Summer Rider (10 page)

“I know,” Lisa said. “But it was a one-time thing, really. I knew we were going to be talking about bandaging, and since Max has drilled everything there is to know about the topic into us over and over again, I thought I’d give myself a break and do some reading.”

“Oh.” Carole thought about that for a second. It sounded reasonable, but she wasn’t completely reassured. “Well, what about missing dinner like you did last night? It wasn’t the first time you skipped a meal in the past couple of weeks.”

“I guess that’s true,” Lisa said, leaning against a tree next to the sidewalk. She shrugged again. “It’s just that I get so hungry after all that riding. Sometimes I can’t wait for mealtime.” She laughed. “Believe me, whoever gets the money from those snack machines in the rec hall must love me. And once I’ve pigged out on that stuff, the last thing I want to do is go to the mess hall and look at more food.”

“All that junk food can’t be good for you,” Carole said, concerned.

“It’s not all bad,” Lisa said, straightening up as an elderly couple approached. “Besides, eating that stuff for a couple of weeks won’t kill me.”

The girls stepped forward to talk to the elderly couple. Once they had signed them up for fifty cents per fence, they relaxed again.

“I hope you don’t think Stevie and I have been nagging you lately,” Carole said. “I mean, about your reading and the extra riding practice and everything. We’re just worried that you’re pushing yourself too hard. Camp is supposed to be fun.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Lisa said. “I like hard work. I’m having a great time at camp. Everything is fine.”

Carole wasn’t sure what to think. She wanted to believe what Lisa was saying. After all, the members of didn’t lie to each other. It wasn’t exactly an
official rule, but it was something Carole had always taken for granted. That was why she didn’t like her present suspicion—because it was telling her that Lisa was lying.

Before she could explore that thought any further, a group of teenage girls wandered around the corner and headed for them.

“Hey, there they are!” cried one of the girls. She hurried toward Carole and Lisa. “We heard you’re raising money to save the riding camp.”

“That’s right,” Carole said and launched into her spiel, pushing her concern about Lisa to the back of her mind. It was too hard to think seriously about the problem and look for sponsors at the same time. Carole was almost glad there was only one more week of camp. Maybe once they were home, Lisa would go back to normal.

L
ATER THAT EVENING
, back at camp, Stevie and Phil set off hand in hand for a romantic stroll down to the pond, just like the day they had met. Unlike that first night, this night a full moon illuminated the paths for them, casting a romantic silvery glow over everything and making flash-lights unnecessary.

“This is nice,” Phil said as they picked their way carefully over the narrow, rocky path.

Stevie didn’t answer.

“Stevie?” Phil prompted. “Did you hear me? I said, this is nice.”

“Oh, right,” Stevie said. “Sorry. I was just thinking
about something else. I was wondering if I should have started off our speech today by suggesting that people donate three dollars a fence. I don’t know about you, but most of the people I talked to didn’t pledge anywhere near that much.”

Phil shrugged. “Who knows? It’s too late now.” As they reached the edge of the pond, he dropped her hand and put his arm around her. “Aren’t there other things you’d rather think about right now, anyway?” he added softly.

Stevie nodded and tipped her head up to gaze into his eyes. “I wonder if we could convince the cook to bake some cookies before the show?” she murmured. “We could sell them to the spectators. I have a feeling we’re going to have a big crowd this year.”

“Whatever,” Phil said. “Did I ever tell you your hair looks really pretty in the moonlight?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said distractedly. She pulled away from his embrace and fished in her pocket for her calculator. “Let’s see, if we charged fifty cents per cookie … um …” She hunched over the calculator and punched in some numbers, squinting to see the readout in the dim light.

Phil sighed and sat down on a boulder. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was abducted by space aliens?” he said.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s nice,” Stevie muttered, still punching in numbers. Then she reached into her pocket again and pulled out a folded sheet of paper she had torn out of
her notebook. She scanned it and then returned to her calculator. “I can’t believe it,” she cried a moment later. “Even with all the sponsors we’ve gotten so far, we’re still way short of what we need. And that’s assuming no one misses a single fence.”

Phil got up and came over to her. “Do you have to do that now?” he asked. He caressed her cheek gently. “I was hoping we could just forget about it and have a nice, romantic evening.”

“Well, maybe…,” she said, closing her eyes as Phil moved in for a kiss. But just as his lips grazed hers, her eyes flew open. “I’m sorry,” she said, moving away from him and raising her calculator again. “I can’t stop thinking about the fund-raiser. We just don’t have enough money pledged yet. And if we don’t do something about that in the next few days, we can forget about any more romantic evenings here at Moose Hill ever again!”

W
ITH EVERYTHING
T
HE
Saddle Club and their friends had to do, the following days passed in a blur. On Sunday, Stevie spent three hours on the phone, calling everyone she knew from school, Pine Hollow, and everywhere else she could think of. She called her friends at the County Animal Rescue League. She spoke to Chelsea Webber, Belle’s previous owner. She contacted her friend Dinah in Vermont. She even tracked down Mrs. McCurdy, the old woman who had lived next door when Stevie was in kindergarten. Every one of them promised to contribute, though Mrs. McCurdy only pledged ten cents per jump.

Stevie was glad that Carole had offered to get in touch with ‘s friends at the Bar None Ranch out West, and that Lisa was in charge of trying to contact
their friend Skye Ransom, a movie star who lived in California. Even so, she had the funniest feeling that her parents were going to be a little surprised at all the charges on her calling card. She would just have to deal with that later.

M
ONDAY MORNING WAS
cloudy. Carole, Phil, and Todd had a free period at the same time, so they decided to go talk to the camp cook about Stevie’s cookie idea. They found him chopping vegetables for dinner.

Carole did the talking, explaining that they were hoping he could manage to make two or three hundred cookies for the show on Friday.

The cook put down his knife. “Oh, really?” he said, looking amused. “Is that two or three hundred cookies in addition to the lemonade and iced tea and popcorn I’m already planning to provide?”

Carole and the boys nodded. “Actually, we should probably talk to you about that, too,” Phil said. “We may have a few more spectators coming to the show this year than usual.”

“Yeah, a few
hundred
more,” Todd added with a grin.

“Really?” the cook said with a slight frown. “How do you know? Are you talking about parents? I thought we were filming the show again this year.” Since most parents couldn’t make it up to camp a day early to watch the show, Barry always had one of the stable hands videotape
the whole thing. That way, any interested parents—or any camper who wanted a memento—could borrow the tape and make a copy.

Carole’s eyes lit up. “I wonder if Stevie remembers about the videos,” she whispered to Phil. “We could sell those, too.”

“Sell them?” the cook asked. Apparently his ears were as sharp as his knife. “What do you mean? What’s this really all about?”

Phil tried to change the subject back to cookies, but the cook wouldn’t leave them alone until they had told him the whole story. His eyes widened when he heard about the developers. “So that’s who those guys were,” he muttered. “I wondered why they kept hanging around Barry’s office.”

“You won’t tell Barry what we’re doing, will you?” Carole begged.

The cook grinned. “Nah,” he said. “Old Barry is a great guy—I’ve known him so long he’s like the brother I never had—but sometimes he’s too stubborn for his own good. If he’s convinced the camp is lost, he won’t change his mind until someone forces him to. If you kids really think you can do it, more power to you.”

“So how about those cookies?” Todd prompted hopefully.

“You can count on me,” the cook replied. “You’ll have your cookies, even if I have to stay up all night making them.”

T
UESDAY AT LUNCH
, Lisa stared at her grilled cheese sandwich, willing herself not to eat it. Her stomach was growling hungrily—she had skipped breakfast to work with Major—and she loved grilled cheese. But she was determined to stick to her diet, and the sandwich was much too fattening to allow herself even one bite. Instead she speared a cucumber slice with her fork and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly and carefully to make it last longer. After eating a little more salad and a few bites of cole slaw, she carefully cut the sandwich into three pieces. Then she waited until Carole and Stevie weren’t looking and slipped one of the pieces into a napkin in her lap. She repeated the process twice more until the entire sandwich had disappeared from her plate. It was the easiest way to keep her friends from finding out about her diet and asking lots of pesky questions. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

S
TEVIE WAS CLEANING
Belle’s bridle on Wednesday afternoon when Mike raced into the tack room, looking frantic. “Bad news,” he said when he saw her. “Someone must have clued in the local TV station about our little project. There’s a news team headed for Barry’s office right now.”

Stevie gasped and dropped the bridle. The bit landed on her foot, but she hardly noticed. “We’ve got to stop them!” she cried. “If Barry finds out now, it will ruin
everything!” She raced outside with Mike right behind her.

The news truck was parked in the driveway near the mess hall, and several people were climbing out. One had a large video camera on his shoulder, and another had a microphone in her hand.

“Hi,” Stevie gasped, skidding to a stop in front of them.

The woman with the microphone looked a little surprised. “Hi there, young lady,” she said. “Who might you be?”

“Well, I might be the President of the United States someday,” she said with a grin. “But for now I’m Stevie Lake, a camper here.”

The reporter looked puzzled by Stevie’s joke. “Um, in that case maybe you could point us toward the camp director’s office,” she said. “I’d like to interview him about the fund-raiser he’s running here.”

Stevie gulped and glanced at Mike. He looked just as panicked as she felt. Suddenly she remembered something Carole had mentioned the other day, and relief washed over her. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed. “Oops, I mean, of course I’ll point you toward the camp director.” She winked at Mike and pointed to the mess hall. “He’s in there. Mike will take you inside if you want—I’ve got to go.” As she raced past a confused-looking Mike, she hissed, “Just play along!”

When Mike led the news team into the mess hall a
moment later, Stevie and the cook were there to meet them. Stevie hid the cook’s apron behind her back and grinned as he stepped forward to meet the visitors.

“Hi there,” the cook said, extending his hand. “I’m Barry, the camp director. How can I help you?”

“I
STILL CAN
’
T
believe you got those reporters to believe the cook was Barry,” Carole told Stevie the next day at breakfast.

Stevie winked at her smugly. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said. “I’m just glad you guys had filled him in on our whole plan so he knew what to say.”

“
I’m
just glad Barry doesn’t watch much TV,” Phil put in, wiping orange juice off his chin. “Can you imagine if he’d turned on the news and saw the camp cook posing as him?”

Carole grinned at the thought. Then her grin faded as she glanced over at the empty seat beside her. She had been saving it for Lisa, but so far Lisa hadn’t shown up. Carole quickly drained her milk glass and stood up. “I’m finished,” she said. “I’ll meet you guys at the stable, okay? I’ve got to check on something back in the cabin.”