The Fox Hunt (9 page)

“Let’s go work on gait changes,” Carole said. Starlight seemed to think that was a good idea.

It was raining out, so Max had given permission for them to work in the indoor ring. Lisa was already there. She and Carole had come directly from school
as they usually did. Lisa was doing some work with Samson.

Samson was a young horse, born to a mare at the stable named Delilah. He was a coal black foal that the girls had helped deliver. They felt very close to him and were thrilled when Max had suggested that they could help with his training. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to have riders on him yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t time to get him used to tack. The girls had already gotten him accustomed to the feel of a bit in his mouth. Now Lisa was trying out a saddle, without stirrups.

Carole walked Starlight to the entrance of the ring and mounted him just before she entered.

“How does Samson like the saddle?” Carole called.

Both Lisa and Samson looked up at her. “He almost doesn’t seem to notice it,” Lisa said. “I think he just thinks it’s a heavier-than-normal blanket.”

“Very good,” Carole said. “That means that you’ve left the girth nice and loose.”

“Just like you suggested,” Lisa said. “When it comes to horses, you’re always right.”

“I wish that were so with people,” Carole said. “They are much more complicated.”

“That’s for sure,” Lisa agreed. She and Samson continued walking in large circles in the ring.

Carole walked Starlight around twice, allowing him
to warm up a bit. Then she put some pressure on his belly with her legs, and he began trotting. They would work on his schooling as soon as she was sure he was limber and ready. She had been riding for so long and had learned so much that it seemed she could feel every muscle in the horse when he moved. There was a very different feel to Starlight’s gaits when he was warmed up than when he was still tense and stiff from a day and a night spent in his stall. By the third time he’d circled the large indoor ring, she could feel him relaxing. Part of it was the fact that he was just getting used to having Carole in the saddle. Part of it was that his muscles were now ready to work. So Carole put them to work.

She brought him back to a walk and then spent fifteen minutes systematically changing gaits, from walk to trot to canter to trot and back to canter, then down to a walk. The signals for each gait were very different from one another. Starlight certainly knew them all, but as with any young horse, and Starlight was only four, he sometimes resisted changing gaits. A well-trained horse had to learn to respond instantly. Carole hoped very much that one day she would be able to ride Starlight in shows—maybe even at the level of national competition—and for that, she was going to need a very well-trained horse.

She was so focused on what she was doing that she
didn’t even see Stevie arrive. When she looked up, Stevie was leaning on the fence with her chin in her hands, watching everything her friends were doing.

“I love seeing you work with Starlight,” Stevie said.

“All it takes is patience,” Carole said.

“And skill,” Stevie said. “You’ve got a lot of that. Fortunately, Starlight also seems to have brains, so sometimes he remembers the things you teach him.”

“Repetition. That’s the secret to training a horse,” Carole said. “They learn something one day and then forget an awful lot of it by the next day. As long as you keep repeating the lesson again and again and again, eventually most of it stays in their memory banks.”

“I wish it were the same way with people,” Stevie said.

“That’s just what Carole and I were talking about earlier,” Lisa said, bringing Samson over. Actually, she followed the foal to where Stevie was. Samson was a very curious young horse, and he was eager to greet Stevie. Lisa knew she ought to be in charge when she had him on a lead line, but he seemed so glad to see her friend that she couldn’t say no. His eagerness might have had something to do with the sugar lump Stevie was offering him.

“You’ll spoil him,” Lisa cautioned.

“No way,” Stevie said. “Besides, if I do, Carole will just finish the training properly and get rid of all the spoiling
I
do.”

“Thanks,” Carole said. She rode over to where her friends were now standing and leaning forward, patting Starlight on the neck. He’d been working hard and deserved a break.

Stevie patted him, too, and then gave him a sugar lump as well. Then she patted Samson. The foal nuzzled her neck and tickled her. She loved it. She giggled. “What’s neat about Samson is that even when you’re working him and training him, he’s still sweet. I wish that were the case with brothers.”

Lisa and Carole looked at one another. This had a distinctly ominous sound.

“Did something happen?” Carole asked.

“No, but it’s going to. I mean something is definitely up,” Stevie said.

“What makes you think so?” Lisa asked.

“It’s Chad,” Stevie said. “He’s apparently got a new girlfriend.”

“What’s so strange about that?” Carole asked. “The average life span of a romance for Chad is about four days, right? So it seems like it’s time for a switch.”

Stevie smiled. It was true. Chad was notably fickle in his relationships. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “His lacrosse stick actually looks like a bowl of leftover alphabet soup! Anyway, what’s funny isn’t that he’s got a new girlfriend, but who it is. Stand back, girls. It’s Veronica diAngelo.”

“
Our
Veronica diAngelo?” Lisa asked.

“There’s another one?” Carole asked.

“You know what I mean,” said Lisa.

“Yeah, ours,” Stevie said. “I saw them together at school today. They were giggling. The only time Chad ever giggles is with his girlfriends.”

“Maybe it’s just because he’s been in love with every other girl at Fenton Hall and the only one left was Veronica,” Lisa suggested.

Carole and Stevie looked at her. That was a thought with some merit in it.

“And the good news is,” Lisa continued, “it will only go on for another four days.”

“Unless he marries her,” Carole chimed in, “in which case, the whole Lake family can retire on her money.”

“I’d rather work, thank you very much,” Stevie said.

“The thought of Veronica as a family member is enough to ruin anybody’s day,” Lisa said. “So I’m glad you came to us with your troubles. We know just how to help you get your mind off of them.”

“What’s that?” Stevie asked.

“Mucking out stalls,” Carole said. “Mrs. Reg was here earlier and said that three of them needed cleaning.”

“Where’s the nearest pitchfork?” Stevie asked.

Mucking out stalls was not anybody’s favorite job. If Stevie was eager to do it, her friends realized that she must really be worrying about her brothers. They were
glad she had come to them. They would put her to work and get her mind off her troubles.

“Follow me,” Lisa said.

“I don’t need to. I can follow my nose,” Stevie teased.

S
TEVIE BOUNCED OUT
of bed before her alarm had finished sounding its first “ding.” It was pitch-black outside, but that didn’t matter. It would be light by seven o’clock, when the hunt would begin. Until then, there were a zillion things she had to do—if only she could remember any one of them. She rubbed her eyes and headed for the bathroom, pretty sure she would know what it was she was supposed to do by the time she finished brushing her teeth. It was hard to remember to be logical when every bit of her concentration was shattered by her excitement about the fox hunt that would start in—she squinted and tried to focus on the clock—two hours.

*   *   *

I
T WASN
’
T HARD
for Lisa to concentrate. Concentration was her specialty. However, she was already so organized that there wasn’t much for her to concentrate on. On Friday night, she’d laid out everything she would need to put on in the morning, in the order that she’d put them on. Underwear, socks, jodhpurs, shirt, boots, jacket. Everything was there. She was out of bed, washed, and dressed in fifteen minutes. She loved her special hunting clothes—the snowy-white shirt with its white stock tie and the pin to hold the tie in place. The trim tweed jacket made her look so wonderfully formal. She smiled at herself in the mirror. Then all she had to do was to sit and wait for the clock to say six o’clock so she could leave for Pine Hollow. That was a mere forty-five minutes.

C
AROLE WENT THROUGH
her checklist a final time. She had to be sure to bring all of Starlight’s tack in the van with her horse. She’d need his saddle and bridle, of course, and the saddle pad. Then she’d also need her own grooming bucket. It was a good thing she’d remembered to pack her extra saddle soap. Her saddle was actually pretty clean, but there was no telling if somebody else might need it. It was best to be prepared. She didn’t want to disappoint her horse. Also, she had a new curry comb, and she wanted to take that. She dropped it into the bucket.

Then she thought about sugar lumps and carrots.

She didn’t like to give Starlight too many treats, but there was going to be some rough riding today, and Starlight would deserve a special snack. He also might like an apple. She burrowed into the vegetable drawer and emerged with a bruised apple that her horse would love.

She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, trying to think if she’d forgotten anything. Yes. She had left her riding hat up in her room, and she had to make sure her father was ready to drive her to Pine Hollow. She dashed up the stairs, calling out to her dad as she ran into her room.

“I’ll be right there,” Colonel Hanson assured her. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

Carole snapped her hat on her head. It was the easiest way to carry it. Then she dashed down the stairs again, picked up her grooming bucket, went through the kitchen door into the garage, and climbed into the front seat of the car. She fastened her seat belt and waited patiently for her father.

In just a minute, the driver-side door opened and Colonel Hanson got in. He looked over at his daughter. A smile crossed his face.

“Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked gently.

Carole didn’t think so. She thought she’d remembered everything Starlight could possibly need. Then she looked down. The first hint that something was wrong was when she saw she was still wearing her fuzzy
pink slippers. Another look confirmed her worst suspicions. She was also still wearing her pink-flowered pajamas.

“Uh, I’ll be just a minute,” she said.

Twenty-five minutes later, Carole’s father dropped her off at Willow Creek. She was fully dressed and ready to ride. She also had her father’s sworn promise that he would never tell anybody what she’d done that morning. Carole knew her father wouldn’t tell, but she also knew that even if he did, nobody would be surprised. It was just like Carole to remember everything in the world for her horse and nothing for herself. Carole didn’t mind that about herself. Nobody else seemed to, either.

“Hi!” she said, greeting Stevie and Lisa, who had both arrived sooner. “You look wonderful in your hunt clothes!”

“You, too,” Lisa said. Carole smiled to herself, wondering briefly what Lisa would have said if she’d actually arrived in her pajamas, fuzzy slippers, and riding hat.

“Did you see what I saw?” Stevie asked, changing the subject.

Lisa shrugged. “What was it?”

“Veronica diAngelo.”

“No way,” Carole said. “Even Veronica wouldn’t have the poor judgment to try to get in on the
hunt at the last minute—not after she was so officially disinvited a week ago. You think you saw her
here
?”

Stevie shook her head in confusion. “It’s early and I could be all wrong, but I don’t know another chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz in this part of the state, and I know I saw one. It was pulling onto the road a couple of miles from here, out of a big empty parking lot. It was heading back toward Willow Creek when I saw it.”

“So, who cares?” Lisa asked. “Even if it was Veronica, the good news is that she was going away from here. She won’t be here to ruin the hunt for us today, will she?”

“Sometimes people who don’t get enough sleep do and see some very strange things,” Carole said with authority. “I’m sure it was all in your imagination.”

“I hope so,” Stevie said. “Because I can’t think of a good reason why Veronica would be anywhere near here, but I can think of a lot of bad ones.”

“Oh, come on, stop being so paranoid,” Lisa said.

“Paranoid? Who’s paranoid?” Phil asked, joining the girls. “My friend Stevie?” He was teasing and Stevie knew it. She smiled when she saw him. “Maybe it’s just because she’s afraid that the real fox is going to give us a better hunt than she did.”

“No way!” Stevie said. Her friends were pretty sure she was right about that.

A big truck pulled into the driveway then, and there was a terrible din from the back of it.

“Methinks the hounds have arrived!” Phil announced, and the girls and Phil walked over to where the truck had stopped.

Hounds, Stevie thought. There really were hounds, and there really was a fox somewhere out there. Suddenly the whole idea of a fox hunt was very real. It wasn’t just something to look forward to. It was something she was doing! She felt a chill and got goose bumps. She, Stevie Lake, was about to go on a real fox hunt.