The Fox Hunt

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Finest families?” Stevie echoed innocently. “Well, I guess that lets you out. After all, you just come from a tiny little family with one spoiled daughter. In my family, we’ve got four fine children. That’s got to make us a fine family, doesn’t it?”

  Veronica gave her a withering look and then began walking faster to catch up to a group of girls walking ahead of Stevie. Stevie sighed with relief. Veronica was a complete pain, and every time Stevie could put her in her place, she was pleased. Today, she thought, was going to be a wonderful day in spite of the fact that she hadn’t quite completed the reading assignment for English and absolutely didn’t understand the word problems her math teacher had assigned over the weekend, so they weren’t done at all. She’d find a way around those trivial issues because anyone who was as good at revenge as Stevie was could surely talk two teachers out of detention!

  It turned out that Stevie’s English teacher was sick. In an instant, all of her problems were solved. Instead of English, she had a study hall. In the first place, that gave her an extra day to finish the reading assignment—plus the additional reading that was assigned. It also gave her time to look over the word problems, which, when she actually looked at them, didn’t seem so tough. Finally, it gave her time to put the finishing touches on a few little signs and then make an extended visit to the girls’ room.

  “I’m feeling a little funny in my stomach,” she said to the study-hall monitor.

  “Do you want to go to the nurse’s office?”

  “No, just to the girls’ room. Okay?”

  “Should I come with you?” the nice woman asked.

  That, of course, was the last thing Stevie needed or wanted. “No, no, I’ll be fine. I may just be a little while.…”

  The woman smiled. “Take your time,” she said.

  That, of course, was the first thing Stevie needed and wanted. She practically flew out of the study hall.

  From her backpack, she brought out the signs she’d typed neatly on her mother’s computer the night before, when she told her mother she was working on her English assignment.

  ATTENTION ALL NINTH-GRADE GIRLS

  Chad Lake has a new girlfriend. Her name is Valerie Ann Jones and she goes to Willow Creek High School. His previous girlfriend, as many of you know, was Virginia Ames. He carved Virginia’s initials on his lacrosse stick. He’s now added a “J” to that and has told Valerie that he just put her initials on his stick. Doesn’t she deserve to know the truth? Call her at 555-3992 and tell her!

  Stevie had used some of her study-hall time to draw a picture of Chad’s lacrosse stick, before and after, at the bottom of the page. She thought she’d done a pretty good job of it. She took some tape out of her backpack and posted it high on the mirror where everybody would see it. She was pretty confident it would stay there all day long. The teachers all used a different girls’ room; her note wouldn’t be discovered until the cleaning people got there at night.

  Next, it was Alex’s turn. That was easier, though there was a good chance one of the girls would tear the note down. It informed anybody who cared to read it that Alexander Lake was undecided which one of his classmates—Stevie’s classmates, too—he liked best, Andrea or Martha. He was currently leaning toward Andrea, but Martha might be asked to the upcoming middle-school dance because Alex had been talking about how great she’d looked doing jump shots in basketball the other day. Stevie was especially proud of the part about the jump shots. It was absolutely true, too. Alex hadn’t been able to stop talking about it at dinner on Friday.

  Finally, Stevie had a note for all the fourth-grade girls. It told anybody who cared to read it that her little brother, Michael, wore Spiderman underwear.

  Just as she was zipping the pocket on her backpack and preparing to return to the study hall and her math word problems, the girls’-room door opened, and in walked her least favorite classmate, Veronica diAngelo.

  “Well, hello,” Veronica said sweetly and insincerely. Stevie grunted in response. Part of Stevie wanted to flee from the girls’ room. Another part of her really wanted to know how Veronica would react to her anti-brother plot. She hesitated for a second, weighing the benefits, and then decided to wait. She turned on the water and washed her hands, very carefully.

  Veronica read every word of all three of Stevie’s notes. She couldn’t contain her surprise. When she was done, she looked at Stevie, who was by then meticulously drying her hands with a paper towel.

  “Girlfriends’ initials carved into a hockey stick? Spiderman underwear? Is this what you meant by describing yours as a fine family?” Veronica smirked. Then, without waiting for a response, because none was possible, she brushed past Stevie and out into the hall.

  Stevie fumed. It was one thing for her to dump on her brothers and make fun of them and try to wreak revenge on them. It was another thing, entirely, when Veronica diAngelo did it. Stevie would get even with her, too.

  Four girls were going into the bathroom as Stevie left it. It gave her great pleasure to hear gasps and giggles from the foursome a few seconds later. Her scheme was working already.

  But first, it was time for word problems.

  “NICE GOING, STEVIE,” Polly Giacomin said, clapping her on the back before the Horse Wise meeting came to order.

  “That’s the third one,” Carole said to Lisa, observing Polly. “What on earth is going on?”

  Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, “but when so many people are congratulating Stevie, it gives me the willies. It’s got to mean big trouble.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Carole said. “I think we’d better look into this.”

  “Look into what?” Stevie asked, overhearing the tail end of the conversation.

  “Look into why everybody is clapping you on the back and congratulating you,” Lisa said. “What have you done now?”

  “Oh, it’s just a touch of revenge,” Stevie said. “Another ingenious plot by the famous, or should I say infamous, Stevie Lake.”

  “Big trouble,” Lisa said to Carole, who nodded agreement.

  “Well, it has to do with my troublesome brothers,” Stevie began. “See, when Phil came for dinner on Saturday, they were total pains, teasing Phil and me and making fun of fox hunting. I couldn’t let them get away with that, could I? I just had to take steps.”

  “Steps, maybe,” Carole assented. “Leaps, definitely not. What did you do?”

  Stevie reached into her pocket and brought out a copy of each of the signs she’d hung up in the girls’ rooms at school. She handed them to Carole. Lisa read them over Carole’s shoulder. She couldn’t contain her gasp of horror.

  “Aren’t I wonderful?” Stevie asked proudly. “I think I’ll go into the Revenge Hall of Fame.”

  “If you live that long,” Carole said.

  “And if somebody doesn’t institutionalize you before then,” Lisa added. “Are you totally out of your mind?”

  “What do you mean?” Stevie asked, suddenly realizing that her best friends didn’t share her enthusiasm for her prank.

  Lisa and Carole looked at one another. The look was silent, but it said worlds. It said that they couldn’t believe how naive their wonderful friend Stevie could be. Sometimes she got so caught up in her schemes that she completely forgot to look at the effect they were going to have on other people and what might happen in retaliation.

  “You tell her,” Carole said. That was probably a good decision. Lisa tended to be more diplomatic than Carole.

  “We mean you’re crazy!” Lisa said, very undiplomatically.

  “And what’s wrong with that?” Stevie demanded.

  “Everything,” Carole said. “Look, a little teasing is one thing, but what you’ve done to your brothers is public humiliation. They aren’t going to let you get away with that!”

  “And there are three of them,” Lisa added.

  “Oh, come off it,” Stevie said, shrugging off her friends’ concerns. “You two just don’t know how it
goes between me and my brothers.”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” Carole said. “And it starts with a T, and that stands for Trouble. You haven’t heard the last of this.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Stevie said.

  “If that’s the case, why is it that everybody keeps clapping you on the back?” Lisa asked.

  Carole felt a terrible cringing sensation when she thought about what it was Stevie had done. Stevie’s brothers would certainly try to get back at her. It would be one thing if they put up notes in the boys’ room at school or if they short-sheeted her bed or replaced her lunch sandwich with dog food. It would be another thing if they tried to sabotage her friendship with Phil, though Carole suspected that Phil would know what was really going on. It would be another thing altogether, however, if Stevie’s brothers decided to aim their revenge at what Stevie loved best: horseback riding. There were all kinds of things they could do that could jeopardize Stevie’s riding. The boys would know that and it would most certainly be their target. That was something Carole couldn’t let happen.

  It was time for The Saddle Club to come to the rescue, even if Stevie didn’t know it.

  “We’ve got to talk,” Carole whispered into Lisa’s ear.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” Lisa whispered back.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Stevie asked.

  “Nothing,” they said together.

  Stevie was about to insist that they tell her when Max saved the day.

  “Horse Wise, come to order!” he commanded. The room was completely silent.

  LISA USUALLY ENJOYED every minute of the Horse Wise meetings—even a business one like this, when most of what was discussed was who was going to bring what for the “hunt breakfast” on Saturday after the mock hunt. This time, however, all she could think of was the disaster that Stevie was courting with the pranks aimed at her brothers. The Saddle Club was going to have to come to Stevie’s rescue—even though Stevie was refusing to acknowledge she was even in trouble.

  It took some maneuvering, some fast writing, and some lightning reflexes to deliver notes to Stevie and Carole during the Horse Wise meeting, but by the time scraps of paper had flown back and forth quickly several times, it was all set up. Lisa had managed to get Stevie to invite her and Carole to Stevie’s house after Horse Wise for an emergency Saddle Club meeting. It was going to mean a late start for her homework that night, but some things were simply more important than homework.

  The three girls walked back to Stevie’s house together, chatting about the mock hunt as they went. Max had talked more about what was going to happen, and they had planned the breakfast.

  “Wasn’t Veronica hysterical?” Stevie asked. “Imagine—she wanted us to have champagne!”

  “I liked the bright red color her face turned when you suggested that ginger ale would do the trick,” Carole said.

  “Especially when I told her it was what all the finest families drank,” Stevie concluded, smirking proudly. Then she explained about the conversation she’d had with Veronica about the “finest families.” Lisa thought it was just like Veronica to be concerned about that.

  “You know, Veronica is such a pain that I wish there were a way to keep her out of the fox hunt at Cross County,” Stevie said.

  “Watch out,” Lisa said to Carole, still looking at Stevie. “She’s got that gleam in her eye, and you know that means trouble.”

  “Don’t worry,” Stevie assured her friends. “The only trouble I have in mind is trouble for Veronica. Nothing will go wrong with us and our fun at both the mock hunt and the real one. That’s a promise.”

  Lisa hoped very much that that was a promise Stevie would be able to keep, and she intended to see that it was.

  The Lakes were all home when the girls arrived. It took them only about two and a half minutes to swoop through the kitchen and get everything they needed for their Saddle Club meeting so they didn’t actually see anyone, but Lisa and Carole both called greetings into the den, where Stevie’s parents were watching television.

  “Where are your brothers?” Carole asked, slipping an apple into one pocket and a package of graham crackers into another. She held a soda can under one arm and carried an assortment of cheeses on a plate.

  “Who knows? Who cares?” Stevie said airily. “Chad’s probably listening to the awful music he likes, unless, of course, his ear is tired from all the phone calls he’s had from his girlfriend yelling at him.” She giggled.

  Even though Lisa and Carole thought that what Stevie had done was more than unkind and very dangerous, they had to admit it was pretty funny. The idea of Chad’s thinking his girlfriend wouldn’t find out about his previous girlfriend, and about the curious similarity of their initials, was pretty silly. Chad sort of deserved some kind of comeuppance about that.

  “Alex, on the other hand,” Stevie went on confidently, “has probably decided he doesn’t like either Martha or Andrea. My guess is that the next girl he’s going to get a crush on is Amy. He was talking about her today—something about the interesting report she’d given to the class about Phoenicians. Imagine that, being interested in Phoenicians! He’s very fickle, you know.”

  Lisa picked up the grapes and the marshmallows. “Let’s go,” she said, heading for the stairs. She was quite convinced that all three of Stevie’s brothers would be standing at the top of the stairs, ready to murder Stevie and anybody who happened to be with her on her way to her room. She realized that the marshmallows and grapes wouldn’t give her much protection, but they could be thrown and might possibly serve to confuse the enemy, if not to dominate them. She plucked a couple of grapes and held them in her right hand as they mounted the stairs.

  “With Michael, of course, it’s a different thing,” Stevie said, leading the way upward. “The only way anybody will know if he really does wear Spiderman underwear is if they see them, and I don’t think any of the girls will—unless, of course, he wears his white shorts. But he’s already nervous about the issue. This morning he told Mom that he had an awful headache and couldn’t go to school. Just wait till he goes back tomorrow and has to face the girls in his class—he’ll get a taste of his own medicine then. I can’t wait.”

  Lisa grimaced and followed Stevie up the stairs. Her friend was definitely playing with fire, and she was being more than a little mean. It wasn’t her best side.

  The boys’ rooms were all closed tightly. The sound of heavy metal blared from Chad’s room as Stevie had predicted. Bleeps of an electronic game came from the room Alex and Michael were sharing.

  Stevie looked at her friends and shrugged. “See? I told you. Nothing’s happening. The three of them just know that they got what they deserved. There’s no trouble brewing here. Trust me.”

  Lisa and Carole looked at one another. They hoped that Stevie was right. For now, anyway, nothing seemed to be going on that required The Saddle Club to come to Stevie’s rescue. That meant that Lisa and Carole could relax a little bit and simply enjoy their second-favorite activity—talking about horses.

  “How are you and Comanche doing?” Stevie asked Lisa.

  Lisa had ridden a horse named Pepper almost exclusively since she’d started riding and had only recently switched to Comanche when Pepper retired. Lisa missed Pepper and his sweet disposition. Comanche was turning out to be a handful for her.

  “Only so-so,” she said. “The last time I rode him, I spent an awful lot of time trying to get him to do what I wanted him to do instead of what he wanted to do.”

  “He’s very headstrong,” Carole agreed. “I always thought that was why he and Stevie got along so well,” she added pointedly.

  Stevie laughed. “We were a pair, weren’t we? But now that I’m riding Topside, I realize that Comanche could be difficult.”

  “It may be that Comanche really isn’t a good horse for you,” Carole said. “You know, it’s really important that a rider and a horse be matched carefully. Horses have personalities—”


  “—just like people,” Lisa finished for her. It was a familiar idea and one that she knew was very true. “See, I figured that since I like Stevie so much, I’d like a horse with a personality like hers,” Lisa went on. “What I found, however, was that liking Stevie and trying to tell her what to do are two different things.”

  Lisa was afraid she might have hurt Stevie’s feelings, but then Carole laughed, and after that Stevie laughed even harder than Carole, so Lisa knew that what she’d said was okay. She laughed, too. It felt very good to laugh after doing almost nothing but worrying ever since she’d learned about Stevie’s not-so-practical jokes.

  “You might talk to Max about trying another horse, then,” Carole suggested. “He knows it’s no fun to spend your whole time arguing with your horse.”

  “But shouldn’t I be learning something from it?” Lisa asked.

  Carole scratched her chin. This was a good question about horses, and Carole liked to think about good questions before answering them. “You’re always supposed to learn from riding,” she began. “But you’re also supposed to have fun. When learning means blisters on your hands from tugging at reins and sore muscles from kicking a horse, something’s wrong, and it’s no better for the horse than it is for you. You’re a good rider, Lisa, for a relative beginner, but you’re not as good as you’re going to be one day. When that day comes, Comanche will be no trouble for you. In the meantime, you can learn plenty from a horse who isn’t so much trouble. Why don’t you ask Max about riding Diablo? He was some trouble when he first came to Pine Hollow, but Max has been doing a lot of work with him, and he seems gentle as can be now.”

  “You think he’d let me ride Diablo?”