Beach Ride (10 page)

Maverick entered the water fearlessly, trotting straight into the powerful surf just as Sheila told him to do. He didn’t flinch when the water was at his knees or splashing on his chest. Sheila gripped tightly and prepared for the onslaught as they approached the area where the surf might grab at them, too. She spoke to her pony with her legs and he answered with
his heart and all his strength. Soon he was bounding into the surf, jumping up against the oncoming waves just as Sheila and Carole had been doing only a few minutes ago. This time, however, it wasn’t for fun. It was for real.

Sheila sat up tall on the pony’s back. Where was Carole? She shaded her eyes to look and, at first, couldn’t see anything of her cousin.

She looked to the right where the undertow had carried them. Then she looked out. In the distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, Carole bobbed helplessly.

While Maverick moved forward toward Carole, Sheila considered the circumstances. She knew what was going on, but Carole did not. This was a riptide: an incredibly strong surface current that was pulling Carole down into the ocean and away from the shore. There was no way a single swimmer could defeat the force of the riptide. Fighting it would surely only lead to exhaustion, and exhaustion led to a place Sheila didn’t want to think about.

The only way to defeat the riptide was to get out of its force. Since it could be a mile or more long, straight away from the beach, the only option was to move parallel to the beach, beyond the section affected by the riptide. Somehow Sheila had to convince
Carole to stop swimming toward the beach and start swimming parallel to it.

Carole saw her then. She knew who that was. It was her cousin Sheila and Sheila was riding a horse. It was her horse. It was—she couldn’t remember the horse’s name. He had a name, she was sure, but she couldn’t remember. She’d remember if only she could swim toward them. She wanted to reach them. She lifted one arm, put it in front of her, and kicked weakly. It wasn’t an arm, though, really. It was some sort of very heavy attachment to her body. It just fell back into the water and hung limply by her side.

The girl was waving. The girl—Sheila—was waving. Carole wanted to wave back, but her arm weighed too much. Why did that girl want to wave? She wasn’t waving hello. She was waving go away. Carole was going away. Far away. Carole began thinking about her mother then. She hadn’t seen her in a long time. Something had happened to her, hadn’t it? Carole struggled to remember. She missed her mother. Where was she? Was she far away? Carole didn’t think so, but she couldn’t remember. The water tugged at her feet again. It was cold, but so was she.

Sheila could tell that Carole didn’t know what she wanted her to do. Carole just had to swim sideways. It was the only way—unless Maverick could get to her,
and then all three of them would go sideways together.

She shifted Maverick’s direction then. They had to go down the beach beyond where Carole was now. They would have to be beyond the force of the riptide and make Carole swim toward them. She hurried the horse, who obeyed every command. When the water got too deep for him to stand and walk, he simply swam, strongly, bravely, and she rode on his back.

“Carole!” she called. “Swim to your left!” Carole couldn’t hear her.

With every stride, Maverick brought her closer to Carole. Sheila didn’t know what would happen if she and Maverick got caught in the riptide, but she knew what would happen if they didn’t reach Carole, so there didn’t seem to be any choice. They persisted. The pony never complained, never faltered. He snorted to get the water out of his nose, and he swam and swam and swam.

Suddenly Carole didn’t feel any more pulling. The torturous tugging stopped. She was vaguely aware of the motion of the ocean around her, rocking, reassuring water everywhere. But no more tugging. Carole rolled over on her back. She laid her head on the water and looked up at the blue sky above. Her arms rose and so did her legs. She closed her eyes. She was
very tired. She should sleep now, she thought. Yes, sleep.

Sheila saw Carole then. Her eyes were closed. She was floating on her back, rising and falling with the swell of the ocean. Sheila didn’t know what was happening, but she knew that, one way or another, Carole was no longer being held by the riptide. It meant that it might be safe to swim near her now.

“Over there, boy,” she told Maverick, and aimed the pony toward where Carole was.

“Carole! Are you okay? Carole!”

There was no answer. Then Carole lifted one hand just a little bit as if to wave to Sheila. It seemed a very odd gesture, but it was a gesture and assured Sheila that Carole was alive.

It took another few minutes for the pony and rider to reach Carole. Although Sheila and Maverick were both themselves exhausted by the swim, Sheila knew they had more reserve strength than Carole, who seemed barely aware of where she was.

Sheila checked her balance, leaned over, and grabbed one of Carole’s arms.

“Come on up here, girl,” Sheila said, trying to sound as if she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Wake me later,” Carole said. “Later. I’ll sleep now.” She closed her eyes then, almost defiantly.

Sheila pulled. She pulled hard, drawing her cousin up out of the water. Carole was certainly not capable of sitting on Maverick on her own, and Sheila couldn’t put Carole across the pony’s back because she might fall off, and even if she didn’t, her face would then be hanging in the water.

She finally got Carole onto the pony’s back in front of her. Carole slumped forward. Sheila didn’t know how well she’d stay there, but it was the best she could do. It was time to begin the long journey back to the beach.

Carole felt the pony’s mane in her face. She didn’t know what horse it was, but it was a nice horse. It smelled of the ocean, but it smelled of horse, too. That was a good smell.

“Nice horse,” she mumbled. She closed her eyes. It was a good horse. It needed a hug. She’d been doing a lot of hugging lately. This creature seemed to need a hug more than anybody else. She hugged.

Sheila didn’t know why it was that Carole was holding on so tight to Maverick’s neck, but she knew that it was keeping Carole from falling off and into the ocean, so it was fine with her.

Maverick seemed to understand that he had to get back to shore. Sheila knew he couldn’t have much energy left, nor did she. She didn’t want to
think what might happen if they didn’t reach land soon.

One of the first rules of riding was that you should always look where you wanted your horse to go. On dry land a horse might misunderstand the slight changes in balance caused by a turned head and shift his own direction. Sheila didn’t know if it was the same in the water, but that seemed logical. She stared at the shore ahead, now nearing. She was only barely aware of their progress as they rode and swam through the line of surf that now helped to carry them to safety. Maverick pushed himself up and rode on the force of the waves, grasping for footing each time the ocean set them back down again, each time a little closer to shore.

Sheila saw people gather there, people who hadn’t been there before, people who had come to watch and people who had come to help. She thought she saw some men wading into the surf with life preservers and ropes. She thought she saw an ambulance. Then she thought she saw her father. And there was Uncle Mitch.

Maybe not. She was too tired now to be sure. She knew only that she and her pony and her cousin were going toward the shore. They were going to get there.

Maverick’s feet struck sand. He was walking now,
not swimming. He struggled with the weight of the two girls on his back; he struggled with his own exhaustion. He took more steps. He paused. Without any signal from Sheila, he walked forward toward the beach, the dry sand, toward safety.

Sheila heard voices. She saw hands reaching for her and for Carole. She felt Maverick snort weakly and then stumble.

That was the last thing she remembered.

L
ISA PUT THE
last breakfast dish in the dishwasher, rolled the racks in, and shut the door. Then she wiped the sink dry. It wasn’t until she noticed that she was doing the wiping with her own shirttail that it occurred to her that her mind was not totally occupied with washing the breakfast dishes. A glance back in the dishwasher confirmed her suspicions. She’d put the tea kettle in there, too!

She rescued the tea kettle, put it back on the stove, turned out the kitchen light, and retreated to her room. It was school vacation for her, but it wasn’t vacation for her parents. They’d both gone to work and she was alone in the house. She thought she
might do some work on her science report that was due in three weeks, but try as she might to concentrate on electricity, all she could think about was Alice Jackson.

Lisa closed her book and climbed onto her bed. That was where she did her best thinking, especially if her dog, Dolly, joined her. She invited her up. Dolly was only too happy to oblige. The Lhasa apso jumped right onto the bed and settled herself onto Lisa’s lap. Lisa patted her and thought. She found she could do those two things at the same time.

She and Stevie had only been trying to help Alice. Lisa certainly would be grateful to friends who tried to do that for her. She was sure Stevie and Carole would be, too. So why wasn’t Alice? What was there to be angry about? Friends were
supposed
to help. She and Stevie were just being
friends.
Why couldn’t Alice appreciate that?

She shook her head. This was the third day she’d been asking herself the same set of questions. Three days of absentmindedness was enough! There had to be an answer, and she hoped they’d find it today. Today was Tuesday. That meant they had riding class this afternoon. Alice was supposed to be there, but if what Stevie had heard was correct, Alice wouldn’t be there. The one thing that bothered Lisa even more
than the idea that Alice was angry with them was the idea that she might actually have meant it when she’d said she wasn’t going to ride anymore. Horseback riding was the most important thing in the world to Lisa, and she couldn’t bear the idea that somebody else might never do it again because of something she’d done—even if she hadn’t meant to. That was the part that made Lisa feel the worst.

She had to talk to Stevie. She reached for the phone.

Stevie seemed to be in the same quandary that Lisa was.

“I can’t believe she means she’ll never ride again,” Stevie said.

“But what if she did mean it? That means we caused it even if we don’t know why.”

“Then maybe we
ought
to know why,” said Stevie.

“Maybe the ‘why’ is none of our business,” Lisa suggested.

There was a long pause. One of Stevie’s characteristics was her insatiable curiosity. It would never occur to her that there was something that wasn’t her business.

But Lisa was beginning to see another side of what had happened. She and Stevie had just assumed that Alice’s reasons for not jumping weren’t important and
needed to be overcome. What if they were wrong about that? What if Alice had serious reasons for not wanting to jump and serious reasons for not wanting to talk about it? She quickly explained her thoughts to Stevie.

“But what kind of serious reasons could Alice have?” Stevie asked.

“None of our business,” Lisa answered.

Stevie finally seemed to catch on. “You mean we were just meddling?” she asked.

“I guess that’s the word,” Lisa agreed.

Stevie was a girl of action. Once she’d reached a conclusion, she just had to act on it. “How soon can you get here?” she asked Lisa.

“Fifteen minutes,” Lisa said. It would have been sooner since the two of them lived in the same neighborhood, but Lisa had to get dressed and pack her riding clothes for their afternoon class. She would be going to Pine Hollow from Stevie’s house.

She changed and put her riding clothes in a backpack. She locked up the house and in fifteen minutes was at Stevie’s door.

Stevie was waiting for her. “We have to talk to Alice,” Stevie said, opening the door for Lisa. “We have to get her to come to class today. If she makes good on her threat and misses just one riding
class, it may take a lot longer to get her back into the saddle.”

“We’re going to have to apologize,” Lisa said.

“A lot,” Stevie agreed.

“We don’t have any time to waste,” said Lisa.

Together the two girls walked over to Alice’s grandmother’s house. They’d considered calling first, but they felt they had a better chance of succeeding in person.

Alice answered their knock.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded through the screen door.

“We came to say we’re sorry,” Lisa began.

“You should be,” said Alice.

“We are,” Stevie confirmed.

“We thought we were being helpful,” Lisa said.

“You weren’t,” said Alice.

“We know,” said Stevie. “We were just meddling.”

“It isn’t any of your business,” said Alice.

“Yes,” Stevie and Lisa agreed in a single voice. “We know that now,” Lisa added.

“But if you don’t ever ride again and we caused it, then it
is
our business,” said Stevie. “You don’t have to jump and you don’t even have to talk to us. But we know that you love riding just as much as we do, and we can’t stand the idea that you might not ride because
of something we did that we shouldn’t have done.”