Summer Rider (14 page)

The same man, Bill, was driving. He frowned when he saw the horse and cut the motor. “You again?” he said, recognizing Stevie. He didn’t sound very happy to see her.

“Me again,” Stevie replied grimly. “Where are you guys going this time? I thought you weren’t supposed to start work until next week.”

“Tell me about it,” Bill said, looking disgruntled. The other machines had stopped and were idling behind him. “Believe me, it wasn’t my choice to work on a Saturday. But we’ve got orders to take the equipment to the edge of the woods.” He jerked his chin in the direction of camp.
“Apparently there’s some kind of pond down there that needs to be filled in first thing.”

Stevie and Lisa gasped in horror. The swimming pond! “But why would they want to get rid of the pond?” Lisa cried. Would nothing be spared?

Bill shrugged. “Don’t ask me,” he said brusquely. “I just follow orders. Now if you’ll get that beast of yours out of the road, we’ll be on our way. There’s a game on TV in a couple of hours, and I’d like to be home to see it.”

Stevie shook her head. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”

The worker looked almost as surprised as Lisa felt at Stevie’s words. “No joking around now, kids,” he said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“You can do it on Monday when the papers are signed,” Stevie said. She slid down from Major’s back and stood in the road in front of the big machine, her hands on her hips. “Until then, Moose Hill still belongs to us. And we don’t want your horrible machines lurking around our swimming pond.” To everyone’s amazement, she lay down in the dusty road in front of the bulldozer’s wheels.

Bill just rolled his eyes and started the motor. Lisa gasped, horrified, but Bill turned the wheel sharply, moving carefully around Stevie’s prostrate form. The rest of the drivers threw their vehicles into gear, preparing to follow.

As soon as Stevie realized what was happening, she leaped to her feet. “We’ve got to stop them!” she cried to Lisa over the roar of the motors. Even steady, fearless Major was beginning to look nervous at the noise, but Stevie hardly noticed. Suddenly it seemed very important to stop this. This might be the last day of existence for Moose Hill Riding Camp, and Stevie thought the camp should be allowed to pass that day in peace, without greedy machines threatening its best places.

Lisa wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do. There were only two of them, and they weren’t going to be able to keep Major there much longer. Besides, even if they managed to block the road, the heavy machines could crash their way around them through the underbrush. It seemed hopeless.

But Stevie wasn’t giving up this time. She hadn’t been able to save Moose Hill from being sold, and that made it seem even more important to do this. “Help me up,” she called, stretching her arms up over Major’s back. Once Lisa had hauled her aboard, Stevie turned the horse back toward camp. “We’ll be back!” she yelled at the workmen as Major cantered away.

Moments later Stevie was racing around camp, rounding up all the campers she could find and sending them running into the woods toward the construction workers. A few kids had already left, but most of those who remained were eager to join Stevie’s impromptu protest.

Stevie was about to head back into the woods herself when she ran into Lisa coming out of the stable. “Have you seen Carole?” Stevie asked her.

Lisa shook her head. “Not since we got back.”

“Well, there’s no time to look for her now,” Stevie said breathlessly. She grabbed Lisa’s hand and dragged her toward the woods. “Too bad—she’ll be sorry she missed this. Come on, let’s get back out there!”

A
T THAT MOMENT
Carole was sitting in a quiet spot behind the mess hall, picking at the overgrown grass next to the building and thinking hard. She was completely unaware of the hubbub around camp that Stevie had started, because she had been in this very spot since leaving Betty.

She was doing her best to figure out what to do about Lisa, but for some reason the failed fund-raiser kept getting mixed up in her thoughts. Carole had always thought that almost any problem could be solved if you had good friends helping you. That was the idea behind the Saddle Club rule about members helping each other. This time it hadn’t worked for Moose Hill, and Carole was beginning to wonder if it would work any better for Lisa.

As much as she hated to admit it, Carole was beginning to think that Lisa’s problem might be too big for The Saddle Club to handle. The camp problem had been, too, but she had no regrets about their attempt to fix that. They had taken their best shot, and though they hadn’t
succeeded in the end, there was no harm done. As she thought about what Betty had told her about anorexia, though, Carole feared that if she and Stevie tried and failed to solve Lisa’s problem, they might actually make things worse. The Moose Hill sale had been intimidating because of the huge amount of money involved. But money was just money. Lisa’s health might be at stake, and that was much more intimidating than the other problem could ever have been, even if they had needed to raise thirty million dollars instead of thirty thousand.

Carole stretched out on the grass, trying to figure out what to do. If she gave up before even trying to help Lisa through whatever she was going through, did that make her a bad friend? And if Lisa’s closest friends couldn’t help her, who could?

Suddenly Carole sat bolt upright. One part of her mind had just accepted what she had to do to be a real friend to Lisa—make sure she talked to a professional, as Betty had suggested. But another part had just realized what she could still do to save Moose Hill. It wasn’t too late. She jumped to her feet and ran toward the equipment shed as fast as she could.

B
Y THE TIME
the protesters returned to camp, it was all settled. Stevie, Lisa, Phil, and Todd came out of the woods together.

“Did you see the look on that guy’s face when those girls joined hands and made a circle around his bulldozer
and started singing ‘We Shall Overcome’?” Phil asked Stevie with a grin.

Stevie nodded, feeling tired but oddly triumphant. They had done what they could. They had stopped the interlopers—for the day, at least. The construction workers had done their best to resist the protesters. But after more than a dozen campers had started swarming around them, they had had no choice but to give up, and they had done so with rather bad grace, stomping off toward the main road and muttering about calling their union.

“Stevie!” a voice called. Stevie looked up and saw Carole running toward her with a big grin on her face.

“Where were you?” Stevie asked. “You missed all the excitement.”

Carole’s grin got even broader. “Correction,” she said. “
You
missed the excitement. Moose Hill is saved!”

Stevie narrowed her eyes and stared at her friend. “You’re talking about the construction workers, right?” she said.

“What construction workers?” Carole asked. She didn’t bother to wait for an answer, but went on, almost dancing with her eagerness to share the news. “No, I’m talking about the camp. Barry is buying it after all. He already talked to the Winters, and it’s all settled.”

Stevie and the others gasped, and everyone began talking at once, trying to find out what had happened.

Carole laughed and held up her hands for silence. “It’s
true,” she said. “Although I wasn’t being quite accurate when I said Barry is buying Moose Hill. I should have said Barry and his partners are buying it.”

“His partners?” Lisa said. “What are you talking about?”

For a second Carole’s grin wavered as she looked at Lisa and thought about what they still had to do to help her. But there would be time for that soon enough. “You know how Barry was always saying that the people who worked here were such good friends—like a big family?” she said. “Well, I started thinking about that. When something goes wrong, who do you turn to? Your family and friends, right?”

The others nodded, waiting for her to go on.

“Well, I was sort of thinking about that kind of thing,” Carole said. She didn’t plan to explain why she had been thinking that, at least not until she, Stevie, and Lisa were alone. “And for some reason I suddenly remembered how Mike the stable hand had donated his whole savings account to the cause. Then it all seemed so simple. Lots of people love Moose Hill just as much as Barry. Why shouldn’t they all join forces—and buy it and run it as a team?”

Stevie slapped her forehead. Carole was right. The answer now seemed so obvious it was almost painful. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before now!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been racking my brains to come up with a way to raise money, and the answer was right here in front of me all along. It’s perfect. Carole, you’re brilliant!”

Carole smiled modestly. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “Even though I was the one to put two and two together, I prefer to think of it as a team effort.”

Stevie grinned. “I’ll buy that,” she said, and everyone laughed. “So it’s really all settled? Moose Hill is safe?”

“Absolutely,” Carole said. “Even though Barry and his partners won’t be able to pay up front like the developers, they’re working out a deal with the Winters. It turns out Barry was right when he said they’d rather see this place stay a camp.” She shrugged. “But the bottom line is, Team Barry has more than enough money now. Enough of the other employees are interested—including Betty and the cook and a whole bunch of others—that they hardly even need the money we raised with our fund-raiser.”

Todd rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Does that mean he’s giving it back to us? I could use a new skateboard.”

Phil laughed and shoved his friend playfully. “Aren’t three skateboards enough for you?”

“Three?” Todd said. “No way. I only brought three to camp, but I have four more back home.”

Carole waited for them to stop clowning around, then answered Todd’s question. “Actually, the money will come in handy,” she said. “Even though they don’t need it to buy the camp, they’re going to need it for expenses in running it until money starts coming in.”

“That won’t take long,” Stevie predicted confidently. “Once Barry and his team are in charge of this place, it
will be even more wonderful than it was before. They’ll be turning people away.”

“Just as long as they don’t turn
us
away,” Phil joked.

Stevie, Carole, and Lisa exchanged smiles. “Don’t worry, he wouldn’t dare,” Stevie said. “We’re all part of his team.”

T
HE HOUR WAS
approaching when Red was due to pick up The Saddle Club and take them home. They were ready—almost. Carole waited until Lisa was busy packing and then dragged Stevie away for a serious talk. She told her what Betty had said and convinced her of what they had to do.

Carole and Stevie shook hands solemnly, then went back into the cabin to talk to Lisa. Luckily, their other cabin mates weren’t there.

“Lisa, sit down for a minute, please,” Carole said. “We have something to say to you.”

Lisa glanced up from her packing, startled by her friend’s serious tone. “What’s the matter?”

“Just sit down, okay?” Stevie said.

Lisa dropped the shirt she had been folding and perched on the edge of her bunk, looking confused.

Carole took a deep breath. “Lisa, we found out what happened to Piper.”

For a second Lisa’s eyes lit up. “You did?” Then she realized that Carole and Stevie still looked somber. “What happened? Was it something bad? Tell me!”

“We’re not going to lie,” Stevie said. “It was something bad. Piper has anorexia.” As soon as she had learned why Piper had left, a lot of things Stevie had noticed about Lisa’s cabin mate had fallen into place. One of the older girls at Stevie’s school was anorexic, and now Stevie could see some similarities between her and Piper.

Lisa just looked puzzled. “What?” she said. “That’s crazy. Piper didn’t have anything like that wrong with her. She was perfectly normal.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Stevie said firmly. “And you haven’t been acting normal lately, either. We think you might be developing the same kind of problem.”

“That’s right,” Carole put in, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She reminded herself that this was for Lisa’s own good. “Piper is sick, and we don’t want you to end up like her.”

Lisa gave a short laugh. “I can think of a lot of worse things than ending up like Piper,” she said. “I don’t know why you guys have suddenly decided you don’t like her, but I don’t appreciate this one bit.”

“We don’t care if you appreciate it or not,” Stevie said firmly. “Piper’s in the hospital. You’ve been hurting yourself for weeks now, and we can’t just sit back and let you keep doing it. We’re going to help you whether you want us to or not, and that means convincing you to talk to a professional about your problem.”

“I don’t have a problem!” Lisa snapped. “The only ones with problems around here are you two, so just go away and leave me alone, okay?”

Carole shook her head sadly. She glanced at the bag of books lying on the floor near Lisa’s bunk. “We’ve been leaving you alone for too long already. You’re pushing yourself too hard. You read all the time, and when you’re not doing that, you’re practicing your riding.”