Sea Horse (4 page)

Lisa promised herself that she’d be a little more careful in the future. Paying attention to her horse was important, but so was paying attention to the trail. She was a better rider than that, and she knew it.
One fall doesn’t mean anything
, she told herself.

“Don’t worry,” Jill said from behind her. “It could happen to anybody.”

Of course it could
, Lisa thought.
Couldn’t it?

Dear Stevie and Carole
,

It is so beautiful here, you wouldn’t believe it. The Caribbean looks like somebody painted it this gorgeous blue color
.

Now to important stuff. I was on a trail ride this morning. Again, incredible scenery (see the picture on
the other side). We rode on the beach and into the surf! (Stevie—love those boots you gave me.) Rode through palm groves, too. Can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.

Wish you were here
.

Love,
Lisa

S
TEVIE WAS BRUSHING
her teeth, but she was barely aware of it. She was deep in a daydream. It was pretty much the same one she’d been having for weeks, ever since Phil had invited her to the New Year’s dance. While she brushed her teeth with her right hand, she swept her hair up to the top of her head with her left arm, imagining the tumble of curls that would be held by a spray of pink tea roses. The dream also involved yards and yards of blue chiffon that seemed to float with her across the dance floor. Phil looked deeply into her eyes. She blinked seductively—

Wait a minute
, she told herself, coming to earth. She couldn’t blink seductively unless she was wearing mascara. She’d have to buy some, and she needed money for that.

Quickly, she finished brushing her teeth, rinsed out,
ran a comb through her hair, and dashed downstairs before her mother left for her office.

“Mom!” she called out, halting her mother at the kitchen door. “I’m going to need some mascara. Can you leave me a couple of dollars—”

“Allowance gone already?” Mrs. Lake asked, leaning heavily on the final word. It didn’t bode well for Stevie.

“Well, I just had to get some cologne, see, because, well, I’ve got to have that, and I know I’ll want mascara—probably deep blue to accent the dress—”

“What dress?” Mrs. Lake asked.

It didn’t bode well at all for Stevie.

“You know, the one we’re going to get for the dance?” she said meekly.

“
We?
” her mother countered.

The battle was lost—at least for the day. Her mother was making it very clear that she wasn’t going to give Stevie any more money and, if Stevie read the signals correctly, it was even looking dubious that she’d be able to get a dress. It was time to retreat.

“Hey, no problem, Mom. I don’t want to make you late for work. I don’t need any money just now, anyway. I’m really fine. You go ahead. Have fun at the office, okay?”

Stevie’s mother said something as she passed through the door, but Stevie wasn’t sure what it was. It sounded a lot like “Hmmmph.”

Stevie wasn’t too worried. She’d find a way to convince her mother to get her a dress
and
some mascara. She always found a way to do things she wanted and she
wanted very much to have a perfect dress for this dance, as well as mascara to make her eyelashes seductive. In the meantime, however, she wanted to discuss the whole situation with somebody who would understand. Who better than one of her best friends? She reached for the phone and dialed Carole’s number.

The phone rang six times. There was no answer. Stevie let it ring some more. It was only eight-thirty in the morning on a school vacation day. Where on earth could Carole be? Finally, after sixteen rings, Stevie gave up.

She poured herself a bowl of cereal, then poured half of it back into the box. Stevie was very diet-conscious these days, since she was looking for The Perfect Dress and it would be awful if she found it and it didn’t fit her. She pondered while she ate the cereal without sugar.

By the third tasteless mouthful, Stevie decided that even horses couldn’t eat this stuff without sugar, and that even if she couldn’t buy a dress yet, she could certainly look for one. Then, when she had The Perfect Dress, it would be much easier to convince her mother to buy it.

She threw out the rest of the cereal, rinsed the dish and put it in the dishwasher, and went up to her room to get dressed. It only took two phone calls to find somebody to drive her to the mall. She was in business.

C
AROLE WAS ALREADY
at Pine Hollow. She didn’t want to miss a minute of time that she could spend with Starlight for the remainder of her winter vacation. After all, she wouldn’t have this much time for him again until summer.

Starlight was a young horse. He would become six on January first. Most riding horses began their serious training at about four and were pretty well trained by the time they were seven or eight. Starlight was obviously an apt pupil, but he was a bit unschooled and Carole wanted to work with him as often as possible.

She tightened his girth as much as she could and then, when he let his breath out, she slipped it one hole tighter on the buckle.

“Can’t fool me, Starlight,” she teased. The horse blinked his eyes, but it looked as if he’d winked. Carole was sure he understood.

Laughing to herself, she took hold of his reins and led him though the stable, through the outdoor schooling ring, and into a small paddock, which abutted the ring. She didn’t need much space for what she was working on today, which was mounting and dismounting.

Carole had noticed that Starlight had the bad habit of stepping forward when she tried to mount him. She knew that as a rider, she had two choices. She could let him keep his bad manners and learn to mount a moving horse, or she could teach him better. She decided on the second option.

“Whoa, there, Starlight,” she said, drawing him to a halt. She gathered the reins in her left hand, and, holding them taut but not too tight, rested that hand on his withers and aimed her left foot for the stirrup.

Starlight recognized the signs instantly and began stepping forward.

“Hooo!” Carole said sharply, tightening the reins. He
stopped. She kept pressure on the reins until he stepped back to where she had begun mounting him.

She began the process again, and again Starlight misbehaved. She repeated the lesson a third time. This time, Starlight stepped forward only two steps before stopping, and returned very quickly. He was making progress, but Carole didn’t reward him with a pat. He wouldn’t get that until he did it right.

The fourth time, Carole could feel him shift his weight as if he were about to step forward, but then he stopped moving altogether, allowing her to mount him. In an instant, she was in the saddle. She leaned forward and patted him briskly on his neck.

“Atta boy,” she said, giving him a loose rein while she patted him. A loose rein was a reward that signaled him that what he was doing at that time was just right. He had stood still while she mounted him, and that was what Carole had asked him to do.

Having taught him that much, she had him walk around the little paddock and then let him trot. He changed gaits smoothly and willingly. Carole was thankful she didn’t have to work with him on that. She then drew him to a halt and swung her right leg over his rump to dismount. Starlight apparently didn’t realize that dismounting required the same motionless patience that mounting did. He stepped backward this time.

Carole immediately brought her right leg back over and into its stirrup, tightening the rein and talking sharply to the horse at the same time. He stopped moving and stepped forward at her command, returning to
the place she wanted to dismount. It took five tries before he would stand still for her dismount. Eventually, though, he behaved.

But when it came time to remount, Starlight was back to his old tricks. Carole knew that that was just the way it was in training a horse. The animal needed to be taught things time and time again until its good behavior was completely automatic.

Carole worked with Starlight for two hours, mounting and dismounting until she could feel tenderness in her own thighs and shoulders from all the exercise. By the time the session was over, she was sure Starlight had learned something. She just hoped he would remember some of it the next time she took him out.

By then Starlight was as tired as she was. She led him back to his stall, removed his tack, groomed him, and fed him before heading for the bus to take her home.

Carole was tired, but not too tired to talk to Stevie. She really wanted to call her and tell her about all the work she and Starlight had done that day.

When she got home, she flopped into the big overstuffed armchair in her living room, reached for the phone, and dialed Stevie’s number.

Stevie’s brother Chad picked the phone up on the second ring. He told Carole that Stevie wasn’t there and he didn’t have any idea where she was. Furthermore, he didn’t know when she’d be home, and asked Carole to please hang up the phone because he was expecting an important call.

Carole was so tired she wasn’t really annoyed, but she was disappointed.

“C
AN
I
HELP
you?” a saleswoman asked Stevie. At that moment, Stevie was looking at a chiffon dress. There were two things wrong with it. First of all, it was green, not the blue she’d dreamed about, and second of all, if she read the price tag correctly—and it was hard to believe—it would cost her approximately four years’ worth of allowance.

“Can I help you?” the woman repeated her question pointedly. Stevie had the feeling that the saleswoman didn’t trust her.

“Uh, well,” Stevie began, “maybe. Does this dress come in blue?” she asked.

“No,” the woman said. That was all she said, too. She didn’t offer to show Stevie something else in blue. Stevie suspected the only thing she actually wanted to show her was the door.

“Well, I really wanted this in blue,” Stevie said. “It would go so well with the interior of my limousine.”

Stevie turned on her heel and walked out, hoping she’d made the woman feel bad about letting a big sale slip through her fingers.

This was the fifth store Stevie had tried at the mall. So far, the only thing she’d found that she might actually have a chance of talking her mother into buying for her was a navy blue mascara on sale for $1.49. The dresses were all out of her price range, or just plain ugly.

Shopping had never been Stevie’s favorite activity and this trip was no exception. She wished she had a friend there to help her.
Lisa would know what to do
, Stevie thought wistfully. Mrs. Atwood even worked at the mall part-time and would know where all the best dresses were to be found—on sale. But both Lisa and Mrs. Atwood were on the tropical island of San Marco.

“S
O, DO YOU
hurt anyplace this morning?” Jill asked as she caught up with Lisa on her way to her next trail ride the following morning.

Lisa didn’t have any idea what Jill was talking about. “Hurt?” she asked.

“You know. From the fall you took yesterday.”

“Oh, that. No, of course not,” Lisa answered, but it wasn’t exactly the truth. She had a big bruise where she sat down. As long as she wasn’t sitting, she didn’t think about it, and even when she was sitting, she didn’t think about how she’d gotten it. “I’m fine,” Lisa assured Jill.

“Good, because I’m sure Frederica will want you to take it easy today after a fall like that, but if you’re okay …”

Jill let her words hang in the air in a way that told Lisa Jill did not believe she was okay.

“Look,” Lisa said. “I got distracted and lost my balance and fell off my horse. It shouldn’t have happened. I know better, but it happened and I’m fine, okay?”

“Sure, Lisa,” Jill said. There it was again. It was an unmistakable say-what-you-want-but-I-don’t-believe-you tone.

Lisa decided to change the subject. “I remember the first trail ride I ever took,” she began. She told Jill about the first time she’d gone out into the fields around Pine Hollow with Stevie and Carole. Stevie had gotten confused about which fields were occupied and which they could cross. The girls had found themselves being chased away from a gate by a very angry bull, and Lisa had followed her friends, jumping over a four-foot-high fence! The memory of that jump helped to remind Lisa that she really was a pretty good rider.