The Fox Hunt (12 page)

It wasn’t. There was more movement and then the unmistakable look of a long furry tail.

She was so excited she could barely talk. “It’s a … a … Did you see …? Over there …” She pointed.

“Strange to see Stevie speechless,” Phil remarked. “Usually we can’t stop her from talking.”

“Even when she shouldn’t!”

“Look.… It’s a …”

“There she goes again,” Lisa joked.

Stevie’s talking wasn’t doing her any good, but her frantic pointing finally got somebody’s attention.

“The fox! Stevie spotted the fox!” May shouted, waving wildly at Mr. Baker and Chester, who were closest to the animal.

“Master! Huntsman! Whippers-in!” Mr. Baker called. “We have to get the hounds on the line again!”

It took some organizing, but in a very short time, the whippers-in and the huntsman managed to head the hounds in the direction where Stevie and May had seen the fox. As soon as the hounds were turned around, one of them picked up the scent and began giving tongue. That was what hunters called the excited howl of a hound who knew he was hot on the trail of a fox. What one hound began, twenty-four others quickly picked up. The din was incredible; the excitement was so strong, it could be felt in the air.

Stevie thought it was only a matter of seconds before all the hounds and the riders were chasing across the field, pursuing the fox.

If what had happened before was fun—and it was—this was an incredible experience. Stevie could feel her own heart pounding with the excitement—or was it
the beat of Topside’s hooves thundering across the field after the fox? It didn’t matter. The fact was, the whole experience was nothing short of thrilling.

The hounds led the riders across the field, into the woods, and through a glen, over fallen trees, around rocks, across creeks, and under branches. With each step, the hounds howled more loudly, each pushing to get to the front of the pack and be the first, panting and barking, eager to find their prey.

In turn the horses that followed the hounds seemed to feel the same way. The riders did whatever they had to in order to stay on and have the ride of their lives.

Starlight glided along the hillside, moving smoothly and speedily. Carole ducked beneath some branches and swept others aside. When Starlight prepared to jump, she followed along, for once letting her horse do the thinking. Everything was happening too fast for her to have time for thought. Her mind was processing all the experiences it could handle without taking charge. She found herself breathing hard, not because she was tired or worn out, but because she was simply excited. It was wonderful, beyond comparison to anything she’d ever done on horseback before.

And then it stopped, as quickly as it had started. The hounds were suddenly silent. They sniffed eagerly, but went nowhere, merely circling in a large open area surrounded by thick brush. The riders all drew to a halt, watching the hounds work, not wanting to interrupt
them. They seemed to know how to do their job very well, as long as they weren’t chasing a phony trail or an elephant.

“He’s gone to ground,” Lisa said.

A few riders nodded. They’d learned their fox hunting terminology. That meant that the fox had found a place to hide underground. When foxes did that, they were usually safe and the hunt was over.

“We’ll wait awhile,” Chester said. “Sometimes foxes make mistakes.”

They waited. After twenty minutes, it was clear that the fox had simply outfoxed them all.

“Maybe the fox has gone back to Cross County for the hunt breakfast,” Lisa suggested. “Certain other foxes have been known to do that kind of thing before.”

Chester looked confused. Everybody else laughed. Max explained the joke to Chester. He smiled, too. Then Mr. Baker looked at his watch. It was almost noon, and it was going to take the riders another half an hour to get back to Cross County. It seemed like a good idea to call it a day and return to the stable. Although a few of the riders thought they would be more than willing to hunt the fox for the rest of their lives, the horses and the hounds seemed to be ready for a rest.

Max pulled out his horn and blew another call. The hunt was over. It was time to go home.

“S
O
, S
TEVIE AND
Phil, tell me,” Chad said very casually. “How was the fox hunt today? Anything interesting happen?”

What a question, Stevie thought. As if Chad didn’t know the answer to it. Fortunately, however, she and Phil had discussed the issue on the way back to her house from Pine Hollow just an hour or so earlier. It was sure to come up, especially since Phil was having dinner with the Lakes again. Stevie did not want a repeat of the dinner two weeks earlier. Nor did she want to give her brothers one ounce of satisfaction.

“Oh, it was great,” Phil said. “We went all over the woods by Cross County. Stevie even spotted the fox once.”

“A real fox?” Alex asked. “Are you sure?”

“I definitely saw his tail,” Stevie said. “And the hounds followed him all over the place. It was something.”

“It was great,” Phil added. “You can’t imagine the adventure fox hunting is.”

“Hmmm,” Alex said.

“I don’t get it,” Michael said.

“I’ve never had a ride like that,” Stevie said.

Chad glanced at his brothers, and an odd look crossed his face. Stevie stifled her smirk and was glad to see that Phil was doing the same. It was definitely working. They were driving her brothers crazy.

“Well, did you catch the fox?” Chad asked.

“No, of course not,” Stevie said. “We never wanted to do that in the first place. I told you that. It’s not about catching foxes. It’s really just a fun kind of riding.”

“The
most
fun,” Phil added.

“But didn’t anything unusual happen?” Alex asked.

“Ahem,” Mrs. Lake said. She didn’t know what was going on, but she clearly knew that something was going on, and she thought it was about time for her sons to stop pestering their sister and her friend.

“Yeah, like, did you spend a lot of time on the road?” Michael asked.

“Road? What road?” Stevie said.

Mr. Lake smelled a rat. “Boys, what’s going on here?” he asked.

“Nothing,” all three answered as a chorus.

Stevie smiled sweetly, innocently, pleased to find that she had convinced her brothers that that was exactly what had gone on.

After dinner Stevie said she thought it would be a good idea if she and Phil did the dishes. Mrs. Lake was more than a little surprised since Stevie was quite famous for doing everything in the world to get out of cleaning up after dinner.

“That’s not necessary,” she said. “You and Phil have had a long day. Why don’t you just relax while your brothers do the dishes?”

That was precisely what Stevie had in mind. “Reverse psychology,” she explained to Phil as the two of them escaped to the den in the basement. “We just had to get somewhere where we could laugh without their hearing us. You were perfect. Thank you.”

The two of them sat on the comfortable old sofa in the den. Phil took Stevie’s hand. “They’re going to find out eventually,” he said.

“Of course they are,” she said. “Some of the other riders will certainly let them know, but for now the joke’s on them, and that’s all I really wanted.”

“And your parents are going to find out, too. That means they’ll find out everything, won’t they?”

Stevie nodded. “They’re going to be pretty angry about it, I know. We’ll probably all get grounded, and if I know Dad, he’s going to make good on his promise
not to take us to the circus this year. I’ll be sorry about that, but other than that, the whole thing has turned out wonderfully. The circus will be back in town next year. I can wait until then.”

There was a sparkle in Phil’s eyes that Stevie had come to know meant something good was on his mind.

“What is it?” she asked. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Like what?”

“It’s your dimple smile that makes you look like the cat that ate the canary.”

“Not a canary, exactly,” he said. His dimples deepened. He reached into his pocket. “More like an elephant,” he said.

Stevie loved secrets when
she
was the one keeping them. She hated them when she had trouble prying them out of other people. She really wanted to know what Phil was up to.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I just wanted to see if I had anything interesting in my pocket here.” He pulled something out. “Oh, what’s this?” he asked, trying to sound surprised. “Oh, my, my.”

“Tickets?” Stevie said. Her mind raced. It could only be one thing. “To the circus?”

Phil nodded.

“How did you manage that?” she asked.

He shrugged modestly. “Jumbo’s trainer seemed to
think that being on a fox hunt was the most fun thing he’d done all day. He was looking for a way to thank you for letting him join in. I just made a suggestion, that’s all. Are you free next Friday night?”

“You bet I am!” she said, grinning from ear to ear. And then she thanked him with a kiss.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Stevie, Carole, and Lisa met at Pine Hollow for a Saddle Club meeting. It was bright, sunny, and cool in the paddocks. Lisa suggested that the meeting would be nice if they had it outdoors. Carole said that was true, and that it would be even better if they had it on horseback. Carole agreed with both of them, but suggested it would be best of all if they pretended they were still on the fox hunt.

One of the great things about sharing a love of horses with friends was that they just about never had any disagreement over what would be fun.

They got Max’s permission to take a trail ride and tacked up their horses.

Lisa blew an imaginary horn to start the hunt. Carole saw to it that the hounds had a good head, meaning
that they were fanned out appropriately to be able to pick up the line. Stevie stood up in her stirrups and shaded her eyes from the bright sun, looking for the fox.

The girls were enjoying themselves immensely. Pretend was
almost
as good as the real thing.

“I know I’ll spot him in a minute,” Stevie promised her friends. “These things just have a way of working out for me.”

“Uh, we wanted to talk to you about that,” Lisa said. She and Carole had spent half an hour on the phone the night before discussing Stevie’s antics and the trouble they had caused. Both of them had agreed that they had to say something to Stevie about it. “Even though we all had a good time yesterday,” Lisa continued, “and the hunt turned out all right, it was almost a disaster.”

“How’s that?” Stevie asked. She clicked her tongue and flicked her reins a little. Topside began walking easily toward the woods. Carole and Lisa signaled their horses to walk as well. It seemed more like a good time for a real walk than a pretend fox hunt.

“We were worried,” Carole explained. “When you got into that silly feud with your brothers—”

“Was it silly? They were really horrible to me,” Stevie said.

“Sure they were,” Lisa agreed. “And then you were even more horrible to them, and then they were even
more
horrible to you, and then Veronica got into it, and she was trying to be the most horrible of all. Where does this all lead to?”

“It’s all your practical joking,” Carole added. “We just think it gets out of hand. You should consider giving up practical jokes and just live a normal life.”

“Normal?” Stevie said, sounding as if she’d never heard the word. Then she shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean, look at what I’ve done for you. First of all, if I weren’t the clever, devious kind of person I am, I never would have been a fox, much less a good fox, at the mock hunt, and if I hadn’t been the fox, Veronica never would have been so excited about catching up with me that she would have crossed Mr. Andrews’s land. So, point number one is that because of
me
, Veronica was thrown out of the hunts.”

That was true. Lisa thought the argument was more than a little convoluted, but it was true. She conceded that Stevie had a point.

“And if that hadn’t happened, Veronica never would have run into Chad, and the two of them never would have plotted with Alex and Michael to try to ruin the junior hunt.”