Lisa (5 page)

We didn’t bother to tell her the truth. Instead, we went out for pizza and ice cream. And that’s how the day that started out looking like one of the worst of my life turned out just fine in the end!

Still, I don’t ever want to go through a week like that again. We were just lucky that Mrs. Reg’s pin wasn’t really lost after all. It easily could have been. The next time I borrow someone’s valuable piece of jewelry, I’ll make sure I don’t let it out of my grasp, no
matter how many cats or mice or horses or elephants run through the room! If it hadn’t been for that one mistake, we wouldn’t have thought the pin was lost. And we wouldn’t have been trying so hard to impress Max and Mrs. Reg that we ended up making a lot of assumptions and bad guesses that led to big misunderstandings.

Speaking of misunderstandings, I just remembered that I pasted in that letter from my brother a couple of days ago. I was so busy when it came that I hardly had time to skim it, but I just went back and looked at it. It made me feel kind of strange, actually. Almost sad, in a way. I mean, my brother has been living far away for so long—first he went away to college in Chicago, then he transferred to that university in England. And every summer he seems to have some kind of job or something to do that keeps him away from home, whether it’s being a camp counselor or, now, traveling around Europe. In a weird way, I’ve almost started to feel as though I don’t have a brother anymore at all. It’s almost like all the years when Peter and I both lived here were just a dream, or something that happened to someone else. But that doesn’t make much sense, because I still love him a lot, and I still miss him like crazy at weird times, like whenever I eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich (his favorite). It’s hard to believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen him or even heard his voice.

When we were younger, I thought he was the greatest thing—I used to follow him around every chance I could. I even used to beg to wear his old clothes! I know Stevie is always complaining about her three brothers, and maybe it’s different when you’re close in age like they are. But when I was eight or nine and Peter was sixteen or seventeen, I just couldn’t spend enough time with him. He didn’t seem to mind, either. He did lots of neat stuff with me, like playing detectives, baking a six-layer cake for Mom’s birthday, or helping me build a scale-model Egyptian pyramid for my third-grade school project. He even taught me how to drive a car right after he got his license, and a couple of times he let me steer in the parking lot at the mall—not that I would
ever
tell Mom and Dad about that!

In any case, I’m starting to wonder if he really does still think of me as the little girl I was then, tagging along after him and impressed by everything he did. I mean, we haven’t really had much of a one-on-one relationship for the past few years. He sends cards on my birthday and stuff like that, but usually I’m just included in his general phone calls and letters to the whole family. I mean, I never knew he was interested in writing, even though I am too. It’s almost like we don’t know each other at all these days. For all I know he might not like peanut butter and banana sandwiches anymore.

Anyway, I’m not sure how to respond to his letter.

He’s probably not really expecting me to write back. I could just ask Mom if I can add a note at the end of her next letter.

But every time I think of doing that, I remember the look on Peter’s face when he first showed me how to shift the car out of neutral. “Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” he told me with a wink. “It’s a secret brother-sister thing.”

I can’t help thinking this letter should be strictly a brother-sister thing, too. Maybe it’s a chance for us to get to know each other again.

Now, just one question remains: What should I write about? It’s obvious that he doesn’t realize how important horses are to me. Maybe I should start by telling him about some of the stuff that happened last week at Pine Hollow—all the work we did (though I think I’ll skip the part about Mr. French). That should give him an idea of what the new, improved, grown-up me is like. And the best part is, I won’t have a bit of trouble remembering everything that happened, since I’ve already written it all down here.

See? This diary is coming in handy already!

FROM:
           HorseGal

TO:
                LAtwood

TO:
                Steviethegreat

SUBJECT:
      What a week!

MESSAGE:

Hi, guys! Now that I’ve finally had a chance to catch up on my sleep and rest my weary bones for a few days, I’ve been thinking about everything that happened last week. If you think about it, there really is a bright side to it all. I know we spent an awful lot of time worrying and feeling stupid (I’m sure I won’t be able to watch a basketball game without blushing for at least a year!), but we also did a lot of good work. I’m not just talking about the obvious stuff, like painting the stable. We also got a lot of extra practice taking care of horses. Since Max always says we’re learning anytime we’re doing anything to take care of horses, I think we must have skipped forward at least a whole grade or two in horse school. Right?

FROM:
           Steviethegreat

TO:
                HorseGal

TO:
                LAtwood

SUBJECT:
      What a week! (2)

MESSAGE:

Okay, Carole, I totally shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve decided to look on the horsey side of all this. As for me, I’m also choosing to look on the bright side. Sure, we made fools of ourselves a couple of times, and we lost a little sleep. But it all turned out better than fine in the end, and do you know why? Because we’re The Saddle Club, that’s why. And when we put our minds to it, we can do ANYTHING!!!!:-)

Dear Diary
,

I can’t believe it’s October already and I haven’t written! So much for my vow about writing every week … I’ll have to do better if I want to make this diary as good as the ones in that article. I guess my excuses for not writing are pretty lame, but after all the writing I did after the busy, busy week when we thought Mrs. Reg’s pin was lost, I spent the next couple of weeks working on my letter to Peter. I had some trouble getting started, since I was worried about sounding too babyish or dorky. Also, it seemed kind of hard to explain everything that happened when Peter’s never even met Stevie or Carole, or Mrs. Reg or Max, or Diablo or Prancer … I mean, airmail is kind of expensive, and I didn’t want my letter to end up being longer than one of Peter’s college textbooks. So finally I just went ahead and wrote down what happened and then sent it off before I could change my mind. That was almost two months ago, and I
haven’t heard back from him. I’m not that surprised, really—I sent it to his college housing in London, and he probably didn’t even get back there until a few weeks ago. And if he’s half as busy with the new school year as I’ve been, well, let’s just say I bet neither of us has had time to write to anyone!

First of all, it was back-to-school shopping time—with Mom in charge, that starts around the beginning of August. Then, of course, school started and I was busy getting settled, organizing my notebooks and supplies, making covers for my textbooks, and doing homework. I always like to put some extra time into my homework at the very beginning of the year. If you get started right, everything afterward is easier. Besides, teachers really notice the extra effort in those first few weeks and they usually remember it all year long.

But I’m planning to get back on track with my diary now. My creative writing teacher, Ms. Shields, says that when it comes to writing, the best practice is more practice. She says that along with reading a lot, the best thing to do if you want to improve your creative writing is to write as much as you can, any way you can think of. She told us that even a grocery list can be thought of as creative writing.

I don’t know about that. When I think of creative writing, I think of stuff like short stories and poems, not “milk, bread, tomatoes.” But I really like Ms. Shields—her class is a lot of fun. So I’ll have to wait
and see what she means when she says she expects us to get very creative with our assignments this year. The first assignment was to write a short story, but she sort of hinted that we’ll be doing all sorts of other things later.

Anyway, aside from creative writing class, school is pretty much the same as last year. I have Mr. Ramirez for math, Ms. McCormick for science, Mr. Mathios for history. Nothing too exciting there. Not much has changed at good old Willow Creek Middle School, or at Pine Hollow for that matter. Just about the best news there is that Prancer’s leg is still improving. Max says he’ll probably let people start riding her in a month or two if Judy Barker, the vet, says it’s okay. I can’t wait—Prancer is such a wonderful, lovable horse (with kids, at least—she’s still skittish around most adults) that I’m sure she’ll love being ridden again. The more I get to know her, the more I love her, and I know Carole and Stevie feel the same way.

Aside from that, as I said, not much new is happening. We’ve started a new season of riding lessons and Pony Club, of course, but most people have been so busy with school and everything that we haven’t been doing anything too interesting. (I hope Max never reads this, or he’ll have me mucking out stalls for hours! Ha ha!)

FROM:
           Steviethegreat

TO:
                LAtwood

TO:
                HorseGal

SUBJECT:
      The night when Evil is released and the Dead walk upon the Earth (a.k.a. Halloween)

MESSAGE:

Hi, girls! I just wanted to remind you that the most wonderful holiday of the year is coming up in a couple of short weeks, and we haven’t even talked about it yet. I’ve been thinking about costumes, and it occurred to me that the three of us should try to do some kind of three-way costume. I just had the idea, but I can already hear Carole saying it should be something horse-related. So how about the Headless Horseman? It would be kind of complicated to build, but I bet it would look fantastic. Carole could be the front of the horse; Lisa, you could be the rear end plus work the body in the saddle. I’m sure Max would let us borrow a real one, by the way (saddle, not body), and we could build the body out of straw, like a scarecrow, and dress it in one of my dad’s suits. As for the horse costume, I think I could talk Miss Fenton into lending us the one from last year’s senior class play. Oh, by the way, in case you’re wondering where I would fit into all this, I was thinking I would be dressed as a giant severed head. (You know, the one that
the Headless Horseman is missing.) I could sort of pop out from behind the horse and scare people. Wouldn’t that be cool?

If you don’t like that idea, here’s another one: a jump. You know, like in a horse show. Carole, you and I could be the two ends. We could dress all in white, or maybe red-and-white stripes, with a sort of wooden hat thing that would square off our heads. Naturally, we’d have to paint our faces to match. And on our hands, we could make some kind of mittens or something that would look like cups. Lisa, since you’re the lightest, I thought you could be the middle part of the fence. One of us would hold your feet and the other would hold your head, and you would stretch across the middle. I haven’t really decided what kind of jump we should be, exactly—maybe a brush fence, with Lisa all covered in branches. Or just a plain post-and-rail … The possibilities are endless!