Horse Guest (15 page)

Ms. Lynn laughed and turned away from the horse to face the girls. “Oh, but that’s what makes him so perfect!” she exclaimed. Her eyes twinkled. “Britt’s old horse back in Ohio was a real fussbudget, too. Magoo doesn’t look anything like him, but it sounds like their personalities are practically an exact match. That’s what Britt likes best—fussing over a fussy horse.”

“Really?” Stevie said. “But she’s so shy and everything, so we thought—”

Ms. Lynn was already nodding understandingly. “I know,” she said. “You thought Britt needed a horse that could take care of her, not the other way around.” She
shrugged. “I really should have explained before I asked you to help me find her a horse. I just didn’t think about it, I suppose—although you still managed to help her find her dream horse.” She turned to pat Magoo again. “You see, taking care of an animal that’s needy and insecure brings out the best and boldest in Britt’s own personality.” She smiled. “I think you may notice a real change in Britt now that she has Magoo.” She glanced around to make sure that nobody else was around, then winked conspiratorially. “And I think that girl Veronica will notice, too. She’d better watch out. Britt may not be very good at defending herself, but when it comes to her horse …”

The three girls nodded. All of them were too speechless to respond otherwise. Was Ms. Lynn really talking about the same Britt they knew?

“Well,” Ms. Lynn said, giving Magoo one final pat, “I’d better get going. But thanks again, all of you—for everything.” She hurried away.

Carole was the first to speak. “Wow,” she said. “I guess we really misjudged Britt’s taste in horses.”

“That’s not all we misjudged about her,” Lisa pointed out. “We also misjudged her intentions.”

Stevie leaned against the door of the stall across from Magoo’s. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Her intentions about what?”

“About being our friend,” Lisa said. “I mean, I’m sure she likes us just fine, but it’s obvious now that she wasn’t
hanging around us so much because she was trying to be our new best friend.” She shrugged. “She was getting to know Magoo.”

Stevie nodded slowly. “Now that I think about it,” she said, “she did mostly show up when we were here at his stall. And she was always willing to help out with his care—even when she begged off other things, like making props for the gymkhana.”

As usual, Carole was still more interested in the part of their discussion having to do with horses. “I still can’t believe how wrong we were,” she said. “I really thought Britt would be happiest with a horse that was the opposite of herself—like Coconut, or Applesauce, or Romeo’s brother—to help her out of her shell.”

“But what she really needs is a horse that will force her to take the lead,” Lisa said. “Who could have guessed?”

Stevie sighed. “People really aren’t always what they seem, are they?” she said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she gasped and suddenly stood up straight. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed.

“What is it?” Lisa asked.

Stevie was already hurrying down the aisle toward the entryway. “Sorry,” she called back over her shoulder, “I can’t make it to TD’s after all. I’ve got to get home. I’ll explain later.”

Before her friends could ask any more questions, she had disappeared around the corner at the end of the aisle.

Carole looked at Lisa and shrugged. “I wonder what that was all about?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Lisa replied. She turned as Magoo let out an irritable snort from behind them. “Maybe this is just her way of getting out of the rest of Magoo’s grooming.”

Carole smiled and headed for the stall door to finish their interrupted task. “That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind doing it one more time, now that we know that he’ll be Britt’s problem from now on.”

A
S SOON AS
Stevie arrived home, she went in search of her grandmother. It didn’t take long to find her. Grandma Lake was sitting at the kitchen table, bent over a crossword puzzle.

She looked up when Stevie entered. “Oh, hello, dear,” she said. “We didn’t expect you back from the stable so soon. Your mother and father just ran to the grocery store.” She smiled and set down her pencil. “By the way, you were wrong about your show today being boring. It was a lot of fun!”

Stevie gulped in a deep lungful of air. She had run all the way home and was out of breath, but she didn’t want to waste a second getting it back. She had too much to say. “I’m sorry, Grandma,” she gasped.

Grandma Lake looked surprised. She pulled out the chair beside her and patted the seat. “Sit down, Stevie,”
she said. “You look worn out. Now, what’s all this about being sorry?”

Stevie collapsed into the chair and leaned wearily on the table. “I knew the gymkhana would be fun,” she explained. “I tried to keep you away because I thought … um …” Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure how to explain things. “Well, I thought it might be too much for you.”

Luckily, her grandmother caught on quickly. “Too much for me? You thought it might be too much for me?” she said. She sat back in her chair, looking thunderstruck. “So
that’s
what’s wrong with this place!” she exclaimed.

“What do you mean?” Stevie asked.

Grandma Lake leaned forward again and laughed. She reached out and smoothed back Stevie’s dark blond hair, which was sticking out all over the place from her run. “I thought maybe it was just because you kids were getting older and more mature,” she said. “That seemed like the only explanation for why this house seemed so much, well,
duller
than I remembered it.” Seeing Stevie’s surprised expression, she laughed again. “Sorry, I guess that’s not very tactful. But I must say, I was quite disappointed. My favorite thing about coming to this house back when you were younger was all the wonderful chaos and excitement. You kids were always so rambunctious, playing all sorts of pranks on one another.”

Stevie’s mind was slowly digesting all this. “But we thought maybe you wouldn’t be able to handle that kind
of thing,” she said. “I mean, Mom and Dad yelled at us about behaving better right before you came. And then when you got off the plane you seemed so tired …”

Grandma Lake chuckled. “I
was
tired that night,” she said. “For one thing, the plane was late, and I’d been sitting in that narrow seat far too long for comfort. Besides, I had played in a tennis tournament that afternoon just before I left for the airport.” She grinned proudly. “I won, too.”

Stevie was starting to see things much more clearly now. Playing tennis and cheering at a gymkhana matched her hazy memories of Grandma Lake much better than sipping tea and puttering around dusty museums. That reminded her. “What about at the art museum?” she said. “You kept yawning there. I thought all that walking wore you out.”

“Nope,” Grandma Lake replied, still grinning. “Actually, I didn’t yawn half as much as you did—I saw you, even though you tried to hide it. And we were both yawning for the same reason. We were bored stiff.” She shook her head. “May I never get so old that I actually enjoy hanging out in dingy old museums.”

Stevie shook her head, too, amazed that she could have misunderstood her grandmother so completely. But she was glad that she had finally figured out that Grandma Lake might not be as feeble as she and her brothers had thought. It was her own comment about misjudging Britt that had made her realize it. “So this means we acted
different because we thought you were too old,” she said. “And you thought we were acting different because
we
were too old.”

Not many people would have been able to follow that logic, but Grandma Lake had no trouble at all. “Exactly,” she said.

Stevie knew she would have to find her brothers and tell them about this. But first, she had one more thing to say to Grandma Lake. “I’m sorry,” she said, grabbing her grandmother by both hands and squeezing tight. “I feel terrible. Here we thought we were helping keep you safe and healthy, when in fact we were practically boring you to death! Can you forgive me?”

Her grandmother pretended to think about it for a minute. Then she smiled. “I suppose so,” she said. “As long as you promise to remember that a true Lake
never
prefers things dull and safe.” She extricated her hands from Stevie’s grasp and leaned over to give her a hug. “And you’ve got another week to help make it up to me by keeping this place lively. I expect you to show me a good time for the next six days—Lake style.”

Stevie laughed with delight. “Great!” she exclaimed. “We can start by putting our heads together and figuring out the perfect way to get back at Alex for hiding my riding boots in the fireplace!”

“W
HAT ARE YOU
looking at?” Stevie asked the next Saturday as she rode Belle over to join her friends, who were waiting for her just outside the stable. It was a cool but sunny winter day, and The Saddle Club had decided to take a leisurely trail ride after their unmounted Horse Wise meeting.

Lisa gathered up her reins more firmly. Prancer was feeling frisky, and she didn’t want to lose control of the mare. “Britt and Polly,” she said. “They were heading for the southwest trails. I guess they had the same idea we did.”

“Can you believe how much time those two have been spending together this week?” Carole added, gazing across
the fields at the spot where the two riders had just disappeared into the woods. “They’re inseparable at school, too. I can’t believe it took us so long to notice that they were becoming best friends.”

Stevie nodded and signaled to Belle for a trot. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “Let’s head north. I’d rather not bump into them.”

Carole giggled. “Why not?” she teased, urging Starlight into a brisk trot as well. “Are you afraid Polly will think we’re trying to steal her new friend away?”

Stevie shook her head as the three friends rode side by side toward the woods north of Pine Hollow. The girls had spent a lot of time over the past week discussing Britt’s friendship with Polly, but Stevie still couldn’t believe the way it had snuck up on them all. “I did notice that Britt and Polly seemed to be together a lot the week before the gymkhana,” she said, “but I thought it was because of Romeo’s half brother.”

“I didn’t notice anything at all,” Lisa admitted, and Carole nodded in agreement.

The girls rode silently for a few minutes, each thinking her own thoughts. The horses moved easily, obviously enjoying the exercise.

The girls slowed their mounts to a walk as they entered the woods. “Still,” Carole said, breaking the silence, “I guess it all worked out for the best. Britt and Polly are both happy. And Magoo looks great.”

“Isn’t it amazing?” Lisa said. “I can’t believe he’s
healthy enough to ride already, but Judy okayed him days ago. I guess now that Britt is nursing him full-time, he finally wants to get better.”

“You’re not kidding when you say she’s nursing him
full-time
,” Stevie said, zipping her jacket up a little tighter in the chilliness of the shady path. “She spends even more time at the stable than we do.”

Carole grinned. “And that’s no easy task,” she said. “By the way, now that Magoo’s attitude has improved, I’ve got to admit it: I think we underestimated him. I saw Britt taking him over a few jumps yesterday after school, and he’s got real talent.”

“Who would have guessed it?” Lisa commented.

“Not me,” Carole said. “That’s probably partly because we only knew him when he was injured. But I also thought that he wasted too much energy fussing and fretting to be any good in the ring.”

“Maybe Britt can help him channel that energy,” Lisa said. “If anyone can do it, she can.”

Stevie nodded. “She really does know what she’s doing,” she said a bit grudgingly. “And she’s totally horse-crazy. It’s too bad she didn’t turn out to be Saddle Club material after all.”

Lisa turned to look at her friend, who was riding beside her on the wide, smooth trail. “I don’t know about that, Stevie,” she said. “Just because Britt isn’t a member of The Saddle Club, that doesn’t mean she can’t still be our friend.”

“Right,” Carole said. “She’s just
better
friends with Polly, that’s all. And that’s fine, right?”

“Right,” Lisa agreed.

Stevie shrugged. “Okay, I guess you’re right,” she said. She looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s been an interesting few weeks, hasn’t it?”

“That’s for sure,” Carole said. Suddenly she realized what Stevie was probably thinking about. “Oh! That reminds me. We never asked you if your grandmother made it home all right.”

“Safe and sound,” Stevie said. “Actually, she called this morning to tell us she made friends with the man sitting next to her on the plane last night. He wants to take her dancing next weekend.” She grinned. “He’s about ten years younger than she is. But she’s pretty sure he can keep up with her—he looks nice and strong and healthy.”

Her friends laughed. “It’s great that your grandma turned out to be so much fun,” Lisa said.

“She sure did,” Stevie said, guiding Belle around a large rock in the trail. “We had a blast at Busch Gardens last Sunday. She went on the roller coaster with me about ten times, even after my brothers were all too dizzy. I hope I have that much energy when I’m her age.” She smiled at the memory of the day at the amusement park. Alex had been positively green around the gills after his third spin on the roller coaster—mostly because Grandma Lake, at
Stevie’s urging, had dared him to eat
four
chili dogs and a banana split for lunch. That would teach him to hide her boots! “I’m just sorry I wasted a whole week treating her like an invalid,” Stevie added. “I should have figured things out sooner. Mrs. Reg did, remember?”