Horse Sense

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Yes, and they need to be races that can be run by teams of mixed ages—you know, everybody from the six-year-olds on through fifteen. All the older riders will be involved in the three-day event. The gymkhana will take place each afternoon of the three-day event. Mrs. Reg will help you compose the teams. One of the stableboys, probably Red O’Malley, will do the setups for you and will be in charge of getting props. This is a big job, Stevie. If you need help, you can get it—from everybody but me. The success of the gymkhana will pretty much be your responsibility. Are you still game?”

  “Am I ever!” she said. “But—”

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Well, why me?” she asked.

  “You’re a good rider, Stevie, a really good rider. I’d like to see you take on more responsibility here at Pine Hollow. This seemed like a perfect opportunity. Besides, I really need the help. Look, we’ll discuss your ideas every now and again to see where you are. In the meantime—uh-oh, I’ve got to remember to call Mrs.—uh … about the, uh …” Max grabbed for the phone. As soon as he’d dialed a number, he began making notes, and it was as if Stevie weren’t there anymore. She decided that meant that Max was probably through with her. Quietly, so as not to disturb his concentration, she crept out of his office. He didn’t seem to notice.

  A gymkhana would be lots of fun and being in charge of it would be even better. She’d read about them and she had heard about one from a cousin of hers who lived in New Jersey, but she’d never actually seen one. She’d need some information about what sort of games they should have, and when it came to getting information at Pine Hollow, no one was more helpful than Mrs. Reg, Max’s mother. When his father had died, Max had taken over the stable, and his mother had remained in charge of the tack room and the equipment. She was always full of great horse stories. The only drawback to getting advice from Mrs. Reg was that you had to do something in return—like clean tack.

  Like the other Saddle Club members, Stevie loved to ride horses, but knew that horses were at least as much work as pleasure. For every hour spent riding horses, owners probably spent two taking care of them. Another Pine Hollow tradition—and ironclad rule—was that all the riders had to do chores around the stable. Some jobs were officially assigned and others were done as needed; all the riders were simply expected to pitch in. Carole loved horses so much that she’d do anything for them. But Stevie was not thrilled with the messy stable chores. Cleaning tack qualified as a messy stable chore in Stevie’s book.

  Stevie stepped into the tack room. There, along one wall, was an endless sea of saddles and bridles. One bridle hung above each saddle, adjusted for a specific horse. The first set of tack on the right-hand wall had been assigned to the first horse in the right-hand stable. Since they were cleaned methodically, there was always a marker by the next set of tack due for a saddle soaping. Stevie automatically picked up the tack and the soap can and sponge, shooing away the kitten that had pounced on the bridle she carried, and walked into Mrs. Reg’s office. She sat down on the tack box near Mrs. Reg’s desk and began her work.

  “What can I do for you, child?” Mrs. Reg asked. She knew Stevie wouldn’t submit to saddle soaping unasked unless she needed something.

  “What do you know about gymkhanas?” Stevie asked.

  Mrs. Reg smiled broadly. “Oh, I think we can cook something up, don’t you?” she asked.

  Stevie filled her sponge with saddle soap and began cleaning the saddle’s flaps while she listened.

  “WE’RE LOOKING FOR definite signs now,” the vet, Judy Barker, told Carole. The two of them stood outside the foaling stall where Delilah was being kept until her foal was born. The foaling stall was different from the other horses’ stalls; it was larger and specially designed to be completely safe for a foal. There were no slats in the walls where a tiny hoof could get stuck and no hooks to scratch or damage the unwary baby. Judy had showed Carole how even the slightest mistake could hurt a newborn.

  Although she was a doctor, Judy’s uniform consisted of soft blue jeans, a cool cotton blouse, and leather boots. She was a familiar sight throughout the county, driving along the country roads—sometimes at breakneck speed—in her light blue pickup truck, with a camper on the back to hold the oversize medical equipment she needed for her oversize patients.

  Sometimes, Carole could picture herself in such a rig, taking emergency calls on the cell phone in the truck’s cab. She’d rush to the side of a colicky mare, or clear up a skin infection on a jumper, or calm a nervous mother-to-be, as Judy was doing now.

  And sometimes Carole saw herself only as the owner of the mare, or the jumper, or the mother-to-be. Carole didn’t know exactly how she was going to work with horses when she grew up—whether as an owner, trainer, breeder, or vet—but whatever she did, she knew it would always involve horses. Until she made up her mind, she wanted to learn everything she possibly could.

  Delilah’s foal was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her as a rider. Not only had Cobalt been the horse of her dreams, until his tragic death, but Delilah was the stable horse she had always ridden. She knew Delilah better than she knew any other horse. Delilah trusted her. And Max had already asked her if she would help raise and train the foal. She hadn’t had to think twice to answer that question.

  “There are signs that she’s about to deliver her foal,” Judy explained.

  “Is it that soon?”

  “Well, maybe,” Judy told her. “Mares—particularly ones foaling for the first time—can be pretty unpredictable. We have to watch them very closely. From the look of this one now, I’d say she’ll deliver sometime in the next three weeks.”

  “How do you know?” Carole asked, fascinated.

  Judy showed her where the foal lay in the mare’s huge belly. Then she showed her the mare’s enlarged udder, already filling with milk to be ready when her newborn was hungry for the first time. “See, these are signs that we’re not far off. But she’s not ready yet. I really don’t expect the foal for at least two weeks, and it could be four or five.”

  “Should somebody be staying with her now? I mean, I could bring in my sleeping bag and stay with her, like, just in case—”

  “No, not yet,” Judy said, smiling at Carole. “The time will come, but it’s not yet. I’ll let you know—when Delilah tells me.” Just then, the phone in Judy’s truck rang. While Judy answered the call, Carole stood at the door to Delilah’s stall, patting the horse’s nose and whispering reassuring words in her big, soft ears. Delilah eyed Carole calmly. Then, because the foal inside her was growing at a tremendous rate, Delilah turned to the thing that interested her most these days—fresh hay—and began eating. Carole wandered outside and found Judy cramming the last of her equipment back in her truck.

  “Emergency?” Carole asked with concern.

  “The big bay mare at Cloverleaf is about to foal. She had us all in a tither with her last foal, so I want to be cautious this time. Say, you want to come along? You might even be some help. I’ll drive you home afterward. You can call your dad on my phone here.…”

  Without a second’s thought, Carole yanked open the door on the passenger side of the blue pickup and jumped in.

  “You bet!” she said. As soon as the door slammed, Judy turned on the engine and pulled out of the drive at Pine Hollow. When they roared past one of the town’s police cars a few minutes later, they were going fifty in a thirty-five-mile-per-hour speed zone. Judy waved at the officer in the car.

  “Isn’t he going to give you a ticket?” Carole asked.

  “That’s Jack Miller,” Judy said, as if it were an explanation. “He’s got a pony for his kids. Jingles nearly died last year with a deep cut he got from a barbed-wire fence. Jack knows why I drive fast.”

  Carole gripped the armrest and watched the countryside fly by. She was too excited to be nervous anyway.

  AT HOME IN her own room, Lisa got ready for her surprise for The Saddle Club. She expected to spend most of the weekend
working on it. Her desk, almost unused since school had closed for the summer, was clear and waiting. She took out a notebook she’d bought to write the constitution in. The clean white pages and neat blue lines, edged on the left with a red vertical border, were inviting. She selected a sharp-pointed pen from the mug on her desk. She adjusted her chair. She turned on the three-way lamp.

  THE SADDLE CLUB

  she wrote.

  But how was it to begin?

  There was a familiar scratching at her door. Her dog, a golden Lhasa apso named Dolly, wanted to come in. Lisa opened the door and patted Dolly, scratching her neck just where she liked it the most. The fluffy dog scampered up onto the upholstered chair next to the window. Lisa watched while Dolly circled exactly three times and then settled down for a nap. She always circled three times and it always fascinated Lisa. Dolly was such a creature of habit. But then, so was Lisa. They were a good pair.

  Lisa sat down in her chair again, adjusting the light.

  Rules

  she wrote.

  We, the members of The Saddle Club, in order to form a more perfect union …

  Lisa groaned at the familiarity of those words. Plagiarism was no way to start a good club! She really needed to organize her thoughts before she began making up the rules. So, she jotted down a list of subjects for the rules.

  meetings

  dues

  officers

  projects

  requirements for membership

  new members

  purpose

  That was the start she needed. Lisa began outlining the regulations under each of the categories she’d created and soon her pen was moving quickly across the page.

  When Dolly scratched at the inside of the door to signal that it was time to go outside for a walk, Lisa was surprised to see that an hour had passed. She glanced at her notebook. She’d filled eight pages with outlines and rules.

  Now, that was progress!

  STEVIE DASHED UP the stairs to her room. She dumped her boots and her riding hat in the general vicinity of a chair and yanked her closet door open.

  “I’m sure it’s still here,” she mumbled as she burrowed into the back of her less-than-perfectly-organized closet. “I couldn’t have thrown it away.” She grabbed the handle of an umbrella with four broken ribs. That wasn’t what she wanted. She shoved it back into a corner. “Could Mom have …?” Then she extracted what turned out to be a drum majorette’s baton. That wasn’t what she wanted at all. She tossed that next to the umbrella. But maybe it had possibilities for the games. She decided to consider it later.

  Then, at last, her hand closed on the rounded object she sought. She tugged at it gently, trying not to topple the rest of the stuff in the closet. Finally, Stevie emerged triumphantly from her closet clutching a Hula-Hoop.

  “Perfect!” she said proudly. Her father had bought it for her at a garage sale a year ago. He’d thought it was terribly funny to find one of those big plastic hoops that had been all the rage when her parents were kids. Stevie had thought this toy was fairly dumb until now. Now all she had to do was to figure out how to use a Hula-Hoop while riding a horse. She put it over her head and tried to get it to circle her waist. The thing quickly clattered to the floor. That didn’t matter, though, because it would be impossible to hula on horseback. But could she swing it around on, say, her forearm without spooking the horse?

  She got the hoop to circle her forearm. She tried to imagine being a horse, watching the spinning hoop, and decided she wasn’t upset by it—even when it upset a lampshade. Then she decided that wasn’t really an objective test.

  “What are you doing?” asked her twin brother, Alex, opening the door. “I mean, are you into busting up furniture now?”

  “No, I’m just—hey, you can help me. Come on in here.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him into her room. “I really need help, see. It’s for the gymkhana,” she began, but he interrupted her.

  “Gym-what?” he asked.

  “The gymkhana. It’s for Pine Hollow—a tournament of fun, silly games you play on horseback.”

  “Not me, Sis,” Alex said. “I don’t know anything about horses, you know that. And, anyway, I’m on my way over to Ron Ziegler’s house. His little brothers got a Laser Tag for their birthday, but they’ve gone to a friend’s house this afternoon, so Ron and I—”

  “Laser Tag! That’s perfect!” Stevie shouted. She’d never actually played it, but she knew it was an electronic game of tag with guns that shot light beams at a vest, which lit up when the beam hit its target. It seemed like a perfect gymkhana game. “I’ve got to borrow it.”

  “What do you mean you’ve got to borrow it? It belongs to Ron’s little brothers, and you know what monsters they are. If you want to borrow something from them, in the first place, you’re crazy, but in the second place, you ask them.”

  “Oh, come on, Alex,” Stevie said in her sweetest, most appealing twin-sister voice, ignoring the phone as it began to ring. “You’ve just got to get them to let me use it—”

  “Stevie, phone call!” her brother Chad yelled up the stairs.

  She walked to the door and opened it. Looking down toward Chad at the foot of the stairs, she asked, “Who is it?”

  “I dunno,” he informed her.

  “I’ll be right there,” she told Chad. “But first …” She turned to talk to Alex again, but he’d escaped through the other door to her room while she was talking with Chad. She stepped to her window, and saw him jogging across their lawn. She raised the sash. “Come on, Alex, you’ve only got to ask them for me!” she called after him. He continued on his way, pretending not to hear her.

  Stevie sighed and picked up the phone on her bedside table—a major, long-hoped-for twelfth birthday present (though at that moment, she wished she’d gotten Laser Tag).

  “Hullo?”

  “Where were you? What took you so long to answer?” Carole asked her over the phone.

  “Oh, it’s my dumb brother,” Stevie explained. “I’ve just got to borrow a Laser Tag set, and he won’t ask his best friend—well, actually it’s his little brothers—to lend it to me. I mean, it’ll be fantastic. Don’t you think so?”

  “Well, I guess it’s a pretty good game,” Carole said, “but I never much wanted to play it myself.”

  “It’s for the gymkhana!” Stevie said. “Oh, but I didn’t get a chance to tell you about it, did I?”

  “Nope,” Carole said just a little sarcastically, but Stevie didn’t notice.

  “Well, that’s what Max wanted to see me about. We’re going to have a gymkhana and he wants me to come up with all kinds of neat games for it. Mrs. Reg just suggested an egg-in-a-spoon race and a rope race, but I want something more exciting than that stuff. Can you think of anything better than Laser Tag on horseback?”

  “I guess that would be fun,” Carole told her.

  “You guess? Is that all you can say? It would be the best thing in the world!”

  “No, I just saw the best thing in the world,” Carole said. “I just saw a newborn foal.”

  Suddenly, gymkhanas didn’t seem so all-important to Stevie. “Delilah had the foal already?”

  “Not yet. This was a mare at Cloverleaf. I went over there with Judy because the trainer called while Judy was visiting Delilah. By the time we got to Cloverleaf, the foal was born, but we got to watch her nursing for the first time. You can’t imagine how cute she was! She’s a little bay filly—you know, brown with a black mane and tail—but she’s got these gigantic ears and long spindly legs with big knobby knees.”

  Stevie could picture the newborn foal. She knew it was a female because Carole had called it a filly. Males were called colts. Stevie had seen pictures of foals less than an hour old struggling to their feet for their first meals, short tails swishing tentatively. “Oh, she must be so cute!” Stevie said. “Hey, can we visit her tomorrow?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Carole told her. “Newborn foals are very delicate
. Judy said the trainer is going to have to keep almost constant watch for the next couple of days. You can’t believe the number of diseases foals can get right after they’re born—”

  “Well, I’m not going to give her any germs, if that’s what you’re scared of,” Stevie said. She was hurt that Carole would think she was any less able to be careful around a newborn than Carole herself would be.

  “Well, it’s not just that,” Carole protested. “I mean, it was sort of a special thing that I got to be there and I wouldn’t want Judy to think that just anybody could crowd into the stable, you know what I mean?” Carole asked.

  There was a part of Stevie that did know what Carole meant—or at least understood why she wanted to be special. But most of her was just hurt by the implication that she would upset the foal while Carole wouldn’t. That was like Carole—trying to share, but winding up bragging instead. “How come you’re less of a ‘just anybody’ than I am?” Stevie asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, Stevie,” Carole said quickly. “It’s just that, well, I don’t know, I sort of felt, like I was the luckiest person in the world to be there. The whole time, I was thinking how great it would be if you and Lisa could be there, too. But this wasn’t our horse or our stable. I was just kind of an uninvited guest. So, I was afraid if I asked to invite somebody else, they’d tell me to go away. Does that make sense?”

  “Just a little,” Stevie conceded. She was sure, though, that if she had been there, she would have telephoned her best friends and told them to come right away. Carole could be a little timid. Nobody ever accused Stevie of that. “You’ll be sure to let us know if Delilah gets ready to deliver, won’t you?” Stevie asked. “I mean, Lisa and I won’t be uninvited guests then, will we?”

  “Of course I’ll call you. And you can bet I’ll be there,” Carole told her. “As soon as Judy says Delilah’s getting ready to deliver, I’m moving into the stable. Dad already got me a cot from the base, and a sleeping bag and a bunch of camping stuff so I won’t have to leave Delilah’s side. I wouldn’t miss this for the world! And since I’ll be there, you’ll be there. Lisa, too. It’s a promise.”