“I like your idea,” she said. “Should we try it?”
Phil nodded. “Go ahead. I’m in no hurry to eat lunch anyway. It’s probably hot pink potato chips, navy blue lunch meat—”
Stevie made a face and trotted Belle away. She asked for a canter just before the corner. Belle lifted easily into the faster gait and bent smoothly through the turn. Immediately Stevie asked her to continue turning and double back the way she had come. Belle tried hard to keep her smooth bend, but when the circle changed direction she nearly stumbled. Stevie sat as quietly as she could. Belle took another off-balance stride, then, suddenly, made a sort of skipping leap, and, smooth again, continued through the rest of the turn.
Stevie glanced down. Belle was on the other lead! She looked up at Phil, her eyes wide with joy. “Was that it?” she asked. “That sort of hop?”
Phil laughed. “That was it, Stevie Lake. Your first flying change.”
“Wow.” Stevie halted and bent forward in the saddle to throw her arms around Belle. “You wonderful, wonderful mare,” she said, patting Belle’s neck and ruffling her mane. “That was it! That was very good!”
“Try it again,” Phil suggested. “Give her a chance to learn that that’s what she’s supposed to do.”
“That was it, Belle,” Stevie told her. “Once more, and we’ll hit the trails.” Again she trotted toward the corner and picked up a canter. She rode the turn back exactly as she had before.
This time, Belle was different. This time, Stevie realized, Belle understood. She didn’t stumble or fuss. At exactly the point where the circle changed directions, Belle did a flying change.
Stevie pulled her up and dismounted. She threw her arms around Belle. “I knew you could do it,” she said. “I knew you could.”
“Well, of course she could,” Phil cut in. “A fine athletic horse like Belle and a terrific rider like you—of course she could.”
Stevie grinned up at him and Teddy. “It took a little more than that,” she said. “It took some wild ponies, and some help from some very good friends.”
“You’ll have to explain about the wild ponies,” Phil told her. “But you’ve always got friends, Stevie. You never need to face any of your problems alone.”
Stevie led Belle out of the Marstens’ ring and latched the gate. She shrugged herself into her backpack and remounted. “Let’s go have that picnic!” she said. “Now we’ve got two things to celebrate—your birthday and Belle’s flying change!”
“SO WHAT COLOR did you make the lunch?” Lisa asked. “Violent violet? Fuchsia? Chartreuse?” She slid into The Saddle Club’s favorite booth at TD’s. The three of them had agreed to meet at Pine Hollow and walk to TD’s right after Stevie got back from Phil’s birthday ride. Lisa and Carole were eager to hear the details.
“I didn’t color anything,” Stevie protested indignantly. “All of you, even Phil, seem to think that I’m incapable of making an elegant picnic lunch. In fact, all I did was copy the lunch Mrs. DeSoto gave us on our last day at Assateague—to a T!”
“Then why would Red say what he said?” Carole asked. On the walk from Pine Hollow to TD’s, Stevie had already told them about most of her day.
Stevie grinned. “That was Red’s idea of a joke. Well, actually, I sort of put him up to it. I thought it would be funny if Phil was just a little worried. That way, he’d really appreciate it when my lunch turned out so nice!”
“And did it?” Lisa asked.
Stevie grimaced. “The colors were all right,” she said. “And I didn’t mess up the sodas or peaches—except the sodas got shaken up during the ride, so when Phil opened his it kind of squirted him in the face.”
“Kind of?” Carole raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah.” Stevie nodded. “Teddy backed up so fast, I was afraid he was going to break a rein. Phil was holding him. On the ground, fortunately. Belle didn’t spook at all.”
“She’s used to you,” Lisa said. “So, the peaches were all right?”
Stevie sighed and took a minute to study the menu intently. Carole and Lisa exchanged glances over the top of her head. Stevie knew the menu at TD’s better than anyone in Pine Hollow!
“What happened to the peaches?” Carole asked.
“I didn’t mess them up,” Stevie said. “But they got a little bruised—I guess they got bumped around with the sodas. The horses liked them.” She bit her lip and began to giggle. “It was the rest of it,” she said, giving in to great whoops of laughter. “I wanted to be elegant—and I got the colors right—it was the flavors I got all wrong!”
Stevie pounded the table and laughed. Carole and Lisa felt mystified. Their usual waitress approached them, with a determined frown on her face. “What’s she laughing about now?” she asked, jabbing her pen toward Stevie.
“We wish we knew,” Carole told her. “She hasn’t gotten around to telling us yet. But I’d like a hot fudge sundae.”
Lisa ordered a vanilla shake. Stevie sat up. “In honor of my gourmet cooking,” she said, “I’ll take a scoop of peach ice cream with pineapple sauce and black licorice sprinkles.” The waitress nodded grimly—she was used to Stevie’s strange combinations—and walked away. Lisa and Carole looked dumbfounded.
“Now you’ve got to tell us,” Lisa told Stevie sternly.
“I’m just lucky they don’t have horseradish-flavored ice cream,” Stevie said. “Otherwise I’d have to order that, too. Can you believe what I did? First I used horseradish sauce instead of mayonnaise on the sandwiches. Really strong horseradish sauce that my grandmother makes, that makes tears come to your eyes when you eat the littlest bit of it—and I used a lot, because I know Phil likes mayonnaise!”
“Poor Phil,” Carole said sympathetically.
“Yeah. He took a really big bite. But in a way that was sort of good, because then he couldn’t taste the cookies. I made sugar cookies. I must have grabbed the wrong bottle. I think I used anise instead of vanilla.”
“Anise?” Carole frowned.
“Licorice flavoring,” Lisa supplied.
“Right.” Stevie nodded her head. “They looked great—little rocking horse cookies—but they tasted awful. And then I made a salad, just like Mrs. DeSoto did, and Phil made me taste that first so he didn’t get any. I’m going to have to ask my mom what that stuff in the refrigerator was. I thought it was salad dressing. It tasted like pineapple juice.”
“Good thing we came to TD’s. You must be hungry.”
“Oh, Phil’s mother packed us a lunch, too,” Stevie said cheerfully. “And her sodas exploded, too, so I didn’t feel so bad. And I don’t think Phil really cared. I know I didn’t. After Belle did that flying change, everything was wonderful. The day was just perfect.”
Stevie described again the exact way that Belle had felt when she did her flying change. Lisa and Carole had already heard the same description three times, once in the barn at Pine Hollow, while Stevie put Belle away, and twice on the walk to TD’s, but they listened happily. They both knew how incredibly good Stevie felt.
“Best of all, I think she’ll be able to do them from now on,” Stevie concluded. “I’ll work on it with her a little bit every time I ride, so she learns how to do them whenever I ask, but I really think she understands. I think our problems are over—at least as far as the flying change is concerned.”
The waitress brought their ice cream, and Stevie dug in happily. “I don’t know how you can eat that,” Carole remarked.
“It’s good,” Stevie said. “Want some?” Carole shuddered and took a big bite of hot fudge.
“I think what Denise told me about natural horsemanship helped a lot,” Stevie continued, “because it kind of taught me a different way of thinking about horse training. It taught me to be a little more patient and to pay more attention to Belle’s reactions.”
“I liked it, too,” Carole said. “No matter how much I learn about horses, it seems like I’ve always got a whole lot more to learn. Maybe we can get Denise to teach us
more about natural horsemanship.”
“I bet she’d be happy to help us,” Lisa said. “We can ask her tomorrow.”
“There’s only one thing still bothering me about last week,” Stevie said, scraping her spoon across the bottom of her dish to catch every drop of syrup and licorice, “and that’s what Mrs. Reg did about the horse in her story—Madeleine, the one that wouldn’t jump? I thought about that horse the whole time we were on Chincoteague. It made me think that, whatever mistakes I was making with Belle, they weren’t irreversible—but I’d like to know what really did happen.”
“I bet Mrs. Reg just backed off to wherever the horse was comfortable and started training again from there,” Carole guessed. “That’s what I would do. Maybe jumped her over ground poles and little-bitty fences for a while—”
“That’s what she did do,” Lisa cut in. She grinned at the looks of surprise on her friends’ faces. “I mean, that’s what I thought she probably did, and I knew she would never tell us on her own, so today I asked her.”
“Did she tell you about it?” Carole asked.
Lisa shook her head. “You know Mrs. Reg. She said, ‘Of course, Lisa—and isn’t Prancer’s water getting a little bit low? You might refill it for her.’ ” The Saddle Club laughed. That sounded like Mrs. Reg.
“And Mrs. Reg got a phone call from Mrs. DeSoto,” Lisa continued. “Thanks to all our help, the DeSoto Inn is almost ready for guests. The furniture is coming tomorrow, and they expect to be fully operational in a week. They’re already booked solid for the Pony Penning!”
“That’s one good thing that came out of our trip,” Carole said, “and what Stevie learned about Belle is another. But have either of you noticed the third good thing?”
Stevie looked puzzled. Lisa nodded. “Max,” she said.
“Max,” Carole confirmed. “While you were on your picnic, Stevie, and Lisa and I were taking care of Starlight, Veronica came in ten minutes late for a lesson.”
“Max didn’t yell?”
“He hardly even cared. He was so understanding about it that I think Veronica was a little embarrassed. And he walks around whistling.”
“He told me that he canceled some of his lessons while we were gone,” Lisa said. “Deborah said that they took some long picnic rides themselves and slept late in the mornings. I guess all Max needed was a little bit more honeymoon!” She drank the last of her shake.
“So, Stevie,” Carole said, leaning back in the booth. “You got your wish. You and Belle gave Phil a flying change for his birthday.”
Stevie blushed. “Do you know what Phil said?” she asked. “He said his real birthday present was that I let him help me with Belle. But what I actually gave him—besides my delicious picnic—was a book on dressage, that Bert de Némethy book on horse training. And I figure, now that Belle and I can do flying changes, we’ve got Phil and Teddy beat. He’s going to need all the help he can get!” She winked at her friends, who laughed appreciatively. Stevie was doing pretty well when she could joke about her own competitiveness.
“Let me get this straight,” Lisa said. “You bought a book for Phil’s birthday, and then you read it to find help for Belle. Sounds like it was a present for you, too!”
Stevie waved her hand. “That’s completely unimportant,” she said. “But, oh, I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels when she does a flying change. It’s not much—it’s just a lift, like a little jump, but not really—it’s the best feeling in the world!” Stevie raised her water glass. “I want to make a toast,” she declared. “To The Saddle Club, my good friends, for helping me, and especially to my beautiful flying horse!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BONNIE BRYANT is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, The Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.
Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.
Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.
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