Show Horse (5 page)

“Are you okay?” Carole asked. She could see that Lisa’s face was flushed with embarrassment.

“No,” Lisa answered. “I just broke every rule the most amateur rider in the world knows and let my horse run away with me.”

“Prancer, you bad girl!” Stevie chided when she got to her friend.

“It wasn’t Prancer, it was me,” Lisa said, reflexively defending the valuable horse. “I never should have let her trot without signaling her.”

“Well, maybe,” Stevie said. “But it seems to me that you paid too high a price for a little slip.”

“Absolutely,” Lisa agreed. “It was all my fault.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Stevie said. “I mean, you did make a mistake, but at some point before a gallop, Prancer should have listened to you. You gave her every signal in the book. She just wasn’t paying any attention.”

“I can’t blame her,” Lisa said. “I just wasn’t doing it right.”

“You weren’t?” Carole asked. She was a little surprised. “You used all your aids, didn’t you? Your hands, legs, seat?”

“Yes,” Lisa said. “But not enough, or it would have worked, so it’s my fault.” Then she really surprised her friends. She leaned forward in the saddle and patted Prancer. “There, there, girl,” she said. “I’ll try to do better next time. I won’t let you down or confuse you again. I promise. I’ll do better for you.”

Carole and Stevie exchanged looks. Each was thinking the same thing. Lisa was, for some reason, blaming herself for something her horse was doing. Lisa had done almost everything right. It was Prancer who wasn’t paying attention to her training here, not Lisa.

The other thought they had in common was that Lisa was not in a mood to hear that. She was only able to blame herself, and there was no way she’d accept the fact that Prancer had simply misbehaved. There wasn’t even any point in trying to tell her that. But, Stevie decided, there was a point in making sure that it didn’t happen again right away.

“You know, I just remembered that I’ve got a science
experiment to write up tonight. I don’t think we should take a long trail ride,” Stevie said.

Lisa was too preoccupied with her own shortcomings as a rider to consider the fact that Stevie never, ever would stop riding for something as minor as a major school assignment. All Lisa wanted to do now was get back to the stable and try to figure out how to be worthy of the wonderful horse she so badly wanted to ride.

“Okay,” she agreed. The three of them returned at a stately walk and in an uncomfortable silence. Each girl had her own thoughts and didn’t find them easy to share with her friends. And this wasn’t the way it usually went for The Saddle Club.

As they arrived at the stable, the fourth Pine Hollow entrant in the Briarwood Horse Show greeted them.

“Practicing your trail skills?” Veronica asked in obvious disbelief.

It was just what Stevie, Lisa, and Carole needed. They had issues that separated them from time to time, but one thing that always brought them back together was their feelings about Veronica diAngelo.

“Oh, yes,” Stevie said sweetly. “We thought if we worked as hard as possible over the next two weeks we might, just possibly, get to be as good as you are in at least one event.”

“I guess I always have been pretty good at trail riding,” Veronica said, looking a little surprised at Stevie’s remark. “It’s going to be rough on you three,
too, because, after all, I’m well prepared for a show like Briarwood. It’s the kind of place where you find the best people.…”

The girls knew that Veronica did not mean the best
riders.
She meant the most socially acceptable people. The idea that class and money meant anything when you were riding in a horse show was so ridiculous that Stevie just had to say something to keep from laughing.

“Well, we’re counting on you and your background and experience to help us all on that score, Veronica,” she said with all the sincerity she could muster.

“I’ll do my best,” Veronica said. Then, suddenly suspecting that Stevie didn’t mean every word she’d uttered, Veronica backed down a bit. “Naturally, I can’t teach you everything—there are some things that you just have to know.…”

“Naturally,” Carole said. “Survival of the fittest and all that.”

“Exactly,” Veronica said, as if she knew what it meant.

Prancer began dancing uneasily then, shifting quickly from left to right. Lisa pulled back on the reins to calm her, but it didn’t seem to work.

“I think we’d better untack now,” Carole said, realizing that Lisa ought to be getting off Prancer before the mare began acting up again. Since untacking meant work, Veronica took that line as an opportunity to make her exit. She would not want to be expected to help.

“That girl,” Stevie said when Veronica seemed to be out of earshot. “Do you believe her?”

“I never have,” Carole said, dismounting. “She’s one of a kind, and that’s just fine with me.”

Carole held Prancer’s reins while Lisa dismounted. The mare stood relatively still, and Lisa was finally safely on the ground.

“You okay with untacking her?” Carole asked.

“Of course I am,” Lisa assured her. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Yes, we do,” Stevie said seriously.

“Not you and me. Me and Prancer,” Lisa said. Then, without hesitation, she led the Thoroughbred mare to her stall.

Stevie and Carole exchanged looks. “Later,” Carole said ominously. Stevie agreed.

Lisa clipped Prancer to a set of cross-ties by her stall and began untacking and grooming her.

“I’ll do better by you over the next two weeks,” she whispered to the mare as she worked. “I won’t forget to tell you what to do. You’re such a wonderful horse; you’re probably used to better riders. Right now I’m what you’ve got, but I promise to make it possible for you to win blue ribbons at the horse show. Really.”

For the first time since Lisa had gotten into Prancer’s saddle, the mare seemed to relax. Lisa was sure her words had soothed the animal. Now if only she could make her actions match those words.

Around the corner of the stable, Carole gave Starlight’s rump an affectionate slap. He nodded in return.
She removed his saddle and when she saw him in his bridle alone, it made her think of a lunge line. That, in turn, made her think of Cam. She’d meant to tell her friends about Cam, but then Mrs. Reg had interrupted and she’d forgotten to get back to the subject. It seemed odd to her now that she was actually going to meet Cam—meet the girl who knew so much about horses. Did she know more than Carole? Carole didn’t even like asking herself the question, so she asked Starlight as she began his grooming.

“What do you say, boy? Is Cam a better rider than I am?”

At first there was no answer at all. Then a fly landed on Starlight’s ear. He twitched it. The fly didn’t budge. Starlight shook his head vigorously.

Carole smiled to herself. “Good answer,” she said. She returned to her brushing, barely aware that the fly now circled her own head.

She wasn’t sure Starlight had exactly answered her question, but she thought maybe it was a sign. Starlight, however, seemed much more interested in how good the brush felt on his coat.

Stevie was out in the ring with Topside, who had seemed to need a cool-down walk when they got back from their ride. The two of them were circling the schooling ring at a gentle walk. Stevie checked his respirations periodically. He was fine—just needed to walk a little longer. Stevie had something on her mind and needed to talk.

“Now listen up,” she said to her horse. “You don’t
have to take anything old Veronica says seriously. She thinks she’s bound to win it all at the horse show because she’s got this beautiful horse named Garnet. Well, so what? Everybody knows Garnet is beautiful, but she’s not as well trained as you. Veronica hasn’t worked for what she’s learned, and she’s not going to start, much less finish her training in the next two weeks. You and I have worked long and hard together. We’re going to see some blue for our efforts. I promise,” she said.

Stevie knew that she was a good rider. She had a good chance to succeed at the show. She also had the advantage of riding a first-rate horse. She would surely do well at the show. She might even do better than her friends. Then she stopped to think about how that would make her feel. Carole and Lisa were her best friends in the whole world. Did she really want to beat them at Briarwood? Yes, she realized. She did.

“P
OOR
V
ERONICA
,” L
ISA
said, almost sighing, at the dinner table on Friday night. It was about the last chance she was going to have to get her mother to sign the permission slip, and she’d planned her attack very carefully.

“Veronica? What about Veronica?” Mrs. Atwood asked.

“Well, she’s got this idea that she’s going to win everything at the horse show,” Lisa said.

“She’s very good, isn’t she?” Mrs. Atwood asked. Lisa was always surprised that her mother never seemed to get the message about Veronica. Sure, Veronica was a pretty good rider, but she wasn’t anywhere near as good as she thought she was, or as good as she believed her social status made her.

“She’s pretty good, Mom,” Lisa said. “But Garnet, Veronica’s horse, isn’t the best horse from Pine Hollow.”

“Really?” Mrs. Atwood asked. “And just who has a better horse than Veronica diAngelo?”

“Actually, Mom,” Lisa said, “the horse I am going to be riding is a better horse than Garnet.”

“Yours? You mean one of Max’s plain stable horses is more valuable than what the diAngelos bought for their daughter?”

“Sure, and it’s no fluke. Prancer—that’s the horse I’m riding now—is a Thoroughbred. She was a racehorse, and she was having a great career until she broke a bone. That’s when Max bought her.”

“Some run-down old nag?”

“No, Mom,” Lisa said patiently. “Prancer is a young mare with outstanding bloodlines. She just has a weakness in her feet that makes her a poor risk for racing. She’s going to be fabulous in the show ring.”

“Really?”

Lisa liked the sound of that. It indicated that her mother was actually listening to her.

“What are you working on with the horse now?” her father asked. Lisa liked the sound of that, too. It was typical of her father that he would understand there were real issues about being in a horse show, issues more important than comparing the value of her horse to Veronica diAngelo’s.

“Today we were working on trail skills,” Lisa answered.
“One of the classes is a Trail class, and although it will all take place in a ring …”

She went on to describe the event as carefully as possible, saying she thought it was interesting that the class tried to imitate natural obstacles in an artificial environment, the ring.

“It’s the same thing with the Jumping class,” she said. “In that, a fox-hunting course is created in the ring. Some of the jumps are made to look like regular natural obstacles, too, with bushes and sometimes even some water. It’s going to be neat.” Then she realized that she’d been doing an awful lot of talking. The idea here was to allow her parents to think about what she’d said, and that was hard to do if she was still talking. Automatically she silenced herself and concentrated on the rice on her plate.

“You’ve done a lot of work on this, haven’t you?” Mr. Atwood asked.

She nodded. “It’s important to me, Dad,” she said truthfully.

“I can tell,” he said. Then he looked at his wife. “Eleanor? I think we need to consider Lisa’s wishes here seriously—at least as seriously as she has.”

“Yes, Richard,” she said. “I mean, if her horse is actually better than Veronica diAngelo’s …”

“Mom, I’ve got an idea,” Lisa said. This was her trump card, and she was ready to lay it on the table. “Why don’t you come to class with me tomorrow? You can watch me ride and see how safely and well I do it. You can also see Veronica. Her horse is beautiful,
but …” She let the thought hang in the air, knowing her mother would jump at the chance to compare Prancer to Garnet. It worked.

“Will Mrs. diAngelo be there, too?” Mrs. Atwood asked.

“Probably, Mom, but I don’t really know,” Lisa said. “See, the car usually picks Veronica up, but it’s got tinted windows, and I can’t see if Veronica’s mother is inside or if it’s the chauffeur.”

“Really…,” Mrs. Atwood said.

Lisa had a feeling that her mother was wondering if they could get the windows on their Ford tinted before tomorrow. But Lisa knew that it didn’t matter, even if she was thinking that. What was important was that her mother was going to watch her ride, and that once Mrs. Atwood saw how beautiful Prancer was—how much
more
beautiful she was than Garnet—her signature would be on the permission form in a flash. Lisa knew that as surely as she’d ever known anything about her mother.

Lisa smiled to herself. She’d won.

T
HE NEXT DAY
there was a big note posted in the locker area for Veronica, Lisa, Stevie, and Carole. It was from Max. He wanted to see them all before class.

“It’s got to be good news,” Stevie said. “I mean, look at the way he signed his name, crossing the
x
with a flourish. He wouldn’t do that if he was in a bad mood.”