Horse Wise (2 page)

Veronica stood squarely in Carole’s path, hands on her hips. She made it impossible for Carole to evade either her or her question.

Carole put her hands on her own hips, stared Veronica
straight in the eyes, and spoke. “Your lipstick is smeared.”

Involuntarily, Veronica’s hand went to her mouth, and in that instant Veronica lost the standoff. She ducked and slithered past Carole, heading, no doubt, for a mirror. Carole continued on her way to Pepper’s stall.

“Nice work!” Stevie called after her.

“Piece of cake,” Carole acknowledged breezily. Then she walked into Pepper’s stall. There was a lot she wanted to tell Lisa about untacking.

A
S IT TURNED
out, by the time the girls got to TD’s, there was a lot more than a science project to talk about. They had to consider the meaning of what they’d already come to think of as The Letter. Within a minute and a half of their arrival, they’d ordered their sundaes and solved the problem of Stevie’s science project.

“Of course I’ll help you,” Lisa said. “Now let’s get to the other thing.”

“So what do you think this is about?” Stevie said, holding The Letter in her hand. It was a note Max had given to every young rider as she or he had left Pine Hollow after class, announcing a meeting for all riders and their parents the following Tuesday.

“I hope there isn’t going to be some horrible change at Pine Hollow,” Stevie said.

Lisa looked upset. “Oh, I hope not,” she said. “I like Pine Hollow just the way it is. I don’t want Max to change anything.”

“It might be something really great,” Carole said. She was always optimistic when it came to riding.

“What could be great that has to do with our parents?” Stevie asked. That was a good question.

“Maybe it’s something simple, like a new schedule,” Lisa suggested.

“We wouldn’t have to have a meeting for that,” Stevie told her. “But we would
have
to have a meeting if something drastic was about to happen.”

“What do you mean by drastic?” Carole asked.

“Oh, you know, like Max moving to Alaska, or going into the insurance business, or like he’s decided not to teach young riders anymore. Things like that.”

“That’s not just drastic, that’s
drastic,
” Carole said.

The girls sat glumly, pondering all the awful possibilities.

“Who’s got the peanut-butter crunch with blueberry sauce?” the waitress asked. Carole and Lisa pointed to Stevie. She was always ordering the most outrageous combinations. When people suggested she did it to keep others from nibbling at her sundae, she flatly denied it. But it was a fact that no one ever asked for a taste of her sundaes. Even the waitress made a face as she put the order in front of Stevie. She gave Carole and Lisa their orders and the girls began eating their ice cream in gloomy silence. Just when they thought
things couldn’t get any gloomier, Veronica diAngelo and her friends arrived at TD’s. Veronica sauntered over to their table.

“Well, hello,” she cooed sweetly. “You three together again? It seems like you’re always together. Is this some sort of club or something?”

Stevie gave her a withering look. It didn’t have any effect. Subtlety was lost on Veronica.

“What do you want?” Carole asked her, hoping a more direct approach would get her to go away.

“Oh, I thought you’d want to know my good news,” Veronica said.

“I’m positively dripping with curiosity,” Stevie drawled sarcastically.

“Well, you can switch your curiosity to envy because on Monday, my new horse is arriving.”

Carole couldn’t help it. The envy overwhelmed her. It was all she could do to keep from showing her feelings. “That’s nice,” she said with the utmost control. “What kind of horse is it?”

“It’s an Arabian. She’s a dark chestnut mare and I’m going to call her Garnet. I’m sure you’ll all have lots of fun watching me ride her.” With those words, Veronica tilted her chin up in her I’m-bettter-than-you—in-fact-I’m-better-than-everybody way and walked off, followed by her cadre of admirers.

“And I’m sure we’ll enjoy watching you
not
take care of your horse, too,” Stevie hissed at the departing girl.

“This is horrible!” Lisa said. “She rode her last horse
carelessly and he got killed because of it. How can she be getting another?”

“Easy,” Stevie said. “All she has to do is to ask Daddy!”

Carole grabbed her spoon and dug into her sundae, trying to hide her hurt and anger. She thought about Veronica’s earlier horse, a Thoroughbred stallion named Cobalt. Carole had loved and cared for him more than Veronica had. She’d ridden him better, too. He’d been a beautiful and expensive horse, but he wasn’t suitable for Veronica at all, and that had cost him his life. The only good thing that had come out of Cobalt’s life with Veronica was his foal—a coal-black colt named Samson who belonged to Max.

“Remember after Cobalt died, Veronica decided she wasn’t ready for another horse—actually had to stop her father from buying one for her?”

Stevie and Lisa nodded.

“Well, she’s still not ready!”

“Do you think The Letter could have anything to do with Veronica’s horse?” Lisa asked.

“I hope not,” Carole said. “We’ll all be better off if we can ignore this whole thing. So, let’s think some more about The Letter. Any other ideas?”

“Yeah—how about Max has sold Pine Hollow to some developers who are going to make a shopping mall,” Stevie suggested.

“You’re going from bad to worse,” Carole said.

“Well, now, wait a minute,” Lisa said. “Do you think the mall would have a Gap?”

Carole’s jaw dropped.

“I was joking—I was joking!” Lisa said hastily.

Carole liked a joke as well as the next person, but she couldn’t find any humor in the idea that something awful was about to happen to Pine Hollow.

“You know, I just remembered something,” Lisa said. “When Max handed me The Letter, he had this kind of funny grin on his face. Whatever it is, I think he’s happy about it. Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe it’s really good news. Remember the time we thought the stable was in trouble?”

“Boy, were we ever wrong!” Stevie grinned at the memory. “We did get a lot of new riders for Max, though, didn’t we? Hey, maybe Max has decided to have more riding classes,” she added thoughtfully.

“Or maybe more horses!” Carole suggested, brightening.

“Or maybe he’s decided to expel Veronica!” Stevie said mischievously.

“Now, that would be more than good news,” Carole said. “That would be—” She tried to think how to describe it. “Christmas and birthday all rolled into one!”

“Y
ES, OF COURSE
we’ll be there, dear,” Mrs. Atwood told Lisa at dinner that evening. “The library committee can do without me for one meeting.”

“You
will
?” Lisa said, sounding more surprised than she thought she ought to sound. “I mean, this is some sort of meeting Max wants us to be at. It has to do with riding,” she added, just to be sure her parents understood. After all, they had never been very enthusiastic about her horseback riding. She couldn’t think of a reason why that could be changing so suddenly. “Horses, I mean,” she said, to further emphasize her point.

“Is there any other kind of riding?” Her father smiled.

Lisa thought maybe she’d done some unnecessary explaining. “No—it’s just that, well, you sort of surprised
me. I mean, usually you aren’t so—oh, I don’t know.”

“We’ll be there, Lisa,” her father said. “Seven-thirty on Tuesday.” Her parents exchanged glances.

Lisa began eating her salad. Something was up. She had a perfectly nice set of parents who were usually very predictable. Their eagerness to come to Max’s meeting puzzled her.

“I saw Veronica diAngelo’s mother the other day,” Mrs. Atwood said. “Did you know Veronica is getting a new horse?”

“I heard,” Lisa said.

“She told me how wonderful it will be for Veronica to have a horse of her own. You know, owning and caring for a pet like that can be so good for somebody like Veronica …”

“To say nothing of the horse,” Lisa said sarcastically.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Atwood agreed, oblivious to her daughter’s tone.

Something was definitely up.

T
HINGS WEREN
’
T AS
quiet or as mysterious down the street at Stevie’s house.

“Pass the biscuits,” her older brother, Chad, said.

“You’ve already had three,” Stevie’s twin brother, Alex, argued, reaching across Stevie to grab the biscuits for himself.

“There’s a meeting,” Stevie began.

“No, I want the meat first,” Chad interrupted.

“What’s the meeting?” Mrs. Lake asked.

“At Pine Hollow,” Stevie began again. “It’s on—”

“Oh, here we go with good old Pine Hollow,” Alex teased.

“Sounds like Marsh Mallow to me,” Chad added. “Hey—do you think that’s Stevie’s favorite food because it reminds her of horses?”

“No, I thought she liked to take pills because they remind her of her boyfriend, Phil!” her little brother, Michael, piped in.

Stevie sighed, but she didn’t let it show. Phil Marston was her boyfriend from riding camp. He lived about ten miles away and she didn’t see him often. She did, however, hear about him a lot from her brothers! It wasn’t easy living with three brothers. It was made harder by the fact that she was the only one in her family who cared about horses and horseback riding. Chad had tried it once, but it wasn’t because he liked horses. It was because he’d had a crush on Lisa and wanted to get her attention. Now, all three of her brothers seemed to be ganging up on her to keep her from telling her parents about the meeting. As far as Stevie was concerned, that was just the inspiration she needed to persist.

Stevie raised her voice a notch. “I said, there is going to be a meeting next Tuesday at Pine Hollow, after riding class.”

“You can go as long as your homework is done,” her mother said.

“If that includes her book report on
Silas Marner
from last spring, she’ll never make it!”

“Shut up,” Stevie said. Only a creep like her twin brother would remind her parents about that book report at a time like this. “I know
I
can go to the meeting. What about you, Mom?”

“Me?” her mother asked, taking the bowl of potatoes out of Chad’s hands before he could empty the entire dish onto his plate. “Am I supposed to go?”

“And Dad,” Stevie said, looking at her father, who was studying the pattern Michael had made with his squash. Michael often tried to make his food look as though he’d at least tasted it by spreading it around his plate so he wouldn’t have to eat any more of it.

“Tuesday, dear, can you make it?” Mrs. Lake asked Stevie’s father.

“That’s my soccer game,” Chad said before his father could answer the question.

“You weren’t invited,” Stevie said.

“Yeah, but Mom and Dad were invited to the game.”

“To watch you warm the bench?” Stevie asked.

“I scored two points last game!”

“Yeah, for which team?” Alex snorted.

“So, I kicked it the wrong way, so? You want to make a federal case out of it?”

There was a second of stunned silence at the table. Then everybody burst into laughter—including Chad, though he had the good grace to blush as well.

“Who are you playing against this time?” Michael asked.

“Same team,” Chad said. “Coach said they begged us for a rematch!”

“I’m not surprised,” Mr. Lake said.

“Next Tuesday?” Mrs. Lake asked. Stevie nodded. “We’ll be there.”

Stevie felt a rush of relief. Things had to be much easier for only children.

“N
EXT
T
UESDAY
?”

“Yes, Dad, next Tuesday,” Carole said.

She and her father, a Marine Corps colonel, were in the kitchen of their house on the outskirts of Willow Creek. It was the home the two of them had shared alone since the death of Carole’s mother when Carole was eleven. She and her father both missed her mother terribly, but were glad to have each other to share their sadnesses and their joys. In spite of a few weird habits and hobbies, Carole thought her father was probably the greatest guy in the world.

“That’s Navy-Bean Soup Night at the Officers’ Club,” he said.

Navy-bean soup was one of his weird habits.

“Dad,” Carole said with a touch of exasperation in her voice.

“Well, what’s this meeting about, hon?” Colonel Hanson asked.

“I don’t know, Dad. If I knew, I promise I would tell
you. All I have is this letter that Max gave us. It says we should be there, with our parents.”

“Well, I’m not—” He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. He swept it off the hook and spoke into it smartly. “Colonel Hanson!”

That was another one of his weird habits. He never could seem to remember that when he wasn’t in his office on the base, he didn’t have to answer the phone that way.

At first, Carole thought the call might be for her, but it was clear that the caller wanted to talk to her father. She turned her attention back to fixing dinner. They were having tacos, and Carole was in charge of making the beef filling. Her father was in charge of preparing the toppings. Carole checked the beef, which was done and staying warm in the electric frying pan. It was time to set the table.