Stagecoach (5 page)

Carole snapped to attention, turning her mouth down as the pistachio-butterscotch combination hit her. “Ugh, I was so busy thinking about Lisa, I forgot to think about my taste buds.” She grabbed her milk shake to wash it down, but after a few sips she pushed the glass aside. “It’s no use. This hardly tastes any better. She could serve me strawberry shortcake, and I wouldn’t feel like eating it.”

Stevie spooned her sundae pensively. “You know what our problem is? We’re not treating this like a normal
problem. What do we always do to solve normal problems?”

“Make them Saddle Club projects,” Carole answered promptly.

“Exactly,” Stevie said.

“But this isn’t a Saddle Club project. The Saddle Club’s the
problem.
I mean, the problem is with The Saddle Club project. I mean—oh, you know what I mean,” Carole finished, exasperated.

“What you’re trying to say is that The Saddle Club’s problem is The Saddle Club problem, and therefore, there’s no reason why The Saddle Club can’t solve it—even if that means the two of us,” Stevie announced. She was actually beginning to sound cheerful about the situation. “Right?”

Carole looked unconvinced. “I guess so, but what are you suggesting?”

“It’s easy. Lisa is on the brink of making a huge mistake: abandoning the two most important things in her life—riding and us, her best friends. Unless someone helps her now, she could regret this for years. She needs help—and fast. We’ll provide it. We’ll be there for her at all times. Starting with Tuesday, no matter how tired we are, we’ll stay after class, practice with her, coach her, give her advice. It’s not as if we have to go running off after the lesson ends, so we’ll just make the decision to stay. We won’t do barn chores until after she leaves. If
my straight-A average suffers a little, I’ll just have to be satisfied with B-pluses.” Stevie grinned impishly. Although she was known for many things, perfect grades wasn’t one of them. In fact, she probably would have loved perfect B-pluses!

Carole found herself smiling, too, in spite of herself. Stevie’s enthusiasm was infectious. She made it sound so simple. There was no way Lisa would quit riding if they totally supported her for the next few weeks. “Okay, Stevie, I’m in,” she said.

With that the two girls clinked water glasses. They were about to embark on a new Saddle Club project—maybe the most serious one they’d ever attempted.

“H
AT, GLOVES, BOOTS
, saddle, bridle,” Lisa said aloud. She was giving herself and Prancer a quick once-over before joining the Tuesday-afternoon lesson, which had started five minutes ago.

The end of the previous week and the weekend had flown by, and lately she’d been so scattered that it honestly wouldn’t have surprised her to find out that she’d forgotten to put on a piece of tack. She’d already been chastised by Max for her late arrival. She didn’t want to upset him further by showing up unprepared. Besides, she had a feeling that she ought to stay on Max’s good side as much as possible or risk a lecture sometime soon. No doubt he had noticed her absence from the stable over the weekend and wasn’t particularly pleased.

“Red, do we look okay?” she asked.

Pine Hollow’s chief stable hand looked up from the grain he was mixing for the evening feeding. He surveyed the pair critically. “You look fine except for one thing.”

“What?” Lisa demanded anxiously.

“You look about as happy as a horse with a twitch on her nose.”

Lisa let out a deep sigh. Red was right. She had also been discovering lately how hard it was to enjoy things that you barely had time for. The truth was, she
wasn’t
really looking forward to the lesson, because she hadn’t ridden—and more important, hadn’t ridden Prancer—in three days. She was nervous about how the mare would perform in front of the others and whether she’d be able to control her.

She gave Red a grin. “Is that better?”

“A little. But it would be even better if you meant it.”

Lisa sighed again. “I know. You’re right,” she said.

“Now, you go in there and enjoy yourself. What’s a young girl like you got to worry about anyway, huh?”

“Nothing, Red—absolutely nothing,” Lisa said. She turned and hurried into the indoor ring, not wanting to talk anymore. She was also getting used to pretending everything was fine. If she let down her guard in front of Red, Max, her mother, Hollie, Mrs. Spitz—even Stevie and Carole—they would just tell her to quit either the
play or the rally. And she was
not
going to quit either one. No matter what. Setting her jaw determinedly, Lisa mounted and trotted over to join the others.

Max was setting up a grid of cavalletti at various heights with varying distances in between them. “We’re doing grids today, Lisa, as soon as everyone’s warmed up. Walk, trot, and canter on your own while I finish setting up,” he instructed.

Lisa was puzzled. She had assumed they would be riding only on the flat like before in order to prepare for the rally. “Shouldn’t we be doing dressage today?” she asked.

Max looked up from the jumps. “If you’d been here at the start of class, Lisa, you’d have heard me explain that we don’t want the horses to get bored or sour. To keep them fresh and interested in flat work, we’re going to continue to jump in lessons. And I’ve advised everyone to take trail rides as well as schooling on our off days. This particular cavalletti exercise can be very relaxing for both the horse and the rider. It should take the edge off some of these superfit horses—such as Prancer—and perk up the lazier ones so they’ll all work better later.”

Wordlessly, Lisa absorbed what Max was saying. She was left with one question, and she hardly dared ask it. She took a deep breath. “Uh—later?” she repeated in a barely audible voice.

“Right. We’re going to take a break at four-thirty, go
over some rules questions, and have a short, intensive flat session at five.”

Lisa was about to explain that she had to be at rehearsal at quarter after five when she suddenly lost her nerve. She glanced at Max. She had never been truly afraid to tell him something before, no matter how strict she knew he might be. But what could he say if she told him about rehearsal? It was practically the same as saying “Acting means more to me than riding.” In her mind Lisa knew the response: “No, it doesn’t. It’s just that I got a starring role my first time out, I seem to be good at it, and I like it.” But then she heard Max saying, “How can you be sure acting won’t always come first?”

“Because it won’t,” Lisa murmured to herself. “Just please let me do both. I know I can—really, I can.”

At the sound of Max clapping his hands, Lisa shook the confused thoughts from her mind. Prancer had already shied at imaginary ghosts twice, and Lisa had had to quiet her. The important thing now was warming up quickly and riding for as long and as well as she could.

T
O
L
ISA
’
S SURPRISE
Prancer behaved far better for the rest of the lesson. As soon as they began jumping through the grid, the mare seemed to settle down to business. Max’s comments of “Nice!” and “Good job!” made Lisa glow from head to foot.

Everyone looked happy and relaxed as they jumped
the cavalletti, first without stirrups, then without stirrups or reins—their arms crossed on their chests—and finally, without stirrups or reins and with their eyes closed. “Whoo-eee!” Stevie hollered after going through the last time. She grabbed the knotted reins from Topside’s neck and asked him to slow to a trot. “It felt like Topside was taking off for the sky,” she said.

“It is a great feeling, isn’t it?” Max asked, summoning them all to the center. “Why do you think so?”

Carole raised her hand. “You really feel together with your horse. You feel totally balanced, and so does he. And there’s a perfect rhythm because of the spacing between the cavalletti: five bounces in a row.”

Max nodded vigorously. “Exactly. You got what I was hinting at, and that’s rhythm. Rhythm is always important in riding. You’ve got to establish a good, working rhythm on the flat and learn to keep it over fences. The spacing of the jumps, as you said, Carole, forced them to jump in an even rhythm. That’s what I want you to keep in mind most today as you ride your tests. I want to be able to set a metronome to Topside’s trot, Stevie. And Lisa, I want Prancer’s canter to make me think of a Beethoven sonata. All right, everyone take ten minutes for a water break, and be back at five. Sharp.”

Lisa stared numbly at Max. She had gotten so caught up in riding Prancer that she had forgotten about rehearsal. The big clock on the wall read five minutes to
five. Lisa would just have time to untack, give Prancer a quick grooming, and fly. For a second she let herself think of lingering at Pine Hollow, eating ice cream at TD’s, and heading home for a relaxed family dinner. It seemed like forever since she’d been able just to hang out, but it had actually been less than a week.

Gritting her teeth, she swung off the big mare and gave her a pat. “Thank you for being so good even though I haven’t ridden you,” Lisa whispered in her ear.

“Keep up the good work, Lisa,” Max said as he dragged the cavalletti to the side of the ring. Lisa nodded silently. She still couldn’t say anything. She just couldn’t.

“C
OME ON, YOU
two—let’s talk, ‘Enter working trot sitting’ back in the indoor ring,” Carole called. She led Starlight toward the ring, beckoning for Lisa and Stevie to follow. The three of them had watered their horses and grabbed a quick drink for themselves before regrouping for the flat session. Or at least Carole and Stevie had. Unknown to them, however, Lisa had untacked Prancer and put her away for the evening.

“Ready?” Stevie asked.

Lisa bit her lip. “Stevie,” she began, “I know this is kind of a big request, but could you tell Max that I, uh, can’t make the five o’clock flat lesson?”

Stevie looked puzzled. “Sure, Lisa. But don’t you want to tell him yourself?”

Lisa shook her head. “I would, but I can’t. I’ve really got to run. Rehearsal starts at quarter after five, and I told my mom to get here five minutes ago. She’s going to drive me over. I don’t want to explain to Max about—you know.”

Stevie put a reassuring arm around Lisa’s shoulders. “I do know, and listen, don’t worry. I’ll tell Max that you’re going to ride later. Carole and I can meet you back here at seven. Prancer will have eaten by then, and she’ll be all ready for an evening schooling session with The Saddle Club.”

Lisa looked surprised. “Oh, I can’t come
back,
Stevie,” she said. “I’ve got a history essay due tomorrow, and I’m one assignment behind in math—which even if I do in the morning on the bus, I’ll only get halfway through—and I’ve got to memorize all my lines by evening rehearsal. It’s not as if I’m an apple seller with two words to say. Annie is a huge part—the biggest. There are pages and pages of cues and blocking to learn, too, in addition to the actual lines. Hollie’s been studying her part every night. But thanks for telling Max. ’Bye!”

As she spoke, Lisa had begun to edge away. When she called her good-bye, she was through the door and running up the driveway as fast as she could. Stevie stared after her. Cues? Blocking?
Hollie?
Was this the new Lisa
with new words and new friends? Stevie frowned. If so, she didn’t like the new Lisa. The old one would have faced Max and told him about her rehearsal. But then, Stevie thought, the old Lisa wouldn’t have had a rehearsal to tell him about. She sighed and went to get Topside.

Five minutes later, when she told Max the news, he raised his eyebrows but said nothing about Lisa and Prancer. Instead he told Stevie to pick up a trot and quit slouching. Stevie was relieved. She would much rather have Max correct her position than get angry at Lisa. On the other hand, she didn’t necessarily think that his silence was a good thing. It probably meant that he was brooding and that Lisa would hear about it later.

The rest of the lesson went well. Rather than go through all their dressage tests from start to finish, Max had them select the parts they thought were the most difficult. He worked with them all individually. Betsy was enjoying riding Barq but had trouble keeping her canter circles small enough. Carole couldn’t get Starlight to bend around the corners. Veronica and Polly wanted to work on their entrances and exits. Finally Stevie was the only one left.

“All right, Stevie, how about it?” Max asked.

Stevie had been thinking as hard as she could while Max coached the others, but she had come up empty. Topside just didn’t have one problem area. “I couldn’t
think of anything Topside was bad at,” she said, steeling herself for the worst. Max always said it was the rider’s fault if he or she didn’t know what to practice. It also sounded a lot like something Veronica would say. To her surprise Max simply asked her to show him what she’d been working on. Happily, she put Topside through his paces, throwing in a few circles, two halts, and even some leg yielding on the diagonal. Max nodded knowingly. “Just as I suspected,” he said. “You’re completely right.”

“I
am?
” Stevie asked incredulously.

“Yup. Topside has never looked better.”

Stevie sat up straighter in the saddle and smiled. “Why, thank you, I—” she began.

“But you, my dear, could use some work,” Max finished.

The class burst out laughing at the shocked expression on Stevie’s face. “Me?” she asked.

“You,” Max said succinctly. The class tittered. “Seriously, Stevie, do you understand what I mean?”

Stevie thought for a minute. “I think so. You’re saying that Topside is doing everything perfectly even though I’m not always
telling
him to do everything perfectly.”

“Precisely.” Max turned to the rest of the class. “That’s an important lesson to learn. You’re all going to have a perfectly schooled horse someday, just like Topside—a good mover, an old hand at dressage—and he’s
going to make you look great. But you have to live up to your horse. You can’t just, ahem,
slouch
along for the ride like a sack of potatoes. In many ways you’re lucky with a horse like Topside. You don’t have to worry so much about his behavior, so you can work doubly hard on your own skills. Got it, Stevie?”

“Got it,” Stevie said. Then she leaned over his neck and in a loud stage whisper, added, “Don’t worry, boy. As of right now, this sack of potatoes is turning back into a girl.”

Everyone laughed again until Max called an end to the lesson. On their way in Carole and Stevie were too caught up in discussing what the two of them
had
learned in the lesson to remember to worry about what Lisa hadn’t.