Hay Fever (9 page)

Carole nodded. “For the big story on food poisoning at Pine Hollow,” she said.

They giggled to themselves. They had tried talking with Deborah for a while, but it was hard because they didn’t think they should bring up horses or riding in case she thought they were bragging or being insensitive. Finally they had given up and had joined the laughing group of Max and his new, adoring fans. The women seemed to be competing with each other to see who could ask Max the most questions about riding and act the most interested in Pine Hollow.

“Who owned Pine Hollow before you, Max?” Holly asked.

“That was my father, Max the Second,” Max replied.

“And how about before that? Was it Max the First?” Miss Cartwright asked.

“That’s right,” Max said. “My grandfather, about whom there are many legends.” A murmur went through the crowd.

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole grinned. They knew the story
on Max the First: There
was
no story. He had just been an everyday guy whom people made up wild rumors about.

“And what about after?” the waitress asked. “I suppose that would be Max the Fourth?”

Max smiled enigmatically. “Should I be lucky enough to marry and have an heir, yes, I suppose it would be Max the Fourth.”

“Or Maxine!” Stevie, Lisa, and Carole shouted in unison. Everyone laughed, and some of the women clapped.

“Amen to that,” Mrs. Reg said.

“Nothing could please me more,” he said. Under the watchful eyes of The Saddle Club, he excused himself and went to get some dessert. The girls trailed him, pretending to want more dessert.

“Are you having a good time, Max?” Stevie asked.

“I’m having a marvelous time,” Max said. “Your friends are really great fun. It was a good idea to invite them. And now I think I’ll sit with my mother for dessert. I want to talk with her for a moment.”

“Oh, no!” Carole cried. “I mean, please sit with us. It’s the big picnic, and it only comes once a year.”

Max looked down at the three pairs of pleading eyes. “All right, if it really means so much to you. I suppose I can speak with Mother later. But I do have an announcement to make,” he added firmly.

“An announcement?” Stevie asked. “Oh, I get it.” She
waved her hands to silence the crowd. “Everyone, Max has an announcement to make. And that is that the mounted-games demonstration will start in five minutes. So get your seats now!” She turned back to Max. “Good thinking,” she said. “We’ve got to keep this show on the road, or the fireworks will be starting before we know it.” Another Pine Hollow tradition was watching the town fireworks from a small hill behind the stable, an excellent spot to see them from.

“Okay,” Stevie continued. “Carole, you saddle Nickel and Dime and Penny and Quarter so we can have four teams. Lisa, we need the targets set up. I’ll—”

“Actually,” Max broke in, “that wasn’t the announcement I had in mind. But it’s all right. I’ll make it later. Come on, Lisa, I’ll help you with the targets.”

Before you could say “Super Soaker Target Shoot,” the picnic had transformed itself into a games practice, with The Saddle Club in charge. First, Lisa, Carole, and Stevie did a mock costume relay race, competing against another team of three. Then they dismounted and turned the ponies over to younger riders, first showing them how to mount and dismount as fast as possible.

There would be two different relay races. Carole explained the objectives to the parents, other students, and single women.

“In the first race, riders will have to take a baton, ride down to the flagged barrel and back, and hand off the
baton to the next rider. The bigger kids are going to play a different game, involving a squirt gun and target. Basically, they’ll be trying to ride down to the target, hit it with the water, ride back, refill the gun, and hand it off. This one is a Pine Hollow favorite, created by Stevie Lake, who is the world’s best at Super Soaker Target Shoot.”

The crowd clapped politely at Carole’s explanation and waited for the signal that would begin the races. Mrs. Reg poised at the end of the ring to drop the flag. She raised her hands—and one of the Super Soaker targets fell over.

“Time out!” Stevie called at once. She ran down to the end of the ring to examine the target, now lying on the ground. The easel that had been holding it up had fallen over. Stevie saw why. One of the legs had completely snapped from the weight of the target. She thought fast. After such a great introduction, everyone was really interested in the race. And come sign-up time for Pony Club games, it was crucial that Horse Wise have a big, enthusiastic turnout. In other words, the games must go on! The only logical solution was to have somebody hold up the target.

Stevie glanced around. Deborah was still standing alone and looked kind of out of it—as if she didn’t know where to go or what to do with herself. Stevie knew that when she was feeling that she didn’t fit in somewhere,
she liked to have something to do. That always made it easier to fit in.

“Hey, Deborah!” Stevie called enthusiastically. She hurried over to the woman’s side. “Are you busy right now?” she asked.

Deborah brightened visibly. “No, not at all. I was just getting ready to watch the games, but I guess you’re having trouble, huh?”

Stevie nodded. “That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I was wondering if maybe you could hold up the other target, because the easel that
was
holding it up collapsed and broke. I don’t know what else to do—everyone’s all set to watch.”

Deborah smiled warmly. “I’d love to help out in any way I can,” she said.

“Great!” Stevie practically yelled. In no time at all, she had maneuvered Deborah into position and reorganized the riders, who were beginning to get bored waiting.

Carole, Lisa, Stevie, and Betsy Cavanaugh, another experienced Pony Clubber, each had a team of younger riders to calm down, instruct, and root for. Carole and Betsy’s teams would be playing the baton game. Lisa and Stevie’s teams would play Super Soaker. After each girl had rebriefed her team about the games, Stevie nodded to Mrs. Reg that she could begin the races. The flag dropped, and they were off.

From the very first minute, the audience loved what they saw. Parents and siblings cheered on family members while the experienced games riders took mental notes on whom they should try to recruit. The baton race was fun to watch because the children were so small that jumping on and off Nickel and Dime—even though the ponies were about ten hands high—was no easy feat. Most of the time they half dismounted, half tumbled off.

Meanwhile the Super Soaker was unquestionably, as Stevie had predicted, the biggest crowd-pleaser. Everyone roared when the riders shot the water guns and missed wildly. As usual, they were racing so fast that their marksmanship left a lot to be desired. As long as some of the water hit the target, they were entitled to race back and trade off. At the opposite end of the ring, The Saddle Club stood between the two starting marks, cheering wildly for their teams.

After dusting off a couple of baton-race victims, Betsy Cavanaugh came to join them. “Stevie, I have to hand it to you. You really do make up the best relay races. Or at least the most outrageous,” she said.

“The riders are having so much fun—I’m sure more people will want to sign up for the Pony Club games next year,” Lisa said.

“The parents and adult students look like they wish they could have a turn,” Carole said.

“I must admit, everyone does seem to be having a blast,” Stevie said, looking around with a satisfied air.

“Everyone but that poor woman holding up the target, you mean,” Betsy said. She pointed to Deborah.

Actually, Deborah
was
having a blast—of water, that is—and she didn’t seem to be liking it. Most of the water that missed the target was hitting her.

“Gee, I thought she might enjoy getting splashed. I guess I was wrong,” Stevie said worriedly. The frown on Deborah’s face told her everything she needed to know.

“I’d love to get soaked on a hot day like this,” Lisa said.

“Me, too,” Stevie said. “That’s why I asked Deborah. I thought it would be fun for her to join in the typical Pine Hollow craziness. I’ve got to stop the race, though. She’s obviously not having any fun.”

“You can’t stop it now, Stevie,” Carole said. “They’re on the last time around, with only two more riders to go. Besides, she’s soaked already. Five minutes isn’t going to matter.”

“No, I guess it won’t,” Stevie admitted reluctantly. She’d have to apologize to the reporter afterward.

She turned back to her team. “Go! Go! Go!” Stevie hollered, watching the last rider on her team refill the water gun and take off toward the target. It was little Christine Kiernan, who had been pressed into service at the last minute, to make a complete team. She galloped
down the ring, several lengths in front of her competitor, stopped on a dime, aimed—and got about two drops on the target and the rest on Deborah. Then she spun around and raced back to clinch the victory.

Stevie’s team members whooped it up. They all swarmed around her, telling her how much they loved the games and couldn’t wait to play more. Mrs. Reg came over and congratulated Stevie and Betsy, whose team had won the baton race.

Stevie thanked Mrs. Reg. “Well, I
should
be able to coach a team to win a game that I invented,” she said. The riders laughed.

“I’m glad you gave us that hint about the guns not refilling properly so you have to tilt the bucket,” Christine said.

“Shhhhh!” Stevie said. “Never give away trade secrets.”

Mrs. Reg shook her head at Stevie. “Tsk, tsk, Stevie Lake,” she said.

“The guns don’t refill properly?” Lisa asked.

“Well, it’s not exactly that—” Stevie began.

“Funny,” Lisa broke in. “This one seems to be full.” With that, she drenched Stevie with all of the water in the gun.

“Okay! Okay!” Stevie yelled. “I promise I’ll never play Super Soaker with those guns again!”

“All right,” Lisa said, relenting. “Lucky for you my
team had so much fun, they didn’t care who won. Otherwise, I’d have to kill you.”

What Lisa said was true. Everywhere they looked, students and parents were discussing the games animatedly and grinning from ear to ear. Only Max seemed less than enthusiastic. He watched the happy scene from a slight distance, his brow furrowed in thought.

“Hey,” Stevie said suddenly, remembering her mental note to see about Deborah. “What happened to our target holder? We can compare clothes and see who’s wetter.”

“There’s no contest there,” Lisa said. “Deborah’s clothes looked like she got caught in a rainstorm. They were absolutely clinging to her. Anyway, she ran into the house as soon as the games ended. She probably wanted to change.”

“Maybe she should change her attitude at the same time,” Betsy Cavanaugh commented. “She doesn’t seem capable of fun.”

Although Stevie partially agreed with Betsy, she felt a pang of remorse. First the green hamburgers, and now this. The least she could have done was offer Deborah a towel. She knew from experience that it could be embarrassing to get soaked in front of strangers—Stevie’s brothers’ favorite summer pastime had been catching her off guard when their friends were over and spraying her with the hose. And even if she wasn’t the world’s most
accommodating guest, Deborah
was
a guest of Pine Hollow, and she deserved the consideration that normally went along with that position.

Oh well, Stevie told herself, there’s nothing I can do about her right now, but maybe I can help Max. All day long he had been trying to make his announcement. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole—but mostly Stevie—had cut him off every time so that they could follow their own agenda. Obviously whatever it was meant a lot to him or he wouldn’t keep bringing it up. Worrying about the announcement had probably been what kept him from enjoying the games.

Stevie ran into the middle of the crowd, summoning parents, students, and single women from where they’d been sitting. She waved her hands to quiet the conversation. “Everyone, listen up!” she cried. “Max has an important announcement that he’s been wanting to make.” She glanced around for Max and spotted him standing in the driveway. To her surprise he was staring at a taxi that had just pulled up, a dumbstruck expression on his face.

“Uh, Max?” Stevie called uncertainly.

As she waited for a response, the door to the house slammed. Max turned toward the noise, followed by everyone else. They saw Deborah hurrying toward the cab carrying a big suitcase. She got right in, suitcase first, and didn’t look back as it drove away.

“Max?” Stevie asked more quietly.

He seemed to notice her for the first time. “Not now,” he said. Stevie barely heard him because he spoke in a whisper. Then he ran into the house.

“I have just one question,” Lisa said, joining Stevie. “
What
is going on?”

A
S SOON AS
the crowd had resumed chatting among themselves, Lisa and Stevie pulled Carole away from her Quantico friends for a quick conference. No one could come up with a good answer to Lisa’s question.

“Maybe there
is
something bad happening at Pine Hollow, and Deborah is going to report it,” Stevie said.