Horse Fever

by Bonnie Bryant

  “I thought you said—!” Carole began. But Jenny picked up, and her sentence was left unfinished.

  “Carole? Where are you? King and I have been waiting for you,” Jenny said. “I thought you were going to bring the check by today.”

  “I can’t,” Carole said, her voice trembling. She took a deep breath. She knew from experience that it was better to get these awkward conversations over with as fast as possible.

  “Would tomorrow work better for you?” Jenny asked.

  For a moment Carole thought of King’s big floating trot, of the feeling of sitting atop all that power, energy, and grace. But then she thought of soaring over a fence on Starlight’s back. “No, I’m sorry. I’m not going to come back at all,” Carole said hurriedly. “I’ve decided not to sell my horse. I’m sorry,” she said again.

  There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Finally Jenny said, “I thought you’d made the decision to concentrate on dressage. That’s the only way to get to the top, you know.”

  Carole was still trembling, only now from anger more than fear. “I could get to the top jumping, too!” she retorted. Then she got control of herself. “I like dressage, but I don’t want to give up jumping. Riding King was so great I forgot how much I love cross-country and show jumping.”

  “Well, it’s your decision,” Jenny said coldly.

  As soon as she hung up, Carole felt as if the sky had suddenly lightened and she could see clearly. Jenny was no friend of hers! She was just a professional rider trying to sell a horse. Maybe she wasn’t technically dishonest, but Carole didn’t like the way she did business. Why hadn’t she mentioned King’s jumping problems?

  Then Carole sighed. She could have figured out that King couldn’t jump; she had, in fact, on two occasions—when he had tripped over the small fence in the ring (and she’d blamed herself) and when he had refused a jump out on the trail. The truth was she’d been so caught up in the idea of herself as a champion dressage rider that she had been blind to the horse’s faults. On the other hand, with Starlight she was overly critical because she knew him so well. So even when Pat was complimenting her, she couldn’t hear the praise. It was that simple. Thinking of Mrs. Reg’s story about the dress, Carole giggled. How on earth, she wondered, did Mrs. Reg always know?

  ON THE LAST Saturday of her winter vacation, Stevie jumped out of bed at 6:40 A.M.: five minutes before her alarm went off. “I’m fit as a fiddle and feeling fine!” she hollered down the hall.

  “Save it for later!” a voice yelled back. Alex, Stevie thought, grinning. And he sounded scared.

  Clad in sweats and running shoes, Stevie trotted downstairs and wolfed a Power-Fitness bar. Her mother was in the kitchen making muffins and a big pot of coffee. “Refreshments for the spectators,” she explained.

  “Spectators?” Stevie asked.

  Mrs. Lake nodded. “Yes, since you invited Carole and Lisa, I invited their parents. So you should have a good turnout.”

  “Excellent! The more people to watch me whip Alex, the better!” Stevie said, though she felt a momentary attack of last-minute nerves.

  A few minutes before seven, Carole drove up with Colonel Hanson, and Lisa and her parents walked over. While the parents drank coffee in the kitchen, Lisa put Stevie through her stretches and coached her on race strategy. “Let him set a fast pace if he wants to. Maybe it’ll be too fast and he’ll burn himself out.”

  At seven sharp, the two contestants strode out to the top of the driveway. Lisa made them shake hands, then announced, “This is an overall fitness competition between Stevie Lake and Alex Lake. It will consist of a three-mile race, a push-up and sit-up contest, and a third phase to take place at Pine Hollow Stables.”

  Alex looked surprised. “What third phase?”

  “You’ll see,” Stevie replied nonchalantly.

  “What are you going to do, make me jump an oxer?” Alex joked nervously.

  Stevie looked her brother in the eye, unflinching. “May the best twin win,” she said.

  “They’re off!” cried Stevie’s father, the official timer. The two sprinted down the driveway, as evenly matched as could be, each one’s stride mirroring the other’s. Once they had disappeared from view, there was nothing to do but wait. Pat Naughton was stationed at an oak tree down the road that marked the turn-around point to make sure each of the Lakes tagged it. The parents went back inside, but Carole and Lisa leaned against the house, their fingers crossed for Stevie.

  “So, are you sorry not to be buying the dressage horse?” Lisa asked. She could sense that Carole hadn’t shared what a big decision she had faced.

  Carole shook her head. Then she confessed, “Well, maybe the tiniest bit. He was incredible on the flat. But he’ll be around. And there are other dressage horses if I ever do decide to specialize.”

  Lisa nodded. “It must be hard for you in a way,” she said thoughtfully. “You’re so talented, Carole, and you’ve done so much at such a young age.… I’ll bet it’s hard sometimes to know what comes next.”

  “It is—sometimes,” admitted Carole, impressed and touched that Lisa could understand her situation so well. But of course! she thought. Lisa must feel like that in school, with academics, where she, too, was ahead of her years. Carole was about to say something when a shout went up from the kitchen window and the adults came pouring back out of the house. Someone had seen a flash of a windbreaker. The twins were drawing near!

  A moment later they heard the sound of panting. Alex’s head bobbed over the hedge, followed by Stevie’s, not ten yards behind him. “Go for it, Stevie!” Lisa screamed. “Pour it on!”

  Brother and sister raced up the driveway. Stevie gained an inch, then another inch. She was grinding him down. They were neck and neck. They sprinted past the crowd. In the same moment, Alex stopped dead in front of the house and Stevie tagged it. Both doubled over, holding their sides.

  “Who won, Mom?” Stevie yelled between pants.

  “Yeah, tell us!” Alex cried.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lake looked at one another. It was impossible to declare the winner. “What do they call this in horse racing?” asked Stevie’s mother.

  “Photo finish!” Carole and Lisa yelled.

  UNFORTUNATELY FOR STEVIE, things were a bit clearer in the next phase of the competition. She held her own in sit-ups, but long after her arms had collapsed, Alex kept pumping out the push-ups. Finally Stevie snapped at her brother to stop.

  “Don’t you want to see my one-handed push-ups?” he asked.

  “Not till you see my two-handed throttle!” Stevie growled.

  At the end of phase two, the adults dispersed and went to their cars. The Saddle Club had a quick huddle to go over their plan for the video demonstration. Stevie barely had time to change from sweats to jeans. Up in her room, she went automatically to the laundry pile in her closet, only to find an empty hamper. She smiled, remembering. All her laundry was clean because she hadn’t been riding in so long. The funny thing was, she kind of missed the pile. Her room was too neat without it.

  PINE HOLLOW WAS abuzz. Everyone was giving their horse a special grooming for Max’s return. Pat was helping Carole with Starlight. “It’s the least I can do,” she said, wiping the bay’s coat with a rag, “after your letting me ride him so much.”

  “Anytime, Pat,” Carole said happily.

  “Thanks,” said Pat, “but as of next week, I’m going to have a whole lot less time for riding other people’s horses. I’ve decided to buy the mare over in Pleasantville.”

  Carole thought back. “You mean the fifteen-year-old?” she asked.

  “That’s the one,” said Pat, her voice full of enthusiasm. “I was worried about her age, and then I thought, ‘Pat, you’re just being silly.’ Who knows where I’ll be in three, four years, or what I’ll want to do or if I’ll even have the time to own a horse. She’s a nice mare and I liked her from the beginning. Isn’t it funny,” she added, “how sometimes the perfect horse is right there the
whole time and you don’t notice?”

  “It sure is,” Carole said reflectively, running a comb through Starlight’s forelock. “It sure is.”

  AFTER BRUSHING BELLE, Prancer, and Starlight, The Saddle Club met up in the tack room. “Thanks for keeping our tack shipshape,” Lisa said to Carole.

  “Yeah, it looks great,” Stevie added.

  Carole frowned. “I was going to thank you guys for the same thing. I haven’t cleaned a piece of tack in two weeks!”

  The girls were puzzled until Stevie suggested that maybe Red and Mrs. Reg had paid them back for all the work they had done over the years by secretly cleaning their tack.

  “That must be it,” said Carole. “We’ll have to thank them.”

  “Better than thanks—I made peanut butter cookies last night,” Stevie said.

  “And I decided Maxi had enough gifts, so I’m giving the needlepoint I did to Mrs. Reg. She needlepoints herself, so she’ll appreciate it,” Lisa explained.

  “Good,” said Carole, hoisting her tack. “Then we’re in the clear—at least with them. Max, I don’t know about.”

  “You guys have nothing to worry about,” Stevie complained. “Prancer and Starlight were ridden. Belle hasn’t seen a bit since two Saturdays ago.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Lisa advised her. “At least you’ll look better than Veronica, breezing in from her ski vacation.”

  That thought perked Stevie up immediately.

  THE GROUP OF horses and riders had just started their warm-up when Max strode into the indoor ring. He called them into the center. “I’m sorry I was delayed, but I’ve been looking around the stable areas. Thank you all so much for the hard work you put in while I was gone. It’s obvious, and my mother and Red appreciated it enormously.”

  Stevie, Lisa, and Carole sank about a foot in their saddles.

  “It was fun!” said Andrea Barry. “Wasn’t it, Simon?”

  “Sure was, Andrea,” Simon replied. “Especially when we took apart the old carriage harness and oiled it from top to bottom.”

  Stevie, Lisa, and Carole felt their faces turning red.

  “And when we cleaned out the hayloft to make room for the new load,” Andrea said.

  Just when The Saddle Club thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. The door of the indoor ring slid open and Veronica walked in. Or rather, she hobbled in, on crutches. “Skiing accident,” she explained. “I twisted my ankle. Luckily I was able to fly home early and help with barn chores while you were gone, Max.”

  “So my mother told me,” said Max, his voice appreciative. “She mentioned you’d been cleaning everyone’s tack.”

  “Yes, well,” Veronica said modestly, “not everyone’s. Just the tack that wasn’t getting used. Like Stevie’s and Lisa’s, and Carole’s saddle—I couldn’t do your bridle, Carole, because Pat used it when she was exercising Starlight.”

  The Saddle Club girls felt their blood begin to boil. “How dare she?” Stevie blurted out. “How dare she—”

  “Clean your tack for you?” Max asked dryly. “Sounds like a major offense to me.”

  “But it’s—it’s not fair!” Stevie wailed.

  “What’s not?” asked Max, impatient.

  “She can’t get back at us by doing something nice. It doesn’t work that way!”

  Lisa and Carole didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Veronica smiled sweetly. “It was the least I could do, Max. They’ve done so much for me.”

  Before Stevie could grab Veronica’s crutches and whack her over the head with them, Max called the lesson to order. He told everyone to line up against the far side of the ring, dismount if they wanted, and watch the individual demonstrations.

  Andrea went first. She said Doc had gotten lazy about his flying lead changes, so she had worked on those. She demonstrated several. Doc looked like the polished show horse he was.

  “A good goal, well met,” Max said. “It’s focused and specific, and obviously your schooling worked.”

  Rejoining the group, Andrea looked flushed and happy.

  Simon said Barq hadn’t been paying enough attention to his aids. He had worked on transitions, backing up his leg aids with a crop if necessary to sharpen Barq’s responsiveness. Max seemed pleased and told Simon to keep working on it.

  “Next!”

  “We three are together!” Lisa called.

  Max gave them a look as if to say, “Big surprise there.” “All right, get to it!” he ordered.

  Stevie held the horses while Lisa and Carole ran out of the ring. A murmur went through the group. It got louder when the two returned wheeling the big-screen TV. Normally the TV was used only for riding clinics and horse shows; individuals would be taped and then could watch themselves and critique their performances.

  “Hurry!” Lisa urged as Carole ran to connect the extension cord.

  A small group had gathered in the spectator area: The Saddle Club parents plus Stevie’s brothers, Pat Naughton, Red O’Malley, and Mrs. Reg. Deborah, carrying Maxi, joined them.

  “Lights!” Lisa called.

  Carole hit the lights, Lisa pressed Play, and the video started.

  “Hello,” said Lisa’s voice-over. “This is a video that will teach you how to get in shape for riding. Some people think riding is not a real sport, that ‘you just sit there and the horse does all the work.’ Those who ride, however,” she said ominously, “know better.”

  One by one, each of The Saddle Club girls appeared, demonstrating stretches, strengtheners, and basic limbering exercises. One exercise—Stevie appeared, hanging her heels off a step—would help you keep your heels down. Another—Carole was shown, picking up her shoulders and dropping them—would help you keep your shoulders down, back, and relaxed.

  For the second half of the tape, Carole took over the voice narration as first Lisa, then Stevie, rode Patch while the other held the longe line. As Patch walked, trotted, and cantered, they repeated most of the exercises or variations of them in the saddle.

  Watching the tape, the girls felt giddy with relief. The whole project had been so last-minute that anything could have happened. But except for a few rough transitions, the video looked good. When Carole switched the lights back on, there was a moment of silence. Then Max put his hands together. He clapped slowly three times. That seemed to be the cue for everyone to start clapping and talking.

  “I’m throwing out my Brand New Bod video and using this one!” Deborah announced.

  “Can we get copies?” asked Pat. “I hope we can get copies.”

  “What a great idea! I wish I had thought of it!” Andrea exclaimed.

  “Too bad you didn’t get really nice riding outfits,” muttered Veronica. “It looks kind of backyard.”

  Any insult from Veronica meant one thing: jealousy. The Saddle Club high-fived in the middle of the ring. “We pulled it off!” Lisa whispered. “Somehow we pulled it off at the last minute!”

  “Please,” said Stevie, “my whole life is pulling things off at the last minute.”

  “Ahem.” Max cleared his throat. “Am I correct in assuming that this takes the place of your mounted demonstrations?”

  The Saddle Club nodded.

  Max surveyed their horses carefully. Prancer was prancing at the end of her reins. Starlight couldn’t seem to stand still, either. And Belle was pawing madly at the turf and neighing from time to time. “They look a little high-strung,” Max said finally. “Would you mind explaining that?”

  Carole frowned. Lisa bit her lip. What could they say? How could they explain their two-week vacation from schooling their horses? Stevie stepped forward. “Max, remember how, before you left, you told us that horses could get barn fever? When they were cooped up and did too much of the same thing?”

  Max nodded. “Ye-es,” he said uncertainly.

  “Well, it’s easy,” Stevie said. “We had horse fever!”

  “THAT’S RIGHT,” CAROLE said. “And now we’re cured.”
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  Max laughed long and heartily. “Fair enough,” he said. “It happens to the best of us. Even, ahem, I went away for two weeks, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  When the TV was put away, Max suggested they all mount up and ride, doing whatever they liked. “Only don’t take too long. Everyone’s invited back to our house in an hour for doughnuts and cider straight from Vermont.”

  The lesson group cheered. “An hour?” Stevie said. “That’s more than enough time. Oh, A-lex!”

  In the seating area, Alex groaned. “Ready to ‘just sit there’ for twenty minutes?” Stevie asked gleefully. She mounted Belle and gave Alex his choice of Starlight or Prancer. He chose Prancer. Privately Carole was glad because it meant she could ride Starlight herself.

  As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. Alex lasted all of five minutes at the sitting trot with stirrups and two strides without. Stevie, meanwhile, felt she could have gone on forever. She could hardly believe it, but her fitness program had helped her riding. “I was wrong! Belle’s trot isn’t that bouncy at all. Poor thing! I blamed her when it was my fault!”

  “Don’t beat yourself up too much,” said Carole. She reached down to give Starlight a pat. “The important thing is that The Saddle Club is back!”

  WHEN EVERYONE HAD gathered at the Regnerys’, Mr. and Mrs. Lake declared the fitness competition a tie. “Aw, Mom and Dad, you have to say that. You’re our parents!” Stevie complained.

  “No kidding!” Alex said. “Pretty lame judges, if you ask me!”

  Max came in carrying a pot of hot cider. He set it down on a side table. “Hey, Lisa, I meant to tell you, I really liked that line at the beginning of the video, the one about how some people say ‘you just sit there.’ Whoever thinks that about riding is obviously—”

  “Clueless?” Stevie interrupted, grinning at Alex. “I agree.”

  The Saddle Club was squeezed onto a small couch in the Regnerys’ living room. On the opposite wall, there were lots of framed pictures—of horses, students, Max when he was little … All three girls happened to catch sight of one particular picture at the same time, and no wonder: It was of them!