Horse Sense (9 page)

Lisa decided it was time for formalities. “I’d like to propose a new member for The Saddle Club,” she said. Dolly’s ears perked up. She lifted her head from her paws and looked at Lisa. “I’d like to propose that we admit Estelle Duval.” Dolly put her head back down on her paws. “Is there any discussion?” Dolly blinked her eyes. “Shall we vote?” Lisa asked. “All in favor say ‘aye.’ ” She waited a few seconds and then voted in favor of Estelle’s admission to The Saddle Club. “All opposed?” There was no opposition. “Well, then, it’s settled,” Lisa told Dolly. “We now have four members in The Saddle Club.”

She took out the four small pins she’d bought that afternoon and laid them in a line on her bed. She loved the regal horse head with his mane swept back by the wind. She’d be proud to wear her pin, symbol of both her friendship and her love of horses. She picked
up the first pin and stepped over to her mirror. Carefully, she unlocked the clasp and slid the pin through the fabric of her blouse. There was a little fingerprint on the horse’s head. She took a tissue and wiped the pin until it gleamed.

“Lisa, phone for you,” her mother called up the stairs.

Lisa opened her door. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Stevie.”

“Tell her I’m busy,” Lisa said, and when her mother looked a little bit shocked, she added, “Please.”

“Sure, hon,” Mrs. Atwood agreed. “I’ll tell her.”

A few minutes later, there was a call from Carole. Lisa didn’t speak to her either. She just wasn’t in the mood to hear their excuses.

There was also a little corner of her that knew she wasn’t quite ready to tell her friends about the things that had gone on at the Club meetings they’d missed.

They’d find out in time—and it would serve them right for not paying any attention to anything she was doing.

S
TEVIE HUNG UP
the phone in a fury. Trying to talk the Zieglers into letting her borrow their Laser Tag had been a lousy idea. Absolutely nothing was working out. Well, that wasn’t quite true, she reminded herself. After all, right after Judy had arrived to examine Nickel, Stevie had found the missing chunk of rubber from the baton. It had landed in the peat and straw on the floor of his stall. It had never gotten anywhere near
his stomach. Nickel got a clean bill of health from Judy, and Stevie got a well-deserved lecture about horse care from Max.

What really made her angry, though, was that she’d spent more than a week trying to create new and interesting games and races for the gymkhana and she’d gotten nowhere at all. It certainly wasn’t her fault, though. She’d done everything she could and nothing had worked. Now Max was angry with her, Mrs. Reg was worried that they wouldn’t have any games for the young riders, Carole was too busy with Delilah to talk to her, and Lisa spent all her time with Estelle Duval. She wasn’t getting help from anybody. Even her very own twin brother, Alex, had refused to help her with the Laser Tag game.

The crowning glory had come that evening at the dinner table when she’d told her family how much trouble she was having with the games. She was admitting nearly total defeat by announcing it at dinner.

“I’ve got an idea for a neat relay race,” her father had said. “I’m pretty sure you can do it on horseback.”

“What is it, Dad?” she’d asked excitedly.

“Well, it’s kind of a spoon race, but, you know, carrying eggs?”

Why in the world couldn’t anybody suggest something that didn’t have to do with eggs?

C
AROLE SLID WEARILY
into the overstuffed chair in the living room, where her father sat polishing his shoes. Next in line was the brass.

“Inspection tomorrow, huh?” Carole asked.

“Yes, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the colonel’s leather and brass have to be brighter and shinier than the troops’.”

“Let me do the shoes, Dad. I get so much experience at the stable with saddles and bridles that I can always make leather shine. Besides, you’ll never get a shine unless it’s really clean. Don’t you have any saddle soap?”

“At my age—and with eighteen years in the Marine Corps—I’m getting polishing lessons from a twelve-year-old?” He laughed. “You’re welcome to them.” He handed Carole his shoes and belt.

Carole brought a tin of saddle soap into the living room from her room, took her father’s shoes, and began cleaning them thoroughly.

“What’s got you so droopy these days, hon? I thought you were excited about that mare. Isn’t she going to foal any day now?”

“That’s what Judy says. But it’s so much work, Dad. You know Delilah has to have a special bran mash, and it’s a real nuisance to make. I had to make three batches tonight before I got it right. Then I had to wait for it to cool before I could give it to her. Imagine, cooking for a horse! I thought it would take me just ten minutes, but it took me hours. It’s not that I don’t care about Delilah, I do. Really. But it’s a
lot
of work.”

“Don’t your friends help you with that kind of thing?”

“I sort of expected that they would, but they’re so busy with their own things …”

The colonel applied a small smear of brass polish to his belt buckle and began rubbing vigorously. “Sounds to me like you’re too busy to help them with their projects, too, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Carole admitted. “Do you know that I have to clean Delilah’s stable twice as often now that she’s almost due? Judy says it’s terribly dangerous to have a foal born in an unsanitary stall. And with all the hay she’s eating these days—”

“Spare me the details,” her father said, laughing. Carole grinned. She’d finished cleaning the first shoe. She picked up the second. “Oh, wait’ll I tell you what General Morris’s aide did today,” the colonel said, chatting about his day. Carole listened, applying polish to the shoes and buffing hard until each had a deep shine.

Carole displayed the gleaming shoes proudly when he’d finished talking. “See how shiny you can get them when you use saddle soap before you polish them?”

“Hey, that’s great,” her father said, admiring the shine on his shoes. “So we’ve gotten some benefit from your horseback riding after all. Very good. And look at me. I’m all done with my brass, too. Work always goes faster and better when two people do it at once. At least, that’s what I think.”

“You know, I think you’re right,” Carole mused. Then the truth finally occurred to her. “And I think it
goes even faster and better when
three
people do it at once.”

“Interesting idea,” her father said. “I’ve got to hit the rack now. Inspection’s very early.”

“Me too. Judy’s coming to check Delilah early tomorrow, so even though it’s Saturday, you can still drop me off at Pine Hollow.”

“Good night, Carole.”

“Night, Dad,” she said, giving him the great big hug he deserved. “You’re the greatest.”

F
IRST THING
M
ONDAY
morning, Carole wanted to talk to Stevie and Lisa. The talk she’d had with her father had made her understand a lot of things—first and foremost that she and her friends really needed one another. She got to the stable especially early to allow extra time, but she’d forgotten that Stevie and Lisa couldn’t have known she wanted to see them. She was just pulling on her second boot when Judy’s truck drove up in front of the stable. She waved at the vet through the dirty window and met her in Delilah’s stall. She’d talk to her friends later, she decided.

Stevie dashed into the locker area a half hour before class started. She needed every spare moment these days. She finished dressing in a matter of minutes,
then started looking for some gear for the gymkhana in the tack box outside Mrs. Reg’s office.

When Lisa arrived at the stable fifteen minutes before class, she wasn’t surprised to see both of her friends totally occupied. As usual, Carole was with Judy in Delilah’s stall. Stevie was shuffling through boxes of stuff in the tack room. It wasn’t clear what she wanted, but it was clear she wasn’t finding it. Lisa left her alone.

Once she’d donned her riding clothes, Lisa sat on the fence in front of the stable, waiting for The Saddle Club’s newest member. Estelle usually arrived at the last minute, so Lisa wasn’t going to have much time. What she had to say would only take a moment, but it should be fun. It was always nice to share good news.

Lisa was wearing her own Saddle Club pin. She knew it was just a pin, although in her opinion, it was a very pretty pin. What was important to her—even more important than the pin itself—was what the pin represented. It told her, and the people who mattered to her, that she cared deeply about horses—that she loved them and could ride them and that, after her friends, horses were about the most important thing in the world to her. She was sure the sun gleaming off the shiny surface of her horse-head pin made it even more beautiful.

Just then, Estelle’s chauffered Citroën pulled into the drive. The rear door opened slowly and Estelle emerged sedately. That was an interesting thing about Estelle, Lisa thought as she waited for her. There were
only about three minutes until class. If
she
were that late, she’d be running at full speed. Estelle, however, never seemed to be in a hurry. As a result, Max was forever speaking to her about keeping other people (especially him) waiting. That didn’t speed her up, though.

“Hi, Estelle,” Lisa said brightly, falling in step with the French girl.

“Oh, good morning, Lisa,” she replied, walking toward the stable.

“I’ve got some good news for you,” Lisa said, hoping she sounded as cool and sophisticated as Estelle always did.

“Yes?”

“It’s about The Saddle Club,” Lisa said. “There was a meeting Friday night and you were voted in.”

“Voted in?” Estelle repeated. “What does this mean?”

“It means you’re now a member of The Saddle Club,” Lisa told her, grinning proudly. “And as a member, you’re entitled to wear our pin.”

“Oh?”

Lisa was pleased by Estelle’s obvious interest and she handed Estelle her pin. It was wrapped in tissue so it wouldn’t get any fingerprints on it.

Estelle carefully unwrapped the tissue and then held the pin in her hand for a moment. “It’s a horse head,” she said flatly.

“Yes, and isn’t it pretty? See how nice and shiny it is? We can all wear our pins on our jackets and that
can show other riders that we’re all friends. Here, I’ll help you pin it on,” Lisa offered.

“Thanks, but I can put it on myself,” Estelle said. “I’ll do it later. I’m late now.” For once, Estelle seemed to be in a hurry. She shoved the pin in her pocket, letting the tissue fall onto the ground. “See you in class,” she told Lisa, turning to the stable.

Lisa was too stunned to move. Could she be mistaken? Lisa was trying to share one of the most important things in her life with her new friend, and unless she was totally off her mark, Estelle wasn’t in the least bit excited, either about the Club
or
about the beautiful pin. How could that be?

It just wasn’t possible, Lisa decided. Estelle really
was
in a hurry. She’d probably have her pin on in time for class.

Once Lisa had given Estelle the pin, she felt very relieved. The deed was done. If Stevie and Carole didn’t like it, that was their problem. They should have come to the meetings.

M
AX WAS IN
an especially strict mood that day. He had all of his students working harder than ever before. There was no fooling around at all, all day long.

“Boy, if he tells me to keep my heels down one more time, I’m going to scream,” Lisa confided to Carole during the chore period. Lisa had hoped to be assigned to do something with Estelle so they could talk about the Club some more, but Estelle and Veronica were tending to the horses in the paddocks. As it turned
out, Lisa, Carole, and Stevie were all assigned to cleaning tack.

“He’s got a thing about heels today, that’s for sure,” Carole agreed, “and toes. I found myself forcing mine inward every time he was facing me!”

“
That
must be why I heard him tell you not to stick your heels out!”

“Just my luck,” Carole said. “I hope he’ll go a little easier during jump class.”

“You always do well then, don’t you?”

“Not always,” Carole said.

“I wish you could be in jump class too, Lisa,” Stevie said.

“Me too. I like riding on the trail, but the only students there are the babies, except for me and Estelle.” Carole and Stevie exchanged glances. “Red is so worried that somebody’s going to get hurt that he’ll barely let us trot. You’d think he’d let us do something more daring, like cantering, more often,” Lisa said.

“Well, you certainly can,” Stevie began. “I don’t know about Estelle, though. She seems pretty green to me.”

“Oh, no,” Lisa said. “She’s been riding for years—since she was five.”

“She has?”

“Yes, and she has her own horse and her family has this country home with a stable near Paris where they go on weekends. They’re all just as horse crazy as we are. But they do things differently in France, that’s all.
She has to get used to the American way of doing things.”

“Girls,” Mrs. Reg called from her office. “Not so much gabbing, please. There’s a lot of work to be done today. All of the dressage saddles are positively dingy and we’ll need them for the upcoming show. Now, see if you can finish those before your next class.”