Driving Team (5 page)

“Here’s your partner,” Max said. “You can fill her in on what I told you.” Again he turned and walked back to his office. Veronica stood there looking at the harness stretched out on the floor, her nose wrinkling in disgust.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m turning this jumbled-up box of tack into a driving harness,” said Stevie. “And you’re supposed to be helping.”

“Oh, I had lunch at the country club with my parents.” Veronica giggled. “We met some friends from
France, and it went on a lot longer than I expected. You know how the French are about their
déjeuners
.”

Stevie glared at her. “No, but I do know how Max is about his Horse Wise assignments. Why don’t you grab the end of that trace and help me work on this tack?”

“You actually want me to touch that stuff?” Veronica blinked at Stevie. “I’ll get this outfit all grimy with dried horse crud!” She shook her head. “I think Max must have had something else in mind for me.”

Stevie looked down at the box. Suddenly she had an idea. An impish little smile flashed across her face, and she turned her gaze back to Veronica.

“You know, Veronica, I think you’re absolutely right! Max would never dream of asking anybody who came to the stable in cashmere to do anything that might get them dirty. Why don’t you go tell him you need something cleaner to do?”

Veronica lifted one eyebrow. “Do you think he’d listen?”

“I can almost guarantee it,” Stevie replied, trying to make her voice sound sincere.

“Well, for once you’ve had a good idea, Stevie Lake!” Veronica turned and hurried back down the hall to Max’s office.

For a moment Stevie was tempted to tiptoe down the hall and listen at the door. She was dying to hear Max’s reply to the gullible Veronica, but she knew if he
caught her eavesdropping, she’d be in as much trouble as Veronica. “No,” she finally told herself. “Just concentrate on this tack and see what happens.”

She concentrated on uncoiling the other trace in the box and laying it out beside the first one. Soon she heard footsteps coming down the hall. She looked up. Veronica trudged toward her, now wearing her oldest, dirtiest sweatshirt and a pair of tattered riding breeches.

“Gosh, Veronica, what happened?” Stevie cooed. “Didn’t Max have a clean job for you?”

“No!” Veronica’s face was bright red. “He told me I needed to reevaluate my attitude toward barn work. Then he told me to come back here and ask you what you wanted me to do.” She looked at Stevie. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Get busy and sort out this tack,” said Stevie. “This is what we’re going to use in our demonstration.”

Veronica sighed again and flopped down on the floor. She poked around in the box for a moment, then pulled out an odd-shaped piece of leather that was studded with brass buttons.

“Ugh,” she said, holding up the dirty piece of tack as if it were a strange object from outer space. “What in the world is this thing?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Stevie. “This is kind of like a big puzzle. Why don’t you saddle soap it and put it
over in the mystery pile? Then we can piece everything together later.”

“Oh, whatever,” groaned Veronica. She got up and walked to the tack room, returning in a few minutes with some saddle soap and rags. Stevie watched her as she gingerly rubbed the soap into the leather, then polished it to a soft, supple glow. Though she was careful not to chip her nails or get any dirt on her clothes, Veronica was actually doing a halfway decent job of cleaning the tack.

“Looks good,” Stevie said as Veronica’s pile of clean tack slowly grew.

“Hnnnh,” Veronica grumped. “I thought this was what they paid people like Red O’Malley to do.”

“Yes, but it’s fun to learn how to do it yourself, don’t you think?” Stevie replied pleasantly. If she was going to be stuck with Veronica, they might as well try to get along.

“I don’t see any point in learning to do anything that you can pay somebody else to do for you,” Veronica snapped. “Particularly when you’re only going to do it once in your entire life.”

“But you don’t know that,” said Stevie. “You might love driving and want to do it all the time. It looks like a lot of fun to me.”

“Some of the driving costumes look fun,” replied
Veronica. “I’ve seen pictures of great teams of horses pulling these magnificent coaches. And all the drivers and passengers are dressed in satin clothes and white wigs. And there’s even a footman who rides in the rear and blows a horn to announce their arrival!”

Stevie snickered at the idea of Veronica blowing a horn to announce the Pine Hollow wagon. “I don’t think we’re quite ready for a horn-tooting footman. And everybody would die laughing if we showed up in satin clothes and white wigs!”

Veronica shot a look at Stevie. “Well, what had you planned on wearing for this demonstration?”

Stevie shrugged. “I thought our good show outfits would be okay.”

“Our good show outfits?” Veronica rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. We’ve got to come up with something else. My oldest, most worn show outfit makes your very best one look like something from the rag bag. You’ll only embarrass yourself if you wear it.” Veronica sniffed. “You’ll embarrass me, too, come to think of it.”

“And just what’s wrong with my good show outfit?” Stevie was suddenly so mad the tips of her ears were hot. She loved that outfit; she had worked hard babysitting to earn the money to buy it.

“Well, it’s just so … so … so
prêt-à-porter
,” Veronica sniffed. “Off the rack. Ready to wear. My coats and breeches are all specially tailored at Horseman’s
Haberdashery in Washington.” She gave Stevie an indulgent smile. “They even have a special dressmaker’s dummy with my name on it.”

“What an honor!” cried Stevie. She could no longer resist temptation. “Now not only one, but two dummies are named Veronica diAngelo!”

“How dare you—” Veronica’s words were cut short by a muffled beep. Stevie watched as she withdrew a tiny cell phone from the pocket of her breeches. “Hello?” she said quietly, turning her back to Stevie.

Stevie started working with the tack again as Veronica got up and paced around the hallway, murmuring into the phone. Finally, as Stevie heard her say good-bye, she could have sworn Veronica’s voice cracked with some kind of strong emotion. She looked up. Veronica was quickly stuffing the cell phone back in her pocket.

“I’ve got to go,” Veronica announced, her voice like ice.

Stevie frowned. “Go? You just got here.”

“I know, but something’s come up. My parents are sending their car. I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning.”

“Well, all right,” Stevie said in amazement, watching as Veronica wiped at one eye and strode off toward the locker room.

Stevie turned her attention back to the box as
Veronica disappeared down the hall.
How strange
, she thought.
Veronica shows up here to work for about five minutes, then she gets a phone call and leaves
. She stood up and looked out the window. Just as she turned to gaze out at the wide front drive, the diAngelos’ white Mercedes came rolling to a stop. Stevie leaned against the window and watched. In a moment Veronica came hurrying out, once again dressed in her cashmere sweater.

“They must be having a big sale at the mall,” Stevie said aloud as Veronica got into the backseat of the car. “Or maybe the Horseman’s Haberdashery is having a closeout on everything that fits Veronica’s dummy.”

She gave a big sigh and turned back to the box of tack. She wished she were with Carole and Lisa at the library. “At least they get to be together,” she grumbled out loud. “And they get to be together miles away from Veronica and her stupid dress dummy.”

Oh, well
, she thought as she picked up a set of blinders. Tonight she would call both of them. They would probably enjoy getting an earful about creepy Veronica, and giving it to them might make her feel a little better.

“T
HANKS FOR THE
lift, Dad,” Carole said as her father, Colonel Mitch Hanson, pulled up in front of the library. “Looks like Lisa’s already here.”

“Where?” Colonel Hanson steered the car close to the curb.

Carole pointed to a small figure in a red jacket. “Up there. Sitting by the lion.”

“Oh, I see her.” Colonel Hanson waved at Lisa as Carole unbuckled her seat belt. “Now, tell me again what you two are planning today?”

“First Lisa and I are going to work on our driving team project all morning, then Mrs. Atwood’s going to take us to the mall.” Carole smiled at her father as she
hopped out of the car. “I should be home around suppertime.”

“Sounds like fun. You guys work hard and I’ll see you later.” He chuckled. “Don’t buy out all the stores.”

“Right, Dad, like I’ve got thousands of dollars to spend!”

Carole hurried up the steps of the library, where Lisa was waiting. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry I’m late. My dad wouldn’t leave the house until he’d finished the Sunday comics.”

Lisa smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ve only been here about five minutes. Let’s go on inside and get started. Two weeks seems like a long time away, but it’s really not.”

“You’re not kidding,” said Carole. “We’ve really only got today and whatever time we can squeeze out next weekend. Then it’ll be two weeks, and we’ll be standing in front of everybody from Horse Wise and Cross County, too. Thank goodness the library’s open Sundays during school or we’d
really
be in trouble!”

Lisa gave a little shudder as she opened the door. “I know. If we aren’t prepared, we’ll just stand up there and make fools of ourselves. I think we’d better get a lot done today.”

Inside, the library was just as warm and cheery as it had been the day before. They looked around the main reading room and saw Mrs. Davidson giving them a friendly wave from behind the checkout desk.

“I guess we’d better go get all our reserved books,” whispered Lisa.

“Okay. Let’s take them to that table in the corner,” Carole said as she followed Lisa to Mrs. Davidson.

“Hi, girls,” chirped Mrs. Davidson. “I see you’re here bright and early today.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Lisa glanced at Carole. “We didn’t get quite as much done as we needed to yesterday.”

Mrs. Davidson smiled. “Well, I’ve got all your titles on reserve. Would you like them now?”

“Yes, please,” said Carole.

“I’ll go get them, then.” Mrs. Davidson bustled over to a small area behind the counter where several piles of books lay. She picked up about a third of Lisa and Carole’s stack and lugged them back to the counter. “Here are a few. It’ll take me a moment to get the rest.”

“Thanks,” said Carole. “We’ll take these over to that table in the corner.”

It took several trips, but finally Carole and Lisa had carried all forty-two books to the library table.

“How are we ever going to plow through all these pages?” Lisa wondered aloud, eyeing the stacks of books. “That’s thousands of years of horse driving history, and we’ve only got two weeks to get it all together!”

Carole sighed. “I know. And there are so many
things we need to include, too. Like how they drove teams in the military, in transportation, and in farmwork.”

“And don’t forget the fun stuff,” added Lisa. “Like racing and horse shows.”

“I guess we’d better start reading,” Carole said. “All this information isn’t going to just jump inside our brains. Why don’t I go sharpen our pencils while you get out our index cards?”

“Okay,” said Lisa. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

Carole got up and walked to the other side of the library. There was a pencil sharpener next to the children’s section. She had just shoved the first pencil into the sharpener when she glanced over at a child-sized desk. A familiar little blond girl sat there, hunched over a copy of Misty. The book was opened to the exact place where she and Lisa had stopped reading the day before, and the little girl was tracing the illustrations with her finger.

“Cynthia!” Carole whispered. “You’re here again!”

Cynthia looked up and smiled. “Hi, Carole,” she greeted her shyly.

“How come you’re here so early? Most people don’t come to the library on Sunday mornings unless they have important research to do.”

Cynthia shrugged her tiny shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “I guess I just like it here a lot.”

Carole began to sharpen her pencil. “What time did you get here?”

“Oh, right when they opened,” answered Cynthia.

“And did your mother bring you?” Carole smiled.

“Yes.” Cynthia looked down and rubbed a page of the book.

“Is she here?” Carole looked around to see if there were any motherly-looking women nearby.

Cynthia gave a slightly embarrassed grin and said nothing.

Suddenly Carole caught on. “She dropped you off here again, didn’t she, Cynthia?”

“Well, kind of,” Cynthia admitted.

“Just so she could go shopping?”

Cynthia lowered her eyes and did not reply.

“That’s incredible!” Carole cried, jamming the second pencil into the sharpener and turning the crank furiously. “The idea of someone leaving a little kid here two days in a row just so she could go to the mall!” She turned to Cynthia. “You stay right here. I’ll be back in a minute!”