“Have you come to buy a gold trinket to soothe yourself after that trying visit to Pine Hollow?” Stevie taunted. Veronica was such an easy target for her teasing that it was almost embarrassing, but she was so full of herself that Stevie simply couldn’t resist.
“You can be as snide as you want,” Veronica answered. “But the next time Red neglects Belle or Starlight—well, I just want to hear what you have to say to Max about it!”
“Are you going into Baubles and Bangles?” Lisa asked, hoping to steer the conversation in a more neutral direction. That was the jewelry store behind them.
“Yes,” Veronica said. “I need a new stock pin for the next time Danny and I are in a show. It’s hardly suitable to be in the winner’s circle with that old thing I’ve got now. It got bent when I was thrown—you remember the time Red startled Danny when we were warming up at the show?”
They did remember, but it had hardly been Red’s fault that Danny had been allowed to approach the jump too fast. Veronica had yanked on the reins to slow him just when she should have been letting him jump.
“One certainly can’t show with a bent pin,” Stevie agreed. Then she had another idea. “Say, you know, I was looking through the Cross County catalog last night, and they have some really pretty jewelry, including a great collection of stock pins.…”
“Gold?”
“Of course,” said Stevie.
“Eighteen-karat?”
“No, I think they’re fourteen,” said Stevie.
Veronica’s response was a withering look. “Inferior quality,” she said. “Just like the help at the stable.”
“What do you mean by that?” Carole asked, unable to resist.
“As if you didn’t know, or maybe you don’t because you’ve grown to expect second-rate service.” Veronica paused for effect. “Anyway, just to alert you, once again, Red failed to secure the latch on Danny’s stall.”
“But didn’t you put Danny in there yourself?” Carole asked, recalling specifically that she’d seen Veronica do so.
“Well, yes, but it was certainly Red’s responsibility to check to see that it was latched after I left, and he clearly never got around to it. Do you know what might have happened if I hadn’t gone back to see that he’d done his job?”
“Yes, of course I know,” said Carole, horrified that Veronica would take such a terrible risk with such a valuable horse. “Your horse might have walked right out of his stall and into all kinds of danger. What were you thinking?”
“Me? Red is the one who failed here,” said Veronica. “He’s the stable hand, isn’t he?”
“Stable hand yes, personal servant no,” said Stevie.
“Oh, look!” Veronica said. “The store is about to close. I’d better hurry!” With that, she left the three girls standing at the bus stop.
“Only Veronica,” Lisa said.
“Can you imagine intentionally putting your horse at risk in order to test Red’s skills as a stable hand?” Carole asked, still stunned.
“There are two things about Veronica,” Stevie said. “One is that nothing is ever her fault, and the other is that there is no depth to which she will not sink.”
“And all of that makes her a constant source of entertainment for us,” Lisa added.
“And work for Red,” said Carole.
Just then Carole’s bus pulled up to the stop in the parking lot. The girls hastily made arrangements to meet at Pine Hollow after school the next day. They had their work cut out for them if they wanted to convince Max that Paul Fredericks was right and that they’d do a fine job as Honey-Pie’s primary caretakers.
STEVIE SPOTTED HER friends at Honey-Pie’s stall as soon as she entered the stable the next afternoon.
“So, what can we do for her?” she asked eagerly.
“Well—” Carole began.
“Let me put it this way,” Lisa said, cutting off what sounded as if it might be a long, involved answer to a simple horse question—Carole’s specialty. “It’s going to be hard to prove that we’re experts at taking care of a horse that needs as little care as this old gal.”
“I couldn’t have said it better,” Carole agreed, aware of, and amused by, Lisa’s tactic. “Red cleaned out her stall, gave her fresh hay and water, and that’s about it.”
“We could turn her out into her paddock,” Stevie said.
“If she hasn’t already been out too much,” said Carole.
“I’ll check,” said Lisa, and went out in search of Red to make sure it would be okay to give Honey-Pie some fresh air.
Stevie patted the horse and gave her a bit of carrot while they waited.
“Red says okay,” Lisa informed them.
Stevie opened the door to the little paddock while Carole stood aside, allowing the mare to pass her. Honey-Pie glanced at her, apparently assuring herself that Carole wasn’t going to try the lead rope thing again, and trotted out into the paddock.
“Wow, that was a big job,” Stevie teased. There was an edge to her comment, though, because none of them could figure out why Max seemed to doubt their ability to look after this horse.
“Well, if there’s nothing more to do for Honey-Pie, perhaps we can do something for ourselves,” Carole suggested. “Max left the low jumps up in the schooling ring, and that gives us a chance to work on jump form. Why don’t we tack up and go have some fun?”
Lisa glanced across Honey-Pie’s paddock to the schooling ring and saw that Carole was right. The whole ring was set up with eighteen-inch jumps. The jumps themselves would be no challenge for their horses to get over, and that would make it all the more important to work on their jumping style. One thing she’d learned in her relatively short time as a rider was that if she could do something perfectly when it was made easy for her, she’d be able to do it better when it was harder.
In fifteen minutes, the three girls were ready to begin. Carole went first. Her horse, Starlight, was a natural jumper, and she had learned a lot from him.
But this exercise was difficult for the bay gelding. He loved jumping so much that he tended to overjump—to begin too early or jump too high. In hunter-jumping, form was everything, and a horse that jumped four feet high to clear an eighteen-inch jump didn’t have good form. Carole had to work hard to keep him from taking off too far from the little jumps.
Carole was annoyed with her performance. “Go ahead, Stevie, you show me how to do it.”
“It’s tougher than it looks, isn’t it?” Stevie asked.
“For us, yes, but I bet you’ll do better.”
“Not likely,” Stevie said modestly. It turned out that she was wrong, however. Belle and Stevie often worked together on dressage, a precise form of competitive riding in which every single move made a difference in the score. When Stevie held Belle back from jumping too early, Belle held back from jumping too high.
“Nicely done!” Carole said.
“You kept her on a tight rein, didn’t you?” Lisa asked. “Was that why she did so well?”
“Partly,” said Stevie. “Also, all my aids were given in very small doses—like, I only loosened the reins a little bit, leaned forward a small amount, and held her from her takeoff until the very last minute. Remember, a horse cannot see anything that is immediately in front of him and nearby, so he’s relying on you to tell him about the jump. It becomes invisible at the most critical moment.”
“Okay, I’ll try now,” said Lisa, although she wasn’t confident that she’d have much success.
She nudged Prancer to a trot and then to a slow, even canter. She circled the ring once to be sure she and Prancer were in balance; then she opened her left rein a little bit to bring the mare in line with the first jump. Prancer, seeing the jump ahead, began to speed up. Lisa tightened up on the reins to make Prancer return to their earlier pace. Prancer obeyed. The jump wasn’t high, but Prancer knew she had to get over it. She lunged toward it. Lisa didn’t release the reins and allow her to make the jump until they were very close, les
s than two feet. Prancer got the message. She pushed off with her hind legs and responded with a gentle upward surge as Lisa leaned forward in the saddle and moved her hands up, relaxing the pull on the bit. Prancer cleared the low jump and landed smoothly.
“I did it!” Lisa said.
“Good form!” Carole complimented her.
“Well done,” Stevie agreed.
The rest of the jumps seemed easy after that. Lisa was glad of the exercise. Sometimes the easiest-looking things were the hardest to do right.
As she drew Prancer over to the fence for the rest of the critique she knew she would get—and learn from—she glanced toward the driveway and saw a sports car pulling up in front of the barn. It was a black Jaguar.
“Hey, it’s Mr. Call-me-Paul,” said Stevie.
They watched as Paul Fredericks stepped out of the car, once again dressed for a country club. They expected to see him head into the stable to meet with Max, but they were wrong. He walked over to them.
“Hey, look at the three of you,” he said brightly. “On horses!”
“That’s what we do here,” said Carole. “We ride horses.”
“That is, we ride them when we’re not looking after them,” Lisa added.
“Well you seem to be riding them very well,” he said.
The girls had done nothing but sit in their saddles since the car had come into the driveway. It was hard for Stevie to figure out how he’d decided they were riding well under the circumstances, but there seemed no reason to make an issue of it.
“Max is in the office,” Carole said.
“I’ll see him later, but I’d love to watch you all for a while—that is, if you don’t mind.”
“We don’t mind, Mr. Fredericks,” said Lisa.
“Please, call me Paul,” he said.
“Uh, sure, Paul,” said Lisa. She was uncomfortable with that, but she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because it seemed too familiar with someone who wasn’t really a friend. She shrugged it off. If he wanted to be called Paul, she’d try to do it.
Carole began the round of jumps again, this time reining Starlight in as Stevie had done with Belle and getting respectable results.
“Better,” Stevie said.
“Better? I thought she was fabulous!” Paul said. “Why, that horse jumped those fences as if they were nothing at all!”
“Those are only eighteen-inch fences,” Lisa said. “They are almost nothing at all.”
“Well, they sure look scary to me!” Paul said.
The girls took several more turns over the course, but it wasn’t as much fun with Paul there admiring every single thing they did, error or not. He said “Wow” and applauded after every jump. It almost distracted the horses and certainly distracted Stevie, Lisa, and Carole.
Finally the horses were ready for a rest, and so were the girls.
“Would you like to see Honey-Pie?” Lisa suggested. “She’s settled in nicely, and we let her out into her paddock before we came out here to ride.”
“Sure,” said Paul. “And maybe we can talk a bit about her care.”
“Absolutely,” Carole said enthusiastically. “We’re working with Max and Red to see that she’s well looked after—like all the horses here. As an older horse, and one that isn’t being ridden, she needs a few special considerations. I spent some time last night researching the care of retired horses. I think we’re all going to learn from Honey-Pie, and if love counts toward care—and I think it does—well, you can count on a healthy horse for a long time to come!”
Paul smiled weakly.
“Come on, Carole, I’ll take Starlight to his stall for you,” Stevie offered, thinking that if Paul could hear more about what Carole had learned from her research on Honey-Pie’s behalf, he’d be all the happier that he was boarding the mare at Pine Hollow and might even put in another good word for them with Max.
It took only a few minutes to untack Belle and Starlight, and when Stevie returned, she found Carole deep into a discussion about feeding schedules. On his previous visit, Paul had noticed that Red was giving some of the other horses a grain ration, and he wondered why Honey-Pie wasn’t getting one.
“Honey-Pie isn’t as active as the other horses,” Carole said. “She doesn’t need the extra nutrients that are in the afternoon feeding. She’ll get her grain in the morning, after she’s had water and hay. She has access to water at all times and will get three or four feedings of hay every day on a schedule.”
“I want her to get more grain,” Paul said, sounding a little petulant.
“It wouldn’t be good for her,” said Carole, automatically taking the horse’s side.
“Who’s the better judge of that?” Paul asked, sounding almost angry. He calmed down right away, though. “I’m sure you girls know what you’re doing, but I do want to be sure the horse gets the kind of care Aunt Emma would have demanded for her, and I’m sure Aunt Emma used to give her grain twice a day. It’s not a good idea to change her schedule abruptly, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” Carole agreed.
“And you wouldn’t want to do anything that was bad for good old Honey-Pie, now, would you?”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Carole agreed.
“You know what I think?” Paul asked. The girls asked him what, although they were beginning to suspect that they didn’t care what he thought.
“Well, I think the people who take the very best care of Honey-Pie at Pine Hollow deserve some sort of treat.”
“Treats are good,” Stevie agreed, wondering what he was leading up to. She didn’t have long to wait.
“How would you three—I mean, if you take good care of Honey-Pie and she does as well here as I know she will when you do what I tell you—like to come for a ride on my yacht? We could spend a whole day at sea.”
“Like, take a picnic?” Lisa asked.
“No need to bring anything at all,” Paul said. “I’d have my cook prepare something delicious for us. Whatever you want, really.”
“Um, Mr. Fredericks …,” Carole began.
“Please call me Paul.”
“Right, um, Paul,” she continued. “We’re going to look after Honey-Pie because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t have to pay us or anything.”
“It’s not payment,” Paul said. “It’s just a way of saying thank you.”
“Well, please wait until you have something to thank us for,” Lisa told him.
“I’m sure it won’t be long before that happens,” said Paul. All three girls were a little surprised by the apparent smugness in his voice. “And I know it’s what my aunt Emma would have wanted me to do for you.”
“Thanks, Paul,” said Stevie. “That’s something to look forward to.”
“Oh, look, here comes Max,” said Carole, spotting him on the way out of his office. “I’m sure you want to talk with him, right?”
Paul glanced at his watch. “No, I don’t really have time to see him now. I’ll talk to him later. Besides, it was you three I really wanted to see. Thanks for the great jumping demonstration and, most especially, for looking after sweet old Honey-Pie.”
“You’re welcome on both counts,” Stevie said.
“Well, ahoy, mateys!” he declared, waving as he slipped out the back door, through the schooling ring, and back to his car.
The girls exchanged glances.
“Was that weird or what?” Stevie asked.
“Definitely,” Lisa agreed.
“And I don’t care what he says. If Aunt Emma—whoever she is—er, was—loved Honey-Pie, she’d know that a retired horse shouldn’t get two rations of grain a day.”
“And anyone who tries to make me overfeed this sweet mare is going to have to walk the plank!” Carole pronounced.
“A day on his yacht!” Stevie said. “Do you believe it?”
“It might be fun—” Lisa said.
“Except for one thing,” said Stevie.
“Right. He’d be there, good old Mr. Call-me-Pau
l.”
“CAROLE, YOU WERE letting Starlight get away with murder in class today,” Max Regnery said at the end of the flat class that followed their Pony Club meeting the next Saturday.
Carole cringed, but she wasn’t the only one getting criticism. “Lisa, you must remember your basic aids,” Max went on. “If you don’t master the basics, you’ll never accomplish any worthwhile goals.” Lisa flushed with embarrassment at the sharpness of his words.
“And Stevie.” Max didn’t even continue. His irritation with Stevie was so apparent that there wasn’t any need for him to say more. He turned and left the three girls holding their horses while he went to tend to some of the other riders.
“He is so angry with us!” Stevie said.
“What did we do wrong?” Lisa asked.
“Maybe we were just being sloppy in class?” Carole suggested. “I mean, he’s right. Starlight was misbehaving and I wasn’t controlling him properly.”
“And I let my heels come up and my elbows were flopping,” Lisa said.
“I couldn’t help it if Veronica was being so annoying that I just had to hide her bridle before class,” said Stevie.
“Well, it did delay the class for ten minutes while we all looked for it,” Lisa reminded her.
“Still, it was Veronica,” Stevie protested. “But now we have to do some wonderful things to make Max like us again.”
“And trust us,” Lisa added.
“Let’s longe Honey-Pie,” Carole suggested.
“Does she need it?” Lisa asked.
“Every horse needs it,” Carole reminded her. “And Honey-Pie’s been in her box stall and that little paddock all week. I’m sure she’s ready for some nice stretching exercises, and since we can’t ride her, the best way to do that is to longe her.”
“Okay,” said Lisa. “And then, after we’ve done that, let’s give our own horses some nice stretching exercises, too.”
“Like, for instance, a trail ride?” Stevie asked.
“Like, for instance, exactly,” said Lisa.
Million-Dollar Horse Page 4
