She stepped into the hall, still moving slowly as she thought it all through one more time. The most difficult thing was figuring out how to feel about the whole situation. Part of her thought it was wonderful that Prancer might have the chance to pass on her sweet disposition and impressive athletic abilities to not one but two foals. But the larger part of her was filled with fear at what trying to bear twins might do to the beautiful Thoroughbred mare.
Of course, Lisa still felt rather surprised that Prancer had been bred at all—surprised and more than a little left out. Her rational mind knew very well that Prancer didn’t belong to her. Max owned her in partnership with Judy Barker. The two of them had bought Prancer years earlier, after the accident that had ended her racing career. There was no reason they should consult Lisa or even inform her when they decided to breed their horse, even though Lisa had ridden Prancer more than anyone else over the years. She knew all that. But knowing it didn’t stop her from feeling hurt at being left out of the loop.
I shouldn’t be all that shocked that they decided to breed her, Lisa told herself as she made her way down the crowded school hallway. If anything, I should be surprised they didn’t do it before this. After all, Judy hasn’t recouped much of her investment so far. That will only happen when Prancer starts having foals.
Lisa shifted her books to her other arm and frowned. She was trying to be mature about this. But it wasn’t easy to hold back the more immature, selfish, and chaotic thoughts that kept popping into her mind. Thoughts like Why now? Why couldn’t they have waited just one more year?
She knew what this pregnancy meant. In most normal, uncomplicated pregnancies, a mare could be ridden up until around the fifth month of gestation. But in the case of twins, that sort of rule flew out the window. It was already obvious that Max didn’t intend to let anyone ride Prancer anytime soon, and that meant she was sure to be off-limits throughout the rest of the eleven long months that she would carry her foals. By the time Prancer gave birth, Lisa would be graduating from high school. By the time her foals were weaned, Lisa would already be in her first semester at college.
It would have been hard enough for me to go away to school next fall and leave Prancer behind, she thought woefully. It’s not fair that I have to give her up a whole year early.
She knew she wasn’t being reasonable. It wasn’t as though Prancer were really going anywhere. She would still be at Pine Hollow, where Lisa could visit her and spend time with her as often as she liked. But it wouldn’t be the same, and Lisa knew it. Prancer wouldn’t really belong to her anymore. There would be lots of other people looking after her, watching her, thinking and worrying and caring about her the way Lisa always had.
But not riding her. Nobody would be riding her. Lisa already missed the mare’s spirited trot, her smooth, swift canter, the exhilarating feeling of crouching down as Prancer galloped faster than the wind. But now Prancer would be cooped up in her stall or in one of the smaller paddocks, taking it easy, for months and months to come.
Of course, that’s if everything goes as it should. Lisa crossed her fingers, feeling fear trickle through her like cold water down her back. Her thoughts always came back to her fear—her terror that this pregnancy was too risky, that something awful would happen to Prancer or her foals. Prancer had never foaled before, and as if the risks of a plain old pregnancy weren’t worrisome enough, the thought of twins was downright frightening.
Lisa sighed, trying to stop her endless, circling thoughts as she reached the doorway to the computer lab, where she had her next class. At that moment, she heard a commotion from the end of the hall.
Lisa turned to see what had happened. Carole was standing there, looking flustered as she stooped to pick up a whole pile of books and papers scattered at her feet. Lisa immediately guessed what had happened. Carole must have come barreling around the corner, late and disorganized as usual, and crashed into someone or something that had made her drop everything she was carrying.
For an instant, Lisa’s instincts almost took over—she almost hurried forward to help Carole retrieve her things, as several other students were already doing. But then she remembered what had happened between them. Her face froze. Let her clean up her own mess, she thought contemptuously.
At that moment, Carole glanced up and met Lisa’s eye. Lisa glared at her. Carole stared back stonily. A second later, Lisa tossed her head, turned away, and hurried into her classroom.
Carole was still annoyed about the encounter with Lisa when the final bell rang. What’s with her attitude, anyway? she thought irritably.
But her anger turned to panic a moment later when she realized that the moment of truth had arrived. It was time to return to her history classroom and take that makeup test.
For a moment, Carole toyed with the idea of simply leaving, skipping the test. She could tell Ms. Shepard tomorrow that her father had had a relapse, that she couldn’t take the test until next week …
But she knew that wouldn’t work. She was lucky to have the chance to make up her poor grade at all; she didn’t want to completely blow it.
Of course, I got a pretty good start on blowing it last night, she thought ruefully. What was I thinking? I can’t believe I lost track of the time like that.
The evening before, Carole’s quick grooming of Samson had turned into a long grooming. A very long grooming. It was already dark outside by the time she left Pine Hollow. And by the time she’d driven home, fixed herself a quick, solitary dinner of cereal and carrot sticks, and pulled out her books, her eyes were growing heavy. It had been a long, strenuous, emotionally draining day—first finding out she’d failed that stupid test, then the fight with Lisa, and of course Samson’s intense training session and her sweating over those hay bales. She’d done her best to buckle down and read those chapters, but she had ended up falling asleep after little more than an hour, waking in the morning with her face in her textbook and her neck stiff.
She dragged her feet as she made her way down the hall toward Ms. Shepard’s classroom, feeling like a prisoner walking to her own painful, undeserved execution. She had managed to get a little more reading done during her fourth-period study hall, but the cafeteria had been too noisy for her to study at lunch.
Now, as she walked, she pulled her history textbook out of her backpack and flipped it open, scanning the beginning of one of the chapters. But she was too nervous to concentrate properly, and the words blurred together in her mind, not making any sense. She paused in front of the classroom door, trying desperately to focus, to cram a last few bits of knowledge into her mind. She was startled by the sound of Ms. Shepard’s voice greeting her.
“Ready for your retest, Carole?” the teacher asked cheerfully from just inside the classroom door. “Come on in and let’s get started. I don’t want to keep you any longer than I have to.”
Carole gulped. “I’m coming.” She shoved the textbook back into her bag and stepped across the threshold with a heavy heart.
“Carole,” Ms. Shepard said half an hour later.
Carole blinked and looked up. The teacher was sitting at her desk at the front of the room, where she had been correcting papers while Carole struggled with the retest. “Yes? My time isn’t up yet, is it?”
Ms. Shepard laughed. “No, no, don’t worry,” she said. “You still have plenty of time. I just wanted to tell you that I have to go down to the office to use the photocopier. But I’ll be back in ten minutes or so in case you have any questions. All right?”
Carole nodded dumbly, relieved and disappointed at the same time. She was relieved because she still hadn’t managed to come up with answers to more than a third of the test questions, even though there was a smaller proportion of essay questions this time around. The disappointment sprang from her conviction that she could sit at her desk until clocks ran backward and a pig won the Kentucky Derby and she still wouldn’t know the answers. At least if her time were up this nightmare would be over.
The teache
r gathered some papers and left the room, and the sound of her heels tapping against the hard tile floor grew fainter and fainter. Left alone in the classroom, Carole tapped her pencil on her desk nervously. Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes as she scanned the questions once more. There was no way out of this—no way she could pass this test today, no way she would be able to convince Ms. Shepard to let her try a third time.
You know what that means, Carole told herself, feeling her heart constrict at the thought. That means no more Pine Hollow for at least a month. She had already estimated that it would take that long to bring up her average if she failed again.
The idea was almost too horrible to bear. Carole had never lost her riding privileges before, and she couldn’t even imagine what it would be like. Max would be terribly disappointed in her, and her father would probably have a fit when he got home from his trip and found out about it. How could she have let this happen?
She didn’t really know the answer to that. Her life had been so busy lately, so complicated. But that wasn’t really important. What was important now was that she had messed up, big-time, and there didn’t seem to be any way out. She was trapped in this disaster, and she would have to find a way to deal with it.
Carole dropped her pencil, swiveled sideways in her chair to stretch out her legs, and rubbed her forehead with both hands, as if by doing so she could force the right answers into her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut.
When she opened them a few seconds later, she found herself staring at her own legs—and her backpack, which she had dropped on the floor beside her desk. The top zipper was partway open, and Carole could see the edge of her red-white-and-blue history textbook poking out of the opening.
She blinked. All the answers I need are right in there, she thought. All in that book, in black and white.
She gulped and glanced around the empty room, feeling guilty for even thinking such a thing. Her teacher had trusted her enough to leave her alone in the room. How could she even entertain the thought of breaching that trust?
I’m no cheater, she told herself sternly. That was true enough. But her eyes strayed back to her backpack, sitting there so temptingly close. She dragged her gaze back to the desktop, feeling uncomfortable. She wished Ms. Shepard would hurry up and return so that she could stop thinking this way.
She picked up her pencil again and held it so tightly her knuckles paled. Grabbing her test paper, she read through the first few questions once more, willing her brain to come up with the right answers.
But that was hopeless. Carole didn’t know the answers. She counted up the number of questions she had answered and did some quick mental calculations. The answer made her cringe. Even in the unlikely event that she received full credit for every response she had come up with so far, she would still fall at least fifteen points short of any kind of passing grade.
Her heart started to pound even before she was consciously aware of what she was about to do. After a quick glance at the open classroom door, she leaned over and grabbed the textbook out of her bag. Her heart in her throat, she quickly flipped it open to the section covered by the test.
It was almost too easy. The answers she needed seemed to leap out at her from the text, begging to be used. Carole started scribbling frantically, keeping one ear tuned to the doorway. By the time she heard the faint click, click of Ms. Shepard’s high heels drifting down the hall, she had found most of the answers she needed.
She closed the book and stuffed it back in her bag, shoving the whole thing out of sight beneath her chair seconds before her smiling teacher reentered the room. Fearing that her face would give away what she had done, she bent over her paper, writing busily.
“I’m back, Carole,” Ms. Shepard announced cheerfully. “How’s it going?”
Carole kept her eyes on her paper. “Fine,” she said, doing her best to sound normal. “Um, I think I’m almost finished.”
“Good, good.” The teacher turned away and busied herself at her desk, humming under her breath.
Carole took a few deep breaths of her own. She had to get a grip. If Ms. Shepard guessed what she had done … But she wouldn’t guess. Carole would make sure of that. She let a few more minutes pass, then got up and turned in her paper. Ms. Shepard looked pleased as she glanced over the first few questions.
Carole grabbed her backpack and scurried out of the room. Her heart rate had almost returned to normal, but she still couldn’t believe what she had just done. Still, she hadn’t had any choice, had she? If she hadn’t looked up those answers, she never could have passed. She would have been banned from Pine Hollow, where so many people and horses were counting on her. How could she have left Ben and Red and Denise and the rest of the staff with extra work in her absence? How could she take care of Starlight properly if she couldn’t even ride him? Most importantly, how could she ever have forgiven herself for abandoning Samson at such a critical point in his training? She was starting to suspect that Max might consider entering the big black horse in the prestigious Colesford Horse Show, and she couldn’t bear the thought that his chances could be ruined by one stupid test.
She still felt queasy as she stepped outside. Pausing on the school steps, she took a long, deep breath of the warm early-October air. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she detected a hint of coolness in the mild breeze that tousled her hair as she stood there. It was starting to feel like autumn, a season that always reminded her of pleasant things—the sound of hooves on crisp fallen leaves, snuggling down in scratchy straw during hayrides, the warm smell of a healthy horse in a cozy stall.
She had done what she had to do. There was no point in dwelling on it any longer. With that, Carole put the whole incident out of her mind and hurried toward the student parking lot. She had promised Emily she would pick her up at Pine Hollow on her way to Phil’s house. If she hurried, she could swing by Samson’s stall for a few minutes before they had to leave.
TWELVE
Stevie hurried up the walkway toward the Marstens’ front door. Scott and Alex were right behind her.
“I hope he’s not here yet,” Stevie muttered, gazing anxiously at the old stone house as she approached. She glanced back at the two guys. “I never knew you drove like such a senior citizen, Scott. I thought we’d never get here.”
Alex snorted, and Scott smiled uncertainly. “Don’t worry, Stevie,” he said. “It’s not like a surprise party. It doesn’t really matter if everyone beats A.J. here. After all, Callie’s definitely going to be late.” He glanced at his watch. “She and Dad and Sheila must be about halfway to the airport by now.”
Stevie didn’t bother to respond. The three of them had reached the door, and she reached up and rapped sharply with the horseshoe-shaped brass knocker.
Phil opened the door almost immediately. A.J.’s ex-girlfriend, Julianna, a petite redhead who went to Cross County High School with Phil and A.J., was standing just behind him, her face pale.
“Bad news,” Phil said dejectedly. “He’s not coming.”
Stevie gasped. “What? What happened?”
Phil stood aside and gestured wearily for them to enter. Once they were all inside, he closed the door with a thud and led them toward the living room. “He told me in last period today,” he explained, flopping down into his favorite easy chair. “Said he has a dentist’s appointment he forgot about.”
“He’s probably lying,” Julianna put in, her voice angry. “He probably just decided he didn’t want to see anyone, so he made up that story.”
Stevie glanced at her. For a moment, in her disappointment over Phil’s news, she had almost forgotten that the other girl was present. Julianna was the kind of girl Stevie would never have bothered to get to know if she hadn’t been A.J.’s girlfriend. In fact, Stevie had never quite understood what A.J. saw in her. To give credit where credit was due, Stevie would have admitted that Julianna was lively and easy to talk to, with enough sense to laugh when something was funny. And there was no denying that s
he was pretty, with all the qualities that made teenage boys drool. Stevie didn’t really mind having Julianna around, but she didn’t especially enjoy her company, either. There was something a little too careless, a bit shallow even, in her personality that had kept Stevie and most of A.J.’s other friends from warming up to her.
Still, Stevie had developed a greater appreciation for Julianna once she’d realized that she really cared about A.J. and was hurt by the breakup. She gave her a sympathetic glance before perching on the arm of Phil’s chair. “So what do we do now?”
Scott shrugged. “What can we do? We can’t go chain him up and drag him over here.”
“Are you sure about that?” Stevie asked, only half joking.
The sound of the knocker interrupted the conversation. Phil hurried toward the door and returned a moment later with Carole and Emily.
“Did you hear?” Stevie asked them gloomily.
Emily nodded. “Bummer,” she said, lowering herself carefully onto the couch and resting her arms on her crutches. “So what now?”
Stevie glanced around at each of the six other people in the room. She didn’t have an answer, and from the looks of things, neither did anyone else. Phil had sunk back into his chair, his face set and grim. Scott was staring out the window, his brow deeply furrowed. Alex and Emily looked worried and thoughtful. Carole was chewing on her lower lip, her eyes distant. Julianna was clearly on the verge of tears, wavering somewhere between frustration and sadness.
Before long, the sound of the knocker came again. “That must be Lisa,” Stevie said.
“I’ll get it,” Scott volunteered, already moving toward the door.
Stevie glanced up when Lisa entered the room. She could tell by the look on her face that Scott had filled her in.
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