Star Rider (12 page)

Lisa was thrilled with the fact that they’d surprised the colonel, and she knew it was going to be a fun party, but there was one thing missing. Skye hadn’t shown up. Movie-making was unpredictable, she had certainly learned, but she had hoped Skye would be able to leave the set in time to join in on the fun. After all, it was just his kind of party.

By then all of the guests were helping themselves to the goodies that the girls had laid out. In keeping with the theme of a children’s party, there wasn’t a vitamin in sight. There were brownies and Rice Krispies treats. There were even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Stevie had wanted to figure out a way to make s’mores—her personal favorite junk food—but Carole wouldn’t let her light a fire in the barbecue. It didn’t matter, though; everybody seemed to be having a great time.

Colonel Hanson was thrilled with everything The Saddle Club had done for his birthday party. He loved the punch and the food; he loved the hats and the noisemakers. It turned out that they weren’t just noisemakers. They were slide whistles that could make different notes. Colonel Hanson got all his guests to play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and then divided them into groups so
they could do it as a round. A lot of people had trouble with that, because it’s hard to laugh and play a slide whistle at the same time.

“This is the sloppiest group of musicians I’ve ever seen. Next year, kazoos!” called Colonel Hanson.

“Do we have to give you a big party again like this next year?” Stevie asked. “I mean, forty-one isn’t exactly a milestone like forty.”

“Who says I’m going to be forty-one next year?” the colonel asked. “I think of this as my
first
fortieth birthday!”

“No way!” Carole said. “Do you know how much time we spent at the mall to put this thing together?”

The grown-ups looked at the girls and in a single voice said “Awwww,” very unsympathetically. Carole had to agree; spending time at the mall wasn’t exactly punishment.

“Okay, okay,” she relented. “But anyway, the party isn’t over yet. You have some presents to open.”

With that, all the guests returned to the living room and the colonel began opening his gifts. Colonel Hanson wasn’t hard to buy presents for. If it was funny, or if it was from the fifties or sixties, he wanted it.

One of his friends gave him a whole book of elephant jokes.

“Oh, no,” groaned two of the people who worked in
his office. “Do you know what this means?” one of them asked.

The other nodded. “Weeks of dreadful jokes. We try to limit him to one a day, but you know how he is.”

Carole’s father started flipping through the book, looking for just the right joke for this occasion.

“I think you’d better open another present, Dad, before everybody leaves!”

The next present was a matchbox car—an Edsel, which was a very famous failure in the late fifties. Colonel Hanson loved it.

There were Hawaiian shirts, Groucho Marx glasses, a videotape of a Jerry Lewis movie, a broken guitar string that the giver swore had probably belonged to Elvis Presley, and a tube of Brylcreem—hair oil of the fifties.

Lisa watched, enjoying Colonel Hanson’s pleasure with each gift. They were fun and silly, and the whole room seemed to be filled with love and happiness. Still, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed that Skye hadn’t shown up yet. She looked at her watch. She glanced out the window. She laughed at all the jokes, but there was a little bit of emptiness inside. Where was Skye?

“It’s time for games!” Stevie announced. They had set up Pin the Tail on the Donkey in the dining room. Colonel Hanson’s aide won, hands down, although a few of
the guests suggested he was cheating by peeking out the bottom of the blindfold.

“How else would I know where the firing squad was?” the aide asked, defending himself. Everybody laughed.

Next was musical chairs, with music from the fifties, of course. Carole had chosen the soundtrack of Elvis Presley’s film
G. I. Blues
, because it seemed to fit with all the military people at the party. Stevie won the game, although she’d had to steal the last chair from a major.

“I think I left my flank uncovered,” the major said, leaving the game sheepishly.

Lisa didn’t feel like playing games and tried to stay on the sidelines, but Stevie insisted that she join in on dunking for apples. She wasn’t very good at it, and she knew it. In fact, she had to hold her breath and stick her whole face into the water just to get her teeth into the apple. She emerged with her eyes shut tight, water dripping from her face and hair, but triumphant, an apple dangling precariously from her teeth—to hear none other than Skye Ransom say, “You never looked more beautiful!”

Her jaw dropped, and the apple splashed back into the bucket.

“You lose!” Stevie declared, but Lisa thought she was wrong. Now that Skye was there, she couldn’t lose!

O
NCE
L
ISA GOT
the water out of her eyes and dried her face and hair, she realized that Skye was not alone. He was accompanied by the chauffeur, who was totally laden with some large overnight express delivery boxes that definitely looked familiar.

“I had magic tricks sent from home,” Skye explained. “I mean, you can’t have a magic show without tricks, can you?”

“The whole thing?” she said, quite stunned.

“Not everything. I just couldn’t ask my father to pack up the box I use to saw a lady in half. Besides, I like you the way you are!”

“Aww,” Lisa said, perfectly imitating her line from the movie.

“Stop trying to impress me with your acting ability,” he teased. “Give me a hand.”

Skye and Lisa shooed everybody out of the family room and closed the doors to set up the show.

“I wonder what’s going on in there,” Stevie said to Carole.

“Magic,” Carole told her. “Pure magic.”

Stevie thought that was probably true.

After a while Lisa came out and told Stevie to invite all the guests in for the performance. There was a buzz of excitement. Everyone was curious about Skye Ransom’s magic show.

Colonel Hanson was given the seat of honor—his own lounge chair. The other guests found seats, perched on tables, or just plain sat on the floor.

“Ladeez and Gentlemen!” Stevie began, sounding very much like a circus barker. “Saddle Club Entertainment Group is proud to present our very own Lisa Atwood and her assistant, uh, Cloud, uh, Storm, uh, whatzisname? Oh, yeah, Skye—”

“Quit the introduction. Let’s get on with the show!” Carole insisted.

“Sure,” Stevie said agreeably. “Anyway, you know who they are. Now let’s see how good they are!”

Lisa and Skye stood up and the guests applauded. Lisa had no idea what she was doing, but it didn’t matter,
because Skye knew exactly what he was doing. He had the benefit of some very good and very expensive tricks, but a magician is only as good a magician as he is a performer. Skye was a terrific performer.

He bowed graciously and began his tricks right away. First, he found some coins behind some of the guests’ ears—quarters, fifty-cent pieces. He even found a silver dollar behind the colonel’s ear. One of the guests was the colonel’s boss—a general. Naturally, what Skye pulled out from behind
his
ear was a piece of brass!

Skye believed in keeping things moving too quickly for the guests even to have time to wonder how he’d done them. Lisa was astonished at his speed. He moved from appearing and disappearing coins, to card tricks. Then, pretty soon, he was pouring milk into one glass and drinking it out of another. Glasses, bottles, oranges, even the colonel’s hat appeared, disappeared, and moved around, seemingly at will—definitely at Skye’s will! Lisa couldn’t keep up with it all, and she loved every minute of it.

She found herself holding a teeny little box, out of which emerged twenty yards of silk scarves. She knew they couldn’t possibly be coming out of the tiny box in her hand, but she didn’t know where they did come from. Skye was so skillful, even his assistant was left in the dark. She was even more in the dark when he put all
the scarves back in the box. For a minute she considered trying to figure out how he’d done it, then she decided it didn’t matter. It was entertainment, and it was terrific.

For a grand finale Skye removed the silk top hat he’d worn throughout the show.

“This thing hasn’t been fitting me right,” he said a little irritatedly. “I bought it from the best hatter in Beverly Hills—a funny little guy named Katz. He told me it might be a little uncomfortable the first few times I wore it. He said a hat takes time to adjust from the hatter to the wearer. So I guess what I’m doing is working the Katz out of this one.” Skye ran his hands around the outside of the hat. “Nice and smooth here,” he said. Then he looked into the hat. “Hmmm,” he said, “I think I see what the problem might be.” He reached into the hat. There was an odd sound. “Here we go!” Skye said triumphantly. “I think I’ve figured out how to work the Katz out.” He brought his hand out of the hat, and in it he was holding Carole’s cat, Snowball! He handed the astonished cat to an even more astonished Carole and put the hat back on his head. “Fits perfectly now!” He bowed to the loud clapping and cheers of all the guests crowded into Carole’s family room.

The colonel shook his hand and the girls all hugged him.

“You were wonderful!” Carole said.

“You just
made
the party,” Lisa agreed heartily.

“How
did
you do it?” Stevie asked.

“Magicians never tell,” Skye said mysteriously. “Now let’s clear the decks a little bit, because I have some more entertainment, and this is the place for it.” He took out a large tablecloth and spread it over the table of tricks. Then he took one box, which had been set aside, and opened it. Inside was a videotape cassette.

“I think you’re going to like this, too,” he said to everybody, slipping the tape into the Hansons’ VCR. “It’s sort of a magic show—in its own way.” Curious, Carole pushed some buttons, and the tape began.

It took a few seconds for the girls to recognize what it was, but it was Lisa who knew first.

“It’s the scene we filmed this morning!” she said. “Look, here comes Skye!”

Indeed, there he came. First there was the sound of hoofbeats, then Pepper came cantering out of the woods with Skye in the saddle. There was a big exhilarated grin on his face. Maverick came loping around the other side of a bush and ran alongside Pepper, arriving at the stable first. The camera drew back. There was Lisa. Maverick ran up to her. She hunkered down to greet the dog, who licked her face eagerly.

“Beautiful dog!” she said to Skye as he pulled Pepper to a halt in front of her.

Lisa was entranced. All of the surreal feelings she’d had during the filming came back to her. She couldn’t believe she was actually looking at herself. She scrunched her eyes closed, almost trying to clear her vision, but it was still Lisa on the screen when she opened them again. It was real.

“Now look at this,” Skye said. Lisa didn’t know what to expect. The scene was over. Skye had dismounted and she’d taken Pepper’s reins. She heard Oliver yell “Cut,” but the camera kept on rolling. It panned slowly back over the route Skye had taken out of the woods. It stopped, capturing two riders on horseback, watching the events of the filming by the stable.

“It’s us!” Stevie shrieked with pleasure, and she was right. There were Stevie and Carole on horseback, watching every move Skye and Lisa made and completely unaware of the camera that watched them. Then the screen went blank.

“You were wonderful,” Skye said. “I couldn’t have done it without you—all three of you. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it at all. I asked my uncle to make a videotape so I could study it to see what I was doing wrong. Instead I learned what my friends were doing right.” He smiled at The Saddle Club. “Thank you
very
much.”

Colonel Hanson stood up from his lounge chair and
reached out to shake Skye’s hand. “This has been great, Skye. You’ve given me a couple of wonderful birthday presents.”

“But I’m not quite done, sir,” Skye said.

“There’s more?”

“Yes, and from what I know of you, you might like this the best. You see, there were these three vampires who went into a bar …”