Horse Capades (10 page)

Lisa took her foot back out of the stirrup. She looked at the man. There was something familiar about him, but she didn’t recognize him until he removed the sunglasses—
and
the mustache.

Carole gasped. “It’s Mr. French,” she exclaimed. Michael French was one of Max’s adult riders. He worked for the State Department in nearby Washington, D.C., and boarded his horse, Memphis, at Pine Hollow.

“You caught me,” Mr. French said good-naturedly
in his normal voice, a pleasant southern drawl. He tucked his riding crop under his arm and began to untie the scarf from around his neck. “I guess I’d never be mistaken for a real Hollywood director, would I?”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Carole ruefully. “You had us fooled for a few seconds, anyway.”

By this time Stevie had come forward to join her friends. Lisa turned to her.

“So was this what the big joke was all along, Stevie?” she asked.

Stevie shook her head. “Nope,” she replied. “The big joke was, there
is
no joke. But since you guys didn’t believe me, I thought I’d give you what you wanted. That way, maybe you could forget about practical jokes for a while and I could get my movie made.”

Phil looked surprised. “You mean you did all this to get our attention?”

Stevie grinned. “I have to admit, I was inspired by A.J.’s phone call the other day. I decided it was time to go Hollywood myself. Luckily, Mr. French agreed to help me out.”

Mr. French came over and dropped his beret, mustache, scarf, and sunglasses into the duffel bag at Stevie’s feet. “Glad I could help,” he said. “I always thought I should be in the movies. If you need another
actor for your film, Stevie, you know where to find me!” He threw Stevie and her friends a mock salute and hurried off.

“So we were right,” Carole said after the man had gone. “You never intended to give up practical jokes at all.”

“Wrong,” Stevie said, fiddling with the buttons on the camcorder. “I meant every word. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I figured I had to break my vow just this once—if only to prove to you that I really meant it. You guys wouldn’t listen to me long enough to let me convince you any other way.”

Lisa thought about that for a second. She realized Stevie was right. Lisa, Carole, and Phil hadn’t really given her a chance to explain before. Lisa and Carole had been too busy worrying about Prancer, and all three of them had been too ready to jump to their own conclusions about Stevie.

“Sorry,” Lisa said. “I guess we shouldn’t have been so quick to doubt you. Can you forgive us?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Stevie said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “It all depends.”

“On what?” Phil asked.

Stevie grinned. “On whether you’re all going to buckle down and help me make this movie. I really do
need to get a good grade on it, you know. Will you help me?”

“Of course we will,” Carole, Lisa, and Phil said in one voice.

And that’s exactly what they proceeded to do.

“H
OW DID IT GO
last night?” Carole asked as soon as Stevie walked into the stable on Friday.

Stevie shrugged. She looked tired. “Not bad,” she said. “Not good, but not bad.”

“What happened?” Lisa asked, looking up from Prancer’s mane. She was in the process of untangling a knot. Carole was helping out by rubbing the mare down with a soft cloth.

“My mom made me stop editing and go to bed around midnight,” Stevie said, rubbing her eyes. “That means I didn’t get as much done as I should have.”

Thanks to Stevie’s prank, Carole, Lisa, and Phil had
put in a hard afternoon’s work the day before, and Stevie had filmed plenty of footage. Lisa had even come up with a way to end the standoff over Stevie’s silly costumes, which she and Carole were still reluctant to wear, practical joke or no practical joke. Stevie had compromised and agreed to let her friends wear their fanciest riding clothes for the early scenes—
if
Lisa could borrow some real ball gowns for the dressage ball scene from the charity resale shop where her mother volunteered. With one brief phone call, it was all settled. Half an hour later, a very confused Mrs. Atwood dropped off three fancy gowns in the girls’ sizes. Best of all, Stevie’s was a pearly white one with puffy sleeves, which could easily double as a wedding gown in the final scene. After trying on the filmy yellow gown Mrs. Atwood had brought, Carole was even willing to wear Stevie’s fancy hard hat as part of her costume. It took all of Stevie’s powers of persuasion, but finally Lisa was convinced as well. After all, the stepsisters
were
supposed to be tacky and obnoxious. And that was fine with the actors—within reason.

The matter of riding in a long dress was a little tricky, but Stevie managed to make Max’s single sidesaddle work three times as hard by moving it from
horse to horse and filming each girl separately, one at a time. It all took a long time and was a lot of work, but Stevie was sure it would be worth it. As head costume designer, she had to admit that the ball gowns would look a lot better on film than the “I’m with Stupid” T-shirt.

Once the matter of the costumes was settled, everything else had gone fairly smoothly. The dressage ball scene was a little trickier with the sidesaddle, but Stevie kept Phil in the foreground most of the time to hide any problems the girls had riding in the unfamiliar position. For the bowing scene Stevie wanted to show both stepsisters entering together. So Lisa, in the sidesaddle, had been in the foreground. Carole had perched precariously in the background in a sidesaddle position on a normal saddle. Luckily both Starlight and Prancer “bowed” perfectly on command at the first try, and the scene had required only one take.

Stevie had filmed most of the other scenes from several different angles, just like a real director. She had hurried straight home after the final scene was on tape and spent almost every minute from then until midnight editing her film. She knew part of her grade would depend on her putting the scenes together in the best way, choosing the best angles and views just
like a real filmmaker has to do. She also still had to add music to the sound track and do the opening and closing credits.

“Have you seen Red?” Stevie asked her friends. “I wanted to go thank him again for helping out.” Red had stepped in as cameraman for the scenes all four actors were in together, and he had done a fine job.

“He’s out on the trail with an adult class right now, I think,” Lisa replied. “You can thank him later. Right now, you should get Belle and do some practicing for tomorrow!”

Stevie nodded and yawned. Then she said good-bye to her friends and wandered off toward her horse’s stall. The truth was, she had almost forgotten that the competition was the next day. Somehow, her mind wouldn’t focus on it. She thought it was because she still wasn’t completely satisfied with her film—and it wasn’t because there was more editing to be done. There would be plenty of time to finish that on Sunday.

No, the problem was with the movie itself. It had romance. It had excitement. It had the best dressage/ballroom dancing scene ever put to film. All the special effects had gone off without a hitch and were wonderfully convincing on camera. Carole and Lisa had thrown themselves into their roles as the nasty
stepsisters, and they were deliciously wacky and wicked. Phil made an incredibly handsome Prince Charming, of course. And Stevie had allowed Lisa to act as hairdresser and makeup artist before her big scenes, so that, she had to admit, she made a pretty spectacular Cinderella. In fact, Phil had been so impressed with Stevie as Cinderella that their big, romantic kissing scene had lasted even longer than Stevie had intended—and the best part was, Carole and Lisa had started hooting and hollering in the middle of it, which meant they had to do it over. And neither Stevie nor Phil had minded that one bit.

So why did Stevie still feel there was something missing?

“Maybe you can help me figure it out,” she whispered to Belle. But the horse just snorted in reply.

A few minutes later all three girls were practicing in the outdoor ring. The weather had turned nice again after yesterday’s gloominess.

“It’s too bad it wasn’t like this yesterday,” Lisa called to Stevie, who was trotting Belle over a row of cavalletti, concentrating on controlling the length of her strides. “You could have done your filming outside.”

“That’s okay,” Stevie said. “The lights in the indoor
ring were bright enough. It looks almost like daylight on film.” She was glad that Belle seemed to remember her training pretty well, even though Stevie hadn’t had much time to work with her.

Stevie and Carole both stopped what they were doing and turned to watch as Lisa took Prancer through the small jump course she’d set up in the center of the ring. Prancer jumped every fence without knocking down a rail, but Carole and Stevie could see that Lisa wasn’t having an easy time getting her to do it. Prancer still hesitated before every jump, and Lisa had to urge her forward insistently with all her aids. That meant her scores in the hunter competition would be low, since the whole performance had a rough, choppy look and Lisa’s aids were much more noticeable than they should be for hunter jumping.

For the first time, Stevie started to put her mind to Lisa’s problems. Lisa had helped her out yesterday, and now Stevie wanted to return the favor if she could. “What do you think is holding her back?” Stevie asked as Lisa rode over to join her friends near the gate.

Lisa shrugged. She was breathing hard after the strenuous ride. “I don’t know,” she said when she caught her breath. She patted Prancer on the neck. “I
had hoped she’d gain some confidence after she saw she could do it a few times without trouble. But she still seems nervous.”

“Try it again,” Stevie suggested. “We’ll watch her carefully and see if we can get any hints.”

Lisa nodded and turned Prancer back toward the first fence. Now that the entire Saddle Club was concentrating on the problem, maybe—just maybe—they could figure out what to do.

They took the course again. And again, Prancer jumped cleanly but awkwardly, ruining her form with her jerky pauses before each obstacle.

Lisa was shaking her head as she rejoined her friends. “Exactly the same,” she said grimly. “Any ideas?”

Carole had to admit that she didn’t have a single one.

“I have an idea,” Stevie said. Lisa and Carole turned to her hopefully. “My idea is that we should take a break and go on a trail ride.”

Her friends looked surprised. “But the competition is tomorrow,” Carole pointed out. “Don’t you think we should do all the practicing we can today?”

“There’s such a thing as overpreparing,” Stevie said.

Her friends thought that was a little strange, since
as far as they knew Stevie and Belle had hardly prepared for this competition at all. But they had to agree that a trail ride sounded like a wonderful idea.

The three girls rode out of the stable yard and headed across the fields toward their favorite wooded trail. They kept their horses at a walk, not wanting to tire them too much the day before the competition. At first they didn’t talk. They just rode, enjoying the nice weather and each other’s company.

When they entered the woods, Lisa turned to glance at Stevie, who was just behind her. “The usual spot?” she asked.

Stevie nodded. Carole did, too.

A few minutes later, The Saddle Club had reached their favorite spot—a shady area overlooking the creek that had given their hometown of Willow Creek, Virginia, its name. They dismounted and headed down to sit by the tumbling stream, leaving their horses to rest and munch on the new spring grass that was just poking its way up in the clearing.

Lisa settled down on a large, mossy boulder and sighed. “This is nice,” she said.

“It sure is,” Stevie agreed. She perched on a smaller rock nearby and rested her arms on her knees.

Carole took a seat on the grassy bank of the creek.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been on a trail ride, hasn’t it?”

“It’s been too long,” Lisa agreed. “I guess that’s because we’ve spent so much time trying to fix Prancer’s jumping problem”

“And I’ve been busy with my film,” Stevie added.

“That reminds me,” Carole said. “I wanted to apologize again about that, Stevie. I was thinking about it last night, and I realized we really weren’t fair about the whole thing.”

Lisa nodded. “That goes double for me,” she said. “We should have believed you when you said you’d given up practical jokes.” She paused. “Although in a weird way, I’m kind of sorry you turned out to be serious about that. Even though your pranks sometimes got to be too much, I have to admit I’m going to miss them.”

Carole nodded in agreement. She had been thinking the exact same thing. Somehow Stevie just wouldn’t seem quite as, well,
Stevian
when she wasn’t playing practical jokes all the time.

Lisa went on. “Anyway, we should have realized you really needed serious help with your film. Especially when you asked us to make it a Saddle Club project.”

“Right,” Carole said. “After all, that’s one of the
most important things about being a member of The Saddle Club—asking for help and being sure you’ll get it.”