Ghost Rider (2 page)

Colonel Hanson started laughing. “Very good,” he said. “And when did you complete your study of persuasive rhetoric?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you’re doing a good job of presenting a solid argument with interesting facts to support your position. I’m impressed.”

“Da-ad …”

As far as Carole was concerned, her father was the most terrific man in the world. They had always been close but had become even more so since the death of Carole’s mother a few years before. They often joked and teased one another, and though Carole usually enjoyed it, she didn’t think it was funny when something as important as three days off from school and a trip to The Bar None were at stake.

“I’ll talk with Phyllis,” Colonel Hanson said, sensing that this was what Carole really needed him to do.

It was all she could ask.

A few hours later it was all set, and Carole could barely believe her good luck. Neither could Stevie and Lisa. Somehow Phyllis Devine’s call for help from The Saddle Club had struck a chord in everyone’s parents, and they all had agreed. Each parent insisted on clearing it with the schools, but the girls were confident that if they kept repeating the sentence, “It’s for a good cause,” the schools would see the wisdom of letting the girls go.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Stevie squeaked into the phone.

“Fabulous!” Lisa agreed.

“Exciting,” Carole added.

Stevie’s family had signed up for a special telephone service that would let somebody talk to two people at once. The girls all agreed that it seemed custom-designed for telephone meetings of The Saddle Club. Her parents were beginning to think that the service had been custom-designed to make their telephone bill go through the ceiling, but as long as Stevie pitched in to pay for the phone bill, they didn’t seem to mind.

“I’ve got zillions of ideas for a great Halloween party,” Stevie said. “I mean, of course, we’ll have a horror house, and then there should be a contest of some kind—like how about one where you guess the
number of candy corns in a jar—and then there can be a pumpkin-carving table.…”

“Can we have kids decorate cupcakes?” Lisa asked. She was quite artistic and always enjoyed making things.

“And we should definitely offer pony rides,” Carole said. Although all three of the girls were horse crazy, Carole was the horse craziest. She had a way of bringing horses into everything she did. Her friends liked that about her.

“There should be a costume contest, too,” Lisa said. “And a parade.”

“Definitely a parade,” Stevie agreed. “And we can lead it.”

“What should we wear?” Lisa asked.

“You sound like Veronica diAngelo,” Stevie said. “That’s all she ever thinks about. Are you catching it from her?” Veronica was a snobbish rich girl who also rode at Pine Hollow. She was always more concerned about how she looked than how she rode. That was definitely
not
how Stevie, Lisa, and Carole thought about riding.

“I don’t mean that we should go out West dressed as fashion plates,” Lisa said. “I mean that if it’s a Halloween party, we’re going to need costumes. Frankly, I’m tired of being a ballerina every Halloween.”

“Is that what you were?” Stevie said. “You’re so lucky! The only costumes we ever have around this place are leftover pirate outfits from my brothers.”

“And it seems like I’m always going as a noncommissioned officer,” Carole lamented. Colonel Hanson seemed to have unlimited access to leftover Marine Corps uniforms.

“Come on, girls, we can do better than
this
,” Lisa said.

“Hmmmm,” Stevie said. It was a sign that her scheming mind was working. “Why don’t we use Veronica as an inspiration?”

“Ugh,” Carole said.

“And go as models? Dressed in designer clothes our parents can’t afford?”

“No, that’s not what I mean at all,” said Stevie. “You know how Veronica is always accusing us of being goody-goodies for Max?” Max was the owner of Pine Hollow. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole always wanted to please him because that meant they were learning more about horses, but only Veronica would have called them goody-goodies. “You know how she even calls us the three blind mice?”

There was a brief silence while Lisa and Carole figured out what was on Stevie’s mind.

“Great idea!” Lisa said. “All we’ll need are some gray sweats.”

“Hooded shirts that we can put ears on …,” Carole suggested.

“Whiskers!” Stevie added.

“Add sunglasses, a cane, and,
voilà!
There you have three blind mice.”

“Stevie, you’re brilliant,” Lisa said.

“It was nothing,” Stevie said. “Just the logical thing to do. Well, just the logical thing for a
genius
to do.…”

“And so modest,” Lisa teased.

“I have to be careful, though,” Stevie said. “I can’t use up all of my genius tonight.”

“Are you afraid you’re about to run out?” Lisa asked.

“Not really. It’s just that I’m going to need inspiration. See, my parents said
I
have to be the one to talk Miss Fenton into letting me out of school for three days next week.”

Lisa and Carole laughed. If there was ever anybody who was an expert at talking a grown-up into letting her do something the grown-up really didn’t think she ought to do, it was Stevie.

“I don’t think there’s any danger of your running out of genius for
that
,” Carole said.

“Just tell her it’s for a good cause,” Lisa suggested.

“… 
AND
, M
ISS
F
ENTON
, it’s for a good cause,” Stevie found herself saying the next morning. She was standing
in Miss Fenton’s office, trying to sound sincere. She was sincere. She meant everything she had said, even the part about making up missed work before returning to school on Monday. She just wanted to be sure she sounded as sincere as she felt.

Miss Fenton cleared her throat. Stevie didn’t think that was a good sign. “All right, now, Stephanie, let me see if I’ve got this straight.”

The fact that Miss Fenton was calling her by her full name also wasn’t a good sign. Nobody
ever
called her Stephanie unless there was trouble.

“You are promising to do all the work you miss
and
an extra report about the value of community service, so that you and your friends can take three days off from school to travel two thousand miles to give a party?”

“And it’s for a good cause,” Stevie added again.

Miss Fenton sighed. That was definitely not a good sign. “Well, the only thing I can say is that, considering what you’ve done at Fenton Hall in the name of good causes, I hope these poor people know what they’re in for!”

It took Stevie a second to realize that she’d actually been given permission to go. “Oh, they do, Miss Fenton, they do!”

Then Miss Fenton laughed and shook Stevie’s hand. “Good luck, Stevie,” she said. “It sounds to me as if
you’ve got an opportunity to make a special contribution to a worthy cause. I wouldn’t think of standing in your way, and I can’t wait to read your report. Next Monday morning.”

The significance of the last sentence was not lost on Stevie. She smiled, nodded, and dashed out of Miss Fenton’s office. She didn’t want to wait around for Miss Fenton to have a change of heart!

W
HENEVER
THE
GIRLS
arrived at The Bar None, they got a warm greeting, but this one was particularly warm. The look on Phyllis Devine’s face when The Saddle Club came into view was total relief.

“I thought you’d never get here!” she exclaimed, hugging all three girls at once.

The girls laughed. “You can count on us,” Stevie promised. “Anytime. I mean anytime it’s going to get me out of school for three days! Now here’s what I’ve got planned.”

Ideas poured out of Stevie the way water flowed over Niagara Falls. The girls hadn’t even put their suitcases down before Stevie got to the horror house, which was going to be completely dark and
very
scary.

“… and for that, we’re going to have to peel some grapes—eyeballs, you know. Cold pasta makes great ‘brains’ in the dark, but I think we ought to use something other than spaghetti. What’s that stuff that looks like brains? Radiatore or something? We’ll have the kids screaming from here to Denver!”

“But won’t they be scared?” Phyllis asked.

“That’s the whole idea,” Stevie assured her. “Of course, we’ll make sure that it’s all fun and they know it. We can’t have everybody fainting all day long. Now about the crafts tables …”

Stevie and Phyllis sat down at the kitchen table and began plotting. As Stevie rattled off her ideas, Phyllis nodded enthusiastically and took notes.

“Where do these go?”
Thump
. The girls heard the sound of their suitcases hitting the floor and looked to see who had asked the question. It was a boy a little older than they were.

“This is John Brightstar,” Kate said, introducing him to Stevie, Lisa, and Carole. “His father, Walter, is our new head wrangler.” She thanked John for bringing the bags in and told him that the girls were staying in Bunkhouse One. Lisa offered to give him a hand carrying the suitcases over to the bunkhouse. John accepted her offer. Without a word the two of them picked up the suitcases and left the kitchen.

“… and we’re going to need to have at least one
really special prize. It’s for the Kandy Korn Kounting Kontest,” Stevie continued, as she and Phyllis picked up exactly where they’d left off.

Carole turned to Kate. “Okay, what’s up?” she asked. “I mean, it’s time for you to explain what you meant by ‘There’s something else.’ ”

Kate’s face lit up. “It’s really exciting,” she said. “It’s about a horse. Come on, I’ll tell you all about him.”

The look on Kate’s face told Carole that this was a very special horse, and she couldn’t wait to hear more. The two of them left the party schemers at the kitchen table and retreated to the lounge, where they could talk about something
really
important: horses.

“It’s a stallion,” Kate began. “He’s pure white, and he’s the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen.”

“Really white?” Carole asked. The only true white horses were albinos and were extremely rare. All the rest were called gray horses, no matter how white they appeared, because they all had some other colors mixed in with the white.

“A really white gray,” Kate confirmed. “But it isn’t even so much his color as his beauty.”

Carole could visualize the horse, and she was thrilled for her friend. “When did you get him?” she asked.

“I didn’t. That’s the problem,” Kate said. “He’s in a
wild herd that roams on the federal land around here. I
want
to get him. I just don’t know if I can.”

“Isn’t there a way to buy a wild horse?” Carole asked. “I remember reading something about it.”

Kate nodded. “You don’t buy them. You
adopt
them. It’s a program run by the Bureau of Land Management.” She pulled a booklet out of a pile on a coffee table. It was entitled
So You’d Like to Adopt a Wild Horse or Burro
. Carole flipped through it, and it sparked her memory. She had read about the Adopt-a-Horse-or-Burro program. If somebody wanted a horse, all he or she had to do was pay a small adoption fee and take good care of the horse for a year, at which time that person could own it. There were other rules, but it wasn’t much more complicated than that. The only drawbacks were that the horses were most likely completely wild, and you might not get too much choice.

“The next adoption is coming up in another week, and I just keep thinking, what if somebody else adopts him before I do?” Kate said.

Carole looked at her friend and smiled. “This is almost funny, you know,” she said. “You’ve been a national championship rider. You’ve been mounted on some of the finest horses in the country with bloodlines that would wow the queen of England. And now you’ve got your heart set on a no-account mustang?”

Kate nodded. “He’s special,” she said.

“Love at first sight?” Carole asked.

“Definitely,” Kate said. “Just wait until you see him.”

“How long do I have to wait? Can we go for a ride now?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Kate said. “Let’s get Stevie and Lisa.”

I
T TOOK THE
girls a very short time to change into their riding clothes and head for the barn to saddle up their horses. Each one had chosen a favorite horse on previous visits to The Bar None, so there was no delay in selecting their mounts for this ride. Kate had alerted Walter, and their horses were ready for them.

Carole greeted Berry, her strawberry roan, with a firm pat. Chocolate, Lisa’s bay mare, nuzzled her neck.

“She remembers me!” Lisa cried, offering the horse a sugar lump.

“Possibly, but she may also be able to smell the sugar,” Kate said wryly.

Lisa was just pleased to see “her” horse again.

Stevie rode a brown-and-white-patched pony whose name was Stewball. He had an offbeat look that matched his personality, which also matched Stevie’s. This horse always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do. Normally that was a troublesome characteristic
in a horse. The odd part about Stewball was that what he wanted to do always seemed to be exactly what Stevie wanted to do. It was as if the two of them were made for each other. Back in Virginia, Stevie usually rode a blue-blooded Thoroughbred named Topside. Topside was an elegant, beautifully trained horse. He was almost the opposite of Stewball. Stevie loved them both for very different reasons. She gave Stewball a great big hug when she caught him in the paddock. He pretended not to notice, but Stevie was convinced he remembered her and was at least a little bit happy to see her again.