Horse Care

by Bonnie Bryant

  Stevie bent to tie her other sneaker, thinking hard. “I guess this does explain a few things, though,” she said slowly.

  “You mean like why Tate never seemed to be interested in helping out with chores?” Carole nodded. “I thought of that, too.”

  “I guess all the horse knowledge in the world doesn’t help if you don’t have, um …” Stevie searched for the right word.

  Carole guessed what she was thinking. “Real horse-craziness?” she said. “Or maybe I should say real horse caring. That could mean caring about horses …”

  “And also caring for them,” Stevie finished. She sighed and looked at Carole. “How did we miss seeing it sooner?”

  Carole blushed. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Partly, I guess we might have been giving him the benefit of the doubt because he’s new. But also …”

  Her voice trailed off, but Stevie nodded. “I know,” she said. “We were dazzled by the way he looks.” She rolled her eyes. “Remind me not to let a pretty face fool me next time, okay?” She glanced around the locker room. “Look, we’ve got to find a way to get out of bringing him to TD’s.”

  Carole gasped. “I almost forgot about that!” she cried. “After what I just saw, I don’t think I could sit across a table from him without throwing my sundae in his face.”

  Stevie jumped to her feet. “Come on, let’s go to Calypso’s stall,” she said. “We should check on her before we leave anyway, and it might take him a few more minutes to track us down there. That should be enough time to come up with a plan.”

  BUT A FEW minutes later, they hadn’t thought of a thing. Neither one of them wanted to be rude to Tate.

  “After all, we did invite him,” Carole said glumly, running her hand along Calypso’s neck. The girls were in the stall with the mare, who was quietly munching on a mouthful of hay.

  “Thanks for saying we,” Stevie said. She hadn’t forgotten that it had been her idea to ask Tate to TD’s. That made her more determined than ever to figure out a subtle, sneaky way to uninvite him. “I still can’t believe he can’t ride. I mean, he knows so much.…”

  “I know,” Carole said. “Still, we’ve seen something like this before, you know.”

  “We have?” Stevie said in surprise. “When?”

  Carole shrugged. “With Veronica, of course,” she said. “I mean, she’s a pretty good rider, but that’s sort of the point. She rides well, and she has all the right clothes and equipment—”

  “And then some,” Stevie agreed. “But all that doesn’t make her horse-crazy.”

  Carole grinned and nodded. “Just crazy.”

  Stevie didn’t laugh. Her mouth had just dropped open, and she had an excited look in her eye. “I’ve got it!” she cried. “I just figured out how we can—”

  “Aha, there you are,” Tate said, poking his head into the stall. “I thought I might find you two in here. So, are you almost ready to go? I’m starving after all that riding. Some ice cream will really hit the spot.” He rubbed his stomach and grinned.

  “Sure,” Stevie said quickly, before Carole could answer. “We’re almost ready. Um, why don’t you and Carole head outside now? I’ll meet you there in a minute. I just remembered, I left something in the locker room.”

  Carole gave her a dismayed look. “Are you sure, Stevie?” she asked. “Uh, I think we ought to stay with Calypso. You never know when she might drop that foal.”

  Tate raised an eyebrow, looking surprised. “What are you talking about, Carole?” he said. “She’s nowhere near ready yet. Anyone can see that.”

  Carole’s face was turning red, but Stevie didn’t have time to worry about that. “Just go ahead,” she whispered as they left the stall. “Trust me.”

  Carole nodded and headed off with Tate without another word. Tate immediately started chattering about the signs of impending delivery in pregnant mares, and Carole turned and shot Stevie a look of pure despair.

  Stevie gave her a thumbs-up sign. Then, as soon as Carole had turned away, Stevie crossed her fingers. She hoped this was going to work.…

  LISA WAS TRYING to stay optimistic. It wasn’t easy. The rain had finally stopped, but the clouds were still there, which was making dusk come faster than usual. She had reached the bank of the stream, but by the time she got there her entire body hurt so much that she could hardly stand it. At least she had been able to bathe her injured wrist in the chilly water. That had helped a little—except it had made her back feel even worse by comparison.

  Tiny had taken a long, deep drink from the stream. Then she had lowered herself to the ground beside Lisa once again. Lisa had almost cried when she did that. She could hardly imagine how much worse she would feel if she were out there all alone.

  “Thanks for sticking by me, Tiny,” she said, slinging her right arm over the mare’s broad shoulders. “A lot of horses would have been so scared by the storm that they would have run straight back to the barn without looking back. But not you.”

  She stroked the horse’s mane with her fingers, automatically starting to work at a tangled spot.

  “Even if I can’t ride you back,” she went on, “it helps just to have you here, keeping me company.” She let her fingers relax and rested her head against the warm gray neck. “I can’t remember the last time a horse helped me so much.” Suddenly she realized that wasn’t really fair. “Well, actually, now that I think about it,” she murmured thoughtfully, “other horses have helped me out quite a bit in the past. My friends, too.”

  She started stroking Tiny’s mane again. The mare let out a sigh of contentment. It almost seemed as though Tiny liked listening to Lisa talk. Besides, talking to the horse made Lisa feel a little better, a little less panicky, so she continued.

  “For instance,” she said, “there’s the horse I usually ride. Prancer is her name, and she’s wonderful. She’s helped me in so many ways—I guess the easiest to explain is the way she ran her heart out when I had to ride for help after Max’s fall.…”

  She shuddered at the memory. It was scary to remember how still Max had been out there on the steep, rocky trail of their endurance ride. She preferred to remember how brave Prancer had been, racing swiftly just as she had been bred to do—though not on a smooth, flat track, but over a rocky, wooded mountain trail after a long, long day of riding.

  “She was wonderful that day,” Lisa told Tiny, brushing a spot of drying mud off the horse’s neck. “But she’s helped me in less dramatic ways, too. One time I entered her in a horse show before either one of us was ready.” She blushed at that memory. “I learned a lot from that, believe me.

  “Then there was the horse I rode when I was on vacation on an island called San Marco. His name was Jasper, and he was kind of like you, Tiny—solid and steady. He helped me save a girl whose horse ran away with her.” Lisa’s leg was starting to throb again, but she ignored it and went on. “My friends have gotten a lot of help from horses, too. For instance, I know that riding and being around horses really helped Carole cope after her mother died.” She paused. “Especially a horse named Cobalt. When Cobalt died, Carole was really upset, but I think it helped her a lot when his son was born. That’s Samson. Raising him and training him helped all of us in The Saddle Club learn a lot, too.”

  Lisa shifted carefully into a more comfortable position. Tiny’s skin still felt warm and comforting under her arm.

  “And if you want to talk about horses helping people,” Lisa went on, “I know we’re all really grateful to a brave pony named Maverick. He saved Carole’s life when she was caught in a dangerous riptide. Then there’s Stewball, the horse Stevie rides whenever we all visit our friends’ ranch out West. He’s a really interesting horse, and he’s taken care of Stevie really well. Once he even helped show her how important it is for a rider to find exactly the right horse. Maybe that’s how she ended up with Belle.”

  The light was fading faster now. Lisa tried not to think about that.

  “And speaking of the ranch, our fr
iend Kate has really been helped by her horse, Moonglow. Kate used to be a competitive rider, but for a while she didn’t like riding much at all. Now she loves it again, and it’s partly thanks to Moonglow—and a few other horses, too.”

  Now that she thought about it, Lisa realized that she and her friends really had gained just as much from riding and caring for horses as the horses had gained from them. Probably more.

  “Then there are all the wonderful Pine Hollow horses, of course,” Lisa murmured. Her eyes were starting to feel heavy, but she didn’t want to fall asleep. Once it got dark, it would be too easy for someone riding nearby to miss her unless she called out. “I already talked about Prancer. Another horse who helped me a lot was the horse I used to ride. His name was Pepper. He was a wonderful horse, and he taught me a lot. But eventually he got old and sick, and I was the one who had to decide to have Judy put him to sleep. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but it really helped me to be able to sit with him and say good-bye.” Her eyes filled with tears at the memory. “And then there are so many other great horses, like Belle and Starlight— oh, and of course Topside. He’s one of Max’s best horses, and Stevie used to ride him before she got Belle. Topside once helped our friend Skye Ransom—he’s a movie star.”

  Lisa paused. For just a second, she felt silly telling Tiny all this. What did a horse know or care about movie stars or any of the rest of it?

  But Lisa decided not to worry about that. She was sure that somehow, in her own way, Tiny was listening and understanding—if not the exact meaning of the words, then some part of what Lisa was telling her.

  “Anyway, Skye rode Topside in one of his movies, and it kind of saved the day because the horse Skye had been riding wouldn’t behave, and … well, you get the gist of it. Topside basically saved Skye’s whole career.” Suddenly Lisa remembered something even more important that Topside had done. “Also, one time when Stevie took Topside to riding camp, the two of them helped save a whole lot of horses when the barn caught on fire.”

  She was definitely feeling sleepy now, so she took a deep breath and opened her eyes as wide as she could. “And of course,” she told Tiny, “I haven’t even started to tell you about how horses helped get Max together with his wife, Deborah.…”

  “PLEASE LET HER still be here, please let her still be here, please let her still be here,” Stevie muttered as she hurried down the aisles at Pine Hollow. She was looking for someone who was usually the last person on earth she wanted to see.

  She rounded a corner and spotted that someone standing in the aisle. Someone wearing a pair of fancy riding breeches and a silky, expensive-looking shirt.

  “Veronica!” Stevie cried happily. “There you are.”

  Veronica looked surprised at the greeting. She also looked suspicious. “What do you want?” she demanded, backing away from her horse’s stall and crossing her arms across her chest. “Are you here to tell me more about how Lisa saw Tate picking his nose in math class?”

  Stevie grinned. That had been one of the high points of her earlier Tate stories. Then her grin faded and she gulped as she realized what she had to do now.

  “Um, actually I might have been exaggerating about that a little,” she said, kicking at a stray clump of straw in the stable aisle.

  “Yeah, right.” Veronica rolled her eyes. “Like I hadn’t figured that out already. I bet none of that stuff you said is true. You were just trying to make him sound bad so nobody would want to hang out with him but you and your loser friends.” She smirked. “And just to make sure of that, I’m going to ask Tate about all that stuff myself. Just so I can make absolutely sure of what I already know—that you’re a big fat liar.”

  For a second, Stevie was annoyed. She had thought her earlier stories had been pretty convincing. How dare Veronica accuse her of lying!

  But then she realized that this was actually good news. It meant that her task was going to be a lot easier than she’d thought.

  “Well, go ahead and ask him if you want,” she said casually. “But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. You see, right now Tate is coming to TD’s with The Saddle Club. So you’ll just have to wait your turn to hear the real story of Tate’s life—like how his great-great-uncle twice removed is second cousin to the Queen of England, and how Tate’s grandfather helped build the Washington Monument—”

  “TD’s?” Veronica interrupted, a crafty look crossing her face for a second. “Oh, well, hmmm. That’s too bad. I’ll catch him tomorrow, I guess.” She whirled and hurried down the aisle without another word.

  Stevie paused to give Veronica’s horse, Danny, a pat on the nose. “Did anyone ever tell you your owner is a sucker?” she said with a grin.

  HALF AN HOUR later, Carole wasn’t sure whom she felt sorrier for—Tate or Veronica. She had no idea how Stevie had arranged things. All she knew was that she, Stevie, and Tate had hardly made themselves comfortable in one of the booths at the ice cream shop before the little bell above the door rang and Veronica rushed in. She’d invited herself to join them, and ever since, she and Tate had been doing their best to impress each other.

  “Yes, I know all about foxhunting,” Veronica was saying to Tate. She seemed to have forgotten that Stevie and Carole were at the table. “After all, my family is rather socially prominent, if I do say so myself.”

  “She does,” Stevie whispered behind her napkin to Carole. “And she did.”

  Veronica didn’t hear her. “Yes, we have quite a reputation in this town. Did you know that four out of five people in Willow Creek owe money to my father’s bank?”

  “Hmmm,” Tate said, dipping his spoon into his sundae. “Interesting. Did you know that most horses can’t stand pigs?”

  Carole rolled her eyes. “How much longer do you think this will go on?” she murmured, leaning toward Stevie.

  Stevie shrugged and grinned. “Who knows?” she said. “I just hope Lisa gets here in time to witness the fun.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I wonder what’s keeping her, anyway.”

  LISA WASN’T HAVING any fun at all. It was getting darker and chillier with each passing minute, and it had started raining again. Her leg was throbbing more than ever. She couldn’t move it much anymore. And there was still no sign of a rescue party.

  She dragged herself a couple of feet across the ground until she could dip her swollen wrist into the stream again. The water was so cold that it made her start shivering even more than she had been. But it was worth it, because it also numbed her arm instantly. Plus, it helped to wake her up and cleared her mind a little.

  Tiny was still lying down. She watched Lisa carefully, nickering every few minutes with apparent concern.

  “Don’t worry, girl,” Lisa said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She kept her arm in the stream as long as she could stand it, staring at the water rushing by and wishing that it was her familar Willow Creek instead of some unknown stream in some unknown forest. If she were on the banks of Willow Creek right now, in The Saddle Club’s favorite rest spot on their favorite trail, that would mean that Carole and Stevie would be coming along to rescue her at any minute. Then she wouldn’t have a thing to worry about.

  With a sigh, Lisa finally pulled her arm out of the water and dried it carefully on her sweater. This wasn’t Willow Creek, and Stevie and Carole had no idea where she was. Nobody did. Would anyone ever find her?

  “WHERE DO YOU think Lisa is?” Stevie said for about the tenth time.

  Carole frowned. “I told you thirty seconds ago,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe she got held up at that girl’s house.”

  “Hmmm.” Stevie stirred the melted remains of her sundae with her spoon. “Well, at least the happy couple is gone.”

  She had said that about ten times, too, but Carole could understand why. She was also relieved about the departure of Tate and Veronica. The pair had finally impressed each other so much that they had walked out arm in arm to go to the movies, leaving their ice cream half fi
nished.

  But now Carole and Stevie had been sitting in TD’s for well over an hour.

  “Do you think she forgot?” Stevie asked, glancing again at the clock on the wall.

  “You already asked that,” Carole said. “And I already said it’s not very likely. When have you ever known Lisa to forget an appointment? Or even to be more than a few minutes late? Especially to a Saddle Club meeting.”

  Stevie shrugged. “Practically never,” she said. “Maybe her bus is running late.”

  “It would have to be running really late,” Carole pointed out. “It’s only a twenty-minute ride from here to Colesford.”

  Stevie dropped her spoon and waved a hand at the waitress. “Well, I guess we should just be patient a little longer,” she said. “But I’m going to need more food.”

  BY THE TIME another half hour had passed, Stevie had polished off a second sundae, and she and Carole were both getting very worried.

  “It’s pitch dark outside,” Carole said. “She would have finished riding at least a couple of hours ago, right?”

  Stevie shrugged. “Maybe she ended up hitting it off with that girl. What was her name again?”

  “Um …” Carole thought for a second. “Margaret, was it? No, Marguerite. That was it. Marguerite Mills.”

  “Right,” Stevie said. “Anyway, maybe she liked Marguerite so much that she changed her mind about coming home early and decided to stay.”

  “Maybe,” Carole said doubtfully. “But she knew we were planning to meet her here. And you know Lisa—she’s so responsible. She would never just stand us up. She would at least call.”

  Suddenly Stevie sat bolt upright in the booth. “Maybe that’s it!” she exclaimed. “Maybe she left us a message at Pine Hollow and we just didn’t get it. We did leave a little early to come here.”