Riding Camp

by Bonnie Bryant

  Lisa remembered what Carole had said to her on the morning trail ride. It seemed that her prediction was already coming true!

  CAROLE TIGHTENED BASIL’S girth and checked the stirrup length. In general, stirrups were the right length for a rider if they were about the length of the rider’s arm. Nobody but Carole should have used Basil’s saddle, but she could tell at a glance that somebody had fiddled with her stirrups. Fred again, she told herself, shortening the leather by two buckle holes.

  Carole actually wasn’t sorry she had to fuss with saddle adjustments, because right on Basil’s other side, a drama was unfolding. As long as she had an excuse to be where she was, she could get an earful.

  “I’m just not feeling very well, Barry,” Debbie whined. Carole, reaching under Basil to needlessly straighten the girth, saw a phony pained look on Debbie’s face.

  “Well, where aren’t you feeling well?” Barry asked impatiently.

  “Oh, sort of here,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward her entire body. Carole thought that was even more fake than her last statement.

  “Have you seen the nurse?” Barry asked.

  “No, but I’ve had this happen before,” Debbie said. “It’ll be all better in a day or so.”

  Carole didn’t think there was anything Barry could do about Debbie’s mysterious stomachache and apparently he agreed. He told Debbie to take her gear back to the cabin. She could stay in the camp until they got back from the trip. Carole could see the pleased look on Debbie’s face as she returned to Cabin Three. She’d bet a stirrup to a saddle that Debbie’s vague ailment would be cleared up within the hour and she’d be on her horse, in the ring, practicing for the horse show all alone, all day.

  Or would Debbie be all alone?

  “Barry, can I talk to you?” It was Elsa. It turned out that she had a strange pain in her right ear. Elsa said she didn’t think it was serious, but she could remember one time when she’d had an ache very much like this one and within a few hours, she’d been horribly sick, so she thought maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to go on the camping trip, and didn’t Barry agree?

  Barry didn’t agree. The tone of his voice made it clear to Carole that he’d had about enough games from Elsa and Debbie. On the other hand, Carole suspected that Barry would decide to let Elsa stay in camp because she and Debbie deserved one another and the rest of the campers deserved a vacation from them.

  As Carole figured, Barry told Elsa she could stay at camp. Like Debbie, Elsa was grinning victoriously as she returned to the cabin. Carole would have loved to see their faces when each discovered that the other had wangled her way out of the camping trip.

  Finally satisfied with her stirrup length, Carole lowered the flap of her saddle, secured her pack, and mounted up. It was time to hit the trail.

  She turned around in her saddle, looking for her friends. She couldn’t wait to share the wonderful news about Debbie and Elsa.

  “MORE THAN TWENTY-FOUR hours of trail riding—isn’t it fabulous!” Lisa said to Carole as they proceeded through a woody area.

  “Especially without the Miss Uncongeniality Award winners,” Carole agreed.

  “Only trouble is that I’m missing a jump class,” Lisa remarked.

  Carole’s eyes lit up. That meant she had an idea. One of her favorite things to do was to share her riding knowledge with her friends, and most of the time, they welcomed it. If this was going to be a way to learn jumping on a trail ride, Lisa was willing to listen.

  “Try this,” Carole told her friend. “I think Barry’s about to start us trotting. You can do it in jump position. It’s not the same as working with cavaletti, but it’s important.”

  Of course, Lisa thought. Eleanor, the jump instructor, kept stressing the necessity of a good jump position. In jump position, the rider’s seat was slightly raised, and you leaned forward with your back parallel to the horse’s neck. It was the position a rider needed to go over a jump, remain balanced, and absorb the impact of landing with the knees. It was critical to have a good jump position, so it was important to practice as much as possible. Lisa rose slightly, leaned forward, and kept her hands still at the horse’s neck.

  “Good job,” Carole said. “Remember to keep your toes up and your hands steady.”

  At the front, Barry raised his hand to signal a change of pace. In seconds, they were all trotting. Much to Lisa’s surprise, the other campers were following her lead and trotting in jump position. It seemed that even without the presence of Debbie and Elsa, the riders were competitive. Nobody wanted anybody to practice anything more than anybody else. Lisa didn’t know whether to laugh or be sad. Since Carole was right there, they exchanged looks and laughed. It was better than being sad.

  When they finished the trot and were walking again, Carole continued instructing Lisa. Carole was a natural teacher. She knew a lot about horses and riding and she liked to share it. Sometimes her friends got a little tired of it, but this time, two things kept Lisa from stopping her. The first was that everything Carole was telling her was absolutely right. The second was that every rider within earshot was hanging on to Carole’s every word. It was not just funny, it was hilarious.

  Stevie, who was riding next to Phil, was close enough to see what was going on. Lisa spotted the familiar mischievous grin on her friend’s face and knew something good was coming.

  “Hey, Carole!” Stevie called, spurring the horse toward her best friends. “Is Lisa having trouble with her form again? Let me help!”

  When Stevie arrived, the fun began. She told Carole to ride on the other side so they could both watch Lisa, but she really meant so they could watch the other riders. Then Stevie started barking instructions, and they were all wrong. The eavesdroppers followed every word she said. Within a few minutes, Stevie had them all riding sitting on the back edges of their saddles, arms fully extended at shoulder height, legs straight and stretched forward.

  Barry turned to check on his riders. He was completely astonished to see all of them, except The Saddle Club, posed like zombies on horseback!

  “Halloween requires costumes and your horses require proper riders!” he snapped. “All of you! Back in position! We’re going to canter!”

  Lisa hoped that the sound of his horse’s hooves covered the burst of giggles from The Saddle Club.

  “What was that all about?” Phil asked Stevie when she returned to his side.

  “Just a little joke,” she said, embarrassed. After all, Phil had followed her silly instructions, too.

  “What kind of joke?” he persisted.

  “It’s all this dumb competition,” she began. “Even without Elsa and Debbie, it’s like everybody’s spying. I just thought I’d give them something for their trouble. It was pretty funny, you know.”

  “To you, maybe,” Phil said.

  That was all he said for a while. Stevie didn’t like the idea that she’d made him feel foolish, but, she reasoned, he’d been acting stupid by following her directions.

  After what seemed a long time, but was really no more than five minutes, he made a peace offering. “I brought some marshmallows,” he said. “Want to sneak out of camp after lights out and have a little picnic of our own?”

  Stevie grinned and nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that,” she said, glad that his feelings weren’t still hurt.

  WHEN THEY REACHED the campsite, The Saddle Club girls knew just what to do. The rule on the Pine Hollow trip was horses first, riders second. They dismounted and untacked their horses and led them to the nearby stream, where they could get a drink of water. Then the horses would need grooming and fresh hay, followed by more water and, finally, a full meal of grain, which had been delivered to the campsite’s paddock. After that, the girls would check their tack and stow it for the night. Then it would be time to set up the campsite.

  It was that simple—and it was that complicated.

  “I can’t lift the saddle.”

  “I’ve got to have something to eat first.”

/>   “I don’t know how to do this stuff.”

  “Why can’t Fred do it?”

  “I thought we were supposed to learn to ride, not work!”

  And so on. The Saddle Club couldn’t believe the way some of the campers were acting. Some of them made honest attempts to complete the obvious chores like untacking, but a lot of them seemed to think that everything except the actual riding was beneath them.

  Stevie, Carole, and Lisa were too well trained by Max. Nothing having to do with stable management and horse care was beneath a good rider. Patiently, the girls pitched in to help other campers complete the work. It didn’t earn them many thanks. Mostly what they got were surprised looks.

  Carole helped the others with untacking, Lisa managed the watering and feeding, and Stevie supervised grooming. Stevie, it turned out, was the all-time champion hoof-picker.

  “Three stones!” she announced proudly as the third pebble in one horse’s hoof hit the ground. Her friends applauded. The other campers remained mystified.

  When Fred delivered the first bale of hay to the paddock area, Lisa snapped the wire that held it and began breaking it into one-horse flakes. But something was wrong, and she knew what it was right away. The hay had that same odd, almost sickly sweet smell that she’d noticed in the moldy bale back at camp.

  “Fred, this stuff doesn’t smell right to me,” she said.

  Fred shrugged and walked away.

  Lisa couldn’t feed that hay to the horses. It would almost certainly make them sick. One horse with colic was bad news, but a whole paddock full of them would be a disaster. She got one of the boys to give her a hand. Together they carried the moldy bale into an open area of the woods and spread it around on the forest floor, where it would eventually dry out and where no horses could reach it. Then they found a fresh bale, which they opened and fed to the horses in the makeshift paddock.

  Barry and Betty were busy overseeing the mixing of the horse’s grain. Lisa didn’t want to bother them about Fred’s most recent mistake. Besides, she wasn’t too sure it was her place to tell them. After all, no harm had been done. She told herself she’d think about it later. Her thoughts were interrupted by more squabbling campers.

  “I’ll tell you one thing. I don’t care what Barry said. I’m not picking up kindling for every single fireplace in the whole campsite. I’m not sitting at every fire, so I’m not building every fire!”

  “Me, neither!” said the girl’s companion.

  Well, at least there were two campers who agreed on something!

  Lisa returned to the campsite and helped pitch tents. Carole, being a Marine Corps brat, was of course the champion at that. Finally, the campers finished their chores. At last they could enjoy the campsite.

  It was a nice campsite, with tents pitched among tall pine trees. Carole like camping in piny woods, because the pine needles cushioned the ground and that was good for sleeping. The area was open enough so that there was no danger from the camp fires. Leaning against neighboring tree trunks, Carole and her friends could see the clear sky above. It was still light. They were having an early dinner, so there would still be plenty of light for their mounted games.

  “This sort of reminds me of the story of The Little Red Hen,” Carole remarked to her friends, taking her first bite of Trail Stew and washing it down with fruit punch. “Nobody wants to share the work, but everybody wants to share the cake.”

  Stevie and Lisa agreed totally.

  “Even Phil seems to catch the disease sometimes,” Stevie remarked, surprising Lisa and Carole with her frankness.

  The girls ate the rest of their meal in silence. For one thing, they were really tired, too tired to do their usual chatting. For another, right then, there didn’t seem to be anything to say. It had all been said and it was trouble and they all knew it.

  THE FIRST GAME Barry chose for them to play was Follow-the-Leader. He very wisely chose Stevie as a leader. Nobody was more able to do so many ridiculous things on horseback. The only problem was that the first thing Stevie did as leader was to imitate the silly position she’d gotten everybody into on the afternoon ride. Both Carole and Lisa were laughing so hard that they couldn’t do it.

  “You two, you’re out!” Barry yelled.

  They pulled over to the side and watched the rest. Stevie had the riders sit both cross-legged and backwards on their saddles—horses standing still, of course. She tried a sidesaddle seat, but it was difficult without a genuine sidesaddle, and she almost fell off herself. When Phil and another rider did, they joined Carole and Lisa on the sidelines.

  At the end of the game, Barry took over and started them on Simon-Says. Lisa and Carole thought Stevie had done more amusing things, but it didn’t matter. It was all fun.

  Next, they played a game called Touch Wood. It was sort of like tag, but anybody touching wood—for example, a tree, a fence post, or a gate—was safe. But every time the whistle blew, everybody had to change trees or whatever wood they were touching.

  “This is wild!” Lisa gasped, swapping trees with Carole at a canter while Nora chased both of them.

  “And a good learning experience, too!” Carole said, reaching as long and hard as she could for her new tree, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  “You’re It!” Nora declared.

  Watching Carole, Lisa thought about what she’d said about learning. It was true. The game was great practice in horse control, particularly direction changes. Fortunately for Carole, she was a good enough rider that she wasn’t It for long. Within a very short time, Lisa was It.

  I’m learning, I’m learning, she told herself as she dashed after the riders who scattered across the field. I’m learning. And most of all, I’m having fun!

  After Touch Wood, they played another variation, Freeze Tag, which involved even more horse control than Touch Wood, since anybody who had been tagged had to remain completely still—as did the horse.

  The riders concentrated so hard on their games that they barely noticed when the sun set and night came on.

  “Time to quit,” Barry announced. “All of you walk your horses until he’s cooled down, untack him, and give him water and fresh hay. We’ll meet at the camp fire in half an hour for ghost stories. Anybody who wants to can tell a ghost story, but the principle character in the story must be a horse!”

  Contented and tired and looking forward to a quiet camp-fire time, Carole quickly took care of Basil and then helped Lisa finish putting away Major’s tack.

  “Wait until Barry hears the one about the werehorse!” Carole said to Lisa.

  “That sounds like a Stevie kind of story,” Lisa remarked.

  “Yes, it does,” Carole said. “And speaking of Stevie, I haven’t seen her for a while, have you?”

  Lisa hung Major’s bridle over his saddle. “Yes, actually, I did see her—or at least the back of her. I think she and Phil are going to miss your story about the werehorse. I also think we may have to cover for her.”

  “What are friends for?” Carole asked. She gave Basil a final pat on his nose. Then she turned to Lisa and slung her arm across her friend’s shoulder. “Okay, so now this werehorse makes friends with a vampmare …”

  STEVIE WONDERED IF she would ever get used to the feeling of Phil holding her hand when they walked. It wasn’t a very efficient way to walk through a wooded area—single file was much better—but it was more fun.

  “Did you bring the marshmallows?” Phil asked.

  “Oh, no, I forgot. How dumb of me!”

  “That’s okay. After that dinner, I’m not very hungry.”

  “Me, neither,” Stevie said. “Maybe that’s why I forgot the marshmallows. You know, I really didn’t want them, but I didn’t know it.”

  Phil smiled. It was that smile that made Stevie’s knees melt. “Why don’t we sit down someplace?” she suggested, hoping she could sit down before she fell down. Not that his smile could really make her faint, but a full day of riding hadn’t helped her knees, either.
/>
  “Here’s a clearing, I think,” Phil said. It was awfully hard to see. The night sky was overcast and they were deep in a forest, but there appeared to be a small open space. Carefully, Stevie lowered herself onto the crunchy leaves, sitting cross-legged. Phil sat facing her and took her hand. She no longer shivered when he did that, but she did tingle.

  “Tired?” he asked.

  “A little,” she conceded. “I like riding and I like doing a lot of it, but Barry’s schedule for us is really rugged.”

  “Too much for the famed Saddle Club?” Phil teased.

  Stevie wasn’t crazy about his tone. Phil was very special to her, but so was The Saddle Club, and she didn’t like him making fun of it.

  “The Saddle Club is made up of me and my two best friends,” Stevie said, knowing she sounded defensive. “We’ve accomplished some pretty good things together in the past, and I think you’ll have a chance to see us do impressive things in the future, too.”

  “I will?” Phil said, obviously curious.

  “Yes, you will,” Stevie assured him. “In fact, in case you didn’t know it, we’re working on several projects at this very minute!”

  “Here, with me?”

  “No, I don’t mean here. I just mean we’re in the process. It has to do with riding and it has to do with the show next weekend and it has to do with some of the campers who think they are going to win absolutely everything at the show.”

  “You mean like me?”

  “Huh?” Stevie responded in surprise. “You mean you think you’re going to take all the prizes?”

  “Is there anybody here good enough to beat me?” Phil asked.

  Stevie thought about it for a minute. It was too dark to see Phil’s face, but it certainly sounded to her as if he were completely serious. It had never really occurred to her that Phil might feel that way. He was a good enough rider—experienced, secure—but a champion? No, she was better than he was.

  “I’m asking,” Phil repeated. “Do you think you and your friends can beat me?”

  One of Stevie’s biggest faults was that she often spoke before she thought.