Pleasure Horse (6 page)

As they sped along, Stevie pressed her face against the van window and peered out at the city lights. If only Carole and Lisa had been there to enjoy the sights with her … they could have had so much fun traipsing around together. Even when they weren’t around horses, the girls seemed to get into adventures. All things considered, Stevie did have to admit that Chad, Alex, and Michael hadn’t been that bad. But she dreaded the next day, when she would have to deal with them around a bunch of cheerleaders. That was when Stevie would
really
miss her friends. She wasn’t entirely sure that she could survive the sweet sixteen party-of-the-century without them.

“K
NOCK
,
KNOCK
! Pizza delivery!” a voice called from outside.

“Pizza delivery? When did you call to order?” Lisa asked Carole. After Pine Hollow, the two girls had adjourned to Carole’s house, where Lisa was spending the night.

Carole grinned. “I didn’t, but when Dad has to work late, he makes up for it by getting pizza. Or if he’s really late, it’s Chinese takeout,” she explained. She went to let her father in. “Is this the Hanson special I asked for?” she inquired through the door.

Joining Carole at the door, Lisa raised her eyebrows in curiosity. She and Stevie had spent many a night at the Hansons’ and they were used to the special rapport between Carole and her father, but Lisa had never heard of the “Hanson special.”

“As long as the Hanson special is still a large, half plain, half mushroom-and-pepperoni,” Colonel Hanson replied, chuckling.

Carole swung open the door. “Excellent memory, sir. You may come in.”

With a kiss for his daughter and a warm hello for Lisa, Colonel Hanson handed the pizza to them. Then he went to wash up in the bathroom while the girls set the table. Soon the three of them were seated around the kitchen table, attacking the hot slices.

“I apologize for being so late,” Colonel Hanson said between bites. As a high-ranking officer in the Marines, Carole’s father was responsible for a number of projects at the nearby Quantico military base. One of his main duties was supervising the hundreds of men below him.

“What happened, Dad?” Carole asked. “You don’t usually get stuck on the weekends.”

“No, I don’t. I can’t tell you the details because it’s classified, but, basically, an eager young officer bit off more than he could chew. He took on a big project that
was above his head, and he ended up causing more problems than he solved. He wanted to help, but he just didn’t have the experience. That’s why I was so late: I spent the whole day fixing somebody else’s mistakes.”

“That’s got to be frustrating,” said Lisa.

“It sure is,” Colonel Hanson agreed. For a moment he was quiet, lost in thought.

To take his mind off his long day, Carole and Lisa began to tell him about theirs. Colonel Hanson knew all about Samson, although Carole hadn’t gotten a chance to tell him about the stirrup problem. She summed it up briefly.

“Hmm … so he’s not getting any better at all?” Colonel Hanson asked when Carole had finished.

Knowing it was still a touchy subject, Lisa decided to let Carole answer the question. “Not yet,” Carole replied. The two girls’ attempt at Stevie-like brainstorming had completely failed. All they had been able to think of were jokes that Stevie might have told, and even those hadn’t been up to her caliber.

“You think so, too, Lisa?” Colonel Hanson inquired.

Lisa nodded. “It’s becoming a habit, his misbehaving when we put the saddle on. He seems to think it’s his designated playtime. And the whole point of training him with natural horsemanship is that the horse and the trainer are supposed to work together, not be on opposite
sides. But when he starts acting up and fooling around, we can’t just ignore it.”

“That certainly sounds true,” Colonel Hanson agreed. “You know, I can’t offer much practical advice, but I do empathize with you. It seems like you’re stuck for the time being. Maybe it would be better to forget the stirrups and move on to something else.”

“But that’s just it, Dad: We can’t,” said Carole. She explained Max’s plan to send Samson away for further training, unless they could conquer the problem right away.

Expecting her father to be sympathetic, Carole was surprised when, after a thoughtful pause, he responded, “I hate to say this, honey, because I know how attached you girls are to that colt, but maybe Max’s idea isn’t such a bad one. Sometimes you need to call in reinforcements to get the job done.”

After a minute, Lisa hesitantly agreed. “I—I think so, too,” she said.

Carole shot her friend a shocked look. She couldn’t believe Lisa was ready to give up! She’d thought the whole Saddle Club was committed to training Samson. Period. “How can you both say that? I mean—” Abruptly, Carole stopped. She could feel her face getting flushed and knew she was in danger of losing her temper in front of Lisa. The very thought of Samson’s leaving
made her miserable. She looked down at the slice of pizza on her plate, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach. “It just seems wrong at this point, after we’ve worked so hard getting him to trust us,” she said. Everyone was quiet for a minute.

Colonel Hanson cut short the awkward pause by changing the subject and asking about Stevie’s trip. For the rest of the meal, they all talked about other things. It wasn’t until after dinner, when the girls were getting ready for bed, that Carole asked Lisa to explain her change of heart.

“It’s simple,” Lisa said, choosing her words carefully. “I think Max and your father may be right—maybe Samson does need someone more experienced than The Saddle Club to help him through the next stages of his training. It’s not as if any of us has actually trained a young horse all the way. If we mess up now we could ruin Samson for his career as a pleasure horse. It’s like what happened to your father, only somebody would have to spend years undoing our mistakes instead of one day.”

“But our situation is completely different,” Carole said, her voice urgent. “We’re not like that Marine because we
do
know what we’re doing. Maybe we haven’t trained hundreds of horses, but do you honestly think we’re going to ruin Samson?”

“Right now, no,” Lisa admitted. “He’s just having a good time being silly with us. But we’re not exactly getting anywhere with him, either,” she added gently.

“If only we had more time,” Carole said.

“But how much time would we need? Carole, you’ve said in the past that training doesn’t go by a timetable. You can never tell how long you’ll have to work with a particular horse to teach him a particular skill.”

Carole shrugged, her jaw set.

Lisa argued a little more, but then let the matter drop. The truth was Lisa privately thought that Samson might even have regressed in his training. Today he had been finicky about the way they put the bridle on, as if he seemed to know that he could play without anything happening to him. But she couldn’t just come right out and tell Carole. She knew that Carole feared “losing” Samson because of the way she had lost Cobalt. That was why Carole couldn’t be objective and rational about this situation. Lisa herself wasn’t eager to see the colt leave Pine Hollow, even temporarily. But Colonel Hanson was right: They were stuck.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s call Stevie,” Lisa suggested, hoping to clear the air. “That way we won’t have to imagine what she’s thinking.”

Carole brightened visibly. “Okay. You have the number she gave you, right?”

Lisa had written the New Jersey Lakes’ phone number in her address book. She pulled the book out of her overnight bag, dialed, and held the receiver between her and Carole’s ears.

S
TEVIE WAS SITTING
in the window seat of her cousin’s living room, staring out the window at the snow drifting down. She was trying to think of a way she could escape from the room so that she wouldn’t have to listen to the never-ending party discussion going on around her when the phone rang.

Let’s see
, she mused.
Is it the caterer again? Or maybe the florist? Or could it be one of the ten million zillion invited guests?
She cocked an ear to hear what her aunt was saying and to her surprise heard her own name called.

“Stevie! It’s two friends of yours on the telephone. Why don’t you take it in here?” Aunt Lila suggested.

Stevie didn’t need to be told twice. She raced for the kitchen and lunged for the receiver. It was Carole and Lisa! “Gosh, I feel like I haven’t spoken to you guys in two
years
!” Stevie said. “What’s up? Tell me everything.”

Carole and Lisa didn’t waste words since it was a longdistance call. They immediately filled Stevie in on the Samson situation.

“You’re kidding!” Stevie exclaimed, horrified, when
they had finished their breathless account. “Max is really going to send Samson away?” She agreed wholeheartedly with The Saddle Club’s counterplan to prove to Max that Pine Hollow was the best place for the colt’s training.

Stevie had realized there were some problems, but it wasn’t as if they were serious. And if Lisa’s and Carole’s one extra day at Pine Hollow hadn’t helped, a few more certainly would. “There’s no way he should go to Mr. Grover’s! We’re the ones who know him and love him,” Stevie said firmly.

On the other end of the phone, Lisa found herself getting caught up in Stevie’s enthusiasm. The way Stevie put it, letting a professional take over was an easy way out that Max would naturally want to take. But it didn’t take into consideration the fact that The Saddle Club was more dedicated and sensitive than a professional who had several horses to train at a time. Carole didn’t need to be convinced.

“I just wish I could be there to help,” Stevie said. She felt helpless being stuck in New Jersey.

“We know you’re here in spirit,” Carole said, “so just enjoy the party, and we’ll see you when you get back.”

“Enjoy?” Stevie repeated, incredulous. “Oh my gosh, I forgot you guys don’t know.”

“Know what?” Lisa demanded.

Stevie lowered her voice to a murmur so that she wouldn’t be overheard. “Only that my horsey cousin is now a boy-crazy cheerleader!”

“She is?” Carole said, grimacing at Lisa.

“Yup. And she sounds as if she could be Veronica diAngelo’s best friend. She’s spent the last twenty-four hours discussing herself, her friends on the football team, and what she’s going to wear. Oh, and the food. I can’t take it anymore! And the worst thing is my three brothers act like they’re interested in the whole thing!”

“What about riding? Have you at least gotten out on the horses?” Lisa asked.

“For about twenty minutes,” Stevie replied scornfully. “Then Angie decided it was too cold for her. She didn’t want the air to dry out her complexion!”

Carole and Lisa groaned in unison. “Gosh, here we’ve been envisioning the perfect weekend in New Jersey,” Lisa said.

“It is perfect,” Stevie said kiddingly, “perfect for Angie, the cheerleaders, the football team …”

The girls talked until the doorbell at the Lakes’ rang and Stevie said, reluctantly, that she’d better hang up.

As she put the phone down, loud shouts of greeting came from the hallway. Stevie peeked her head out to see who had arrived. It was more relatives—Angie’s aunt and uncle on her mother’s side, the Davisons, and their
two little girls, Ginny and Beth. After introductions all around, Aunt Lila got everyone settled in the living room with coffee or hot chocolate.

“Phew! It’s a relief to be here,” said Bob Davison, relaxing in an easy chair. “For a while, we weren’t sure if we were going to make it with the snow.”

“So the weathermen were right? It’s really turning into a big storm?” Aunt Lila asked anxiously.

“I’ll say. New England already has about eight inches, and it’s supposed to snow all night,” said Lila’s sister, Peg. “It’s what you call a nor’easter—the storm is moving southwest. We’ll probably get the brunt of it within a day.”

“How are the roads?” Stevie inquired from her perch on the window seat.

At her question, the grownups turned. Stevie didn’t mind that they looked surprised at her jumping into the adult conversation. Even discussion about the weather was a welcome change—Stevie was ready to talk about absolutely any subject other than the sweet sixteen party. She could have listened to a speech about the three-toed sloth for all she cared.

“They aren’t too bad, at least not down here. In Connecticut the backroads were starting to get icy, but once we reached the highway, we were fine,” Peg answered.

Stevie saw her aunt and uncle exchange worried looks. “If the storm continues …” Uncle Chester didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he got up to look out the window where Stevie was sitting.

“What does it look like?” Angie demanded. All at once, she seemed to have realized the importance of the weather.

“It’s fine,” said Uncle Chester, relief in his voice. “It’s still coming down gently.”

“Good,” said Angie. Then she crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “Not that I’m worried or anything. After all this planning, Mother Nature wouldn’t dare storm on the day of the party!” she declared.