Show Jumper (15 page)

Watching nervously from the rail, the Pine Hollow group saw Samson and Lisa clear the first jump. Carole started biting her fingernails, and Stevie unthinkingly dug her own nails into Carole’s arm.

When it was over, Lisa was stunned to find herself in the middle of an arena, surrounded by an applauding crowd. The PA system crackled to life. She heard the word
jump-off.
That was when, with a sickening jolt,
she realized what had just happened. She had finished a clean round. Now there would be a jump-off between Margie and her.

The crowd erupted into new applause. Everyone loved the suspense of a sudden-death jump-off to determine a winner, and now they could sit back and enjoy the drama.

“O
KAY, GANG
,” S
TEVIE
said briskly, “we’ve got to prepare the champ. Lisa, do you need some water?” Lisa shook her head. “Okay, then. Carole, you take the lint brush and brush off Lisa’s jacket. I’ll walk Samson to keep him warmed up. Lisa, sit down and Carole will rub your shoulders in a few seconds to loosen you up.”

The Pine Hollow group went into a huddle around Lisa and Samson to prepare while the course was reset for the jump-off. If both Margie and Lisa jumped clean, the one with the faster time would win the competition. Max explained to Lisa again how the scoring worked in the jump-off, then told her simply, “Keep your head up and go for it.”

Carole nudged Lisa gently. “Look, someone’s trying to get your attention,” she said. Lisa looked and saw
her mother in the VIP box, waving like mad. She was sitting next to Margie’s mother, who didn’t look happy at all when she realized Lisa was looking at them. As Mrs. Atwood continued to wave, Margie’s mother glared at the Pine Hollow group.

“Whew, I’m glad I’m not sitting next to Margie’s mom,” Stevie said cheerfully. “Overprotective mothers are the worst.”

As soon as it was set up, the three girls walked the jump-off course. It was short—only six fences. Three of them were raised higher than before. “How are you planning to jump it?” Lisa asked Carole nervously.

“I won’t be jumping it,” Carole reminded her. “This is just between you and Margie.”

With a sick shock, Lisa realized that she wouldn’t be able to watch Carole take the course and copy her movements. A stricken expression came over her face.

Max walked up to the three girls just then. “Lisa, you’re starting to look as white as paper,” he said. “Stevie, see if you can find her a light snack—some crackers to settle her stomach. Carole, let’s go over the course with her. The more familiar you are with the course, the better off you’ll be.”

As Carole and Max started discussing the course, Lisa tried to pay attention, but the sick feeling just got worse. Suddenly she had the horrible suspicion that she didn’t belong where she was about to go—into the ring for the final jump-off.
I’ve pulled a fast one on everyone
,
she thought.
I’m here at the Macrae when I should have waited a few more years before competing in a show like this. Why did I try so hard to get into the show when I wasn’t ready? I’m about to let down Carole, Stevie, my mother, and Max. I’m never going to be able to compete in a show of this caliber again.

It was too late to fret about all this, Lisa realized. It was final exam time.

M
AX GAVE
L
ISA
some final tips on the course. Then Stevie came up with a cup of water. Her face looked grave. “Lisa,” she said. “They posted the order. You go first.”

Lisa turned even paler and choked on her water. Max patted her on the back and, when she stopped coughing, said, “Don’t worry, Lisa. Just remember what I told you: Don’t rush. Even though you want your time to be faster than Margie’s, the worst thing you can do is try to race through the course. That’s where mistakes are made. Just keep your head up and go for it,” and he gave her an encouraging smile. “You can do it.” He paused. “Besides that, even if you lose, the worst it can be is second place at the Macrae Valley Open. Not bad, kid, not bad at all!”

Lisa gulped.

Several minutes later Lisa rode into the ring. Once again everything she knew about jumping vanished from her mind, leaving it completely blank. All she
could think about was finishing the course and leaving it behind her. She pointed Samson toward the first fence.

As Samson jumped over the first fence, she could feel his confusion at the different fences. He was used to either jumping the same course again and again, as they had in training, or getting a day in between to adjust to a different course. He sensed that he was in the same place he had been just a half hour before, but the fences were new and strange. Lisa felt him falter slightly. At this point he really needed her encouragement and a firm hand and seat. She tried to pull herself together and directed him toward the second fence. Samson cleared it, and the third fence went by in a blur.

The tough oxer-vertical combination had been included in the jump-off course, except that the vertical had been raised by a few poles. “Turn in the air over the first fence,” Lisa remembered, and she did just that, so that Samson was positioned correctly for the second jump.

Suddenly the blur around Lisa’s vision receded and she saw the raised vertical clearly for the first time. It looked huge—bigger than anything she had ever seen before.
I’ll never make it
, she thought in desperation, and a wave of panic engulfed her. Helplessly her hands dropped to Samson’s neck, and the reins went slack. All she could do now was pray.

When the reins went loose, Samson hesitated, then sped up toward the vertical. Without guidance, he took off way too early and crashed through the fence. Lisa clung for one sickening moment to his neck, then fell against the fence as Samson trotted off with an empty saddle.

L
ISA SHOOK HER
head. The two sets of crowds and fences in front of her slowly merged into one. She was aware of Samson near her left hand, head bowed in embarrassment, sniffing the jumping turf as if he might find a morsel of grass there. Lisa reached for the rein. Samson stepped toward her.

Across the ring, she could see a man in a white coverall running toward her. He carried a medical bag. He was coming to help. But Lisa didn’t need help. All she needed was Samson. She held her hand up to stop the man and drew herself to her feet. There was scattered applause from the audience, but Lisa didn’t know why. She was just doing what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to get back on the horse. That was what Max had always told her. She could do it.

Samson stepped closer to her. He knew what he was supposed to do, too. He waited patiently, never moving, while Lisa grabbed the saddle and hauled herself up onto his back again.

Again there was applause. The medic in the white coat stepped back to the fence, waiting, watching.
Nearby, Stevie and Carole were doing the same. In the VIP box, Mrs. Atwood watched as well, her hand over her mouth as if to stifle a gasp. All around, the world waited and watched.

Lisa touched Samson’s side. He began walking. It felt natural, normal, like what was supposed to happen. At her signal he began to trot, circling the fallen poles from the fence they’d crashed. Then she signaled him to canter. Canter he did, right toward the next fence.

Oddly enough, Lisa’s nervousness had vanished. Now that she had failed so miserably, there was nothing at stake. Lisa pointed Samson at the oxer, and he cleared it easily. Then she cantered the gelding down to the last fence, sailing over it. Everyone started loudly applauding and cheering. It was like one of her daydreams before the Macrae—only now she had ruined Samson’s chances for the blue ribbon.

A
S SHE RODE
out of the ring, she was surrounded by a crowd of people. Carole, Stevie, Mrs. Reg, and strangers pressed forward to shake her hand and congratulate her, but Lisa shrank back. She knew they were only trying to be nice after her humiliating defeat. She hastily dismounted and handed Samson’s reins to Max. Then she looked around for an escape route.

Jock Sawyer came up and greeted Max. “Good job,” he said heartily, patting Max on the back. “The girl got
a little nervous, but it took a lot of guts to get back on the horse. And boy, can this horse jump!”

Although Jock’s assessment was more than fair, it was the last straw for Lisa. As her eyes filled with tears, she forced her way past Carole and Stevie and the crowd and ran back to the stabling area.

Stevie and Carole looked at each other in dismay. Something was terribly wrong with Lisa—maybe she had been hurt in the fall. “Is it okay if we leave Samson with you, Max?” Stevie asked. “We’ve got to find Lisa and talk to her.” Max nodded.

After several minutes of searching in the bathrooms and the stabling area, Carole and Stevie found Lisa weeping in the Pine Hollow van. Both of them climbed into the van and sat next to her. Stevie, who still hadn’t recovered from her attack of organizational skills, found a clean handkerchief and handed it to Lisa.

After several minutes Carole said, “What is it, Lisa? Are you upset about the fall?”

“I cost Samson the blue! I cost Samson the blue!” Lisa sobbed. “If it weren’t for me, he would have won the competition. He deserved a better rider.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Stevie. “You did the best you could. Any rider can make mistakes. Carole knocked down a fence. Veronica left one out completely. Nobody expected any of us to take home a
blue—and you’re getting a red, amazingly good in a class like this.”

“I don’t care,” Lisa said miserably. Suddenly it was as if a dam had burst open. Now that the competition was behind her and she’d failed Samson so horribly, she was finally able to talk to Carole and Stevie about all her doubts and fears of the past few days. “I started to think I wasn’t up to riding Samson,” she said. “The way people oohed and aahed over him, it became clear that I was riding in the Macrae because of Samson, not because of me. I’m too inexperienced. I’m too green, as Margie and Veronica rightly pointed out. I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach the past few days, knowing I don’t belong here.”

“Since when did you start listening to people like Margie and Veronica?” Stevie demanded indignantly.

But Carole hushed her and put an arm around Lisa. “Listen, Lisa, I don’t know why you’re beating yourself up about this,” she said. “You may have made a few mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you don’t belong here. I argued for you to be the one to ride Samson because I know what a good rider you are, and Max agreed because
he
knows what a good rider you are.”

“But I failed,” Lisa said. “I embarrassed everyone.”

“No, you didn’t fail,” said Carole. A note of sternness had crept into her voice; she was beginning to sound like Max. “You competed in a huge event—the
Macrae Valley Open—and you did well against really tough competition. You took a bad fall and you got right back up and finished the course in style. You’ve come farther in a short time than any rider I’ve ever seen before. Today you won. You might not have won the blue ribbon, but you won.”

Lisa thought about that for a few minutes and stopped crying.

“And you took second place at the Macrae,” said Stevie again.

“Not too shabby,” said Carole, grinning.

“That wasn’t me,” said Lisa with a watery smile. “That was Samson.”

“Funny,” Carole said thoughtfully. “I could’ve sworn there was a rider on his back. You did a lot more than just go along for the ride, you know,” she added. “Think about it.”

A
FEW MINUTES
later The Saddle Club heard the announcer’s voice. “Lisa, you’ve got to go and get your ribbon,” ordered Stevie. Quickly she produced a cloth and held it under a nearby tap. Then she wiped the last traces of tears off Lisa’s face. As a final flourish, Stevie took out a compact and applied powder to Lisa’s nose, which had turned bright pink from crying.

“Stevie with a powder puff? Now I’ve seen everything,” said Carole in disbelief.

“You look great,” said Stevie, closing the compact with a snap. “Now go out there and get your ribbon!”

The three girls ran back to the ring, and Lisa mounted Samson. Carole got on Starlight for the awards ceremony, because as it turned out, she and Starlight had taken fourth place.