Million-Dollar Horse (12 page)

“Well, let me just say that there are a few things people don’t actually have to know about what happened today, and all of them have to do with us looking careless,” said Stevie.

“Okay,” Lisa agreed.

“Now, the next question—”

Veronica came into the tack room and seemed displeased to find them there. “Oh, you’re here,” she said.

“For a while,” Stevie said, indicating the dwindling pile of tack lined up for a careful cleaning.

“Daddy asked me to find out who I should make out the check to,” she said.

It had been a while since any of them had thought about the reward. A thousand dollars.

“Can we get back to you in a minute?” Carole asked. “We need to talk.”

“If you’re going to argue about it, I’m not sure I’ll give it to any of you,” she said, then turned on her heel and left the tack room.

“She doesn’t get it, does she?” Lisa asked, shaking her head.

“No, and she never will, so don’t bother trying to teach her,” Stevie said.

“Okay, so what do we do?” Carole said.

“There’s no question who really found and rescued Danny,” Lisa said. “Honey-Pie.”

“My thought exactly,” Carole said. “There are two things wrong with that. The first is that we’ve just agreed nobody ever really needs to know all the details of that.”

“And the second is, what is a horse going to do with a thousand dollars?” said Lisa.

“Especially a horse that already has two million!”

“But the problem is that we don’t really deserve that money,” Carole said earnestly.

“Well, should we just say ‘No, thank you’?” Lisa suggested.

“And take away the joy of knowing that it’s coming out of Veronica’s allowance?” Stevie responded, horrified.

“No, no, don’t worry. We’ll never do that,” Lisa assured her.

“So, who gets the money?”

“Sports cars, expensive clothes, alligator wallets, yachts …,” Stevie said dreamily.

“It’s not that much money,” Lisa said.

“But it’s enough,” Carole said.

“For what?” Stevie asked.

“For a nice—a really nice—secondhand horse trailer.”

Lisa and Stevie smiled, understanding Carole’s perfect solution.

Carole rose and left her friends for a few minutes. She found Veronica in the stable office, picking up a piece of paper from Mrs. Reg’s desk.

“You can make the check out to CARL,” Carole said, interrupting Veronica’s snooping.

“Carole, you mean?” Veronica asked.

“No, CARL,” Carole told her. “The County Animal Rescue League. Tell your dad it’ll be tax-deductible,” she added. “That’ll make him happy.”

Veronica didn’t speak. She just dropped the paper she was holding back on the desk and left. Carole stood still, savoring the moment.

Before she returned to her friends, her curiosity overwhelmed her and she glanced at the paper that had been so interesting to Veronica. She had to look at it twice, and the second look confirmed what the first one had told her. She rushed back.

“You won’t believe it!” she said.

“She gave you cash?” Stevie said.

“No, not that, but it was wonderful. It’s absolutely perfect to make her pay for something to take ‘old nags’
around town to get the veterinary care she doesn’t think they deserve. We are
wonderful
!”

“So what aren’t we going to believe?” Stevie asked.

“This was a better day than we even knew,” Carole said smugly.

“So?” Lisa urged.

“Well, Veronica was snooping when I found her and I sort of couldn’t resist, although you know I really don’t like snooping and think that what’s on people’s desks is their business and not mine and I wouldn’t like it if someone—”

“Carole!” Stevie said in frustration.

“It was a legal thingy,” Carole said. “At the top it said a whole bunch of stuff about the authority of the Cross County district attorney, blah, blah, blah—”

“Carole!” Lisa said.

“It’s a restraining order. It says that Paul Fredericks isn’t allowed within a hundred yards of Honey-Pie!”

“That’s to protect her from him!” Lisa said gleefully.

“So he can’t find a way to kill her and get his hands on Honey-Pie’s bank account!” Stevie said.

“Perfect,” Lisa agreed.

“Aunt Emma’s fortune will stay in Honey-Pie’s worthy and deserving … uh, hmmm … hooves,” Stevie said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a more satisfying day,”
said Carole. “I mean, if you forget the part about searching fruitlessly, risking our lives going down that hill, letting Honey-Pie put herself in danger, getting Max angry at us—you know, all that stuff.”

“My favorite part is sticking it to Veronica,” Stevie said. “That makes any day perfect.”

“Well, there is one thing that’s pretty bad,” said Lisa.

Her friends looked at her.

“I think we’ve lost our opportunity to have a sail on Paul’s yacht.”

The girls laughed. It seemed a very small price to pay for such a victory.

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, The Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.