Sidesaddle (2 page)

She didn’t have to wonder long. The new rider was pointing a hose at the trough and doing her best to loosen the accumulated grunge.

“Mrs. Reg doesn’t usually give such ucky jobs to new riders,” Stevie said, approaching the girl. “Here, let me give you a hand.”

The girl turned off the water and stood up to meet Stevie’s gaze. “Oh, she didn’t give me the job. I just saw that it was dirty and offered,” she said.

“Good move,” said Stevie. “I guarantee you’ve won your way into Mrs. Reg’s heart. Hello, my name is Stevie Lake.” She took the other girl’s offered hand and shook it, though it felt odd to shake the hand of someone her own age.

“Tiffani Thomas,” the girl said. “Do you think that brush over by the barn will help?”

Stevie looked. It was exactly what they needed. She went to fetch the long-handled brush. As she walked back, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed at first what Tiffani was wearing. They were riding clothes, all right, but not like any Stevie had ever seen, except for the highly polished black leather boots, Tiffani was wearing jodhpurs. Pink jodhpurs. Spotless pale pink jodhpurs, Stevie glanced down at her own dirty paddock boots and her riding jeans, already splashed with mud and water from the hose. And nothing that happened in the next ten minutes made Stevie one iota cleaner or Tiffani one single spot dirtier. It was amazing.

“I’m only here for a short time?” Tiffani said as they chatted about riding and Pine Hollow. “I really live in Tennessee, but my father had to go on a long trip and my mother wanted to go with him, so I’m staying with my aunt Jessie here in Willow Creek for this semester? I’m at Willow Creek Junior High?”

She wasn’t really asking questions. It was just the way she spoke. Her lilting accent made every sentence sound like a question.

“Oh, I go to Fenton Hall,” Stevie said. “I guess that’s why we haven’t met before.”

“Right, well, and we haven’t met here at Pine Hollow
yet because my horse just got here. You wouldn’t think it would be so complicated to ship a horse a couple of hundred miles, but I guess it is? I’d said to Mama and Daddy that there was no way I wasn’t going to have Diamond with me. He just arrived on Thursday?”

“How great,” Stevie said. “Well, I know you’re going to love it here. Pine Hollow is great, and my two best friends go to Willow Creek—um, you’ll meet them in just a minute.”

Stevie made a final spray at the trough and then laid the running hose at its bottom to fill it up.

“Come on, let’s get to the meeting. The first thing you’re going to learn about Max is that he just hates it when people are late to his meetings and his classes.”

Tiffani put the brush back where it had been, then told Stevie how glad she was to have someone there to show her the way. “It’s just such a big old barn. I’m sure I’d get lost?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Tiffani,” Stevie said. “All you have to do is follow your ears to where absolutely everybody is talking about horses!”

“Oh, Stevie, you’re so funny!” Tiffani’s laughter was light and musical. Stevie had never heard anything like it. She hadn’t actually thought her joke was funny enough to merit musical laughter, but she realized that Tiffani was probably nervous. After all, she was in a strange place, among unfamiliar people, and her aunt
had made her wear those awful jodhpurs today. That alone would have given Stevie hives at least, and there was no telling what it might have done to her laughter.

“Well, it’s this way,” she said, showing Tiffani how to get to Max’s office. Max was waiting at the door.

“Oh, good, Stevie, you and Tiffani have already met. Then perhaps you could introduce her around to everyone.”

Stevie didn’t mind doing that. She introduced Tiffani first to Carole and Lisa and then to some of the others who were already there, including Veronica, Meg, April, Joe, May, Jasmine, and Corey. It turned out that Tiffani already knew April because they were in some classes together, so Stevie felt she could leave the two of them to talk while she returned to her own best friends.

“Pink?” Lisa whispered when Stevie sat down. Lisa was always perfectly dressed herself, but she almost never criticized what anybody else wore.

“Look, she’s staying with her aunt here. She must have left her own jodhpurs at home in Tennessee, and this was all they could get at the last minute when her horse arrived,” Stevie said. It was the only logical explanation.

Carole looked confused. “What are you two talking about?” she asked.

“Her clothes,” Stevie whispered.

“She’s got some on, doesn’t she?” Carole asked.

Her friends grinned and rolled their eyes. Trust Carole not to notice something as noticeable as pink jodhpurs.

“Well, did you hear about her horse?” Carole asked.

“What about her horse?”

“Max told me she’s got a Tennessee walking horse,” Carole said. “They’re a great breed, you know. They’re related to Saddlebreds and have a number of things in common. They were specially bred to be pleasure riders, which is true of Saddlebreds, too. Their gaits are unique, though, and smooth as glass. The idea was that their owners should be able to spend a whole day in the saddle while riding around their plantations. There’s something called the running walk. The hind feet overstep the front ones by more than a foot! Maybe she’d let me try him out sometime. I’ve ridden walkers before, but I don’t think we’ve had one boarding here since—well, I guess there was one …”

Lisa and Stevie exchanged glances. It was totally typical of Carole to ignore pink riding pants in favor of talking about an unusual breed of horse. In fact, if there had been a horse in the room, Carole wouldn’t have noticed an entire Pony Club wrapped in bath towels.

“Horse Wise, come to order!” Max called out.

“A
LL RIGHT
,
THEN
,” Max said, wrapping up the meeting. “Who can name the five basic facial markings on a horse?”

Tiffani raised her hand and Max gave her a nod. “White face, stripe, blaze, snip, and star,” she said.

“Very good. And how about the feet?”

Carole answered that one: “Long sock or stocking, short sock, white pastern, short white pastern, and coronet.”

“Nice job,” he said to both of them. It was a well-deserved compliment. For the entire meeting, which was on the subject of horse colors, every time Max had a question, either Carole or Tiffani had the answer for him. “So good, in fact, that I’d like to ask you two to do some research for us and present a report at the next unmounted
meeting in two weeks. Would that be all right with you?”

“On what subject?” Tiffani asked.

“How about horse breeds?” Max suggested.

“Great!” Carole said. Then she turned to Tiffani. “I’ve got this terrific book. You’re going to love it. But you probably already have it.”

“If I do, it’s in Tennessee,” Tiffani said.

“Well, then we’ll share. First, you can look up—”

“Ahem,” Max said, cutting off their conversation. “I think I’m the one talking now.…”

“Sorry, Max,” Carole said.

“The meeting is adjourned, but I do have a treat for you at the class, so hurry up, eat your lunches and get tacked up. We’ll meet in the ring in one hour.”

That gave the Pony Clubbers just enough time to gobble down sandwiches and tack up. Carole, however, was in no rush to eat. She wanted to talk to Tiffani some more, and she wanted to meet her horse.

“Why, of course you can meet Diamond,” Tiffani told Carole. “He’s the sweetest old boy in the whole state—at least that was true in Tennessee. I can’t vouch for Virginia yet, but I’m pretty sure—”

“Don’t say that until you meet Starlight,” Carole said, teasing back.

“Is that the beautiful part-Thoroughbred bay with that pretty star on his face over there?” she asked.

“That’s my boy,” said Carole, flattered that Tiffani had
noticed her horse in the confusion of her first day at a new stable.

“And who owns the part Saddlebred that’s in the stall across from Diamond?” Tiffani asked.

“That would be Belle. She belongs to Stevie Lake. Stevie’s the one who—”

“I know Stevie,” said Tiffani. “She came to my rescue and did most of the work cleaning out the trough this morning. She’s lucky to have such a nice horse. You know, Saddlebreds and Tennessee walkers have a lot in common. They’re both real American breeds, and they’re practically cousins. I bet Belle and Diamond will get along like a house afire.”

“Belle’s a great horse,” Carole told her. “She’s kind of mischievous and she’s got a mind of her own—just like Stevie, if you want to know the truth—but she’s a joy to ride and Stevie’s just crazy about her.”

“No wonder,” said Tiffani.

As the two of them walked together down the aisle, Carole took the opportunity to introduce Tiffani to all the horses there. Since the other riders were eating lunch, the girls had the stable to themselves, which allowed them to talk about horses without interruption. As they chatted, Carole became more and more aware that Tiffani really knew a great deal about horses. And she was a good listener, too. When they came to Belle’s stall, Carole gave the mare a pat on her pretty face and formally introduced her to Tiffani.

“We’ve already met,” said Tiffani, reaching to scratch Belle on the cheek just where she liked it best, instinctively knowing where it was. “And now I can introduce you to Diamond.”

They turned around. Diamond was poking his head over the gate to his stall. In spite of the obvious joke about Tiffani’s horse being named Diamond, it was clear he’d been given his name not for that but for the diamond-shaped star on his forehead.

The horse was tall, perhaps sixteen hands; his eyes glimmered intelligently in the sunlight that filtered into the stable. He greeted his owner with apparent affection, happily nibbling on the carrot she offered him.

“I missed him so while he was still at home,” Tiffani said. “And this afternoon will be the first time I get to ride him. I haven’t even unpacked his tack yet.” She gestured toward a trunk outside the stall.

Carole leaned over and snapped open the latch on the trunk, lifting the lid. The trunk was neatly packed with everything a horse needed to travel. She reached in to pull out the saddle so that she could perch it on the nearby rack until Tiffani was ready to tack up.

“Huh?” Carole said, surprised, when her arm hit something funny as she tugged at the saddle. “What’s this?”

When she looked again she knew what Max’s surprise was. Diamond’s saddle had a big padded hook on its left side. That was a rest for the rider’s right leg. Tiffani rode her Tennessee walking horse sidesaddle!

“N
OW
,
EVERYBODY WATCH
how she mounts,” Max said to the class a little later when Tiffani was beginning her demonstration. “In many ways, riding sidesaddle is just like riding astride.…”

Few people were actually hearing what Max said. Carole, for one, was far too intent on not missing anything about Tiffani’s technique. Her mind was flooded with a hundred questions she hadn’t had time to ask during the lunch break, in addition to the three hundred she
had
asked during lunch break. Well, maybe not three hundred, she consoled herself, but an awful lot.

Stevie wasn’t thinking of questions right then. She was thinking about answers. She nudged Lisa. “Well, that explains the pink jodhpurs,” she whispered.

Lisa didn’t appear to have heard her. “I said, that explains the pink jodhpurs,” Stevie repeated.

Lisa nodded absently, barely absorbing Stevie’s words, and that annoyed Stevie a little more than she wanted to admit. She and Lisa had missed Carole at lunch. Stevie thought they really needed to get together to talk about the silliness of this new phenomenon that had hit Pine Hollow so hard: the Tiffani phenomenon. Between pink jodhpurs, li’l ole S’uthe’n expressions, and now sidesaddle riding, Stevie had had her fill of Miss Tiffani Thomas and thought it was high time for a Saddle Club meeting to talk about her.

“How about TD’s after our class?” Stevie whispered, once again trying to get Lisa’s attention. TD’s—short for Tastee Delight—was an ice cream parlor within easy walking distance of the stable. The threesome often gathered there for Saddle Club meetings.