Million-Dollar Horse (6 page)

The girls took several more turns over the course, but it wasn’t as much fun with Paul there admiring every single thing they did, error or not. He said “Wow” and applauded after every jump. It almost distracted the horses and certainly distracted Stevie, Lisa, and Carole.

Finally the horses were ready for a rest, and so were the girls.

“Would you like to see Honey-Pie?” Lisa suggested. “She’s settled in nicely, and we let her out into her paddock before we came out here to ride.”

“Sure,” said Paul. “And maybe we can talk a bit about her care.”

“Absolutely,” Carole said enthusiastically. “We’re working with Max and Red to see that she’s well looked after—like all the horses here. As an older horse, and one that isn’t being ridden, she needs a few special considerations. I spent some time last night researching the care of retired horses. I think we’re all going to learn from Honey-Pie, and if love counts toward care—and I think it does—well, you can count on a healthy horse for a long time to come!”

Paul smiled weakly.

“Come on, Carole, I’ll take Starlight to his stall for you,” Stevie offered, thinking that if Paul could hear more about what Carole had learned from her research on Honey-Pie’s behalf, he’d be all the happier that he was boarding the mare at Pine Hollow and might even put in another good word for them with Max.

It took only a few minutes to untack Belle and Starlight, and when Stevie returned, she found Carole deep into a discussion about feeding schedules. On his previous visit, Paul had noticed that Red was giving some of the other horses a grain ration, and he wondered why Honey-Pie wasn’t getting one.

“Honey-Pie isn’t as active as the other horses,” Carole said. “She doesn’t need the extra nutrients that are in the afternoon feeding. She’ll get her grain in the morning, after she’s had water and hay. She has access to water at all times and will get three or four feedings of hay every day on a schedule.”

“I want her to get more grain,” Paul said, sounding a little petulant.

“It wouldn’t be good for her,” said Carole, automatically taking the horse’s side.

“Who’s the better judge of that?” Paul asked, sounding almost angry. He calmed down right away, though. “I’m sure you girls know what you’re doing, but I do want to be sure the horse gets the kind of care Aunt Emma would have demanded for her, and I’m sure Aunt Emma used to give her grain twice a day. It’s not a good idea to change her schedule abruptly, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Carole agreed.

“And you wouldn’t want to do anything that was bad for good old Honey-Pie, now, would you?”

“No, we wouldn’t,” Carole agreed.

“You know what I think?” Paul asked. The girls asked him what, although they were beginning to suspect that they didn’t care what he thought.

“Well, I think the people who take the very best care of Honey-Pie at Pine Hollow deserve some sort of treat.”

“Treats are good,” Stevie agreed, wondering what he was leading up to. She didn’t have long to wait.

“How would you three—I mean, if you take good care of Honey-Pie and she does as well here as I know she will when you do what I tell you—like to come for a ride on my yacht? We could spend a whole day at sea.”

“Like, take a picnic?” Lisa asked.

“No need to bring anything at all,” Paul said. “I’d have my cook prepare something delicious for us. Whatever you want, really.”

“Um, Mr. Fredericks …,” Carole began.

“Please call me Paul.”

“Right, um, Paul,” she continued. “We’re going to look after Honey-Pie because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t have to pay us or anything.”

“It’s not payment,” Paul said. “It’s just a way of saying thank you.”

“Well, please wait until you have something to thank us for,” Lisa told him.

“I’m sure it won’t be long before that happens,” said Paul. All three girls were a little surprised by the apparent smugness in his voice. “And I know it’s what my aunt Emma would have wanted me to do for you.”

“Thanks, Paul,” said Stevie. “That’s something to look forward to.”

“Oh, look, here comes Max,” said Carole, spotting
him on the way out of his office. “I’m sure you want to talk with him, right?”

Paul glanced at his watch. “No, I don’t really have time to see him now. I’ll talk to him later. Besides, it was you three I really wanted to see. Thanks for the great jumping demonstration and, most especially, for looking after sweet old Honey-Pie.”

“You’re welcome on both counts,” Stevie said.

“Well, ahoy, mateys!” he declared, waving as he slipped out the back door, through the schooling ring, and back to his car.

The girls exchanged glances.

“Was that weird or what?” Stevie asked.

“Definitely,” Lisa agreed.

“And I don’t care what he says. If Aunt Emma—whoever she is—er, was—loved Honey-Pie, she’d know that a retired horse shouldn’t get two rations of grain a day.”

“And anyone who tries to make me overfeed this sweet mare is going to have to walk the plank!” Carole pronounced.

“A day on his yacht!” Stevie said. “Do you believe it?”

“It might be fun—” Lisa said.

“Except for one thing,” said Stevie.

“Right. He’d be there, good old Mr. Call-me-Paul.”

“C
AROLE
,
YOU WERE
letting Starlight get away with murder in class today,” Max Regnery said at the end of the flat class that followed their Pony Club meeting the next Saturday.

Carole cringed, but she wasn’t the only one getting criticism. “Lisa, you must remember your basic aids,” Max went on. “If you don’t master the basics, you’ll never accomplish any worthwhile goals.” Lisa flushed with embarrassment at the sharpness of his words.

“And
Stevie.
” Max didn’t even continue. His irritation with Stevie was so apparent that there wasn’t any need for him to say more. He turned and left the three girls holding their horses while he went to tend to some of the other riders.

“He is so angry with us!” Stevie said.

“What did we do wrong?” Lisa asked.

“Maybe we were just being sloppy in class?” Carole suggested. “I mean, he’s right. Starlight was misbehaving and I wasn’t controlling him properly.”

“And I let my heels come up and my elbows were flopping,” Lisa said.

“I couldn’t help it if Veronica was being so annoying that I just had to hide her bridle before class,” said Stevie.

“Well, it did delay the class for ten minutes while we all looked for it,” Lisa reminded her.

“Still, it
was
Veronica,” Stevie protested. “But now we have to do some wonderful things to make Max like us again.”

“And trust us,” Lisa added.

“Let’s longe Honey-Pie,” Carole suggested.

“Does she need it?” Lisa asked.

“Every horse needs it,” Carole reminded her. “And Honey-Pie’s been in her box stall and that little paddock all week. I’m sure she’s ready for some nice stretching exercises, and since we can’t ride her, the best way to do that is to longe her.”

“Okay,” said Lisa. “And then, after we’ve done that, let’s give our own horses some nice stretching exercises, too.”

“Like, for instance, a trail ride?” Stevie asked.

“Like, for instance, exactly,” said Lisa.

The deal was struck. All three girls returned their horses to their stalls, and Carole brought the longeing tack from the storage room.

The term
longeing
—usually pronounced like
lunging
—came from the French word for “long,” and longeing was done with long tack. The horse was fitted with a set of equipment that included a saddlelike pad, a bridle, and a very long rein, designed to be used from one side of the horse by someone in the center of a ring. It made it look as if the horse were on a leash, but the bridle had a bit and the horse could be controlled with that and with the aid of a long whip. Longeing could be used for many things. For example, it allowed a rider to watch her own horse in particular gaits. And in the case of a horse that couldn’t be under saddle for whatever reason, it was a very good way of seeing to it that the horse got enough exercise.

Carole took the longe line and the whip. She and Lisa stood in the middle of the ring and began exercising Honey-Pie, who responded immediately to Carole’s long-distance aids.

“She loves it, doesn’t she?” Lisa asked, watching the horse closely.

“I think so,” Carole said. Honey-Pie wasn’t going
fast—just moving at an extended walk—but already it was clear that she was happy to be exercising. Her ears were perked straight up, flicking this way and that—she was alert to everything around her. She held her head high, and her stride was elegantly smooth.

Stevie was perched on the top of the rail fence, flipping through the Cross County Tack Shop catalog while keeping an eye on the doings in the ring. It was good to see Honey-Pie respond so well to the longeing.

“I bet she’s done this a lot,” said Stevie. “Or else she’s just taking to it naturally.”

“I don’t know,” Carole said. “This is a horse that was ridden a lot and loved it. I mean, she loves people. Her previous owner—I guess that must have been Aunt Emma—was really lucky. I wish we could ride her, too.”

“Let’s see how she trots,” Lisa suggested.

Carole gave the mare a signal and Honey-Pie shifted smoothly into the faster gait.

Stevie become aware that they had company only when she felt the fence move a bit—someone was climbing it. She turned to see who was joining her. It was Paul Fredericks.

“Hi, Sammy,” he said.

“Stevie,” she corrected him.

“I’m sorry. Right church, wrong pew, huh?”

“Sort of. It’s short for Stephanie,” she told him.

“Oh, of course. That makes sense.” He pulled himself up over the top rail and settled awkwardly next to Stevie. “What are they doing?” he asked, looking into the ring.

Stevie explained what longeing was and why they were doing it. Paul watched for a while.

Stevie was uncomfortably aware of his presence. It wasn’t that he was doing anything wrong or bad. He just didn’t belong there. Once again, he was dressed in very expensive clothes. Lisa would have been able to tell her the brand names and Veronica would have been able to pinpoint the price, but Stevie didn’t need any help to know that wool slacks, cashmere sweaters, and tassel loafers had no business sitting on a rail fence in a stable yard.

“Would you like me to get you a chair or something?” Stevie offered. “I mean, those clothes …”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Paul said. “I don’t care if something happens to these old things. I just want to be sure Honey-Pie’s okay.”

“Honey-Pie’s fine,” Stevie assured him.

“Well, you know, I only want the best for her,” Paul said.

“We know. And that’s what she’s getting.”

Wanting the best for a horse made Stevie think of the catalog in her hand. Although she and her friends had been working hard to raise money for CARL by getting people to order from Cross County Tack, the pennies were mounting up a lot faster than the dollars, and they had a long way to go. It occurred to Stevie that someone who thought of expensive clothes as “these old things” might be in the market for some goods for his horse.

“You know,” Stevie began, “I’ve been looking over Honey-Pie’s equipment, and although she’s got most of what she needs, she could use a few items. Perhaps you’d like to consider, say, um, a new blanket. Look, there’s one in this catalog.”

She showed Paul a lovely dark green blanket that would look good on Honey-Pie, explaining that anything he ordered would help CARL buy a horse van.

“She’s got a blanket, doesn’t she?” he asked.

“Yes, but it’s old and it’s light. She’d do well to have something warmer for the winter, especially when she’s not being ridden. If she got too cold, it could cause all kinds of problems.”

Stevie would have loved to persuade Paul to buy an expensive blanket, but she wasn’t lying. Honey-Pie’s
blanket was a summer-weight one, and she would need something warmer, though Max would surely supply one if she didn’t have her own.

“She can make do,” Paul said, shrugging off Stevie’s suggestion. “But since it’s all for a good cause, could I make a donation?”

“Oh, of course!” Stevie said, delighted. She hadn’t even thought of that possibility.

Paul shifted his weight to reach the wallet in his back pocket. Like everything he wore and everything about him, it was clearly expensive—alligator skin, shiny, and new. Veronica would have known for sure, but the wallet alone must have been worth a significant percent of their fund-raising goal.

“Our goal is to raise five hundred dollars,” Stevie said, wondering how much he might consider contributing.

“Well, I certainly want to be a part of something that’s going to mean so much to the horses in this county,” he said, reaching into his wallet.

Stevie could feel her heart quicken. She kept her eyes off Paul’s fingers as they shuffled among the sheaf of bills in the wallet. It would be rude to stare. She just smiled and waited, accepting the two bills he pressed into her hands.

“Thanks so much,” she said sincerely. “You can’t imagine what this is going to mean.”