HOTHEADED ABOUT HOLLYWOOD
“I had noticed that you’ve been spending all your time with him,” John said pointedly, pressing his lips into a tight line.
Lisa clenched her hands in annoyance. “Why shouldn’t we? We’re his technical advisers for the movie. Not to mention his friends,” she said. She tried to keep her voice calm, but she could hear it quavering.
“His best friends, from what I can tell,” John shot back.
“Skye has a lot of friends,” Lisa said hotly. “He’s a friendly person—which you would have noticed this afternoon if you hadn’t been so bent on insulting him.”
“That Hollywood pretty boy could use a couple of insults to take him down a peg or two!” John retorted.
RL 5, 009-012
CUTTING HORSE
A Skylark Book / June 1996
Skylark Books is a registered trademark of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere.
“The Saddle Club” is a registered trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller. The Saddle Club design/logo, which consists of a riding crop and a riding hat, is a trademark of Bantam Books.
“USPC” and “Pony Club” are registered trademarks of The United States Pony Clubs, Inc., at The Kentucky Horse Park, 4071 Iron Works Pike, Lexington, KY 40511-8462.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1996 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-82555-1
Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada.
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
v3.1
I would like to express my special thanks
to Caitlin Macy for her help
in the writing of this book.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
“WATER, SPONGES, SADDLE soap, metal polish, oil, rags—I now pronounce us ready to clean tack,” Carole Hanson said. Bridle in hand, she sat down on the floor of the tack room at Pine Hollow Stables.
One of her two best friends, Stevie Lake, sat down beside her. “You forgot the toothbrush and toothpaste,” Stevie said.
“Toothbrush and toothpaste?” Carole asked.
Stevie nodded. “For the bits,” she explained. “Believe me: Three out of four horses surveyed preferred the taste of cool mint gel to the taste of metal polish. Starlight and Belle included.”
Carole laughed. Starlight, a bay gelding, was her horse, and Belle, a half-Arabian, half-Saddlebred mare, was Stevie’s. “I guess that’s the least we can do for them, considering we won’t see them for a week,” Carole commented. It was summer vacation, and she, Stevie, and their other best friend, Lisa Atwood, were leaving the next morning for a week’s trip out West.
“So I guess we should clean Lisa’s tack, too, huh?” Stevie asked, the slightest note of reluctance creeping into her voice. Despite being horse-crazy like Carole and Lisa, Stevie wasn’t known for her love of barn work like tack cleaning and stall mucking.
Carole looked sternly at her. “Now, Stevie—” she began.
“I know, I know: Saddle Club rule number two, right?” Stevie guessed.
“Right,” Carole confirmed. She didn’t have to say more. The three girls had started The Saddle Club, so they knew its rules cold. Besides, there were only two: Members of the club had to be (1) horse-crazy and (2) willing to help one another out in any kind of situation. Rule number two was the reason Carole and Stevie were going to have to clean Lisa’s tack.
“I still don’t understand why Lisa didn’t show up for the good-bye ride,” said Stevie, soaping the reins of her bridle.
“It is weird,” Carole agreed. “It’s not like Lisa to miss an appointment—even an appointment with us.”
Whenever the girls went on a trip, they knew that no matter how much fun they had, they would miss their horses. So they always liked to take a long last trail ride before they left. Carole would ride Starlight, Stevie would ride Belle, and Lisa would ride Prancer, an ex-racehorse. Unlike Carole and Stevie, Lisa didn’t have her own horse, but she had trained Prancer for so long that it almost seemed like the same thing.
“Maybe Lisa’s mother dragged her to the mall for some new Western riding outfits,” Stevie suggested.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Carole said, shaking her head. Mrs. Atwood liked Lisa to look nice all the time, in perfectly matched outfits, so she was constantly taking her shopping for new clothes.
“At least we’ll all be together tomorrow morning for the flight out,” Carole continued. “And I can hardly wait to see Kate and the ranch and everyone. Aren’t you excited?”
To Carole’s surprise, Stevie didn’t answer right away. She wrung her sponge out thoughtfully and waited for a minute or two before replying. “I guess so,” she said finally.
“You guess so?” Carole repeated, incredulous. “Wait a minute. Is this Stevie Lake I’m talking to? School’s out, you’re about to spend a week on your favorite dude ranch with your two best friends, riding and hanging out to your heart’s content, and you guess you’re excited?” Carole could hardly believe her ears. The girls had taken a number of trips out West to visit an old friend—and an out-of-town Saddle Club member, Kate Devine. Kate’s parents owned and operated a dude ranch called the Bar None. The Saddle Club always had a wonderful time there.
Stevie smiled at Carole. “You’re right. I know it’s going to be great. But sometimes I worry that if we plan to have fun, we won’t. You know?”
“Yes,” Carole replied. “I know what you mean. Every time we’ve gone out West, something incredibly exciting has happened, and it’s always been something we didn’t plan.”
“Exactly,” said Stevie. “Like the time the Devines needed us to help them save the ranch.”
“And the trip when we helped catch the cattle rustlers,” Carole chimed in. “Yup. We’ve had our share of adventures out there. But I think this trip will be great, too.”
“Okay. I just don’t want to curse things by planning all the fun we’re going to have,” Stevie insisted.
“Well, then we’ll just have to sit here and clean tack in silence because that’s all I can think about!” Carole said.
Just then the tack room door swung open and Lisa burst into the room. She stood there, red-faced and panting, for several minutes. Carole and Stevie stared at her. Finally she caught her breath enough to speak. “I just got off the phone,” she managed to blurt out. “And you’ll never, ever guess who just called me!”
“Skye Ransom,” Stevie said, trying to think of the most unlikely person for Lisa to get a call from. Skye Ransom was a teenage movie star whom the girls had met on a trip to New York.
Lisa’s jaw dropped. “You guessed!” she cried ind
ignantly. “And here I was planning to keep you wondering for hours.”
“Skye Ransom?” Stevie and Carole repeated incredulously. Stevie had been joking—she hadn’t believed for one second that Skye was the person who had called.
Even though the girls kept in touch with Skye, he didn’t usually call out of the blue to chat. He was a very busy professional. He flew all over to make movies, and the rest of the time he was occupied with leading the glamorous life of a young star in Hollywood.
“He wanted to say hi?” Carole asked doubtfully.
Lisa grinned. “I guess you could say that. He did tell me to say hi to you guys,” she said. “Of course, I told him that he could wait”—Lisa paused dramatically—“and do that in person!”
“In person?” Stevie and Carole cried. Now they were utterly confused. Unless Skye planned to show up in Willow Creek, Virginia, that night, they would miss him. They were due to fly out early the next morning with Kate’s father. Frank Devine was a retired Marine Corps pilot who flew a private plane part-time. The girls tried to time their visits so that they could hitch free rides with him.
“Lisa,” Carole asked gently, “have you, um, by any chance, forgotten that our trip starts tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Stevie said, chuckling, “unless Skye’s planning on checking into the Bar None, I don’t see how we’re going to meet up with him.”
“Oh, he’s not planning on checking into the Bar None,” Lisa said.
“Well then?” said Stevie.
“He’s already there!”
Stevie and Carole looked at one another wildly. “You mean Skye Ransom just happens to be taking a vacation at the Bar None the same week we are?” Carole demanded.
Lisa started to giggle. “Not exactly.”
Stevie stood up and put her hands on her hips. Obviously, Lisa had news—good news—but she was making them extract it from her piece by piece. “All right, Atwood, out with it! What’s the story?”
“Okay, okay. It’s too good to keep secret. Skye Ransom is filming a movie at the Bar None!” Lisa cried.
It took a minute for her words to sink in. Then Stevie and Carole let out a huge whoop. Before they could barrage her with questions, Lisa sat down with them on the floor and told the whole incredible story. “It all started a few months ago, but I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out. Skye called me and asked if I could recommend a ranch where they could film a Western he’s going to be in. Naturally, I said the Bar None. But I never heard anything more about it. I thought maybe the movie got canceled.”
Stevie and Carole nodded. So far, everything made sense. Skye had called Lisa because he knew her a bit better than he knew them. Lisa had hung out with him on a trip she’d taken to Los Angeles with her mother. The fact that Skye hadn’t called her back was normal, too. As he had told them, Hollywood was a crazy place. Movie projects got abandoned all the time, sometimes even when they were far along. So it was no wonder that Lisa hadn’t given the conversation a second thought.
“Anyway,” Lisa continued, “this morning I was dressed to come riding when the phone rang. I picked up, and a voice said, ‘Last night I watched the sun set over the Rockies.’ It was Skye! It turns out that the producers flew out to see the ranch, and they loved it. I guess the Devines were thrilled, too. They’re getting a lot of money, and it will be great publicity for the Bar None. The filming started yesterday!”
“You mean Kate’s known about this for weeks and she hasn’t said a thing?” Stevie asked. She was amazed that anybody could keep such a fantastic secret.
“She wanted it to be a surprise. But the minute I got off the phone with Skye, I called the Devines. Kate was really mad that Skye had broken the news, because she wanted it to be a big surprise when we got there. But she can’t wait for us to come,” Lisa finished.
“Well, I guess the no-fun curse is off!” Carole said. At Lisa’s puzzled expression, she explained Stevie’s fear that any plan to have fun would backfire.
Lisa laughed. In a mock-serious tone, she said, “Don’t get any ideas that this trip is going to be all fun and games. I did tell you we’re going to be working very hard, didn’t I?” When Carole and Stevie shook their heads, Lisa explained. “The three of us have very important jobs. Skye’s made us his official technical advisers on equine matters.”
“Huh?” Stevie said.
“We make sure he can ride,” Lisa translated.
“Considering how we met him, I think that’s appropriate,” Carole said, laughing. The girls had met Skye in New York City’s Central Park because he’d fallen off his horse trying to pretend he knew how to ride during a shoot. They’d rescued him and the horse and coached him so that he could ride well enough to get by in the movie.
Stevie liked the idea of being a technical adviser so much that she let out another whoop. “Yippee-hi-yi-yay!” she yelled, getting into the Western spirit. “The Saddle Club goes to the Bar None and the Bar None goes Hollywood! We’re going to have the best—” In the middle of her sentence, Stevie stopped. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the knob of the tack room door turning. She didn’t have to guess who it was.
Sure enough, Max Regnery III poked his head in. Max was the owner of Pine Hollow Stables and the girls’ riding instructor. “May I remind you three that you’re not ‘home on the range’ yet, but in an enclosed stable in Willow Creek, Virginia, where loud noises carry!” he barked.
The minute he was gone, Stevie started to whistle under her breath, a defiant look in her eye.
“What tune is that?” Lisa asked.
Stevie leaned forward and said, in a stage whisper, “ ‘Don’t Fence Me In’!”
THE SMALL PLANE touched down in a perfect landing. As they shuttled along the runway, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole burst into spontaneous applause. They had started their trip at the crack of dawn and slept most of the way to Denver, but now that they were on the ground, they were buzzing with excitement.
“You girls can fly with me anytime,” said Frank Devine, emerging from the cockpit a few minutes later.
“Does that mean we’re welcome at the ole Bar None anytime, too?” Stevie asked.
“Absolutely. Although I have to warn you: The Bar None might not look quite so ‘ole’ anymore. In fact, you might not recognize the place. It’s been completely Hollywood-ized. Some days I forget I’m at a real ranch, it looks so much like a ranch set.”
The girls laughed. With its neat buildings and acres of prairie, and with the Rockies rising in the distance, the Bar None did look like the kind of ranch a movie producer would dream up. That was why it was called the Bar None—Kate’s parents had thought it was the prettiest ranch they had ever seen, bar none.
“Of course, around about feeding time, the horses remind me that they’re real enough,” Kate’s father continued. “And we do try to feed the humans at regular hours, too,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Stevie. Stevie’s unquenchable appetite was well known to the Devines.
“Phew!” Stevie exclaimed. “I thought maybe I was going to have to make do with fake movie food or something.”
“Nope. If we skimped on meals at the Bar None, my ranch hands would all go on strike, no doubt about it.”
The girls gathered up their bags and followed Frank down the steps of the plane, through the airport, and out to the passenger pickup area, where someone from the ranch was going to meet them. As usual, Lisa had twice as much luggage as Carole and Stevie.
“I’ll stow it in the bunkhouse the minute we get there,” Lisa promised in response to their groans about the weight. No matter how hard she tried, Lisa never succeeded in keeping her mother away from her suitcases before a big trip. When Mrs. Atwood had heard that Skye Ransom was going to be at the ranch, she’d gone crazier than usual, adding dresses, skirts, and blouses to Lisa’s overstuffed bags. She loved the fact that her daughter knew a real movie star, and she was always encouraging Lisa to look her best.
“You might not want to stow
all of it,” Stevie said teasingly. “You never know when you’ll need to spruce up for a certain someone. Speaking of ranch hands …”
“Yes?” Lisa said innocently. She knew exactly what Stevie meant, but she also knew that Stevie was not about to let on, in front of Kate’s father, that Lisa liked one of his ranch hands. Dark-haired and tall, John Brightstar was an American Indian and the son of the Devines’ head wrangler, Walter Brightstar. John was about a year older than the girls. He worked on the ranch after school and in the summer. Lisa and he were friends, but they were a little more than friends, too. Lisa was looking forward to spending time with him on this trip.
Fortunately, Frank Devine was paying attention to the approaching cars and didn’t seem to notice the pause in their conversation. “Here we go—here’s the van now,” he said.
The Saddle Club looked to see where he was pointing. “That’s them?” Lisa asked. Instead of the usual dilapidated ranch truck or weathered station wagon, a deluxe dark green minivan pulled up to the curb.
Frank nodded proudly. “We bought it a month ago, after we signed the contracts with Hollywood. Officially, it’s our ‘airport pickup’ van.”
The minute the van had stopped, the passenger-side window was lowered, and Kate stuck her head out. “Pretty spiffy, huh?” she cried. She pointed at the neat white lettering on the side of the van, which read THE BAR NONE, followed by the ranch logo: ō
“Spiffy enough for Skye Ransom!” Carole replied.
“Are you sure it’s not too posh for The Saddle Club?” Stevie joked.
“Absolutely not,” Kate said, getting out of the van. “Don’t forget: I’m a member, too.”
“How could we forget?” Stevie demanded as she, Lisa, and Carole hugged their friend.
When Lisa disentangled herself from the hugging, she checked to see who else had come to the airport. Walter and John Brightstar had gotten out of the van and were leaning against it, talking with Frank. Delighted that John had come to greet her instead of waiting at the ranch, Lisa went forward to give him a big hug. But at the last minute she stopped and shyly said, “Hi.” There was something about John’s manner that had made her change her mind about the hug.
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