Last night when Starlight changed into the phantom horse, I just concentrated until he changed right back into Starlight again. And after that, everything was fine.”

  “Wow,” Stevie said, impressed. “Do you think you’ll stop having the nightmares now?”

  Carole shrugged. “I think I probably will. But even if I have one again, now I’ll know what to do.”

  “And Phil’s speech helped you figure it all out?” Stevie said. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that—oh, unless you don’t want me to tell him, that is.”

  “No, it’s okay. You can tell him,” Carole said, dropping Starlight’s grooming tools back in the bucket and giving him a pat. “After all, he is an out-of-town member of The Saddle Club.”

  “And now he’s our only official adult member,” Lisa added with a smile, as the girls headed for the tack room. They had already decided to go on a long trail ride to make up for not riding at all the day before because of the bar mitzvah.

  “Yesterday was quite a day, wasn’t it?” Stevie said, hoisting Belle’s saddle off its rack.

  Carole nodded. “Phil was right. It was a great party.” After the ceremony at the synagogue, Phil and his family and friends had gathered at the Marstens’ house for a big party, complete with music and dancing and lots of food.

  “It was,” Stevie agreed. “But that’s not exactly what I was thinking about.”

  Lisa slung Prancer’s bridle over her shoulder. “I know,” she said. “The party and the presents were a lot of fun. But the best part happened at the synagogue. It’ll be hard to see Phil quite the same way after this, won’t it?”

  “Yes. But in a good way,” Stevie said, leading her friends out of the tack room. She stopped in the hallway, a thoughtful look on her face. “After all, the bar mitzvah didn’t change who Phil is in any important ways. It really did just the opposite, by making him think about who he is. It made him more him, you know?”

  It was a typical confusing Stevie comment, but this time her friends knew exactly what she meant, and they said so.

  “Anyway,” Stevie said with a grin, “Phil may be an adult now, but he hasn’t changed that much.”

  “What are you talking about?” Carole asked.

  “Well, I don’t know if you noticed,” Stevie said, “but toward the end of the party, Phil and I went for a walk—just the two of us.”

  Carole and Lisa exchanged glances and smiles. “We noticed,” they said in one voice.

  “We went out to the barn,” Stevie went on. The Marstens had a small barn behind their house where Phil’s horse, Teddy, lived. “Phil said he wanted to get some fresh air, and also to check on Teddy. What with all the excitement about the bar mitzvah, he was afraid Teddy might have been feeling neglected.” She paused, blushing just a little. “Actually, he said he was afraid I might be feeling the same way.”

  “That’s nice,” Lisa said, leaning against the wall and shifting Prancer’s bridle to her other arm. “So I guess knowing that he still cares about you just as much as ever must have made you feel a lot better about him becoming an adult and everything, right?”

  “Well, sure, I guess so,” Stevie said. “But that was only part of it. You see, while we were talking to Teddy, Phil’s sister Barbara came out to the barn with her new boyfriend.” She grinned. “I guess they were looking for some fresh air, too.”

  Carole smiled. “What happened?”

  “Oh, just what you’d expect from a real adult like Phil,” Stevie said. “We hid in Teddy’s stall, and just when Barbara and her boyfriend were really starting to enjoy the fresh air, Phil starting talking in this really deep voice, pretending to be Teddy.” She laughed at the memory. “Boy, you should have seen the look on Barbara’s boyfriend’s face when he heard Teddy scolding him for luring Barbara out to the barn.”

  Carole and Lisa laughed, too. “Adult or not, I guess Phil’s still the same person he always was,” Lisa said.

  “Thank goodness for that,” Carole added. “I like Phil just the way he is.”

  “Me too. But I never had any doubts,” Stevie said airily.

  Then Lisa frowned. “It’s too bad we’ve had a few too many doubts about certain other people lately,” she said.

  “You mean like Troy Lasker, for instance?” Stevie asked.

  “And Shannon,” Lisa added. “She turned out to be really nice, even if she is a little shy. But just because we didn’t know either of them that well we jumped to all kinds of conclusions.”

  “I know,” Stevie said. “I’ve been feeling bad about that.”

  “It’s not all our fault,” Carole said. “Troy does act kind of different sometimes, and his sense of humor can be downright weird. And Shannon was pretty mysterious about that bracelet, right?”

  “We still shouldn’t have decided they were criminals just based on that stuff,” Lisa insisted. “Would you assume a horse was no good just because he was a funny color or had big ear
s?”

  “Of course not,” Carole said immediately. “The most important thing about a horse isn’t the way he looks. It’s whether he’s sound, has a good disposition, and is generally healthy.”

  “And you can’t always tell those things at first glance, right?” Lisa said. “If you just went by appearances, you could end up with a beautiful horse with a terrible personality. Or you could pass up a wonderful horse just because he’d been rolling in the dirt and looked like a mess.”

  “I see what you mean,” Carole admitted.

  Stevie nodded. “Me too,” she said. “If we just went by first impressions, we might actually think Veronica diAngelo was a good person just because she’s always neatly dressed and pressed. And if we’d never gotten beyond our first impression of Shannon, we might never have realized what an interesting person she really is.”

  Carole glanced at Stevie, who as usual was wearing a pair of faded jeans, a shirt that had seen better days, and a battered pair of boots. “If everyone only went by appearances, you might not have any friends at all, Stevie,” Carole teased.

  “Very funny,” Stevie said, sticking out her tongue. “But you’re right. We weren’t very nice to Troy or Shannon. And we certainly weren’t very good detectives. A good detective would have gathered more evidence before deciding on a suspect.”

  “Speaking of detectives, I finally finished my book last night,” Lisa said. “And guess what? Remember that character I said reminded me of Troy? He wasn’t guilty after all. In fact, he saved the detective’s life at the end and helped her solve the mystery. It turned out that the butler did it.”

  “See? At least we weren’t the only ones who suspected someone without enough evidence,” Stevie said.

  “True,” Lisa said. “But as my father would say, the important thing is to learn from your mistakes. The detective decided she would think twice before she made the same mistake again. Maybe that’s some advice The Saddle Club should take, too.”

  And as the other two girls headed off in different directions to saddle their horses, they couldn’t help agreeing with that.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BONNIE BRYANT is the author of many books for young readers, including novelizations of movie hits such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, written under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

  Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

  Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.

  Don’t miss Bonnie Bryant’s next exciting Saddle Club adventure …

  HOBBYHORSE

  The Saddle Club #60

  Lisa’s horrid, bratty cousin Amelia is staying with the Atwoods. The nine-year-old nightmare child is charming around adults, but to other kids she’s a menace! First Amelia spooks old Patch into causing a stampede of horses that almost gets Pine Hollow’s owner trampled. Then she breaks an expensive hobbyhorse the Atwoods own and tells Mrs. Atwood that Lisa did it. The Saddle Club plans to teach Amelia a lesson she’ll never forget!