Course of Action

by Bonnie Bryant

  As she parked beneath the shade of the gnarled old pine tree that grew beside the gravel parking area, Stevie spotted Carole leading a saddled pony out of the stable building. Immediately she felt a bit guilty about her cheerful thoughts. How could she be so upbeat when one of her best friends was going through such a difficult time?

  Tossing her sunglasses on the seat beside her and grabbing the brown paper shopping bag she’d stowed on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat, she climbed out of her car and walked over toward the stable building, squinting in the brilliant autumn sunlight. Carole saw her and waved.

  Stevie waved back. “Do you have a minute?” she asked when she reached Carole and the pony. “I found out something interesting last night about … um, you know.” She glanced around, unwilling to mention the topic out loud, even though nobody was within hearing distance other than the pony, which wasn’t likely to blab.

  “Sure,” Carole said. She gestured toward the main schooling ring, where Max was talking to a little girl and her mother. “Let me just drop off Nickel over there and I’ll be right with you. Meet me in the locker room?”

  “Okay.” Stevie wandered into the stable building, blinking to adjust her eyes to the relative dimness. She headed into the big, square student locker room, which was empty at the moment, and stowed the shopping bag in her cubbyhole. Then she perched on one of the long, narrow benches. While she waited for Carole, she mentally relived the past few hours. After Miss Fenton’s announcement, her chemistry class had erupted into cheers. The teacher hadn’t even tried to maintain order as students jumped out of their seats and hurried over to slap Scott on the back and congratulate him on his victory. Quite a few of them had also congratulated Stevie, and the recognition of her role in the campaign had really felt good.

  Who knows? Stevie thought contentedly, closing her eyes and once again feeling the rush of excitement that she’d experienced when she’d realized they had won. Maybe I could get used to life on the campaign trail. I may look back on this afternoon someday as the starting point of my illustrious career as a political powerhouse.

  She smiled, letting the thought drift off—for now. There was plenty of time for her to think about what she might like to do someday. In the meantime, it was fun to dream.

  “Hi,” Carole said, walking in and peering curiously at Stevie. “What’s with the weird look on your face?”

  “Nothing,” Stevie replied quickly. “Um, guess what? Scott won the election.”

  Carole’s face lit up. “Really?” she said. “That’s great! I forgot that was today.”

  Stevie grinned. Some things would never change—for instance, if it didn’t have something to do with horses, Carole would be likely to forget it, whether it was Election Day or her own home phone number. “It is pretty great,” Stevie agreed. “But listen. I wanted to tell you, I got a response to that e-mail I sent my cousin Angie the other night—you know, about Starlight.”

  Carole’s expression grew slightly tense, but she nodded expectantly. “And?”

  “Well, she’s at college now, so she doesn’t do much riding herself anymore,” Stevie explained. “But she’s still in touch with a lot of people who do ride, and she knows a girl who’s dating a guy whose fourteen-year-old sister is looking for a horse. And this girl only lives, like, an hour’s drive from here!”

  “Really?” Carole’s eyes widened. She sank down onto the bench beside Stevie. “What else did Angie tell you?”

  “Not that much,” Stevie admitted. “But I already wrote back to her and begged her to find out all the details about this girl and what she’s looking for. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to find more people who—”

  “Hi!” Lisa interrupted, walking into the room at that moment. “Fancy meeting you two here. What are you talking about?”

  Stevie shot Carole a quick glance, realizing she wasn’t sure whether Carole had let Lisa in on her decision yet. “Um, not much,” she said casually.

  Lisa had been looking forward to telling her friends about her college decision—Carole already knew, of course, but Lisa still wanted to make it official with a big announcement. She hadn’t come to the stable the day before because of a dentist’s appointment, and she’d wanted to save the news to share in person. When she got a good look at her friends’ faces, though, she decided to put that off for a moment. They both looked decidedly strange.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why do you guys look so weird?”

  Carole took a deep breath. “I have something I wanted to tell you,” she said, her face serious. “It’s about what we talked about over the weekend—about making a choice between Starlight and Samson.”

  With a sharp pang of guilt, Lisa realized that she’d gotten so caught up in her own life that she’d nearly forgotten about that conversation. True, it had occurred to her once or twice over the past two and a half days to wonder if Carole had come to terms with her feelings about the two horses in her life, but she’d never really doubted which way her heart would take her. Carole had always been completely devoted to Starlight, and nothing could change that.

  “What did you want to tell me?” she asked tentatively.

  Carole glanced down at the floor and then up again, meeting Lisa’s eyes. “I’ve decided I’m going to sell Starlight.”

  Lisa gasped involuntarily, and everything else flew out of her mind. “You’re kidding!” she blurted out.

  “No,” Carole replied softly. “I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry.” Lisa shook her head, trying to clear it and make some sense. “That wasn’t very tactful. But I—well, I’m pretty surprised.”

  “I don’t blame you. I was pretty surprised myself,” Carole admitted with a tiny smile.

  Stevie raised a hand. “That makes three of us.”

  “Wow. I can’t believe good old Starlight will be leaving us.” Lisa rubbed her cheek absently, trying to understand what this meant. Her college news popped back into her mind, but she pushed it aside. It wasn’t the right moment for that. She could tell her friends later, after she’d had a chance to absorb what Carole had just told her. “I mean, it’s kind of ironic, you know?”

  “How do you mean?” Stevie asked.

  Lisa leaned against the door frame and stuck her hands in the pockets of her khakis. “I mean, just when I’m about to become the owner of the horse of my dreams, Carole’s dream horse is going away.”

  Carole played with a strand of curly black hair that had escaped from her braid. “Dreams can change sometimes,” she pointed out. “It’s true that Starlight was my dream horse when I got him, and for a long time afterward.” She shrugged. “But Samson is my dream horse now. So soon we’ll both be riding the horses of our dreams.” With a quick glance at Stevie, she added, “I mean, all three of us will.”

  “Hmmm.” Lisa wasn’t sure what to say. Starlight had been around for so long that it was almost impossible to believe he might be leaving Pine Hollow soon. He was as much a part of the place by now as Prancer or Topside or Barq or any of the other school horses.

  As if reading her mind, Carole sighed. “It will be really hard to say good-bye to Starlight,” she said softly. “I know that. But I also know that this is the right thing to do. It will be better for both of us to move on.”

  Stevie nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s pretty amazing if you think about it.”

  All three of them were silent for a moment, thinking their own thoughts. Carole could tell that both of her friends were still having trouble getting used to her decision. That wasn’t surprising—she was still having some trouble getting used to it herself, even though she’d been thinking about little else for the past few days. But she’d meant what she’d said. She really did think this was the right thing to do.

  She glanced up just in time to see Ben appear in the locker room doorway. He blinked when he saw the three of them inside the room and made a motion as if to back away. But when he caught Carole’s eye, he stopped as if re
alizing he’d been caught.

  “Uh, hi,” he muttered. “Carole, I—”

  Carole found herself blushing slightly, though she wasn’t sure why. Earlier in the afternoon, she had finally thanked Ben for what he’d done the other day. He had brushed off her gratitude, seeming embarrassed, but his dark eyes had looked a shade friendlier than usual as he’d made an excuse and hurried off. “Yes?” she said shyly, remembering that rare smile.

  Ben took a step backward, shooting Stevie and Lisa a slightly suspicious glance. “Um, never mind. I’ll see you later.” The next second, he was gone.

  Stevie turned toward Carole with a smirk on her face and one eyebrow raised almost to her hairline. “My, my,” she commented. “He’s awfully chatty today. For Ben, I mean.”

  Lisa nodded and grinned. “What do you think that was about?” she added.

  Carole pretended not to notice their sly expressions. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Ben these days, and she didn’t feel like talking about it until she figured it out. After what had happened between the two of them at Stevie’s party, she wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions and risk messing up their friendship yet again.

  Fortunately she was saved from responding by the arrival of Scott and Callie. “Hey, check it out,” Scott said as he entered the locker room. “The gang’s all here.”

  “Hey!” Lisa looked startled as she turned to look at Scott. “I forgot to ask. Did you win?”

  Stevie grinned. She’d been waiting for this moment since sixth period. “Allow me to answer that, if you will,” she told Lisa mischievously. Hopping up, she raced to her cubby and retrieved the brown paper shopping bag. She reached inside, glancing around to make sure that everyone was watching, and then pulled out a two-liter bottle of ginger ale.

  Carole looked confused. “What’s that for?”

  Instead of answering, Stevie held the bottle in both hands and deliberately shook it as hard as she could. The soda fizzed wildly inside the plastic bottle.

  “Uh-oh,” Scott said.

  Stevie’s grin widened. “Hey, I know it’s not exactly champagne,” she joked. “But after what happened at that party …”

  Everyone laughed. Stevie made a move to open the bottle, but Scott was too fast for her. Lunging forward, he grabbed it out of her hands. “Aha!” he crowed, reaching to twist open the cap as Callie, Carole, and Lisa scattered, giggling and screaming.

  Before Stevie could react, Scott released the pent-up soda, spraying ginger ale and bubbles in all directions. Stevie shrieked and danced away as the cold liquid hit her in the face, but she was laughing at the same time.

  Yes, she thought giddily, life is really pretty good.

  About the Author

  Bonnie Bryant is the author of over one hundred forty books about horses, including the Saddle Club series and its spinoffs, the Pony Tails series and the Pine Hollow series. Bryant did not know very much about horses before writing the first Saddle Club book in 1986, so she found herself learning right along with the characters she created. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, Bonnie Bryant Hiller. Bryant was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives today.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1999 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-5392-4

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10014

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