Dream Horse

by Bonnie Bryant

  AS FAR AS Lisa and Carole were concerned, the trip back down the mountain was a lot more pleasant than the one going up. They were no longer worried about Phil and his uncle. Deborah had promised she’d meet them in the valley, where an ambulance crew could take care of Uncle Michael’s ankle.

  The trip down was easier, too, because they didn’t have to cross Rock Ridge. They took the long way down the other side of the mountain, knowing that the narrow steps that had been so hard to climb would be impossible for the blind horse to descend.

  They couldn’t wait to get Blondie to her paddock, where she could have a long drink of water, a pile of fresh hay, and a well-deserved rest.

  It was a long trip, it was hot, and it was difficult, yet Blondie never failed to do exactly what was asked of her.

  “You girls are really something,” said Uncle Michael.

  “Well, we never could have done it without Stevie,” said Lisa.

  “What’s she got to do with it?” Uncle Michael asked. “Hasn’t she been laid up with a concussion?”

  It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but then, Uncle Michael didn’t know Stevie.

  “Boy, I want to see you explain this,” said Phil, laughing at the situation.

  “Here’s the thing,” Lisa began. “Stevie has a sort of special way of looking at things.”

  “Like nobody else,” Carole added. “It’s weird, but after a while, it starts rubbing off on you.”

  “Like, when you begin to think that maybe the best horse for the job is blind—now that’s something only Stevie would think of,” Lisa said.

  “And when you figure out how to rig a lasso, intended for capturing dogies, to make it into an elevator—that’s something Stevie would think of,” said Phil.

  “And when Carole figured out that the only way Moe would let us take Blondie out of the paddock was if Deborah got him to teach her how to muck out a stall—that’s pure Stevie,” Lisa said.

  “I think I’m beginning to get the idea,” said Uncle Michael. “If it’s absolutely wild and impossible, but it works, that’s Stevie’s way of doing it.”

  Phil and the girls laughed. “You are getting the idea,” he told his uncle.

  “Hey, look,” said Lisa. “Is that a flashing light I see through the trees?”

  Carole shaded her eyes and squinted. “Definitely,” she said. “Red and white. It must be the ambulance.”

  “Then we’re home free,” said Phil.

  “Phil, Carole, Lisa, I don’t know how to thank you enough,” said Uncle Michael. “You saved my life—and Stevie, too, I guess.”

  “Don’t forget Blondie,” Carole said.

  “Never,” Uncle Michael said, patting the old mare on her neck.

  “Helloooo. Carole! Lisa! Is that you?” It was Deborah. They were safe, at last.

  Blondie’s ears perked up, and she picked up her pace. She practically trotted the last hundred yards through the now level forest to the open meadow in the valley.

  It wasn’t just an ambulance and Deborah that waited to greet them. There was a whole crowd. Max was there, along with a number of people from the Dunstable airfield. There were emergency personnel from the Rock Ridge fire department and emergency rescue service. The rescue service had started the treacherous climb up one side of the mountain and had been only too happy to abandon the dangerous trek when they got the word that the pilot and passenger had been rescued. The pilot from the rescue plane was there, and four reporters from local papers had come to get the story. Both of Lisa’s parents had come, bringing Max with them, and so had Colonel Hanson. Phil’s parents and his sisters were there, along with Uncle Michael’s wife and their two children.

  As soon as the group of rescuers emerged from the woods, the crowd began a round of applause that didn’t stop until, it seemed to Lisa, everybody had hugged everybody else. It was a moment of triumph that they all enjoyed.

  Then one more car pulled up next to the ambulance. Out of it came Mickey Denver. He stormed over to where Deborah was standing with Max and put his hands on his hips.

  “What’s this all about?” he demanded. “Moe told me that little girl of yours just rode out of the paddock without any permission from anyone. Now, what’s it going to be? Are you going to buy Blondie or not?”

  Deborah was stunned. So were Lisa and Carole and just about everybody else standing there. The only person who knew what to say was Phil.

  “Of course we’re going to buy her,” he said.

  And it was the right thing to say.

  IT TOOK ABOUT an hour after that for everything to get sorted out. Carole and Lisa took Blondie back to her paddock and gave her a grooming, a big bucket of cool water, and a fresh flake of hay. Uncle Michael rode in the ambulance to the hospital with Phil’s mother. Phil’s father stayed behind to arrange for the purchase of Blondie—at a very favorable price. The rescue team made plans to climb back to the crash site so they could remove the remains of the glider in daylight and good weather.

  Finally it was time to go. Carole, Lisa, and Phil all wanted to visit Stevie. Max and Deborah offered to drive them there since it was so close to Pine Hollow. Deborah said she was in a hurry to get home and start writing her article. Her undercover investigation had taken some very unexpected twists, and she could hardly wait to get to her computer.

  The three young riders climbed into the backseat of Max’s car. There was a lot to talk about. Number one, however, was Stevie.

  “How did she know all those things?” Lisa asked, posing the question that had been on all of their minds. “It’s amazing how she’s been able to predict exactly what was going to happen or what had already happened and that she had no other way of knowing.”

  Phil shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” he said.

  “I bet you have,” said Lisa. “You were there when she told you not to go in the glider. Remember when she said that an engine would be the problem?”

  “Of course I remember, and the more I think about it, the less I believe it. Stevie hasn’t been well. When people have head injuries, they can have pretty wild dreams. It’s like the doctor said—her brain got rattled. That’s all it is. It’s the only possible explanation. Most of the time she doesn’t even seem to remember what she dreamed about.”

  “And what about the sign for Veronica?” Carole asked. “She absolutely dreamed that.”

  “But that wasn’t predicting the future,” Phil said. “That was telling you what to do. And remember how I first thought she had a vision about what happened to me and Teddy? Well, I was being silly. Like you said, it was almost exactly the same thing that had happened to her. She was reliving her own nightmare.”

  “Okay,” Lisa conceded. “Some things really aren’t at all significant. But a few were pretty eerie. I mean, remember that she knew Blondie was blind even before we told her?”

  “You both knew it, though, and you may have told her in some way you didn’t even know. I mean, like body language.”

  “Possibly,” Carole said. “But how about the way she knew you were in a tree?”

  “It’s not hard to understand that one,” said Phil. “At first, Stevie was upset I was going gliding because it was going to interfere with our jump competition. So when she couldn’t go ahead with the jump competition, she got more upset and became worried that something would happen to me. She knew we’d be flying over woods. The fact that her nightmare included Uncle Michael’s glider being in a tree was pure coincidence.”

  Max joined the conversation as he drove. “See, girls, there’s a logical explanation for everything. It all starts because you’re concerned about Stevie. That’s natural enough. But there is no such thing as being able to read other people’s minds or being able to tell the future.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Deborah.

  “What do you mean?” Max asked.

  “Well, remember when Stevie called me Mom?”

  “I do,” said Lisa. “I promise y
ou, neither Carole nor I had had a chance to tell her about how much fun it was to call you Mom, but she seemed to know it anyway.”

  “Right. We hadn’t even mentioned it, so there’s no way she could have known,” Carole said.

  “Oh, that wasn’t exactly what I meant,” said Deborah. “Maybe that’s what it was, though.”

  Max turned and looked at her. “Do you think you should tell this group that there is something else she might have foreseen?” he asked, his voice dripping with irony.

  Deborah grinned. “Could be,” she said.

  “A new little rider is coming to Pine Hollow?” Carole asked.

  “Max the Fourth?” Lisa asked.

  “Could be,” said Deborah. “Could be.”

  “Wow!” said Lisa, hugging Deborah excitedly but carefully.

  “Yahooo!” Carole declared, patting Max on the back so vigorously that the car swerved.

  “I wonder if Stevie knows that already!” said Phil.

  Everybody laughed, and then cheered.

  STEVIE HAD NO IDEA about Max and Deborah’s baby. But she said she thought it was going to be a nice thing for them.

  That wasn’t the reaction her friends had expected. They’d thought she’d be as excited as they were. Stevie didn’t seem to be in a mood to get excited about much of anything.

  “Now let me get this straight,” Stevie said, shifting in her bed. She was staring intently at Lisa, Carole, and Phil. “You two took a blind horse up onto a mountain to rescue Phil because that’s what I would have done?”

  Lisa and Carole nodded. “That’s right,” Lisa said. “You would have been so proud of us!”

  “I would have had your heads examined,” Stevie said.

  “We never would have thought of doing it if it hadn’t been for the dream you had. That, combined with the photographs that Veronica showed us, told us exactly what had happened, and there really was only one thing to do once we had the information,” Carole told her.

  Lisa nodded agreement. “And the woman at the airport told us that there really was no way any kind of rescue vehicle ever could have gotten to where the glider was,” she said. “The horse was perfect.”

  “But a horse that wasn’t blind probably wouldn’t have made it, either. No sighted horse with any common sense would have been willing to climb Rock Ridge,” Carole said.

  “So even though you were here in bed, both of us felt as if you were with us every step of the way—you and your dreams, I mean.”

  Stevie shook her head. “There you go, talking about my dreams again. What on earth do a couple of strange dreams have to do with anything? They’re just dreams.”

  “Right, like Belle is just a horse,” said Carole.

  “Belle isn’t just a horse,” Stevie corrected her quickly. “But at least we all know that Belle is real. I don’t even remember having the kinds of dreams you keep telling me I had.”

  “You don’t remember saying Phil was in a tree?” Lisa asked.

  “Nope,” Stevie said positively.

  “What about when you told us that Blondie had vision even though she was blind?” Carole asked. “That sure turned out to be true. It was as if she had some kind of sixth sense that calmed and guided her every step of the way.”

  “How can a blind horse have vision?” Stevie asked. “That’s just not logical.”

  Logic was not something that Stevie had ever much concerned herself with before. It was this kind of thinking that made her friends worry about her. Was the real Stevie ever going to come back? Would this be a permanent change?

  Phil, Carole, and Lisa all glanced at one another. Lisa shrugged ever so slightly. The doctor kept insisting that Stevie was getting better. Could he be right?

  “Well, with or without your help, a few things have gone right,” said Carole. “Number one is that when Uncle Michael and I reported the behavior of the pilot of Mr. diAngelo’s plane, his license got suspended for a good long time.”

  “Yes!” Lisa declared.

  “And number two is that Veronica is not going to win the photographic contest,” said Carole. “At least not with pictures of a glider that’s about to crash.”

  “Really?” Phil asked. “How do you know that?”

  “Well, it seems that the rules of the contest require that the photographs be taken without any adult help. Hubert, childish as he is, is an adult, and by flying the plane, he was helping Veronica. Those photographs are all disqualified!”

  “Oh no!” said Lisa.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Carole asked.

  “It means she won’t be gone for two weeks!” Lisa said.

  “Oh, don’t be so sure of that,” said Carole. “When last seen, she was storming around saying she didn’t care a whit for that dumb old picture contest and she was going to get her daddy to let her go to Rome. She’d have a much nicer time going with her mummy, anyway. After all, her mummy is the one with all the credit cards!”

  “Do you think we should warn the Italians about the invasion?” Lisa asked.

  Phil laughed. “No, they’ll figure it out. And besides, they’ll only have to put up with her for two weeks. We’ll have her for the other fifty weeks of the year!”

  “And then there’s number three,” Carole said. “And that’s Blondie. Phil’s father bought her from Mickey Denver. Uncle Michael said a horse that wonderful needed to have a wonderful retirement, so now she’s living in a field next to Phil’s house.”

  “Where she’ll get a well-deserved rest and lots of love. And an occasional trail ride,” said Lisa.

  “But no mountains, no rocky ridges, and no more rescue missions,” Carole said.

  “Definitely,” said Phil.

  Stevie fluffed her pillow irritably. “This is all very interesting, I’m sure, but can you carry on about it someplace else? I’ve got some reading to do from my summer reading list.”

  “Stevie, school just let out,” Lisa said. “You don’t have to read those books for two months!” She herself had begun work on her summer reading list the day after school closed, but it was more Stevie’s style to begin the work the day before school opened than two months ahead of time.

  “Just two months?” Stevie said. “Well, there isn’t a moment to waste. Has anyone seen my copy of Silas Manner?”

  “You’re reading Silas Marner?” Phil asked, surprised.

  “Moby Dick was out of the library when Chad went over there for me,” Stevie explained.

  “You wanted to read Moby Dick?” Carole asked, stunned.

  “Until I can find my copy of War and Peace,” Stevie said, as if that explained anything. “Oh, there it is,” she said, spotting her book on the other side of the room. She sat up straight in bed and shifted her legs so that she could stand up.

  “Here, Stevie, I’ll give you a hand,” Phil said.

  “No, I’m okay,” Stevie insisted. “I didn’t break anything. I can walk all right.”

  She stood up. Her friends knew that she’d barely been out of bed for almost a week, and that was enough to make anybody unsteady as they walked. Stevie was adamant, though. She was tired of being confused by the odd things that people said and the odd way they were treating her. She wanted to show them that she could walk across her bedroom, pick up a book, and walk back. She held the footboard of her bed for a moment to steady herself. Then, when she thought she was ready, she took a step, and then another one.

  That was when the most peculiar thing began to happen. For some reason, the room began to spin. At first it moved slowly. Then it was a total sea of confusion. Lisa, Carole, and Phil seemed to spin with the room. Stars appeared in midair, their bright glare washing everything away from Stevie’s sight.

  “Stevie?” Lisa asked.

  “Are you all right?” asked Carole.

  “Let me help you,” said Phil.

  “I’m fine,” said Stevie. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”

  And then the whole world was a blank.

 
“Catch her! She’s falling!” Lisa screamed.

  Phil, Carole, and Lisa all ran to catch Stevie, but they were too late. Stevie’s legs simply collapsed, and she hit the floor with a bang. More accurately, her head hit the floor with a bang, and she was completely unconscious.

  “Oh no! Not again!” Lisa cried.

  The three of them gathered around Stevie. Lisa picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse. It was there. Carole noted that she was breathing evenly. Phil held her hand.

  They waited a minute.

  Stevie’s eyes fluttered open. She blinked a few times. She reached up to her head and rubbed the bump that was swelling up.

  “Ouch!” she declared. Then, while her friends watched, wondering what would happen, Stevie pulled herself to a sitting position.

  A fiery look of anger came over her face. She took a deep breath and spoke. “Where is that Veronica diAngelo?” she demanded. “I want to give that girl a piece of my mind. Can you believe she took a flash picture right in our faces so that Belle got spooked and I hit my head?”

  “It’s Stevie!” Lisa said, thrilled.

  “She’s back!” said Carole. They both knew their friend when they saw her. This was the real Stevie, the one who loved to laugh, play practical jokes, get into trouble, and eat butter pecan ice cream with licorice bits.

  “What am I doing out of bed now?” Stevie asked, still apparently confused.

  “You were getting your copy of Silas Manner,” Phil explained, smiling.

  “Why would I be doing that?” Stevie asked. “School doesn’t start for at least two months! Man, I’m starving. Do you suppose there’s anything to eat in the house? I could really go for some key lime sherbet with caramel sauce and mint sprinkles.”

  Lisa and Carole looked at one another and then slapped their hands together in a high five. The Saddle Club was together again!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bonnie Bryant is the author of nearly a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, and the Pony Tails series. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.