“So I’ve been planning something a little different for this year’s camp,” Susan began, then paused as the inevitable whispers and questions broke out among the girls. “Since I’ve got you guys for six whole weeks, I thought we could put some of your training to the test. Hopefully what I’ve come up with will also be a help to those of you who plan on showing this fall, and who might be interested in trying for the Junior Hunter-Jumper Competition in the spring.” She caught Alyssa’s eye, and Alyssa gave a small, tight smile.
“At the end of camp, we’re going to have two competitions: a hack and jumping show for the Advanced II riders, and a dressage, jumping, and cross-country event for the Advanced I riders. I’m going to be training each group to get ready for this, and I’m bringing in two other trainers to help me judge.” Susan smiled broadly, obviously taken with her own idea. “I’ll even go get some ribbons. This way those of you who haven’t been showing can get a feel for what it’s like, and those of you who are ready to get serious about eventing can get some more practice in. Sound good?”
A resounding “Yes!” echoed down the barn’s corridor. Jane’s heart was pounding and she squeezed Robin’s hand. She and Beau would have a chance to compete—really compete, in an event—at last!
The next week of camp was the happiest, the busiest, and the most exhausting week Jane had ever spent at Sunny Acres. When the next Friday came, Jane was shocked to realize that she’d entirely forgotten to write to her parents, and she sat down under the old oak tree in front of the cabin after lunch and broke open the packet of stationery and addressed, stamped envelopes that her mother had tucked into her duffel bag. The addresses always had some silly twist to them, like using Monsieur et Madame Ryan for her parents’ names, or including ridiculously lengthened locations, reminding the postman that the Ryans lived in the United States, North American Continent, the Earth, near the Milky Way. Jane chose one that spelled out The Revered and Honored Parents of Jane Ryan, leaned back against the tree, and thought about what she could tell of her week.
Dear Mum and Dad,
I’m sorry I haven’t written yet. I’ve been so busy because … I got into Advanced I! (Here Jane drew a sketch of herself dancing a jig on the margin of the paper.) It’s me, Alyssa (you remember her—the snobby girl with the really great horse), Jennifer (Alyssa’s best friend), and Jessica (the only popular girl who’s nice to me) (sometimes). Robin is in the other class, which is terrible for me, but she says she’s glad to be in the easier class. (???) And our class is hard. Yesterday, we practiced water obstacles—
Jane smiled, thinking about yesterday’s morning lesson. Susan, with Jose’s help, had built two jumps on the bank of a wide, placid creek that wound through the farm’s main pasture. Jane had to admit that they looked very intimidating when she and the other girls got to the site. The first obstacle, set on the gentler incline, was a massive heap of logs that looked like some sort of beaver dam, and the second was basically a deconstructed picnic table. Susan, borrowing Ariel, had showed them the course. She swung in a wide, cantering loop around a copse of trees, then pointed Ariel toward the creek, shortening her strides as they approached the slope leading down to the logs. Ariel floated unconcernedly over the bristling pile, snorted with insult at the spray of water that was flung up in her face as she landed neatly in the creek, then bounded like a jackrabbit up to the second jump, cleared it, and lunged relatively gracefully up the other, much steeper side. Susan had an almost preternatural stillness in the saddle, and the intensity of her focus seemed to inspire whatever mount she was on—whether a recalcitrant school horse who was giving one of the midgets trouble or a show horse like Ariel—to reach for its personal best. Of course, she had made these jumps look like a piece of cake.
They weren’t, as the riders soon discovered. Jane had always known that Beau didn’t like being ridden in water. She’d often taken him down to the pond and tried to get him to swim, and he’d always refused. Still, he wasn’t as bad as Quixotic, who shied three times before the first jump, nearly unseating Jessica, until she finally got him into the creek. Then he careered off to the side of the second jump, actually running down the creek before he abruptly stopped, sighed heavily, and bent his head down to drink. Jane cracked up, and as Jessica walked her sheepish horse back to the group, she was laughing, too. “What do I have to do, carry him? Drain the stupid creek? Build a bridge?”
Susan smiled and arched an eyebrow. “No,” she said, “just do it again.”
“Or learn to ride your horse,” Alyssa half-whispered to Jennifer, who coughed dramatically.
Jessica swung on them. “Do you even know what a sense of humor is,” she asked conversationally, “or are you too perfect to need one?” She nudged Quixotic with her heels, brought him to a canter around the grove, and this time (Jane silently cheering her on), she started singing the national anthem while firmly guiding Quixotic over the first jump: “And the rockets’ red glare! The bombs bursting in air!” Quixotic appeared so distracted by his rider’s apparent loss of sanity that he forgot to refuse the second jump. He cleared it, slowly and shakily, and Susan whooped with delight. Alyssa and Jennifer stared at Jessica as she rejoined them, clearly basking in Susan’s praise and Jane’s laughter.
“Sometimes,” she told her two best friends, “I think Jane’s the only person here who gets me.”
Jane smiled, but she knew better than to take Jessica’s words at face value. Sure enough, she’d ignored Jane for the rest of the day.
“Beau refused once, but then we did okay. I’ve been able to ride him all week, except once, when they needed him for the intermediate class.” Jane’s heart had plummeted when Susan told her that she’d be riding Brownie—Brownie!—for their dressage lesson Wednesday afternoon. It was a joke. Brownie had never learned to go on the bit, and at age twenty, he wasn’t about to start. Jane basically trotted him around the ring, following the complicated series of turns, circles, and diagonals that Susan had plotted out, but with none of the movement that was supposed to happen in real dressage: the smooth communication and oneness of horse and rider. Jane was frustrated, but she tried to hide it. “And here,” she shouted to Susan as she urged Brownie into an unwilling canter, “is where a lead change would happen, if it wouldn’t break Brownie’s legs.”
“Don’t try it,” Susan sighed. “It probably would.”
“You know, this is really a waste of all of our time, Susan,” Alyssa complained, and Jane blushed, silently cursing Brownie as he collapsed ungracefully into a jolting trot.
“Not for me,” Susan retorted. “I like watching Jane trying not to actually hate a horse.”
Jane smiled gratefully, and painfully, through her clenched teeth. “I can’t—hate—come on, canter, Brownie!—a horse that—thinks—he’s a cow … .”
“Emily Longstreet got a new horse, Lancelot, who was supposed to be really great, but he acted up so much that Susan put them in Advanced II.” Except now, Jane thought, a warm thrumming quickening her pulse, she didn’t know that that was altogether true. She’d overheard something very odd in the barn that morning, and she still wasn’t sure what to make of it. Jane had just put Beau in his stall and was about to fetch his saddle and bridle when she heard Emily’s voice, loud with injury, coming from the tack room.
“There’s no point in me riding in the other class,” Emily whined. “I mean, in Atlanta I was the best rider in my barn, and it’s completely unfair to hold me back—”
“I’m not holding you back,” came Susan’s voice in response. “I’m giving you and Lancelot the chance to get to know each other and to take things a little more slowly. I don’t want you—or your horse—to get hurt, Emily.”
“But it’s not my fault he’s so crazy.”
“Well, what do you propose?” Susan asked reasonably. “I can’t give you another horse—they’re all being used for the beginner and intermediate lessons.”
“But it’s no problem that Jane uses one of the barn’s
horses. I mean, it’s so unfair that she’s taking the best horse away from all the other kids who should be riding him. And the only reason she’s in Advanced I in the first place is because you won’t let me be because of my stupid horse.”
Jane clenched her fists. Part of her did feel guilty that Susan was letting her ride Beau so much, but she hated Emily saying it aloud. And, worse, a cold little voice inside her did wonder if the only reason she was in Advanced I was because Lancelot had turned out to be such a handful.
“That’s actually not the only reason, Emily,” Susan said quietly, and Jane froze, straining to hear. But Emily obviously didn’t want to hear what Susan was about to say.
With a loud sigh and a syrupy, ominous lilt to her voice, she said, “Well, I promised my dad I’d call him today, so …” The tack room door swung open and Jane jumped back into the stall, grabbed a hoof pick from the grooming tray, hauled Beau’s leg up, and busied herself with freeing a piece of gravel from his shoe. As Beau settled into his customary heavy lean, Jane’s mind was racing: What was Susan’s other reason?
“Emily’s really mad, especially since the big shows are coming up in the fall. I wonder if she’ll be able to ride in them.” Jane knew her own chances of competing were slim. She’d gotten to show Beau twice last year, but the entry and trailer fees made it expensive, and her parents didn’t see the point. Jane had to admit, she didn’t really, either. She could hardly hope to win the Junior Hunter-Jumper championship with a borrowed horse that she could only take out when he wasn’t needed by the barn.
“Otherwise, camp’s pretty much the same—working in the barn, swimming, teaching the midgets, sketching, Maria’s cooking.” Jane stopped, thinking. There was something else new this year. But she wasn’t sure she could find the right words for the tall boy who leaned on the pitchfork and made fun of her, and whom she’d exchanged a few more “Hi”s with.
Jane hastily finished the letter and sealed it.
Chapter 6
Triumphant Poop
Hot and bedraggled after class on Saturday, two weeks into camp, Jane walked wearily to the kitchen of the main house to get a glass of lemonade from Maria. Like her, Beau had been especially sweaty and tuckered out after their jumping class, and Jane had spent an hour sponging him off and walking him until she was sure he was cool and dry.
Jose had kept her company as he demonstrated to the midgets how to properly sponge and scrape off their mounts and to walk them dry. “No, no,” he’d call out, “do not wipe them like your nose, press down and squeeze the sponge out. Tha-a-at’s better.” He was a gentle and patient teacher, as Jane had every reason to know. One of the young girls was obviously nervous about getting too near her horse’s hindquarters—she gave tentative swipes to the back legs, then jumped back.
“Jose, do you remember how scared I used to be of picking Brownie’s back hooves?” Jane called over, and Jose winked at her. “Ohh, sure, Jane, and I told you what I always say: A horse doesn’t kick as long as it knows where you are and what you’re doing. Just keep talking to him, and keep your hands on him, and everything is fine.”
The little girl looked over at Jane with big eyes, then whispered up to her horse, “Okay, I’m going to go to your back legs now to make you nice and cool.” She paused, looking up doubtfully to Jose, who nodded his encouragement. “Yes and now I’m going by your tail but I’m right here and you can still hear me, and now I’m …” She kept up a running commentary throughout the entire sponge bath, misremembering most of the parts of the horse and calling Rick Rack’s knees his elbows and his hock his ankle, and Jose and Jane laughed silently to each other as the tired horse flicked his ears back and forth, listening to the happy prattle of the tiny girl buzzing around him.
Jane took her lemonade to the ring and leaned on the fence to watch the Advanced II class in full swing. She saw Robin and Bess go through a series of trotting poles nicely, and she waved to her. She admired her friend’s quiet seat and motions, her gentle way with Bess, and told herself to remember how good Robin was at coaxing, never forcing, her mount. “There are lessons everywhere,” Lily often said, throwing her arms out dramatically to encompass the world, her eyes large and wet with meaning. “Everywhere you look, you can learn something!” Jane suddenly missed her sister and wished she could talk to her. If I miss her after two weeks, what will it be like when she leaves for college? The thought made her throat sore, and that, too, reminded her of Lily. Her sister always said, if she didn’t like something, “Oh, it gives me a sore throat.” Bad movies, bad dates, they all, according to Lily, gave her the symptoms of strep. Jane caught Robin’s eye and waved again.
“What’s up?” Jane turned to see that Jessica had joined her at the fence, chewing gum and critically examining her dirty nails. “Watching the losers?”
“Jessica!” Jane exclaimed, shocked.
“Oh, whatever, I’m only kidding. But it’s nice to be number one, right?”
“You say the worst things ever,” Jane replied, but she felt a half-smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“No,” Jessica said, “I say true things—you just don’t like to hear them. Hypocrite.”
That was the second time Jane had been called that—once, teasingly, by Ben, and now, not so teasingly, by Jessica. “So how am I a hypocrite?” she finally asked.
“Oh, you’re supercompetitive but try to be all nice to people you beat out. You think all sorts of nasty things about our crowd but you don’t say them—”
“Hey, that’s not hypocrisy, it’s common sense,” Jane interrupted, and Jessica burst out laughing.
“That’s why I like you, Jane.” She chuckled. “You know they’re all intimidated by you, right?”
Jane stared at her as if Jessica’s head had just caught on fire. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me. They’ve frozen me out since we were practically toddlers.”
“I’ll explain it sometime,” Jessica said, yawning, “but right now I’ve got to take a shower and lose about ten pounds of dirt.” She ambled away, leaving Jane to gape after her. Somehow, she knew Jessica never would explain what she meant.
There wasn’t much time to ponder Jessica’s mysterious comment that afternoon, however. Yesterday evening, Susan had spent an hour walking the slopes and knolls of Sunny Acres’ pastures, plotting out the first cross-country course the Advanced I riders would tackle. She’d told them to eat a snack and take it easy, as they wouldn’t tack up until six o’clock, giving the horses enough time to rest after the morning’s lesson and avoiding the sweltering heat of the afternoon. Susan passed out copies of her hand-drawn course, and Jane and Robin claimed their favorite shady oak to lounge under and discuss the map.
“This doesn’t look too bad,” Jane said, frowning as she studied Susan’s carefully drawn tracks and arrows. Jane was, of course, intimately familiar with the land depicted, having either ridden or walked practically all of it over the years.
“Do you go right or left first?” Robin tilted her head to get a better look.
“Umm—right. The first jump’s that log that we’ve done a million times, but then it looks like we go all the way around those trees at the lower end, and it says ‘double rail,’ so she must’ve set up something new there … .” Jane traced her finger along the dotted tracks. “Then the easy part of the creek”—a narrow and shallow bend of the farm’s waterway that Jane knew Beau hopped over without a qualm—“then through the gate of the far paddock.” This was a grass paddock with a small three-sided shelter and hayrack. Because it was some distance from the barns, it wasn’t in regular use, but sometimes Susan broke young horses there, or stabled a rambunctious stallion that the Jeffrys would bring in to breed with one of their mares. “I guess I better hope there’s no lovesick stallion in there, right?”
“My dear,” said Robin, going British, “simply remind the poor suitor that Beau is a gelding, and that he won’t get very far with his advances.”
After their giggles subsided,
Jane pointed with a groan to the next obstacle on the map. “Do we have to jump those bushes? Beau’s not going to be happy about that at all.”
“Shrubbery, old chap, not bushes, shrubbery!”
Jane’s lemonade nearly went up her nose. “Well then, after we surmount the shrubbery, we’ll canter calmly over the noxious and hideous creek obstacles, where Beau will not refuse or otherwise behave in a manner unbefitting to a fine gelding … .”
“Then you will bravely traverse another old moldy log.” Robin pointed to the map. “Gallop posthaste through the pond, leap with a mighty bound over yonder coop”—Susan must have moved it to the field for the course, Jane realized, unless there could be another, even bigger coop awaiting her?—“and fly with triumphant poop back to your noble comrades!”
“With triumphant poop?” Jane howled, doubling over.
“What—wait, what’s that wo-ord, from the gra-aduation song?” Robin managed to gasp out, wiping her eyes.
“Pomp!” Jane shouted, and they both fell over again.
Jane’s stomach was aching when Robin finally had to depart for the cabin, and she clambered to her feet and staggered to the barn to tack up. As she clutched the stitch in her side, she realized that Robin’s banter had made it physically impossible for her to feel nervous, and she silently thanked her friend as she waved to her, fist in the air, shouting, “With triumphant poop!” across the driveway, into the summer dusk.
A Horse of Her Own Page 5
