Riding Lesson

by Bonnie Bryant

  Carole took a deep breath and gave Marie a tentative smile. “Well, I’m willing to try to do better from now on if you are. How about it?”

  “Deal,” Marie said. She stuck out her hand.

  Carole shook it, feeling a little awkward. “Oh, by the way, happy birthday.”

  “Thanks,” Marie replied.

  Carole bit her lip. “I’m really sorry, Marie,” she said quietly. “About everything.”

  Marie pulled her hand back and swiped at her eyes again. “Yeah. Me, too.” She cleared her throat. “I’m glad you found me.”

  Carole nodded. “Same here. I had a feeling you’d be here. I figured you’d want to be at home at a time like this.”

  “Actually, that’s not the only reason I came home,” Marie said. “I was hoping to be able to get into my house and get my portable CD player and some disks. Not that I don’t appreciate the loan of your radio, but it’s just not the same, you know?” She laughed. “Anyway, I figured that if you were going to be mean to me for the rest of the week, at least I’d be able to turn up the volume in my headphones and drown you out.”

  “Very funny,” Carole said dryly. She wasn’t sure if she was glad or sorry to see that Marie’s sense of humor was back. Still, she had to laugh a little in spite of herself. “I guess you didn’t find a way in?”

  Marie shook her head sadly. “Everything’s locked on the first floor. I’m pretty sure the second-floor hall window is open, but the only way to get to it is that trellis, and I couldn’t reach it.” She pointed to an empty wooden trellis attached to the side of the house nearby.

  Carole glanced at the trellis. Suddenly she had an idea. “Marie, I think I feel a bout of Stevie-ism coming on,” she said slowly.

  “What?” said Marie.

  “Wait here a minute,” Carole replied mysteriously. “I’ll be right back.”

  A moment later she returned, leading Starlight.

  “Are you going to have him kick the door in, or what?” asked Marie, mystified.

  “Give me a leg up, will you?” was Carole’s only reply. Marie obeyed. “Now lead him over to the trellis and hold him still,” Carole directed.

  Comprehension dawned on Marie’s face. She smiled and did as Carole ordered.

  When Starlight was in place and standing quietly, Carole slowly and carefully adjusted her position until she was standing upright on his broad, bare back. She reached up and grabbed the trellis, then pulled herself up hand over hand until she could get a foothold.

  Seconds later she reached the window. Trying it, she found that it was unlocked just as Marie had thought. Carole climbed through and then looked down at Marie. “Tie Starlight up and come around front,” she called.

  Marie nodded. Carole made her way through the house and down the stairs and let Marie in the front door. They went back upstairs together. Marie quickly collected her small portable CD player and a few disks and threw them in her backpack. The girls locked the window, then left the house again through the front door which locked behind them. Carole helped Marie climb up behind her on Starlight, and they headed back to Pine Hollow together.

  MAX WAS WAITING for them when they arrived. “Carole, your father has called three times in the last half hour,” he said, shaking his head. “You’d better give him a ring to let him know you’re both alive and well.” He reached for Starlight’s bridle as the girls dismounted. “You can use the office phone. Meantime I’ll put this fellow in his stall for you.” He began to lead Starlight away, then stopped and turned. “And by the way, you’re forgiven for breaking the no-riding-alone rule,” he added gruffly. “But just this once.”

  “Thanks, Max,” Carole said gratefully. “I’ll never do it again, I promise. Oh, and I’ll be back to groom Starlight in a few minutes.”

  Max nodded and ambled off with Starlight in tow.

  “I’ll call your father,” Marie said. “I want to apologize for scaring him. I shouldn’t have just taken off like that without telling anyone.”

  Carole followed her to the office. After Marie had made her apologies to Colonel Hanson, she listened for a moment. Then she put her hand over the receiver. “He says he wants to take us both out for a big birthday dinner before the sleepover,” she told Carole. “Then we can pick up our pajamas and stuff and he’ll drive us back here in time to meet Stevie and Lisa at eight o’clock.”

  Carole smiled. “He’s probably plotting ways to get us to be nice to each other,” she said. “Maybe he thought a restaurant meal would put us in a friendlier mood. Here, let me talk to him.” She took the receiver. “Hi, Dad? It’s me.”

  “Carole?” her father said. “Did Marie tell you about the dinner plans?”

  “Yes,” Carole replied. “And I wanted to tell you, Marie and I don’t need to go out to dinner together.”

  “Carole!” Colonel Hanson began, sounding angry. “I had hoped you’d …”

  “No, no, it’s not that,” Carole interrupted him with a laugh. “What I meant was that Marie and I are friends again. I apologized for being such a rotten hostess all week.” She caught Marie’s eye. “And such a rotten friend. So you don’t need to try to make us like each other anymore. We took care of that ourselves.”

  Colonel Hanson chuckled. “Boy, am I glad to hear that,” he said. “But still, that’s all the more reason for me to take you girls out. What better way to celebrate friendship than with a nice dinner? Besides, it’s still Marie’s birthday. Don’t you want to give her our present?”

  “Our present?” Carole repeated, suddenly remembering that they’d never followed through on their plans to go shopping. “But we didn’t get her anything yet.” She glanced in Marie’s direction.

  “Oh, yes, we did,” Colonel Hanson corrected her. “It’s just going to be a surprise for you as well as for her. And I know how you love a good surprise.”

  “I guess I can’t argue with that,” Carole said with a smile. “When are you picking us up?”

  “OKAY, THE NET’S secure,” Stevie announced, climbing the ladder to the hayloft, where Lisa was busy arranging their sleeping bags. “All we have to do when we’re ready is stretch it across and attach it to the hooks in the far wall.”

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you quite understood me when I told you there was no way I was going to be a part of this idiotic scheme of yours, Stevie,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. It’s foolproof,” Stevie assured her briskly. She sat down on a bale of hay and rubbed her hands together eagerly. “Now, let’s go over our parts one more time. First I’ll distract Carole and Marie with a demonstration of my special shadow puppets.” She switched on the battery-operated lamp Max had lent them to make sure it was working. It was.

  Lisa just sighed and shook her head.

  “Then,” Stevie went on, “you’ll sneak down and hook up the net. When you get back, it’ll be time to suggest we do some square dancing.”

  Lisa raised her eyebrows. “Did you say square dancing?” she asked incredulously. “Why would we want to do that?”

  “Well, we’re in a barn,” Stevie said, as if that were the most logical thing in the world. She pointed to her portable tape player. “I have the square-dance tape all cued up. Anyway, when we get to the part about ‘swing your partners,’ well …”

  Lisa groaned. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here listening to this,” she said. “You really think we’re going to do this, don’t you?”

  Stevie looked hurt. “Of course. It’s the only way to get Carole and Marie to be friends again.”

  “It’s—” Whatever Lisa had been about to say was cut off as Carole’s head popped over the edge of the loft.

  “Hi there, you guys,” she said cheerfully. “Sorry we’re late.”

  “No problem,” Stevie said, jumping to her feet. “Come on up, and let’s get this sleepover on the road!”

  Carole climbed up into the loft, followed by Marie. “So what’s that fence netting doing hanging on the wall down there?”
Carole asked.

  Stevie gulped. “Uh, what netting would that be?” she asked.

  Carole gave her a strange look. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see it.”

  Stevie shrugged. “I didn’t see a thing. Did you, Lisa?”

  Lisa just rolled her eyes again and didn’t answer.

  “I have a feeling these two have something to hide,” Marie said to Carole.

  Carole nodded. “I think you’re right. Should we try to bribe them into telling us with the leftover birthday cake we brought from the restaurant?”

  “Nah,” said Marie. “Let’s just toss them over the side and eat it all ourselves.”

  Lisa and Stevie gasped simultaneously.

  “Aha!” said Marie. “That got a reaction. It must be a clue!”

  “But what could it mean?” Carole said. “Were they planning to ambush us and steal our cake, maybe toss us off the loft during the night?” She glanced at Stevie and noticed the guilty look on her face. “Hey, what were you guys planning, anyway?” she asked, dropping the joking tone. “Lisa?”

  Lisa glared at Stevie. “Well, it certainly wasn’t my idea.”

  Stevie gave Carole and Marie a weak grin. “I’m just glad to see that you two are getting along better,” she said.

  “That’s right,” Carole said. “That means the two of us will gang up on you and tickle you to death if you don’t tell us what’s going on.” She curled her fingers threateningly.

  “Well,” Stevie began reluctantly, “we were trying to think of a way to get you two to be friendlier. It’s been a little tense around here this week, you know.”

  “Fair enough,” Carole said, and Marie nodded.

  “So we tried to think of a plan,” Stevie continued.

  “You mean you tried to think of a plan,” Lisa muttered.

  “We decided the best way to get you to make up would be to make you, Carole, think Marie was in deadly danger,” Stevie said all in one breath. “Then you’d realize how much you really liked her while you were trying to save her life. We were going to push her out of the loft.”

  “What?” Marie squawked.

  “Don’t worry,” Stevie hurried to add. “That’s what the net was for.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Carole demanded.

  “That’s what I said,” Lisa told her, nodding.

  “How exactly were you planning to do this?” Marie asked.

  Stevie bit her lip. “Well, we were going to do it while we were square-dancing,” she explained.

  “Square-dancing?” Carole and Marie said in unison. They stared at Stevie for a moment, then turned and stared at each other. Then they both burst out laughing. After a moment Lisa joined in. Stevie started to smile, then chuckle, and soon all four girls were rolling with laughter.

  “Oh, wow,” Carole gasped when she was able to speak again. “We must have really been making things uncomfortable if you were willing to risk life and limb—Marie’s, that is—to fix things up between us!”

  Stevie grinned sheepishly. “Well, you weren’t exactly a barrel of laughs to be around,” she said. “You were both obviously miserable. We had to do something.”

  Carole smiled. “I guess that’s what friends are for. But don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson—even without the square dancing.”

  Meanwhile, Marie had crawled over to the edge of the loft and was peering down. “Hey, you guys,” she called. “I have an idea.”

  “I hope it’s better than Stevie’s,” Lisa commented. Stevie threw a handful of straw at her.

  “Well, actually, it’s inspired by Stevie’s idea,” Marie said.

  Carole groaned. “Uh-oh, we’re in trouble.”

  “No, listen,” Marie said. “If it was going to be okay to throw me into the net—”

  “Well, actually, we hadn’t exactly determined that yet,” Lisa interrupted.

  “Well, all right,” said Marie, “since it was probably going to be okay to throw me into the net, why don’t we get a whole big pile of hay and jump down into it from up here?”

  “That’s a great idea!” Stevie exclaimed. She hurried to the edge and looked over. Then she glanced around the loft. “We can push a bunch of these bales over. It’ll be fun!”

  The others couldn’t help but agree. They set to work making a soft mountain of hay on the stable floor. When they had enough, they took turns leaping off the edge of the loft into the pillowy pile.

  “This is even more fun than jumping into a big pile of leaves,” Stevie declared as she scrambled up the ladder, ready for another turn.

  “I’d even say it’s more fun than square dancing,” Marie said mischievously.

  “Definitely,” Carole said with a laugh. She stepped to the edge and jumped. She landed on her back and looked up at the others with a contented smile. “And it smells sweeter than anything else in the world.”

  “Enough talking!” Marie said. “Hurry up and move if you don’t want me falling on top of you.”

  After a while, exhausted, the girls stopped jumping. They sat in a row on the edge of the loft, looking down at the hay pile. By now the pile had lost most of its shape. In fact, bits and pieces of it were scattered all over the floor. “I just have one question,” Lisa said.

  “What’s that?” asked Stevie.

  “How are we going to explain this to Max?”

  “Uh-oh,” said Carole. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She smiled. “But then again, anyone who could come up with something as dumb as the idea of square-dancing out of a hayloft should certainly be able to explain a simple little misplaced mountain of hay.”

  Before Stevie could answer, the girls heard the stable door slide open.

  “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?” called a familiar voice.

  The four girls stared at each other. “Max!” they gasped in a single voice.

  A second later Max and Deborah came into view. The first thing they did was stare at the huge pile of hay. The second thing they did was burst into laughter.

  The girls looked at each other again, this time in puzzlement. “What’s so funny?” Stevie called down.

  Max looked up at them, still chuckling. “What’s funny is that I was just this minute telling Deborah that Red and I were going to spend tomorrow morning bringing down a whole load of hay from the loft.” He waved a hand at the hay mountain. “But look at this! The hay fairies were here before us.” He winked at Deborah.

  “We do what we can,” Stevie said graciously. Carole and Lisa glanced at each other, relieved that Max wasn’t angry. “So where are you two lovebirds off to now?” Stevie added.

  “We’re going out for a late dinner,” Deborah said. “So I guess you girls are in charge here for a few hours.”

  Max groaned. “Hush. Just the thought of that gives me indigestion.” He looked up at the girls. “Try not to get into too much trouble while we’re gone.”

  “Right,” Stevie whispered loudly as Max and Deborah headed for the door. “Like he believes that!”

  After the adults were gone, Stevie grabbed her backpack and held it behind her back. “And now,” she announced dramatically, “it’s birthday-party time!” With a flourish she pulled out the CD, which Lisa had wrapped in red-and-green paper.

  “The paper’s left over from last Christmas,” she explained to Marie sheepishly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Hey, no problem,” Marie said. “I can’t believe you guys got me a gift at all. This is great.” She eagerly ripped open the package and squealed with delight. “Wow! I can’t believe this! I was already plotting ways to make my mom buy this album for me when she got back. I can’t wait to listen to it. Thanks a million, you guys!” She reached for her suitcase. “Hey, do you want to see what Carole and her dad got me?”

  “Well, my dad was the one who actually got it,” Carole admitted. “He went shopping yesterday on his lunch hour.”

  “But he did say you were the one who gave him the idea,” Marie said. “And somehow I believe him.”<
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  When she pulled out the gift, Lisa and Stevie started laughing. They knew exactly what Marie meant. The gift was a small leather CD carrying case with a picture of a running horse embossed on it. “It does look like something Carole would pick out. I can’t quite put my finger on why, though,” Lisa teased.

  Carole laughed, too. It felt good to joke around with her friends again after being in such a bad mood all week. “I saw one like it at the mall last time Dad and I were there,” she explained. “I thought about saving up to get it for you for Christmas, Stevie, except they only had ones to hold CDs, not tapes. But I thought it would be perfect for Marie. Now she can bring her CDs with her wherever she goes without worrying about their getting damaged.”

  “It really is the perfect gift,” Stevie declared as Marie carefully tucked her new CD into her new CD case. And the others couldn’t help but agree—especially Carole.

  Later that night, after the girls had told ghost stories, talked about horses, gossiped about people they knew, talked about horses, eaten the snacks they had brought, talked about horses, and said good night to all the horses in the barn, they were finally ready to settle down and go to sleep.

  “This is the life,” Stevie commented as the four girls once again sat at the edge of the loft, this time in their pajamas, watching the horses in the stalls below.

  “You’re not kidding,” Marie agreed.

  Carole smiled. After all the anger and frustration she’d felt over the past week, it felt good just to relax and be herself again. She looked down at Topside, whose stall was just below where she was sitting, and at the mare Spice, who was nearby in the foaling stall. If she stood up, she would be able to see Starlight, but she was too sleepy to make the effort. It was enough just to know that he was there.

  “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m exhausted,” Stevie said a few minutes later. “Let’s hit the hay.” She grinned, pleased with her unintentional but very appropriate joke. “Literally, that is!”

  Lisa had set up their sleeping bags on a soft bed of hay and straw. Naturally, the girls continued to talk even after they’d climbed into their sleeping bags, but gradually they all grew quiet, listening to the sweet, comforting sounds of the horses below. One by one, they dropped off to sleep.