Pleasure Horse (7 page)

S
UNDAY MORNING DAWNED
cold and gray in New Jersey. Stevie turned over and pulled her down comforter tighter around her. It was half past ten, but she was hoping to stay in bed as late as possible to avoid the final party preparations. With one hand, she reached out and lifted the window shade to check the weather. There were a few inches of snow on the ground from the night before, but the plow had already been by and cleared the roads. A few snowflakes drifted down out of the uniformly gray sky. Only time would tell whether the storm was going to hit full force.

Resting her head back on the pillow, Stevie thought of how much fun it would be to take a ride in the new snow. All of the horses’ shoes had been pulled for the winter, so there was no danger of snow balling up in their hooves. But she was sure nobody would have the time, let alone the inclination, to go riding with her on the very day of the party. If she even suggested it, her brothers would probably have a field day teasing her about her one-track mind. So she might as well close her eyes, go back to sleep—

“Everybody up for breakfast! Stevie! Chad! Alex! Michael! Time to eat!”

Stevie scowled at her aunt’s cheery tone. Normally she would have been happy to join the breakfast feast, but the idea of another pre-party meal almost made her lose her appetite. There was a sharp rap on the door, and Aunt Lila poked her head in.

“Seven and a half hours till party time!” she announced.

Stevie sat up in bed and did her best to look enthusiastic. “Wow, not much time left,” she said, hoping that her aunt didn’t notice the robotlike sound of her voice.

“If you’re like Angie, you’re probably too excited to eat, but come down anyway and join the crowd, okay, honey?” Aunt Lila urged.

Stevie nodded weakly as her aunt closed the door. “Sure, Aunt Lila. I’ll be down right away.” Under her breath she added, “Too excited to eat? More like hearing about this party is ruining my appetite!”

Despite Stevie’s misgivings, breakfast was a lively affair. The seven cousins squeezed around one table, the three sets of aunts and uncles around another. Everybody put away huge piles of pancakes and bacon. Even Angie mentioned how good the food tasted—instead of describing party hors d’oeuvres for the millionth time.

Stevie found herself enjoying the sibling sparring that her brothers initiated the minute there was a pause in the conversation. “Boy, it’s almost eleven
A.M
. and Stevie hasn’t mentioned horses yet,” Chad remarked.

“That’s because she can’t talk with her mouth full,” Alex practically yelled. The two of them snorted with laughter.

“Yes: Unlike some people at the table, I actually
have
manners,” Stevie shot back happily.

Before her brothers could respond, both tables fell silent to listen to Uncle Chester read the newspaper’s weather report. “Continued snow, temperatures in the mid-twenties, slightly warmer tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Who cares about tomorrow?” Angie demanded.

At the adults’ table, Aunt Lila and Uncle Chester had
a quiet word together. They looked concerned, especially since it had already started to snow again. “The caterer has a wedding upstate this morning. She’s supposed to get here an hour or two before the guests start coming. It could be tight with the icy roads,” said Aunt Lila.

“Oh, please, Mother,” Angie jumped in. “The woman is an expert. That’s why we’re paying her so much. She knows how much time she needs to set up. I’m sure she’ll make it.”

Stevie glanced at her watch. The time made her grin. They had actually managed to stop talking about the party for thirty-five minutes—a weekend record.

After breakfast, Stevie managed to excuse herself from watching Angie try on outfits. She wandered out to the barn and played with the horses for a while. Back inside the house, she looked around the family room, wondering what she could do to kill the next few hours. Several games were stacked beside the television. Stevie pulled out the Monopoly set and went to see if she could interest Chad and Alex.

“Monopoly?” Alex asked disdainfully. “You think we have time for a game, Stevie? Please. We have to report to Uncle Chester in five minutes.”

“Don’t tell me. It’s something for the party,” Stevie guessed.

“That’s right. We’re helping rearrange the furniture,” Chad replied.

“Shouldn’t you be helping Aunt Lila with something?” Alex asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, or Angie?” Chad demanded. “She’s probably very nervous right now and needs everyone to pitch in.”

Stevie stared at the two of them, speechless. Things had gotten out of control. How was she supposed to “pitch in” when her aunt and uncle had hired professionals for every element of the party? Alex and Chad seemed to think she should follow Angie around like a dog, lapping up party talk.

Leaving the boys, she stomped down the hall to the guest room, which she was now sharing with Angie’s two little cousins. Luckily the room was empty. Ginny and Beth were probably downstairs counting candles for the birthday cake. Stevie flopped down on her bed, closed her eyes, and tried to think of the most soothing and relaxing thing she could. Pine Hollow Stables. Her beloved Belle and Samson and all the other Pine Hollow horses. No relatives or caterers or high-school bands. A place where nobody cared about Angela Lake’s sweet sixteen birthday party. “If only I were there …,” Stevie murmured into her pillow.

“I
F ONLY SHE
were here!” Lisa exclaimed.

“I know. If there’s one brain we could use right now, it’s Stevie’s. She could probably figure out a way to sneak up on Samson with these stirrups and surprise him into not minding them,” Carole agreed with a sigh.

Although Carole spoke lightly, Lisa caught the anxious tone in her voice. All morning, Carole had been preoccupied. Lisa was sure that she was beginning to feel desperate about the situation. The two of them had racked their brains a dozen times trying to figure out what they were doing wrong. Obviously, pretending to think like Stevie was no substitute for the real thing. Nothing they’d tried had made one bit of difference. Samson was in such a playful mood that he had acted up before he even saw the saddle. He’d been prancing from the moment they’d taken him out of his stall.

Lisa figured that at first Samson hadn’t liked the stirrups, probably because they were new and strange. So he had acted up. But once he’d seen that he could get away with being silly, he didn’t want to stop. Now he did whatever he wanted—pranced, pulled, balked, bucked—the works. Although Carole persisted in calling it the “stirrup problem,” Lisa knew it was becoming much more of an all-around training problem.

Usually, when Lisa felt stuck at some point in a
horse’s training, she talked it over with Carole and Stevie. Carole’s wide experience and profound understanding of horses combined with Stevie’s innovative, problem-solving mind almost always helped her figure out a new approach. Now that Stevie was gone and Carole seemed stumped, Lisa felt confused about how to proceed. Maybe when Stevie got back things would look up, but she wasn’t even sure about that. Samson was beginning to be downright bratty.

A voice at the door to the ring interrupted Lisa’s thoughts. “Hi, girls. How’s it going?”

Lisa and Carole spun around to find Max peering in at them.

“F-fine,” Carole managed to get out. She was utterly taken aback to see Max there. Even though he looked friendly and interested, it almost seemed to her that he was spying on them. “I thought you were going to a dressage show this weekend,” she said nervously.

“That was yesterday,” Max explained. “It was only a one-day show.”

“How did your students do?” Lisa inquired, with a touch of Stevie-like inspiration. She figured the longer she could keep Max talking about the show, the better. Then maybe he would forget to ask about Samson again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Carole trying to get the colt to stand still.

“They did well. We didn’t embarrass ourselves, and a few of the students did even better than that.”

“Oh? Did they win any ribbons?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah, we brought home a couple of fourths and a sixth.” Max paused and turned to look at Carole and Samson. Frantically Lisa tried to think up another question, but she blanked.

“Well, I can see you’re busy, so I’ll leave you to your devices,” Max said.

Lisa let out the breath she was holding. Maybe it was all in her imagination—maybe Max just wanted to say hi.

“Great,” Carole said. “We’ll see you later.”

“But first let’s see what you’ve been doing with Samson,” Max finished. He stepped into the ring authoritatively.

Lisa felt her heart sink. She didn’t dare look at Carole’s face. “We’ve, uh, been taking it pretty slowly,” she said cautiously as Carole walked Samson forward. “We didn’t want to rush him, you know.”

“Of course not,” Max replied, his eyes on the colt.

After a couple of steps, Samson snorted and then dug his toes in. Carole clucked loudly. “Come on, Samson. Wa-alk, wa-alk. Good boy, walk on,” she chirped.

In response, Samson lunged forward, stopped dead
again, and reached his head around to nip at the sides of the saddle in annoyance.

“How long has he been doing that?” Max asked.

“Doing what?” said Lisa, feigning innocence.

“Biting at the saddle like that.”

“Oh, that,” she replied with relief. “Only since this morning. It’s one of his newer—” All at once Lisa stopped herself, realizing how terrible what she’d said sounded. She had just admitted to Max that Samson was developing
new
bad habits.

Max nodded and said nothing more while Carole attempted to lead Samson in a circle. The colt bowed away from her playfully. When she came around again, Max motioned her over. Lisa didn’t dare say anything. She waited while Max cleared his throat.

“Girls, I wanted to tell you that I appreciate all the time you’ve been putting in with the colt, but—”

“But he’s not usually this bad!” Carole interrupted with a cry.

“She’s right, Max. By the end of yesterday, he was working well,” Lisa chimed in. She didn’t bother to add that by that point they’d taken both the saddle and bridle off.

Max half smiled at the girls’ fervent responses. Then he cleared his throat again. “Listen, what I’m about to
say has nothing to do with you. That might be hard to understand right now, but it’s true. It’s just that Mr. Grover happens to be swinging by tonight to pick up a horse a couple of miles down the road, so I’ve arranged for him to get Samson at the same time. If you want to say good-bye to him, you can bandage him and load him onto the van when it comes.”

Carole stared in shock as she struggled to catch her breath. She hadn’t heard what Max said past the word “tonight.” It just couldn’t be true! How could he take Samson away from his home just like that?

“Max, please! We’ll work with him all the time. We’ll come in the mornings before school—” Carole cried.

Max put a hand up to stop her plea. “Carole, my mind is made up. Samson belongs at Mr. Grover’s right now. And you two have been spending too much time away from your own horses as it is. I don’t think I’ve seen you two on Starlight and Prancer in days, have I? Besides,” he added, dropping his voice to a gentler tone, “it’s not simply a question of how much time you put in.”

Carole couldn’t answer. Her face burned and her throat felt tight. She was afraid she was going to burst into tears any minute, and she clenched her hands trying to keep them back. There was only one solution: They had to find a way to get Samson past his stirrup problem
right away.
She swallowed hard. The minute Max left the ring, she turned to Lisa. “We’ll solve it right now. We have to,” she urged.

Lisa looked at her searchingly. “Carole, you know that in a couple of hours we can’t—” she began.

“Look, Lisa, are you with me or not?” Carole demanded in a strangled voice.

Lisa stared at Carole, completely taken aback. She had never seen her friend look so upset. Carole’s face was heated, and she obviously wanted to cry. But the strangest thing was the panicked look in her eyes. In her heart of hearts, Lisa knew it was a lost cause. But she couldn’t desert her friend—not when Carole looked so fragile that she might break any minute. “I’m with you, Carole,” she said quietly.

“Lisa, you won’t regret it. We can keep Cobalt here where he belongs,” Carole responded eagerly.

Lisa paused for a second to see if Carole would realize her slip and correct “Cobalt” to “Samson.” When she didn’t, Lisa put a comforting arm around her friend. “Sure, Carole,” she said. “We’ll do the best we can.”
But
, she wondered,
what will Carole do if we fail?