Horse Play (13 page)

But Lisa knew that wasn’t the way it worked at all. It was Max’s job to teach them everything he could, and one of the things he’d taught his students was how to control their horses. He wasn’t going to interefere with the way they were doing their jobs. He was going to let them succeed on their own. And they
would
succeed. After all, Max had taught them.

Lisa took her riding crop and touched Pepper gently on his flank. She almost never had to use a crop on Pepper, but now she did. A small reminder was all it took. He stepped forward with determination. Stevie had obviously come to the same conclusion. Lisa could see that she was putting pressure on Comanche’s left side to move over and make room for Pepper. The horse balked briefly, and Stevie tapped
his
flank with the crop. He stepped aside. Before Comanche could change his mind, Lisa made Pepper scoot between the two horses. The audience
applauded. Lisa didn’t think they should have clapped then. The horses were just doing what they should have done in the first place.

Carole nodded. The music began again and the girls began their self-styled pinwheel.

Carole and Stevie each reached out a hand to Lisa, holding their reins in one hand. Lisa dropped both her reins, and held Carole’s and Stevie’s hands at shoulder height. When they signaled with their legs, the horses began moving. Diablo, the pivot horse in their pinwheel, turned in place. Pepper, next out on the pinwheel, moved slowly. Comanche, at the end of the pinwheel, had to move the farthest and the fastest. The girls only used their legs to guide their horses and they
never
had to let go of one another’s hands.

The audience burst into applause and the girls felt giddy with joy. It worked—it really worked! When the music stopped, Lisa just couldn’t help it. She held her hands up on either side of her and Stevie and Carole gave her high fives at the same moment.

Knowing the demonstration was over, Max stepped into the ring, clapping proudly for his students, and shook hands with each of them.

“Nice job, girls. Really nice! All your work showed. Congratulations.”

Usually a gigantic compliment from Max was “Not bad.” Lisa felt warm and happy all over. She could hardly wait until her parents saw the tape. They’d love it. She knew they would.

Carole and Diablo began to head for the stalls. There would be a little break and then Dorothy DeSoto would do her demo. Lisa sighed with relief and joy and followed Carole.

The two horses entered the stable area where the girls dismounted. Lisa patted Pepper hard to congratulate him and then hugged him around the neck. Carole was doing the same with Diablo.

“What a threesome!” Lisa declared.

“Yeah!” Carole said. “We were great. A trio that can’t be—” She paused. “Speaking of trios, though, where’s number three? What happened to Stevie?”

The two girls dashed back to the entrance to the ring just in time to watch Stevie’s surprise.

Stevie was leaning forward as she sat on Comanche. Her face was on the right side of his neck, where the audience could see it. Her hand reached toward the horse’s chin, out of sight of the audience.

“You were a naughty boy, Comanche,” Stevie said loud enough to catch the attention of the audience in the ring. There was a smattering of laughter from the audience. Something was up and they knew it. They just didn’t know what, yet.

Then, to everybody’s astonishment, the horse began “speaking.” Stevie turned her head so the audience couldn’t see her mouth moving, just Comanche’s. She dropped her voice and talked for her horse. “It was just a little horse play, Stevie,” he said.

“Are you going to start that again?” she asked.

“Sure, why not?” the “horse” retorted.

“Because you’re supposed to be crossing the ring and going back to your stall now,” she told the horse.

“Speaking of that,” he said, ignoring her suggestion, “do you know why the chicken crossed the road?”

“Yeah, to get to the other side,” Stevie said.

“Nope,” Comanche contradicted her. “To get a copy of
The New York Times
.”

“I don’t get it,” Stevie said.

“Neither do I,” Comanche told her. “I get
The Washington Post
!”

The audience began giggling. From where Lisa and Carole stood, they could see that Stevie was making the horse “talk.” The audience certainly knew he wasn’t really talking by himself, but Stevie was doing such a good job of hiding it when she was talking for him that everybody almost believed it.

“Very funny,” Stevie said.

“Say, Stevie, did you hear about the guy who dug three holes in his front yard?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Stevie.

“Well, well, well,” the horse said.

Stevie winced. “Ooh, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Splash,” he agreed.

“You know, Comanche, these people here think that a horse and his rider are a perfect pair—”

“Then they’ve never been saddled with the likes of
you
,” he retorted.

“Cute,” she told him. “I bet you expect me to bridle at that sort of remark.”

Lisa and Carole began giggling.

“I can’t believe these awful jokes!” Lisa said.

“Stevie specializes in them,” Carole said. “Hey, check out my dad! He and Stevie have the same weird sense of humor.”

Lisa looked at the audience. There was Colonel Hanson, laughing so hard he was almost crying. “He’s really loving it, Carole,” she said.

“Yeah,” Carole agreed.

“He’s loving it about ten time more than my parents would be. You know, I think I’m glad they’re not here. They wouldn’t even get most of these jokes.”

Carole put her arm around Lisa’s shoulder. “Things have a way of working out sometimes, you know.”

“I guess they do,” Lisa said. “Thanks.”

“Wanna bet?” Stevie was asking Comanche.

“Sure, I’ll bet you twenty bucks.”

“Not the kind of bucks you tried earlier,” Stevie said warily.

The audience began laughing again. Comanche turned his head around to look at his rider. She just shrugged her shoulders.

Stevie dismounted and gave Comanche a hug. Then, trying not to grin while the audience clapped, she led
him off into the stable area where her friends were waiting.

“You were wonderful!” Lisa exclaimed.

“And so was Comanche!” Carole joined in. “When did you think of doing that?”

“Oh, it was all his idea,” Stevie said vaguely, pointing to her horse. “I just thought it would be fun.”

“Well, it was. It was loads of fun,” Carole said. “And you were terrific!”

“Nice job, girls,” Max told them. He was standing next to the same woman they’d seen in his office the day they’d asked him if they could begin the drill team again. She was holding the reins of a horse they didn’t recognize. It could only be Dorothy DeSoto!

“I really enjoyed it all—even the talking horse,” Dorothy told The Saddle Club. “Max has certainly expanded his curriculum since I was one of his students!” she said, grinning.

“Actually, the girls did most of it themselves,” Max said. “Except for the jokes. Comanche learned them all from me.”

For a second, it looked as if Dorothy believed him. Then she burst into laughter.

“All right, girls, go put those horses in their stalls quickly. I don’t want you to miss Dorothy’s demonstration, so you can finish bedding them down after the show is all over.”

“We’ll hurry!” Carole promised.

“Don’t worry,” Dorothy said. “I’ll wait for you.”

The girls put their horses away and untacked them as quickly as they could. Within a few minutes, they were returning to the ring—this time as part of the audience. But there was no sneaking in. As soon as the audience saw them, they began applauding The Saddle Club Drill Team. Very pleased with themselves, the girls waved to their fans and then took seats to watch Dorothy’s performance.

The music began. Dorothy had prepared a program that had her highly trained horse going through all the important movements of dressage. The horse followed nearly invisible commands. He seemed at one moment to be skipping, at another to be walking sideways. She got her horse to turn circles with his hind legs, leaving his front ones in place, and then to do the same thing in the reverse—moving his front legs in a circle around his hind legs. He trotted slowly. He trotted quickly. She got him to do a pace, which was like a trot, except that the horse’s legs moved together on each side, so that both left legs went forward, then both right. On some horses, that was a natural gait. When it wasn’t natural, it was
very
hard to teach. Then the horse cantered, first leading with one leg, then with the other. When he changed leads, it made him appear to be almost flying.

The whole thing was absolutely astonishing and beautiful. Although the demonstration lasted about ten minutes, it seemed to be over in a flash.

When the applause had died down and the audience stood up to leave, Stevie walked back to the stable area, led by her friends, almost in a trance. “Thirty-two separate exercises! Can you believe it? She’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, but I never made a horse talk!” Dorothy teased.

“Oh, that was just a trick!” Stevie said, embarrassed that Dorothy had overheard her.

“But it was a clever one,” Dorothy said, overtaking the girls from the rear. “And, besides, Max tells me you’re showing a lot of promise in dressage, and you must know that a lot of that is just tricks, too.”

“Sure, but dressage ‘tricks,’ as you call them, are
hard
tricks,” Stevie said. “With Comanche, when you want him to talk, all you’ve got to do is to tickle him under his chin!”

“And then think of what you want him to say,” Dorothy reminded her. “It was very entertaining—and the only time I’ve ever known a riding demonstration to be funny.”

Stevie smiled. She was pleased by Dorothy’s attention, and, for once, she didn’t know what to say.

“This has been great!” Carole said, coming to Stevie’s aid. “It was neat of you to come visit us. I wish we could see you ride some more.”

“I’m sorry I can’t stay, Carole. I’d love to spend more time with you girls. But I’ve got to get back to New York now. The American Horse Show is coming up soon and I’ve got work to do before that. See, my old teacher,
Max, has high expectations of me, so I’ve got to be in top form.”

“I’m sure you’ll win all kinds of ribbons in the show,” Carole said. “You always do, don’t you?”

“I’ve been lucky,” Dorothy said, smiling. “Hard to tell how long my kind of luck runs. In the meantime, you girls keep working. You’ve got a wonderful start—and there’s no better teacher, anywhere, you know?”

“We know,” Lisa said. “We just don’t want
him
to know.”

“Know what?” Max asked, returning from the ring where he’d been greeting the stable’s guests.

“Oh, nothing, Max,” Dorothy said airily. “It’s just one of your old students comparing notes with your new ones.”

The four students, old and new, exchanged smiles.

Max knew better than to ask again. “Dorothy, I think you ought to untack your horse now,” he said.

“Chores,” Dorothy said. “Even after all these years, he’s still bossing me around!”

The girls laughed. “See, the silly season,” Stevie whispered.

“That’s just Max,” Carole said aloud.

“I wouldn’t want him to change,” Dorothy said.

“Not much,” Stevie said, wiggling her eyebrows.

Max and Dorothy turned to the task of untacking her horse and putting him back in the horse trailer.

The girls still had some work to do with their own
horses. They’d planned a Saddle Club stop at TD’s before going to Carole’s house for their sleepover. They scurriec around the stalls, untacking and grooming their horses, then rushed to get their knapsacks in the locker area. They were all anxious to get going.

There was an awful lot to talk about!

About the Author

Bonnie Bryant is the author of nearly a hundred books about horses, including the Saddle Club series, the Saddle Club Super Editions, and the Pony Tales series.