Hayride (3 page)

“Durham?”

“No, Roberts.”

“Oh.”

Carole digested Stevie’s information for a moment. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “So how about inviting Meg Roberts and A.J.; or Meg Roberts and John, Meg Durham and Tom; or Meg Durham and John,
Betsy and James, Adam and Helen. And if John doesn’t work out with either of the Megs, why not John and Amy Wilensky? She’s always liked him.”

“Until Amy found out that John dumped Polly and Jen last summer after going out with both of them at the same time for two weeks,” Lisa reminded her.

“True,” Carole said, sighing.

“But,” Stevie piped up, “
Polly
totally fell in love with him
after
he dumped her and Jen, because she adores anyone who does anything nasty to Jen because of the Peter Schwartz incident.”

“Right. So it’s
Polly
and John, Meg Roberts and A.J., Meg Durham and Tom, Betsy and James, Adam and Helen, Stevie and Phil, me and Cam and—” Carole paused and looked at Lisa. Although Lisa had occasionally dated—and had almost had a romance with a boy out West—she currently did not have a boyfriend. Stevie and Carole were always careful not to leave her out with boyfriend talk. Lisa didn’t seem to worry too much, but Carole thought it would be fun to arrange something for Lisa at the party and have it work out.

“Is there anyone you have in mind, Lisa?” Carole inquired.

“Yeah, this is the perfect opportunity. You can invite someone as your date without his even knowing it,” Stevie said.

Lisa thought for a minute.

“How about Simon Atherton?” Stevie joked. “He’s kind of cute.”

“No way!” Lisa said. “Not even if he was the last guy on earth.”

“He does
seem
nice,” Stevie commented.

“That’s because you couldn’t actually
see
his nerd pack,” Lisa told her.

“Hey, my dad uses a plastic pocket liner!” Stevie declared in mock protest.

“Okay, forget Simon,” Carole said. “If Lisa doesn’t want him, he’s not going to come. Let’s think of somebody else.”

Lisa paused. It was hard to tell even her best friends about the boy she had a crush on. “Well, if you’re really going to set me up with somebody, I think Bob Harris is really cute,” she said in a rush.

“You mean the blond Bob Harris who goes to Fenton Hall? The soccer player?” Stevie asked excitedly.

“Yeah,” Lisa said with a sigh. “I met him when I came to your house this summer. Alex introduced me.”

“That’s the one,” Stevie said. “Other than the major character flaw of being friends with my twin brother, he seems like a great guy.”

“Wonderful. Then it’s decided,” Carole declared, pleased with the sound of Lisa’s choice. “Now we just have to find a way to invite him without being too obvious about it.”

“Oh, I’ll figure something out,” Stevie declared confidently. “I always see him at school. Or Alex might even invite him over to the house, and—” Suddenly Stevie paused. She thought back to the day Lisa had mentioned. She had a nagging feeling in her stomach—something Alex had told her about Bob. “Oh, no!” she said aloud. “I just remembered Bob Harris’s other tragic weakness. How could I have forgotten?”

“What?” Lisa and Carole asked in unison.

“His choice in women. He’s had a huge crush on Veronica diAngelo for months.”

Before the girls could discuss the implications of Stevie’s announcement, a flock of starlings flew up from the undergrowth of the trail. Barq and Topside tensed momentarily and then relaxed when they realized what the noise was. Starlight, however, shied violently and tried to bolt. Carole eventually steadied him to a walk, but he kept breaking to a trot and straining against the bit. In a few minutes he was covered in a lathery sweat.

“I think those birds really upset him. He still feels like he wants to take off,” Carole said worriedly.

“Why don’t you try riding behind?” Stevie suggested.

Carole agreed and halted Starlight on the side of the trail to let Lisa and Stevie pass. Unfortunately, going in back of Barq and Topside seemed to upset Starlight even more. He refused to walk at all, champing on the bit
nervously. Like any good rider, Carole knew enough to recognize a losing battle when she saw one.

“If he jogs all the way back, he’ll be so hot, it’ll take hours to cool him down,” she said. “I’m going to get off and walk him for a while. Maybe that’ll help.”

Stevie and Lisa stopped and waited a few yards down the trail for Carole to dismount. Carole swung her right leg expertly over Starlight’s hindquarters and then dropped to the ground. As she landed, her left ankle gave out, and she dropped
all
the way to the ground. She struggled to her feet right away. Now her ankle was throbbing painfully. She tried to step forward but immediately had to grab the near-side stirrup iron to hold herself up.

“Don’t you take another step!” cried Lisa. “Come on, Stevie. She needs help.”

Stevie and Lisa turned their horses back toward Starlight. After they had hopped off, Lisa took all three pairs of reins while Stevie helped Carole.

“Let’s try to get your boot off,” Stevie said. “I think I remember learning in Pony Club First Aid that you’re supposed to free the injured limb from all constriction.” Carole sat down on some rocks at the side of the trail. Stevie grabbed her left heel and gave it a gentle yank. Carole cried out in pain.

“Forget the boot,” Lisa instructed. “We’ve got to get her home.”

“How? She can’t walk,” Stevie pointed out.

“Put me back on Starlight,” Carole said. “Then I won’t have to bear any weight on it.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to ride Starlight and you take Topside?” Stevie asked.

“No, he’ll be fine once he realizes I’m hurt,” Carole predicted confidently.

Instead of giving her a leg up from the ankle, Stevie grabbed Carole’s left knee and thrust it up Starlight’s side as high as she could. From that position Carole was able to climb on clumsily. She had been right about Starlight: He knew that for some reason Carole needed him to be calm. To Lisa and Stevie’s surprise, he quietly walked the mile home between Barq and Topside.

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
The Saddle Club arrived back at Pine Hollow. Lisa volunteered to take Barq and Topside in so that Stevie could untack Starlight and Carole could call home.

“I don’t need to call home,” Carole protested. “My father’s already planning to pick me up. And I’m sure I can manage with Starlight.”

“But what about your ankle?” Lisa asked.

“Be reasonable, Carole,” Stevie pleaded. “You’re
hurt.
You can’t walk Starlight if you can barely walk yourself.”

Carole had to admit that cooling her horse down would be difficult. Even with the walk home, he was hot and needed to be sponged, scraped, and walked some more. Reluctantly, she handed the reins to Stevie.
“You’re not going to get rid of me so quickly!” she warned them. “I can still clean tack, you know!”

Carole hobbled into the barn. She went to the tack room, selected a bridle, and got to work with a sponge and saddle soap. Midway through the cleaning, Max poked his head into the tack room.

“Why, Carole,” he said, “I’m surprised to find you here. I thought you had to go home or something—I just saw Stevie walking Starlight.”

Carole explained the situation, being careful to make light of her injury. The last thing she wanted was for Max to drag her off to a doctor for a minor bruise that she had acquired from sheer clumsiness. Besides, she had been planning a whole afternoon of stable chores. If all she could do was soap some tack, then that was the
least
she was going to do.

Luckily, Max had an adult lesson beginning in five minutes, so he didn’t have time to fuss over Carole. He told her to make sure she was okay, then grabbed a few riding crops and left hurriedly.

Sitting on an overturned bucket, Carole got to work on some tack. It was soothing to sponge and oil the well-worn leather. Her foot hardly hurt at all. After cleaning two bridles, she decided to check on Starlight and thank Stevie and Lisa. She limped out to his stall. “Okay, so it hurts a
little
when I stand up,” she told herself. “Big deal.
It’s not like I fell off or anything.” She gritted her teeth as she walked.

By the time she got to Starlight’s stall, Lisa had finished putting Barq and Topside away and was helping Stevie. Together they were rubbing him down briskly, one on each side.

“What are you still doing here?” Stevie asked. “I thought you’d be home with your feet up on the couch by now, watching
From Here to Eternity
for the tenth time.”

Carole smiled. She often watched war films from the fifties with her father. And like Colonel Hanson, Stevie was a real old-movie buff.

“Oh, I thought I’d clean some tack first. And of course I had to check up on the best horse in the world,” Carole answered, punctuating her last words with several pats on Starlight’s neck.

“Don’t trust us, huh?” Stevie challenged.

Carole gave her horse a once-over. “He looks better than if I’d done him myself,” she complimented them.

“He really shines,” Lisa said, stepping back to admire her side. “We thought we’d put his sheet on, just in case, since we had to sponge him and everything,” she added.

“Good idea,” Carole agreed. The sheet would ensure that Starlight did not catch cold as his body temperature continued to drop. She picked up the light cotton-mesh blanket that was hanging over the stall door.

“I’ll ask Red to take it off when he feeds him tonight,” Carole decided. Red was Pine Hollow’s head stable hand. Because The Saddle Club almost always made his work easier by helping out around the barn, he never minded doing them a favor. Veronica, on the other hand, expected him and the other stable hands to cater to her every wish, including grooming and tacking up Garnet whenever she rode.

Momentarily forgetting her ankle, Carole took a big step forward to hand the sheet to Lisa. “Ow,” she said aloud. She bit her lip, but not before Stevie had seen the grimace of pain that crossed her face.

“Hey, what did you do about your ankle? Did Max take a look at it at least?” Stevie asked.

“He didn’t have time. Anyway, I don’t want to worry him about such a small thing. He’s got enough important stuff on his mind.”

“But Carole—” Stevie started to say. Carole cut her off with a shake of her head.

“Can’t we talk about something other than my ankle? Like my birthday party—we never finished planning the guest list. So there’s the two Sandersons, the two Megs, Adam Levine, Betsy Cavanaugh, James Spencer, A.J. …”

Stevie and Lisa looked at each other and shrugged. If Carole was going to insist on ignoring her ankle, they certainly couldn’t force her to talk about it. They had
learned that, at times like this, it was useless to try to talk sense into her head. “Sure,” Stevie said. “Back to the hayride extravaganza. Now, where were we?”

“I think we had established that everyone who’s anyone will be there,” Lisa joked.

The girls laughed. That was the kind of thing Veronica diAngelo would say about her social events.

“But of course, darling,” Stevie said. “No one in their right mind would miss it for the world—
if
they’re lucky enough to be invited to such an exclusive event, that is.”

Carole giggled. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “Because if we go to all this work to pair everyone up boy-girl and then the plan backfires, I’m never going to throw another coed party again! I mean, what if only the girls show up?”

Around horses Carole was the most skilled and confident member of The Saddle Club. In fact, Lisa and Stevie frequently turned to her with questions, and she was known for her enthusiastic—if lengthy—responses. But in social matters the roles changed. Carole could be spacey about people, and Lisa tended to be shy around boys, so the two of them looked to Stevie, who had an outgoing personality—not to mention three brothers and a boyfriend. If there was one thing Stevie could do, it was plan a coed party!

To reassure Carole now, Stevie reminded her that all
of the absolute, surefire couples who would definitely still be going out in a week’s time would just as definitely come to the party as a pair.

“But who are they?” Carole asked dubiously.

“Tons of them—I mean there’s me and Phil, and, uh, you and Cam, and, let’s see, hmmm … Did I say me and Phil?”

“Yeah, and don’t forget about Carole and Cam,” Lisa said. The three of them began to giggle. It got louder and louder until, all of a sudden, Carole put a finger to her lips and motioned for them to be quiet.

“What?” Lisa mouthed. Carole pointed to the stall next door. There was a voice coming from Garnet’s stall, and it was unmistakably Veronica’s. In an impatient whine Veronica was chiding the mare for her performance that day. They could easily hear her through the dividing wall between the two stalls. “Stupid horse. My father spends a fortune on you, and you’re just as stubborn as a school horse. What a huge waste of money. I ought to—” Abruptly Veronica fell silent.

The Saddle Club looked at one another. They knew that Veronica had stopped talking because she had realized that they were eavesdropping on her. Which meant only one thing:
She
had had ample opportunity to eavesdrop on
them.
Carole, Lisa, and Stevie all thought back on their conversation for a moment. They let out a collective sigh. Luckily, they hadn’t said anything bad
about her. They
had
been imitating her, but there was no way she would have noticed that. All they had been discussing was the party. And since they had already decided to invite her to the party, they were completely in the clear.