Silver Stirrups (5 page)

“Nope. I knew you hardly ever used one on Starlight. Do you want me to go back and get one?” Red asked, his voice sympathetic.

“No! Never mind. I can do it.” Using all her skill and strength, Carole turned the horse and forced him into a walk. Somehow she managed to get Doc, balking and fussing, down to the end of the ring. Then the real challenge began. As Carole knew, a lot of horses will test an unfamiliar rider to see what they can get away with. But Doc pulled out all the stops. He shied, he rushed forward, he threw in a buck. He tried to take off—twice. The most frustrating thing was that when he did settle down for five seconds, he had beautiful gaits. His trot was brisk, and his canter was round and slow. But the minute Carole let her reins get long or let herself get disorganized in any way, he put his head down and tried to buck.

Carole was concentrating so hard, and working so hard, that she didn’t even notice when Lisa and Stevie (on Prancer and Belle) joined Red at the other end of
the ring. Red called to Carole to ask if he could jump Starlight. “Fine! Fine! Do whatever you want!” Carole called back. She circled Doc, trotted into the middle of the ring, and brought him to a halt. Finally, the horse obeyed. Carole reached down and gave him a pat. Then she looked up. She saw Red, Lisa, and Stevie riding around a course of six small jumps. They were following each other like a hunt team. Red was leading, and he had Starlight in perfect form. Watching them, Carole felt left out. Starlight was behaving just as well with Red as he did with her. Doc shifted his weight from side to side, calling Carole’s attention back to him.

Carole squared her shoulders in determination. “Okay, boy, let’s get back out there. I think I may have figured you out.”

As Carole asked for a walk, Doc pricked his ears up and turned his head. Carole saw a figure hurrying toward the ring. It was a girl about her age.

“Doc! Doc!” the girl cried. She ran pell-mell up to the ring and ducked under the fence. “Doc!”

Before Carole knew what had happened, the girl had her arms around Doc’s neck. She was a thin girl with big brown eyes and long brown braids. “You must be Country Doctor’s owner,” Carole guessed.

The girl took a step back and beamed at Carole.
“That’s right,” she said breathlessly. “I’m Andrea Barry.”

“So, you call him Doc, too,” Carole observed. She felt as if Andrea had stolen The Saddle Club’s nickname. But that was dumb: It was an obvious nickname—and, moreover, it was Andrea’s horse.

“Yup. That’s been his barn name for as long as I’ve had him,” Andrea said. She stroked the chestnut neck, and Doc turned to nuzzle her shoulder.

“Max asked me to exercise him today. We didn’t realize you’d be coming so soon,” Carole explained, unable to keep the tone of disapproval out of her voice.

Andrea looked embarrassed. “I guess I should have called first,” she said. “Our plans changed and we ended up getting in early this morning. I couldn’t wait to see Doc, so I came right over to ride.”

“Oh, I’ll get right off,” Carole said shortly.

Andrea blushed. “I—I didn’t mean that you had to get off,” she stammered.

“That’s okay,” said Carole. Feeling slightly foolish, she took her feet out of the stirrups and hopped off.
This is how Red must feel,
she thought,
when Mrs. Murphy shows up to ride the horse he’s been schooling all week.

As Carole hit the ground, Doc pranced away from
her. At the same time, Carole and Andrea reached for the bridle to steady him. “Here, you take him,” said Carole, relinquishing the reins.

“Thanks,” said Andrea.

“You’re welcome,” Carole said. She stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“And thanks for riding him. I really appreciate it.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said Carole. “I try to do whatever I can to help Max out,” she added pointedly. If Andrea was as spoiled as Veronica, Carole figured, she’d probably never helped out at the barn where she boarded her horse. She probably thought horses came groomed and tacked up. But it couldn’t hurt to start her thinking about the idea that people actually had to work to keep Doc’s chestnut coat so shiny.

Andrea didn’t seem to have heard what Carole said. She was too busy fussing over Doc—checking his girth, scratching underneath his jaw, rubbing his forehead. Finally she adjusted her stirrups and got on.

“He’s pretty excited today,” Carole warned her. “He’s been—”

Andrea laughed. “Let me guess: bucking, shying, and backing up, right?”

Carole nodded hesitantly.

“Sorry. I should have warned Mr. Regnery that he always acts up after a long ride in the van.”

“Right, I know—” Carole began, but Andrea continued, oblivious.

“He’s very sensitive to new riders, too. When he plays around you have to sit tight and make sure that your hands are up, not resting on the pommel or his neck. The line from your elbow to your hands should be parallel to the ground, like this”—Andrea demonstrated—“and not sloping down. You don’t want a break where your hands join the reins. It’s actually harder on a horse’s mouth to keep letting the reins slide. That’s how you get a horse with a dead mouth that pulls.”

Carole took a step back. She swallowed hard. “I …” She stopped. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She was in utter shock over what had just happened.
She
had been given a lecture about riding. And by a girl who had arrived at Pine Hollow
five minutes ago.
Who the heck did Andrea Barry think she was?

“Listen, I …,” Carole began again. She still didn’t know how to put it into words. How could she tell Andrea that she was the best junior rider at Pine Hollow? That Andrea ought to be listening to her—and would be, very, very soon?

Carole was saved by Stevie, Lisa, and Red’s trotting up to join the two of them. “Hey, you must be Andrea!”
Stevie called. When everybody had been introduced, horses included, Stevie and Lisa said they’d better walk Belle and Prancer to cool them off.

“And I should trot and canter—to cool
him
off,” Andrea joked.

Everyone laughed, except for Carole. She barely managed a smile. She watched the three of them head back to the rail, talking animatedly. She couldn’t wait to get Stevie and Lisa alone and tell them the truth about Andrea—that she was a stuck-up know-it-all.

“Do you want to ride, Carole?” Red asked.

Carole gave him a look of gratitude. He obviously felt bad about riding Starlight now that she was horseless. “No, that’s okay, Red. I’m happy just to watch,” she lied.

“You sure?”

Carole nodded.

“All right. Thanks again.”

Stevie and Lisa, Carole noticed, had been all too ready to leave her grounded while they got to know the new girl. Feeling sorry for herself, Carole went to lean on the rail. She was actually looking forward to watching Andrea struggle with Doc …

Fifteen minutes later, the only thing Carole was looking forward to was going home. With Andrea aboard, Doc was a different horse—a different, perfectly
obedient horse. He walked, trotted, walked, cantered, walked, turned on the forehand, lengthened stride at the trot, and did two flying lead changes. “What a show-off,” Carole muttered to herself.

All of a sudden she had had enough for the day—of Pine Hollow, of riding, of Stevie and Lisa, and especially of Andrea Barry and Country Doctor. Carole even felt betrayed by Starlight. Couldn’t he have acted up just a tiny bit with Red? She knew she was being unreasonable, but it was the first truly bad day she’d had at the stables in a long, long time. She couldn’t figure out what, exactly, had gone wrong, but she had an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Without saying good-bye to any of them, Carole left the ring and headed home.

“I
SN
’
T SHE GREAT
?” Lisa said. It was later that evening, and the girls were talking on the phone.

“Great, how?” Carole asked. She’d been praying the subject of Andrea wouldn’t come up, but of course it had.

“Well, she seems nice and smart and she’s obviously an excellent rider,” Lisa gushed.

“Yeah. After you left, she gave me some tips on how to get Belle to bend around the corners,” Stevie chimed in. “They really worked well.”

“You mean she started lecturing you?” Carole said coldly.

“No, not exactly lecturing,” said Stevie. She thought for a minute. “Andrea’s … Andrea’s like you, Carole. She gets so enthusiastic that she gets carried away.”

“She
is
like you, Carole,” Lisa agreed. “You should see the way she fusses over Doc.”

“Oh,” said Carole, her voice flat.

“That reminds me, Carole. Andrea’s starting school with us next week,” Lisa said. “So we’ll have to watch out for her and be extra nice to her.” Although a grade apart, Lisa and Carole both attended Willow Creek Junior High. Stevie, who was Carole’s age, went to Fenton Hall, a private school.

“Is she in your grade or mine?” Carole asked. She hoped Andrea was in Lisa’s class, a year above hers. That way she wouldn’t have to see the new girl as often.

“Neither. She’s a grade below you,” said Lisa. “But we can still talk to her in the hall, and …”

Carole didn’t hear the rest. She was stunned by Lisa’s announcement: Andrea Barry was
younger
than she was.
She’s younger and she’s just as good as you,
Carole heard a voice inside her head say. But that couldn’t be true, could it? After all, she’d only seen
Andrea ride for fifteen minutes. How could you tell anything in fifteen minutes?

And yet, the truth was, Carole was enough of a horsewoman to be able to tell a lot in fifteen minutes. It wasn’t just that Andrea had been able to make Doc perform so well. He was her own horse, after all. It was more than that. The minute the girl had gotten on, Carole had known that she was good. She had a good position, she had confidence. She looked—as people had often said about Carole—as if she’d been riding her whole life. But this afternoon, at the back of her mind, Carole had told herself not to worry: No doubt, with all her successes in the show ring, the girl had a good year or two on Carole. But now that mental security blanket had been stripped away. Carole felt her head spinning. What did it all mean?

Lisa and Stevie chattered on, unaware that on her end of the line, the third Saddle Club member was a million miles away.

“Red looked amazing on Starlight, didn’t he?”

“We just have to find him a horse for Briarwood.”

“Yeah. He admitted to me that he wants to enter, but he swore me to secrecy.”

“I wonder what Andrea’s planning to enter.”

“Is she going to ride in the schooling show?”

“She said it sounded like a lot of fun.”

“I’m so glad she’s not like Veronica.”

“Me too. What a relief.”

“Aren’t you, Carole?”

There was a moment of silence. Stevie cleared her throat. “Carole? Uh, Carole?”

S
TEVIE WOKE UP
singing on the day of the schooling show. It was a sunny Saturday. The school year was nearly over. All she had to do that day was ride in two classes, one on the flat and one over fences. Who could ask for anything more? She yanked a pair of reasonably clean breeches out of the closet and rooted around in her laundry pile to find a ratcatcher shirt. The pin for her choker was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t worry her. She knew she could borrow one from Lisa—Lisa always had an extra. Stuffing a pair of gloves into her pocket, Stevie went downstairs to breakfast. She put away a large stack of pancakes,
fought her three brothers for the bacon, and whistled and sang all the way to Pine Hollow.

L
ISA SET HER
alarm for seven
A.M.
She didn’t have to be at the stables till nine, but she always gave herself more than enough time to get ready. Sure, this was only a schooling show, but Lisa wanted Prancer to look her best. Or close to her best—nobody bothered to braid for a schooling show. For Briarwood, Lisa would get up at five
A.M.
to do Prancer’s mane.

In keeping with the informal tone of the show, Max had decided that the riders didn’t have to wear coats—just breeches and ratcatcher shirts. Lisa’s clothes were hanging tidily in her closet. Her mother had ironed them a week before. Lisa slipped them into a garment bag. She would wear jeans and a T-shirt until she rode to keep her show outfit perfectly clean. Finally, she checked her horse show bag one more time: hair nets, knee-high stockings (for wearing under her tight boots), choker pin,
extra
choker pin (in case Stevie forgot hers), gloves, extra gloves, boot polish, sugar cubes. At breakfast Lisa drank some orange juice and had two bites of cereal. She never ate much on a horse show morning, even a schooling show morning: She was too nervous. When she was ready to
go, Mrs. Atwood gave her a bag lunch, got the family car out of the garage, and drove her daughter to Pine Hollow, half an hour ahead of schedule.

“C
AROLE
! R
EVEILLE
!” C
OLONEL
Hanson called. “Eggs for breakfast!”

Carole rolled over. Why was her father waking her up so early? Then she remembered: the schooling show. She groaned inwardly. Normally a show morning would have made her jump out of bed. But today she pulled the covers over her head and closed her eyes. She had a bad feeling about the day.