Flying Horse (6 page)

“I don’t know,” Carole replied.

Stevie looked up from her books for the first time since they’d passed the Jefferson Memorial. “Humpf,” she muttered, looking at the faded sign, “I bet the real Misty could do a flying change.”

C
HINCOTEAGUE
I
SLAND WAS
beautiful. On the short drive to Mrs. DeSoto’s new bed-and-breakfast, they caught a glimpse of the town. It wasn’t old or new, fancy or plain; the shops and houses were a mixture of styles much as in the small towns of Maryland and Virginia they’d just driven through. But the island was beautiful—bright sunlight glinted off the bay, seagulls wheeled above them, crying loudly, and waves lapped softly against the piers. The air smelled salty and fresh.

“It’s wonderful,” Lisa said dreamily.

Mrs. Reg turned north on Main Street and stopped the car a few blocks later. “It certainly is,” she said,
looking up at the great white Victorian house in front of them. A white picket fence with peeling paint and a few missing slats encircled the yard. Roses ran wild across the top of the fence. The main house was three stories tall, with two chimneys, gable windows, a turreted side porch, and another wide porch running across the front. A brand-new clapboard sign read “The DeSoto Inn.”

“Wow!” Even Stevie was impressed. They stared for a moment in silent admiration. Then the front door of the inn opened, and Dorothy and Nigel came running down the steps to meet them.

Dorothy greeted The Saddle Club with exuberant hugs. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” she said to Lisa, Carole, and Stevie. “Too long. You, too, Mrs. Reg—” and she hugged her as well, and then hugged Denise to round things off. The Saddle Club grinned. They had always liked Dorothy. At first they had mostly been impressed by her incredible riding skill, and then they had admired the courage with which she faced her career-ending back injury. Now they were just glad to have her as a friend.

Nigel shook hands all around, making funny little bows and saying “So good to see you.” It was terribly British, and The Saddle Club loved it. Nigel was every bit as nice as Dorothy, but they couldn’t imagine him hugging them.

Mrs. DeSoto appeared on the front porch. “Dorothy, don’t leave them standing on the walk!” she called. “Bring them in! I’ve got scones just out of the oven!”

Mrs. Reg laughed and went inside while the girls, Denise, and Nigel carried the luggage up the front steps. Inside, the smell of fresh paint contrasted sharply with the wonderful fruity smell of hot scones.

“Sit down,” Mrs. DeSoto said, herding them all into a dining room set with card tables and folding chairs. “I’m so glad to see all of you, and you’re just in time. We’re going to serve afternoon tea here at the DeSoto Inn, and Nigel’s mum sent me her recipe for scones. You all can test them out.” She disappeared through a swinging door and came back with a heavily laden tray. “Once you’ve had tea and rested, we’ll show you the rest of the inn.” She smiled. “We’ve been working hard—a few of the guest rooms are habitable, I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear. And a few of the bathrooms and the kitchen are operational, too. But I’m eager to open for business. All of the other inns on the island are at full occupancy, or nearly so, and I want to start taking reservations for Pony Penning.” She jumped up, went out to the kitchen, and came back with a small jar of jam. “I forgot—this is wild strawberry, in case anybody wants some. Now, what do you think of the scones?”

“Wunnerful,” said Stevie, her mouth full.

“I agree,” said Lisa. “I’ve had teas in England that weren’t half so nice as this.”

“Well, naturally,” said Nigel, folding his legs and taking a close look at one of the currants on his scone. “Just because someplace invented something doesn’t mean they’ve perfected it. I’ve also had some pretty grotty teas in England. I’ve made some pretty grotty tea, too, come to think of it—remember backstage at Olympia, luv?” He tapped his wife’s cheek.

“Olympia is an indoor show in Great Britain,” Dorothy explained to The Saddle Club. “It’s right before Christmas, and it’s a very big deal, kind of like our American Horse Show. Anyway, last year, Nigel was so nervous before the big Grand Prix that he insisted on making us all tea on a camp stove before the class got started. He said it would calm him down.”

“Dreadful,” said Nigel, with a shake of his head. “I boiled it, I’m afraid. Even my horse wouldn’t drink it, and he loves tea.”

“Did it calm you down?” asked Carole.

Nigel shook his head, a smile in his eyes. “Not at all. Nothing ever does, you know. But it didn’t matter—I won the class anyway.” He grinned.

“That’s amazing,” Stevie said frankly.

“What?” asked Nigel. “Amazing that I wrecked the tea? Or amazing that it didn’t calm me down?” He raised his eyebrows at them in puzzled amusement.

“I agree,” Carole said, and Lisa nodded.

“What?” Nigel repeated. “Do speak up. It’s not like you Yanks to be uncommunicative—especially you three.”

Stevie explained. “It’s amazing that you were nervous before your class. I mean, you’re
Nigel Hawthorne.
We didn’t think great riders like you ever got nervous.”

Nigel’s grin widened. “Stevie, luv, have you seen Grand Prix jumps? They’re six feet tall! Believe me, people who say they’re not nervous before a class like that are flat-out lying—or shouldn’t be there. You’ve got to care enough to be nervous, if you want to do well.”

The Saddle Club nodded. Both Lisa and Carole felt somehow reassured—if even Nigel got nervous sometimes, then it was okay that they always felt a few butterflies in their stomachs before any kind of exhibition or show.

Stevie’s line of thought was different. Immediately she tried to apply what Nigel had said to her situation with Belle. Did that mean it was okay that she was upset, because it meant she cared about Belle’s doing well? At first Stevie felt better about herself. But then she realized that Nigel probably didn’t get nervous when he was schooling his horses. He only gets nervous for shows—for big classes, she told herself, so
should I be this upset with Belle, when Belle is just learning? But Belle wouldn’t behave! She ought to be doing a flying change!

“Stevie,” Carole said. “Come back. You’re miles away.”

Stevie blinked and smiled at her friend. “Sorry.” She didn’t explain what she was thinking about, and Carole didn’t ask. From the anxious look on Stevie’s face, Carole was pretty sure that Stevie had been worrying about Belle.

“Well,” said Mrs. DeSoto, “judging by the way you all polished off those scones, I’d say the first tea at the DeSoto Inn has been a success. What you think, girls? Ready to see the rest of the inn?”

“We’ll help you clean this up first,” Lisa said quickly. She hadn’t forgotten that the reason they were all there was to work. She picked up the teapot; Stevie stacked the empty dishes on the tray, and they all followed Mrs. DeSoto into the kitchen.

The big sunny room was their first surprise. The dining room still needed paint, wallpaper, and furniture, but the kitchen was completely done. It was wallpapered in a pale flowered print with a border of roses along the ceiling that complemented the roses on the fence outdoors. The white wooden floor shone. White chairs surrounded a big wooden table, and the institutional-size stove and refrigerator gleamed. The fence
and a tangled garden were visible through a side window, and in the back a large plate glass window looked directly out onto the bay.

“Oh!” said Carole. “How beautiful!” She went to the window. A handful of fishing boats bobbed on the water, and birds skittered across the short strip of sand at the water’s edge.

“Yes, we’re directly on the bay,” Mrs. DeSoto told her. “Only twenty inches above sea level. A little later you girls can go exploring. There’s a more substantial beach in several places around the island—you can walk to lots of it. Chincoteague’s only seven miles long, and a little over one mile wide at its widest.”

Carole, Lisa, and Stevie stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and put away the butter and jam. Dorothy came in, followed by Denise and Mrs. Reg.

“Why don’t I take you on the grand tour,” Dorothy suggested. “I asked Nigel to take your suitcases up to your rooms. Fortunately, as Mom said, we do have three finished rooms. Eventually there will be seven—you can see how much work we still have to do.”

Dorothy walked them back through the dining room, then showed them the sunroom and side porch. On the other side of the big staircase in the entryway was a room with a glass-fronted fireplace and rows of windows across the back. “This will be the parlor,” Dorothy explained. “Mom’s bought some real antiques
and some new furniture that looks antique, and it will all be shipped just as soon as the rooms are ready.”

Stevie scuffed at a pile of sawdust on the floor. “Looks like that might be a while. This room needs wallpaper, paint, and a good sweeping.”

“You’d be surprised what a little hard work will do,” Dorothy said. “Last week this room still had cobwebs, awful old wallpaper, a broken windowpane, and about seventeen coats of ugly varnish on that wood floor. There’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s coming along fast.”

Dorothy led the girls to the small downstairs suite where Mrs. DeSoto would live. It was already clean and comfortable.

“It’s pretty small compared to her town house in New York,” Lisa said, looking around the two rooms. “Does your mother mind?”

Dorothy laughed. “I don’t think so. She isn’t selling the town house, Lisa. She’s only going to run the inn between April and October. A lot of the businesses on Chincoteague close down for the winter—there aren’t many tourists then.”

Lisa nodded. She could see the attraction of spending part of each year in two such different places—so long as she could ride in both places. When The Saddle Club had visited New York, they’d ridden in Central Park. “Are there places to ride here?” she asked.

Dorothy shook her head. “Not lesson barns, no,” she said. “Some of the people who live here ride, of course—they have to, at the Pony Penning Roundup. But I haven’t seen or heard of a place yet where you can just go and ride. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Lisa said.

Carole sighed. “Wouldn’t a trail ride on Assateague be wonderful?” she said.

“Wonderful,” said Dorothy. “But I don’t think it would be allowed. I don’t know for sure what the rule is, but I do know that you aren’t allowed to bring pets onto Assateague. It’s a wildlife refuge, and I think they’re worried about pets bringing diseases into the wild population. I think horses would qualify as pets, in this case.”

“Darn,” Stevie said, and the others, including Denise and Dorothy, nodded. A trail ride on Assateague would have been fantastic.

On the second floor, there were five guest bedrooms, but only two contained furniture. “This is the room Nigel and I are using,” Dorothy said, opening the door to reveal a four-poster bed, newly varnished wood floor, and stripped-down walls. “It’s not quite done, but we thought we’d leave the finished rooms for you.”

She walked across the hall and opened a second door. “This is the largest room at the inn, and when
we’re open it will be our finest. We finished it first, to inspire ourselves.”

The visitors oohed and aahed. The corner room overlooked the bay and the garden. An enormous antique bed with an elaborate lace counterpane stood squarely between two lace-curtained windows. Opposite, a small fire was laid in a marble-fronted fireplace. An antique dresser, a spindle desk and chair, and a claw-foot bathtub in the private bathroom completed the furnishings.

“No TV,” Denise noticed.

“No. Mom decided she wouldn’t have any TVs in the entire inn,” Dorothy explained. “Each room has a private phone, and we have heat and central air-conditioning, but that’s as modern as she wants to get. No TVs, no VCRs, no faxes. This is a place for vacations.”

“It’s a beautiful room,” Lisa said, examining the fine wallpaper and the rose rug in front of the fireplace. “It’s for Mrs. Reg, of course.”

“Of course,” said Dorothy, smiling. “Nothing but the best for the first person to ever put me on a horse.”

The third floor held two guest rooms that shared a single enormous bathroom between them. Denise’s room was small and cozy, with a slanted ceiling and a double bed tucked under the eaves.

When they saw their room, The Saddle Club
couldn’t help thinking that they’d gotten the best deal. The room had two gable windows with deep window seats giving them a beautiful view of the bay. A brass double bed took up the middle of the floor, and a matching daybed nestled between the window seats. The walls were covered with yellow-flowered paper, and the beds bore eyelet comforters.

Stevie sank down onto the big bed with a sigh. “This is fantastic,” she said. “And to think I didn’t want to come. And look, guys, Nigel brought my books up. Do you think I have time to read, or do you think Mrs. DeSoto needs us now?”

“I think she needs us,” Carole said firmly. Lisa agreed. Wasn’t anything going to take Stevie’s mind off flying changes?

T
HEY HAD TIME
to explore the sandy strip of beach before dinnertime. Then, at her insistence, Mrs. Reg treated all of them to a seafood dinner at a restaurant not far from the inn. Later that night they sat on the folding chairs in the dining room, and Dorothy and Nigel updated everyone on the training-and-breeding stable they were running on Long Island. All of them, including Denise, were fascinated by the couple’s accounts of life on the show circuit. The Saddle Club went up to bed late, dazzled by the intelligent and powerful horses, the brightly lit arenas, and the wonderfully
skilled riders who populated Dorothy and Nigel’s stories. They fell asleep instantly and dreamed Olympian dreams.