Summer Rider (9 page)

Lisa sighed. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling about it. But I really wish you’d let up a little. Todd is a nice guy and everything, but I’m just not interested in finding a boyfriend at the moment. I have too many other things on my mind right now.”

Just then Betty called Lisa’s name, and she rode forward to begin the course. Stevie and Carole exchanged surprised glances. “What was that all about?” Carole asked. But at that moment Todd and Phil returned, and Stevie quickly changed the subject.

A
FTER THE JUMP
class, Lisa headed to the rec hall for an unmounted lecture while Stevie and Carole cooled their
horses down in preparation for an equitation class. Phil and Todd were in a different class, so the girls finally had a chance to talk about Lisa.

“I can’t believe the way she jumped down my throat,” Stevie said. “I mean, she apologized right away, but still …”

Carole nodded. “I know. It’s not like her.” She glanced at Stevie. “You have to admit, though, you’ve been pretty relentless about this whole Todd-Lisa topic.”

“Well, maybe,” Stevie admitted, pausing to let Belle take a few sips of water from the trough by the stable entrance. “But I only had Lisa’s best interests in mind. I thought maybe if she got interested in Todd, she’d forget about all the problems she had during the first two weeks here.”

“You mean like Piper disappearing?” Carole said. “I know what you mean. I’m afraid Lisa is a lot more upset about that than she’s letting on.”

Stevie nodded. “I thought a nice summer romance would be the perfect solution.”

“It was a good plan, even if it didn’t exactly work,” Carole said. “But I have a little plan of my own.” She told Stevie about her attempts to find out what had happened to Piper. “Barry won’t tell me a thing, and nobody else seems to know. I found Piper’s home phone number on Lisa’s bed—I think she’s still trying to reach her, even though she hasn’t mentioned it lately—but nobody answered
when I called.” She sighed. “It’s as if she just disappeared into thin air.”

Just then the instructor called to them. Class was starting. “We’ll have to talk more about this later,” Stevie said as they mounted and headed for the ring.

A
BOUT HALFWAY THROUGH
the equitation class, Barry stopped by to observe. Stevie and Belle were near the fence, waiting their turn to perform, when he arrived.

“Hi, Barry,” Stevie said brightly. “You’re just the person I wanted to see.”

“Oh, really?” he said, looking slightly suspicious. “Why’s that?”

“I need a pass to go into town tomorrow,” Stevie replied. “Actually, a few of us were hoping to go.”

Barry raised one eyebrow quizzically. “How many is a few? And why were you hoping to go?”

Stevie bent over to brush an imaginary fly from Belle’s neck, stalling for time as she tried to think of a good answer. “Oh, six or eight of us, I guess,” she said, trying to estimate how many people could fit into Mike’s station wagon. “It’s sort of—um—a reading group.”

“A reading group?” Barry repeated, looking surprised.

Stevie nodded vigorously. “That’s right,” she said. “We want to go to the library and do some research on, uh, show jumping. You know, prepare for the show and everything. Mike already said he’d drive us. Can we go?”

Barry shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” he said. “Far be it from me to discourage young people from reading.”

He still looked a little puzzled as he walked away, but Stevie just grinned. He would understand everything soon enough.

T
HE CLASS ENDED
a few minutes early. Carole and Stevie headed to the rec hall to meet Lisa so that they could all walk back to the cabin together to change for dinner. They peeked into the room where Lisa’s class was being held, but she was nowhere to be seen. Carole frowned. “Where is she?” she whispered.

Stevie shrugged. “Maybe she’s sitting in the back.”

But when the class let out, the girls couldn’t find Lisa anywhere in the room. They stopped Helen, a girl from their cabin, to ask about her.

“She said she had a stomachache,” Helen said. “It sounded like it might have been something she ate at lunch. She went back to the cabin to lie down.”

Stevie and Carole exchanged concerned glances, then hurried out of the building. “Do you think Lisa’s getting sick?” Carole asked. “Maybe that’s why she’s been acting so weird lately.”

“Maybe.” Stevie started walking a little faster, then broke into a jog.

Lisa looked up when her friends burst into the cabin. She was sitting on her bunk with a book in her hands.
“Hi,” she said, looking and sounding perfectly healthy. “What’s the matter?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Carole said breathlessly. “We heard you were sick.”

Lisa shrugged. “I’m fine. I just said that to get out of class.” She held up her book. “I started
Frankenstein
this morning, and I want to get through it quickly.”

Carole frowned. It wasn’t like Lisa to skip a class. It wasn’t like her at all. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “Um, you haven’t exactly been yourself lately.”

Stevie nodded. “Is there anything you want to talk about?” she asked. “I mean, we’re your best friends. If you’re having problems or something …”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lisa snapped. “Just because I’m trying to be responsible and work on my reading list, you automatically assume I have a problem?”

“Well, no,” Carole began hesitantly. “But—”

Lisa didn’t give her a chance to go on. “Look, I’m fine, okay?” she said. “I know you guys don’t understand why this stuff is so important to me, but it is. So believe me, I’m fine. Just back off, okay?”

“Okay,” Stevie said quickly. She couldn’t believe how easy it was to make Lisa angry these days. Maybe it was because she was staying up reading—Stevie had seen the flashlight glowing under the covers late into the night. “Um, it’s almost dinnertime. Are you ready to go?”

Lisa looked down at her book, not meeting her friends’
eyes. “You guys go ahead,” she said, her voice sounding calmer but still a little strained. “I want to finish this chapter. I’ll meet you at the mess hall in a little while.”

“Okay,” Stevie and Carole said in one voice. They quickly changed out of their riding clothes and left the cabin without another word.

They saved a seat for Lisa all through dinner, but she never showed up.

T
HE NEXT DAY
after lunch, Stevie, Carole, Lisa, Phil, Todd, and a few other campers piled into Mike’s ancient, battered green station wagon for the trip into town.

“Next stop, Main Street,” Mike sang out as he skillfully negotiated the old car down the rutted road leading to the highway.

Stevie was crushed into the front seat between Mike and Phil. “Anybody for a singalong?” she cried. Without waiting for an answer, she launched into an enthusiastic, if slightly off-key, rendition of “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” She was in a good mood. After dinner the night before, Lisa had apologized for being so touchy and then had agreed to come along to the rec hall to make phone calls. Working together, Stevie, Carole, and Lisa had signed up another fifteen sponsors. And Stevie was
feeling optimistic about their mission in town today. Their plan was going to work—it
had
to work.

The kids were down to forty-three bottles of beer on the wall when Mike pulled onto the main street of the small town. He drove past the small, grassy town square and found a parking place in front of the library. Stevie grinned, remembering the excuse she had given Barry.

“Okay, everybody out,” Mike said, turning off the engine. “We’ve only got about three hours before we have to head back, so do your thing.”

“Ugh,” Carole grunted, trying to move enough to open the door. The backseat was so crowded that her arm was wedged against the armrest. Finally she managed to extricate herself. She waited on the sidewalk, rubbing her arm, while the others clambered out one by one. “I think I’ll walk back to camp.”

Stevie was already giving orders to her troops. “Carole and Lisa, why don’t you two stake out the town square over there and talk to everyone who walks by,” she said, pointing. “Todd and Melissa, you take the businesses right around here. Phil and I will head down that way and start knocking on some doors. Helen and Bev, you go the other way.”

Carole gave her friend a crisp salute. “Aye, aye, captain,” she said. “Let’s go raise some money!”

The other kids let out a whoop, then parted ways. Mike
crossed the street to run some errands at the drugstore while Stevie and Phil hurried down a residential street.

“We can talk to more people if we split up,” Phil pointed out. “I’ll take this side of the street if you’ll do the other side.”

“Sounds good,” Stevie said, smiling at him. It was no accident that she had paired herself with Phil. This stay at camp hadn’t exactly been the romantic idyll she had pictured, but she would take romance where she could get it. Working together to save Moose Hill seemed pretty romantic to her. “We’ll meet at the end of each block and compare notes.”

Phil nodded, and Stevie crossed the street and approached a white clapboard house with a neat, flower-filled yard. At her knock, the door was opened by a petite, red-haired young woman holding a baby.

“Hi there,” Stevie said. “My name is Stevie Lake, and I’m staying at Moose Hill Riding Camp, just down the road. A group of us are trying to save the camp from being sold to land developers, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to sponsor me in our horse show next week.” She had rehearsed the speech all morning and had taught it to the others at lunch.

The woman smiled. “You’re a Moose Hill camper?” she said. “That’s wonderful. I spent some great summers there during high school.” She sighed. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard it was being sold. It’s terrible.”

“You mean you know about that already?” Stevie asked, surprised. From everything Barry had said, she had supposed the deal was a deep, dark secret known only to a few people.

The woman nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said, jiggling the sleepy-looking baby up and down on her hip as she talked. “The sale has caused a lot of commotion around town. My husband is on the zoning commission, and they did their best to block the whole deal.” She shook her head. “But it didn’t work.”

Stevie was fascinated. “Did your husband try to prevent the sale because you used to go there?”

The woman laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “Although that would be reason enough.” She blushed. “It’s where he and I first met.”

Stevie’s eyes widened. It seemed she and Phil weren’t the first couple to be brought together by Moose Hill’s magic! “Then why?” she asked.

“Everyone around here knows Moose Hill, and it’s been a good neighbor over the years,” the woman said. “Nobody wants to see it razed for a bunch of fancy vacation condos for rich people. This area has always been rural, and we like it that way. That’s why most of us chose to live here.”

Stevie smiled. If most of the townspeople were against the deal with the developers, their job would be even easier than she had hoped. “In that case,” she said. “Would you be willing to help us out? We’re asking people
to sponsor us for a certain amount for each fence we clear during the show. The money we raise will help the camp director outbid the developers and buy the camp.”

“What a great idea!” The woman laughed, startling the baby, who stared at Stevie with wide blue eyes. “How many fences are there?”

“Eighteen total,” Stevie said, “plus six more if there’s a jump-off in the show-jumping event.”

“You’re doing show jumping?” The woman looked impressed. “We never did that in my day.”

Stevie nodded. “It’s a new event,” she said. “If you’re interested in coming to watch, the show is next Friday.” She gave the woman information about the schedule and ticket prices.

“I’ll be there,” the woman promised. “And you can put me and my husband down for two dollars a fence.”

Stevie took down the woman’s name, address, and phone number, then said good-bye and moved on to the next house. She couldn’t help whistling a little as she walked. Things were definitely looking up for Moose Hill.

N
OT EVERYBODY WAS
as eager to help as the red-haired woman, but Carole and Lisa were also finding that most of the people they spoke to were on their side. Almost everyone they asked agreed to pledge at least a little bit of money, and soon they had signed up more than ten sponsors.

During the lulls when nobody was walking by, Carole
kept herself busy by thinking about Lisa. She was acting more like her normal self today, but Carole wasn’t convinced it was going to last.

She decided she had to try to talk to Lisa again, even if it meant making her angry. “Lisa,” she began tentatively when no townspeople were in sight. “I kind of wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

“I understand,” Lisa said immediately. “I was really rotten to you guys, and I’m sorry about that.” She shrugged and smiled, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I guess I stayed up too late reading the night before or something.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Carole replied. She didn’t think Lisa’s moodiness resulted only from sleep deprivation. There was just too much odd behavior to excuse that way. “You already apologized for that yesterday. But I’m still kind of surprised you decided to skip class.”