Stable Witch

Carole edged Starlight closer to the scene and looked over Max’s shoulder. Max shook his head as he held up the torn ends of the leather. Now everyone could see the terrible truth. The leather hadn’t just ripped. It had been deliberately severed.

Carole let out an audible gasp. Someone had tried to sabotage Veronica!

“Of all the dirty tricks to pull!” Max exclaimed, looking stunned at first, and then very angry. When he uttered his next words, his voice was hard and icy. “I would like to know who, in my stable, could have done a thing like this.”

At that instant, all the members of Horse Wise looked right at one person: Stevie Lake.…

“S
HH
!” A
GIGGLING
Stevie Lake put her finger to her lips.

“But—” Her twin brother Alex started to protest.

Stevie motioned wildly to silence him. Alex had caught her tiptoeing downstairs in her nightgown. Of course he had immediately known that something was up. Usually Stevie leapt from her bed and galloped downstairs like a Thoroughbred in the Kentucky Derby. Today she was as quiet as a mouse. And for good reason.

Stevie’s two best friends, Carole Hanson and Lisa Atwood, were sleeping over at her house. So far she had managed to get out of bed and sneak past them
without waking them up. Now, all she had to do was make it downstairs and prepare “breakfast”—or at least what they would think was breakfast—to put the final twist on a perfect practical joke.

“What’s going on?” Alex whispered.

Stevie shook her head and beckoned for Alex to follow her.

“All right, what are you plotting?” Alex demanded as soon as they were out of earshot in the safety of the kitchen.

Stevie smiled smugly. “Oh, just a little Saddle Club joking around,” she replied. She turned her back and began to rummage in the cupboards, getting out plates, forks, knives, and napkins.

“With all the joking around
you
do, I’m surprised you’re still a member of The Saddle Club,” Alex muttered.

“Fortunately, being serious all the time is not a requirement for joining,” Stevie retorted.

If it had been, Stevie thought, she would have long ago been kicked out of the club that she, Lisa, and Carole had started. She was constantly getting into trouble with all the jokes she played, and she was just as constantly devising clever ways of getting right back out of trouble.

There
were
two things that members of The Saddle
Club did have to be serious about: being horse-crazy and being willing to help each other out in any kind of situation. Other than those two rules, the individual members could be—and were—very different from one another. Clattering around in the kitchen, Stevie mused about just how different.

Take Carole and Lisa, for instance, asleep upstairs. Carole was probably dreaming about riding her horse, Starlight, in the Olympics. Totally dedicated to riding and all aspects of horse care, Carole wanted to grow up to be a trainer, vet, professional rider, or any one of a dozen things that meant spending one’s life in a stable. Thinking about horses took up almost her every waking moment. And maybe, Stevie ventured to guess, her every sleeping moment, too.

Lisa, on the other hand, was probably not dreaming at all. She was so practical and sensible that, if anyone had asked, she would probably have said that it was silly to waste time dreaming when you could be getting a good night’s rest. She swore by her early bed-time and kept to a tidy schedule of riding, homework, and chores. Sometimes she could be too strict with herself. Being in The Saddle Club had helped her to become more flexible, and she was more than willing to rearrange her plans for an adventure.

And as for herself, Stevie thought, she had hardly
been able to sleep at all, she had been so busy planning the joke she was going to play.

“So, what’s the big deal?” Alex asked, startling Stevie back to attention. “It looks like you’re setting the table.”

Stevie gave him a withering glance. “I
am
setting the table, brother dear. And besides that, I’ve already made breakfast for everyone.” With that, she whisked two cloth napkins off the centerpiece. Piled high on a serving platter were mounds of pancakes just begging to be eaten.

“Boy, you really outdid yourself, Stevie. These look good enough to eat …,” Alex began.

Stevie nodded graciously at her brother’s praise.

“It’s too bad they’re not edible,” he finished, flashing her a wicked look of triumph.

Stevie knew defeat when she heard it, especially from one of her own brothers. “How did you know?” she asked.

“Simple. We’re doing the same project in my art class,” Alex explained. “It’s amazing how real plaster of paris can look.” Eagerly he started telling her about all the things he and his friends had been making with plaster of paris during the past week, too.

“One guy did fake money—stacks of hundred-dollar
bills. They looked completely real And then there was this disgusting mass of blood and guts.”

“Yeah, people in my class did all that, too, but I thought fake breakfast was pretty original,” Stevie put in. She explained how she had chosen to make pancakes and had paid attention to every detail—coloring the plaster a creamy white, pouring out the cakes, trimming them with a single razor blade when they were dry, and then painting the results a toasty brown.

“That’s the problem with them. They look
too
good to eat. When Mom makes them, they’re always all different sizes and sort of plain brown,” Alex pointed out.

Stevie shrugged off the criticism. She was pretty sure Carole and Lisa would fall for it. After all, they went to the local public school—and not to Fenton Hall, the private school which Stevie and Alex attended. There was a chance their art teacher had never even heard of plaster of paris.

Before he could get away, Stevie enlisted Alex in helping her finish setting the table and getting everything all ready for Carole and Lisa, who would be coming down any minute.

The girls had planned to get up early so they could go to their Pony Club meeting together. Carole, Lisa, and Stevie all rode in Horse Wise Pony Club, which
had most of its meetings at Pine Hollow Stables. It was very convenient for The Saddle Club because Pine Hollow was where they normally rode and where Stevie and Carole boarded their horses. Having Pony Club at Pine Hollow was like having a security blanket along for the ride. They knew the barn and all of the horses from top to bottom. They also knew the head instructor of both Horse Wise and Pine Hollow, Max Regnery. Max not only gave lessons there but also owned the entire farm. It had been in his family for generations.

Sure enough, Carole and Lisa appeared in the kitchen in a matter of minutes, rubbing their eyes and yawning. Alex barely looked up from shoveling cereal into his mouth when they entered. In response to Lisa and Carole’s greeting, he nodded briefly.

“Boy, am I starved,” Carole commented, with an appreciative glance at the breakfast table.

“Me, too,” Lisa added. “I always love a good breakfast before riding.”

“Good. I’m glad you guys are hungry because this should be a great meal,” Stevie predicted. “Now here you go, Lisa, sit right here, and you’re over here, Carole,” she instructed them in her best motherly voice. First she poured some orange juice for each of them.
Then she took the plate of pancakes and began to serve them.

“Wow, you made pancakes—yum!” Carole exclaimed.

“Yes, I do aim to please,” Stevie said. She took a furtive glance at Lisa, who was eyeing her plate suspiciously. “Here, they need butter,” Stevie said, smearing some all over Lisa’s plate for her.

“Uh, thanks,” Lisa said, taken aback at Stevie’s zealous hostessing.

“And, ah, don’t forget to sweeten them up,” Stevie said. She reached for the jug of syrup and began drowning Lisa’s pancakes in the gooey liquid.

Lisa picked up her fork. She paused. She looked at Carole, who was now pouring syrup over her plate. She looked at Stevie, who was now chowing down a bowl of cereal. She put her fork down.

“Yikes!” Carole, who had been struggling to cut her pancakes, let out a shriek of horror as her knife bent in two.

Lisa folded her arms across her chest. “All right, Stevie, where’d you get the plaster of paris?” she asked grimly.

Stevie smiled wanly. “I—well—I—” Abruptly she snapped her mouth shut and glanced at Alex for help.