Show Horse (9 page)

With those words everything in the world faded to
gray for Lisa—everything, that was, except for herself, her horse, and the judges. She held Prancer’s reins firmly and followed the horse in front of her into the ring, to her fate, to her certain blue ribbon.

The horses and riders were asked to line up in front of the judges’ stand. Like an automaton, Lisa followed the directions. She and Prancer stood between the boy who had given his handkerchief to Carole and a girl she’d never seen before.

Lisa stood at attention, facing straight forward. She clutched Prancer’s reins, only vaguely aware that the mare kept tugging at them.

There was activity all around Lisa and Prancer, and Lisa saw almost none of it. Judges circled the horses, checking both grooming and conformation, making notes, asking questions.

“Uh-oh, here comes the judge!” the boy next to Lisa joked. She didn’t think it was funny. She stood at attention, eyes straight forward.

“Relax,” the boy said to her. “They’re looking at your horse’s conformation, not your posture.”

She really didn’t think that was funny at all. But then, though he had a nice chestnut horse, whom he called Duffy, the horse wasn’t anything special, and he didn’t have a chance at a ribbon. Maybe he was even trying to distract her so he could get a blue instead of her. No way, she thought, quickly returning her attention to her own quest for blue. Eyes forward, she gripped the reins. Her knuckles were white.

Lisa felt Prancer tug hard at the reins. She didn’t
dare turn around. She was sure that the slightest movement on her part would be an error and cost her a ribbon.

“Hi there,” the judge said to Lisa.

Lisa’s eyes flicked toward the woman. “Hello, ma’am,” Lisa said in a military response.

“Your horse seems uneasy,” the judge commented.

“She’s fine,” Lisa assured the judge.

“I don’t know about that. She keeps shifting around. She’s as nervous as you are.”

“Oh, I’m not nervous,” Lisa said. It was true. She wasn’t nervous. She was doing everything exactly the way she thought she ought to. She was going to get a blue ribbon.

“Well, I’m going to check out the mare’s conformation. Hold her steady, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lisa said. She wrapped the reins around her hand more tightly, completely forgetting how dangerous that could be if the horse took off. She could hurt her arm badly that way.

Lisa didn’t dare watch while the judge examined Prancer, but then she didn’t need to, either. She was confident that Prancer was the best, most beautiful horse in the ring. If she watched the judge do the examination, it might suggest that she wasn’t confident. She continued to look straight ahead.

If Lisa was confident, Prancer didn’t seem to be. The horse almost jumped back from the judge. That was when Lisa remembered that Prancer really liked kids and didn’t seem to like adults much. The judge
was definitely an adult, and Prancer was trying to move away from her.

Lisa didn’t see what happened next. Later people told her about it, though.

The judge ran her hand along Prancer’s flank and then down the mare’s leg. It was more than the over-excited horse could take. She bucked. She simply lifted her hind quarters off the ground and kicked back. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the judge hadn’t been crouched there, checking out her hind legs at the time. Prancer wound up kicking the judge in the rib cage.

“Yeouch!” the woman howled.

Lisa looked around then and saw that half the people were looking at the judge in concern. The other half were scowling at Lisa! Lisa’s jaw dropped in astonishment.

Another of the judges came running over to help the woman off the ground.

“Move the horse!” he said sternly to Lisa. That was when Lisa realized what had happened. Her horse, her precious Prancer, had actually knocked the judge onto the ground. The other judge was afraid she was going to do it again, too!

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said.

The man looked at her. “You’re excused,” he said.

She was surprised he accepted her apology so easily. “Can I do something?” she offered.

“You can leave the ring,” he said.

Leave the ring? Suddenly Lisa realized that “You’re
excused” didn’t mean he’d accepted her apology. It meant she was excused from the class. She’d flunked. She was out. Done. No blue. No ribbon at all. Just gone.

And if any doubt remained in her mind, what came over the public-address system cleared it up completely.

“Competitor number two seventy-three has been disqualified. Lisa Atwood, please remove your horse from the ring.”

Lisa didn’t see the looks on her friends’ faces. She didn’t hear Carole whisper, “Talk to you later,” or Stevie’s “Tough luck!” All she was aware of was her own humiliation and her own broken dream. She’d been disqualified. The horse show was over for her and for Prancer.

L
ISA
’
S FEET MARCHED
and her mind raced as she led Prancer out of the show ring. She saw only the dark interior of the stabling area ahead, and she never felt the annoyed tugging on the lead rope. The only thing in her mind was anger.

This time it wasn’t my fault, she thought. Prancer is far and away the finest horse in the ring. The only way Prancer would have bucked and kicked the judge would be if the judge provoked her.

That was it, then, Lisa was sure. It had to be the answer. She decided the judge must have somehow resented the fact that an Intermediate rider had such a fine and valuable horse and had found a way to get her out of the competition. Maybe it was because the judge had always wished
she
could have ridden a horse
like Prancer. Or maybe somebody she’d known when she was a kid did have a horse like Prancer and she was jealous. Or maybe the judge actually didn’t like young riders and wanted to be mean. Or maybe—

“I knew another young rider who had that happen once,” a voice said to Lisa. She looked up. It was Mrs. Reg. She was standing by Prancer’s stall. Lisa realized with a little surprise that she’d apparently been waiting for Lisa and Prancer there.

Lisa didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any point in it. Some days there wasn’t any point in anything at all.

Mrs. Reg didn’t seem to notice that Lisa hadn’t answered. She went on talking.

“He was a fine young rider with great potential.”

Lisa groaned inwardly. Mrs. Reg was well-known for her endless supply of stories. The stories were always about horses; they were always about something that happened a long time ago; and they always related to something that had just happened. Usually, the trick was figuring out exactly how they related to what had just happened.

Right now Lisa wasn’t interested in what Mrs. Reg had to say—unless it had to do with a judge who had it in for a rider in a show. That didn’t seem to be what this was about.

“So this young boy fell for a new horse that came to the stable—Lightning was his name, I think. The boy was bound and determined to take him out on a trail ride. Max—
my
Max, that is—” She meant, then, that
it was her husband Max, not the current Max, who was her son. “Max told the boy the horse wasn’t ready. He hadn’t finished his training. The boy said the horse had all the training he needed to go out on the trail. In a way, he was right. The horse knew what he was doing. Didn’t need the boy to tell him anything. As a result, he didn’t listen to anything the boy told him.”

Mrs. Reg stopped talking. Lisa was annoyed because the story didn’t have anything to do with a judge, but her curiosity was piqued. She couldn’t help herself. She asked the question.

“So what happened?”

Mrs. Reg looked confused, as if the story was totally self-explanatory and no question should have been asked. Then she shrugged her shoulders and continued, briefly. “Oh, the boy got out of the hospital in a week or so. He’s fine now.”

That was it. Mrs. Reg’s story was finished, and she wasn’t going to say anything more. She held the stall door for Lisa and Prancer. Once the horse was inside and Lisa was out, Mrs. Reg closed the door and fastened the latch. She walked off, muttering something about saddle soap, leaving Lisa to herself.

Lisa was by herself. In fact, she felt as alone as she could ever remember feeling. All her dreams had been shattered in one quick kick and a simple word from a judge. “Disqualified.” Now it seemed that it was going to get even worse. She couldn’t leave. Her mother and father were coming, but not until the afternoon, and she couldn’t even reach them to have them come get
her now. She had to stay. But she didn’t have to stay where anybody could see her or talk to her or try to comfort her or tell her dumb stories about riders who ended up in the hospital. She decided that she wanted to be as much by herself as she felt.

She looked around the temporary stalls and didn’t see anyplace to go. She wandered into Briarwood’s stables and found what she was looking for—a staircase. She climbed up to the stable’s loft. It was just what she wanted: empty.

It was empty of people anyway. There were only bales of hay, sweet-smelling, fresh hay. No horses, no kids, and best of all, no judges. She sat on one bale and leaned on another.

Around her and below, she could hear the horse show continuing relentlessly without her. The crowd buzzed with excited interest. Here and there horses whinnied and stomped. She could smell the rich, warm aroma of horses. But she wasn’t part of it. She was in the loft, above it all, separated, alone—very much alone.

She tried to shut out the sounds of the show beneath her, but they wouldn’t go. The amplifier for the public-address system had been mounted just outside the upper door to the loft. The loft was filled with the sound of the judges’ instructions, blaring through the microphones.

“Please walk your horses in a circle, clockwise. Now trot. Now, beginning with number eighteen, please
change directions at the half circle. Good. Thank you. Now line up again—in order. Thank you.”

It was all a blur. One second Lisa felt as though she were still down in the ring with her friends. The next second Lisa felt a million miles away. And though she was actually only a few feet from the competition, she might as well have been a million miles away.
Disqualified.

The amplifiers were quiet for a few minutes. Curiosity took Lisa to the large window that overlooked the ring. She found she had the best seat in the house. Nobody seemed to notice her, but she could see everything.

Fourteen horses were lined up in the ring, and next to each one stood a rider. They waited patiently. Some of the kids chatted with the other competitors. Others patted their horses. None of them seemed to find it necessary to stand at attention, eyes straight ahead, gripping the rope. Lisa wondered about that. If nobody had really good form, would the judges actually award the blue ribbon to anybody?

Then she looked at the horses. Each was groomed to gleaming perfection. Manes were combed, or in some cases braided. Hooves had been polished a shiny black. They all really looked good. Some of the horses were actually better looking than others, but all of them were fit for showing. Her eyes went to Topside and Starlight. Her friends stood proudly with their horses. They’d each worked hard and deserved credit for the great results. Lisa was glad for her friends that
the judge hadn’t gone after
their
horses the way she had gone after Prancer. If Lisa couldn’t win, at least maybe her friends could. That thought made her feel a little better.

Then the judges came out into the ring with the ribbons. It was time to announce winners.

“The first prize, blue ribbon, goes to Miss Veronica diAngelo and her horse, Garnet.”

Veronica?!
The judges had to be crazy!

The audience didn’t seem to agree with Lisa. There was genuine applause as Veronica stepped forward to collect her ribbon. Garnet followed docilely and seemed pleased to have the ribbon attached to her halter. Veronica positively beamed as she waited for the other ribbons to be awarded.

Life wasn’t fair. Lisa had done everything she could to see that she would win the blue ribbon. She had the best horse, she’d done the most work on the horse’s grooming. How could it be that somebody as awful and undeserving as Veronica diAngelo would win it?

A strange and unfamiliar feeling came over Lisa. It was jealousy. She’d never had cause to be envious of other riders before. She’d always done well. She’d always succeeded at anything she’d ever tried. She’d never been the one who was left out or forced out. Yet now she was. She was alone, up in the loft, watching her friends do what she wanted to do more than anything in the world, and watching the girl she hated the most get the ribbon Lisa felt she deserved.

The first tear rolled down her cheek, followed quickly by another, and then a flood. It seemed as though they wouldn’t stop. Through the blur of her tears, she watched the judges award the rest of the ribbons. Red went to the boy with the horse named Duffy. Yellow went to somebody Lisa had not even noticed. Carole got white and Stevie got pink for fifth place. Lisa stared blankly out of the loft window and the rest of the proceedings. She barely noticed while Veronica proudly walked her horse around the ring and then received what appeared to be genuine congratulations from the other competitors—including Stevie and Carole. None of it seemed to Lisa to make any sense, and none of it made any difference. She and Prancer had been disqualified.