Horse Talk (3 page)

“What a splendid idea,” Veronica diAngelo drawled, her sarcastic tone making the idea seem not splendid
but hopelessly stupid. Veronica was one of the most annoying riders in the barn. “What kind of school do you go to, where they teach you things like that?” she asked. Veronica went to Fenton Hall, the same as Stevie, and she knew perfectly well where Lisa, Carole, and most of the other kids went to school.

Lisa flushed but decided to ignore Veronica. “It’ll be great,” she promised the group. “Just tune in and see. Any questions?” To Lisa’s relief, May Grover raised her hand. “Yes, May?” Lisa asked the younger girl.

“Why would we want to call you on the phone to ask you a question when we can just ask you in person?” May demanded. “Especially when you’re already at the stable.”

“Well—”

“Or we could just ask Max,” May’s friend Jasmine James cut in. “He knows more than you guys, even, and he’s usually around.”

“Because it’ll be fun,” Stevie said. “You’ll get to hear your voice on the radio. All your friends will hear you.”

“Not if they aren’t listening,” May said.

Lisa looked increasingly flustered, and Stevie felt exasperated. “So tell them to listen,” Stevie told May. “Tell everyone you know. It’ll be a great show!”

“Thank you, Lisa and Stevie,” Max said. “Thank you, Carole.”

Lisa sat down gratefully and exchanged annoyed
glances with Carole. How could the entire Pony Club be so shortsighted?
Horse Talk
was a fabulous idea.

“One more item on our agenda before we ride,” Max said. “Janey, come on up here, please.” He motioned to a small girl Carole had not noticed before. She was dressed in neat but not fussy riding clothes, and she had a Pony Club pin on the collar of her jacket. She looked about May’s age, or maybe a little younger.

“This is Janey,” Max said, turning her around to face the other kids. Janey didn’t quite meet their eyes; Carole guessed she didn’t feel comfortable in front of so many strangers.
Oh, well
, Carole thought.
No one is ever a stranger at Pine Hollow for long
.

“Janey is from New Zealand,” Max continued. “Her parents are working in Washington, D.C., for a few months and living in Willow Creek, so Janey’s going to ride with us while she’s here. I want you all to make her welcome. Stevie, I want you to take special care of her. You’ll be her big sister, okay?”

“Sure, Max,” Stevie said cheerfully. Max often had them learn things in big sister–little sister pairs. She waved at Janey, but Janey just hung her head a little and didn’t wave back. Stevie wondered why the girl looked so glum.

“If you have any problems or questions and you can’t find me, you ask Stevie,” Max told Janey. “And Stevie will help you tack your pony up for the lesson today, too.”

Janey spoke so softly, her reply was hard to hear. She had a funny accent that was difficult for Stevie to understand. The Saddle Club had gone to a Pony Club competition in England, and Stevie had become accustomed to English accents, but Janey’s was not quite the same.

“She’ll be riding Nickel today,” Max told Stevie. The rest of Horse Wise was already dispersing, but Lisa and Carole stayed with Stevie and introduced themselves to Janey. The little girl scarcely responded to them, only muttering, “Hello,” before looking away. She wasn’t very friendly.

“Come on,” Stevie said gently, leading her down the aisle. “I’ll show you the tack room and then I’ll take you to Nickel. Do you know how to tack up? Shall I show you how?”

Janey’s eyes widened. “I’m not
daft
,” she said.

“I didn’t say you were,” Stevie said. She didn’t understand Janey’s reaction—she hadn’t said anything to upset her. She was just trying to be helpful.

“I can tack up a horse,” Janey said.

Stevie shrugged. “At some stables around here, the kids just get on and ride,” she explained. “Some kids come to Pony Club and don’t know how to tack up.”

“In New Zealand we learn everything proper,” Janey said with a fierce frown.

Stevie sighed. She had always liked having a little sister before, but this particular little sister didn’t seem like much fun. She took Janey to the tack room and pointed out Nickel’s saddle, bridle, and grooming equipment. Then she took her down the aisle to meet the pony. Nickel was a shaggy, extremely gentle gray pony. He was one of Stevie’s favorites.

“Here he is,” Stevie said grandly. She pulled a carrot out of her jacket pocket and broke off a piece for Nickel. He stuck his nose over the stall door and asked for more.

Janey dropped her saddle on the nearby rack with a thump. “I’m riding that lump?” she asked. “That’s bloody! Am I going to be stuck on him the whole time?”

“He’s a great pony. I don’t know whether you’ll
get to
ride him the whole time or not.” Stevie put great emphasis on the words
get to
. Riding was a privilege, and Janey should feel fortunate that Max had assigned her a pony as nice as Nickel.

“He’s not much like my Fancy, that’s all,” Janey said softly.

“He’s fancy enough,” Stevie retorted. She knew that some show ponies looked like miniature Thoroughbreds; she also knew that those cost about a zillion dollars and weren’t likely to be used for lessons anywhere. She didn’t know what Janey’s problem was.

Janey made a noise that sounded like a growl. Stevie decided to ignore it. “You shouldn’t thump your saddle around like that,” she said instead. “Saddles have pieces of wood in the middle of them, and if you break the wood you’ve wrecked the saddle.”

Janey’s eyes widened again. “Really?” she said. “How about the bridle? Does it have wood in it, too?”

“Of course not,” Stevie said. “Look—”

Janey let out a snort that was almost a laugh. “I was joking,” she said. “I know about saddles. My instructor at home cut an old one in half so we could see the insides.”

“Oh.” Stevie felt a little foolish, and it annoyed her that a kid Janey’s age was making her feel that way. “Well, look. We’ve got to hurry or Max will get mad, and I’ve got my own horse to get ready. If you know so much about saddles, you can tack Nickel up by yourself. Just go on out to the ring when you’re done.”

“Yes, miss,” Janey said, softly and a little sadly.

Stevie wondered if Janey was being sarcastic again or if that was how people from New Zealand usually talked. She felt she wasn’t being a very good big sister, but she didn’t know what she should be doing differently. She was afraid she didn’t actually like Janey very much. She shook her head and went to saddle Belle. Probably Janey just needed a little more time to adjust to Pine Hollow.

* * *

W
HEN
C
AROLE RODE
into the ring for the mounted portion of the Pony Club meeting, she had to laugh. She gave Starlight’s neck a pat. “Look,” she said, “it’s our second chance.” Max had set up the same type of gymnastic exercises that Carole had struggled over in Tuesday’s lesson. Some of the fences were a little lower to accommodate the smaller ponies.

This time Carole got it right. She focused on feeling Starlight’s body move, and she tried to let herself move with him. “Very good, Carole!” Max shouted the second time she rode down the line of jumps.

Carole grinned from ear to ear. She could feel that she was doing well. “I’m listening a little better today,” she told him.

“That’s right.” To Carole’s surprise, Max held up his hand and spoke to the entire group. “Carole is listening to her horse—not just with her ears, but with her legs and seat and hands. Everybody got that? That’s what you want to try to do.”

At the end of the session, Carole’s friends rode up to congratulate her. “That was miles better,” Lisa said. “You’re back at the top of the class.”

“Thanks.” Carole beamed and gave Starlight another pat. “Did you guys see Janey? I couldn’t watch her much because she was riding right behind me, but she looked really great.”

“I couldn’t ever really see her, either,” Lisa admitted, “but Max sure said a lot of nice things to her.”

“Um-hm,” Stevie said noncommittally. She was embarrassed to admit that she hadn’t really thought about or watched Janey at all.

“Hey, Janey!” Lisa waved her crop to attract the little girl’s attention. “You did great!”

Janey scowled. “I don’t need your sarcasm,” she retorted. She turned Nickel away from them, hitched up the back of her trousers, and stalked away.

“But I wasn’t being sarcastic,” Lisa said softly. She turned to Carole. “Why would she think I was?”

Carole shrugged. “Did we miss something? Maybe she made some mistakes we didn’t see.”

“She doesn’t have to be rude about it,” Lisa said.

“I bet she’s still in a tiff about riding Nickel,” Stevie said. “She told me he wasn’t fancy enough for her.”

“Really!” Carole was disgusted. “He’s fancy enough for us. I hope Janey’s not another Veronica diAngelo.”

W
HILE THEY WERE
putting their horses away, Mrs. Klemme came into the stable. Lisa pointed her in the direction of Max’s office, and after a few minutes she came back out, waved to Lisa and Carole, and drove away. A few minutes later, Max came down the aisle.

“Turns out your radio project needs a lot of space and a few electrical outlets,” he said in a dry tone.

“Yeah,” Lisa said, nodding. She remembered the big binder full of radio project information she’d been
given. They would need a lot of equipment to do their show.

“Turns out there’s only one place in the stable that’s big enough,” Max said. He sounded annoyed, but there was a glimmer of a smile around the edges of his mouth.

“What place is that?” Carole asked.

“In the stall row, right outside the tack room. It was there or the indoor ring, but the ring doesn’t have outlets. Trust you three to end up in the middle of everything!” He turned and stalked away.

“Sorry,” Lisa said. Stevie and Carole laughed.

Max turned back and smiled at them. “You’re going to be live from Pine Hollow, all right. Wednesdays only—remember that. By Thursday morning I want my space back!”

“R
EADY
?” C
AROLE SLID
into her chair and pulled it close to the big folding table they’d set up. She put on her headphones. Her heart was thudding from excitement. In just a few moments they would be on the air!

“Ready!” Lisa took her place in another chair. The two friends grinned at one another. Lisa felt the quick thrill of nervousness that always went through her just as she was about to perform.

Stevie adjusted the stack of horse reference books Carole had put on the table. Lisa fiddled with one of the equipment controls. Carole cleared her throat noisily, and all three of them watched the second hand on the big stable wall clock slowly sweep around. In exactly half a minute,
Horse Talk
would premiere.

Stevie stood in front of the table, her eyes still on
the clock. She counted off the last few seconds—“Three! Two! One!”—for her friends, then sat down in the third chair to watch the show.

Exactly on cue, Lisa hit the button that put them on the air. Carole ran the tape that played their theme music—a classical piece that sounded a little like horses galloping—and Lisa read out their cleverly written introduction. “… We’re coming to you live from Pine Hollow, Willow Creek’s finest riding academy, every Wednesday for the next four weeks,” she concluded. “
Horse Talk
. The phone number is 555–8151. That’s 555–8151.”

That was the stable phone number. It really wasn’t worth the extra bother for them to get a special number just for
Horse Talk
, so they’d run a long extension phone line from the office. Mrs. Reg had not been too happy about having her phone tied up for an hour every week, but she had let them use it after they’d promised to repay her by spending an extra hour each week cleaning stalls.

Lisa licked her dry lips and smiled encouragingly at Carole. Carole nodded and spoke into the microphone. “I’m Carole Hanson. I’m a C-3 level Pony Club member, and I own a horse named Starlight. Lisa and I are pleased to take your calls. 555–8151.”

There was a short pause while they looked at one another. By now the phone was supposed to have rung. They weren’t supposed to air their first commercial for
seven more minutes. “That’s 555–8151,” Lisa repeated. “And, uh, I’m Lisa Atwood, and, uh—” Mrs. Klemme had told them and told them not to say
uh
. Lisa felt herself blushing. She was glad she was on the radio, where no one could see.

“We’re
Horse Talk
, live from Pine Hollow!” Carole cut in. Lisa gave her a grateful look. It wasn’t the most fabulous statement in the world, but it gave Lisa a chance to recover. No matter what, Mrs. Klemme had told them, they were to avoid broadcasting silence. That was called dead air, and it was the worst thing that could happen in radio. You always had to give people something to listen to.

“And our number is 555–8151. We’re waiting to take your calls,” Lisa said. The phone was still dead. Lisa wondered if somehow they’d managed to unplug it by mistake. She gestured to Stevie to check the cord. “Maybe we should tell our listeners a little about ourselves, Carole. How long have you been riding?”