Tight Rein (4 page)

“I know,” Lisa said. “It kind of amazes me how this all happened. Not Stevie’s being grounded—I understand how that happened. I mean how it all got started—how she fights with her brothers all the time. Especially Chad. Do you understand it?”

“Do I understand sibling rivalry, you mean?” Carole
asked with a laugh. “Think about it, Lisa. I’m the only one of us who doesn’t have any siblings. How could I?” She smoothed Starlight’s mane.

“I’ve got a sibling, but I don’t think we have a typical sibling relationship,” Lisa replied. “Most of the kids at school seem to fight with their brothers and sisters a lot. I never fought with mine when he still lived at home.”

Carole nodded. Suddenly she remembered how she had felt when her father’s girlfriend’s daughter, Marie, had stayed with them. Carole’s father had paid a lot of attention to Marie, and at first it had made Carole jealous. “Jealousy,” Carole said. “That’s part of it.”

“You think Stevie and Chad are jealous of each other?” Lisa asked. “I don’t know. I think they just like playing tricks on each other.”

Carole had to admit that Stevie never really seemed to want what Chad had, or vice versa. “Well, okay,” she said, “but even if I don’t understand sibling rivalry entirely, I think I’m starting to get the idea.” She grinned. “In fact, I’m starting to feel just like Stevie feels. Now
I
want to get even with Chad. It’s his fault Stevie’s missing camp!” She shook her head. “Let’s canter!”

Lisa gladly agreed. They let their horses canter along the edge of a meadow grown tall with flowering grasses. A bird flew out of the grass, startling Starlight. Carole
steadied him with a quiet murmur and a soft hand. Starlight quickly regained his composure. Lisa felt another pang of envy at this latest example of Carole’s beautiful riding.

The girls brought their horses back to a trot as they entered the woods.

“We have to find a way for Stevie to go to camp,” Lisa said.

“I agree,” Carole said. “We’ve got to spring her somehow. I just don’t know how.”

They discussed the problem for several minutes. “What if we apologize?” Lisa suggested at last. “What if we tell Mr. and Mrs. Lake that everything was our idea, and our fault and only our fault? If they think Stevie didn’t have anything to do with it, maybe they’ll unground her.”

“Maybe,” Carole said after a moment’s thought. “I doubt it, but after all, Stevie’s parents can’t ground us.”

“Right,” said Lisa. “There’s no risk. We just have to grovel.”

“For Stevie’s sake, I can grovel a lot,” Carole said firmly. “The only problem is that apologizing doesn’t help us get even with Chad. But we can deal with him later.”

T
HEY RETURNED TO
Pine Hollow, took care of their horses, and walked over to the Lakes’ house.

“Okay,” Lisa said as she rang the doorbell, “get ready to grovel.”

Carole laughed nervously. “You’re the actress.” Lisa had once played the lead role in
Annie
with the Willow Creek Community Theater.

“Carole,” Lisa said gently, “this isn’t hard. Remember, they can’t ground us.” Lisa had always thought Stevie’s parents were nice, especially considering all they had to put up with from Stevie and her brothers.

“You’re just better at this stuff than I am,” Carole said. Before Lisa could reply, the door opened. Chad was standing there. He was wearing his soccer uniform and no shoes.

“Sorry,” he said, closing the door partway, “Stevie’s in solitary. No visitors. No phone calls. Bread and water twice a day.” He grinned wickedly.

Carole put her foot in the door. “You creep! I suppose you think it’s funny that—”

“Chad,” Lisa cut in softly, “Carole and I want to talk to your parents, not Stevie. Are they home?”

“Sure.” Chad shrugged. He let them inside and pointed down the hall to the back door—the one with the ripped screen. Carole winced. It hadn’t been repaired
yet. “They’re by the pool. Help yourself.” He walked into the living room, turned the television up a little louder, and began dribbling a soccer ball around the room.

“Creep,” Carole repeated under her breath. “I’m glad I don’t have a brother!”

Lisa grinned. It wasn’t like Carole to be this upset. But Lisa knew how devastated Carole would be if she had to miss camp. Carole was just feeling devastated on Stevie’s behalf.

Lisa was upset, too, but suddenly she felt confident. The Saddle Club had never failed. They wouldn’t fail now. They wouldn’t let Stevie miss camp.

“W
ELL
,” L
ISA SAID
as she and Carole walked out the front door, “I would have groveled on my hands and knees, but I’m not sure even that would have helped.”

“No,” Carole said. “I don’t think it would have. They didn’t budge an inch.”

Lisa shook her head. She had been as polite and earnest as she knew how, but Stevie’s parents hadn’t believed for a second that Stevie was blameless. Even if she had been, Mrs. Lake had said, that was not the point.

“I didn’t know Stevie had done all that other stuff, did you?” Lisa asked.

Carole shook her head. “I knew about Chad’s clothes, of course, but I didn’t know about the tacks in his soccer shoes. Or that Stevie let all the air out of his soccer ball and bicycle tires and then hid the air pump. She didn’t tell us about that.”

“Chad can’t prove Stevie did it. It could have been Alex, or even Michael.”

“That’s what Mr. Lake said.”

“Yeah.” Lisa sighed. “He also said it didn’t matter.” That was the crux of the problem. Stevie’s parents weren’t interested in proof. They were pretty sure Stevie was behind most of the pranks they knew about, and they were pretty sure she was behind other pranks they didn’t know about, and they were tired of living in a combat zone. Stevie was grounded. Two weeks, no early parole. No way.

“Nice try, girls,” Mr. Lake had said to Carole and Lisa.

“Oh well,” Lisa said. They ducked around the side of Stevie’s yard to take the shortcut back to Pine Hollow. Stevie’s bedroom window was two stories above them, and they paused to look up at their friend. Sure enough, Stevie was sitting by the window, looking sadly in the direction of Pine Hollow. Lisa knew that from Stevie’s room you could just see the top of the weathervane on the stable roof.

When Stevie saw them, she waved frantically. Carole and Lisa waved back. Stevie held up one finger and then disappeared.

“She wants us to wait,” Carole said.

“I hope she doesn’t try to climb down on a bedsheet or something,” Lisa said. “If she gets in trouble again, she’ll be grounded for life.”

In a moment Stevie was back. She opened her window and sailed a tiny paper airplane down to her friends. Lisa caught it and unfolded it. Stevie had written them a note.

I heard you talking to my parents
, it read.
Thanks for trying. I can’t talk
—
I promised I wouldn’t
. Lisa smiled. No matter what, Stevie never broke promises. That was why she so rarely made them.
But they never said I couldn’t write notes. How’s Belle?

Lisa tried to pantomime
She’s fine
. She didn’t do it very well. Stevie looked puzzled. Lisa wished she knew sign language.

“
We
can talk,” Carole said to Lisa. “And I think Stevie’s allowed to listen.”

Stevie nodded, grinning. Lisa smiled. “Of course. Stevie, Belle’s fine.”

“We hung your sign, and we groomed her for you,” Carole added.

“And don’t worry about camp,” Lisa said firmly. “We’re going to spring you. We made it a Saddle Club project.”

Stevie gave them a thumbs-up sign.

“We’ve got a plan,” Lisa added. “Don’t worry. It’ll work for sure.”

“ ‘W
E
’
VE GOT A PLAN
’?” Carole repeated as they hit the main road back to Pine Hollow. “We don’t have a plan! Or if we do, I don’t know about it!”

“I know,” Lisa said. “We don’t have one.”

“Then why did you tell Stevie we did?”

“We’ll get one,” Lisa replied. Even though groveling to Stevie’s parents hadn’t helped, Lisa still felt confident. “Besides,” she continued, “I didn’t want Stevie to feel desperate. If she feels desperate, she’ll come up with a plan of her own, and who knows what’ll happen then.”

Carole shuddered. Usually it was Stevie who came up
with their plans, and usually what she came up with was good, but if Stevie got caught doing something else wrong now, she’d be grounded until her hair turned gray. Carole saw Lisa’s point.

Back at Pine Hollow, they sat on the hay bales outside Belle’s stall and tried hard to think of some way to help Stevie. Lisa remembered Mr. and Mrs. Lake’s polite, unyielding faces. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“What’s wrong, girls? Why the long faces? You look like somebody got your goat. And where’s Stevie?” It was Mrs. Reg, Max Regnery’s mother. She ran the stable. She had come to get one of the bales they were sitting on.

“Oh, Mrs. Reg, didn’t Max tell you?” Carole asked. She and Lisa helped Mrs. Reg break the hay bale apart and feed it to the horses nearby. While they worked, they told her the whole story.

“I see,” Mrs. Reg said, nodding. “That’s too bad.”

“Stevie and Chad have been fighting all summer,” Lisa added. “Stevie did some things she shouldn’t, but Chad did, too, and he isn’t being punished at all.”

Mrs. Reg nodded again sympathetically. “You know,” she said, “I don’t know if I ever told you, but the expression ‘get your goat’ is actually a horse term.”

Carole and Lisa exchanged agonized glances. Mrs. Reg was famous for her stories, which usually seemed pointless,
though they often weren’t. But now? Talking about goats when they were so worried about Stevie?

“Yes,” Mrs. Reg continued, not seeming to notice how the girls squirmed, “it comes from racing. Many horses, you know, feel uncomfortable in strange environments, and a racehorse that isn’t happy won’t do well on the track. At the same time, racehorses are always being moved to different racetracks and different stalls. So, especially in the old days but sometimes even now, racehorses often traveled with an animal companion, such as a goat. The horse felt comfortable with his goat friend around, even when everything else was different.”

Carole suppressed a sigh. She’d heard all this before. Mrs. Reg went on. “So, if you wanted to upset someone else’s racehorse, you stole his goat. You got his goat!” Mrs. Reg smiled.

“We know that story, Mrs. Reg,” Lisa said politely. “When we went to the Preakness with Max and Deborah, some of the horses there had goats.” Lisa was surprised that Mrs. Reg didn’t remember this. She rarely forgot anything.

Mrs. Reg nodded and patted Lisa’s arm. “It’s always good to consider all your resources,” she said gently. She paused to pat Belle, too. “Poor mare,” Mrs. Reg said sadly. “Poor, lonely Belle.” The office telephone rang, and Mrs. Reg hurried away.

“What was that about?” Carole asked in amazement. “The goat story again? And why was she so sorry for Belle? She should be sorry for Stevie!” Really, Carole couldn’t remember a time when Mrs. Reg had been so vague—and that was saying something.

Lisa scrunched down on the remaining hay bale, thinking hard. She was sure there had to be some meaning in what Mrs. Reg said. Suddenly she jumped up. “I’ve got it!” she said. She hugged Carole. “That’s it! The plan!”

Carole cheered. “Tell me all about it!”

A
FEW MINUTES LATER
they knocked on the door of Max’s office. Mrs. Reg wasn’t there anymore, but Max was sitting at his desk, looking at the lesson schedule.

“Well,” he said when he saw them. “How are you two holding up?”

“Pretty well, considering everything,” Lisa said.

“Considering that we got up at seven to clean toilet paper off bushes,” Carole added.

Max grinned. “If I remember right, taking the toilet paper off the bushes is never as much fun as putting it on.”

Lisa couldn’t imagine Max TP’ing anybody. “We’ve got a favor to ask you,” she said. “We just remembered that Stevie wanted Belle to have her teeth fixed—”

“Floated,” Carole corrected.

Lisa winced. She still didn’t know the right words. When would she learn?

“Sure,” Max said, nodding. “It’s been almost a year since she had Belle’s teeth done, hasn’t it?”