Chocolate Horse (10 page)

“It’s almost time for the contest dance,” Phil said. “I think we should be partners for that.”

“And I think we should win,” Lisa agreed. “After all, who better to take flowers, balloons, and hearts over to the Lakes’ house than you and me?”

“Not so fast there,” said Carole. “There’s no guarantee at all that you’re going to win. Cam and I have been doing a pretty darn good job on the dance floor. I think you’ll find some stiff competition from us.”

“Not if it’s another reel dance,” Lisa said. “I was absolutely wonderful doing it.”

“You were? I didn’t see you at all,” Carole said.

“That’s what I mean,” Lisa teased. “I was going so fast, you couldn’t even see me.”

Both Carole and Lisa knew the joking was all in fun.
If either of them won the dance contest,
both
of them would take the balloons to Alex. They knew that.

The caller picked up his microphone and tapped into it. “May I have your attention, please,” he began. That meant this definitely was the contest dance. He explained about Alex, although everybody there already knew, but not everybody knew he was coming home from the hospital the next day. There was a joyful cheer when the man gave the dancers that news. Then he explained about the dance contest.

“So, now, everybody get your best partner and let’s begin. However, I must tell you my throat is a little tired, so I’m going to sit this one out. The dance contest is going to be a twist!”

Carole’s face lit up. Carole’s father was a nostalgia buff, and his favorite nostalgic time was the fifties and sixties. His favorite nostalgic dance was the twist. He’d taught Carole how to do it almost before she could walk. Nobody, but nobody, was better at it than she was.

“Did you plan this?” Lisa asked suspiciously.

“Moi?”
Carole asked, mustering her most innocent look. It made Lisa laugh. She knew Carole hadn’t had anything to do with the dance selection. It was just really good luck.

The band got into it, and the caller, in spite of his
protestations of a sore throat, began singing “The Twist.”

Carole was in her element—almost as comfortable dancing this dance as she was on horseback. She began at once and didn’t miss a beat. Cam did everything to keep up with her, and at the very least did his best to stay out of her way. She pivoted on her toes, first rising, then lowering herself as if she were crouching except that she kept her back straight, then she rose again and began circling Cam, still twisting to the very familiar music.

It really wasn’t a contest. By the second verse of the song everybody on the floor had relented and given the floor over to Carole and Cam, allowing Carole a lot more dancing space to strut her stuff, and she did just that.

Lisa was the one who started clapping to the music. Soon all the other onlookers had joined in. It seemed to inspire Carole all the more. As the band neared the end of “The Twist,” they couldn’t bear to stop watching the floor show Carole was putting on, and they slipped right into “Let’s Twist Again,” Chubby Checker’s follow-up hit to the original twist. Like the band, Carole just kept right on going. And then, when the final note was sounded, she grabbed Cam’s hand, looked up at the crowd around her, and asked, “Is it over already?”

She got the round of applause she deserved. Lisa ran out onto the floor and gave her a great big hug.

“I’m coming with you tomorrow morning,” she said, as if Carole hadn’t already known that.

“But first we’d better call Stevie and let her hear the good news,” Phil suggested.

Carole just nodded. Although she hated to admit it, she was totally out of breath. She and Cam shook hands with the caller who told her he’d never seen anyone dance the twist that well. Carole told him that meant he hadn’t ever met her father!

“Well, he should be proud of you. You were great out there!”

“I had good reason to be,” Carole explained. “See, Alex’s sister, Stevie, is my best friend. I was doing it for her.”

“Then she should be proud of you, too,” he said.

Carole thought Stevie probably would be, and now she couldn’t wait to talk to her.

Phil provided the change and placed the call. It took a few minutes to get Stevie on the phone. It seemed that there were a lot of relatives visiting at the Lakes, and the one who answered the phone didn’t know exactly where Stevie was. It took four cousins to find someone who knew exactly where she was, and then it
took a while for her to find exactly where the phone was, since one of her cousins had moved the phone from her bedside table to the closet so he could make a private phone call. Stevie was pretty steamed by the time she picked up the phone.

“Hi, Stevie, it’s Phil,” he said, glad to hear her voice after all.

“Hi,” she said.

The change in Phil’s face when he heard Stevie’s voice told Lisa and Carole that something was wrong.

“Is Alex okay?” Phil asked.

“Of course Alex is okay,” Stevie said. “Is that why you called? Alex is coming home tomorrow. He’ll have to spend another two to three weeks at home in bed, being waited on hand and foot because he can’t get overtired or he could get sick all over again. But as long as we take good care of him—
really
good care of him—he’s going to be good as new. That’s how Alex is.”

“Um, we’re calling you from the dance,” Phil said. “Lisa and Carole are here. We wanted to talk to you, and we’ve got some news for you, too. At least Lisa and Carole were here a second ago. Let me get them. I know they want to talk to you.”

Since both Lisa and Carole were standing right next to him, that was a very odd statement for him to make
to Stevie. Obviously, he needed to talk to them before they talked to Stevie.

He covered the phone with his hand. “She’s down in the dumps,” he said. “Really upset.”

“Alex?” Carole whispered the question.

“He’s fine. It’s Stevie who isn’t. Good luck.” He handed the phone to Carole. She and Lisa did the best they could to share it.

“Hi, Stevie, we miss you,” Lisa said.

“I bet you’re having a good time.”

“Not as good a time as we’d be having if you were here,” Carole assured her.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Stevie glumly. “I’m really not much fun these days.”

“Stevie!” Lisa said, almost shocked by Stevie’s statement. If there was one thing that could
always
be counted on it was that Stevie was fun.

“It’s just that there’s so much—you know—” Stevie said.

Her friends weren’t at all sure they
did
know, but they also knew that there were times when it was pointless to argue with Stevie, and this appeared to be one of them.

“So much Alex,” Stevie said, completing her sentence after a pause.

“Yeah,” said Carole softly.

“Carole just won a twist contest,” Lisa began, about to tell Stevie that they’d bring the balloons over tomorrow. But Carole shook her head warningly, and Lisa immediately caught on. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to be talking about Alex.

“I wish I could have seen the contest,” said Stevie wistfully.

Lisa didn’t know what to say back. Obviously there was just about nothing she and Carole could say that would cheer their friend up.

“Here’s Phil again,” Carole said. She handed the phone to Phil, who said just a few more things to Stevie before hanging up.

The three of them and Cam stood looking at one another.

“She’s in trouble,” said Carole.

“Big time,” Phil agreed.

“Major league.”

“We’ve got to do something for her,” Lisa said.

“Definitely,” said Carole. “In fact, I’m beginning to get the feeling that this is a Saddle Club project.”

Lisa nodded. It had all the earmarks of one. Since the second requirement for membership was helping out other members—even when they didn’t know they
needed help—it was time for them to join together and help Stevie. She definitely needed it, so badly that she didn’t even know.

“Time for a Saddle Club meeting,” Lisa declared. Carole agreed totally.

“I
SN
’
T
THIS
CALLED
breaking and entering?” Lisa whispered to Carole.

“Not when it’s your best friend’s house and you’re coming over here to bring her something, not steal something,” Carole answered her, using Stevian logic. “And besides, the back door was open.”

The two of them slipped in through the kitchen door—the one they knew was always left open after six-thirty in the morning when Mr. Lake went for his morning run.

They had to be very quiet because they didn’t want to wake anybody up, and it wasn’t easy being quiet when they were carrying so much stuff.

First of all, there were the balloons and the hearts from the dance for Alex. Carole tiptoed upstairs to Alex’s room, now empty and clean, waiting for his return from the hospital later in the morning. This was the last time she was going to think about Alex while they were there. She and Lisa had made an agreement that this morning’s surprise was totally about
Stevie
. They’d promised one another they wouldn’t even mention Alex’s name while they were with Stevie.

Carole deposited the balloons and hearts in Alex’s room, then crept back downstairs to help Lisa assemble their surprise for Stevie.

“I wish Phil could be here with us,” Lisa said.

“Me too,” Carole agreed. “But there was no way he was going to convince either of his parents to drive him over here at this hour to have breakfast with his girlfriend.”

“It does sound kind of funny, I guess,” Lisa said. “Still, he really belongs here. This is a Saddle Club project, and he is part of The Saddle Club.”

“Well, there’s no point in worrying about that now. We’ve got a job to do even without Phil’s help.”

They got to work.

The girls had spent enough time at the Lakes’ to know where the plates, bowls, and glasses were. It took
them only a few minutes to set up a tray. It took a little longer to put all the food on it.

First of all, there were the beverages. The girls weren’t sure whether Stevie would prefer milk or orange juice for her breakfast in bed, so they’d brought both. Then they’d agreed right away that cold cereal was just too boring, so they’d made some pancakes. Now they warmed them up in the Lakes’ microwave. They looked a little limp, but they were sure they would taste good. Lisa applied butter. Carole poured on the syrup. There were two slices of bacon and half a grapefruit. Lisa had wanted half a maraschino cherry to put over the center of the grapefruit because that always looked so pretty, but there wasn’t a maraschino cherry to be had anywhere in the Atwood kitchen. Carole had located a red pepper and sliced off a circular chunk. It wouldn’t taste like a maraschino cherry, but, the girls agreed, it
looked
just as pretty. They’d brought a knife, fork, and spoon from Lisa’s house. They took a napkin from the Lakes’ napkin rack. All of this was put on a tray.

Then came their favorite part. While Stevie had been so busy taking care of and worrying about Alex, her friends had missed her terribly all the time, but most especially when they’d gone to TD’s for ice cream. They were pretty sure she’d missed them, too, and they were absolutely certain she’d missed having one of her famous
TD’s ice-cream sundaes. They hadn’t been able to get to TD’s, but they were confident they’d come close to imitating the kind of thing Stevie usually ate while she was there. They were both glad that Mrs. Atwood seemed to have a passion for fruit preserves. It was just what they needed.

They’d begun with vanilla frozen yogurt. That was a lot more normal than what Stevie usually chose, but it was the only thing that approached ice cream in the Atwood freezer—except for a little glob of pistachio ice cream that Lisa swore had been there since before she’d been born. They’d resisted the temptation to add that. Then came the chocolate sauce. Next, a dash of orange marmalade followed by red raspberry sauce. They couldn’t find any pineapple sauce, but they found some pineapple chunks. They added those. Then they located some peanuts and chopped walnuts. There wasn’t any whipped cream, but there was a container of nondairy dessert topping. To that they’d added a few sugar fancies, some cinnamon hearts, and to top it all off, a small chunk of sweet red pepper. Carole had reminded Lisa that Stevie
always
asked for a maraschino cherry on top of her sundaes, and since they’d used the pepper on the grapefruit in place of a cherry, it would be nicely consistent to put one on the sundae.

Now Lisa placed the sundae on the tray and the girls
stood back and looked at the concoction. It looked absolutely and totally revolting. They were sure Stevie would love it.

“I’ll carry the tray; you lead the way,” Carole said.

Lisa looked to be sure the kitchen was as tidy as they’d found it, and together the girls tiptoed to the staircase.

They were good at tiptoeing around the Lakes’ house. They’d both slept over there often, and staying at Stevie’s house usually involved tiptoeing someplace they weren’t supposed to be. The girls knew the creaky spots on the staircase almost as well as Stevie did.

In a matter of seconds they were up the stairs and outside Stevie’s room.