Horse Shy (9 page)

“If you keep on learning at the rate you’re going now, it’ll seem like years when it’s only weeks. And then, when school’s out and summer starts, we’ll be able to ride almost every day. You’ll be a champion by August.”

“You mean I’ll be as good as you?” Lisa teased.

Stevie, who was very proud of her own hard-earned riding skills, glanced sideways at Lisa. When she saw
the sly grin on the older girl’s face, she knew Lisa was joking.

“Oh, that’ll happen about the same day Max sprouts wings!”

“I noticed some feathers on his back today,” Lisa joked.

Together, the two girls walked back into town. Each had come to riding class armed with notebook, pencil, and library card.

The sun was shining brightly off the sidewalk. It was a hot Saturday, promising an even hotter summer to come. It was a day to sit by a pool—or better yet,
in
a pool—not one to be at the library. But the unspoken agreement between Lisa and Stevie was that as long as they worked hard together on a Saddle Club project (like finding out who the
real
Max the First was), then they might not have to think so much about the death of Cobalt or how much they missed Carole at class.

“Excuse me,” Lisa said politely to the woman at the information desk. “We want to do some research on history—”

“Section nine hundred, the shelves to your left,” the woman said briskly.

“Specifically, American—”

“Section nine hundred seventy, the first eight shelves.” The librarian rattled off the information without looking up.

“Well, really, Virginia—” Lisa continued.

“Section nine hundred seventy-three, shelves five and six.”

“Actually, Willow Creek, early this century.”

“Section—Willow Creek?” For the first time, the librarian looked at Lisa and Stevie. “I don’t think anybody’s ever actually written a book about Willow Creek.”

Suddenly, the woman was interested. She took Stevie and Lisa to the card file, but it was clear that there wasn’t a book.

“How about old newspapers?” Lisa asked. Stevie was very glad she had Lisa the A-student on this trip.

“Ah, yes!” the librarian exclaimed. “At the insistence of the editor of
The Willow Creek Gazette
, we have five complete sets of every newspaper ever issued in this town. Be my guest, but be careful. Some of this stuff is very old and the paper is delicate.”

She led Stevie and Lisa into a small room off the main reading room. She turned on the light and showed them the big old books containing over a hundred years of news.

“If you consider Mrs. Rappaport’s garden party news,” Stevie said a few minutes later, glancing through a musty old volume.

Lisa took one of the volumes off the shelf. “The trouble is that not only do we not know what we’re looking for, we don’t even know
when
we’re looking for. I’ll start in 1920. You work through Mrs. Rappaport’s social season of 1905. It’s probably somewhere between the two. We’ll work toward each other.”

Stevie nodded, pulling her notebook over to where she could reach it in case something interesting showed up. Two hours later, she knew an awful lot about the sewer system the town had installed and a great deal about the Rappaports’ guest lists, but she didn’t know anything at all about Maxmillian Regnery the First.

“I keep seeing the same advertisement for riding lessons,” Lisa said. “The ad just refers to The Stable at Pine Hollow, but I guess that’s the same one. There’s no address and no name. The one thing I can say is that riding lessons were a lot cheaper then than they are now!”

Stevie peered over her shoulder at the ad. It showed an old-fashioned picture of a lady—“Probably Mrs. Rappaport,” Stevie said—riding sidesaddle on a fine horse. It was fun to see, but it really didn’t help them at all.

“There aren’t any stable ads in the 1905 papers. It took me a while to figure out that in 1905, almost everybody owned horses since that was the way most people got around. They had their own stables, same as we have our own garages. There are ads for blacksmiths, but that’s as close as we get here.”

“I’m still sure this is the thing to do if we want to find out about Max,” Lisa said.

“Oh, I agree,” Stevie told her. “But I don’t think we’ve hit it yet. And that’s all the musty old newspapers I want to read today.”

“Me too,” Lisa said, slipping the big volume back onto the shelf. Together, they finished tidying up,
turned out the light in the little room, and left the library, thanking the surprised librarian on their way out.

“We’ll be back!” Lisa promised.

“You’re welcome anytime!” the woman said cheerfully. Lisa had the distinct impression that the librarian would call the editor of the
Gazette
to tell him that somebody was actually reading the back issues. It would make his day. But so far, it hadn’t done anything for theirs.

“You know, that’s not the only source we have,” Lisa said after a moment.

“Sure, we can check with the crystal ball lady at the fair when she comes to town in August,” Stevie said.

“Crystal balls are supposed to tell the future, not the past,” Lisa said, giggling. “No, what I mean is that, for one thing, we could try official records at town hall and—” she paused, “
and
we can try pumping Mrs. Reg. After all, the man was her father-in-law. She might have some juicy tidbits for us.”

“Hey, great idea,” Stevie said. “I never thought of that. Why don’t we get to the stable early on Tuesday before class and see if she’ll give us some hints?”

“It’s a date,” Lisa agreed.

“W
HAT ARE YOU
two doing here?” Mrs. Reg asked when Stevie and Lisa walked into the tack room Tuesday afternoon.

Lisa felt trapped and was glad when Stevie answered the question. “Oh, we just thought we’d do some saddle-soaping before class,” she said airily.

Mrs. Reg looked at her suspiciously. Lisa knew they were on thin ice. Although they’d both worked hard at the stable (all of Max’s students worked hard at the stable; Max insisted that taking care of horses was an important part of riding them), it was Carole who usually wanted to clean the tack. Lisa was sure Mrs. Reg would see right through them.

The woman stood up and went to the shelf where the cleaning gear was kept. “Here you go, girls,” she said, handing each of them a tin of saddle soap, sponges, and cloths. “The bridles over on that wall need cleaning today.” Her voice softened. “I’m glad to see you here. I miss Carole. She’s the best soaper we ever had.”

“She’s the best at a lot of stuff,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, we miss her, too. That’s why we wanted to help you today,” Stevie agreed.

The girls took their gear and headed for the bridles. There sure were a lot of them. It looked like an endless job—almost as endless as Mrs. Rappaport’s garden parties!

“Say, Mrs. Reg,” Stevie began casually while she worked the dirt out of a throatlatch.

“Hmm?” Mrs. Reg responded.

“How about that guy, Maxmillian the First, was he something?”

“Who?” asked Mrs. Reg.

“You know, Max’s grandfather—the founder of this place? He was your father-in-law, right?”

“Oh, sure,” Mrs. Reg said.

Lisa could see that Stevie was trying to lay a trap for Mrs. Reg. She wanted to get her talking about the old man without her really noticing it. Lisa held her breath, hoping.

“I mean, like when he opened the stable—” Stevie paused. Lisa hoped Mrs. Reg would pick up the idea and start talking.

“Hmmm,” was all the older woman said.

“It was a long time ago, right?” Stevie prompted.

“Uh, yes,” Mrs. Reg told them. She was shuffling through papers on her desk. “I suppose it seems that way, if you’re twelve years old.”

That was a rebuff if Lisa had ever heard one!

“But were you around then?” Stevie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Reg said.

This conversation was definitely not going the way the girls wanted it to go.

“Well, what was he like?” Stevie asked. Lisa could tell she’d decided to be more direct. Being indirect was getting them exactly nowhere.

“Who?” Mrs. Reg asked. Being direct was getting them nowhere, too.

“Your father-in-law,” Stevie persisted.

“Oh, he was a fine rider,” Mrs. Reg told the girls.

“Where did he learn to ride?” Stevie asked.

“Everybody rode in those days,” Mrs. Reg said.

And that was all they could get out of her. When Lisa and Stevie looked up from their bridles, they could see that Mrs. Reg’s eyes were sparkling with mischief. They realized that they were not the first Pine Hollow students to try to pump her about the stable’s founder—nor were they the only ones who weren’t going to get anything from her.

“It’s a conspiracy!” Stevie hissed to Lisa. “They won’t tell us
any
thing. The old man was probably a bank robber—or a horse thief! We’ll get to the bottom of this!”

Lisa was becoming as convinced as Stevie that the mystery was a cover-up, and she was as determined as Stevie to uncover it. The problem was that right then their curiosity had only earned them the right to clean bridles. They were stuck.

“Have you girls talked to Carole?” Mrs. Reg asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, we went to visit her on Saturday. She’s going to quit riding, you know?” Lisa said.

“So my son told me,” Mrs. Reg said. “She really loved that horse, didn’t she?”

Stevie nodded. “He was a beauty,” she said, thinking of how magnificent Cobalt had been. She could see him soaring over jumps with Carole in the saddle. She felt a lump in her throat. She set her jaw firmly. She didn’t want to cry. She began rubbing the bridle harder to keep her mind off Cobalt.

“There’ll never be another horse like that for Carole,” Lisa told Mrs. Reg. “And if she can’t have a horse like that, she doesn’t want any horse at all. I think I can understand that.” Lisa thought she
could
understand the perfect relationship Carole and Cobalt had enjoyed. She hated to think about it, but she knew it must really hurt to lose someone you loved so much.

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Reg said firmly, startling both of the girls.

“She’s serious!” Stevie said, defending her friend.

“Sure she is, but she’s also wrong,” Mrs. Reg told them. “And she’ll realize it one of these days.”

“Oh, no!” Lisa said. “She’s made up her mind.”

“You know, if I could tell you how many fine riders decide at one time or another that they’re never going to ride again—well, it would be a long list. But I’ll say this: Carole has got horses in her blood. She’ll be back. I don’t know when, but she’ll be back. Count on it.”

“You really think so?” Stevie asked.

“Of course I do,” Mrs. Reg said. “But I hate to see her waste so much time right now. Say, I’ve got an idea—”

And when she told them, Stevie and Lisa had to agree with her that it might just work. At least, they’d give it a try.

“H
I
, C
AROLE
,
IT
’
S
me,” Stevie said into the phone on Wednesday night. “How’ve you been?” Stevie and Carole went to different schools. Usually they saw each other at riding class. Now that Carole wasn’t going to classes, they weren’t seeing each other at all.

“I’m okay,” Carole said dully. Stevie thought she sounded anything but okay.

“We missed you at class this week,” Stevie told her. “They were good classes, too. Max had us all working on paces and strides. Lisa’s doing really well. I think she may be able to talk him into letting her start jumping classes in the fall. He said he’d never seen such a natural rider—since you, I mean.”

“Lisa can have the honors now,” Carole said.

Stevie was disappointed. She’d wanted to goad Carole into returning to Pine Hollow, but it obviously
wasn’t going to work. She decided to try Mrs. Reg’s suggestion.

“Mrs. Reg said she was going to call you.”

“I hope she doesn’t want to try to convince me to come back,” Carole said.

“Oh, no. She said she understands that. But she told me you’d promised to help her in the tack room. It was something about the trip—” Stevie paused, hoping Carole herself would remember.

“All those extra bits and stirrup leathers!” Carole said. “We just bunched them up and put them in bags when we left on the MTO. I promised her I’d sort them out and put them away when we got back—but can’t she do that herself?”

Stevie knew she had to be very careful now. Of course Mrs. Reg could do it herself, but Carole wasn’t to know that. “I’m sure she can. Don’t worry about it. She’ll do it when the pain goes away.”

“Pain?” Carole asked. Her voice was filled with concern.

“She said her arthritis was hurting her. All this humidity, you know? She’ll get better when it cools down.”
Perfect
, Stevie told herself.
You’re doing it perfectly
. After all, it wouldn’t cool down for months!

“Oh,” Carole said. Stevie was quiet for a moment. She just wanted her little bit of information to sink in. What Mrs. Reg knew about Carole was that, above all, she was a kind person. When Carole made a promise, she kept it. When somebody needed her help, she got it.