The waitress looked up from her pad. She rolled her eyes. She shook her head. Then she took Carole and Lisa’s orders: a vanilla-and-chocolate swirl and a mint chip with hot fudge. “That’s more like it,” she muttered, going to fix the grossest Stevie Lake concoction yet.
The girls could hardly start gabbing fast enough. Maybe because they hadn’t had a real Saddle Club discussion for so long, the conversation took on a serious tone. They talked about being good at a lot of things versus being interested in only one, about making choices and balancing commitments. Lisa told Stevie that she thought the most generous thing she did was to give Prancer the experience of riding in the rally.
“I didn’t do it for Prancer, though,” Stevie said. “I did it for myself. I was getting a real swelled head about being so good on Topside. And we all know humility isn’t my strong suit.”
Lisa looked at her skeptically. “You really want me to believe you rode her to teach yourself a lesson?” she asked.
Stevie had plenty of time to think about her answer. The waitress arrived with their ice creams and gave Carole and Lisa their dishes. Stevie’s had too much stuff in it to fit in a regular bowl. The waitress hadn’t let that bother her, though. She had dumped everything into a metal dishwashing tub. She set the tub down in front of Stevie.
“Just do me a favor, okay?”
“Anything,” Stevie promised.
“Don’t let me see the look on your face when you finish eating that thing.”
Digging in happily, Stevie gave her word between mouthfuls. Finally she paused to respond to Lisa’s question. “I admit—disciplining myself wasn’t my real motive for riding Prancer,” she conceded.
“What, then?” Lisa asked.
“It was to do something for you—because you needed a friend,” Stevie said simply.
Lisa put her spoon down with a clink. “I’ve got the two best friends in the world, and you don’t have to lift a finger to prove it ever again. Just do me one favor, okay? Remind me occasionally that even though I like doing a lot of things, I can’t do them all at once or I’ll mess one of them up for sure.”
“Sure, Lisa. I’ll remind you when I call to recongratulate you on the stable-management award, that is,” Carole said. She pretended to be lost in thought for a minute. Then she said pensively, “The call will come at, let’s say, nine forty-four.”
“But—” Lisa objected.
“Nine forty-four,” Carole repeated. “Exactly.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BONNIE BRYANT is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.
Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.
Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.
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