Jasmine said, “I could have closed the door, or reminded her to be quiet.”
“I could have warned her to be extra-careful with Silver,” said Corey.
“Maybe we should have tried to talk to her more after she got in trouble,” said Jasmine.
“We didn’t really try hard enough to comfort her,” said Corey.
Corey and Jasmine looked at each other, appalled. Maybe they were to blame for May’s disappearance!
“Mom always says you can’t cry over spilt milk,” said Corey suddenly.
“What does that mean?” asked Jasmine.
“Mom says it means you can’t undo mistakes you’ve already made. And it’s no good to just sit around and worry about them, either,” said Corey. “All you can do is try and not make the same mistakes again. And that means that we have to find May and be better friends to her from now on.”
Jasmine nodded. “You’re right,” she said.
As they rode on, though, Jasmine couldn’t help imagining where May was now. Jasmine was very softhearted, and she had a vivid imagination. She remembered May’s expression when she ran upstairs after being punished by Mrs. Grover.
Jasmine began to picture May, all alone with Macaroni. Maybe she was already starting a new life. Maybe she had changed her name. Maybe she had changed Macaroni’s name. That would make them so much harder to find! Jasmine started thinking about names that May might use. “June and Spaghetti?” she wondered out loud.
Corey didn’t hear Jasmine. She, too, was getting more upset about May. She thought that May must be feeling very alone and scared right now. She pictured May riding Macaroni along a lonely road. What would she do for food? Where would she and Macaroni sleep at night?
Maybe, thought Corey, May would have to figure out ways of making money. Maybe she would be forced to sell pony rides on Macaroni for a living. Maybe she and Macaroni would join a circus!
Poor May! Corey and Jasmine thought.
“Poor May!” said Joey. He was only joking, though. He was teasing May because he thought she had too many apples in her bags.
“What are you going to do if the bags break, May?” asked Dr. Dutton. “Are you going to carry them in your cheeks, the way a squirrel does with nuts?”
“Don’t feel sorry for me!” May told Joey, laughing. “I picked more apples than anybody today, and I need them all! The bags have just got to hold together until I get home!”
The sun was definitely getting lower in the sky. May could tell that it was close to five P.M., the time she had said she would be home. As they rode back, she got more and more excited. She could hardly wait to give the apples away. She planned to keep a few for herself, but most of her harvest would go to her mother, Mrs. James, and Doc Tock. Mrs. James could make applesauce for Sophie. Doc Tock could snack on apples while she worked. May’s mom could make apple crisp with vanilla ice cream, one of the Grovers’ favorite desserts.
May could tell that Macaroni was getting tired. He had done a lot of good work that day and needed to be fed and watered. “Just a few minutes more, Mac,” she said, patting him.
They were almost home!
“That’s enough, girls,” said Mr. Grover. “We shouldn’t be riding when the sun starts to go down. The horses can’t see as well, and they might stumble on a rock or a hole. We have to quit for now.”
Corey turned Sam around, and Jasmine did the same with Outlaw. With Dobbin leading the way, the three riders headed toward the Grovers’ home. They were tired and discouraged, and most of all, they were really worried about May.
The sky was just starting to turn red and gold with the beginnings of sunset. Jasmine looked across the field and saw the Grovers’ stable clearly.
Just then Corey cried out, “Look!” She pointed across the field.
Coming across the field were three riders, one on a horse and two on ponies. Mr. Grover let out a shout. “May!” he called. “Is that you?”
Back in the Grovers’ kitchen, Mrs. Grover had just put on another pot of coffee. She, Mrs. James, and Doc Tock had tried to make conversation with each other. But they kept on lapsing into silence. They were all too concerned about May.
Finally Mrs. Grover got up and restlessly wandered to the kitchen window. “I wonder if they’ve found anything,” she said. Then she gave a start.
“Look!” She pointed out the window.
Mrs. James and Doc Tock rushed over to join her and saw, in the field behind the Grovers’ stable, two sets of three riders coming across the field from opposite directions. Both sets of riders were headed toward the Grovers’.
Mrs. Grover turned off the coffeepot and rushed outside. On her heels were Mrs. James and Doc Tock.
The six riders arrived at the Grovers’ paddock at the same time. The mothers were eagerly waiting for them there. Everything became very confused and noisy, with everyone trying to talk at once.
“May, why did you do it?” cried Mrs. James.
“May, I’m sorry for getting so angry with you,” said Doc Tock.
“May, I shouldn’t have punished you,” said Mrs. Grover.
“May, we’re really sorry,” said Corey and Jasmine together.
“Hold it!” yelled May. Everyone became quiet.
“Why is everyone apologizing?” asked May. “What’s going on here?”
Mrs. Grover ran over to Joey and Dr. Dutton, who were still on horseback. “Thank you so much for finding May,” Mrs. Grover said. She reached up and grabbed Dr. Dutton’s hand to shake it.
“How did you know she had run away?” asked Mrs. James. “You two are geniuses!”
Joey and Dr. Dutton looked completely baffled. “I always thought I was pretty smart, but a genius?” Dr. Dutton began to joke. Then he looked at everyone’s serious face and stopped.
Then Joey and Dr. Dutton looked at May for an explanation.
“What is everyone talking about?” asked May, totally bewildered. “I just went apple-picking with Joey and Dr. Dutton!”
Mrs. Grover stepped back. She leaned against a fence rail. “You just went apple-picking with Joey and Dr. Dutton?” she repeated. “But why didn’t you tell us you were going? We were worried sick!”
May was surprised. She began to explain that she had left messages with everyone.
But as she tried to explain what had happened, she realized that no one—not a single person!—had gotten her messages!
“Uh-oh,” said May. She had a sinking feeling that she was in trouble again. This time she had done everything she was supposed to, but everyone was still mad at her!
Ellie strolled up and joined the group. She had just returned from Sandy’s house. “Hi, what’s the commotion?” she asked casually.
“May was gone for the entire afternoon. Everyone thought she had run away,” her mother told her. “No one knew where she was!”
“I left a message on the bulletin board!” insisted May.
Ellie looked at her mother. Then she looked at May. Then she slowly closed her eyes. “Oh boy, I’ve really done it,” she said.
“What are you talking about? What does this have to do with you, Ellie?” Mr. Grover asked.
“Follow me,” was all Ellie would say.
First of all, the six riders dismounted and tied Ziggy, Dobbin, and the four ponies to the paddock fence. When they went to the kitchen, they found Ellie showing the note she had scribbled on to her mother, Mr. and Mrs. James, and Doc Tock. Sure enough, on the other side they found May’s message about apple-picking.
Then Doc Tock called her answering service, which took messages when she and Jack weren’t in the office. “I have a message from Jack, saying that he forgot to leave a note that May had gone apple-picking with Joey Dutton and his father,” she announced.
“And then I tried to call Jazz and tell her, but the answering machine was broken,” finished May. “I got frustrated and hung up!”
Everyone was silent for a whole minute. The events of the afternoon, as they had really happened,
were just starting to sink in.
Then everyone started to laugh. Mr. and Mrs. Grover hugged May. Corey and Jasmine also hugged her, and told her how scared they had been. Mr. and Mrs. James and Doc Tock first hugged May, then hugged their own daughters.
No one was mad at May anymore. Mrs. Grover asked her, “Did you have a good time?”
May nodded enthusiastically. “It was the best!” she said. “We had a picnic lunch. I got to pick apples on horseback. I ate apples. Macaroni ate a ton of apples. We had an amazing time!”
“Wow!” said Corey and Jasmine enviously at exactly the same time. They turned to each other and said, “Jake!” and gave each other a low five and a high five. May’s day sounded like a blast!
“I have a surprise for all the moms,” announced May. She ran outside. A minute later she returned, lugging her bags of apples. “I picked tons and tons of apples for everyone!” she told them.
The mothers exclaimed at how red and beautiful the apples were. May got busy dividing the apples among Mrs. Grover, Mrs. James, and Doc Tock.
“I wanted to show you that I was really, truly sorry for all the trouble I caused this morning,” she told the three of them. “And I want you to know that I’ve made a very important decision today.”
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Grover, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“I’ve decided never, ever to get in trouble again!” declared May.
The three moms smiled. Then Mrs. Grover spoke.
“No one expects you to never, ever get in trouble, May,” she said. Everyone laughed. They all knew May!
“What we do expect is that you try to think carefully,” Mrs. Grover continued. “But we owe you an apology, too, May. I’ve talked this over with Jasmine’s mom and Corey’s mom, and we all feel as if we flew off the handle. My shoe will be fine, Sophie is fine, and Silver is fine. We shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you, and we’re sorry for making your day begin so miserably. I’m glad, though, that you made up for it at the apple orchard. And I’m especially glad”—she gave May another hug—“for all these delicious apples!”
“Me too,” said Mrs. James.
“Me three!” said Doc Tock.
The three moms paused. There was a short silence, which started to get awkward. The Pony Tails looked at each other in confusion. What was going on here?
“Didn’t you say you had gotten a little something for May?” Mrs. Grover asked Mrs. James.
Mrs. James shrugged and turned to Doc Tock. “Didn’t you say you’d brought her a little gift?” she asked.
Doc Tock chuckled and pointed to Mrs. Grover. “You first,” Doc Tock said.
Mrs. Grover grinned. “Okay, I’ll go first,” she said. “While everyone was out looking for May and Macaroni, the moms discovered that we had something new in common!” She reached under the kitchen table, brought out a basket, and gave it to May.
“For you, May,” Mrs. Grover told her. May looked inside the basket. Nestled inside were five bright, shiny, redder-than-red apples!
“I knew how much you love apples, and I thought you might like these!” laughed Mrs. Grover.
“We got you apples, too,” chimed in Mrs. James and Doc Tock. They, too, brought out baskets of red, shiny apples and gave them to May.
May looked at the three little baskets of beautiful apples. Then she turned and looked at the enormous, bulging bags of apples she had just picked for her mother, Mrs. James, and Doc Tock.
Then she started to giggle.
Corey and Jasmine giggled too. Joey, and all the parents, joined in the girls’ laughter.
They were relieved that May was safe at home. They were happy that her day had ended so well. All three of the Pony Tails had done something fun on their Saturday. Next Saturday, they would all go to Horse Wise and learn more about ponies—together.
Then May reached into her brand-new baskets of apples and began handing them around.
“There’s no such thing as too many apples!” she said, taking a bite out of one.
The kitchen filled with crunching noises. Everyone agreed.
MAY’S TIPS FOR PONY FUN
I know it seems silly to tell you how to have fun with your pony. Personally, I start having fun the minute I think about Macaroni. I have fun when I’m working with him. I even have fun when I’m working for him. Not that I exactly love mucking out stalls, but anything that’s good for Macaroni is fun because I love him so much.
What I want to tell you about is how to have more fun on your pony when you’re not in a class. The first step in having more fun is using your imagination. We all know about riding in circles in a ring and taking a class. Some of us are lucky enough to be able to take trail rides with friends. Those are great things to do, but they’re just a start.
Apple picking with Joey and his dad is an example of what a little imagination can do for you. If you can do it outdoors, on foot, you can do it on a pony. Mostly. Um, maybe. Okay, well, softball is out of the question, but there’s a game that’s a mixture of polo and lacrosse called polocrosse that you play on ponies. See what I mean? Somebody was using her imagination. You can use yours, too.
One of the Pony Tails’ favorite things to do is to go on a trail ride that isn’t just a trail ride. It’s a picnic! When we were littler, we had to have a grown-up with us. That was okay, but it’s more fun alone. One day our parents finally decided that if there were three of us going (so that one could always go for help), and if we didn’t go too far (we had to be able to hear my dad ring the bell behind our house), and if we didn’t stay too long (one hour), and if we borrowed Doc Tock’s cellular phone, then we could go on a picnic. That’s a lot of ifs and ands, but it’s worth all of them. Picnics are fun, being with friends is fun, and riding is fun. Put them all together and it’s a blast!
The only thing that’s better than a picnic is camping out. How about doing that with your pony? That makes camping out even better. Pine Hollow has a camping trip every year called the Mountain Trail Overnight. I sure hope our parents will decide that we’re old enough to go this year. I can’t wait. But in the meantime, Dad took the three of us on a camp-out last summer. It was great—until the mosquitoes decided they hadn’t had enough dinner and started using us for dive-bombing practice. We all came home about two o’clock in the morning! Fortunately, my sisters were asleep, so they couldn’t make fun of us.
One of the things the Pony Tails can always do when we’re riding is to play pretend games. Sometimes we play horse—I mean pony—show. We take turns competing at the National Horse Show, and last week I won a gold medal at the Olympics!
With my imagination, I can make anything happen. I can create a fairyland (Jasmine’s favorite); we can go on a treasure hunt (Corey’s choice); or we can hunt down the varmints who robbed the bank (guess who likes that one?). Sometimes we go on imaginary trips, too. One day we’re in the Arabian desert; the next day we’re watching out for deadly snakes in a tropical forest. There was a time when my imagination took me along with a group exploring an ancient Mayan tomb. I screamed when they took the cover off the coffin. Unfortunately, I was really at a Pony Club meeting, and it was hard to explain to Max what had happened. That’s what my father calls “the downside of a vivid imagination.”
So go ahead, have some fun. It’ll make you feel just like one of the Pony Tails!
Turn the page to continue reading from the Pony Tails series
1 The Smell of Macaroni
“ ’Tis the season to be jolly,” May said. She pulled the book she’d just bought from the bag and looked at it with a happy sigh. The book was called Math for Morons. “Of course Dottie won’t understand a word of it,” May said happily. “It’s way above her head.” Dottie was one of May Grover’s two older sisters.
May and her two best friends, Corey Takamura and Jasmine James, were Christmas shopping at the mall. The three friends called themselves the Pony Tails because they loved ponies—riding ponies, grooming ponies, everything about ponie
s! But holiday shopping was fun, too. People rushed past with their arms full of packages. A Santa with a white beard and a red nose rang a bell. And out of the speakers came the tune of “Silent Night.”
“Dottie is dumb,” May sang to the music, “as dumb as they come.”
“Honestly, May,” said her mother. Mrs. Grover had brought the Pony Tails to the mall. “Christmas is a time for generosity and good spirits.”
“My spirits are excellent,” said May. “They’ve never been better.”
Mrs. Grover shook her head, but she wore a trace of a smile.
“I love what I bought,” Jasmine said. Out of her bag she pulled a tiny T-shirt with a picture of a pony on it. “I want to put Sophie in a riding mood.” Sophie was her baby sister.
“Sophie’s first word will be pony,” May said.
“I’m working on it,” Jasmine said with a grin. “I whisper pony in her ear when she’s asleep.”
Corey sighed. This was going to be a hard Christmas for her. It was the first one since her parents had divorced. She had been looking forward to buying presents. She had saved money from her allowance, and had planned to buy the best presents ever. But now all she could think about was that her family wouldn’t be together on Christmas Day.
Corey stopped to look at a store window full of ties. There was a striped tie, but it was too formal for her father. There was a flowered one, but it was too fussy. And then there was one with horses on it.
That’s it, Corey thought. That’s the perfect present.
“Do you want to go in?” asked Mrs. Grover.
Corey was about to say yes when she realized that a tie is a pretty average present, even when it has horses on it. She wanted to get her father something extra-special this year.
“No thanks,” she said. “It’s a great tie. But …” She couldn’t figure out how to explain.
“Why don’t you give your father something really good?” asked May. “Like a book on equitation?” Equitation was a fancy word for riding.
“That’s what you want for Christmas,” Corey said.
May's Runaway Ride (Pony Tails Book 14) Page 4
