Stable Farewell (6 page)

Carole played the message again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Cam definitely sounded strange—upset or worried, maybe. It could be that he was just disappointed that they couldn’t seem to connect. The annoying thing was that it was too late to call back now. Puzzling over the tone of the message, Carole brushed her teeth and got ready for bed. She drifted off to sleep thinking sweet thoughts about Cam.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Carole was almost late for the unmounted Horse Wise meeting at Pine Hollow. Horse Wise was the name of the Pony Club the girls belonged to. Its home base was Pine Hollow.

Carole had left the house on time, but then she remembered Cam’s message and ran back to call him, leaving her father waiting in the car. This time she got the Nelsons’ machine and left word for Cam to call her. Frustrated, she stared out the window on the way over to Pine Hollow. It
seemed as if she and Cam were fated never to talk to each other again.

“Cheer up, honey. You’ll get in touch with him soon,” Colonel Hanson said as he dropped her off.

Carole shook her head, smiling. Her father was as much of a mind reader as ever. Hurrying into the stable, she slipped in between Lisa and Stevie just as the meeting was starting.

Max had decided to have the Pony Clubbers themselves give presentations at the unmounted meetings because they would learn more that way. Today Polly Giacomin and Jackie were presenting a talk on winter grooming and horse care. They introduced the topic and then moved on to clipping.

“The decision to clip your horse depends on a lot of different things,” Polly said. “Like, are you going to be riding a lot, is your horse kept inside or turned out, and do you want to keep the horse blanketed.” While Jackie held up drawings of the different kinds of clips, Polly described them. “There’s the full clip, when the whole coat is removed. Then there’s the hunter clip, which is the whole coat minus the legs and a patch where the saddle goes. And then there’s another kind called the blanket clip, which is just what it sounds like: You leave the hair on
where a blanket would go and clip only the neck and belly.” Polly paused to ask if there were any questions.

Stevie put her hand up. “I have one question. It’s not exactly about clipping, it’s about trimming.”

“That’s okay, what is it?” Jackie asked.

Looking first at Veronica and then back at Polly and Jackie, Stevie said, “I was wondering if you should keep a horse’s whiskers trimmed even in the winter.”

“Of course,” Jackie said. “Unless you don’t care at all about the horse’s appearance, you should always keep the whiskers on the muzzle and around the ears trimmed.”

Stevie nodded. “Okay, thanks. I just wanted to make sure.”

Lisa and Carole knew exactly what Stevie was doing, but Veronica seemed oblivious. “We’ll help,” Lisa whispered.

“The next winter topic is blanketing. If you clip your horse, and a lot of times even if you don’t, you’ll want to keep him blanketed. The blanket can be anything from a light stable sheet to a heavy New Zealand rug with a liner,” Jackie explained.

“That’s right,” Polly said. “And it’s very important to know how to put the blanket on correctly and how to check to see if it’s rubbing anywhere—”

“Excuse me,” Lisa interrupted. “Isn’t it also important to
check to make sure the blanket stays put? Can’t a twisted sheet be annoying for the horse?”

“Absolutely. And not only annoying, it can be dangerous. If the horse gets a leg caught in one of the straps, he could panic,” Polly said.

Satisfied, The Saddle Club looked at Veronica. But she still hadn’t noticed that they were making digs at her care of Garnet. Suddenly she raised her hand. “Polly, I just thought of something. You should mention that for a really well-bred, high-strung horse like Danny, you should buy the best-quality blankets only. His coat is so fine that anything cheap would irritate him.”

“By ‘best-quality’ she probably means a blanket with a huge ‘Veronica diAngelo’ monogram on it,” Stevie muttered. Veronica was known for having every last item, from her blankets and saddle pads to her body brushes, monogrammed.

Thinking she would jump in while Veronica was paying attention to the meeting, Carole said loudly, “Didn’t you mention something about turning your horse out even in the winter? Why is that important?” Out of the corner of her eye Carole saw Max, who’d been listening at the side of the room, raise his eyebrows. He was obviously surprised that Carole had asked such an easy question.

“We were just about to get to that,” Jackie replied. “If
your horse is kept inside, it’s very important to turn him out or exercise him regularly. There are a lot of reasons why. One is so that he doesn’t get bored and develop vices—”

“You mean like cribbing and stall walking?” Stevie fairly shouted.

At Stevie’s comment, The Saddle Club saw Max’s eyes narrow as he, too, glanced at Veronica. But even though he had caught on to what the three of them were doing, Veronica had not. She sat more quietly than usual for the rest of the presentation, interrupting every so often to point out how perfectly she was taking care of Danny.

“The thing is, it’s true,” Carole murmured. “She
does
groom him and ride him every day. We’ve seen her!”

“Yeah. The more Daddy pays, the more time the horse deserves,” said Stevie.

“While Garnet goes stale in her stall,” Lisa added. “It’s not fair!”

“So let’s stop complaining and do something about it, okay?” Carole asked.

Stevie and Lisa nodded vigorously. So far they had done nothing to help Garnet—except show her to the perfect buyer and watch the perfect buyer walk away.

A
S SOON AS
Polly and Jackie brought the lesson to a close, The Saddle Club rose and headed to the locker room to discuss Garnet.

“The way I see it, we just have to find another Katie Miller,” Stevie said.

“Right. Someone who deserves to own Garnet and will take good care of her and appreciate her,” Carole chimed in.

“Appreciate her? All that horse needs is a little discipline. A crop and spurs would do the trick,” Lisa said in her best imitation of Henrietta Kingsley.

“Henrietta doesn’t deserve a horse at all, let alone a nice one like Garnet,” Stevie said.

Carole nodded. “I’ll bet she isn’t even a good rider. Why else wouldn’t she have wanted to get on and try Garnet when she had the chance?”

“Easy,” Stevie replied. “She suffers from Veronicitis. That’s when you think that if you spend enough money on your horse and your clothes, not knowing how to ride won’t matter.”

“That’s the whole problem,” said Lisa. “We can’t go to Veronica and tell her why Katie would make a better owner than Henrietta, because all Veronica cares about is selling her horse to the rich and famous Kingsleys.”

“And even if we could somehow convince Veronica,
Katie’s parents probably wouldn’t let her buy Garnet anyway,” Carole pointed out.

“But there are probably tons of other girls like Katie who would love to get Garnet …” Stevie let her voice trail off as she thought hard of the people she knew who rode. Finally she shook her head. “It’s just, how do we find the tons of other girls?”

Stevie paused as Max knocked, then poked his head into the locker room. “I thought I heard talking—lucky for you I already asked the other Pony Clubbers to clean out the cobwebs from the rafters,” he said.

“Say, Max,” Stevie said before Max could think up another task, “do you know where the diAngelos have advertised Garnet?”

Looking slightly surprised by the question, Max told them he didn’t think Garnet was advertised anywhere. “Other than the sign by the office, that is. The Kingsleys found out about Garnet through Mr. Kingsley’s business connection with Veronica’s father. Katie Miller heard about Garnet through a friend of hers who rides here. So I assume the diAngelos are relying on word of mouth.”

Stevie nodded thoughtfully. “Well, Max,” she said after a minute, “then you don’t need to come up with any chores for The Saddle Club.”

Max looked skeptical. “Oh, I don’t?”

“Nope, we’re going to be quite busy,” Stevie said cheerfully.

“I see. And may I ask exactly what you’ll be busy with?”

“You may ask, but”—Stevie paused dramatically—“unfortunately I won’t be able to answer.”

“I see,” Max said again, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Rest assured, however, that whatever it is we’re busy with is completely in line with all of the fundamentals of good horsemanship at Pine Hollow and in the greater equine universe beyond.” Stevie grinned, looking pleased with herself.

“What the heck did you just say?” Max asked.

“1 have absolutely no idea,” Stevie said.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Max asked, but fortunately for the girls, he didn’t seem to expect an answer.

“D
ON
’
T TOUCH THAT BOLOGNA
!” Stevie’s brother Chad yelled. The girls had adjourned to the Lakes’ house to make plans. But first they had decided to satisfy their hunger. Unfortunately they had walked into the kitchen at the same moment that Chad, Michael, and Alex were satisfying
their
hunger. A mass of cold cuts, cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce, and tomatoes was spread out over the counter. The boys were eagerly cramming the food into pita pockets. Stevie had just attempted to filch a slice of bologna but had been caught in the act.

“I can’t even have one piece?” she demanded.

Chad shook his head. “No way. One piece will turn into two, and then there’ll be none left for us. Mom bought all this for us. Hear that?
Us.
Not you girls,” Chad said, plucking the bologna slice out of Stevie’s hand and shoving it into his mouth.

Carole and Lisa laughed. Stevie could get very angry at her brothers, and their antics were fun for outsiders to observe—as long as they stayed antics and didn’t develop into knock-down-drag-out family feuds.

Stevie stared at Chad with contempt. Then her eyes lit up. “All right, fine; we’ll skip the sandwiches and go right to dessert. I always was a fan of chocolate layer cake.” With that Stevie ran to the refrigerator and grabbed the cake she’d mentioned, jealously guarding it with her body.

“No fair! Alex, grab the cake!” Chad yelled.

Alex went toward Stevie, but at the last second she handed the cake off to Carole. “Victory!” Stevie yelled as Carole did her best to hold the cake over her head.

A few minutes later, the girls were happily munching sandwiches up in Stevie’s room, having exchanged half the cake for half the cold cuts with Stevie’s brothers.

“I always did like the idea of the barter system,” Stevie said, chewing contentedly.

“Yeah, but it’s lucky Veronica can’t barter Garnet away,” Lisa said. “She’d probably trade her for a new saddle
pad!” While she was eating, Lisa had gotten a legal pad and a pencil out of her bag and was jotting down a few notes.

“What have you got there, Lisa?” Carole asked.

“1 was just trying to come up with ways we could advertise Garnet. Do you think we should run an ad in the local paper?” Lisa asked.

“Maybe as a last resort,” Carole said. “But I think the fastest, cheapest, and probably the best way is just to hang signs around town. We’ve got to get cracking right away: The Kingsleys’ vet could arrive any second, and we all know that Garnet isn’t going to fail the vet check.”

“You’ve got a point,” Stevie said. “And so many people in Willow Creek ride that I’d be surprised if we didn’t drum up some interest in a great horse like Garnet. You know what? I’ll get some posterboard and some markers, and we can do the signs this minute.”

“You have posterboard?” Lisa asked.

Stevie looked benevolently at her friend. “Lisa, darling, you must know by now that there’s nothing Stephanie Lake’s closet does not hold.”

Carole and Lisa laughed. Stevie’s closet was famous for being a bottomless pit of junk, but a lot of times the “junk” came in handy.

“So we just have to figure out how to get across what a great horse Garnet is, right?” Carole said.

Lisa nodded. “We’ve got to put in all the normal information you always see in ads,” she said, “like height, breed, color, and experience.” She scrawled on the pad for a minute. “Okay: Fifteen-point-one-hand purebred chestnut Arabian. That’s the easy stuff.”