Lisa

by Bonnie Bryant

All Monday evening I kept expecting Mrs. Reg to call and ask me where her pin was. I was a nervous wreck. But by the time I was getting ready to leave for Pine Hollow on Tuesday, I still hadn’t heard a peep from her. I couldn’t imagine why—unless she was waiting to yell at me in person.

  Then I thought of something. Maybe the reason Mrs. Reg hadn’t called was that she trusted me. Maybe she figured that if I hadn’t put the pin in her drawer as promised, it was because I had a good reason. That idea made me feel worse than ever, since I’d obviously proved myself totally untrustworthy by getting distracted and losing the pin.

  Stevie and Carole were waiting for me when I got to the stable. Without a word, we headed straight inside to face the music. I really appreciated their being there for me. Even though it was my fault, they were willing to come along and support me. That’s what friends are for.

  When we reached Mrs. Reg’s office, the only one there was Max. “What are you looking for?” he asked when he saw us, sounding a little tense.

  “Where’s Mrs. Reg?” I asked.

  “She’s gone for the week,” he replied. “She had to go visit a sick friend who called yesterday. She won’t be back until Friday, and there are a zillion and one things for me to do.”

  He went on to complain about some new horse he had to train and a new class beginning and some other things, but I wasn’t really listening. I was still trying to figure out what this meant. Mrs. Reg was gone for the entire week. Could I wait until Friday to confess what I’d done, or would I go completely crazy before then?

  A moment later Max dashed away, looking more harried than ever, and Stevie rubbed her hands together. “This is our chance,” she said.

  “Chance?” I said. “What do you mean? You think this gives me a four-day head start on leaving the country?”

  Stevie shook her head. “It gives us a four-day head start on finishing what we started last night,” she said. “We’re going to run Pine Hollow for Max this week while Mrs. Reg is gone. It will be the perfect opportunity for the three of us to be everywhere, look everywhere, do everything. If that pin is here, anywhere, we’ll find it.”

  Carole looked as skeptical as I felt. “And if we don’t?”

  Stevie shrugged. “Then we’ll have spent the week earning dozens and dozens of brownie points. How could Max and Mrs. Reg want to kill us when we’re indispensable?”

  I thought about that. Sometimes Stevie’s schemes can be pretty harebrained and impractical, but I had to admit that this one made sense. We might actually find the pin, and even if we didn’t, at least all that hard work would be a better use of time than worrying about how I was going to apologize when Mrs. Reg got home.

  “It’s worth trying,” I said at last.

  Carole agreed. “Then, after it’s all over,” she said, “why don’t you plan to come to my house on Friday for dinner and a sleepover?”

  I wasn’t sure I was going to be in a partying mood once Friday rolled around—not unless we found the pin—but I didn’t say so.

  I’m not sure how Stevie managed to convince Max to let The Saddle Club take over managing the stable. Carole and I left that completely up to her, since convincing people to do crazy things is sort of her specialty. But she did it somehow, and before we knew it, all three of us were up to our eyeballs in work, work, work.

  It’s no secret that there’s always a lot to do around a stable. Horses need to be fed every day. Their stalls must be mucked out regularly. Stable aisles have to be swept, feed needs to be mixed, tack needs to be cleaned, and about a million other things always seem to need doing.

  It’s one thing to pitch in and help. Max insists that all his riders do that—it keeps costs down, and it reminds us that there’s more to riding than climbing in and out of the saddle. But in the past few days, my friends and I have found out that when you’re running the whole show, all that work can become overwhelming pretty quickly. That first day, once riding class was over and our own horses were taken care of, we got ready to begin the real work—filling in for Mrs. Reg. Luckily (sort of), she’d left a list of what needed to be done. The first item read, “Painting, front of stable.” That sounded like a pretty big job, but we figured we could do it if we all pitched in. After that was something about a new class of four beginners who were coming on Wednesday at eight o’clock. Fortunately Red O’Malley, the head stable hand, was scheduled to teach the class, so all we had to do was get some ponies ready for the students beforehand. Carole volunteered for that job, since her dad was dropping her off early on his way to work.

  We went on with the list. The next item was “Buy food for Friday.” We weren’t sure what to do about that at first, but as usual Stevie came up with a plan.

  “Whenever anybody delivers anything, there are papers,” she pointed out. “Somewhere around here Mrs. Reg must have an invoice or something from the last delivery. I’ll just call the same place and make the same order. If the stuff was okay last time, it’s going to be fine this time, too. The hardest part may be getting it here by Friday.”

  “Nice thinking,” Carole said admiringly.

  I couldn’t help agreeing with that. I also couldn’t help thinking it was my turn to come up with some good ideas. After all, it was my fault we had to do all this work in the first place. “What’s next on the list?” I asked.

  And now I’ve come to the part of the story that still makes me blush (especially when I think about that silly note from my French teacher). “Wow,” Stevie said as she checked the list. “We’ve got a VIP coming to Pine Hollow. The French ambassador himself! It says here, ‘Thursday, eleven, Am. French. One-hour trail ride.’ ”

  We were surprised we hadn’t heard about that before, but we didn’t really think about it much. Willow Creek sometimes seems like it’s a million miles away from everywhere, but the truth is, it’s really not far from Washington, D.C. That means there are always a lot of people around who work for the government (ours or somebody else’s). Not too long ago, the ambassador from Brazil even came to Pine Hollow for a trail ride.

  “I’ll take care of that,” I told my friends. “I got an A in French—”

  “So what else is new?” Stevie teased.

  I was a little embarrassed. I don’t usually brag about my grades, but at that moment they actually seemed kind of relevant. “Well, this time it looks like it may do me some good. Anyway, I need some practice with my French. I’ll go for a trail ride with the French ambassador.”

  “Merci beaucoup,” Stevie said in her best French accent, which is actually pretty good. Then she turned to Carole. “And since Lisa is solving that problem, you get to cope with the fact that somebody named Jarvis is coming Thursday at one P.M. and wants his ‘favorite horse.’ That’s what Mrs. Reg wrote.”

  I was glad that was going to be Carole’s problem. After we talked about it a bit, we returned to my biggest problem—namely, the missing pin. We decided to search the tack room in case one of the cats had batted it in there.

  It wasn’t an easy job. By the time we’d examined every square inch of the room, cleaning it up as we went along, we were dirty and dusty and sweaty. We were also dejected, since there was no sign of the pin anywhere. The only good things about the task were that Max noticed what we were doing and seemed impressed, and Veronica noticed and seemed annoyed.

  The next day—yesterday—was truly exhausting. One kind of funny thing did happen, though I could never tell Carole I thought so since she didn’t see much humor in it. See, she had volunteered to tack up the horses for that beginner class. So naturally, she brought out four of the stable ponies. But it turned out that the “beginners” were actually four professional basketball players! Each of them was about twice as tall as the pony Carole had chosen for him! The basketball players thought it was hysterical, but Carole was really embarrassed. Stevie and I arrived at the stable just in time to help saddle up some tall horses.

  “Thank you,” Carole whispered as the four men rode off, still chuckling a
bout the mix-up.

  “No problem,” Stevie said with a grin. “I got the feeling this was the funniest thing that had happened to those guys in a long time. They loved it.”

  Judging by the look Carole gave Stevie in reply, it was obvious that she hadn’t loved it at all. I could understand her being a little embarrassed, but I didn’t think it was that big a deal. After all, it was an honest mistake.

  Not like my big blooper. I have no excuse for what happened today.

  I guess I was kind of tired and cranky when I got to the stable this morning. The three of us had spent yesterday afternoon painting the front of the stable, and we ended up accidentally dumping paint all over Diablo in the process. Luckily those basketball players returned from their ride in time to help us finish, but it still took an awfully long time. Plus I stayed up late last night boning up on my French vocabulary, and when I finally went to sleep I kept waking up from dreams of riding a horse straight up the side of the Eiffel Tower.

  So I wasn’t in the best mood on Thursday morning. For one thing, volunteering to ride with the French ambassador meant I would have to skip our jump class, and I really love jumping. But I knew it was the least I could do, considering that I’d lost Mrs. Reg’s pin, so I tried to look on the bright side. At least I would get to practice my French, as I’d told my friends, and that would be fun. Not as much fun as jumping, maybe, but …

  Anyway, while Carole was busy assigning horses to riders for the day and Stevie was figuring out how to order the feed, I was reviewing the French I’d studied the night before and feeling nervous. Even though Madame Smith always praised my work in her class, I wasn’t sure that a real French person would be so impressed. I didn’t think I’d have any problem with the basics—Bonjour, je m’appelle Lisa Atwood—but after that things could get tricky. What would a French ambassador want to talk about during a trail ride? Horses? International relations? Escargot? I had no idea. The only topic I’d really prepared for was the first one. For instance, I had memorized the French word for saddle, selle, and horse, cheval, along with some other useful words and phrases. But my stomach was in knots by the time a car pulled up to the stable at ten-fifteen and a distinguished-looking middle-aged man stepped out.

  Still, I had promised my friends I would handle this. So I took a deep breath and stepped forward to greet the man. “Bonjour,” I began. “Je m’appelle Lisa Atwood.”

  The man looked surprised. Then he smiled and replied, “Bonjour, Lisa.”

  I was proud of myself, guessing that he was impressed that someone my age was talking to him in his native tongue. That made it easier for me to go on speaking as we got ready to head out on Barq and Delilah. Before long I’d lost a lot of my self-consciousness, and as we rode across the fields and entered a wooded trail, we chatted easily about this and that.

  The man was so nice that I wanted to tell him a little about The Saddle Club. “Moi et mes amies,” I began. “Nous avons un, uh, une—oh, drat—une …” This time my brain was failing me. “I just can’t remember the word for club in French,” I explained helplessly, shrugging sheepishly to convey my confusion.

  “I can’t remember it, either,” the man replied in perfect English. “But I suspect it’s something like club or association. Anyway, why don’t we try English for a while?”

  It took me about eight very long seconds to realize what was going on. The man’s English was not only perfect, it was completely free of any trace of a French accent. In fact, the only accent he had was a slight, pleasant Virginia drawl.

  I didn’t know what to say. “You’re not the French ambassador,” I stammered. “You’re not even French!”

  “Of course I am,” the man replied with a smile. “I’m Michael French. I thought you knew.”

  I felt like protesting. Mrs. Reg’s list had said it was the French ambassador who was coming!

  Then I realized it wasn’t Mrs. Reg’s mistake. It was mine—ours. Mrs. Reg had written, “Thursday, 11, Am. French.” She hadn’t meant anything about a French ambassador—The Saddle Club had assumed that. She had just written eleven A.M. in a slightly unusual manner.

  “Oh no,” I groaned, wishing the earth would open right then and there and swallow me and Barq. “I’m—” I’d been trying to think in French for so long that for a second I couldn’t come up with the proper words in English. “I can’t—I mean, it’s so—”

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. French said cheerfully. “I’m really very flattered. See, I work for the State Department. I would like nothing more than to be an ambassador. The fact that you thought I was one already—well, you can imagine. I’ve loved every minute of it. Besides, French is the language of diplomacy, and mine’s been getting rusty. You gave me a chance to speak in French, which was terrific. I only expected to learn something about horseback riding. I got twice the value for my money!”

  “You’re being awfully nice about this,” I said, his kind words making me feel a tiny bit better. “In fact, I think you’re giving me a lesson in diplomacy.”

  I meant it, too. If Mr. French hadn’t been so wonderful about the whole thing, I really don’t know if I could have survived it. As it was, I managed to forget the whole episode—mostly, anyway—as we continued our ride. But believe me, after the misunderstandings we’ve come up with so far—first Carole and the basketball players, then me and Mr. French, the “ambassador”—I’m really hoping nothing else like that happens before Mrs. Reg gets back tomorrow evening. I don’t think I could stand it!

  Hotel Zentrum

  Vienna, Austria

  Dear Lisa,

  Greetings from Austria! I’ve been thinking of my favorite little sister a lot these past few days, because I’ve been visiting the Spanish Riding School here in Vienna. Mom keeps telling me how much you enjoy your riding lessons with your friends. You would really like the horses here. The riders and trainers are very interesting people, and the horses are really something—probably a lot different from the ponies you ride there at Pine Tree Stable! They’re all big and white, and they do lots of fancy tricks, sort of like circus horses. Sometimes they look like they’re actually dancing! By the way, even though they call it the Spanish Riding School, it was started right here in Austria way back in the 1500s. They named it after the Lipizzaner horses they use, which originally came from Spain.

  You’re probably wondering why I’m spending so much of my summer vacation looking at dancing horses. I’m sure Mom and Dad told you I’m spending the summer traveling around Europe and seeing the sights. Since next year will be my last year of college, I want to start figuring out what I want to do after I graduate. I’ve been thinking about some kind of career in writing, so I’ve volunteered to write articles for a student-run paper at my school in London. I’m working on one about the Lipizzaners this week. Just imagine it—your brother, the famous journalist!

  Anyway, I’d better go. I’m on a deadline!

  Love,

  Peter

  Dear Diary,

  Boy, am I sorry I ever complained about my life being boring! I have so much to write that I hardly know where to begin. I guess I’d better just start where I left off in my last entry, since everything happened pretty fast after that.

  I had a big knot in my stomach when I got to Pine Hollow on Friday morning. It was the big day. The day Mrs. Reg returned.

  I jogged all the way to the stable, and when I arrived I saw a huge eighteen-wheeler parked in the driveway. On the side were the words Connor Hay & Grain.

  The driver was sitting in his seat looking at a piece of paper, so I figured he must have just arrived. I walked over. “Hello,” I said. “You must be dropping off our feed order, right?”

  “That’s right.” The driver scratched his chin and glanced at the paper again, looking perplexed. “But I’m wondering if there’s some mistake. I deliver here all the time, and I can’t figure out why there’s so much more than usual this time.”

  I felt the knot in my stomach tighten a little mo
re. The last thing The Saddle Club needed right then was another problem. “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.

  The driver shrugged. “Take a look in the back. Tell me if you think what’s inside will fit in your feed shed.”

  I did as he said, walking around to the big rear doors of the truck. They were propped open, and the bright morning sunshine lit up what was inside. Feed. A lot of feed. “This can’t all be for us!” I exclaimed.

  The driver had hopped out and followed me around to the back. “Sure is, young lady,” he said, holding up the piece of paper. “I’ve checked and triple-checked the invoice. This is the order I was given.” He scratched his chin again. “I can’t figure it out. Mrs. Reg is always so careful about her orders.”

  I had no idea what to tell him. “Uh, Mrs. Reg didn’t place the order this time,” I said. “Um, the person who did should be inside somewhere. I’ll go get her.”

  “Thanks.” The driver nodded pleasantly at me, then headed back to the cab of the truck.

  I raced inside, wondering how this could have happened. Stevie had proudly explained to Carole and me how she’d found an old invoice and ordered the exact same rations. But judging by my quick peek into that truck, there looked to be three or four times what we needed. “Stevie!” I hollered as soon as I entered the stable building. I didn’t know where she was most likely to be at that moment, and I didn’t want to waste time searching. “Stevie!”

  “Hold your horses!” Stevie’s familiar voice called back. “I’m coming.”

  A second later she was hurrying toward me with a big smile on her face. I didn’t bother to wonder what she was looking so pleased about—there would be time for that later. “Outside,” I told her briskly. “Quick.”

  Stevie shot me a curious glance, but shrugged and did as I said. As soon as she stepped outside and saw the feed truck, her smile grew broader. “Oh, good, the order’s here,” she said, hurrying toward the cab.

  The driver was inside again. He leaned out the window as Stevie approached. “Where does Mrs. Reg want me to put all this stuff?”