Tight Rein (11 page)

She smiled. “It’s a little bit like being sisters, isn’t it?”

Carole stretched, yawned, and smiled. “Yes, and, girl, I’m telling you, I’ve got this sibling thing figured out!”

Lisa rolled onto her knees and pressed her face against the crack in the wall. “Chad’s gone,” she announced.

Carole knelt beside her. Across the aisle, Stevie was fastening Belle’s halter behind her ears. While they watched, Stevie carefully smoothed Belle’s mane and forelock away from the leather. Stevie snapped her lead rope onto the halter, opened Belle’s door, and started to lead her from the stall. Before they had gone two steps Stevie stopped and threw her arms around Belle’s neck. Stevie’s face shined with pure joy.

In the stall, Lisa reached for Carole’s hand and squeezed it. She knew Carole was right—her plan had reunited Stevie and Belle. Lisa finally felt the equal of the rest of again.

S
TEVIE GAVE
B
ELLE
another hug and a pat. After having been away so long, she didn’t think she could ever hug her horse enough. Then she took Belle out of her stall and fastened her to the cross-ties.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she called. “Carole, Lisa, I know you’re here somewhere. Guess what? I’m not grounded anymore!”

Giggling, Carole and Lisa rushed out of Barq’s stall and hugged Stevie. “Hooray!” Lisa said. “We’re so glad to see you!”

“And talk to you,” Carole added. “No more paper airplanes. But how did you know we were here?”

Stevie shrugged. “Where else would you be? Starlight was in his stall, so I knew you weren’t out on a trail ride. Plus, I thought I heard someone—two someones—whispering.”

“We weren’t exactly trying to eavesdrop,” Carole said. “I mean, we didn’t think you’d be having a really private conversation with Chad—”

“—but we couldn’t help overhearing—” Lisa said.

“—that I’m going to camp!” Stevie finished. After a round of celebratory high fives, she added, “And you two were great—fan
tas
tic!”

“We tried to take good care of Belle,” Carole assured her. “We groomed her every day and made sure she was turned out in the pasture. But the important thing is, she’s not sick at all.” Carole could feel her face flush. “Stevie, I am so, so sorry for what I told you yesterday,” she continued. “Belle wasn’t colicking at all. In fact, she ate fine the entire time you were gone. I know how worried you must have been. I really am sorry.”

She felt so bad, she could hardly look at Stevie. Even though she thought lying to Stevie had been justified in this case—especially now that Stevie really was going to camp—she had never told even the whitest of white lies
to Stevie before, for any reason. The night before, the image of Stevie’s horror-stricken face had haunted Carole’s dreams.

To Carole’s amazement, Stevie grinned. “I wasn’t worried at all,” she assured them. “Not the slightest bit.”

“But,” Carole protested, puzzled, “I
told
you Belle was colicking. Colic is really serious.” She felt immensely relieved that Stevie wasn’t angry at her, but at the same time she wondered whether Stevie had lost her mind. Stevie was always properly concerned about her horse—why wouldn’t she worry about something as scary as colic? “You looked really upset when I told you,” Carole said.

“Oh, believe me, I was,” Stevie replied airily. She twined her fingers through Belle’s mane as she spoke. “In fact, after you left I cried for half an hour. Nice and loud. It really got to Chad.”

Carole stared in amazement. Lisa began to laugh. “You mean you knew?” she asked. “You figured out what we were doing?”

“Of course,” Stevie said. “It was obvious.”

“I don’t think it was that obvious to Chad,” Lisa pointed out.

“No, of course not,” Stevie replied patiently. “Nothing’s obvious to a blockhead like him. But among higher life-forms such as ourselves—oh, come on, Lisa, of
course I thought it was obvious. It was exactly what I would have done.”

Lisa grinned. If she hadn’t managed to out-Stevie Stevie, at least she’d tied her.

“It wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t acted worried, too,” Stevie pointed out. “If only you and Carole had seemed upset, Chad would have smelled a rat for sure.”

A sudden thought made Lisa’s mouth fall open. From the look on Carole’s face, Lisa knew she was thinking the same thing. “Mrs. Reg!” she said.

Carole began to laugh. She laughed so hard she had to sit down. “Stevie, you would have loved it, it was unbelievable,” she said between giggles. She related what Mrs. Reg had told Chad. Lisa patted Belle sadly on the neck and mimicked Mrs. Reg. “ ‘Poor baby, she’s dying of a broken heart.’ ”

Stevie gave a shout, and for a moment the three of them were convulsed with laughter. “Mrs. Reg said that?” Stevie asked when she had partly recovered.

“As Carole is my witness,” Lisa said. “I thought the two of us would die right there.”

“You’ll never know how much you owe us, Stevie,” Carole said. “I had to struggle so hard not to laugh in front of Chad that I probably strained some very important muscles. I probably shortened my life by three years.”

Stevie stroked Belle’s nose thoughtfully. “But I wonder why she did it,” she said. “I mean, Mrs. Reg couldn’t have believed that Belle was really sick.”

“Not for a moment,” Lisa agreed. “She knows way too much about horses for that.”

“Good thing Chad doesn’t,” Stevie mused. “His ignorance comes in handy sometimes.”

“Plus, Mrs. Reg knew Belle had been tranquilized,” Carole said thoughtfully. “She was standing in the aisle looking at the lesson chart when Judy gave Belle the injection. I’m sure she saw the whole thing.”

A sudden thought occurred to Lisa. “She told that goat story,” she said, her eyes growing large with amazement. “Remember, Carole? The story that seemed completely pointless but gave me the idea for our plan? She started the whole thing!”

“She couldn’t have done it on purpose!” Carole protested. Mrs. Reg occasionally showed a sense of humor, but she never approved of The Saddle Club’s pranks—much less encouraged them.

“Let’s ask her,” Stevie said. They hurriedly finished grooming Belle and put her back into her stall. Then they went into Max’s office. Max and Deborah were there.

“Stevie!” Max said with an enormous, slightly mischievous
grin. “Glad to see you back! How are you feeling?”

“Fine, thanks,” Stevie said.

“And how is Belle?” Deborah asked, with a grin that mirrored her husband’s.

“She’s fine.” Stevie didn’t feel like going into details. She suspected from the way Max and Deborah were smiling that they knew all about poor, sick Belle and her miraculous recovery. “We’re looking for Mrs. Reg.”

“She’s in the tack room, I think,” Max said. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m all over my funny-bone-itis, if that’s what you mean. Thanks, Max.” Stevie shut the office door.

“Funny-bone-itis?” Carole asked as they walked toward the tack room.

“Inflammation of the funny bone,” Lisa answered.

Stevie nodded. “It causes excessive prank-playing. I took a rest cure.”

“Meaning she was grounded, so she got over it,” Lisa explained.

Stevie just grinned. Mrs. Reg was indeed in the tack room, and when she saw the three girls, her face lit up in a somewhat secretive smile.

“I’m so relieved that your horse is feeling better,
Stevie,” she said before they could ask her anything. “Tell me, has she developed a taste for coffee yet?”

Lisa and Carole snorted, but Stevie was confused. “No,” she said. “Why would she?”

“That’s good,” Mrs. Reg said. “I was worried that she might start liking it.”

Carole and Lisa exchanged glances and began to giggle. So Mrs. Reg knew about the coffee, too! “Mrs. Reg,” Carole said, “why did you—”

Mrs. Reg held up her hand to stop her. “You think you’ve got problems,” she said to Stevie in a serious voice. “I had four of them.”

The three girls looked at each other, then back at Mrs. Reg.
Four cups of coffee?
Carole thought.

“Four what?” asked Stevie.

Mrs. Reg frowned as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Brothers,” she said. She nodded to them and walked away.

“You know,” Stevie said as they watched her go, “the longer I know Mrs. Reg, the less I understand her.”

“I don’t think it matters if we understand her,” Lisa said. “Poor, sick Belle!”

S
TEVIE HAD ONE
of the best trail rides of her entire life. She had never truly appreciated her wonderful horse, she thought, until she’d been forced away from her. Riding
alongside Carole and Lisa in the warm summer sunshine, cantering through green woods, splashing through crystal streams—these were the best things in life. Stevie resolved to remember this the next time she felt like dismembering Chad.

After the ride she spent a long time grooming Belle and fussing over her. At last even Lisa and Carole were ready to leave. Stevie stayed another half hour, lovingly cleaning her tack. In the end she had to run home so that she wouldn’t be late for dinner. Stevie didn’t need any black marks on her newly cleaned slate.

“Belle’s fine,” she announced when they had finished saying grace and were passing the food around. “She seems entirely okay. I even rode her for a little while.”

“Oh, good,” Chad said with a sigh of relief. “I know she looked much better when I saw her.”

Stevie’s other brothers, Michael and Alex, told her how happy they were that Belle was okay. To Stevie’s surprise, her parents just smiled. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t act worried about Belle at all. Stevie knew they didn’t love Belle the way she did, but on the other hand, they paid the vet bills. “I don’t think we’ll need to call Judy again,” Stevie assured her father.

“That’s nice,” he said. “Please pass the sliced tomatoes, Stevie.”

G
eez
, Stevie thought as she passed the tomatoes,
a
person’s horse could die around here and everyone would just keep eating.
She looked sideways at Chad. He was a cretin, but at least he had feelings.

After supper Stevie loaded the dishwasher while Alex cleared the table. Upstairs she could hear the light
bop
-
pop
noises that meant Chad was dribbling his soccer ball around his room. When she was finished in the kitchen she went up to see him.

Outside his door she paused. Chad had long ago plastered the entire thing with his bumper sticker collection, but right in the center was a brand-new sign in his handwriting:
S. S. C. G. S. O
.! Stevie had no trouble interpreting most of it: “Something Saddle Club Girls Stay Out!” She pushed the door open without knocking. “Does the first
S
stand for
slimy
or
stupid
?” she asked.

Chad stopped dribbling. “
Scurrilous
,” he said proudly.

“Wow.” Stevie was impressed. “Well,” she said, “I just wanted to say, like, thanks again. Like, I’m glad you don’t seem too mad about being grounded.”

Chad went back to dribbling. “Whatever.”

“Okay.” Stevie went back downstairs.

She found her parents in the living room. Her mother was reading the newspaper, and her father was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Belle really is okay,” she told them again.

Her mother smiled. “We think Belle was probably okay all along,” she said.

Oh
, Stevie thought.
That explains why they didn’t act worried
—
they knew it was a ruse all along.
“Oh,” she said. “Then, urn, why—uh, never mind.” If she made her parents think about it too hard, maybe they’d change their minds and not let her go to camp after all.

Mr. Lake looked at her and winked. “What we don’t understand is why Chad chose to admit his part in everything,” he said. “However, we’re glad he did. We were pleased all along with the way you handled your punishment, Stevie.”

“We planned to let you go to camp all along, too,” Mrs. Lake added. Stevie’s mouth fell open. “If and only if,” her mother continued, “you took responsibility for your actions, accepted your punishments with grace, and quit playing pranks on your brothers.”

“Especially the prank part,” Mr. Lake said.

Stevie stood in front of them awkwardly. She didn’t know what to say. For a moment she felt disappointed. The Saddle Club’s whole scheme had been for nothing—except, of course, for getting even with Chad. That made her feel better.

“Now that I understand how lonely Belle is without me, I’ll be better behaved,” she promised her parents.

“How lonely Belle is, or how lonely you are without her?” Mrs. Lake asked.

Stevie grinned. “Both,” she said. She ran up the stairs to her bedroom. She had to call Lisa and Carole—camp was only three days away!