Summer Rider (6 page)

Despite the serious topic, Stevie couldn’t help smiling. It was times like this that reminded her why she liked Phil so much. “I agree,” she said. “We have to find a way to save Moose Hill.”

“But how?” Carole asked.

“We’ll think of something,” Stevie and Phil said in one voice.

Todd was shaking his head. “I don’t know, guys,” he said. “This whole situation sounds like some serious stuff to me. What can a bunch of kids possibly do to change it?”

“I hate to say it, but I think Todd’s right,” Carole said. “I’m not saying we should just give up, but I don’t know if we should expect any miracles, either.”

Stevie frowned. “It sounds to me like you are just giving up,” she told Carole. She turned to Lisa. “What do you think? You’re keeping pretty quiet.”

Lisa looked up from her plate. She had only been half listening to the conversation. “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Todd has a point. This is big business—and real money—we’re talking about. It would be nice if we could find a way to help, but I can’t imagine how. Your usual moneymaking schemes won’t do it this time, Stevie.”

Stevie didn’t respond for a moment, and Carole gave her a surprised look. Then she saw that Stevie was glancing back and forth between Todd and Lisa with a satisfied expression on her face. Carole rolled her eyes. Even at a time like this, Stevie was obviously thrilled that Lisa had sided with Todd—even though it meant she was siding against Stevie.

Lisa was completely oblivious to Stevie’s reaction. After offering her opinion, she had immediately returned to her previous activity—playing with her food and feeling guilty. That was because she had already broken her vow
to jog every day. In all the excitement over Barry’s news, she had simply forgotten that she’d planned to go jogging during her free time after lunch. How else was she going to lose weight if she didn’t exercise? And there wasn’t any other time to do it today—her evening was already planned down to the minute. After dinner she had to spend an hour working with Major on lead changes. Then she was supposed to spend another hour helping Betty and some of the other campers muck out the paddocks. And she was determined to finish
Jane Eyre
that night, even if she had to stay up all night to do it.

It took an effort not to groan out loud when she thought about all the work that lay ahead of her. Jogging was definitely not an option. Still, Lisa couldn’t help feeling bad. Not only was she letting herself down by not sticking to her vow, but in a weird way she felt as though she were letting Piper down, too. Piper always made time for the things she needed to do. Lisa couldn’t remember how many times her cabin mate had spent her free time working with her horse, or had skipped lunch or dinner to jog or take care of other important things.

That last thought gave Lisa an idea. Since it obviously wasn’t going to be easy to fit a daily jog into her already crowded schedule, maybe she could compromise a little on her vow. If she couldn’t exercise to stay in shape, she would go on a diet instead—just until the show was over and she had won her blue ribbon in show jumping.

She smiled, feeling satisfied with her solution. But she
wiped the smile off her face before her friends could notice it. She didn’t feel like sharing her decision with them. For one thing, they hadn’t even known about her jogging vow, so they might not understand how important it was. Besides, Lisa couldn’t help remembering all the times her friends had laughed about the girls at Pine Hollow who were constantly on diets. Lisa knew there was nothing wrong with dieting. After all, lots of people—including her own mother—were on diets most of the time. But she decided it would be easier to keep the whole plan a secret for now.

Since she was already compromising by substituting one vow for another, Lisa decided she wouldn’t let herself compromise at all on her new diet. Luckily, she had been so lost in thought that she had only eaten a few bites of her lasagna. She pushed the rest of it aside and scrutinized the other food on her plate, deciding what she would eat.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group was still discussing Barry’s news. Stevie and Phil had convinced the others that they had to make a serious effort to save the camp. “Otherwise, no matter what happens at the horse show, we’ll all be losers,” Stevie said dramatically.

Carole started her second helping of lasagna. “All right, then,” she said. “We need to come up with a plan.”

“Right,” Phil said. “But I think we need some more information first. Like how much money those brothers are getting from the developers, and exactly when they’re expecting the deal to be final …”

Stevie was already nodding. She glanced across the crowded mess hall at Barry, who was sitting with Betty at a table in the corner of the room. “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

Phil grinned at her. “Great minds think alike, right?”

“Absolutely.” Stevie smiled back at Phil, thinking once again how cute he was when his green eyes sparkled at her that way. That reminded her that the two of them still hadn’t had much time alone together. Since they had made up after their fight, they had been so busy that they had only taken one evening stroll down to the pond—the site of their very first kiss.

“Ahem,” Carole said loudly, bringing Stevie’s mind back to business.

Stevie jumped up from her seat. There would be time for romance once they had saved Moose Hill. “Come on, we need to go talk to Barry. We have to find out a little more about these Winter brothers if we’re going to convince them not to sell.”

Carole stood up, too, but Phil stayed seated. “You go ahead,” he told Stevie. “I don’t think we should let Barry know that Todd and I are involved unless we have to.”

“Good point,” Carole said. “He might not appreciate the fact that we only managed to keep his secret for a few hours.” She glanced at Lisa and noticed that her plate was still more than half full. “Hey, are you feeling okay?” she asked, suddenly concerned. “You’ve hardly eaten a thing.”

“Sure,” Lisa said. “I wasn’t very hungry, that’s all.”

Carole stared in disbelief. “Not hungry!” she exclaimed. “After that workout we got in jump class today? You’re kidding.”

The others, most of whom were on their second or third helpings, also looked surprised. Lisa gulped. She had to think of a convincing response, or her secret would be out. “Um, well …” She forced herself to laugh. “Okay, you caught me,” she said. “I had a little free time after my class this afternoon, and I went back to the cabin and pigged out on some cookies my mom packed for me.” She laughed again, and this time it felt almost natural. “They were a little stale after two and a half weeks, but they still tasted awfully good. I ended up eating the whole bag.”

Her friends laughed, too. “Busted!” Todd exclaimed with a grin.

Lisa felt guilty. Obviously, her friends didn’t doubt her story at all. And why should they? Members of The Saddle Club didn’t lie to each other. Still, she told herself, it wasn’t as if this lie were hurting anybody.

“Then if you’re finished, come on,” Stevie said. “We’ve got to catch Barry before he skips out early again.”

“You two go ahead,” Lisa said, laying her fork and knife across the food on her plate and standing up. “You can fill me in on what he says later. I’ve got to … um …” She had been about to tell the truth: She wanted to get to the stable and get to work. She couldn’t afford to talk to Barry for even a few minutes if she wanted to finish all her tasks for the evening.

Carole and Stevie waited expectantly. “What?” Stevie asked. “What do you have to do that’s more important than saving Moose Hill?”

Lisa felt her face redden. Stevie had made it sound as though Lisa’s schedule couldn’t possibly be very important, and that annoyed her. What did happy-go-lucky, carefree, straight-C+ Stevie know about the kind of pressures Lisa was under?

Her anger made it easy to make her next lie sound convincing. “Actually, I’m pretty exhausted after that tough jump class and everything else today,” she said. “I know it sounds silly, but I’ve been looking forward to a nice, cool, relaxing dip in the pond all through dinner.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all,” Carole said quickly, giving Stevie a dirty look. She was surprised that Lisa didn’t want to come with them to talk to Barry. But Lisa had been working awfully hard since arriving at camp, and the last thing Carole wanted was to keep her from relaxing. “Go ahead. We’ll fill you in later.”

Stevie and Carole hurried over to Barry’s table. Barry and Betty appeared to be deep in conversation, but they both looked up when the girls approached.

“Hi,” Betty said. “What’s up, girls?”

Stevie bit her lip. She was dying to blurt out all sorts of questions, but Barry had said that he hadn’t told all the staff yet about the camp’s sale. What if Betty was among those who didn’t know? “Um, so, Barry,” she said, trying her best to sound casual, “Carole and I were just thinking
about what you were saying this morning, about … um …”

Barry came to her rescue. “Don’t worry, Stevie,” he said. “You can speak freely. Betty knows all about it. She was the first one I told—she’s been here as long as I have.”

Betty nodded. “Ten years,” she said quietly. “Some of the others on the staff have been here almost as long.” She shrugged dejectedly. “I don’t know what we’re all going to do when this place closes.”

“Maybe we should open our own camp someplace where the real estate isn’t quite so valuable,” Barry said jokingly.

Stevie pulled up a chair. “Don’t start shopping for that land yet,” she said in a businesslike voice. “Nothing’s final until the papers are signed.” She had picked up that phrase from her parents, who were both lawyers. “First of all, we’ve got to know more about the Winter brothers.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Stevie,” Barry said. “But I’m afraid there’s really no point. Moose Hill is gone. I’m finally starting to accept it. You’re going to have to do the same.”

Carole sat down next to Stevie. “We know that, Barry,” she said soothingly. “We’re just curious, that’s all.”

Stevie shot her a dirty look, but her expression brightened when Barry and Betty glanced at each other and shrugged. She realized that Carole wasn’t really giving up—she was just trying to get the adults talking.

“I don’t blame you for being curious,” Betty said. “It’s
hard to believe that something like this could happen to such a great place.”

Barry nodded. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about the Winters,” he said. “They’re not bad guys. In fact, they’ve been awfully good to the staff here—they even found jobs at their other businesses for some of the people they fired this year. And they took a lot of pride in the reputation we’ve built over the years. Unfortunately, that’s not as important to them at this point as cold, hard cash.”

“It’s too bad that these developers happened along and were willing to pay so much,” Betty put in. “There wasn’t much chance that anyone who wasn’t familiar with Moose Hill would want to invest that heavily in a riding camp. But that’s just because the camp’s real potential hasn’t been brought out.”

That gave Stevie a great idea. “I’ve got it!” she cried, turning to Barry. “Why don’t
you
buy it? You know all about the potential, and you said your brother was advising you about the money part—”

Barry cut her off with a rueful smile. “I’m way ahead of you on that one, Stevie,” he said. “It was the first thing I thought of when I heard that the brothers wanted to sell. But the developers’ offer is just too high.”

“Are you sure?” Carole asked. “Maybe you could get a big loan from the bank or something.”

“Believe me, I’m sure,” Barry said with a heavy sigh. “I’ve been over the numbers a hundred times. Even with
the biggest bank loan I could get, along with my savings and an optimistic estimate of what I could beg, borrow, or steal from family and friends, I’m still a good thirty thousand dollars short.”

Stevie and Carole couldn’t help gasping at the number. “Th-Thirty thousand?” Carole repeated in disbelief.

Barry nodded. “It’s a shame, too. I’m sure the brothers would break off negotiations with the developers if they thought I could match their price.”

“I’m sure of it, too,” Betty said. “I think they’d like the idea of Moose Hill continuing as it is.”

“As it is, only better,” Barry corrected her. Then he sighed again. “But what’s the point of thinking about that now? Fred called just this morning to say the deal should be worked out around the time camp ends next week.”

Stevie hardly heard him. She was still turning the number he had mentioned over in her mind, and it was making her head spin. Thirty thousand dollars! That was real money, and she knew it. Despite her natural optimism, she was having a hard time believing that even The Saddle Club could find a way to solve this problem.

But as she and Carole got up and said good-bye to Barry and Betty, one thought emerged clearly from Stevie’s muddled brain. It might seem impossible, but they had to save Moose Hill. They just had to!

B
Y THE NEXT
day, Stevie hadn’t come up with any ideas, though she had thought about it until her brain hurt. The girls talked about the problem while they cooled down their horses after one of their morning classes. “Our only chance is to raise enough money for Barry to buy the camp instead of the developers,” Carole said for about the tenth time that day.