Nightmare (9 page)

“Figures,” Carole said, smiling to herself. Stevie was truly irrepressible, and it was one of her most endearing qualities.

“So, how was today?” Stevie asked. “Any more word from your dad?”

“Not yet,” Carole said. “Though I haven’t been back to the Atwoods’, so who knows? But I had lunch with Lisa, and I’ve got to tell you, she’s getting more and more obsessive about her history class and her history paper. She was envious of this girl, Fiona Jamieson, because the teacher had said, ‘Very good, Fiona,’ to her in class but he’d only said, ‘Good question’ to Lisa.”

“Oh, boy,” said Stevie. “I think if a teacher told me I’d asked a good question, I’d leap up and down for joy. Oh, no, that’s not right. One of my teachers did say that to me one time because I’d asked if the wailing sound outside the room was the fire alarm going off.”

“Stevie, it’s a good story, but I don’t think it’s going to do Lisa much good. I think we’ve got to stop keeping an eye on her and start a Saddle Club project that’ll save her from going overboard with this competitive student thing.”

“I know, I know. You’re right,” Stevie said. “But what on earth can we do to help her?”

“That’s it!” said Carole.

“What’s it?” Stevie asked.

“We have to help her. If we do some of the work on her paper, it’ll take some pressure off her,” Carole said.

“We can’t do that. It’s called plagiarism or something like that. It has to be her own work, and besides, there isn’t a history teacher in the world who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a paper I wrote and one Lisa wrote.”

“No, I don’t mean that we write it for her. Of course we can’t do that. But we can do some of the background work, you know, like Chad did just by giving her a book she can use. Maybe if we point out to her where she can find some good information, that would be helpful. Since your family has had a computer longer than anyone else’s, you’re the best typist in The Saddle Club. You could do some of the typing for her. See what I mean?” Carole asked.

“I guess I do,” Stevie said. “But you know, sometimes it scares me when I look at my friends and begin to see
myself. You guys are getting more and more like me every day.”

“Does that mean I’m going to have to put licorice chips on peppermint ice cream?” Carole asked in mock horror.

“Hmmm. Sounds delicious,” Stevie said. “But I don’t think we have time for a trip to TD’s tonight.” TD’s was the ice cream parlor where The Saddle Club often treated themselves while they had club meetings. “No, we’ve got to finish up here and then get to my house for a trip on the Internet.”

They redoubled their efforts to make Belle’s coat gleam, because after that was done, they had to groom Starlight and visit Nero and give out the rest of the apple. There was a lot of horsework to be done before they could attempt progress on Lisa’s homework.

“U
H
-
OH
,” S
TEVIE
SAID
, looking at the computer screen in front of her.

“What’s the matter?” Carole asked, looking up from the newspaper that had held her interest while Stevie clicked away at the keyboard. “Didn’t you get anything with the search?”

They were using the Lakes’ on-line service to try to find material for Lisa’s paper. It had taken a long time to get the information they wanted. It wasn’t that the computer was slow; it was that there were so many other things to do on their way to the arms buildup in Germany. They’d spent some time reading on-line bulletin boards, sending messages, playing games, and chatting with friends before they’d actually gotten started on their search.

“No, that’s not the problem. I got too much,” Stevie said. Carole put down the newspaper. It was too full of talk about the summit meeting in Paris to have anything about desert operations. She looked over Stevie’s shoulder at the computer screen. The screen informed them that they had found more than twenty thousand matches to their key word.

“Perhaps we should narrow the search just a little bit,” Carole suggested.

“How utterly logical of you,” Stevie teased. “First you’ve got a wild scheme in your head, and then you’ve got a sensible suggestion. It’s hard to tell if you’re getting more like me or more like Lisa every day!”

“Peer pressure,” Carole said. “It’s supposed to make you crazy. It’s clearly working—or else it’s just you guys who are making me crazy!”

Stevie typed in several words this time, not just
Germany
, and set the search mechanism to work.

When the results came up, there were only twenty-five items. That was much more manageable than twenty thousand. She printed the list, then set about searching for something else.

“What are you looking for now?” Carole asked, peering at the screen. “Underground Railroad? Are you trying to get a head start on Lisa’s paper for American history next year?”

Stevie laughed. “No, not really. I’m just interested in the subject. I’m reading a book about it—it’s really good,
and I’ll lend it to you when I’m done. I thought I might be able to get some background information—Hmmm.” She studied the screen as her results came up. She pressed Print and then logged off. “I’ll look at that later,” she said.

“Is this a novel you’re reading or a history book?” Carole asked.

“It’s a novel,” said Stevie. “But it’s based on the diary of a real person. It’s a great book, but it’s especially interesting …” Stevie hesitated. Was she being silly in thinking that Hallie and Esther must have come near where they lived now? She didn’t think she was, but she thought her friends might describe the idea as “one of Stevie’s wild schemes.” She wasn’t in the mood for ridicule at the moment, so she decided to keep her peace. “… it’s based on something that definitely did happen. Anyway, you’re going to like the book a lot. It’s called
The Path to Freedom
, by Elizabeth Wallingford Johnson.” What she didn’t say was that she was convinced Carole and Lisa would both love it because Stevie was planning to prove that a lot of the book happened practically in their backyards. Or, more exactly, in Pine Hollow’s backyard.

“Sounds familiar,” Carole said. “I must have heard about it or read something somewhere.”

“Well, people must talk about it because it’s really good,” said Stevie.

“Maybe,” said Carole. “But whatever, it’s definitely familiar.”

“Stevie! Dinner!” her brother Chad called loudly from the dining room.

Carole and Stevie had been so busy playing on the computer that they hadn’t noticed how much time had flown by.

“Oh no!” said Carole. “I’m late!”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re only going a couple of houses away, then.”

Carole answered her, but she knew that Stevie never heard her because she was running so fast out the door.

How could she do this? She was a guest at the Atwoods’. She knew what time they ate dinner. She’d almost kept them waiting last night, and tonight it was even worse.

She flew down the street, ran up the walkway, and burst through the door.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she cried out as she entered the Atwoods’ home. “I didn’t mean to be late. I just got caught up in something at Stevie’s house.”

She ran upstairs and put her things in her borrowed room. She washed her hands quickly and then went downstairs as fast as she could. Lisa and her parents had started eating already. Mr. Atwood paused to serve up a plate for Carole.

“I really am sorry,” she said, slipping into her chair.

“That’s all right, Carole. We understand,” said Mrs. Atwood. “But we do eat at seven-thirty, so perhaps it would be a good idea for you to make a note of that in the future. You shouldn’t have to rush so before dinner. It’s not good for the digestion, you know.”

Carole gulped. On the one hand, Mrs. Atwood sounded very kind, as if she wasn’t at all annoyed and really did understand that Carole hadn’t meant to be late. On the other hand, Carole
was
late. She’d kept them waiting, and they’d finally gone ahead and eaten without her. Anxiety swept through her. She wanted to be a good guest. She wanted to be welcome. She
was
a good guest, she
was
welcome, but she’d made a mistake and it seemed very difficult to gauge exactly how serious it was. Everybody smiled. At least Mr. and Mrs. Atwood smiled a little. Lisa smiled a lot and continued talking to her parents about the work she’d done on her paper that afternoon. What did the little smiles from Lisa’s parents mean? Would it have been easier on her if they’d been obviously annoyed? When her own father was annoyed with her, Carole always knew it. It was easy to tell with him because he said it right out. With the Atwoods, it wasn’t so simple. The result was that even if they weren’t annoyed with her, she felt as if they were, and that made her more uncomfortable than she would have been if they clearly had been annoyed. Life was complicated when your father was thousands of miles
away, gone for an unspecified time to an unknown place!

Carole took the dinner plate, thanking Mr. Atwood as she did so, and set it down in front of her. It was a piece of baked chicken, some rice and peas. It was a very normal dinner, the kind of thing she and her father often ate, but it was still different. It wasn’t that it was bad. Mrs. Atwood was a good cook and Carole had always enjoyed everything she’d eaten at Lisa’s house. It was more that it was different. “Different” wasn’t what Carole wished she had right then. What she wanted instead was exactly what she almost always had at dinnertime: her father. She wanted to taste his crispy baked chicken, cooked with what he called his special secret seasonings. (Near as Carole could tell, that meant salt and pepper.)

Just thinking about the nice glow of informal warmth that always radiated through their kitchen when they ate dinner together made Carole’s appetite disappear.

“I hope you like the chicken, Carole,” Mrs. Atwood said. “It’s a new recipe for me. I had something like it at the Bradley girl’s wedding a few weeks ago, and I thought it was so good, I just had to try to figure out what they’d put on it. I think maybe it could use a little more tarragon.”

Carole tried to smile. It wasn’t easy when she was feeling so homesick for something as simple as her dad’s baked chicken. “Oh, I’m sure this is delicious,” Carole
said. She picked up her knife and fork and took a bite of her dinner. “Very good,” she said, but then she set down her fork.

“I know it’s always hard when there’s a change in routine,” Mrs. Atwood said warmly. Carole understood that Mrs. Atwood was just trying to reassure her. It wasn’t working, though. What she felt was lonely, even in this room filled with people she normally liked a lot.

“Oh, Carole,” Mr. Atwood said. “I almost forgot to tell you. You had another call from Sergeant Fowler. It seems she had your father on the other line, and she wanted to connect the two of you up so that you could speak to him.”

Speak? She could have talked with her dad when she’d been so busy scrolling through the bulletin boards at Stevie’s? How could she have missed that?

“Is everything okay with him?” Carole asked. “I mean, did Sergeant Fowler say anything about how he was?”

“It seemed that way to me,” said Mr. Atwood. “Sergeant Fowler seemed cheerful and just disappointed for your father that you weren’t here. Don’t worry, though, dear. I bet he’ll try to call again tomorrow and you can talk to him then.”

Maybe
, Carole thought. But then, how many chances could her dad realistically have to call her from the middle of some desert?

Carole took another bite of the chicken and wondered if it would have tasted any better if Mrs. Atwood had added the extra tarragon. No, she decided. Homesick tasted like homesick, no matter how much tarragon you put on it.

“T
HAT
BOOK
,
The Arms of Krupp
, is really interesting,” Lisa said, handing a pot to Carole to dry. “I just about lost track of time while I was at the library reading it. I guess you must have been doing something as interesting at Stevie’s this afternoon.”

“Sort of … exactly,” Carole said, smiling. The fact was that she and Stevie had been doing exactly what Lisa had been doing—research for her paper—only she and Stevie had found it only sort of interesting. “And speaking of that, Stevie and I came across some things on the Internet that you might be able to use. I’ll give you the list when we go upstairs.”