Stable Manners (6 page)

“What’s another word for forging?”

Veronica’s eyebrows crinkled together in thought. “Isn’t that when a horse just eats what it comes across in the wild?”

Carole stifled a snicker. Veronica was confusing
foraging
with
forging,
which was another word for over-reaching. This happened when the horse’s hind toe hit the front heel. It meant that the horse’s rear stride was too long and required special training to overcome.
Carole read the answer from the sheet to Veronica.

“That’s in there?” Veronica asked, looking quizzically at the sheaf of papers in Carole’s hand.

“Uh-huh,” Stevie answered. “As your butler no doubt knows.”

This time Stevie couldn’t contain her laugh. It was easy to hate Veronica, but it wasn’t often that the girls found she actually didn’t know something about horses. She was a pretty good horsewoman, except when it came to work she considered dirty or beneath her.

Stevie was working on a couple of follow-up remarks for Veronica. She had in mind something about a remedial riding course, or maybe suggesting that Veronica write the answers to all the questions on the palm of her hand, if she could spell them. Stevie’s snide remarks were cut off before they began. There was a shriek from the far side of the stable and the voice was unmistakably May Grover’s. The younger girl was in trouble.

In an instant Stevie, Lisa, and Carole dropped everything they were doing, were on their feet and out of the stall, quickly pulling the door closed behind them.

What they found when they got there was May
standing all alone by the open door of the stable with tears streaming down her face. There was no sign of Nickel. There was, however, a cart harness strewn all over the floor.

“He just ran away!” May wailed.

It took only a few seconds to see what had happened. May had opened the door for light and the pony had found the call of the wild just too tempting. When May had undipped his lead rope, he’d taken off, leaving her alone and miserable.

It wasn’t the first time a horse had gotten loose at Pine Hollow, nor would it be the last. The girls knew just what to do. Lisa told May to bring the lead rope and the four of them followed the pony out into the paddock. None of the paddocks that surrounded the stable at Pine Hollow was very large. They were intended for light exercise, not for living quarters. It wouldn’t be hard to corner the pony and clip the rope onto his halter as long as he was penned in the paddock.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t penned in the paddock. Somebody had left a gate open and Nickel had gone right through it. As they watched, he frolicked in the very large field beyond the paddock. Capturing him had suddenly changed from a two-minute project to a big deal. The girls thought they knew who was responsible
for the open gate. There was only one person at Pine Hollow who thought she was too good to close gates behind her and that was Veronica diAngelo.

“I’ll go get Starlight,” Carole said. “And while I’m in there, I’m going to give Veronica a piece of my mind.”

She stormed back into the stable. Starlight’s stall was near Garnet’s, which was near the empty stall they’d been sitting in. Carole found Garnet alone in her stall. She also found the door to the empty stall open. There was no sign of Veronica. Carole decided she didn’t have time to track Veronica down and give her a piece of her mind. It had never worked before. She doubted if it would do any good this time. Also, she just wanted to get Nickel back where he belonged and for that she’d need Starlight’s help. She slid the empty stall door closed again and then turned to fetch Starlight.

Secretly Carole was a little happy at the opportunity that had arisen for her. Most of the time when she rode Starlight, it was in class or on a training course. This was the real thing—using a horse for work. And, since she was in such a hurry, she wasn’t going to use a saddle. She’d just hop on his bare back, no bridle, just his halter with a lead rope attached,
and they’d ride the way she imagined people were intended to ride horses: horse and rider, nothing else.

As quickly as she could, she led him back to the door from which Nickel had escaped. Then, once out of the stable, Carole hiked herself up onto his warm silken back, and taking the lead rope from May’s hands, she and Starlight rode off after the runaway pony.

It took a while. Nickel seemed to like the idea of his freedom. He also sensed that the bareback rider carrying a lead rope didn’t like the idea of Nickel’s freedom. He took off.

Carole watched Nickel dodge to her left. With her right leg, she moved Starlight over the same way. He responded instantly, as if he understood the task and it was a good thing he did, too, because Nickel was prepared to make this as difficult as possible. Every time Nickel moved to one side, Starlight followed, only to find that Nickel had already changed his mind—and his direction. He was a very clever pony. Carole was a clever girl, though, and Starlight was Nickel’s match.

Carole and Starlight managed to herd Nickel toward a corner of the field. Stevie, Lisa, and May ran over to where they were. It took all four girls and one very clever horse to corner the pony. It also took almost
an hour. Finally, and triumphantly, Carole clipped the lead rope onto the pony’s halter.

She handed the end of the rope to Lisa. She wasn’t sure how resentful the pony might be and didn’t think it safe for May to hold him. However, the pony was well-trained and the minute Lisa tugged on the lead rope, Nickel behaved just the way he was supposed to. He was docile and obedient. Lisa gave the lead rope to May. The pony followed and didn’t give her any trouble at all.

“Well, there goes an hour of study time,” Lisa said glumly.

“It’s okay,” Stevie said. “We had fun.”

“Sure, but we did lose the time and I’ve got to get home.”

“Me, too,” Carole agreed. “Dad’s picking me up at the shopping center because he’s going to the super-market.”

“Maybe we can walk over there together and test ourselves as we go,” Lisa suggested. As a straight-A student, she’d devised a lot of ways to find study time when there wasn’t any study time to be had.

“Okay by me,” Stevie agreed. “You’ve got the sheets, Carole?”

Carole patted her back pocket, expecting to find
the familiar bulge of the papers there. But this time her pocket was empty.

“I must have left them in the empty stall,” she said. She recalled jumping up to go to May’s rescue. She didn’t recall putting the pages back in her pocket. Nor did she recall seeing them when she went to get Starlight.

As soon as they reached the stable, Carole dismounted and walked Starlight back to his stall. She patted him as they walked, and told him how wonderful he’d been. He seemed to understand. At least he nodded.

As soon as she’d closed his stall door, she walked over to the empty stall. Oddly, the door was once again open. Carole peered in. There, on the floor, in a corner where she hadn’t been sitting, she saw the sheets for the Know-Down. She didn’t know how they’d gotten there—she must have thrown them there herself as she ran to help May. It didn’t matter, though. She had them.

She met her friends at the front door of Pine Hollow. “What’s the difference between a body clip and a trace clip?” Carole asked.

“I know, I know,” Lisa said eagerly.

They were back in the groove.

T
WO STEPS OUTSIDE
of Pine Hollow, the girls stopped. May was standing by the driveway, her head hanging down. She seemed very upset about something and oblivious to her surroundings.

“What’s up, May?” Stevie asked.

It took a while for the young girl to answer. She looked as though she was trying to get up the courage to answer what Stevie had thought was a pretty easy question.

“I’m just so ashamed,” May answered finally.

“Of what?” Lisa asked.

Carole didn’t need to ask, though. She understood.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “Really.”

“But he shouldn’t have run away!”

Then Lisa and Stevie understood, too. May thought that everything that had happened with Nickel was her own fault and that just wasn’t the case.

May looked at Lisa for a confirmation.

“It really wasn’t your fault,” Lisa said. “It happened because Veronica left the gate open. If there’s one lesson that Max teaches us again and again, it’s that we always have to close gates that we’ve opened. Veronica learned that the very first day she ever rode at Pine Hollow—”

“—and forgot it that same day,” Stevie said, finishing Lisa’s sentence for her.

May snuffled and then laughed. “I shouldn’t have let go of Nickel, though, should I?” she asked.

“No, but everybody makes mistakes,” Carole said. Then, glancing at Lisa, she continued, “Even us, sometimes.”

Lisa didn’t notice Carole’s look, but she was aware of May’s unhappiness. She wanted to reassure the young girl some more.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lisa said. “Maybe it was a mistake, but, like Carole said, lots of people make mistakes and that’s why you’ve got friends—to help you out when you need it. We were there, we helped you out. No problem. And we’d be glad to help you
out again, but I bet you won’t make that same mistake again, will you?”

“No way,” May promised. “I really learned something today.”

“Good, because learning is what riding is all about,” Lisa said. She smiled. Lisa was pleased with all the progress that May was making and was glad to know that she had at least a small part in it. May was such a smart girl and so eager that it was a pleasure to work with her on anything.

“There’s something else I’d like to know about, too,” May said.

“Ask away,” Carole offered. Carole was never happier than when she had a chance to explain something about horses. Often her explanations were a good deal longer than the questions, but that didn’t stop her from sharing them.

May reached into her backpack and pulled out a bunch of papers. “It’s this study sheet Max gave us,” she said. “Can you help me with it?”

“No problem,” Stevie assured her. “And it’s not surprising that you’re finding it a challenge. We are, too. Ask away!”

May squinted in the fading light of the day and scanned the papers, flipping them as she looked for something. “Oh, yeah, here it is. Under the ‘Call the
Vet’ section, it says ‘Below normal temperature.’ I thought only a fever was a bad sign, how could a low temperature be a bad sign?”

Carole took the question. “You have to understand what a fever actually indicates,” she began. “An animal’s normal body temperature rises when the animal’s defense system kicks in, getting warmed up to fight an infection, any kind of infection. Actually, this is true of humans, too. Anyway, in a sense, a fever is a good sign because it means the horse’s body is doing what it’s supposed to do. When the temperature is below normal and the animal is sick, it can mean that the animal’s own immune system has given up. That means the animal is
very
sick.”

“Oh,” May said, thinking about the information Carole had given her. “It makes sense now. Thanks. I just couldn’t understand what the study sheet meant. You’ve made it much clearer. I mean, look at what Max wrote here.” She pointed to the study sheet. “It was so confusing—” May handed the papers to Carole.

Carole was indeed confused, but not in the way May thought she was. She glanced at the pages she now held and then she looked more carefully. They didn’t look anything at all like the sheets from which she, Lisa, and Stevie had been studying. They included
lists of information, not questions and answers. They weren’t divided by point value, either. They had some of the same information and then a lot more.

“Let me see,” Stevie said, taking the papers from Carole’s hands. Lisa tried to look over Stevie’s shoulder but was interrupted when a car pulled up in front of them. The driver’s window rolled down. Mrs. Grover waved at her daughter.

“May, dear! Time to go home!”

May retrieved her papers from Stevie’s hands, once again thanked the Saddle Club girls for all their help, and climbed into the car to drive home. She waved as her mother drove off.

“What was that?” Stevie asked, confused.

“Mrs. Grover,” Lisa replied, somewhat surprised that Stevie apparently didn’t recognize the woman.

“No, not her. The papers. What were they?”

“The study sheets,” Lisa said. Why was Stevie being so flaky about May and Mrs. Grover?

“You didn’t see them, did you?” Carole asked her.

“I’ve spent hours looking at those study sheets,” Lisa said.

“Not those,” said Carole.

“What are you two talking about?” asked Lisa.

“I wish I knew,” Stevie said.

“I think I do,” Carole said. “And I don’t think I
like it at all. You’re not going to like it, either. This calls for an emergency meeting of The Saddle Club. Right now. Right here.”

Lisa and Stevie knew when Carole was serious and she clearly was serious about this. Carole told her friends to go to the feed room, that she’d meet them there in a few minutes. The three of them returned to the stable. Lisa and Stevie headed for the feed room while Carole dashed off on a mysterious errand.