Bridle Path

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Something special,” Carole said.

  “Something fun,” Stevie said. And when Stevie decided on fun, fun was what they were going to have. Her eyes gleamed, but she told her friends that she wasn’t ready to decide exactly what extra thing they should do, so they might as well get to work.

  Lisa went to check for mold on the older bales of hay. Carole and Stevie mixed a week’s worth of regular grains for the stable horses and a week’s worth of the special mix that Veronica diAngelo claimed the vet had prescribed for Garnet. Stevie wasn’t convinced that the slight difference in grains that Veronica required actually made any difference. Carole reminded her that it wasn’t their business to question Veronica’s vet.

  “Even if Saturday is April Fools’ Day?” Stevie asked.

  Carole groaned. “Oh, no!”

  “What?”

  “April Fools’ Day again! I hate it. You always take it as such a challenge, and I spend most of the rest of the month getting you out of the hot water you dive into so easily on the first of the month!”

  Stevie poured a bag of grain into the mixing bin. “Why, Carole. How could you say such a thing?”

  “Easily,” Carole said. “If I recall correctly, one year you replaced Mrs. Reg’s reading glasses with another pair, and she spent the whole day looking as if she were playing a trombone. And then there was the time you moved all the horses into different stalls. Max wasn’t too thrilled about that one. Oh, and it seems to me that Max was even less happy about the time you replaced the belt that goes with his breeches with one that was two inches shorter. He spent the whole day talking about diets. Then there was the gelatin-in-the-sink year—oh, yes, and the whoopie cushion under Mr. Martin’s saddle. Was that the same year you put the rubber horse manure in Mrs. diAngelo’s Mercedes-Benz?”

  Stevie stirred the grains together thoughtfully. “I think they were all the same year,” she said. “The year before was when I—”

  “Stop! I can’t stand it,” Carole said. “Your April Fools’ pranks have been nothing but trouble. You just can’t get away with this stuff all the time, Stevie.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t like hearing Mrs. diAngelo scream like that?” Stevie asked.

  Carole had to think for a minute. She could still recall the woman’s hollering and her indignant outrage as she tried to imagine how a horse had actually gotten into her car to make the deposit. She’d yelled at Max and the stable hand, Red. She’d even yelled at Veronica. Then, when she’d discovered the manure was only rubber, she’d yelled at Stevie—knowing that only she would come up with something like that. Stevie hadn’t minded at all.

  “It was kind of fun,” Carole admitted. “But you’re not going to do it again, are you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Stevie said. “This year I’m only going to do nice things.”

  Carole thought that sounded like a good idea. April Fools’ Day and Stevie could be a pretty dangerous combination. She decided that she and Lisa might have to add “keep Stevie out of trouble” to their list of jobs for the week.

  The next task they tackled was to look at the dress riding clothes that were stored in the attic of the house that Max and his mother, Mrs. Reg, shared. Max pulled the ladder down for them and showed them where the light switch was. Then he left them alone.

  Carole was the first of the three girls to enter the attic, but she felt as if she were the first person to visit in a century. The March sunlight filtered through dingy glass windows and seemed to hold dust particles in suspension. There was a dry, stuffy smell to the place, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It was as if the air had been as undisturbed as the trunks and dress racks that cluttered the room. Carole felt that she might be breathing the very same air that had filled the lungs of Max’s grandfather.

  The room was large but might have seemed bigger if it hadn’t been for all the clothes that had been abandoned there haphazardly over the years. The floor around the ladder was circled by boxes that had obviously been shoved onto the floor of the attic without actually being stored.

  Carole made a pathway among the cartons so her friends could join her. Lisa came up next and just looked around in silent awe. Stevie, on the other hand, had something to say.

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” Carole agreed.

  “We get to look in all these boxes!” said Stevie. Stevie was a very curious person. A closed box had always been a challenge to her. Now, however, as she took in the enormity of the task, she began to realize that this job might challenge the limits of even her curiosity.

  “Okay, now, here’s what we should do,” said Lisa. Carole and Stevie listened up. Lisa always seemed to know how to tackle a big task. “We should begin by sorting. I think our categories are going to be (1) stuff to be thrown out; (2) stuff to be given away; (3) antique and historical clothes to be stored and put away; (4) specialty clothes to be stored for special occasions; and (5) everyday riding clothes that ought to be used. Now, for starters, let’s move all the car—Stevie? What are you doing?”

  Even in the face of all of Lisa’s logic and organization, Stevie couldn’t contain herself. She’d opened the nearest box and was down on her knees pawing through its contents.

  “You won’t believe this stuff, guys!” she said excitedly. “I mean, look at this!”

  The next thing Carole and Lisa knew, Stevie had on a new hat. It was a pearl-gray bowler, and it looked very funny on her, especially because it was too big and pushed her ears out at odd angles from her head.

  “The latest fashion!” Lisa said, giggling.

  “Well, here’s one for you,” Stevie said, tossing a black flat-topped hat at Lisa. It looked like a top hat, cut short.

  Then she reached in farther and pulled out another top hat. This one she gave to Carole. While Carole put it on, Stevie went back into the box and began pulling out the clothes that went with the hats.

  “These are for saddle-seat equitation,” Carole informed her friends, confirming their suspicions that Carole knew everything there was to know about horses. “You remember, don’t you? At the horse show in New York, we saw classes with the saddlebreds?”

  The girls did remember then. Saddlebreds were the horses that had been trained to move with their front feet lifting high off the ground. They pranced more than walked. Their riders wore fancy old-fashioned clothes. The coats were cut long, almost like skirts.

  “The clothes were cool, but I didn’t much like the way the horses moved,” Lisa said. “It just didn’t look natural to me.”

  “I don’t think it is natural,” Stevie agreed. “They have to do a lot of training with those horses, and it can’t be much fun. Remember how nervous the animals were when we saw them?”

  Lisa did remember. The slightest movement around the saddlebreds would elicit a strong reaction, as if the horses were afraid of everything.

  “I didn’t know Max ever had saddlebreds around here,” she said.

  “I don’t know that he did,” Stevie said. “But he’s got some clothes for them—and I think we’re going to have to try them on to be sure they’re in good enough condition that they should be kept instead of thrown away.”

  Carole and Lisa certainly agreed with that. In a flash, all three girls were reaching for outfits to try on. They had to open six more cartons before they found shirts, vests, ties, and boots to go with the hats they’d started with, but it was clearly worth it. Within minutes they’d put on not only clothes, but personalities.

  “Milady, would you care to take a hack in the park this afternoon?” Stevie asked, removing her hat and bowing formally to Carole.

  Carole found herself transformed into a Southern belle. “Why, I declare, I do think I would!” she said, batting her eyelashes at the handsome squire she imagined in the baggy clothes Stevie wore. “But only if mah little sistah Lillibelle can join us.”

  Stevie looked at Lisa, who cocked her hat down over her face shyly. “Why, of co’se Miz Lillibelle may join us!
” she said.

  “You want li’l ole me?” Lisa asked. She was having trouble, though. In the first place, the pants she wore were too big, so she had to hold them up with one hand. Her other problem was keeping from laughing because she felt so silly. Finally she couldn’t hold it in. Carole and Stevie joined in the laughter. Then Stevie located an old mirror. The three of them took turns looking at themselves in the dingy glass.

  Much to Lisa’s surprise, she didn’t look as silly in the mirror as she’d felt dressing in the clothes. Although the pants were too big and the whole outfit ridiculously formal, she looked good, and so did her friends.

  “We look like show riders,” Carole said, admiring her own reflection.

  “Either that or band leaders,” Stevie agreed.

  “Not bad,” said Lisa. “Not bad.”

  “But maybe there’s better around,” Stevie said, slipping out of her outfit. “Let’s try some more boxes.”

  A part of Lisa told herself that this was silly. They didn’t have time to try on clothes and play. There was too much work to be done. Another part of her told herself that, after all, they did have to open all the boxes so that they could sort all the contents. And the best way to be sure what the contents were was to try on the clothes themselves. That was the part of her that won the argument.

  The girls couldn’t believe all the things they found. There was an almost infinite variety of riding pants, shirts, ties, vests, and jackets. They even found a selection of culottes for women riders. Those were pants designed to look like skirts that could be used to ride sidesaddle.

  Clothes began flying all over the attic.

  “Here, try this on!”

  “Look at this!”

  “Eeowww—did someone actually wear this?”

  “Riding a horse???”

  “Look at how this vest hangs down below the jacket!”

  “And how the jacket hangs down below everything!”

  “It’s called a shad-belly.”

  “Isn’t it called tails?”

  “No, shad-belly.”

  “Weird.”

  Stevie began dressing Carole up in a pearl-gray outfit with one of the large split skirts. There was a ruffly white blouse that went under the jacket. She wasn’t sure it was the blouse that was originally intended to go under the jacket, but it looked nice. She found some gray boots that matched and a white riding crop. She ransacked three more boxes in search of accessories. She was looking for a pair of white gloves. What she found, however, was a box of camping gear, and though it didn’t have white gloves, it did have white mosquito netting.

  “Just the thing,” she declared. With that, she lifted the netting up over Carole’s formally clad head, and as it settled on her, all three girls were overwhelmed with the image, for there, standing in front of a dingy mirror in a dusty attic, wearing an old-fashioned riding outfit, was a bride. Carole looked as if she were completely ready to ride down the aisle to meet up with the man of her dreams.

  “Look at that!” said Lisa.

  “What inspiration!” said Stevie.

  Carole immediately sensed something in Stevie’s tone of voice. “Inspiration?” she asked.

  “Sure,” said Stevie. “We can have a wedding!”

  “We’re missing only two things,” Lisa commented. “The bride and the groom.”

  “No, we’ve got them already. The new stallion is the groom and Delilah is the bride! It’s going to be great. We can do it on Saturday, after the horse show. You can ride Delilah, wearing that outfit—you might want to consider adding a string of pearls somewhere, though—and then one of us can wear the outfit I had on before—you know, the Southern-gentleman thing—and that person can lead the stallion, and then the other one can be the justice of the peace.”

  “Just where is this going to take place?” Carole asked.

  “In the paddock,” Stevie said quickly. Then she had another idea. “Or maybe we’ll think of someplace more romantic. Anyway, we can ask all the members of Horse Wise to bring food. We can make it a surprise for them, too. You know, just the three of us will be in on it, so everybody will be bowled over. It is, after all, The Day—I mean April Fools’—and it’s the kind of joke that’s fun and nobody gets hurt, and that’s the kind you’re always wanting me to think up.”

  Carole had a couple of questions she wanted to ask Stevie right then, like if she was totally out of her mind and how they could possibly plan a whole party, to say nothing of a wedding, in four days when they had a whole lot of other things that had to be done—but there was no stopping Stevie. Her mind was totally engaged and her mouth was just as active.

  “… then there’s the music. I guess we’ll just have to use a battery-powered tape deck. I can probably borrow my brother’s, though he may kill me if anything happens to it, but he won’t even notice, since I think he’s going away this weekend. I’d better borrow it Thursday so he won’t even think of taking it with him on Friday. What music? I mean, we’re going to have to have classical stuff for the ceremony—oh, the ceremony, I guess I’m going to have to write that. Or better still, Lisa, you write it. You’re good at writing.…”

  Lisa and Carole began sorting some of the clothes they’d taken out of boxes, listening to Stevie’s chatter as they worked. When Stevie was this enthusiastic about a plan, it usually turned out pretty well. Usually.

  BY THE TIME riding class started on Tuesday, Stevie had everyone thoroughly confused. She’d decided that the “wedding” for Delilah and the stallion should be a surprise not only for Max, but for everyone. However, in order to get everyone to work on it, she had to give them a reason.

  “It’s Max’s birthday, and we need somebody to bring punch,” she said to Meg Durham. “Can you do that?”

  Meg agreed.

  She asked Veronica diAngelo to bake the cake, not because she thought Veronica would actually bake it, but because she suspected that Veronica’s cook would do a better job than most of the students.

  “White, it has to be white,” Stevie said.

  “Why? I thought Max liked chocolate cake the best.”

  “Maybe,” said Stevie, thinking fast. “But all I have is white candles—oh, and by the way, don’t write anything on the cake.”

  As usual, Veronica was being contrary. “White candles go just fine on a chocolate cake, and what’s wrong with writing ‘Happy Birthday Max’?”

  “My white candles won’t go on a chocolate cake, and don’t write anything on it because I told you so.”

  Stevie could be contrary, too.

  With only ten minutes to spare before class started, she’d gotten one girl to offer to bring streamers (light blue, not white, but that would be good enough, Stevie figured), another to make a festive white satin bow, and one of the boys agreed to bring his entire collection of opera music tapes because Stevie thought that would mean that somewhere in there they’d find the wedding march from Lohengrin.

  “Why do you want opera?” he’d asked. “I think Max likes rhythm and blues.”

  “He’ll change his mind soon enough,” Stevie had answered.

  April agreed to bring glasses; Polly offered napkins and paper plates. Betsy Cavanaugh said she could bring ginger ale, but preferred to bring cola. Stevie wanted ginger ale because it looked like champagne. She stuck to her guns. Betsy had definitely met her match in Stevie and agreed. Ginger ale it was. Adam Levine said his parents had lots of folding chairs, and Joe Novick agreed to help set them up, but neither of them thought it was a very good idea to have them all in rows.

  “How can we have a party that way?” Joe asked.

  “Trust me, we can,” Stevie said. “Besides, we may move them again. But to start, I want them here.” She pointed to the place where she intended to have the audience for the wedding. “With an aisle.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Joe said. Almost everybody, except Veronica, had learned that it was usually easier to agree with Stevie than to argue with her.

  �
�Stevie!” That was Max. “Class starts in five minutes, and I just saw that Topside isn’t even tacked up!”

  That was bad news. It took from ten to fifteen minutes to tack up a horse properly. Max was never happy when his students were late for class, especially when the reason appeared to be because they were just chatting with the other students.

  “I’ll be ready, Max. I promise!”

  She flew. Stevie didn’t have a second to waste. There was no point in planning a wonderful party for Max when he would be too angry at her to enjoy it—even a nice April Fools’ horses’ wedding party. She was going to have to work fast, and she was going to need help.

  Lisa and Carole saw that and pitched in, as usual. Lisa brought the saddle and Carole carried the bridle. Stevie gave Topside a quick brushing, and then all three of them put on his tack. He’d never had so much attention from so many people all at once in his whole life. He loved every second of it. At the very moment the PA system crackled out the announcement that class was beginning, Stevie was ready to mount up and enter the ring.

  “Stevie, you are amazing,” Max remarked as she and Topside walked into the class—on time.

  “It’s a miracle,” she joked.

  “It’s a miracle that you can get your friends to help you with your work all the time,” he said. Giggles and smirks emerged from almost everybody in the class because Max didn’t have half an idea of how true his statement was. He looked around curiously and shrugged.

  “Line up in the middle of the ring,” he announced. Class began.

  Stevie soon realized that Max may have shrugged off her near lateness, but he was clearly irritated with her, because he watched her like a hawk through the class.

  “Heels down!” he ordered. She put them down. “And keep your knees in.”

  “They are in.”

  “Not enough,” he barked. “And sit up straight. Stop wiggling your hands around!”

  Stevie tried very hard to do everything he told her. Certainly everything he said was designed to improve her riding form, but she’d thought she already had these basics down pat.