Horse Trouble (6 page)

She was less than six feet from the horse when a group of riders appeared at the edge of the field. Diablo’s ears perked up alertly. He lifted his head. This horse had already had as much trauma as he could take for one day. Five more horses, with riders who might or might not be planning something for him, were just too much for Diablo. He took off and fled, and at that moment all of Carole’s patience fled, too. She took the only other option open to her. She raced after him.

Diablo tore across the field, challenging the trail riders by racing right at them. At first Carole saw only that there were five riders and that one of them was Red O’Malley. All of her concentration was on the red-and-white-splattered horse ahead of her. Then the sound of laughter distracted her enough to make her look at exactly who those riders were. Her second look was all it took, for she could see that all of them, except Red, were very, very tall. The beginners’ class of basketball players had apparently talked Red into a follow-up trail ride, and they were enjoying themselves immensely—at Carole’s expense.

That was when Carole stopped seeing red and white speckles and began to see only red. She was only trying to do the very best job she could, and it seemed that the harder she tried, the bigger mistakes she made and the more these men ended up laughing at her. She was furious!

Beneath her, Starlight felt a sudden change in her mood and her position. Starlight always tried to please Carole, and so he wanted to do what he thought she wanted. He didn’t always do the right thing, but this time he did. Without further urging, he began moving faster and more surely in pursuit of the frantic Diablo. Once Starlight was committed, it didn’t take long. Carole and Starlight flew past the laughing riders. She never looked back—just concentrated totally on the loose horse in front of her. Diablo tried dodging, he tried running, he tried doubling back. None of it worked. Starlight had him in his sights, and Carole was totally determined to win. Within a few minutes Starlight had come up alongside the fleeing bay. Carole reached over and grabbed the dangling lead rope. Without further instruction Starlight did exactly the right thing. He watched Diablo out of one eye and matched his own pace to Diablo’s. Carole tugged gently on the lead rope. Diablo wanted to run some more, but he was a well-trained horse and knew a
sharp signal when he felt one. He slowed. Starlight slowed as well. Diablo slowed some more. So did Starlight. Soon Starlight and Diablo were walking. Carole began speaking to the frightened horse.

“Don’t worry, boy. We’re going to take care of you. We’ll get you back to the stable and see if we can’t get some of that nasty paint off you. We’ll get you some hay and some grain and a nice bucket of fresh water. You’ll have your friends nearby, and not a one of them will dare make fun of you. Nobody’s going to laugh at you at all.”

Diablo listened to Carole. Even though he couldn’t understand the words, he understood the tone. Carole spoke to him the entire way back to the stable—even as she passed Red and the basketball players. She knew that as long as she was talking to the horse, they wouldn’t try to say anything to her. As she passed, however, she did hear Red explaining her chatter to the tall men.

“She’s calming the horse down,” Red said, “and she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

“She
does
?” one of the men asked, sounding rather astonished. The other three began laughing.

For the second time that day, Carole wanted to die. Instantly.

C
AROLE WENT DIRECTLY
to the stalls with Starlight and Diablo. She called out to Stevie and Lisa to let them know that she was back and had Diablo. She didn’t want to be anywhere in public where anyone, especially four basketball players, one head stable hand, and one stable owner, might see her and start laughing at all the foolish things she’d done all day long. Animals were more forgiving than people. The horses, even Diablo, seemed happy for her company.

She removed Starlight’s bridle, gave him a quick brushing, and set him loose in his stall. She’d already groomed him once that day, and that should be
enough. Diablo was going to be more of a challenge. She found some old rags and began working on the paint. It was oil-based, fast-drying outdoor paint. It didn’t want to come off at all. She knew she could use turpentine on it, but that stuff was very abrasive and could harm the horse’s skin. Since Diablo tended to have sensitive skin, she thought it was a bad idea. Moreover, turpentine was very flammable, and she didn’t like the idea of using something very flammable in the stable where fire was always a danger. Finally, the thought of the strong, unpleasant odor filling the stable was enough to convince her not to use turpentine. She rubbed, she washed, she brushed, she combed. She actually got some paint off, but not much. After working on it for fifteen minutes, she decided that it would be no worse tomorrow, when she could work on it outdoors and use some turpentine carefully.

“Sorry about that, Diablo,” she said, patting his shoulder affectionately. “For now you’re just going to have to live with it. Tomorrow Stevie and Lisa and I will begin work on your make-over. We’ll get you back to a nice glistening brown, okay?”

He nuzzled her and tickled her neck. “If that’s an apology for your misbehavior, I accept it,” she said, and hugged him back. At least Diablo didn’t seem to
be inclined to laugh at her. She gave him fresh hay and water and a ration of grain for his supper.

She found the four basketball players’ horses in the paddock by the stable’s rear door, waiting to be untacked and put up for the night. When there was work to be done, Carole was always glad to do it. She knew her friends could use help with the painting, but Carole just didn’t feel ready to be with other people right then. She felt more like staying with the horses. She wondered where Red had disappeared to, but when she heard his voice in Max’s office, she knew he would be particularly happy to have her help. Max and Red were having a loud conversation, making plans for the rest of the week. It seemed that The Saddle Club members weren’t the only people who missed Mrs. Reg.

Without further hesitation Carole began her next job. One by one, she took the horses into the stalls. Each one had to be untacked, groomed, watered, and fed. Since it was evening and they wouldn’t be going out of the stable again until morning, it had to be done right. Carole was good at this kind of work, but there weren’t many shortcuts when it came to taking good care of horses. It was almost an hour before she could return to her friends. They would understand. At least she hoped they would.

When the last horse was groomed and fed and put up for the night, she was ready to go back to the painting. It was twilight. Carole hated to think about how much more work there would be to do. Three girls simply couldn’t paint the entire front of stable in a few hours—even three very determined girls. They would have to work into the night and be at the stable even earlier the next morning. And then there would be tomorrow night.…

The thought alone exhausted Carole.

“Here I come,” she announced to her friends as she walked toward the stable’s front door. “Give me a brush. What needs to be done most?”

“Nothing,” Lisa said as Carole emerged from the stable into the dim twilight. “It’s all done.”

“Very funny,” Carole said.

“No joke,” said Stevie.

Carole looked. The sky was darkening, but it wasn’t so dark that she couldn’t see the whole job had been finished. The front of the stable was now a beautiful deep red with a sparkling white trim. The job
was
done. The ladders, buckets, brushes, drop cloths, and hats were nowhere in sight.

“How could the two of you do all that work by yourselves?” Carole asked. She was totally astonished.

“We had some help,” Lisa said.

“Santa’s elves?” Carole asked. “It’s not exactly the season, you know.”

“No, more like the Jolly Green Giants—four of them in fact,” Stevie said.

That could only mean one thing. “The basketball players?” she asked.

“You won’t believe how high they could reach without even using a ladder!” Lisa said.

“You are amazing, Stevie. How did you talk those clowns into helping you?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Stevie said. “It was all you. When they saw how much work you were doing around here, they said that any place that inspired such devotion certainly deserved to have their help. They spent more than an hour doing all the hardest parts of the painting. Without them we’d be here until midnight. We have you to thank for their help.”

“Me?” Carole asked. “I don’t understand. They spent the whole day laughing at my silly mistakes.”

“No,” Lisa said. “They spent the whole day admiring what you were trying to do. They liked it so much, they want to sign up the whole rest of the basketball team for lessons. Max is going wild trying to figure out when he’s going to fit them into the schedule, but Red is trying to talk him into buying some taller horses!”

Carole shook her head in disbelief. It was hard to imagine how so much good could come from one really dumb mistake. She was simply too tired to take it all in. It would have to wait for another day.

“A
LL RIGHT
,
THEN
, that’s it,” Stevie said—much more positively than she felt. “We all have our assignments, let’s begin the day.”

Carole snapped a salute at her and clicked her heels.

“Am I that bad?” Stevie asked sheepishly.

Lisa nodded.

Stevie was finding that when three girls were trying to equal one woman, it wasn’t easy in more ways than one. It wasn’t easy because it was hard to do the job, and it particularly wasn’t easy because it was a strain on their friendship. Each of them was nervous that she was going to mess up and it would be her fault. There was so much to do and it was
so
important.

This morning, for example, Stevie had to figure out how to order food for the horses. She’d made the job sound light when she took it on, but the truth was, she wasn’t at all sure about what to do, and she didn’t want to goof.

Lisa’s job could be even trickier. She’d volunteered to skip jump class to take the French ambassador out on a trail ride. The U.S. had pretty good relationships with France, and it seemed unlikely that anything Lisa would do, or not do, was going to change that. Still, it was a big responsibility.

Although Carole’s job wouldn’t affect international relations, or cost Pine Hollow a lot of money if she made a mistake, it was in its way even trickier than her friends’ jobs. Carole had taken on the task of assigning horses to riders. She had already unfolded a giant chart she’d made last night to keep track of the names of riders and horses and class hours. She spread the chart out on Mrs. Reg’s desk and looked pointedly at Stevie, who relinquished the chair. Carole instantly began scribbling on her chart. Lisa hurried to a quiet spot in the locker area and pulled out her French phrase book. Stevie headed for the feed shed.

She knew that feed for horses consisted primarily of hay and grain, both of which could be a fire hazard. She didn’t exactly understand what caused spontaneous
combustion in bales of hay, but she’d seen the result in a barn fire once and never wanted to see it again. Grain was a fire hazard because it was dusty and the dust particles could almost hang in the air. In the case of a fire—or even a spark that might start one—the dust particles themselves would burn, and that burning would be explosive. For those reasons most stables, including Pine Hollow, stored their feed in a separate shed. No matter how careful people were, accidents happened. Keeping the potential accident a distance from the horses made the stable itself safer for the animals.

Stevie opened the door to the feed shed and turned on the light. Bags, barrels, and bales were piled neatly everywhere. The place was pretty full, so it seemed odd that Mrs. Reg wanted to order more for Friday, but who was Stevie to disagree with something on Mrs. Reg’s list?

And who was Stevie to figure out what Mrs. Reg wanted to order? And how on earth was she going to do it?

She sat down on a bale of hay and began chewing on a fingernail. It didn’t taste very good, and it didn’t help her thinking. She stopped chewing on the nail and looked around, hoping to pull an answer out of thin air. And she did.