Stable Witch (8 page)

“Hey, let’s dig in,” Stevie said enthusiastically, rejoining the table. She picked up her spoon and was about to take a big bite out of the multicolored ice cream and topping mound. As she raised the spoon to her lips, she paused, meeting Lisa’s and Carole’s eyes. One look at their faces and she lost her appetite at once. She set her spoon down with a clatter. Her mind was reeling. Were her best friends turning on her, too? Was it something she had said? She knew
that she’d been pretty harsh on Veronica, but that was nothing new.

“Listen, you guys,” Stevie began. She paused to get control of her voice which had started to quaver.

As Stevie searched for the right words, a stir went through the restaurant. The Saddle Club looked toward the door. Veronica had come in and was standing at the entrance scanning the crowd. Finally her eyes rested on their table. The look on her face said it all. She had come to make Stevie pay.

In the hush that fell, the only sound was the angry tap of Veronica’s shoes as she marched toward them, hands on her hips. She stopped before The Saddle Club’s booth and took a deep breath. Everyone waited for her to erupt.

But before she could say a word, Stevie sprang up. She looked Veronica straight in the eye. Her voice had stopped shaking completely. “You are going to be very sorry if you make any kind of an accusation about anything at all,” she warned, loudly enough for the whole restaurant to hear. “In case you’ve forgotten, my mother and father are lawyers. If you start telling stories about me, I’ll slap a lawsuit on you so fast you’ll wish you lived in Abu Dhabi!”

Veronica’s jaw snapped shut. Stevie’s threat had rendered her speechless. There was nothing left for
Veronica to do but back down for the time being, and she knew it. She turned on her heel and marched out. A few Horse Wise members followed, calling after her to wait up. The Saddle Club stared after the retreating group.

“Well,” Stevie said, “that might have kept her from talking, but it sure didn’t make her change her mind about me. I know she still thinks I did it. And the chances of my parents agreeing to get involved in this mess are about one in a million.” With an exasperated sigh, Stevie sat back down in the booth, and looked at her friends.

Carole and Lisa were staring at her in silence. Tears gathered in Stevie’s eyes as she stood up again, this time to face her best friends. “I can take anything from Veronica,” she said in a choked voice. “But I can’t stand my two best friends in the world doubting me!”

Carole and Lisa didn’t try to stop Stevie as she hastily tossed money onto the table and fled from the restaurant. Both of them knew that it was no use. The only thing they could say was that she was right—they were doubting her. They slumped in their booth, staring at Stevie’s dripping sundae as if it, somehow, held the answer.

I
N SPITE OF
all that had happened, Lisa hadn’t forgotten her goal for the schooling show. She had decided to work hard both at Pine Hollow and at home. That night she wrote out yet another list of things she had to work on with Prancer.

When her alarm sounded the next morning, she flicked on her light and studied the list to remind herself of all of her problems. “Things I Need to Do in Order to Jump Better” was its title. So far it read:

Lisa wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to concentrate on numbers 1 through 8 without forgetting about numbers 9 through 12, but she figured that would work itself out.

She got a ride over to Pine Hollow from her mother. The whole way there, she studied the list until she knew it backward and forward. She had wanted to consult with Carole or Stevie about it, but it seemed insensitive to be worrying about her jumping position when Stevie’s whole future at Pine Hollow was on the line. Besides, who knew if Stevie was even talking to Carole and her. She’d been so upset when she left T.D.’s yesterday.

Lisa could hardly believe her eyes when her mother’s station wagon pulled into the driveway at
Pine Hollow. Veronica was there, riding Garnet over the outside course as if yesterday had never happened.

Lisa had her mother stop the car next to the ring so she could get out. There were a couple of questions she wanted to ask Veronica—like how she was able to ride with her supposedly “throbbing” cut, and how she had managed to recover so quickly. Lisa couldn’t wait to tell Stevie and Carole about Veronica’s being here.

To Lisa’s frustration, Veronica pretended not to notice her standing at the rail, despite Lisa’s calls and waves. “I won’t be so easy to miss when I’m on a bigger horse than yours,” Lisa muttered.

When she returned to the ring fifteen minutes later, mounted on Prancer, Veronica trotted over to say hello. “Back for some more schooling, Lisa? I’ll be happy to help you out again,” Veronica volunteered sweetly. “I’m sure you’re making a lot of progress with what we went over last week.”

Lisa bit her lip hard to keep from snapping back. If she wanted to check out Veronica’s physical condition so that she could report back to The Saddle Club, she was going to have to put up with her fake sweetness and obnoxious comments. “Yeah, I thought we could use some more practice. I guess you were thinking the same thing?” she inquired.

“Obviously. Yesterday was a complete loss for Garnet and me. The rest of you had the advantage of riding in front of the judges, whereas I spent the morning in the emergency room,” Veronica replied with a sniff. “I’ll be lucky if I can catch up.”

Lisa smiled tentatively. “It sure is great that you’re recovering so fast,” she said.

Veronica glowered, obviously taking Lisa’s comment for a sarcastic remark. In a split second, she completely dropped the nice act and spat out, “No thanks to your practical joking friend! If I wanted to, I’m the one who could sue! I could have been hurt a lot worse. I was lucky to escape with a few stitches and a couple of bruises. This time, Stevie Lake has gone too far—
way
too far. Everyone says so. I’ll bet she even feels guilty about what she’s done. I’ll bet if she could go back, she would never have put me at risk that way! You should thank your lucky stars I’m back riding today!” Veronica finished her attack in a high-pitched shriek.

Lisa had kept her mouth shut during the tirade. She didn’t know what to think, and even if she had, she wasn’t about to share it with Veronica. Being one of Stevie’s best friends, she was already more involved in the mess than she wanted to be. Still, it was interesting to see how defensively Veronica had reacted to
her simple question about recovering. It was clear that she knew how bad it looked to be back riding one day after the dramatic scene she had made.

The worst part about meeting up with Veronica was that now Lisa was stuck riding with her. At first, she actually felt glad for the opportunity to prove herself to Veronica. She was tired of feeling that everyone doubted her ability, and this would be the perfect chance to redeem herself and Prancer—or so she thought.

All too soon, however, she realized that the morning was going to be a repeat of their previous session. Veronica did fine although, Lisa told herself, not as well as Stevie or Carole would have done. She still looked flashy as opposed to confident. At any rate, her cut didn’t seem to be bothering her or affecting her riding at all.

For some reason, though, Lisa simply could not get herself together. The more “help” Veronica gave her, the worse she did. She felt discombobulated, couldn’t concentrate, and had several refusals. The thought of her list of problems only discouraged her further. Veronica stood in the middle of the ring, making a zillion suggestions all at once. “Sit deeper! Don’t lean that far forward! And watch your elbows! Don’t forget
to release in midair! Look up! Now look for your next fence!”

Lisa tried to swallow her pride and listen, but it was all she could do to stop from screaming with frustration. She
knew
everything Veronica was saying, she just couldn’t do it all at once. Today she could hardly do any of it.

The only reprieve came when Veronica finally got her fill of lecturing and headed in. By that point, Lisa was so worked up that she just rode on the flat for a few minutes, trying to salvage some small success for the morning. Even riding alone didn’t do the trick this time, though. Finally she let Prancer walk on a loose rein. Again and again she went over her efforts to improve, wondering what on earth could have gone so terribly wrong in the past few sessions. When she went to dismount, Lisa was convinced that she was riding and jumping worse than the day she had started at Pine Hollow.

Totally discouraged, she put Prancer away and went to change in the locker room. Veronica was inside changing, too. She immediately jumped on Lisa with a ton of suggestions. Lisa nodded blankly from time to time. Sheer exhaustion kept her from telling Veronica not to bother, that she couldn’t absorb another riding tip in a million years.

“And so if you work really hard for the next few days, you’ll have a chance of getting around the course. I’m sure of it,” Veronica concluded with a condescending smile. She finished tying her tennis shoe and stood up, picking up her bag. As she rose, something long and gray fell out of the bag. Whatever it was landed near Lisa, who reached down automatically to pick it up. Before she could grab it, though, Veronica shoved past her to get to it first. In the process, she accidentally kicked the object under the row of lockers, out of reach. Lisa gave her a questioning look.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Veronica said, shrugging off Lisa’s curiosity. “Just something I picked up at the beauty parlor. Now, I’d better scoot. I have to go breeches shopping today.” With that, she picked up the pair she had been wearing when she fell. The tear went straight up the leg, so it was clear that they really weren’t reparable.

“It’s a good thing I was wearing my oldest pair,” Veronica went on. “I hate to think of how mad Mother would have been if I’d wrecked one of my European pairs. At least these are replaceable,” she added, dropping the breeches into the garbage and walking out.

Lisa wasn’t sorry to see her leave. In fact, being
alone in the locker room was such a relief that she lay down on the bench to think for a minute or two. As she lay there with her eyes closed, she thought about the morning’s horrible practice. Although it had been very, very disappointing, Lisa was still far from wanting to give up. She planned her next practice in her mind, visualizing the jumps. Her eyes would be up; her hands would be steady.…

Opening her eyes a few minutes later, Lisa found herself staring at the gray object underneath the lockers. Why had Veronica tried to get it so quickly? Lisa got down on her hands and knees and felt for it, but it was out of reach.

Suddenly Lisa felt a bit foolish. What would she say if Mrs. Reg walked in? Yesterday it had seemed as if everyone at Pine Hollow felt sorry for Veronica. Mrs. Reg would hardly tolerate any nonsense that involved her, especially if it came from a member of The Saddle Club. This time, Lisa decided, she would have to do as her mother always suggested, and let sleeping dogs lie—that is, not stick her nose into something that wasn’t her concern.

On the way out, Lisa stopped by Max’s office to ask him if she could work with Prancer after school the next day. Because she didn’t own Prancer, Max occasionally used the horse for other students or turned
her out for the afternoon. As Lisa approached his office, she noted that the door was closed—a rarity at Pine Hollow, a stable that prided itself on its welcoming, open atmosphere.

Lisa could hear Max talking on the phone, so she sat down on a hay bale to wait. Max’s voice carried through the door, and before she knew it, she was listening to his end of the conversation.

“I realize that, Mrs. diAngelo,” Max was saying, “but I have to be fair to all my students, not just your daughter. Right now, there’s no proof that Stevie Lake was the perpetrator … Yes, I know you’re convinced that she was, but do you really want me to bar her from the show based on a hunch?… I have to say it seems a bit premature … I can’t give you a decision right away … Of course, of course I will punish the wrongdoer, just as soon as we find out who that is.…”

It was all Lisa could do to stop herself from banging through the door, wresting the phone from Max’s hands, and yelling a blue streak at Veronica’s mother. How dare the woman demand that Stevie be denied the right to compete in the show? The idea that Mrs. diAngelo would presume that just because someone had—

Mid-thought, Lisa paused. Just because someone
had—what? A chill went down Lisa’s spine. Just because someone had slashed a stirrup leather, that was what. Just because someone had tried to sabotage Veronica. Just because, she realized, someone had risked putting both a horse and a rider in extreme danger. This was serious business. Whoever had taken that kind of risk didn’t deserve the honor of competing with other riders.