Carole (6 page)

The trouble was figuring out how to find Deborah and getting her back to Pine Hollow. To make a long story short, we tracked her down by calling the taxi company. The dispatcher told us Deborah had taken the cab to the bus station, so we knew that was where we had to go—and fast.

Stevie hung up the phone. “So what’s the fastest route to the bus station?” she asked Lisa and me.

“I think you go straight downtown past the mall,” Lisa said. “But who are we going to ask to drive us? We can’t exactly explain things to Mrs. Reg or Max. And all the parents are busy with their children, getting ready for the fireworks.”

Leave it to Lisa to look at things the sensible way! We knew she was right. It was just starting to get dark, but it wouldn’t be long before it was time to start gathering on the hillside for the fireworks.

Luckily I had a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. “Actually,” I told my friends, “straight downtown is not
the
fastest route. It’s only the fastest route by car, if you get my drift.”

They got it right away. In a matter of seconds we were racing for the tack room. We didn’t bother with saddles—just grabbed bridles and hard hats and took off. Soon we were mounted bareback on Starlight, Barq, and Topside and setting off across the fields at a brisk trot, which quickly became a canter.

When we reached town, we decided to take a shortcut through the park, where workers were setting up for the fireworks display. As we passed the bandstand, some of them turned to wave at us, looking a little surprised to see three horses wandering through the park.

“What’s the big finale going to say?” Stevie called to them good-naturedly.

“ ‘America the Beautiful,’ what else?” one of the workers answered with a grin.

We didn’t stick around to chat any longer. We hurried on toward the bus station. When we got there, we were afraid we were too late. A bus was just pulling away, and Stevie actually chased it for a while on Topside. Max would have killed her if he’d been there—it was a pretty crazy and dangerous stunt, even for Stevie—but the bus actually stopped. However, as it turned out, Deborah wasn’t on it. She was waiting back at the station for a different one. So we went over to her and Stevie and I managed to totally confuse her with a lot of long, rambling explanations about green hamburgers and eligible women, mixed in with a few apologies.

Finally Lisa stepped in, speaking in her most mature and responsible voice. (
You
know the one, Kate!) “Deborah,” she began, “none of us is proud of what we’ve done this week—even though we did it without knowing what we did. We turned your stay at Pine Hollow into a nightmare. We thought we were helping Max by inviting a lot of women we know for him to meet, and you by trying to include you in Pine Hollow’s craziness. We didn’t realize that we were just getting in the way. But now that we know that Max was
already
in love, we want to do everything we can to make things right again.”

At first Deborah just nodded along and smiled politely at Lisa’s words. But suddenly she did a double take and grabbed Lisa by the arm. “What did you say? Max was already in love? How could he? I mean, with whom?”

It took about a second for us to realize that Deborah still didn’t know what we were trying to tell her “With
you
!” all three of us cried in unison.

It took some doing to convince Deborah that we knew what we were talking about and that it was really true. We also explained about how Max’s “big announcement” was going to be the moment when he asked her to marry him.

Deborah seemed a little stunned by it all. Her face was sort of blank for a minute, and a few tears squeezed out of her eyes. But it turned out she was crying for joy, because she said that marrying Max would be a dream come true.

“Now, if he’ll only get around to asking me!” Deborah said.

“What do you mean, asking you? You’re a modern woman, aren’t you?” Stevie said.

Lisa and I shook our heads frantically. We were afraid that Stevie was going to step in with one of her big plans and mess everything up again. But she didn’t pay attention.

“When you want to get the scoop on a big story, do you wait for it to come to you?” she asked Deborah.

“Of course not,” Deborah replied promptly. “If I didn’t go after it, I’d never get the story. But what exactly are you getting at?”

Little did she know. Stevie had just concocted another of her plans, and it was a doozy. See, she had remembered the finale at the fireworks display, when they spell out a message. And with a little help from Deborah, she managed to arrange things with the park workers to replace the words
America the Beautiful
with the words
Marry Me Max
. Isn’t that romantic? The best part is, Max never so much as glanced at any of the other eligible women who were gathered on that hillside watching the display. He had eyes only for Deborah. And he said yes. Well, actually he didn’t really say it. He was too overwhelmed. But he answered with a kiss, and everybody cheered louder at that than at any of the fireworks. It was an absolutely wonderful end to a very interesting day!

So that’s the big news—Max is getting married! He and Deborah haven’t set a date yet, but we’re already looking forward to the wedding.

By the way, in case you’re wondering why I’m so thrilled that Max is marrying a woman who doesn’t know a farrier from a fetlock, it’s mostly because they love each other. But also, on the ride back to Pine Hollow—Deborah rode Starlight with me—she asked me all kinds of questions about horses and riding and seemed really interested in the answers. So I think she’ll learn fast. The way I see it, she really doesn’t have much choice! Ha ha! Seriously, though, it’s still kind of weird to think that Max ended up with a woman who wasn’t even on our list. I guess finding the right person isn’t always as straightforward as you might think, huh?

So that’s the good news. Pretty great, huh? But now you’re probably wondering about the bad news. Remember how I started this letter by saying I’d found your letter in my Moose Hill packet? Well, the bad news is about Moose Hill. Stevie and Lisa and I were just starting to get really excited about going back there this year when we found out that the whole thing is off. The camp is having some kind of wiring problem that means they have to close down for at least a month! Can you believe it? So we’re stuck here cleaning tack, mucking out stalls, and suffering through one of those famous Virginia summer heat waves when we should be getting ready to pack up and head for the cool green hills of camp. Not that we wouldn’t be cleaning tack and mucking out stalls there, too, of course, but Max is a lot tougher than the staff at Moose Hill. And it’s not like we don’t all still love Pine Hollow. But you know what I mean, right?

Anyway, I’d better finish this. It’s getting late, and my hand is about to fall off from all this writing. Besides, thinking about how much fun we’re going to be missing at camp makes me want to
go stick my head under a pillow and moan.
Aargh!
Do we have rotten luck or what?

Your slightly depressed friend,

Carole

Dear Diary:

Happy birthday to me! It’s hard to believe it’s already my birthday, which means Thanksgiving is almost here—I already
feel like we’ve lived in Willow Creek a lot longer than three months
.

But back to my birthday. We didn’t do anything too exciting, just a nice dinner at home (Mom made all my favorite foods and Dad got takeout ice cream from Tastee Delight, this new place that just opened at the little shopping center at the edge of town). After dinner I opened my presents. Mom and Dad got me a subscription to my favorite horse magazine, a new model horse (the Appaloosa, the one I’ve been wanting—I can’t believe Mom remembered!), and a really nice pair of breeches. Aunt Elaine sent a neat video about show jumping. Aunt Joanna and Uncle Willie gave me a gift certificate so that I could pick out some more model horses for my collection. And my relatives in Minnesota all chipped in for a really nice watch with a gold jumping horse on the face. The only thing that would have been better than all that great stuff is a real horse of my own. I was still kind of hoping I’d come downstairs this morning and find Mom and Dad waiting to drive me off to some stable or other to pick one out—but oh well. There’s always Christmas, right? Otherwise, though, it’s been a practically perfect day
.

Oh, I almost forgot. Somehow the people at Pine Hollow found out it was my birthday, too. I think Lauren probably told Max. She’s so sweet! She got me a mug shaped like a horse’s head and a cute birthday card with a picture of a gorgeous dapple gray Arabian mare on it. Mrs. Reg baked a cake (with a picture of a horse on it in icing that looked exactly like Delilah!) and everyone sang. Stevie Lake and Dinah Slattery kind of goofed off during the song—they
changed the words to “Happy birthday to you, Your horse lost a shoe, The blacksmith’s in prison, Cuz he stole a kazoo.” Don’t ask me where they came up with those words, since they don’t even make any sense. But that’s pretty typical for them—they can’t be serious about anything
.

Anyway, it was really one of the best birthdays I can remember. Actually, these days my whole life seems almost too good to be true. I think I’m finally starting to believe that my family and I are here in Willow Creek forever—or at least for the foreseeable future, which is pretty much the same thing as far as I’m concerned
.

One of the things that’s helping make it real is that we’re planning a vacation. Mom and Dad are really gung ho about going away somewhere this year as a family. Not just a weekend at the beach or whatever, but a real vacation, somewhere far away, for a whole week. We’ve never really done anything like that before, since we always seem to be either getting settled in someplace new or packing up to move again
.

But it sounds like we’re definitely going somewhere during my winter break next month. The only question left is where we should go. Believe me, we’ve already had plenty of arguments about that! Ha ha! Mom is pulling for some secluded mountain lake she read about—I think it’s in, like, West Virginia or someplace like that. She wants to rent a cabin up there and relax for a week. Dad and I agree that that sounds pretty boring (not to mention cold, since it will be the middle of winter), but that’s about all we agree on. He wants to go to some golfing resort in Florida near the beach. He’s been trying to convince Mom and me that we
would love lounging around on the sand while he’s off on the links. Neither one of us is convinced, of course. I can’t believe they’re not more excited about my idea. It’s to go out West to this Arizona dude ranch I read about. I’ve always wanted to do something like that—I’ve only been Western riding a few times, and I think it would be fun to learn more about it, maybe see some calf roping and barrel racing and stuff, and take trail rides through the desert. And like I told Dad, the brochure says there’s a public golf course just outside the nearest big town, which is only seventy miles away
.

I’m not holding my breath, though. I have a feeling we’re going to end up on the beach this year after all. But that’s okay, I guess. I’m sure I can find someplace to go riding, and maybe we’ll even get to see Aunt Joanna and Uncle Willie. That way I could at least go riding with Sheila, since she has her own pony (unlike me, boo hoo!). Besides, I have to remember that we can take vacations every year, now that we’re living in one place. So if we don’t make it to that dude ranch this year, it just means I have a whole year to convince Mom and Dad that we should go there
next
year! (And the year after that, and the year after that, and again the year after that …)