Horse Spy

by Bonnie Bryant

  “All right, let’s trot these guys to stretch some more before we begin the balance exercises,” said Max.

  Stevie and Lisa began a rising trot, and Carole made more notes on the clipboard. Max was about to give them further instruction when the phone rang.

  Carole sighed. Stevie and Lisa both grimaced. There weren’t a lot of people who could be calling Pine Hollow at 6:45 in the morning. In fact, there were only two choices. It was going to be Mrs. Walker or Mrs. Hatfield. The smart money was on Mrs. Walker.

  Max walked over to the barn door and picked up the phone.

  “Yes, Mrs. Walker,” he said after a few seconds. “Right, uh, Eloise, of course … Just fine, Eloise … We’re working with her now … Right, both of them, of course … Yes, my young riders. The same ones as yesterday. We’re about to begin the balance sequence,” he said. He listened, sighing. Although Max was too much of a professional to let an important owner like Mrs. Walker know that he thought she was a nuisance, it was clear to The Saddle Club that that was exactly what was on his mind. And the fact was that she was a nuisance.

  “Well, I’ve only got limited times when these riders are available to me, Mrs. Walker—Eloise—so I think I’d better get back to work. No, they’re all good riders, Eloise, and they’re taking turns so both the horses have experience with each of the girls. Blue is doing very well. Really … Um, Polaris is, too, of course. Right, well, they’re both getting the same amount … Eloise, I’ve got to go now,” he said firmly. “I’m sure you will. Until tomorrow, then,” and he hung up the phone.

  “She’s going to call again tomorrow,” he explained to the three girls.

  Stevie snickered. Lisa’s shoulders were shaking with laughter. Even Carole, the one most likely to sympathize with an overattentive owner, snorted.

  “Something to look forward to,” Lisa said.

  Max ignored their joking and told them to begin a sitting trot with their feet out of the stirrups.

  There was no doubt about it. Training for a show was hard work for the trainer, the rider, and especially the horse. That was why it was called a workout. Still, even though it was work, it was fun, too, and the girls were very glad they were doing it and not someone else. It was fun to be riding such wonderful horses and to do everything they could to help them get ready for the hardest work they would have to do—the horse show.

  “Tell us again why it is we can’t go to the show,” Lisa said, knowing as she said it that she was nagging.

  “Because the show is sold out,” said Max. “This is the most prestigious show in the state and it’s been sold out for a month. Believe me, if I’d known when the ticket order form came six months ago that we’d be working with horses that would be vying for blues, I’d have gotten a half dozen seats for us. Now it’s all I can do to get a seat for myself. Fortunately, Mrs. Hatfield has promised me one ticket for Saturday. But just one.”

  “Groan,” said Stevie.

  “Will you videotape it?” Lisa asked.

  “No, but they usually broadcast some of the show. You can watch it on television,” Max said. They all knew that the taped show was typically broadcast when a baseball game was rained out or, more likely, at three o’clock in the morning. As far as they were concerned, horse shows didn’t get anywhere near enough attention on television.

  “Now, are we going to talk, or are we going to work?” Max said.

  “Work, of course!” Stevie said smartly. “Who would ever want to talk when she could be working?”

  Max hid a smile, but they all got back to work.

  When the phone rang the next time, Carole answered it because Max was concentrating on the exercise. It was Lucy Hatfield, a more welcome interruption.

  “How’s Polaris doing, Carole?” she asked.

  “He’s doing wonderfully,” Carole assured her. “Stevie’s riding him this morning, and he warmed up smoothly. Max is working on balance, and then next come the suppling exercises. I don’t think we’ll be able to do any more than that before we have to get to school, but this afternoon we’re going to go through jump routines.”

  “Oh, I wish I could be there!” Lucy said.

  “Sometimes I wish so, too,” Carole told her. “Especially at five-thirty when I have to get up to get here by six-thirty! But now that it’s practically the middle of the afternoon”—she glanced at her watch, which said 7:00—“I don’t mind at all.”

  “Do you mind me calling?”

  “Not a bit,” said Carole. “If it were my horse, I’d be doing exactly the same thing.”

  “I can’t wait to get there.”

  “And I promise you, you’ll be pleased with all the progress Polaris is making.”

  “Just talking to you makes me feel better.”

  “No problem, but I’ve got to go now.”

  “Bye and, uh, thanks again,” said Lucy, and she hung up.

  It was the same almost every morning. They’d get a call from one or the other of the mothers, and then they’d hear from the girls. Each mother only seemed to want to be assured that her horse was getting better treatment than the other—as if the competition existed only between their daughters. As for Lucy and Ellen, they seemed to be friends as well as friendly competitors.

  By 7:25, they had nearly completed their morning session and Max had the riders walking the horses to cool them down.

  Max’s newest student, Frieda, had showed up and was leaning against the fence. Carole was pleased to see her. She always liked it when a new rider took so enthusiastically to the sport. Frieda had signed up for daily lessons at eight o’clock during the week and had come early every time. Carole waved to her, inviting her to come over to the fence where Carole was now perched, finishing up her notes on the morning workout.

  “So, what are you all up to?” Frieda asked.

  Carole showed her the chart. “It’s a combination of stretching and suppling,” she explained. “Anything that will help keep the horses in tip-top condition is what we’re after.”

  “And there’s no problem having them work together?” Frieda asked.

  “No, it works well,” Carole said. “See, it’s an easy way for Max to be sure they both get the same amount of attention, and we switch off riders at every session so they have different experiences.”

  Frieda glanced at the chart, studying it for a few seconds, and then shrugged. “It’s all Greek to me,” she told Carole.

  “I can explain if you’d like,” Carole told her. Carole liked sharing her knowledge about horses with people, especially when it was as interesting as the lesson plan chart for these two championship horses.

  “No, that’s okay,” Frieda answered. “Remember, you’re dealing here with someone who has just learned about mounting a horse from the left side!”

  “I saw you working with Max yesterday,” Carole said. “I think you’re well beyond that!”

  “Not much,” Frieda said quickly. Carole thought she was being a little hasty. For a beginner, she seemed to be a quick learner.

  Carole slid down off the fence, tucking the clipboard under her arm. “Time to give those horses a little treat and then get ready for school,” she said. “See you tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Do you come after school, too?” Frieda asked.

  “We do,” Carole told her. “We get here about four. This afternoon I’m riding Blue, and Lisa will be on Polaris.”

  “I may stop by to watch that,” Frieda told her.

  “Great!” said Carole. As she walked back into the stable, she smiled, thinking about what a great rider Frieda was going to be—just because of her attitude. All riders should be as eager to learn as she was.

  A few minutes later Frieda helped Lisa put the tack away, then carried a tick of hay back to Blue, who seemed relaxed and welcomed the quick grooming Lisa gave her.

  “Do you ride her every morning?” Frieda asked.

  “No, we switch off,” Lisa said. “That way the horses get accustomed to having different rid
ers. It gives us all equal chances to ride really wonderful horses, too. And then, this weekend, when their own riders get here, they won’t think it’s so strange to have another person on board. I think it works that way for the horses, but no matter what, it works for us.”

  “I can see you’re having fun,” said Frieda.

  “We are,” Lisa said. “Though I have to confess that sometimes I wish the fun didn’t have to start so early in the day!”

  She handed Frieda a brush and gave her a quick lesson in grooming, which helped Lisa finish the job so that she could get dressed and be off to school on schedule. That was part of the deal with her parents. As long as she was at school on time and got all her homework done, she and her friends were allowed to be at Pine Hollow for exercise sessions for an hour and a half twice a day. It was exhausting, but they all thought it totally worthwhile—for them as well as the horses.

  Thursday was the same as Wednesday. When the girls arrived after school, Stevie settled herself on the top rail of the schooling ring fence. She nearly toppled from the rail when she dozed off. It had already been a long day, and this was their second trip to Pine Hollow. Carole, as usual, was all business around the horses and had Blue saddled and warming up in a few minutes. Lisa, ever precise and particular, took a little longer because she wanted to be sure the girth straps were even on both sides of Polaris’s saddle. They were.

  The girls were almost finished with the warm-up and ready to begin the afternoon sequence of exercises when they heard the first rumblings. Lisa noticed it because Polaris flinched. Carole was still totally focused on Blue’s strides when Stevie put the clipboard up to her forehead to shade her eyes from the afternoon sun as she looked to the sky. Max just glanced up, looked puzzled, then turned his attention back to the horses.

  The sound got louder. It was the insistent flapping of a helicopter. Stevie figured it must be some sort of traffic report helicopter, though she knew perfectly well that there were few traffic jams as far from downtown Washington, D.C., as Willow Creek, which was outside the Beltway.

  The pounding noise grew louder.

  “Some kind of accident or something?” Stevie asked Frieda, who stood next to her.

  “Who knows?” Frieda answered.

  “And who cares?” asked Carole. “I think Blue’s ready for some trotting now. Lisa?”

  “Ready over here,” Lisa said. The girls signaled their horses for a trot.

  Carole loved the gaits of these two horses. Blue’s trot was smooth and fast. Any concern she’d had about the amount of work to be done or even the social studies test that she’d taken earlier that day left her mind and her heart. All she could hear was the beat of Blue’s silky-smooth trot, and all she could feel was the suppleness of the animal that carried her and the fresh breeze that washed over her.

  And all the while, the sound intensified overhead.

  “What is going on?” Stevie demanded, realizing that she had to yell to be heard. She looked up again, as did everyone else. They saw that there were not one but two large helicopters overhead—directly overhead—and that they were descending. One clearly was going to land.

  Polaris shied. Lisa tightened up on the reins. He calmed down again. Carole drew Blue back down to a walk. Her ears flicked back and forth, and Carole thought Polaris was probably almost as uncomfortable with the level of the noise as she was. She concentrated on keeping Blue’s attention on the task at hand, which was trotting. Blue seemed to appreciate the instructions and gladly trotted on. Lisa and Polaris followed suit.

  Stevie, on the other hand, gave up all pretense of watching her friends ride. There was no doubt about it. One of the helicopters was preparing to land in the field right in front of the stable, and the other was circling the surrounding fields and woods.

  Max left the ring. There was no way he could allow a helicopter to land near a stable full of high-strung and valuable horses. He walked out into the area where one helicopter was hovering and began waving his arms and shaking his head. The pilot apparently got the message and pulled up, nosing higher into the air and away from the stable. Within a few minutes, both helicopters rose over the copse of trees that bordered Pine Hollow’s field and flew away.

  Carole and Lisa returned their attention to their training exercises. Stevie, on the other hand, watched the road at the edge of the field. The helicopters might be leaving, but something else was arriving. She squinted. Three black sedans drove in a cluster along the two-lane road, heading for Pine Hollow.

  She slid down off the fence and walked over to the driveway, arriving at the parking area just as all three cars did. Twelve car doors opened at once and from each emerged a man dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Most of them wore sunglasses—mirrored sunglasses that hid their eyes completely. And they all wore the same completely blank expression.

  Stevie froze, wondering what on earth was about to happen.

  One of the men strode toward her while the others stood by the cars.

  “We’re looking for someone named Carl,” he said in moderately accented English. The accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern.

  “Nobody here by that name,” Stevie said. “No Carls at all.”

  “Not Carl,” the man said, ever so slightly annoyed. “Carl.” He emphasized it as if saying it more loudly would make it clearer.

  “There is no man here named Carl,” Stevie told him firmly.

  “Not a man. A girl,” he said, the late-afternoon sun glinting off his reflective sunglasses.

  “A girl? Carl?” And then it struck her. “Carole? You mean Carole?”

  “That’s what I said. Carl.”

  “Hanson?” Stevie asked.

  “As you wish,” he said.

  And then he held out his hand to show her something. It was paper. It had pictures of horses on it. And Stevie understood everything.

  She signaled the man to follow her back to the schooling ring, where Carole and Lisa were now sitting on Blue and Polaris and staring at the cluster of sedans in the parking lot. As Stevie approached, Carole and Lisa stared even more intently at their friend, who was being followed by a very sinister-looking man in a black suit and shiny sunglasses.

  “Oh, Carole!” Stevie sang out. “These guys have something to say to you!”

  IT TOOK A MOMENT for Carole to absorb everything she saw before her. Until she’d seen Stevie coming toward her and Lisa, she’d been totally focused on the training exercise she and Blue had been doing. But now she found herself staring at four cars. Black. Sedans. And then all those men. Carole knew the look. It was very distinct and it was very official. The men were all wearing dark suits and white shirts. They were either funeral directors—which seemed unlikely because funeral directors didn’t usually come in clusters—or government agents of some kind.

  For a moment Carole thought the shiver she suddenly felt was coming from Blue, but then she realized that she was the one who was shivering. She was afraid. Her father worked for the government. If something had happened to him …

  “Carl Hanzen?” one of the men asked. Maybe they had the wrong person.

  “Carole Hanson,” she said.

  “That’s what I said.”

  Carole dismounted and walked over to where the man was waiting to speak to her. If it was bad news, she wanted it right away. Before she reached the fence, though, she had a chance to look at Stevie, who was grinning like a cat with canary feathers sprouting from its mouth.

  Then Carole, too, recognized the sheet of paper the man held in his hand. It was her letter to Karya Nazeem! Had she done something wrong? Broken some law? Offended some diplomat? If they were going to question her, shouldn’t her father be there? Did she have the right to call a lawyer?

  “We are here to, as you people say, RVPS,” said the man, smiling.

  “I think he means RSVP,” Stevie suggested helpfully.

  “As you say.” He nodded briefly in Stevie’s direction.

  “It’s French,”
Lisa piped up. “It stands for Répondez, s’il vous plaît, which means ‘Please respond.’ ”

  He smiled weakly at Lisa.

  “Yes?” Carole said.

  “Ms. Nazeem would like very much to ride here with you when she comes to this country next week,” said the man.

  Another man stepped forward. Carole hadn’t noticed him before, perhaps because he was hidden among all the black suits.

  “Let me introduce myself,” he said, offering Carole a hand. “I am representing the Nazeem family and planning their schedules for their visit to the United States of America.” He gave Carole a card with his name in Arabic script. On the other side was a translation into English. Carole tucked it in her pocket. “Is there someplace we can talk?” he asked.

  By then Max and Lisa had given up all pretense of continuing their exercise program and were standing right behind Carole.

  “We can go into my office,” Max suggested, introducing himself.

  “Satisfactory,” said the secretary. “And while we talk, would you have any objection to the security team’s looking around the stable? They will need to be sure everything is safest possible for Ms. Nazeem’s visit.”

  “Everything here is very safe,” Max assured him. “I always require that my riders follow my rigorous safety program.”

  “I am not talking about riding helmets,” the secretary said. “I am talking about terrorism.”

  “That, too,” Max said, nodding as if all of his riders were worried about terrorism. “Of course. This way, please.”

  There was no way Lisa and Stevie were going to miss a minute of this. They tied their horses to the fence in a shaded area of the schooling ring and tagged along after Max and Carole into his office.

  As they walked, the man who had given Carole his card introduced himself as the Nazeems’ secretary. Speaking very formally, he explained that the whole Nazeem family was coming to the United States, specifically Washington, D.C., and although Ms. Nazeem had many obligations of state, she had requested that she be allowed to ride while she was in America. Specifically, she had asked if she could ride with this girl who’d written her a letter and spend some time at Pine Hollow with Carole Hanson and her friends.