Mystery Ride (7 page)

“P
ANDEMONIUM
,” L
ISA GROANED.

“What?” said Carole.

“Chaos,” Lisa said. “I think I’ll go back to sleep.”

This, however, was not going to be possible. May, Amie, and Jackie were playing keep-away with a riding crop. The game involved a lot of jumping and shrieking. Corey was insisting that a thief had come during the night and stolen her toothbrush.

Lisa sat up, wishing—for only a second—that she was at home in her comfortable bed. But then she saw an amazing sight. Veronica was sitting at her portable dressing table staring at herself in the mirror. There was nothing unusual
about this. Veronica spent half her life looking at herself in the mirror. But this morning she was staring at herself in dismay.

Veronica’s hair gel seemed to have attracted every seed and bit of hay in the loft. Her rollers were coated with prickly tidbits.

“Veronica, you look like a giant thistle,” said Stevie cheerfully. “And—to tell you the truth—the look suits you.”

“It’s not my fault,” Veronica said crossly. “If only Pine Hollow had showers.”

Corey and Amie were so amazed by Veronica’s new look that they started dumping hay on each other’s head, yelling, “We want to be beautiful like Veronica.”

With a scornful toss of her head, Veronica picked up her brush, saying, “Some of my best ideas come out of problem situations.”

“This I gotta see,” said Stevie, crossing her arms.

Veronica slipped the rollers out of her hair and began to brush. But the seeds and hay bits had turned Veronica’s hair gel into hair cement. As she brushed, her hair didn’t flatten and fall. It stuck out at weird angles.

“Not even Frankenstein would marry you,” said Corey. “In fact, he’d probably be
scared
of you.”

Veronica’s face turned pink. “This didn’t happen by accident,”
she snapped. “It’s somebody’s fault. I heard people moving around last night.” She glared at Lisa, Stevie, and Carole. “Somebody did this to me, and I think I know who.”

The Saddle Club could hardly explain that they had gone downstairs to inspect horseshoes the night before, so they just shrugged.

The wake-up bell clanged. A minute later Deborah appeared at the head of the stairs. “Feed your horses, and then it will be time for breakfast,” she said. Then she saw Veronica. She blinked hard.

“Are you all right, Veronica?” Deborah asked.

“Of course I’m all right,” said Veronica, rising from her dressing table. “Or rather I would be if this dump had a shower.”

Deborah nodded solemnly. “If only we did, Veronica. But I guess you’re going to have to tough it out.” She turned to the other riders. “Your horses are hungry. They’re thirsty. Let’s get going.”

“Just like Max,” Stevie grumbled. “Horse care first, people care second.”

Lisa climbed out of her sleeping bag, rolled it up, and changed into her riding clothes. It felt funny to be getting dressed without taking a shower first—her mother would faint with horror if she knew—but it was fun. She went
downstairs and waited in line at the bathroom until she got a chance to brush her teeth and give her face a quick wash.

She went to the feed room and forked hay off the end of a bale, filled a bucket with Max’s special mixture of oats, sweet feed, and bran, and went to Prancer’s stall

“I hope we didn’t wake you last night,” she said to Prancer as she lifted the hay into her hay net. She started to explain to her why they’d had to check some of the other horses’ shoes, but then Lisa realized that someone might be listening, so she just shrugged and said, “You know how it is.” She poured the oat mixture into Prancer’s feed bin and said, “Today is going to be really demanding. Think of yourself as a sleuth horse. That means a horse detective.”

She filled Prancer’s water bucket at the tap outside the stall and rehung it on the wall. Prancer was munching happily.

Lisa walked down the aisle and stood stretching at the open door. A misty morning fog covered the paddock in wisps and drifts. Behind it, the woods and hills rose like splashes of brilliant yellow and orange paint. Lisa sighed, thinking how beautiful it was.

On the edge of the woods there was a movement.
It must be a deer
, she thought,
because the deer in these woods
are bold.
Sometimes at night they came out of the woods and ate whole flowerbeds.

As a puff of wind twirled the mist upward, Lisa strained to see. It wasn’t a deer, it was a person on horseback. Lisa couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a man. The horse was small and gray. The pair turned left. A bit of fog swept across the paddock, and the rider, who was a dark shadow now, edged his horse back toward the trees. Suddenly they bobbed over a jump and disappeared.

Lisa blinked.
That couldn’t have been Nickel, could it?
she thought.

She turned and walked back down the aisle to Penny’s stall. Inside, Lisa could hear Amie saying, “I’m not going to cry. I’m not. No way. Not me.” Lisa looked over the stall door and saw that Amie had dropped Penny’s fresh hay and was now trying to sweep it up in her arms, but she couldn’t do it. The hay kept falling back to the floor.

“Can I come in?” Lisa said.

“If you like big messes,” Amie said.

Lisa showed Amie how to start at one side of the dropped hay and curl it up like a jelly roll. The hay roll fit neatly in the hay net.

“Where did you learn that?” Amie asked.

“From Carole,” Lisa said. “Not only does she know the big things about horse care, she knows the little ones, too.”

“I’ll never learn,” Amie said.

“You’ve learned a lot already,” Lisa said.

The two of them filled Penny’s water bucket and walked down the aisle to see how Jackie was doing.

Red-faced and frustrated, Jackie was dragging Dime’s water bucket down the aisle. She had filled it too full, and water had sloshed onto her breeches and her boots.

Lisa and Amie were stepping forward to help her when A.J. appeared.

“Heavy bucket?” he asked Jackie.

“No way,” said Jackie bravely.

“You only need half that much water,” A.J. said. He poured half out and gave the bucket back to Jackie.

“Hey,” Jackie said. “I can do it now.” Happily she carried the bucket into Dime’s stall.

A.J. was a nice guy, Lisa thought. If only he didn’t have that moonlight problem …

“Come on,” A.J. said as he and Jackie left the stall. “I’ve heard this wild rumor that Max is making flapjacks.”

Lisa and Amie grinned at each other.

“Max’s Morning Madness,” said Amie happily.

On an outdoor grill Max had set up a flat piece of iron. It was smoking.

“Your thing’s on fire,” Amie said.

“No, it’s not,” Max said. “And this thing is called a
griddle.” With a flourish he poured a circle of batter on the griddle. The batter bubbled and then settled down to cook, sending off a nice steamy smell. Max poured a row of batter circles down the griddle, until there were ten. He stood back to look with satisfaction. When bubbles appeared in the center of the first flapjack, he flipped it. The underside was golden brown.

“Awesome,” Amie said. “How do you know when to turn it?”

“When the bubbles in the center don’t fill with wet batter,” he said.

Max moved down the line flipping flapjacks. When he got to the end, he took a pile of paper plates and went back to the head of the line. He waited a minute and then neatly flipped the first flapjack onto a plate, adding a sausage from the frying pan on the other end of the grill.

“How do you know when the flapjack’s done?” Amie said.

“When the edges curl,” Max said.

“I wish I could do that,” Amie said.

“It takes discipline, training, and respect for your materials,” Max said. Everyone smiled because that was the way Max talked about riding.

Max’s mother, who was affectionately known as Mrs.
Reg, circulated with forks, butter, syrup, and milk, while Deborah poured orange juice.

“What a breakfast,” Stevie said, closing her eyes, savoring the slightly smoky flavor of the pancakes. “This should be called Max’s Morning Magnificence.”

“It’s delicious,” said Veronica, poking at her flapjack without really eating it.

“What’s the matter, Veronica?” said A.J. “Worried about getting as fat as your hair?”

Veronica had managed to brush most of the seeds and hay out of her hair. She had even added a flippy curl at the bottom. The problem was that her hair was so stiff from all the gel, it stood out in a huge dome around her head.

“You may have to have your hair surgically removed,” A.J. said.

“And then she’d be bald,” Amie said.

For a second the MW riders imagined Veronica totally bald. Amie and Jackie gave each other high fives.

Fifteen minutes later everyone was groaning with satisfaction.

“I can’t move,” Peter said.

“I’ll never eat again,” Jasmine said. “Until lunch, that is.”

Stevie turned to Lisa and said, “I can tell that Jasmine is
a true little sister of The Saddle Club. She can’t wait for her next meal.”

“Breakfast was so good I think Max deserves special thanks,” Carole said.

“Thanks, Max,” the riders called out.

“Not that kind of thanks,” said Carole with a grin. “I think we should muck out the horses’ stalls.”

Everybody groaned. But they knew that Carole was right. First thing after breakfast, horses need to have their stalls cleaned.

“It would give Red a break and it would be a way of thanking Max for this great MW,” Carole said.

As soon as the riders had stacked their plates and cups, they headed to the barn.

After Lisa took Prancer to the outdoor ring, she gave her stall a careful picking over. At first Lisa had really hated this part of horse care. But now she enjoyed it because Stevie had shown her a special way of moving the pitchfork in a swinging arc that made it feel lighter. When Lisa was done, she pushed the wheelbarrow out to the manure pile behind the barn and dumped it, then loaded it up with fresh wood chips. Lots of stables used straw for bedding, but Max said wood chips stayed dry longer. And, Lisa thought, they had a nice piney smell.

Lisa emptied the wood chips into the center of Prancer’s stall and smoothed them with the back of her rake. At first this had driven her crazy, because just when she thought she had gotten the stall floor neat and flat, Max would point out that the sides were too high and the center was too low, and then she would have to start again. Stevie had shown her how to scrape down the sides and build up the center.

When Lisa was done, she led Prancer back to her stall. The horse nickered in appreciation. The best part of mucking out, Lisa thought, was that the horse really liked a clean stall.

As Lisa walked down the aisle, looking for Stevie and Carole, she passed the door to Nickel’s stall. It looked empty and forlorn. Also, it needed cleaning. Sighing, Lisa went back for the wheelbarrow.

As she entered Nickel’s stall, she thought how much like Nickel the stall was. The hay in the net had been neatly nibbled. The wood chips had been tidily pawed. Nickel was not a pony to make a mess or get overexcited, which was one of the things that made him so good for beginning riders.

But there was something odd on the door. Lisa stopped to look. It was a piece of red yarn. Another one! Why
hadn’t they seen it the day before? She would have to tell Stevie and Carole about this.

Then something else caught her eye—a spot of white on the hook where Nickel’s feed bucket usually hung. It was a folded piece of paper. Lisa picked it off the hook and opened it. There was a poem inside. The poem didn’t seem to make much sense, but Lisa knew it was a clue. This called for a meeting of The Saddle Club!

Casually Lisa strolled to Starlight’s stall. Carole was giving the six-pointed star on his forehead a brushing.

Lisa whispered, “Come to Nickel’s stall right away.”

“No problem,” Carole whispered.

“I’ll get Stevie and meet you there,” Lisa said.

Carole put down her brush and headed over to Nickel’s stall at a slow walk, whistling as she went.

When Stevie and Lisa arrived, Carole noticed that Lisa’s cheeks were pink with excitement.

“Listen to this,” Lisa whispered, pulling the piece of paper out of her pocket.

“That’s a big help,” Stevie murmured.

Carole and Stevie read the paper again, and then read it a third time.

“It definitely means something,” Stevie whispered. “I guess.”

“I don’t have a clue, but it definitely is a clue,” said Carole with a giggle.

“A major clue,” Stevie said.

“Maybe we should show it to the other riders,” Carole said.

“Carole!” Stevie said. “First you have us mucking out the stalls, and now you want to give away our clue. I know
it’s important to be responsible, but let’s not go overboard.”

“Sorry,” whispered Carole.

From down the aisle came Max’s voice. “Riders who are done mucking can start tacking.”

“We’re going to be late,” said Stevie.

“What should we do?” said Lisa.

“We have to leave the clue where we found it,” Carole said.

Lisa knew this was true, so she put the poem back on the hook.

“Maybe we
should
tell the others,” Carole whispered.

Stevie rolled her eyes.

From all around them came the sound of horses snorting as their riders began to tack them up.

“We’ve got to go. Otherwise we’ll be the last out,” Stevie said.

At that moment Stevie heard Starlight whinnying. Clearly the horse wanted to hit the trail.