Secret Horse (5 page)

“What do you say about getting a little lunch at the museum café?” Mrs. Atwood inquired.

Lisa looked up, grateful for the change of subject. “That sounds excellent, Mom,” she said.

Over iced tea and chicken salad, Lisa relaxed and enjoyed herself.

“I’ll bet you liked seeing the horses on those vases, didn’t you, honey?” Mrs. Atwood asked.

Lisa took a sip of iced tea. “Um, yeah, the horses were great,” she said. The truth was, she had been too lost in her thoughts to notice them. She just hadn’t been herself since her ride the day before. What was it about
jumping Samson, Lisa wondered, that had thrown her so off kilter?

T
O SAVE TIME
, Lisa changed into jeans and a T-shirt in the car. “I wish you’d wear nice breeches to ride in, dear,” Mrs. Atwood said absently as they pulled into the driveway at Pine Hollow. “Look, there goes that nice diAngelo girl. And see how nice she
looks
, too—breeches, boots, gloves …”

Lisa’s eye followed Veronica as she rode Danny toward the outdoor ring. Walking beside the pair was a tall man whom Lisa didn’t recognize. No doubt he was a specially imported trainer, there to give Veronica an expensive private lesson.

Whenever Veronica had a big show coming up, the diAngelos called in a battery of instructors to tune up her performance. They seemed to believe that the more famous names they hired, the better their daughter would do.

“I guess she’s prepping for the Macrae,” Lisa said.

“The Macrae? You mean the Macrae Valley Open in Pennsylvania?” Mrs. Atwood asked curiously.

Lisa could hardly believe her ears. “You’ve heard of the Macrae, Mom?” she asked incredulously. Mrs. Atwood was usually completely ignorant about horse shows and anything to do with horses.

“Of course I’ve heard of the Macrae. It’s a very important
social event in Pennsylvania. There’s a black-tie dinner to which all the famous society women go. Boy, would I love to go to that,” Mrs. Atwood added wistfully.

Lisa raised her eyebrows in surprise. For once she understood perfectly how her mother felt. “And I’d love to ride in the show, Mom,” she said, echoing her mother’s tone.

“Well, maybe if you dressed as nicely as Veronica diAngelo, you’d have a better chance,” suggested Mrs. Atwood.

Lisa smiled. She could never hope to explain the real situation to her mother—that the reasons Veronica was going to the Macrae were a lot more complicated than wearing good breeches. “Maybe you’re right, Mom,” she said, not wanting to get into an argument, “but we’re not even riding this afternoon. We’re mucking stalls. And I wouldn’t want to do that in nice breeches.”

“You came over here just to muck out stalls?” said Mrs. Atwood, aghast.

Lisa giggled. “Yup.”

“Now, that,” said Mrs. Atwood, shaking her head, “I will never understand.”

“Most people don’t, Mom,” Lisa said. She got out of the car. “But thanks for the ride.”

B
EFORE
L
ISA HAD
closed the car door, she heard Stevie and Carole chattering excitedly. Carole ran up to greet her with Stevie in tow. “Lisa, you were right! Samson is—”

“In excellent health!” Stevie interrupted. She looked pointedly in the direction of the outdoor ring. Veronica and her instructor were halfway between the ring and the driveway. “Might as well not broadcast the news,” Stevie whispered. “There’s no telling what she can hear!”

“Whoops!” Carole clapped a hand to her mouth.

At Lisa’s confused look, Stevie thought fast and said, “Come on: Saddle Club meeting. Right now. In the hayloft.”

“The hayloft?” said Lisa. “Wouldn’t the knoll—”

“No,” said Stevie. “We need total privacy.”

Wordlessly the three girls trooped into the barn and climbed the ladder to the loft. They walked to the back and took seats on bales of timothy and alfalfa.

Carole began. Lisa noticed her somewhat formal tone. “Lisa,” she explained, “as I started to say outside, you were one hundred percent right about Samson. I think he has the makings of a great jumper.”

“You do?” Lisa said excitedly, her worries forgotten.

Carole nodded. A little shyly she added, “The reason I was afraid to believe you before was that—well, I’ve just been hoping for so long that this would be the case.” Carole stopped, choking on her words. She took a deep breath. “Seeing Samson jump was like seeing Cobalt again,” she said.

Lisa put out a hand to comfort Carole. Now she understood why Carole had been so cautious the previous day. Cobalt had died a long time before, but Carole still missed the beautiful black stallion. “You had to see Samson jump for yourself before you could believe he had Cobalt’s talent, didn’t you?” Lisa said.

Carole nodded. Lisa felt a rush of remorse for having taken Carole’s reaction personally. But Stevie wouldn’t let either of them wallow in apologies. “The point is,” she said briskly, “Samson can jump. He’s an amazing jumper.”

“Right,” said Carole. “And thanks to you, Lisa, we know that.”

“So do you think we should work on training him?” Lisa asked cautiously.

Carole’s and Stevie’s eyes grew bright. “And how,” Stevie said.

“Lisa, we not only want to train Samson,” Carole said seriously, “we want to train him for the junior jumper division at the Macrae Valley Open.”

“The Macrae—” Lisa started, her daydream coming back to her in a rush.

“We want Samson to be the ace up our sleeve that convinces Max to let us go.”

“And our secret weapon against Veronica!” Stevie added.

Lisa leaned back against her stack of hay bales. A range of emotions flooded over her: excitement, fear, envy, hope. She had missed one morning at Pine Hollow, and already her discovery about Samson had taken on a life of its own. “That’s great,” she managed to say, twisting a handful of hay in her hands. “That’s a great idea.”

Luckily, Carole and Stevie didn’t seem to notice Lisa’s conflicting feelings. They chattered on about the training program. They wanted Lisa to map out schedules for them for the next several weeks. “We have to keep up
our end with the barn work, that’s for sure,” Carole pointed out, “or we can kiss our chances at the Macrae good-bye.”

Lisa’s eyes flew up at the words “our chances.” Did that mean Carole thought they were all going to go? “So you mean—” she began, but stopped. Normally Lisa could ask Stevie and Carole anything. That was what best friends were for: answering embarrassing or intimidating questions. But for some reason she couldn’t ask them about the Macrae. She couldn’t ask them the question that the past twenty-four hours seemed to have been leading up to: If Samson went to the Macrae, which of them would ride him?

A
FTER MORE
discussion the meeting broke up. The three girls headed back down the ladder to ground level. Veronica had come in from her lesson and was hosing a sweaty Danny off in the wash stall. When she saw The Saddle Club, she beamed smugly. “Hello, girls.”

“Hello,” the three of them said flatly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you earlier or I would have introduced you to Tom Riley. He was training me today, and he just left. He sure made us work up a sweat, didn’t he, Danny? All those big fences—”

“Who’s Tom Riley?” Stevie asked.

“Tom Riley?” Veronica scoffed. “You’ve never heard of Tom Riley? He’s only the best jumper rider under
thirty. Haven’t you seen his picture plastered on the cover of every riding magazine in the past two years?”

Stevie pretended to think hard. She knew exactly who Tom Riley was. She just didn’t want to give Veronica the satisfaction of bragging about her instructor. “Maybe. I really don’t remember. Is he a friend of yours?”

“A friend?” said Veronica. “Don’t be silly. He was here to give me a lesson. He’s one of the people getting me ready for the Macrae.”

“Oh, I see,” Stevie replied. “So you’re
paying
him a lot of
money
to come out here.”

“He wouldn’t have agreed to teach me if he didn’t think I had a lot of potential!” Veronica retorted.

“Really?” said Stevie. “Because now that I think of it, I did read an article about him in
Sporting Horseman.
He said it was really hard to make ends meet as a rider, even when you’re as successful as he is. He said he relies on teaching—anyone, anywhere—to pay the bills.”

Stifling giggles, Carole and Lisa waited for Veronica to explode. But she clamped her mouth shut, spun around, turned the hose back on, and began to whistle loudly. Stevie’s responses often produced that effect. Sometimes Stevie was so quick on the draw that she floored her opponents before they had a chance to open their mouths. And sometimes even Veronica knew to quit
when she was ahead—or at least before she was too far behind.

When The Saddle Club had reassembled in the grain room, Lisa let out the laughter she’d been holding in. “Did Tom Riley really say that in
Sporting Horseman
?”

“Nah,” Stevie admitted. “I don’t even know if he was in
Sporting Horseman.
”

Carole frowned. She personally read every equine periodical there was and subscribed to half a dozen. “I’ve never even
heard
of
Sporting Horseman
,” she said, puzzled.

“Me either,” Lisa said.

“You haven’t heard of
Sporting Horseman
?” Stevie said in a shocked tone, imitating Veronica.

“Uh-uh,” said Lisa and Carole.

Stevie grinned. “That’s because I made it up.”

Carole stared. Lisa shook her head in wonderment. Stevie’s talent for winning arguments was awesome.

“Hey, if there’s anything I’ve learned about lying, it’s if you’re going to lie, lie
big
,” Stevie pronounced.

S
TILL LAUGHING OVER
the encounter, the girls kept up the banter as they attacked the stalls that needed cleaning. Stevie dumped the wheelbarrow, and Carole and Lisa filled it. On one of her trips to the manure pile, Stevie was gone longer than usual. “Where were you?” Carole asked. “We’ve got three loads ready.”

“Just making sure credit is given where credit is due,” Stevie said cryptically.

“Huh?” said Lisa.

Leaning on a pitchfork, Stevie explained that when she had gone to dump the last load, she’d seen Max in the driveway, talking to Mrs. diAngelo. “Normally I wouldn’t pass that part of the driveway, but I took the long way around so Max would see me—”

“—and look at your dirty, sweaty face and compare it with Veronica’s cool, clean one,” Lisa guessed. “Good thinking.”

“Thanks,” said Stevie. “I also tried to eavesdrop.”

“Did you hear anything?” Carole inquired.

“Four words,” Stevie said glumly. “ ‘Van,’ ‘Macrae,’ and ‘pay you.’ ”

Lisa and Carole grimaced. “Somehow I have the feeling a lot of Mrs. diAngelo’s conversations end with the words ‘pay you,’ ” Carole said with a sigh. Most of the time she didn’t think about how overprivileged Veronica was. But the Macrae bee had gotten into her bonnet. She wanted to go more than anything. And there were times—like when Veronica rented out an entire horse van—that Carole wished, just for once, that she were the spoiled brat instead of the hardworking horsewoman.

Seeing the look on their friend’s face, Lisa and Stevie rushed to cheer her up. “Come on, Carole, two more stalls and we’re out of here!” Lisa urged.

“With major points from Max!” Stevie said.

Carole smiled. She took up her pitchfork. Thanks to her friends, her moment of envy passed just as quickly as it had come.

T
HAT EVENING
C
AROLE
sat up in bed, her eyes nearly closed. Her face felt tired from all the sun and fresh air. Her alarm clock was set for 6:45. But before she dropped off to sleep, she wanted to finish her letter to Red. She had started it that morning at breakfast, which now seemed like weeks ago. Carole laughed. So far the card read, “Dear Red”—that was as far as she had gotten. After thinking for a minute, Carole seized her pen and started scrawling.

Here Carole paused and chewed on the end of her pen. Then she scribbled out the last sentence. She didn’t dare compare Samson to Cobalt—not in writing anyway. She didn’t want to jinx the idea! She continued:

Carole had nearly come to the end of the page. She was much too tired to contemplate getting out of bed, going downstairs to her father’s study, and finding another piece of stationery. “I’d better wrap it up,” she decided, wishing she had Lisa’s talent for words.