Horse Trouble

by Bonnie Bryant

  Read all the Saddle Club books!

  Horse Crazy

  Horse Shy

  Horse Sense

  Horse Power

  Trail Mates

  Dude Ranch

  Horse Play

  Horse Show

  Hoof Beat

  Riding Camp

  Horse Wise

  Rodeo Rider

  Starlight Christmas

  Sea Horse

  Team Play

  Horse Games

  Horsenapped

  Pack Trip

  Star Rider

  Snow Ride

  Racehorse

  Fox Hunt

  Horse Trouble

  Ghost Rider

  Copyright © 1992 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller

  Cover art copyright © 1992 by George Tsui

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  “The Saddle Club” is a registered trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller.

  “USPC” and “Pony Club” are registered trademarks of the United States Pony Clubs, Inc., at The Kentucky Horse Park, 4071 Iron Works Pike, Lexington, KY 40511-8462.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-82504-9

  Originally published by Bantam Skylark in August 1992

  First Delacorte Ebook Edition 2012

  v3.1_r1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  TO THE RESCUE!

  “Mrs. Reg is gone for the week,” Max said. “She had to go visit a sick friend who called her yesterday afternoon. She won’t be back until Friday, and there are a zillion and one things she left me to do. This is a very busy week.… I don’t know how I’ll ever—”

  The phone rang. Max picked it up. He barely said a word, but as soon as he hung up, he dashed back out the door.

  “This is our chance, girls,” Stevie said. “It gives us a four-day head start on finishing what we started last night. We’re going to run Pine Hollow for Max this week while Mrs. Reg is gone. It’s the perfect opportunity for the three of us to be everywhere, look everywhere, do everything. If that pin is here, anywhere, we’re going to find it.”

  “And if we don’t?” Carole asked.

  Stevie shrugged. “Well, then, we will have spent the week earning dozens and dozens of brownie points. How could Max and Mrs. Reg want to kill us when we’re indispensable.…”

  LISA ATWOOD FELT great. It was a Monday afternoon, and she’d managed to spend almost every minute of the day at Pine Hollow Stable. She’d spent one hour of that time in a jump class and two hours on a trail ride with her Pony Club, Horse Wise. Summer was her favorite time of year because it meant she could spend a lot of time with horses.

  It also meant she could spend a lot of time with friends. Her two best friends, Stevie Lake and Carole Hanson, loved horses just as much as she did. The three of them were all so wild about horses that they had formed their own group, The Saddle Club. There were only two requirements for membership. The first was that the members had to be horse crazy. The second was that they had to be willing to help one another out, no matter what the problem was. When one of the girls got into trouble, two friends were always there to help get her out. Lisa liked that, although she wasn’t usually the one who got into trouble.

  Even the fact that the girls had all been given chores to do around the stable after class didn’t dispel Lisa’s happy mood. She knew it was one of the ways Max Regnery, Pine Hollow’s owner and chief instructor, kept his expenses down: All the riders pitched in to take care of the animals. Lisa thought it was one of the best things about riding at Pine Hollow. Although she wasn’t absolutely wild about mucking out stables, she knew that loving horses meant taking care of them, not just riding them. She was glad to do her part.

  Mrs. Reg, Max’s mother, was the stable manager. All the young riders adored her, though they weren’t too crazy about her habit of assigning chores. If Mrs. Reg saw two girls chatting, she was sure to give them a job while they chatted. Since girls often liked to chat—most especially Stevie, Lisa, and Carole—they often found themselves doing chores like measuring and mixing grains for feed or soaping saddles. This afternoon Mrs. Reg had them moving and checking bales of hay for mold and mildew. It was an important job because moldy hay could make horses sick, but it was difficult and sweaty work on a summer day. The good thing about it now was that it was done, and Lisa was ready to report that fact to Mrs. Reg.

  She stepped into Mrs. Reg’s office. Mrs. Reg was on the phone, with a serious look on her face. Lisa knew better than to interrupt. Also, from the look on Mrs. Reg’s face, she doubted that she could interrupt. Mrs. Reg was definitely not aware of her presence. She stepped back out of the office until Mrs. Reg hung up, trying hard not to listen. When she heard the phone put back in its cradle, she reentered. Mrs. Reg looked right up at her. Lisa smiled broadly and saluted.

  “The hay-bale task force has completed its inspection, ma’am,” she joked. “I’m pleased to report that all of the hay appears to be fresh and mold free!”

  Normally Mrs. Reg would like that kind of joking. This time she didn’t seem to get it. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Lisa dropped her saluting arm and her pretense. “Of course I’m sure,” she said. “We looked over all the bales and everything’s fine. No sign of anything amiss. You can trust us, you know.”

  Mrs. Reg smiled at her then. “I’m sorry, Lisa. I know you know what you’re doing. I think I’m sort of distracted.…”

  Lisa realized it had to be the phone call. Mrs. Reg seemed a little embarrassed, but didn’t want to talk about it. That made Lisa feel a little embarrassed, too. She wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure what. Her eyes went to Mrs. Reg’s desk, where there was something shining in the afternoon sunlight, and she was very surprised by what she saw.

  “What’s that?” she asked, looking at a beautiful gold pin.

  Mrs. Reg smiled again. “Pretty, isn’t it? Go ahead, pick it up.”

  Lisa did. The pin was of a horse, galloping full out, its tail sailing dramatically behind. It was gold with a brush finish that made the horse seem silky and sleek. And the horse’s eye was a diamond that sparkled brightly even in the dim indoor light of Mrs. Reg’s office.

  “It’s not just pretty,” Lisa said. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Max gave it to me,” Mrs. Reg said. “My Max, I mean.” Lisa knew that meant her husband, who had died long ago, not her son, who now ran the stable. “It would be our fortieth wedding anniversary this week. It was his wedding present for me.”

  Lisa held the pin carefully, turning it, admiring the art and the artistry. She’d seen lots of horse jewelry. The Saddle Club even had its own pin, and she always thought that was pretty, too. But she’d never seen anything as beautiful as this.

  “Have Stevie and Carole seen it?” she asked.

  “I doubt it,” Mrs. Reg said. “I don’t usually wear it around here.”

  Lisa could understand why. A stable was no place for valuables—except horses, of course. “Can I show it to them?”

>   “Sure,” Mrs. Reg said. “I have to talk with Max—your Max—about something now. If I’m not here when you bring it back, just put it in my center drawer, okay?”

  “Okay, thanks,” Lisa said, glad that Mrs. Reg knew she could trust her. That was one advantage to being reliable. People trusted you when it really mattered.

  Holding the pin carefully, but not too tightly, she left Mrs. Reg’s office and returned to the locker area, where her friends were already changing into their street clothes. They’d made a plan to have a Saddle Club meeting at their favorite hangout, an ice-cream parlor called TD’s, right after class. Stevie had said she thought it was a really good idea because she had heard her mother was serving calves’ liver for dinner, and she wanted to ruin her appetite.

  Stevie was like that. She was fun-loving and mischievous. Carole, on the other hand, was the most serious horsewoman of the three of them. She had been riding since she was a very little girl and had long since decided that when she grew up, she would work with horses. All that remained was to decide exactly how she would work with them—whether she’d be a rider, trainer, breeder, veterinarian, instructor, or all of them. When the subject was horses, Carole was all business. On any other subject, she could sometimes be a little flaky.

  Lisa was the newest rider of the three, but she’d learned fast, and Max already said she was very good. She was earnest, logical, and methodical about everything she did. She was also a straight-A student and rarely got into trouble, unless dragged there by Stevie.

  It always amazed Lisa and her friends how different the three of them were and how much they liked one another in spite of—or perhaps because of—their differences. Of course they had being horse crazy in common, and another thing they shared was an intense dislike of one Veronica diAngelo—a member of their riding class. Veronica was a snooty rich girl who mistakenly believed that because she was rich, she was better than everybody else. The Saddle Club girls thought that she was worse than everybody else, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with her money. It was her basic rotten personality. Lisa wasn’t particularly pleased to see that Veronica was in the locker area when she entered to show her friends Mrs. Reg’s pin. She held it so that Veronica couldn’t see it and sashayed past the girl to her friends. Veronica didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy studying her reflection in her compact to see anything but herself. For once Lisa was glad for Veronica’s incredible vanity.

  “Look at this pin of Mrs. Reg’s,” Lisa said, holding it out to show her friends.

  “Oh, the diamond is so perfect!” Stevie said. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have a pin like that for The Saddle Club?”

  Lisa looked at the very special silver horse-head pin on her shirt. She liked Mrs. Reg’s pin, but she wouldn’t trade her Saddle Club pin for anything. “I don’t know …,” she began.

  “The conformation!” Carole said. Stevie and Lisa stifled giggles. It was just like Carole to look at the characteristics of the horse rather than just the beauty of the jewelry. “And with a head like that, it’s got to be an Arabian.”

  Lisa and Stevie looked again, seeing the pin anew. Of course, Carole was right. The horse was definitely an Arabian—sleek and beautiful.

  “What are you looking at?” Veronica asked, suddenly interested. Veronica’s own horse was a purebred Arabian mare named Garnet.

  Lisa, Stevie, and Carole looked at one another. All had the same thought. Veronica was looking for a way to put them all down. They just had to make it impossible for her to do. There was a light in Stevie’s eyes.

  “Oh, it’s just this pin of mine,” she said casually, holding it out to Veronica, who took it from her. “Kind of pretty, isn’t it?”

  Since that was such an obvious understatement, it was enough to silence Veronica for a few seconds while Stevie collected her thoughts. “My brother Chad gave it to me last Christmas,” she went on. “It’s a nice piece of costume jewelry, don’t you think?”

  If there was one thing Veronica thought she knew a lot about, it was real jewelry. Telling her that this was fake made it impossible for her to insult the jewelry or Stevie any further. All Veronica could do now was stare at the beautiful pin in her hand, unable to think of anything cutting to say beyond, “Nice, for a fake,” which she muttered reluctantly. Stevie beamed proudly.

  And then the ruckus began. At first there was just a minor skittering sound, then an unmistakable squeak. It was followed by a small flash of gray moving quickly across the locker-area floor. That, in turn, was followed by a much larger flash of black and white named Man o’ War. The gray was a mouse; the black and white was a cat in hot pursuit.

  It was a fact of life that stables have mice. That’s why most stables also have cats to keep down the mouse population and Man o’ War was just doing his job. The girls, however, and most especially Veronica, wished he were doing it somewhere else.

  Veronica leapt up onto the bench and began screaming. The mouse, now even more frightened, ran out from under the bench and stood in the middle of the floor, frozen in terror. It was the opportunity Man o’ War had been waiting for. He pounced. That made the mouse move. Fast. That made Veronica scream. That made the cat howl. The mouse fled toward the horse stalls. The cat followed—very fast.

  That might have been the end of it except that the mouse chose to look for an escape route in the stall of one of the stable’s newest horses, an injured and retired racer by the name of Prancer. Lisa knew that most horses have at least one thing that scares them. In the wild such fears protect horses. They know what they have to flee from, and once they know, there’s almost nothing that can be done to alleviate that fear. In Prancer’s case, the fear was cats. The moment she spotted Man o’ War climbing up and over the doorway to her stall, she began fussing. She whinnied and cried out.

  From the sound of the horse’s cry, Carole recognized exactly what was happening and that it could be big trouble. Prancer was still recovering from a fracture in her foot that had cost her her career as a racehorse and might well cost her her life if it didn’t heal well. A frightened horse could get into awful trouble. She needed to be calmed right away.

  “Come on!” she said to her friends. She didn’t have to say it twice.

  The three girls ran to the stalls and found that the cat had the mouse cornered in the stall. The mouse was stunned by fear; the cat knew he had the upper hand and wasn’t about to move. Prancer jumped and kicked, preparing to rear.

  Without even thinking about it, Carole and Stevie each grabbed a lead rope. If they could just get the ropes clipped to the horse’s halter, they’d have a chance to control her. But there was no way they could go into the stall when she was so upset. Sending one of the three of them off to the hospital wasn’t a very good idea.

  Stevie and Carole climbed up on the stall door and tried to reach for the halter. While they did that, Lisa did what she thought was the most logical thing. She took a broom and went into the stall next to Prancer’s. That housed a sweet-natured pinto named Patch, who watched all the events going on around him with only mild curiosity. Lisa hiked herself up onto the top of the divider separating the two stalls and reached down with the broom. She could just barely touch the floor of the stall, but that was all she needed. She stretched as far as she could and put the broom right next to the mouse.

  This mouse was no fool. Just as Lisa had hoped, he understood that he was in dire straits and immediately scootched into the safety of the broom bristles, holding on for dear life. As soon as Lisa thought she might have the mouse, she lifted the broom back over the divider, left Patch’s stall as fast as possible, and took her hostage to the door of the stable, where she shook the broom. A stunned mouse fell out of the bristles. Within half a second he righted himself, looked around, and headed for the tall grass, where Lisa was sure his family was waiting for him. He’d have quite a story to tell them. She paused briefly to wonder how he would explain the miracle of the broom.

  When Lisa got back to the s
tall, however, she found that only half the problem had been solved. The mouse was gone, but Man o’ War was still standing in the stall and Prancer was still scared.

  “Calm down, girl,” Carole was saying. Horses liked to have people talk to them. Prancer particularly liked it when Carole talked to her. The horse seemed to adore Carole, and it was obviously mutual. “Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll just get that cat out, and you don’t have anything to worry about. Poor cat’s just as scared as you are.”

  Lisa looked at the cat. He didn’t appear scared, just confused. He couldn’t figure out where his dinner had gone!

  “Try the broom trick again,” Stevie suggested, still trying unsuccessfully to reach for Prancer’s halter. For a second Lisa tried to figure out if the cat could possibly hold onto the broom’s bristles as the mouse had, but then she realized that wasn’t what Stevie meant. She reentered Patch’s stall, remounted the divider, and re-reached over with the broom.

  The cat saw it coming and he didn’t like what he saw. Dodging with his head, he spun a full one hundred eighty degrees and dashed up and out of the stall as fast as he’d dashed into it. Then there was quiet. Prancer looked around, trying to assure herself that the cat was actually gone. Finally the horse relaxed as suddenly as she’d shied. She reached for her hay feeder, grabbed a few strands of sweet hay, and munched. Then she looked up at the three girls still perched on the walls and door of her stall. A quizzical looked crossed the horse’s face as if to wonder what on earth all the fuss was about. The girls had been dismissed and they knew it.

  “What teamwork!” Lisa said.

  “This calls for a celebration,” Stevie agreed.

  “TD’s?” Carole suggested.

  It was just what they had in mind.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long before Lisa realized something was wrong. The three girls sat at their favorite booth at TD’s and talked about what had happened with Prancer, Man o’ War, and the mouse.

  “You should have seen the look on that mouse’s face when I set him free in the paddock!” Lisa said gleefully. “I mean, his eyes were shining like, like—like …” She could see the bright shine in the little creature’s eyes, glistening in the outdoor sunlight nearly sparkling. “… oh, no.”