Riding Lesson

by Bonnie Bryant

  “That’s terrific,” Stevie said when Carole had finished. “I like Marie. She’s funny.”

  “She sure is,” Carole replied ruefully, remembering the barrage of bug jokes that afternoon. “Anyway, we should start thinking of lots of things to do while she’s staying here.”

  “Cool,” Stevie said. “Why don’t we get Lisa in on this, too?”

  “Good idea,” Carole agreed. “Three-way calling is a great invention, isn’t it?”

  A moment later Lisa was on the line, too. Carole quickly told her about Marie’s visit. “Now we have to think of special things to do for her while she’s here. We don’t want to give her a spare second to miss her mom.”

  “What have you thought of so far?” Lisa asked.

  “Well, just that we’ll want to spend a lot of time at Pine Hollow,” Carole said. “I was hoping you guys could help me with the details.”

  “No problem,” said Stevie. “Let’s see, we can start with lots of trail rides, maybe a nice autumn picnic in the woods.…”

  “That all sounds great,” Lisa said. “But you’re forgetting one very important thing. Sleepovers.”

  “Oh, well, I guess that goes without saying,” Carole replied.

  “I guess it does,” Lisa said. “But I have an even better idea. Let’s ask Max if we can have a sleepover in the stable.”

  “The stable?” Carole repeated. “You want us to bed down in one of the box stalls?”

  Lisa laughed. “Of course not. We can sleep in the loft.”

  “What a perfect idea!” Stevie exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I guess it does sound kind of like a Stevie plan, doesn’t it?” Lisa said. “Although it could just as easily be a Carole plan. After all, you already spend every waking moment at Pine Hollow. I’m surprised it’s never occurred to you to spend every sleeping moment there, too.”

  Carole and Stevie laughed.

  “We must be rubbing off on you,” Stevie told Lisa.

  “I think you are,” Lisa agreed. “And I’m glad. That’s what friends are for, right?”

  “Right,” Carole and Stevie said in one voice.

  Carole thought for a moment. “And you know, I think we should all try to be really good friends to Marie while her mother is away,” she said. “It will be hard for her, especially on her birthday.”

  “Sounds like a Saddle Club project to me,” Lisa said.

  “Definitely,” Carole replied wholeheartedly.

  CAROLE WATCHED CRITICALLY as Lisa and Prancer walked in a figure eight in the outdoor ring at Pine Hollow the following Thursday afternoon. “I think you’re ready to take her to a trot,” she called from her position atop Starlight.

  Lisa nodded quickly and gave the signal by squeezing gently with both legs and allowing the horse a little more rein. Prancer responded instantly, moving into a smooth trot while continuing in the figure eight as directed. Lisa smiled with pleasure, and Carole nodded with satisfaction as she watched.

  Prancer had been a racehorse for the first three years of her life, until a leg injury had ended her racing career. Since the injury had revealed a hereditary weakness, it made her unsuitable as a brood mare for a racing stable despite her impeccable bloodlines. Prancer had a sweet disposition and a love of young people, so Max Regnery, the owner of Pine Hollow, and Judy Barker, the local veterinarian, had decided to buy the mare as a riding horse for the stable.

  Once the horse’s leg had healed, Lisa had begun to work on training Prancer to be a pleasure mount. As a racehorse she had been taught to do only one thing, and that was race. Part of what the mare needed to learn first was obedience and precision, and that was what Lisa and Carole were teaching Prancer today by putting her through some basic dressage training exercises.

  After a few minutes Lisa brought Prancer back to a walk, then to a stop. The mare obeyed perfectly.

  “She looks good!” Carole called.

  “She feels good, too,” Lisa said with a smile. She loved riding the beautiful bay mare, even though the task of training her was painstaking and sometimes tedious. A lot of patient work had preceded today’s performance, and Lisa was proud of the results. It was a compliment to her own riding skills that Max was allowing her to work with the mare at this stage. Even though Lisa hadn’t been riding as long as her friends had, she had learned very quickly, and Max was confident that she could handle this challenge—especially since Prancer had developed a real affection for her.

  “What now?” Lisa asked. Carole knew a lot about training, and Lisa trusted her opinions. She had the feeling Max did, too, and that that was part of the reason he trusted Lisa to work with Prancer. He knew that The Saddle Club always worked as a team.

  Before Carole could answer Lisa’s question, they both heard Stevie’s voice. “Hi, guys! Sorry I’m late! I’ll be right out.”

  With that their friend disappeared into the stable. She reappeared a few minutes later leading Topside, the Thoroughbred gelding she usually rode.

  By this time Carole and Lisa had moved ahead with their exercises. They were riding the two horses in a wide circle around the ring with Starlight in the lead. Every so often Carole would ask Starlight to switch from a walk to a trot. Prancer’s natural instinct was to move into a trot as well, but Lisa held her to a walk. She was teaching the horse to respond only to what her rider was telling her to do, not to anything that was happening around her. It was an important lesson, and Prancer was getting better at it every day, although she still sometimes became impatient when she felt she was being left behind. Horses are naturally competitive creatures, and Prancer had been bred and trained to race—and win.

  “What happened to you?” Carole asked when Stevie and Topside joined them in the ring. She brought Starlight to a halt.

  “I kind of lost track of the time,” Stevie explained. “See, there’s this new girl in my class at school, Priscilla Tyler. I volunteered to fill her in on some stuff about Fenton Hall.” That was the private school Stevie attended, located across town from the public school where Carole and Lisa went. “We got to talking and, well …”

  “We know,” Lisa said. Carole nodded. They knew that when Stevie got to talking, it was sometimes difficult to get her to stop.

  “So what’d I miss?” Stevie asked.

  Carole quickly explained what they’d been doing. Then they got back to work. At one time Lisa might have thought that doing so much riding at a slow walk would be boring. But when she was involved in teaching a wonderful horse like Prancer something important, as she was now, she didn’t mind it at all. All of the mare’s gaits were so smooth and pleasant to ride that it almost didn’t matter whether she was walking, trotting, cantering, or galloping. Lisa loved riding her at any speed.

  After a while Lisa caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over at the edge of the ring. “Looks like we have company,” she called to Carole and Stevie.

  Carole turned to see Judy Barker leaning on the gate of the ring. Max and his fiancée, Deborah Hale, were with her. Max and Deborah, a newspaper reporter from Washington, had become engaged recently. The two had met when Deborah had interviewed Max to gather background information for a story about horses.

  “Let’s go say hello,” Carole said eagerly, dismounting and heading toward the gate. Carole had spent some time after school and during vacations assisting Judy on her rounds. It seemed that she learned something new every time she talked to the vet.

  “I think Prancer has had just about enough for today anyway,” Lisa said. She gave the mare a pat on the neck, dismounted, and followed Carole. Stevie was right behind her.

  “Hi, girls,” said Judy. “You’re looking good out there.”

  “Prancer is the one who’s looking good,” Carole said. “She’s really a fast learner.”

  “She’s smart,” Judy said with a nod. “And you girls are good trainers.”

  Carole and Lisa blushed with pleasure. But Stevie had things other
than compliments on her mind. “Are you here to check on Spice?” she asked Judy excitedly. “Is she going to foal soon?” Spice was a pregnant mare who was staying at Pine Hollow until she foaled. After that she would immediately be bred to Max’s stallion, Geronimo.

  Judy nodded again. “I already saw her. And as I told Max, I think his estimate is off the mark—I’d say she won’t drop the foal for another three weeks at least.” Stevie, Carole, and Lisa knew that Max had thought Spice would foal within the next week.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” Stevie said. “You’ll love seeing the foal,” she added to Deborah, who hadn’t spent much time around horses before meeting Max. “They’re so cute when they’re little.”

  “But, Max, that means you’ll have to keep Spice here a lot longer than you’d planned,” Carole said.

  Max shrugged. “As I told Judy, it’s no big deal. I already agreed to look after the mare. I’ll just keep her here until she foals, even if it takes a little longer than I had expected.” He smiled at Deborah.

  “I can’t wait to see the baby,” Deborah said cheerfully. She hoisted herself up and perched on the fence. “I’ve never seen a newborn horse before.”

  Carole smiled at her. “You’ll love it,” she said. “Newborn foals are so adorable. I’ve seen lots of them, especially since I started working with Judy, but each time it’s wonderful all over again. It really kind of reminds you somehow what life is all about, you know?”

  Deborah nodded, swinging one booted foot against the fence rail. Carole stifled a giggle as she thought how much Deborah’s style of dress had already changed since she’d become engaged to Max and started spending a lot of time at Pine Hollow. Today she was wearing blue jeans almost as faded as Stevie’s, a plaid flannel shirt, and riding boots. Her shoulder-length red hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

  Carole glanced at Max and noticed for the first time that his appearance had changed a little since meeting Deborah, too. He had always dressed neatly and practically, and he still did, but today he was wearing a new shirt that looked more stylish than the ones he usually wore.

  Carole looked down at her own dusty riding clothes. I hope getting married doesn’t mean you have to change the way you look, she thought. Carole liked to dress up once in a while, especially when she was going to be seeing Cam Nelson, a boy she was friends with. Still, she didn’t think she would ever change the way she dressed just to please another person—even Cam.

  Her attention snapped back to the conversation with Max’s next words. “We’ve been out looking at china patterns,” he said, beaming at Deborah.

  “That’s right,” the reporter added. “We’ve got it narrowed down to three or four choices.”

  When the adults weren’t looking, Stevie caught Carole’s eye and made a gagging face. Carole giggled. The Saddle Club was delighted about Max’s upcoming marriage, and they liked Deborah a lot, but sometimes the two of them could get a little carried away. Besides, it was funny to see some of the changes in Max. He normally wasn’t the type of person to spend any time at all thinking about something as boring as china patterns.

  “I was at the mall with my mother last week,” Lisa chimed in, “and we were in the china department of one store because she was buying a wedding gift for someone. They had this great china with fox-hunting scenes on it. You guys could get that.”

  “Hey, that sounds great,” Carole said.

  But Max, Deborah, and Judy were laughing.

  “I don’t think so, Carole,” Max said. “We’re looking for something that will coordinate well with the dining room. Deborah’s got some terrific decorating ideas.” He smiled proudly at his fiancée. Her face glowed. Stevie pretended to gag again, and this time Carole was pretty sure Judy saw her. Luckily, though, Max and Deborah had eyes only for each other and didn’t notice a thing.

  “Speaking of dishes, I’m starved,” Deborah said. “I think I’ll go over to the house and get a snack.” She began to push herself forward off the fence.

  “Here, let me help you,” Max said. He reached up and took her by the waist, gently lowering her the few feet to the ground.

  Deborah smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said. “Want to join me?”

  “Sorry,” Max said with real regret in his voice. “I can’t right now. I want to have Judy look in at Bluegrass while she’s here. I just want to make sure he’s completely over his cold. It will only take a few minutes. I’ll join you after that, okay?”

  “If you’re only going to be a few minutes, I can wait,” Deborah said. “Maybe the girls will let me help them take off—oh, I mean untack their horses.”

  “You’re learning the lingo,” Max said. “All right, then. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  As Max and Judy headed into the stable, Stevie turned to Deborah, her hands on her hips. “What’s the big idea?” she demanded.

  Deborah looked startled. She hadn’t known Stevie very long and still wasn’t quite used to her bluntness. But she recovered quickly like the unflappable reporter she was. “What’s what big idea?”

  Stevie threw up her hands in exasperation. “You and Max! I mean, you’re two of the most independent, plain-spoken people I know. And here you are, treating each other like—like—like that china you were talking about!”

  “What do you mean?” Deborah asked, with just a hint of a smile. She reached forward gingerly to pat Starlight on the nose. He snuffled at her curiously, then lowered his head for more petting.

  “I mean like letting Max help you down from that fence, as if you’d break your legs if you tried to jump down yourself,” Stevie said.

  Deborah laughed. “Oh, that,” she said. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but I sometimes let him open doors for me, too.”

  “But what’s the point of all that?” Carole asked. She wouldn’t have dared bring up this subject herself, but she was glad that Stevie had. “You’re not helpless. You can open doors and get down from fences yourself. Why pretend that you can’t?”

  “I’m not pretending I can’t,” Deborah explained. “And Max knows very well that I can do those things myself. He just wants to pamper me a little bit.”

  Stevie and Carole still looked skeptical. But Lisa was nodding. “I think that’s nice,” she said. “My dad still does things like that for my mom. It’s really sweet.”

  “It is sweet,” Deborah agreed. “It makes Max feel good to do those things, and it makes me feel good to let him.”

  “But isn’t that a little, well …” Carole glanced down at Starlight’s reins as she searched her mind for a tactful word.

  “Prehistoric?” Stevie finished helpfully.

  Deborah laughed again. “I like to think not. After all, I do little things to pamper Max right back.”

  Something else was still bothering Carole. “Well, all right, but what about the food thing?” she said. “You’re hungry, but you’re not going right inside to eat because Max isn’t ready yet. What do you call that?”

  “I call it compromise,” Deborah replied. “Sure I’m hungry, but eating with Max will be much more pleasant for me than eating alone. And I know that he feels the same way. So I’ll wait a few minutes and make us both happy.”

  “Hmm,” Stevie said, still looking unconvinced. Carole agreed with the sentiment. It sounded to her as though Deborah was putting Max’s needs ahead of her own.

  “Well, think about this,” Deborah said. “Do you think Max actually likes spending his Sunday morning shopping for china patterns?”

  The three girls exchanged glances. “No,” they answered in one voice.

  “But he certainly seemed pretty happy about it today,” Carole added.

  “I guess it’s because you guys were doing it together,” Lisa said.

  “Barf,” said Stevie.

  The others laughed. “Come on, Stevie,” said Lisa. “It’s not like you never act differently around Phil.” Phil Marsten was a boy Stevie
had met at riding camp. They had been dating ever since, even though he lived in a different town and they could see each other only once or twice a month.

  “That’s different,” Stevie replied with a sniff. “I’m only nice to him when I feel like it.”

  “Right,” Lisa joked. “And you just happen to feel like it almost every single time you see him.”

  “That’s right,” Stevie said with a shrug. “What about it?”

  “Sounds like true love to me,” Deborah said with a wink at Lisa.

  While Lisa and Deborah continued to tease Stevie, Carole’s mind began to wander again as she thought about what Deborah had said. She thought about the way her father acted with Mrs. Dana. She remembered that he did often open doors or pull out chairs for her—just as he had done for Carole’s mother when she was alive. But had he changed in other ways since they’d been dating? Carole didn’t think he had, but she hated the thought that he might if things got more serious between them. For instance, Carole knew that Mrs. Dana was very interested in antique furniture. If she married Colonel Hanson and moved in, would she insist on redecorating the house? Carole tried to picture her cozy room filled with dusty old mahogany furniture. She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

  Before she could ponder these questions any further, Starlight turned his attention from Deborah back to Carole. He nudged her gently on the shoulder and stamped one foot. “Oh, sorry, boy,” Carole said, giving her horse a quick hug. “You guys had such a good training session, and here we are standing around talking instead of giving you a good grooming and letting you rest in your stalls.”

  “Oh, you’re right, Carole,” Stevie said, interrupting yet another of Lisa’s jokes about Phil. “Come on, Deborah. You can help me with Topside.”

  As Carole led Starlight into the stable, she decided that she wasn’t giving her father enough credit. He was who he was, and that wasn’t going to change—even if he did wind up marrying Mrs. Dana.

  STEVIE GROANED AS she stacked one book on top of another. It was Monday afternoon, and classes at Fenton Hall had just ended for the day. And it was a good thing, too, Stevie thought. If she had been assigned any more homework, she would have had to hire a moving van to get her books home. If the teachers were already assigning this much work in September, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be around for May and June.