Stable Manners (12 page)

I
T HAD BEEN
a perfect day as far as the Saddle Club girls were concerned. The whole day was spent at Pine Hollow working with, riding, and learning about horses. By the time dusk came and Phil and Cam had gone home, Lisa, Stevie, and Carole were all nicely tired and content.

“I think it’s time for a Saddle Club meeting,” Carole said.

“TD’s?” Stevie asked. They hadn’t been to their favorite ice cream parlor in a while.

“No, I don’t want to leave here, yet,” said Lisa. “Let’s go sit on the hillside overlooking the paddocks.”

It sounded to the girls like the perfect way to end the perfect day.

The three of them sat down together.

“Did you and Cam have a nice ride?” Lisa asked.

“Oh, yes,” Carole said. “It was great. I showed him my favorite path through the woods—”

“To the creek?” Carole nodded. “Did you sit on the rock and soak your feet?”

“We sat on the rock. It’s still too cold for foot soaking. More like foot chilling! It was just awfully nice to be able to share a place I love with a friend. What did you do while we were riding?”

Lisa told her about working on the harness and hitching with May. Because Stevie and Carole were her friends, they knew they didn’t have to make any comments about what a good idea that was. They just plain understood.

“Max asked me to be a Big Sis at the next meeting,” Stevie said.

“You’re supposed to teach somebody mischief?” Lisa teased. Everybody knew that mischief was Stevie’s strongest subject.

“Nope. We’re supposed to bone up on nutrition and feeding schedules. Things like that.”

“Who’s your Little Sis?”

“Make that ‘Bro,’ ” said Stevie. “It’s Craig Watson—you
know that weird little boy who is always making trouble in class, talking and joking?”

Carole and Lisa thought that was a good description of Craig. It also seemed like a fairly apt description of somebody else they knew. “Birds of a feather!” Carole declared.

“Right,” Stevie agreed. “We’ll never learn anything!”

Lisa didn’t agree. “You could be surprised by how much you learn when you’re supposed to be the teacher.”

“We’ll see,” said Stevie.

They were quiet then for a few minutes, watching the sun settle into the clouds above the hills to the west. Then there was a sharp thumping sound down by the stable. The girls looked. The paddock door was opened by Judy Barker. She stood aside and waited. The girls waited, too. Then, while they watched, the filly, now officially dubbed Promise, took her first steps into the fresh air of Virginia. She paused, put her nose up to the breeze, sniffed, and nodded. Then, delicate and prancing, she seemed to dance across the paddock. She stopped and turned. The mare stepped toward her protectively. The filly responded immediately by returning to her mother’s side and nuzzled at the mare’s belly for a snack.

Judy invited the mare and her baby to return to the stable then. The door closed and the magical moment was over.

“The perfect end to a perfect day,” said Carole, sighing happily.

“Any day in which we find a way to let Veronica make a public fool of herself is a perfect day,” Stevie agreed.

“I just thought of something,” Lisa said.

“What?” asked Carole.

“Which team won the Know-Down?”

The girls looked at one another. They had no idea what the answer was. They’d all enjoyed competing so much that they hadn’t paid any attention to the score at the end.

“I think I know, though,” Stevie said. Her friends looked at her and she continued. “Personally, I think The Saddle Club won it.”

“I agree,” Carole said.

“See, that’s the thing I love about The Saddle Club,” Lisa said. “When we put our minds to it, we can solve any problem at all.”

“Even ones we create ourselves,” said Carole.

They gave one another high fives and then sat back to watch the rest of the sunset.

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.