The Fox Hunt

by Bonnie Bryant

  “I don’t know,” Carole said. She exchanged the brush for a cloth and began rubbing Diablo’s coat, bringing out a deep sheen. Lisa switched to his tail. The horse didn’t flinch. He obviously loved the attention.

  “I’ll call them now,” Lisa said. “Mrs. Reg isn’t in her office. I’ll use that phone.”

  “What about Stevie? Won’t she overhear?” Carole asked.

  “I don’t think so. The last time I saw her, she was helping Phil load his horse onto a van, and he was talking about asking her to walk him over the path she’d taken this morning as the fox.”

  “Why would he want to walk all that distance in the woods?” Carole asked.

  “I don’t think he actually intends to,” Lisa said. In fact, she was quite sure Phil and Stevie were just looking for an excuse to have a few minutes to themselves. Carole didn’t seem to get it, though.

  “But that’s what he said, isn’t it?” Carole persisted. “I’m sure Stevie must have ridden at least three or four miles, just trying to confuse us. Those two will be exhausted by the time—”

  “Carole!” Lisa said, a little exasperated with her friend. “Trust me. They aren’t going to walk three or four miles. They’re just going to walk into the woods a little way.”

  It was Carole’s turn to look confused. “But I don’t—ahh,” she said, getting it at last. “Sure, that will give us plenty of time to call her brothers. Go for it!”

  Lisa finished combing Diablo’s tail, dropped the comb into her grooming bucket, and headed for Mrs. Reg’s telephone.

  Pine Hollow’s riders were allowed to use the phone in cases of emergency. Lisa wasn’t absolutely certain that Max would consider this an emergency, but Lisa did, and that was good enough for her.

  The phone was picked up on the first ring. Alex answered it. Lisa was surprised at how readily Alex agreed to a meeting between the brothers and Lisa and Carole. Both Chad and Michael were also at home, and before Max even discovered that Lisa was on the phone, the date was made. The boys agreed to meet them at two-thirty behind the bait shop near the shopping center.

  Lisa wasn’t thrilled with the idea of the bait shop. It was a place that kept things like cut-up fish and live worms around for people to use to catch fish, and it stank to high heavens. Lisa tried to talk them into meeting someplace else—like, for instance, her house—but Alex pointed out that the bait shop was a place they could absolutely, positively guarantee Stevie would not see them. Lisa found that convincing and agreed. Besides, it would mean that they’d be near TD’s, where they had made arrangements to meet Stevie at three o’clock. Lisa was certain that everything was going to work perfectly.

  CAROLE PINCHED HER nostrils shut. “Uuoooof,” she said distastefully.

  “It’s not so bad,” Lisa said, a pained look on her face. “I mean, as long as you don’t have to breathe in.” She pinched her nose as well. Then she looked at her watch. It was two twenty-five. Arriving at the bait shop early had a major disadvantage in the smell department.

  “Hi, Lisa, Carole. What’s up?” It was Chad. Michael and Alex were right behind him. The meeting could begin.

  First, though, Lisa insisted that they find a place to sit that was not right next to a barrel of chum. A little reluctantly, the boys agreed to move away. They found a rock nearby, close enough for there to be an awfully unpleasant odor, far enough so that Lisa and Carole could release their nostrils.

  “It’s about Stevie,” Lisa began, getting right to the point. “We know that you guys were mean to her and to Phil last week, and then she got back at you at school by teasing you all publicly.” She looked at each of the three boys as she spoke. When her eyes came to Michael, however, it was impossible for her not to wonder if he was, actually, wearing Spiderman underwear. She tried not to let her face show it. Michael seemed to sense it however. He gave her a nasty look. Lisa took her eyes off Michael and looked at Alex. That was safer.

  “I guess we all know that Stevie is quite the practical joker,” she continued.

  “Heh, heh, she sure is that,” Alex agreed. Chad and Michael nodded.

  “Sometimes a bit too much?” Lisa suggested. It was her first attempt at subtlety.

  “Sometimes,” Alex agreed. “But that’s just Stevie’s way.”

  “You don’t mind?” Carole said, very surprised.

  “Oh, living with Stevie’s a howl,” Chad said. “Just when you think things are calm, Stevie finds a way to mix them up, and there’s always a big laugh involved. Life with Stevie is—is …”

  He seemed to be searching for a word. Lisa thought she could supply it.

  “Exciting?” she suggested.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Alex agreed. “Fun is another.”

  “You mean you’re not angry with her?” Carole asked.

  The boys all looked at one another and shrugged. “Angry?” Chad asked. “What about? Why would we be angry with her?”

  “Oh, no particular reason,” Lisa said, deciding on the spot it had been a terrible mistake to assume the boys were after revenge. She and Carole were just stirring things up—things that ought not to be stirred.

  “Oh, we just love Stevie’s practical jokes,” Chad said. “They make life so interesting! Imagine how boring it would be if one of us could like a girl and know that there was no way anybody would interfere and try to make us look foolish.…”

  Michael laughed. So did Alex. “Stevie’s just Stevie,” Alex assured Lisa and Carole. “She can be a pain in the neck, but you know we love her. We wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Is that what you were afraid of?”

  “Sort of,” Lisa admitted.

  “No problem,” Alex said. “The issue of the notes in the girls’ room is long forgotten. There will be no revenge.”

  “You have our word,” Chad promised.

  “Mine, too,” Michael agreed.

  “Thanks,” Carole said. “I guess we were just being silly, but with the hunt coming up, we were kind of afraid something was going to happen that might mess it up. We wouldn’t want that to happen, we care about Stevie, you know.”

  “Oh, we do, too,” Chad assured the girls. “We care about her a lot. We wouldn’t ever let anything happen to our sister.”

  Lisa felt much better then. She and Carole had a straightforward promise from the boys that everything would be fine—especially with the hunt. She relaxed then for the first time in several hours.

  “Speaking of the hunt, what was going on over at Pine Hollow this morning?” Chad asked. “I passed by, and I saw Veronica what’s-her-name. It was some kind of pretend thing?”

  Now Carole was on firm ground. She was always comfortable talking about anything that had to do with horses. She explained exactly what a mock hunt was and told the boys just how terrific their sister had been.

  “She was better than any old real fox, I’m sure. She was just the perfect choice for a fox. She had us completely fooled.”

  “Oh, that’s right up Stevie’s alley,” Alex agreed. “I bet she had a blast trying to outthink all of you!”

  “She did,” Lisa told him.

  “Now, what’s the difference between this and what’s happening next week?” Chad asked.

  Both Carole and Lisa were pleased with the interest Stevie’s brothers were showing in the hunt. From what Stevie had said about the teasing she and Phil had received, Chad, Alex, and Michael weren’t in the least bit interested in fox hunting. Lisa thought that maybe hearing about the mock hunt today had made them see how much fun it could actually be. The girls were only too happy to tell them all the details about fox hunting.

  “You mean the dogs …,” Chad began.

  “Hounds,” Carole said. “They’re never called dogs, always hounds.”

  “You mean the hounds can really smell where the fox has been?”

  “They’re trained hunting hounds,” Lisa said. “They are raised to follow the scent.”

  “But what if there’s no fox around?” Alex asked.
<
br />   “Oh, but there is,” Lisa said. “Mr. Baker knows that there are foxes on the land we’ll be hunting next week. Sometimes, though, a hunt is held where there are no foxes. In those cases, people can still hunt, but they have something called a drag hunt, where the smell of a fox is laid on a path that the hounds and the huntsman and the riders can follow. It’s not as much fun, but it’s better than nothing. That doesn’t matter, though, because we’ll be after a real fox.”

  Michael made a face. “Will you kill it?”

  “No way,” Lisa promised him. “We probably won’t even see it. Although the real fox won’t be as clever as today’s fox named Lake, it will still be fun to chase after it, and we’re going to want it to be there the next time we want to chase it, too.”

  “Same way you feel about chasing after the fox named Lake?” Chad asked.

  Lisa could tell that he was proud of what his sister had done. He had a right to be proud.

  “Exactly the same,” she promised him.

  “That’s what we wanted to hear,” Chad said. Then he turned to his brothers. “Come on, guys. It’s time to go home.”

  Lisa and Carole waved to them as they walked quickly toward their house.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Lisa asked Carole.

  “Not at all,” Carole said. “And now, having talked to them, I can’t imagine why we thought there might be trouble. Stevie doesn’t know how lucky she is to have such a nice set of brothers!”

  Lisa looked at her watch. “Speaking of whom—let’s get to TD’s!”

  The girls arrived at the ice-cream shop a few minutes later and found Stevie waiting for them in their favorite booth.

  “How was your walk in the woods with Phil?” Carole asked.

  Lisa nudged her. She didn’t think that was a very good question.

  “Better than your walk wherever you were,” Stevie said, crinkling her nose. “Where have you been? You smell of fish. Ugh!”

  “Fish?” Carole echoed innocently. “I can’t imagine why.”

  Lisa gave her a withering look. They did both smell of fish. There was no way they could lie their way out of it.

  “It’s my fault,” Lisa said. “We were taking a shortcut here from Pine Hollow and ended up near the bait shop. I was curious about the chum in the back of it. I made the terrible mistake of opening the barrel. Now it’s going to take weeks to get this smell out of our clothes and hair.”

  “Remind me to stay away from you until then,” Stevie said. “You smell like my brothers when they go fishing. Ugh.”

  “What’ll it be, girls?” the waitress asked. When she saw Stevie, she paled. Stevie was famous for ordering outrageous combinations of ice cream and toppings.

  “Just a dish of vanilla for me,” Stevie said. “There are enough odd flavors and scents around here to turn my stomach already. Who needs the usual pistachios and cherries?”

  The smell was getting to Lisa and Carole as well. They agreed on vanilla, too. Relieved, the waitress disappeared.

  “And speaking of my brothers,” Stevie said. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m now absolutely sure that they are going to try some kind of revenge on me—and it’s going to be bad.”

  “What makes you think so?” Carole asked.

  “It’s just a feeling,” Stevie said.

  Lisa sighed contentedly to herself. For once, she was as sure about something as Stevie was, and this time what she was sure of was that Stevie was wrong.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Lisa said confidently. “If your brothers were going to get revenge, they would have done it already.”

  Stevie looked unconvinced, but she dropped the subject and dug into her ice cream. Across the table Lisa caught Carole’s eye and gave her a conspiratorial wink.

  CAROLE GAVE STARLIGHT a big hug before she took him out of his stall for his daily exercise on Monday. She loved doing special things on horseback, like the mock hunt and the upcoming junior hunt, but best of all, she just loved being with her horse, working with him and riding him. Any time she was with Starlight, it was special. Now, because of all the worry and confusion having to do with the hunt and Stevie, it seemed particularly nice to be doing nothing in particular with her horse.

  “Let’s go work on gait changes,” Carole said. Starlight seemed to think that was a good idea.

  It was raining out, so Max had given permission for them to work in the indoor ring. Lisa was already there. She and Carole had come directly from school as they usually did. Lisa was doing some work with Samson.

  Samson was a young horse, born to a mare at the stable named Delilah. He was a coal black foal that the girls had helped deliver. They felt very close to him and were thrilled when Max had suggested that they could help with his training. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to have riders on him yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t time to get him used to tack. The girls had already gotten him accustomed to the feel of a bit in his mouth. Now Lisa was trying out a saddle, without stirrups.

  Carole walked Starlight to the entrance of the ring and mounted him just before she entered.

  “How does Samson like the saddle?” Carole called.

  Both Lisa and Samson looked up at her. “He almost doesn’t seem to notice it,” Lisa said. “I think he just thinks it’s a heavier-than-normal blanket.”

  “Very good,” Carole said. “That means that you’ve left the girth nice and loose.”

  “Just like you suggested,” Lisa said. “When it comes to horses, you’re always right.”

  “I wish that were so with people,” Carole said. “They are much more complicated.”

  “That’s for sure,” Lisa agreed. She and Samson continued walking in large circles in the ring.

  Carole walked Starlight around twice, allowing him to warm up a bit. Then she put some pressure on his belly with her legs, and he began trotting. They would work on his schooling as soon as she was sure he was limber and ready. She had been riding for so long and had learned so much that it seemed she could feel every muscle in the horse when he moved. There was a very different feel to Starlight’s gaits when he was warmed up than when he was still tense and stiff from a day and a night spent in his stall. By the third time he’d circled the large indoor ring, she could feel him relaxing. Part of it was the fact that he was just getting used to having Carole in the saddle. Part of it was that his muscles were now ready to work. So Carole put them to work.

  She brought him back to a walk and then spent fifteen minutes systematically changing gaits, from walk to trot to canter to trot and back to canter, then down to a walk. The signals for each gait were very different from one another. Starlight certainly knew them all, but as with any young horse, and Starlight was only four, he sometimes resisted changing gaits. A well-trained horse had to learn to respond instantly. Carole hoped very much that one day she would be able to ride Starlight in shows—maybe even at the level of national competition—and for that, she was going to need a very well-trained horse.

  She was so focused on what she was doing that she didn’t even see Stevie arrive. When she looked up, Stevie was leaning on the fence with her chin in her hands, watching everything her friends were doing.

  “I love seeing you work with Starlight,” Stevie said.

  “All it takes is patience,” Carole said.

  “And skill,” Stevie said. “You’ve got a lot of that. Fortunately, Starlight also seems to have brains, so sometimes he remembers the things you teach him.”

  “Repetition. That’s the secret to training a horse,” Carole said. “They learn something one day and then forget an awful lot of it by the next day. As long as you keep repeating the lesson again and again and again, eventually most of it stays in their memory banks.”

  “I wish it were the same way with people,” Stevie said.

  “That’s just what Carole and I were talking about earlier,” Lisa said, bringing Samson over. Actually, she followed the foal to where Stevie was. Samson was a very curious young h
orse, and he was eager to greet Stevie. Lisa knew she ought to be in charge when she had him on a lead line, but he seemed so glad to see her friend that she couldn’t say no. His eagerness might have had something to do with the sugar lump Stevie was offering him.

  “You’ll spoil him,” Lisa cautioned.

  “No way,” Stevie said. “Besides, if I do, Carole will just finish the training properly and get rid of all the spoiling I do.”

  “Thanks,” Carole said. She rode over to where her friends were now standing and leaning forward, patting Starlight on the neck. He’d been working hard and deserved a break.

  Stevie patted him, too, and then gave him a sugar lump as well. Then she patted Samson. The foal nuzzled her neck and tickled her. She loved it. She giggled. “What’s neat about Samson is that even when you’re working him and training him, he’s still sweet. I wish that were the case with brothers.”

  Lisa and Carole looked at one another. This had a distinctly ominous sound.

  “Did something happen?” Carole asked.

  “No, but it’s going to. I mean something is definitely up,” Stevie said.

  “What makes you think so?” Lisa asked.

  “It’s Chad,” Stevie said. “He’s apparently got a new girlfriend.”

  “What’s so strange about that?” Carole asked. “The average life span of a romance for Chad is about four days, right? So it seems like it’s time for a switch.”

  Stevie smiled. It was true. Chad was notably fickle in his relationships. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “His lacrosse stick actually looks like a bowl of leftover alphabet soup! Anyway, what’s funny isn’t that he’s got a new girlfriend, but who it is. Stand back, girls. It’s Veronica diAngelo.”

  “Our Veronica diAngelo?” Lisa asked.

  “There’s another one?” Carole asked.

  “You know what I mean,” said Lisa.

  “Yeah, ours,” Stevie said. “I saw them together at school today. They were giggling. The only time Chad ever giggles is with his girlfriends.”

  “Maybe it’s just because he’s been in love with every other girl at Fenton Hall and the only one left was Veronica,” Lisa suggested.