Show Judge (8 page)

W
EDNESDAY AFTERNOON
, S
TEVIE
found herself in the unusual circumstance of walking home from the bus stop with her brothers. Since the big blowup on Sunday, the four of them had managed to reach a truce, and now they were all racking their brains over the elusive anniversary present idea.

For her part Stevie was glad she had a problem to focus on: It took her mind off the previous day’s riding class. Tuesday sessions were for the more advanced riders, so the under-twelve Pony Partners had been absent, but they hadn’t been the only thing missing that day. Gone also was The Saddle Club camaraderie. It seemed to her that she, Lisa, and Carole had all gone out of their way to avoid being together. Every time
she
had
made an effort to chat with them, they had both made it clear they weren’t interested. Carole had been completely distracted, and Lisa was cool and distant, barely making eye contact. That had hurt. Now she forced herself to focus on the problem at hand. “Alex, remember in the pizza parlor you mentioned a
This Is Your Life
kind of party?”

“Yeah, you shot it down,” he replied. “And you were right. We wouldn’t have had time to get it together.”

“Maybe I was only half right,” Stevie said thoughtfully.

“You’ve got something in mind?” Chad asked.

Stevie stopped walking. “Why are we making this so complicated? Let’s throw them a great surprise party with all their best friends from here in town.”

Her brothers looked at her. Stevie was afraid they were all about to start making fun of her, but instead, they actually began smiling.

“You know, you’re absolutely right,” Chad said. “Maybe we’ve been blowing this ‘present’ thing all out of proportion.”

“Yeah,” agreed Alex. “Maybe the best gift of all would be to have people they like, and who like them, come over and talk. Adults like to talk.”

“And eat,” added Michael.

“You know, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to
have to do it right.” Stevie looked at each of her brothers. “Are we going to do this?”

Everyone smiled. They were all in agreement!

“Okay, we’ve only got ten days; we need to get organized!” Stevie said, beginning to walk again. “First of all we’ll need a place to hold it. I can think of a couple of places right off the bat, so maybe I should be in charge of that.”

“Great, you got it,” said Chad. “By the way, I think Michael had a good point. We’re definitely going to need some eats.”

“Not just chips and dips, though. We should get fancier stuff,” Michael added.

“Hey! I know this guy in school whose brother is dating this really cool girl,” Chad said thoughtfully.

“Alert the media,” Alex teased.

Chad shot him a look. “It so happens her father works for a catering business. Maybe she could help us get a deal.”

“Excellent, Chad,” said Stevie. “You’re in charge of the food. What else will we need?”

“How about some music?” Chad asked. “We should get a live band. It’s much classier than CDs.”

“I know a guy who’s in a band,” Alex said. “I could check and see if they can play that night. I bet they wouldn’t charge us much.”

“What about me?” asked Michael. “What can I do?”

Stevie considered for a moment. “How about the decorations? I think you’d be really good at that.”

Michael beamed at the suggestion. “Oh yeah! I want to do the decorating. I can already think of lots of things to do.”

“All right then, we’ve finally got a plan!” enthused Stevie. “Now, we’ve got a lot to do.” Suddenly she felt a little pang of sadness. Normally she would have relied heavily on Lisa to help get things organized, and Carole was always wonderful at taking care of the little details. It looked like this time she was going to have to rely on herself and her brothers.

As soon as they got home, Michael headed straight to his room to make a list of things he’d need for decorating, Alex ran off to ask his friend about the band, Chad grabbed the kids’ phone to call about catering, and Stevie got on her parents’ line to the country club.

Unfortunately it only took a few minutes for her to find out that they would only rent rooms to current members. Disappointed but not discouraged, she moved on to plan B, and she quickly dialed the number of her dad’s service club. He was a member in good standing, so they couldn’t possibly turn her down. It turned out they were willing to rent her a room, but
she hadn’t called far enough in advance and they were all booked up. Out of curiosity Stevie asked how much it would have cost, then nearly fell out of her chair at the answer. She hung up the phone with a panicky feeling in her chest. Renting a hall for the party was going to cost more than a digital camera!

Stevie went to find Chad, hoping he might be able to think of an alternative. She found him in the living room with a shocked look on his face.

“Do you have any idea how much it costs to feed fifty people?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“More than a digital camera?” Stevie guessed.

Chad nodded. “No wonder Mom and Dad keep complaining about the grocery bill.”

Alex swung through the front door, a grin on his face. “I got the band, and they only want twenty-five dollars!” he said excitedly.

That sounded too good to be true. “What’s the catch?” Stevie asked suspiciously.

“Turns out they only know three songs,” he said sheepishly. “But it’s no big deal.”

Chad looked skeptical. “How do you figure that?”

Alex flopped on the couch. “Mom and Dad are always complaining that our music all sounds the same, right? So they’ll never notice it’s the same three songs over and over!”

Stevie sank into a chair. Their ship of dreams had definitely sprung some leaks.

C
AROLE WANDERED RESTLESSLY
around the nearly deserted stable. She had come by to set her trap again, but to her disappointment none of the Pony Partner teams were around, so hiding behind the changing curtain would be a waste of time. Time she didn’t really have to waste. She knew she should have been working on organizing her judging papers, but she was finding herself more and more reluctant to do so. It wasn’t this unsolved mystery that was distracting her, either. She was lonely. She tossed her judging folder none too gently onto a bench, sending some of the loose papers fluttering to the floor. She glared at it resentfully.

At first she had been delighted to have been chosen for this job, but now all she wanted was to get back to normal. The responsibility was weighing heavily on her, especially since she had to carry it alone. Any other time Lisa and Stevie would have been right by her side, cheering her on and helping her nab the culprit. No doubt Stevie would have come up with a much better plan than hiding behind a dumb curtain, and Lisa would have put her razor-sharp mind to the problem and figured out who had done it by a logical
process of elimination. It didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t ask them for help, that she had to keep her distance from them until this whole business was over.

“I thought I heard someone in here.” Mrs. Reg, Max’s mother and Pine Hollow’s stable manager, stood larger than life in the doorway. “Working on the show, I see.” She eyed the mess on the bench and floor.

Embarrassed to have been caught in what was basically a tantrum, Carole hurried to collect the papers. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Reg. Yes, I was sorting through some things.”

“That’s quite a load of papers you have there. It’s a big responsibility Max has handed you. You must be very proud.”

“I guess,” Carole said, trying to drum up some enthusiasm.

“I remember a long time ago Max’s father had a pony named Cobweb,” Mrs. Reg said, leaning against the doorjamb. “We named him that because he was a beautiful silvery gray color, and his mane and tail were so soft. More like human hair than pony hair. Know what I mean?”

“Yes, of course,” Carole acknowledged. She knew what was coming: Mrs. Reg was going off on one of her stories. She did that from time to time. You could
rarely tell what had set her off or what any of it had to do with you, but once she had begun the best thing was to let her carry on until she was finished.

“He was a lovely pony, that one. He took to his saddle training like a duck to water, and gentle … Well, he was a big favorite with the young riders, as you can imagine. The parents loved him, too, because they knew they could always rely on him to take care of their kids. Sometimes it seemed like that pony was doing more of the teaching than my Max was.” She chuckled.

Carole smiled politely, wondering where this story was going.

“One day Max got it into his head that he wanted to use Cobweb for driving. I guess he thought he would make a very pretty sight pulling a little cart.” Mrs. Reg’s eyes had a faraway look. “Cobweb, on the other hand, had other thoughts on the matter. He made it very clear that he wanted nothing to do with the whole thing. In fact, when he saw anyone coming at him with that tack, he’d snort and paw and lay his ears back so hard it looked like he didn’t have any.”

Carole laughed at the idea of such a beautiful, gentle pony trying to act so fierce. Kind of like an angry kitten.

“When it came to his training, Cobweb was slow to
learn, but Max knew it wasn’t because he was stupid, it was that he simply didn’t enjoy that part of being a pony. Of course, if you had known my husband at all, you’d know that if he thought something was for the best, he couldn’t be deterred.”

Mrs. Reg seemed to have come to the end of the story as abruptly as she had started it. While this didn’t surprise Carole, she couldn’t resist asking one question. “So did Cobweb become a great driving pony in spite of how he felt at the beginning?”

“Oh no, dear. He was pretty good at it, but you could tell he never really enjoyed it. Still, he learned what he needed to know.” She looked at her watch. “Oh my, I really must go.”

Mrs. Reg was on her way back to her office before Carole could even say good-bye. As usual she had no idea what to make of the story or why Mrs. Reg had told it to her.

Since it was fairly obvious she wasn’t going to accomplish anything by hanging around the stable, Carole headed out for the bus stop. Maybe tomorrow something would shake loose.

F
RIDAY AFTER SCHOOL
, Lisa was hard at work with Jasmine. She took out a pencil and book and presented them to the girl.

Jasmine examined the book curiously. It was dark blue with a white unicorn on the front, and inside were lined white pages, waiting to be filled. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed, running her hand over the cover. “But what’s it for?”

Lisa sat on a bale of hay and patted the space next to her. “One of your jobs as Outlaw’s rider is to keep track of his records. Visits to the vet, when he had his shoes fixed last, how much he eats, that kind of thing,” she explained. “You could jot it down on any old piece
of paper, but I thought you might like something a little more special.”

Jasmine’s eyes were shining. “Oh, thank you! I’ll take real good care of it.”

“I know you will,” Lisa said, smiling at the girl’s enthusiasm. “Now,” she said, reaching into her shirt pocket and extracting a folded piece of paper, which she handed to Jasmine, “even though the show skills rally will take place here at Pine Hollow, we want to treat it like the under-twelve show. I want you to make a checklist. On one side write down all the things you think Outlaw may need to have with him for the show, and on the other side write down everything you’re going to need yourself that day.”

Jasmine promptly began to scribble. “This is going to be easy.”

Lisa said nothing. She knew it sounded simple enough, but in the excitement of competition, young riders frequently forgot important items. By having Jasmine make this list early, Lisa intended to make sure that no essential piece of equipment would be overlooked on show day.

“Hi, Jasmine. Hi, Lisa,” called Corey, skipping across the stable yard toward them.

Lisa was surprised to see her. She hadn’t anticipated
that Corey and Stevie might want to put in some work that day as well.

Jasmine looked up from her paper. “Hi, Corey. You still want to meet for a soda after class?”

“Of course, and let’s ask May, too.” Corey turned to Lisa. “Do you know where Stevie is?”

“Have you tried inside?” Lisa asked.

“Not yet. I thought you might have come together, you being best friends and all.”

Her words made Lisa cringe. Not only had she not seen Stevie or Carole since Tuesday’s lesson, she hadn’t even spoken to them on the phone. For the members of The Saddle Club, that was unprecedented. She made up her mind to do something about it. “Come on, Corey, I’ll walk in with you,” she offered, jumping up from the hay bale. “Jasmine, keep working, I’ll check your list when I get back.”

Stevie, who was waiting for Corey by Samurai’s stall, looked surprised to see Lisa.

“Hi, Stevie, how’s it going?” Lisa asked, trying to sound casual and not wanting to make a big deal about their recent lack of communication.

“Uh, hi. Things are great,” Stevie answered. “You working with Jasmine today?”

“Yeah. You working with Corey?”

“Yeah.”