Horse-Sitters

by Bonnie Bryant

  “I really would like to get out on the trail,” Eugenia protested. “Couldn’t this little tour wait?”

  “Oh, it will just take a minute,” Stevie assured her. She stopped in front of Tempest’s stall, and the curious gray poked his head out over the half door. “See this handsome fellow here? Well, he used to be owned by royalty.”

  “Really!” Eugenia stared at the horse. “English?”

  “No,” Stevie said. “Um, Mexican.”

  “Really,” Eugenia said again. “I didn’t even know Mexico had a royal family.”

  “Oh, yes,” Stevie assured her. “They’re very rich. They have hundreds of polo ponies. They’re all gray. Tempest didn’t quite match the others, so they had to sell him.”

  “Very nice,” Eugenia said. She turned away. “Now where did that other girl go? I’m ready to ride.”

  “Not yet!” Stevie said. “Uh, I haven’t even shown you the most interesting polo pony. He—um, he was a gift to the president of the United States from a fabulously wealthy Arabian sheikh.”

  “And he ended up here?” Eugenia said, looking doubtful. But there was a spark of interest in her eyes.

  Stevie smiled. “Come with me,” she said, taking the old woman’s arm again and leading her toward another stall. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, when Stevie and Eugenia finally reached Honeybee’s stall, Lisa was just slipping on the old mare’s bridle. “Here she is, Ms. Eugenia,” she said brightly. “All saddled up and ready to go.” She carefully checked the girth, then led the horse outside, where Carole was waiting with Memphis.

  “I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone,” she explained at her friends’ glance. She mounted and touched the lucky horseshoe hanging over the door. It was a Pine Hollow tradition. No rider had ever been seriously hurt after touching that horseshoe. Carole tried to explain the custom to Eugenia. She was pretty sure the old woman was completely confused, but Eugenia reached up and touched the horseshoe without comment.

  “That was a close one,” Lisa said, as she and Stevie watched the pair ride off across the fields.

  Stevie shrugged. “Hey, we pulled it off, didn’t we?” she said. “She didn’t suspect a thing. And now she can go home and tell all her friends she touched a horse whose sire was once ridden by Elvis!”

  STEVIE WAS MUCKING OUT Memphis’s stall a few minutes later when she saw Veronica enter Danny’s stall across the aisle. Veronica stared icily at Stevie as she walked by, but Stevie ignored her.

  “Mucking out stalls again, Stevie?” Veronica said. “Funny, that’s all you seem to do these days. Too bad you don’t have more of a life.”

  “Get lost, Veronica,” Stevie snapped, shoveling one last forkful of soiled straw into the wheelbarrow standing in the aisle. “I don’t have time for your whining today. I have work to do. Or maybe you forgot. Max hired me to help fix your stupid mistake, remember?”

  “Oh, please,” Veronica hissed. “You think you’re so great. But you’re really just pathetic.” She smirked. “I spent my Sunday afternoon reading a magazine by the pool. What did you do yesterday, Stevie?”

  Stevie ignored her. She picked up the wheelbarrow and steered it down the aisle, narrowly missing Veronica’s foot. “Oops, sorry, Veronica,” she said sweetly.

  When Stevie returned a few minutes later with fresh straw, Veronica was lounging against the wall outside Danny’s stall. “Seeing you do all this work gave me a great idea, Stevie,” she said. “I don’t think Danny likes sleeping on straw. It’s too coarse for him. I think wood chips would be much better. They’re probably more expensive, but that’s okay. I love to buy my horse nice things … like that gorgeous new bridle, for instance.”

  Stevie gritted her teeth and tried to ignore her, but Veronica kept talking. “In fact, I think I’ll call Red right now and see if he’ll get me some wood chips to try. I’m sure he can clean out this nasty old straw for me right away.” She cleared her throat, then sang out, “Oh, Red!”

  A few minutes later a harried-looking Red O’Malley appeared. “What do you want, Veronica?” he asked.

  “I need you to do something for me,” Veronica said. “Danny’s bedding needs to be replaced. I want him to try wood chips for a while instead of straw.”

  Red glanced at his watch. “Look, I really don’t have time for this right now, okay? Max disappeared somewhere, and one of his private students just turned up for her lesson. If you’re serious about trying wood chips, be my guest. I think there are a couple of bags of cedar shavings in the garden shed. Max was going to use them to lay down a new path, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you used some.” He hurried away without waiting for a reply.

  Veronica scowled. “Why, that lazy, no-good excuse for a groom,” she huffed. “I can’t believe he just flat-out refused to help me.”

  “Yeah, hard to believe,” Stevie said sarcastically. “After all, he was just sitting around doing nothing while you’re here working your fingers to the bone.” She snorted. “I can see how concerned you are about Danny. Concerned enough to make someone else take care of him, but not enough to do it yourself. If you even know how.”

  “Oh yeah?” Veronica shot back. “I know you and your goody-two-shoes friends think I don’t know what I’m doing around the stable. I’ve heard your snotty little comments. But the fact is, I do know what I’m doing just as much as you all do. Just because I’m not always running around trying to prove it doesn’t mean I don’t. So I think I will change Danny’s bedding myself. Not because I have to—just because I feel like it.” She stomped off down the aisle.

  Stevie raised one eyebrow in surprise. She could hardly believe it. Veronica was going to do some actual work? Okay, it wasn’t strictly necessary work, since as far as Stevie could tell Danny had no problem with straw at all, but it was work nonetheless.

  As Stevie lifted her pitchfork to start shoveling in the clean straw, she heard a loud shriek from somewhere behind the building. She dropped the pitchfork. “Uh-oh,” she said aloud. “Mr. Munch!” She grinned and raced off in the direction Veronica had gone. Sure enough, when she arrived at the garden shed, Mr. Munch was perched on the hood of the riding mower, staring at Veronica, who was cowering outside. Seconds later Lisa and Max also arrived on the scene.

  “Exactly what is that—thing?” Veronica shrieked. “And what’s it doing in the shed?”

  “Don’t worry,” Stevie said, grabbing Mr. Munch and carrying him back to his cage. “He’s supposed to be here.”

  Veronica put her hands on her hips. “I should have known you were behind this, Stevie. It’s typical.” With that, she stormed away.

  Stevie and Lisa tried hard not to laugh. They weren’t sure how Max would react. But when they saw him smile, then start to chuckle, they knew they were safe. They burst into laughter.

  “Did you see the look on her face?” Lisa exclaimed. “I wish I had my camera with me.”

  “Me too,” Stevie agreed. “That would be one for the photo album. Or maybe the front page of The Washington Post. Oh, hey, Max, did you see Red? He was looking for you a few minutes ago.”

  “No, I just got here,” Max said. “I had some, um, errands to do.”

  Stevie and Lisa traded glances. It sounded as if Max was still trying to avoid Eugenia.

  As if on cue, the old woman’s distinctive voice floated toward them. Stevie turned and saw Honeybee and Memphis walking in their direction across the back fields.

  “I’d better go look for Red,” Max said, hurrying away.

  Lisa tested the door to Mr. Munch’s cage. “He’s just going to break out of here again as soon as we leave him,” she said.

  “Not if I can help it,” Stevie said. She glanced around the shed, looking for ideas. “A lock, a lock, my kingdom for a lock,” she muttered. Then suddenly she had a brainstorm. She spit out the gum she was chewing and welded it around the latch on his cage. “There! That should hold him,” she said. “My mother is always say
ing that stuff is like concrete when it hardens.”

  “How are we going to get the door open again ourselves, then?” Lisa asked sensibly.

  “We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Stevie said casually.

  Lisa laughed. “The Stevie Lake philosophy of life.”

  LISA WAS WAITING at Honeybee’s stall to take over when the trail riders returned. She decided Carole had done her part. Lisa could handle the old mare’s cool-down and grooming. Luckily Eugenia didn’t hang around to watch. She walked up to the house to wait for Deborah to get home.

  When Lisa carried Honeybee’s tack to the tack room, she found Carole there cleaning Memphis’s saddle. Lisa sat down and got to work.

  “So how was it?” she asked Carole.

  Carole rolled her eyes. “I guess it could have been worse. She hardly insulted Max at all, and she only called me a little girl once or twice. Mostly she just talked about the tea party. From the way she talks you’d think it was the social event of the season.”

  Stevie walked in. “So this is where the party is,” she said when she saw her friends.

  “No, the real party is going to be on Wednesday,” Carole told her, “when some extremely lovely ladies will be enjoying the lovely warm breezes and nibbling some lovely little sandwiches under the lovely apple tree.”

  “Uh-oh,” Stevie said. “She’s really excited about this stupid tea party thing, huh?”

  Carole nodded. “All I can say is we’d better make sure it’s just as lovely as she’s expecting it to be. We’re still on for grocery shopping tomorrow, right?”

  “Yep,” Lisa confirmed. “My mom will pick us all up right after school. We’ll have to hurry, though, if we don’t want to be late for riding class.” She sighed. “Boy, will I be glad when this week is over. Money or no money, it will be nice to have a life again.”

  And this time, even Stevie couldn’t help agreeing.

  “DON’T EVEN BOTHER to park,” Stevie told Mrs. Atwood on Tuesday afternoon. “We’ll be out in five minutes flat.”

  “All right, dear,” Mrs. Atwood said. She pulled the car into the loading lane in front of the supermarket and turned off the engine. “I’ll wait right here.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Lisa said. She, Carole, and Stevie jumped out of the car and rushed inside. The girls were glad to see that the store wasn’t crowded.

  “All right, where’s that list you made?” Carole asked Lisa.

  Lisa dug it out of her pocket. “The things Aunt Eugenia specifically asked for I marked with a star, see?”

  “If we’re going to get everything and still make it to riding lessons on time, we’re going to have to split up,” Stevie decided, scanning the list. Grabbing it from Lisa’s hand, she carefully ripped it into three equal pieces. “Here we go. Now let’s get started.”

  Carole read over her section as her friends hurried off. “Scones,” she read. She paused. She had no idea what that was, but it was one of the starred items. “Scones,” she said again, glancing around desperately. Maybe she should skip that one and ask Lisa about it when she saw her. The next item on the list was cucumber. Carole nodded happily. She knew what that was.

  A few minutes later Stevie was scowling at her list in frustration. She had already found sugar cubes, lemons, and gingersnaps, but the next item had her stumped. She didn’t even know how to pronounce it, let alone what it looked like or which aisle it might be in. “Pet—” she muttered, trying to sound it out. “Pet—it—”

  “How are you doing, Stevie?” Lisa said, turning into the aisle and hurrying over, pausing just long enough to grab a box of crackers off the shelf. “I’m more than halfway through my list. We might just make it to lessons on time after all.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Stevie said. She pointed to the mystery item on her list. “What on earth is this?”

  Lisa looked. “Petit fours,” she read. “Oh, yeah, Aunt Eugenia was awfully definite about wanting those. They’re like little frosted cakes, about this big.” She held her thumb and forefinger about an inch and a half apart. “My mom always gets them for her bridge parties. They sell them here somewhere—maybe in the fancy-foods aisle? Come on, let’s check. I have to go there next myself.”

  “Great,” Stevie said. “Let’s go.”

  They didn’t even notice Carole as they hurried past the beverage aisle. She was standing in front of a huge wall of tea, dumbfounded. The list specified “loose tea.” Carole didn’t know what that was, but she would be surprised if they didn’t have it here, since they seemed to stock every type of tea ever invented or imagined. She glanced at her watch and gulped. They had already been in the store for much longer than the five minutes Stevie had promised. If they didn’t hurry, they would be late for their lesson. They still had to take all this food to the house before tacking up. After all, it wouldn’t do to let Eugenia’s lemon sorbet melt all over the locker room. Carole closed her eyes and grabbed a few boxes of tea. The ladies would have to make do with what they got.

  Carole caught up with her friends in the fancy-foods aisle just in time to hear Lisa talking Stevie out of buying a can of smoked oysters for the party. They had found the petit fours and several other items there, finishing both their lists.

  “Are you done?” Stevie asked when she saw Carole.

  “Almost,” Carole replied. “What’s a scone?”

  “Come on,” Lisa said, turning immediately and heading for the back of the store, where the bakery was. “This way. It’s a fancy kind of biscuit-type thing.”

  Stevie and Carole followed obediently. “How do you know this stuff?” Stevie asked.

  “My mother,” Lisa said. “She always serves stuff like this when she has people over. She’s had a few tea parties in her day herself, you know.”

  Stevie stopped stock-still in the middle of the aisle and started laughing. The others stopped, too, and stared at her.

  “What is it?” Carole asked.

  Stevie managed to control herself. “It just struck me as funny all of a sudden,” she explained. “Mrs. Atwood probably knows exactly where all this stuff we need is. I bet she could have found it all in ten seconds flat. And we left her sitting outside in the car!”

  THE NEXT DAY after school found The Saddle Club back at Pine Hollow once again. If they had felt pressure the day before—they had made it to their riding lesson on time, but just barely—today was even worse. It was the day of the tea party.

  “Sorry about the rush, handsome,” Carole told Nighthawk as she mucked out the polo pony’s stall in record time, leaving him cross tied just outside. “No time for a grooming now, I’m afraid. But I promise, right after the tea party we’ll come back and make sure you all get a chance to stretch your legs. Then we’ll give you the brushing of your life. And then it’s only one more day until you get to go home to your own barn. How will that be?” It sounded good to Carole, especially the part about the horses going home—although she hated to think of the beautiful creatures being under the care of that horrible Luke.

  The horse tossed his head from side to side, rolling his eyes at her as she talked. Carole bit her lip. She knew the polo ponies must be restless after being cooped up all day, but there was no time to exercise them right now. They would just have to wait a few more hours.

  She finished the job and returned the bay to his stall. “See you soon,” she said, giving him a pat. “Be good.” As she rushed toward Tempest’s stall, she almost collided with Lisa, who came barreling around the corner from the tack room.

  “Oh, there you are,” Lisa said breathlessly. “I was looking for you. We’ve got to get up to the house. It’s time to start getting the food ready. Aunt Eugenia is waiting for us.”

  “But we haven’t even looked in at all the polo ponies yet,” Carole protested. “I just mucked out two of the stalls, but the others must be filthy. And poor Memphis—”

  “They’ll have to wait,” Lisa said. “Don’t worry, I checked on all the polo ponies, and their
stalls aren’t that bad. They can wait a little while. And Memphis is fine. Red said he turned her out in the paddock this afternoon.”

  “All right,” Carole said reluctantly. She didn’t like it, but Lisa was right. They would have to let the horses wait while they dealt with the tea party. She sighed. “Since when did this horse-sitting thing turn into Stevie’s party-planning idea?” she muttered, following Lisa out of the stable.

  “It’ll all be over soon,” Lisa promised her. “And look on the bright side. At least Stevie’s English teacher didn’t give her detention when she fell asleep in class today.”

  Meanwhile, in the kitchen, all was chaos. As soon as Eugenia had looked over the girls’ purchases, she had become hysterical. “What is this?” she exclaimed, shoving several boxes of tea in Stevie’s face. “This is not what I specified! I wanted loose tea! Loose tea! Do you know what that is?”

  “Uh, I guess not,” Stevie said.

  “Aunt Genie, calm down,” Deborah scolded. “There’s nothing you can do about it now. Anyway, tea is tea. I’m sure your friends won’t even notice the difference.”

  Eugenia tipped her nose into the air. “Perhaps not,” she huffed. “But I will notice.”

  “What is loose tea, anyway?” Stevie asked Deborah.

  Deborah rolled her eyes. “It’s just a different way of making it,” she explained. “Instead of putting a tea bag in the pot, you put in loose tea leaves.”

  “Ugh,” Stevie said. “You drink your tea with little things floating in it?”

  Deborah laughed. “Well, no. You pour it through a strainer first.” She held up a little silver object with holes in the bottom. “It all becomes part of the ceremony of serving the tea.”

  “Oh, is that all loose tea is?” Stevie said. “Why didn’t you say so?” She ripped open the nearest box, pulled out a few tea bags, and looked around for a pair of scissors. Then she cut open the bags and poured the tea leaves out into a bowl. “Voilà! Loose tea!”