Summer Rider (15 page)

“That’s over now,” Lisa muttered, shrugging. “I already lost the show. Another failure.”

“What do you mean?” Stevie asked.

Lisa shrugged again, still looking angry. “First that B-plus, then my reading list, then the show. It seems like everything I do these days is a big failure.”

“Is that why you started skipping meals?” Carole asked, remembering what Betty had said. “Because your eating was something you could control?”

Lisa looked wary. “What do you mean?” she said. “I don’t really skip meals. I just don’t always eat them in the mess hall.”

“Don’t lie to us, Lisa,” Carole said sadly. “I checked with Barry’s assistant. He sits right across the hall from
those snack machines you were talking about before, and he said he hasn’t seen you there even once.”

Lisa’s face crumpled. “Don’t you trust me?” she asked, her voice wavering. “I thought you were supposed to be my best friends.”

“We are,” Stevie replied. “That’s why we’re going to tell your parents about this if you won’t. Even if it means you never speak to us again.”

Lisa glanced at Carole, who was nodding at what Stevie had said. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered.

Carole couldn’t meet her eyes. “We want you to go back to how you used to be,” she said. “We want you to get better.”

Lisa continued to argue for a few more minutes, but finally she seemed to give up. “Okay, maybe things have gotten a little out of control lately,” she said. “There was just so much to do, you know?” She sighed. “Do you know how Piper is? I mean, how sick is she?”

“I’m not sure,” Carole said. “She’s in the hospital. Maybe you can write to her there or something.”

Lisa nodded and leaned back against the wall behind her bunk. “It’s so weird how things turn out sometimes,” she said. “I wanted to be more like her, and I guess I might have succeeded a little too well. But I also wanted to be more like you, and I didn’t have much luck with that at all.”

“What do you mean?” Stevie asked.

“You two are such great riders,” Lisa replied. “Everyone
says so. I’ll never be able to catch up, no matter how hard I work. It just doesn’t seem fair that you’ll always know more than I do.”

Carole could see Lisa’s point. “I guess that’s one way to look at it,” she said. “But it’s not easy the other way around, either. When everyone expects you to be the best every time, that can put a lot of pressure on you.”

“Right,” Stevie said, leaning against the cabin wall. “Besides, there are some advantages for you, too. You get the benefit of all our hard-won knowledge because we’re friends.”

“We
are
still friends, aren’t we?” Carole asked softly.

Lisa nodded and smiled a little, feeling slightly comforted by her friends’ words. “We’re still friends,” she said. “But as my friends, I hope you don’t mean it about telling my parents. Maybe I have been working a little too hard lately, but I can deal with it myself. Really.”

“Sorry,” Stevie said. “We can’t do that.”

Lisa frowned. “Come on,” she said. “Things aren’t that bad. I just have to lighten up a little, and everything will be fine.”

Carole shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “When you’re lying to your two best friends, things have already gone too far.”

Lisa started to respond, then stopped herself. She thought about what Carole had said, and suddenly she realized it was true. “All right,” she said after a long pause.
“You win. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for me to talk to someone.”

Carole and Stevie heaved a joint sigh of relief and sat down on either side of Lisa to give her a big three-way hug. This time they knew she wasn’t lying to them. She had taken a big, difficult first step, and they were going to stick with her every step of the way. That was what friends were for.

A
LITTLE OVER A
month later, Carole and Stevie were in the student locker room at Pine Hollow, getting ready to go on a trail ride.

“What time is Lisa getting here?” Stevie asked as she pulled on her boots.

Carole glanced at her watch. “She should be here any minute now,” she replied. “She had another appointment with Susan, and she was going to come here straight from that.”

Stevie nodded. Lisa had been seeing a teen counselor since arriving home from camp. At first it hadn’t been easy for her to talk to a stranger about her feelings, but lately she had told her friends that things were going much better.

At that moment Lisa herself walked into the room. “There you are,” she said. “I was afraid you’d left without me.”

“Never,” Stevie declared. “How was your appointment?”

“Great,” Lisa said with a smile. “Susan thinks I’ve made lots of progress in the past couple of weeks.”

“That’s fantastic!” Stevie said.

Carole reached out to give Lisa a hug. “We’re really proud of you.”

“Thanks.” Lisa tossed her sneakers into her cubby and took out her riding boots. “But you guys deserve some of the credit, too, you know. Susan says the main reason I’m doing so well is that I got help so quickly. If you two hadn’t figured out what was going on and forced me to face it, I might have been in a lot of trouble by now.”

Carole and Stevie nodded. They already knew that Lisa was lucky she had gotten help before her early symptoms had turned into a full-fledged eating disorder such as anorexia. A lot of girls weren’t so lucky.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Carole said. “You’d do the same for either of us, right?”

Lisa nodded as the girls left the locker area and headed for the tack room. “We make a pretty good team, don’t we?” she mused. “I think that’s another part of the reason I’m going to be okay.” Susan had told her that having such supportive friends and a loving family was probably the reason she hadn’t had problems before this, despite the high standards she always set for herself. In addition to the support she got from the other members of The Saddle Club, Lisa had rediscovered how deeply her parents cared about her. They were very involved in their
daughter’s therapy sessions, and the family had become a lot closer as a result.

“We
do
make a good team,” Stevie said. “And you’d better not forget it again. Remember, we’re here to help each other—if any of us ever feels overwhelmed by things, we’ve got to talk to each other.”

Lisa smiled. “I know that now. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be happy with anything less than straight As or blue ribbons, but thanks to Susan I’m finally learning how to handle it better when I don’t get them.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Carole said, nodding. Then she grinned. “Although I think the three of us come pretty close sometimes.”

“Only when we’re working as a team,” Lisa said. Her smile faded. “I just hope I can be of some help to Piper, like you guys are for me.” She had found a letter from Piper waiting for her when she had arrived home from camp, and the two girls had been writing to each other ever since. Piper’s latest letter had arrived the day before. Unfortunately Piper’s recovery wasn’t nearly as assured as Lisa’s own. She had been struggling with her disease for a long time and had had many setbacks. Several times before this, her parents had thought she was finally cured—in fact, Piper’s horse, Tapestry, had been a gift during one of those times—only to have her fall back into her old patterns once again. But she was trying, and Lisa hoped that this time her new friend would defeat the disease
once and for all. Until she did, all Lisa could do to help her was to keep writing, and to let her know she had at least one friend who cared about her even if she wasn’t perfect.

She told her friends what she was thinking as they picked up their horses’ tack. “I know it probably won’t happen, but I can’t help hoping she’ll be better in time to come to Moose Hill again next summer.”

Carole nodded sympathetically. “You never know. Miracles do happen sometimes.”

“They sure do,” Stevie said, slinging Belle’s bridle over one shoulder. “After all, even the fact that Moose Hill will be around next summer is practically a miracle.”

“A Saddle Club miracle,” Carole agreed with a grin. “That’s the best kind.” The girls had heard that Barry was already putting some of his ideas for the camp into effect. And his new partners had contributed some great ideas of their own, which made Barry even more certain that the new and improved Moose Hill Riding Camp would be a big success when it reopened for business the next summer.

“It sure is,” Lisa said.

Stevie gave her a sly look. “I wonder if another certain someone will be back at camp next summer?” she commented teasingly.

“You mean Todd?” Lisa asked with a laugh. “You never give up, do you?”

Stevie shrugged. “Hey, you never know,” she said.
“Maybe next year, when you’re not distracted by all that other stuff—”

“I don’t think so,” Lisa interrupted her. “I hate to disappoint you, but even if I’d been totally my normal self this year, I still wouldn’t have wanted to date Todd. He’s nice and everything, but I could never go out with someone who’s more interested in his skateboard than he ever could be in me.”

Carole laughed and hoisted Starlight’s saddle off its rack. “Too bad, Stevie,” she said. “I guess you’ll have to give up on finding Todd a girlfriend.”

Stevie gave her a thoughtful look. “Maybe not,” she said slowly. “
You
seemed to get along with him pretty well, Carole.”

Carole laughed again, and Lisa joined in. Stevie would never change, and they were both glad about that. “Put it this way,” Carole said. “I can’t wait to see
all
our riding camp friends again next summer. You can make of that what you will, Stevie.”

Lisa picked up Prancer’s saddle and bridle and followed her friends out of the tack room. “Whatever else happens, I can guarantee one thing about the new and improved Moose Hill,” she said.

“What’s that?” Stevie and Carole asked in one voice.

Lisa smiled. “Next year, Barry will
definitely
make sure the three of us end up in the same cabin!”

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of many books for young readers, including novelizations of movie hits such as
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
and
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
, written 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.