A Summer Without Horses (18 page)

“Oh, all right,” Stevie conceded finally. “So he’s a rotten person, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a crush on the characters he plays, does it?”

“Only if your friend Phil doesn’t mind,” Carole teased.

“Phil has a crush on Mindy Manfred—you know, that gorgeous model? That doesn’t seem to interfere with our relationship, either.”

The girls laughed about that. They decided that fantasy crushes were okay—even when they were on people you’d never meet or know and wouldn’t like if you ever did.

Lisa went on. “But even when I knew I couldn’t keep Kip and when I got Skye to charter the ambulance plane for Aunt Alison and all of that was the right thing to do, I still felt bad about you two. I just can’t lie to you. I mean, I can, but it hurts too much.”

“Did you turn down Kip because of us?” Stevie asked.

“No. Really, I didn’t. I turned him down because I wasn’t sure my parents could really afford a horse right now, and because it was too much of a gift for Skye to give me. Even though he’s got lots of money, it isn’t right.”

“We’re going to have to talk,” Stevie said, putting her
arm around Lisa’s shoulder. But she was just teasing and Lisa knew it. Her decision had been the right one.

Then both Stevie and Lisa looked at Carole. It was her turn.

“Well,” she began. “There’s this girl named Bea. No, actually, her name is Beatrice Benner and she’s somebody who makes Veronica diAngelo look like a nice girl next door.”

Carole told the whole story—from the first time she touched Southwood and was told to take her hands off the horse to the victory gallop at the horse show.

Then she began whispering. “He really was a magnificent horse to ride—so easy!”

Her friends leaned forward to listen.

“Why are you whispering?” Stevie asked.

“So Starlight won’t hear, silly,” Lisa explained for Carole, who nodded.

Stevie giggled. “Right,” she said. “I get it.”

When Carole finished telling her story, the girls were quiet, each feeling her own special form of relief and pleasure at having been able to talk about an adventure she’d had while away from the others.

Lisa sighed. Carole and Stevie followed suit. It was a good time, but there was trouble ahead and each of them knew it.

Lisa spoke first.

“We made a promise, you know. A pledge to one another.”

“Yeah,” said Stevie.

“And I broke it.”

“So did I.”

“Me, too.”

“We could just forget it,” said Stevie. “Couldn’t we? I mean if we
all
broke it.”

“Then the next pledge we make to one another won’t mean anything,” Lisa said. “If you don’t keep pledges and promises, it means you don’t respect the people you made them to.”

“What if I just don’t respect you-know-who?” She couldn’t bring herself to say Veronica’s name.

“Stevie!” Carole said.

“I know. I know. I was just trying to make it all go away. But what do we do?”

“We invite Veronica to join The Saddle Club,” Carole said. “We have to.”

“And then can we immediately disband the club and start all over again under an assumed name? Without her, of course.” Stevie asked.

“Stevie!” Carole said. “This isn’t easy on any of us. Don’t make it harder!”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was part of the problem. I can help be part of the solution. Lisa’s right, of course. We made a solemn promise. We broke it. We have to take the consequences. So who’s going to do it? Maybe we should go alphabetically by first name?”

“Or
last
name?” Carole said.

“Give me a break,” said Lisa. “We do it the democratic way.”

“Vote?”

“No, draw straws. Short straw invites Veronica into The Saddle Club.”

She drew her feet out of the creek and then climbed down from the rock. Just to the left by the bank of the creek there was a small reedy area. Using her pocket knife, Lisa cut three lengths of the narrow reeds. Two were long—about three inches. One was short—about two inches. She mixed them up and held them in her fist, all even at the top.

“Okay, you girls pick. I’ll take what’s left.”

Carole drew first and sighed with relief to find herself holding three inches of reed. Stevie went next. She wasn’t so sure, but she held hers up to Carole’s. They were the same length.

“Oh, no!” Lisa groaned, opening her fist. There lay one short piece of straw. “How about two out of three?”

“No way!” said Carole and Stevie in a single voice.

“Besides, you’re the nicest one of us,” Carole said. “You’ll be able to make it sound as if we might actually mean it!”

“Okay, then, here’s the deal,” Lisa said. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore right now. For the rest of our ride, we’re just going to enjoy ourselves and The Saddle Club as much as we possibly can. After all, it’s never going to be the same again. When we get back to Pine
Hollow and our horses are untacked and groomed and everything, you two go on over to TD’s.” TD’s was the ice cream shop where they often had Saddle Club meetings. “I’ll talk to Veronica and then bring her over there for her first official meeting. Okay?”

“Deal,” Stevie said. She especially liked the part about not thinking about Veronica until after their ride was over. The longer she could put that off, the better.

“C
OFFEE
ICE
CREAM
, butterscotch sauce, pineapple chunks, almond clusters, coconut, and marshmallow fluff.”

“Maraschino cherry?”

“Of course.”

Carole gulped. One of the things she hadn’t missed while she was away was Stevie’s sundaes. The waitress turned to her.

“Hot fudge on vanilla. Two scoops.”

“Maraschino cherry?”

“No thanks.” She’d keep it simple.

“Do you see them yet?” Stevie asked. Carole was facing the door and would be the first to know when Lisa was arriving with Veronica.

“She’s wanted to be in our club from the very beginning,” Carole said.

“It’s not that she likes us, either. It’s just that she can’t stand the idea of being excluded from anything.”

“It’s going to be awful, isn’t it?”

“It’s never going to be the same, that’s for sure,” said Stevie.

“I don’t think I’m really hungry.”

“Veronica’s always had a way of killing my appetite, too,” Stevie said.

They stared glumly at one another, fiddling with their silverware, sipping their water. There wasn’t much to say. They both knew how awful the situation was. The Saddle Club was very special to them because it was about horses and it was about friends. Friends were people you liked. That simply didn’t include Veronica.

“Maybe we’ll get to like her better when we get to know her better,” Carole suggested.

“Stop trying to look on the bright side of things. We’ve all known her a long time and we know her well enough to know that we don’t like her.”

“Yeah,” said Carole. She took another sip of water.

The door to TD’s opened then. Veronica came in first. Lisa was right behind her. Carole waved weakly. Stevie turned around and tried to smile, but there was no welcoming warmth in her heart.

Stevie and Carole each moved over in the booth so Veronica and Lisa could sit down. Lisa sat down. Veronica remained standing.

“I just had to come over here and see you three together,” Veronica said.

“Have a seat,” Carole said. “And we can start the meeting.”

“You can start your silly meeting when I leave,” said Veronica.

Stevie wasn’t sure she’d heard right, but if she had she wanted to hear more.

“You’re not staying?”

“It’s more like I’m not joining your dumb club,” Veronica retorted. “What kind of a girl do you think I am?”

None of them thought it would be a good idea to take the bait on that question. They left it unanswered.

“I am a horsewoman!” Veronica declared with a haughtiness that was extreme even for her. “I ride whenever I can, wherever I go. I mean, last month when I was in Paris, I even rode in the Bois de Boulogne. Whatever would make you think I’d be the least bit interested in joining a group that would pledge
not
to ride for a whole month?”

There was a stunned silence. Veronica wasn’t finished, though.

“So, you can have your little club all to yourselves. I suppose you thought people would begin to consider it a better group if you had me as a member. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I want no part of it at all.”

With that Veronica spun on her heel and marched toward the door.

For a moment the three girls just sat there, as shocked as if a bomb had obliterated the entire town of Willow Creek. Then Stevie began to laugh, a deep belly laugh that was instantly contagious. Carole and Lisa joined in, and soon everyone in the ice cream shop was looking at them.

Just then the waitress brought Stevie and Carole’s orders. She put the dishes down and asked Lisa what she’d have.

“Uh—” Lisa gasped for breath. “Hot fudge on mint chip with whipped cream,” she managed to get out.

“Maraschino cherry?”

“Yes, please.”

Suddenly Carole pushed her sundae across the table, back toward the waitress. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and then said politely, “Could I have a maraschino cherry, too? And maybe some whipped cream? And sprinkles?”

“Uh, sure,” the waitress said, picking up Carole’s sundae. She grimaced at Stevie’s concoction. “Yours okay? You couldn’t possibly want to add anything to that mess.”

Stevie hesitated for just a second, then leaned over to place her sundae on the tray alongside her friends’. “Actually, I’d like to change mine, too. How about one more scoop and some chocolate crunchies?”

The waitress rolled her eyes before whisking away the sundaes.

Stevie’s eyes were twinkling when she looked back at
her friends. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” she said with a shrug. “I might get hungry.”

“Besides,” Carole chimed in, “this calls for a celebration.” She beamed at her two best friends and they smiled back at her.

After a long summer, mostly without horses, The Saddle Club was back in the saddle!

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.