Sea Horse (5 page)

“Sure, Lisa,” Jill said again.

The two girls walked in silence for the next few minutes. Lisa didn’t like the way Jill was making her feel, but she decided to ignore it and enjoy the spectacular scenery instead. The path to the stable was lined with brightly colored exotic blossoms that she had seen sold in flower shops at home for outrageous prices. Lisa breathed in the delicious sweetness, letting it calm and restore her.

“Good morning, Frederica,” Jill said cheerfully, greeting the instructor, who was waiting for the return of another group of riders.

“Good morning, Jill, and—uh—Lisa. Are you riding with us again today?”

“Of course!” Lisa said. “The trail is beautiful and I don’t want to miss a chance to ride.”

“Of course not,” Frederica said. “But there is another trail you could take at the one o’clock ride. It’s a little less challenging and—”

Lisa could hardly believe her ears. Less challenging? The one o’clock ride was probably a beginners’ ride! That meant only walking, no trotting, no cantering. Beginners’ rides had their place, but only for beginners, not experienced riders like herself.

“No, Frederica,” she said firmly. “I’d really prefer to take this ride. I can do it and I’m sure you’ll understand, I need to do it.”

Frederica looked at her for a few seconds before agreeing. “I do understand, Lisa. It’s okay. Ride Jasper, will you?”

Lisa recalled that Jasper was the horse Frederica had assigned to the man who didn’t know what color a bay horse was. Jasper was obviously the horse Frederica gave to people who belonged on beginners’ rides. Lisa was beginning to feel very annoyed about the whole situation. The fact was that she was a good rider. She’d lost her balance and taken a tumble off a horse with a jerky gait. So what? A lot of people fell off horses. It didn’t mean they weren’t good riders. Now, here it had happened to her and all of a sudden Jill and Frederica seemed to have the impression that she didn’t know one thing about riding. That wasn’t fair, but even more important, it wasn’t true.

Lisa hid her disappointment and walked over to Jasper. He greeted her with a look of indifference. Lisa felt the same way.

She checked his girth, adjusted his stirrups, mounted, and was ready to go in a matter of minutes.

“Let me check your girth,” Alain said.

“I did it already, but you can check again,” Lisa said shortly. Alain did check it again. He also checked her stirrups.

“Very good!” he said, complimenting her work.

“Thanks.” Lisa didn’t think it was much of a compliment. Any Pine Hollow rider could do those things.

“Riders up! Let’s go!” Frederica called, lining them up in the order she wanted. Lisa was dismayed to see that she was the second-to-last person in the line, and the rider behind her was Jill. That meant that Frederica thought that she was at risk of being thrown again and didn’t want a lot of riders behind her who might endanger her. Worst of all, it meant that Frederica considered Jill to be a better rider than she was. Lisa was humiliated.

It didn’t help, either, when Jill started giving her little tips about riding as they rode.

“If you watch where you’re going, it will make it easier to steer the horse,” Jill suggested. A little later, she said, “Once your horse has gotten to the gait and speed you want, you should loosen up on the reins just to let him know what he’s doing is right. And we’re going to turn to the right up here. Move your right hand out and put pressure on with your left leg.”

This was all stuff from Lisa’s first lessons. She knew it
all by heart and didn’t need a refresher course, especially not from someone two years younger than she was. Lisa was irritated by Jill, but she was even more irritated by the idea that Frederica had probably put Jill up to it!

There was only one solution: ignore it. Lisa shut her ears to the flow of helpful suggestions coming from behind her and concentrated on her ride.

The group followed the same path they had ridden the day before and, once again, it was breathtakingly beautiful. The group trotted briskly through the palm grove toward the beach and then walked to cool the horses before trotting along the edge of the water. Lisa’s parents were on the beach, and waved cheerfully as Lisa rode by. Lisa put both reins in one hand and returned their wave.

“You should always keep both hands on the reins,” Jill reminded her. “That way you keep even pressure on the horse’s mouth.”

It was all Lisa could do to keep from snapping back that in Western riding it was customary to use one hand and she was almost as good at Western riding as she was at English. But Lisa had the suspicion that that wouldn’t impress Jill much.

Lisa sensed her own apprehension as they approached the place where she’d fallen off the day before. She gripped Jasper tightly with her legs, not so much to signal the horse as to hold on tighter. Jasper responded by moving forward faster. Lisa was prepared. She took the curve easily and smoothly and sighed with relief when they had passed it.

“Good!” Jill said from behind. Lisa didn’t bother to answer.

The trail then wound up a hill to a grassy promontory that overlooked the Caribbean. Frederica paused at the top, allowing all the riders to gaze at the gorgeous scenery. Oddly, Lisa noticed that Jill pulled her horse back away from the group while they gazed at the ocean. Lisa thought Jill seemed genuinely uncomfortable with the height and the sheer drop to the ocean.
Too bad
, Lisa thought, taking a final glance. The sight was truly spectacular.

The walk back down the hill was tricky, and abruptly brought Lisa’s attention to her own difficulties. When Jasper broke into a trot coming off the hill, she slowed him and controlled him as he regained his place in line.

They entered another palm grove then. Lisa saw that there was a small, shabby house in the grove with enclosed yards around it. One little yard held a family of goats. Another had a chicken coop. A little boy stood outside the coop and tossed grain for the hens to eat. But the child never took his eyes off the riders who passed his home. The look on his face was intensely curious. Lisa found herself wondering how different that child’s life was from her own very comfortable one in Virginia. She thought perhaps she had as much to learn from this little boy as he did from her. She also thought it would be unlikely that either would get the opportunity to do that learning.

“Prepare to canter!” Frederica called from the front of
the line. Lisa felt a tightening in her stomach and recognized her own fear. She didn’t like the feeling at all.

She gripped the horse tightly with her legs, shortened her reins, sat deeply in the saddle, and signaled Jasper to canter. He did. Jasper’s canter was much smoother than Velvet’s. It was almost a lumbering gait, as though the horse had to labor to maintain it. Lisa gave him a little bit more rein and kept her legs tight against his belly.

They followed the trail through the palm grove. Lisa kept her eyes forward so she wouldn’t be fooled by a curve as she had been on Velvet. It definitely helped her riding. It also allowed her to see a family of eight piglets scurry across the bridle path. Lisa thought they were probably headed for the house and the little boy, who might feed them. At last the riders came clear of the palm grove and rode down a gentle slope into a marsh, still cantering. Frederica then led them right into the water. The horses sloshed willingly through the swamp, but Lisa wasn’t prepared for the change of speed the water caused. As soon as Jasper’s hooves began slogging through the mud, he slowed. Lisa didn’t.

It didn’t matter how tightly she gripped him, the sudden change of speed was more than she could handle. She flew right over Jasper’s neck and landed in the mud. This time, she couldn’t roll and evade her own oncoming horse fast enough. Jasper shied to the left, but not fast enough to keep from kicking her in the knee. Jill yanked on her horse’s reins, but he too ran into Lisa.

In an instant, Frederica was by her side.

“Don’t move,” she instructed Lisa once again.

This time, Lisa obeyed. She hurt. She didn’t want to move.

“Where do you hurt?” Frederica asked.

Lisa told her about the bang on her knee and on her shoulder, where Jill’s horse had struck her.

Frederica asked Lisa to move her leg and then her knee. When Lisa did so without difficulty, Frederica helped her stand up. Another rider brought Jasper back to Lisa.

“Can you ride again?” Frederica asked.

Lisa was surprised to find herself hesitating before she answered. “Yes,” she said finally.

With help, she got back into the saddle, feeling yesterday’s bruise in her seat along with her two new ones. She also felt the soggy filth of the marsh water she’d tumbled into. Some of it even sloshed around inside her waterproof boot.

The rest of the ride went by in a haze. About the only thing Lisa noticed was that Jill had stopped giving her riding tips. Lisa decided that meant Jill had probably given up on her as a hopeless case. She didn’t care. All she wanted to do was to finish out the ride and get to her room.

The riders finally reached the stable. Lisa rode Jasper over to a shady spot away from the other riders, hoping they would take the hint and leave her alone. It didn’t work. One by one, every rider except Jill came up to her and told her how sorry they were that she’d fallen off and how they hoped she didn’t hurt too much.

They had no idea how much she hurt, but it wasn’t the bruises that hurt the most. It was her confidence.

Lisa shook her head in amazement. For the last six months, she had always thought of herself as a rider, a good rider. She took lessons, she belonged to a Pony Club, she’d even been to riding camp. She and her friends had won a gymkhana. They’d even competed in a rodeo and won a prize there. She had always been a good rider, but how could something that was so right at home be so wrong on the beautiful tropical island of San Marco?

As quickly as she could, Lisa left the stable and headed back to her room to change. Almost everybody she passed on the way saw her muddy clothes, and the looks on their faces told her that they all knew exactly what had happened to her. That mystified Lisa. How could all those strangers know when she herself had no idea what had really happened?

All she knew was that she wasn’t a rider anymore and maybe never would be again.

L
ISA DIDN
’
T GO
riding the next day. The hotel operator woke her up bright and early at her parents’ request so she could get ready to begin a tour of the whole island of San Marco. The trip, including a beach picnic, would take all day. Her parents said they hoped Lisa wasn’t too disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to ride. Lisa assured them she wasn’t. In fact, though she didn’t tell them, she was actually relieved.

Right after breakfast, she and her parents met their driver, Ben, a cheerful large man with a large van to accommodate them and their picnic. Lisa’s father had spent some time the evening before looking at local maps to decide exactly what sights they wanted to see. Ben took a look at the list, crumpled it, stuffed it in his pocket, and said, “No, no, I show you the island—my island.”

Since he said it so nicely, there seemed to be nothing to do but to agree.

Ben opened doors for Lisa and her mother and saw to it that everybody was comfortable in the seats. He secured the picnic basket in the back and then climbed into the van himself. “First, the rain forest,” he announced, slamming his own door to add emphasis to his intentions.

“Sounds good to me,” Mr. Atwood said, fastening his seat belt.

San Marco was a volcanic island, and that meant that among other things, it was very mountainous. The roads followed the irregular terrain, carved into the mountain-sides. On one side, dense forest covered land that seemed to rise straight up from the road. On the other side, a sheer cliff led to the sea below. Sometimes the road was so narrow that Lisa felt they were going to drive off it any minute and had to close her eyes. When she opened them, she noticed that her mother was doing the same thing. Her father chatted amiably with Ben, who followed the rutted and curvy road up and down mountains.

There was one mountain that seemed to be in the middle of a cloud at the end of a rainbow. “Look at that!” Lisa said, pointing to it.

“That’s the rain forest,” Ben explained. “It’s usually raining in there, so there is usually a rainbow pointing the way to it.”

Within a few minutes, Ben had pulled into a small parking lot in the rain forest. They got out of the van to explore.

The forest was a small area, clearly defined from a distance by the cloud and the rainbow, and it was a place unlike any that Lisa had ever seen.

The vegetation was lush, with thick ground cover, palmlike ferns, middle-height trees, and tall trees that seemed like an umbrella, shading the whole area. The air was rich and humid, filled with the sweet smells of tropical flowers, which Lisa was becoming used to, but also filled with the lush smell of the fertile forest.

Ben showed them where fruit trees grew in the wild. He picked up a ripe lime from the ground and gave it to Lisa. He pointed out the orchids. He wasn’t going to take one until he spotted one with a broken stem that would be withering soon. Carefully, he broke the stem the rest of the way and put the flower behind Mrs. Atwood’s ear.