“As a matter of fact, I just happen to have a carrot for Nickel,” said Amie.
“And I have an apple,” said Jackie.
“And I have a knock-knock joke,” said Jessica. As a little sister of The Saddle Club, she was crazy about knock-knock jokes.
The girls gathered around the pony. Meanwhile Max and Phil led the other horses to the far side of the orchard, where there was a succulent patch of green grass.
“Okay, Nickel,” said Jessica. “I’ve got a really good one for you. Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?” said Amie, talking for Nickel.
“Sam and Planet,” Jessica said.
The Saddle Club shook their heads. Jessica had the joke totally wrong.
“Sam and Planet who?” said Amie.
“Someone planted stinkweed,” Jessica sang in a loud voice. “In Redford O’Malley’s riding boots.”
Amie, Jackie, and Jessica collapsed in laughter.
“That’s the worst knock-knock joke I ever heard,” Carole whispered.
But Lisa gasped with fright. “Look,” she whispered.
The gray horse was barreling out of the woods toward the orchard and the clearing on the other side, where the little girls were standing. The horse’s eyes were rolling, and his face was flecked with foam. The rider clung desperately to the horse’s mane.
“We’ve got to warn them,” Carole said.
“Amie,” Stevie yelled.
But the wind carried her words away.
“Come on,” Stevie said. She shook the reins, pressed her knees tightly to Belle’s sides, and yelled, “Go.” No time for subtlety now. Belle headed into the orchard, straight at the gray horse. “Keep going,” Stevie said. “Please!”
Horses hate to run into other horses, and Stevie was afraid that Belle would veer off. But Belle barreled toward the gray horse, with Starlight and Prancer close behind.
The gray horse shied, nearly throwing his rider. Snorting and spraying flecks of foam, the horse careened back into the woods.
The little girls weren’t aware of the drama that had just unfolded on the other side of the orchard.
“After him!” Stevie cried. This seemed to be all Belle needed. She headed into the woods.
“Go,” Lisa said, steering Prancer after them.
“Yes!” said Carole as Starlight took off.
Stevie ducked under a branch. There was a huge fallen tree up ahead. They’d have to go around it somehow. But Belle rose gracefully in a jump. The only problem was that she seemed to be rising directly into a hemlock tree. “Yikes,” Stevie cried. But Belle knew what she was doing. They missed the tree by a hair. Stevie let out a yell of triumph as Belle landed on the edge of an inky puddle, splashing Carole.
Carole couldn’t see. She had a funny taste in her mouth. For a moment she couldn’t figure out what had happened. Then she realized she’d been mudded. She wiped the mud from her eyes and let out a whoop.
Lisa had her knees tight and her heels down. She was trying not to think about what was going on. She wasn’t ready for this kind of wild cross-country riding.
Stevie heard an anguished cry and a splash up ahead. She zoomed around the corner and pulled Belle to a stop.
The gray horse was still racing wildly, but his rider had been thrown. The thief had fallen in the creek and was yelling with pain.
Coming up behind Stevie, Carole swerved and stopped. Lisa nearly crashed into them.
The gray horse scrambled frantically up the shallow creek bed.
This was terrible, Lisa knew. A frightened horse running over slippery rocks could break a leg. Someone had to catch him … and she had the fastest horse.
Lisa took a deep breath and headed Prancer toward the creek, looking for secure footing. Daintily Prancer picked her way through the stones and leaped onto the other bank. There was a narrow path along the edge of the bank. Would it hold them? There was no choice. It was the only way to follow the gray horse.
“Easy,” she said to Prancer. “Nothing sudden.”
Prancer looked at the trail and snorted. Most horses shy from narrow passages, but Prancer bobbed her head and started along the path, stepping evenly. Beneath her feet pebbles showered into the stream, but Prancer didn’t panic.
The path ended abruptly. The land dropped sharply downhill.
Desperately Lisa looked around. The other side of the creek was safer, the ground more solid, but it was far away. “Can you jump?” she said to Prancer. “I know it’s far.”
Lisa knew that standing jumps are difficult for horses. Usually they won’t make them. But Prancer sprang lightly across the creek onto the other side. Just as she did the gray horse bolted out of the creek bed and headed for a stand of pines.
“Go,” Lisa said to Prancer. She put her hands low and bent over Prancer’s neck, feeling the power of the horse’s muscular chest. Prancer ran through the pine forest, gathering speed. For Lisa, it was like being on a rocket.
They were on the edge of a field of winter grass. The gray horse streaked forward, trailing flecks of foam. Lisa knew she had to catch him before he disappeared into the trees on the other side of the field.
She put her hand on Prancer’s withers. She didn’t have to say anything or make any motion. The horse knew. Looking at the broad expanse of field, Lisa felt frightened. It seemed so far. But she knew that Max would want her to catch the gray horse. She took a deep breath.
At first she could feel the thumping of hoofbeats in her chest and arms. But as Prancer’s stride lengthened the thumping stopped. It seemed like everything else was moving, and they were standing still. For a second Lisa felt almost as if Prancer might lift off the ground and fly.
Head down, the gray horse streaked toward the woods.
Prancer was already running full out. But she would have to go faster.
Please, Lisa thought. You can do it. You’re a champion.
Prancer gathered herself—Lisa could feel the concentration—and lengthened her stride, head down, mane flying.
The trees on the edge of the field were approaching fast, too fast. The little gray horse was almost there.
Lisa gasped. Suddenly they were next to the gray horse, but they were also moving too fast for Lisa to catch the horse’s reins.
Prancer seemed to understand perfectly. She slowed alongside the other horse, and the gray slowed slightly, too.
Lisa reached out and grabbed the reins. “Easy, easy,” she said, but the gray horse whinnied and kept running.
Prancer snorted. It was just an everyday snort—a humdrum kind of snort. Suddenly Lisa realized that she could count on Prancer and that everything was going to be okay. “Cool it,” she said firmly to the gray horse. The horse shivered and settled into a trot, then a walk.
Lisa’s hands were shaking, but now she had control. She turned to the gray horse and said, “Are you okay?”
The horse gave her a sideways look. Lisa could have sworn he looked grateful to have his flight end.
“Come on,” Lisa said. She turned Prancer, and they headed into a trot. It wasn’t good to walk after a run like that. Both horses needed to be cooled down or they would cramp.
In a minute the gray horse was moving calmly next to Prancer. The mare trotted proudly with her head up and her knees rising smartly. Lisa smiled, thinking that she would have to tell Max that Prancer had run all out and that she had been able to handle it. From now on maybe Max would trust her with more challenging rides.
MEANWHILE, CAROLE AND Stevie were trying to figure out what to do with the thief.
He was sitting in the cold creek complaining bitterly. “I want out of here right now,” he said. “And that means instantly.”
“So you can steal more saddles?” Stevie said. “I don’t think so.”
“All right, all right,” the thief said. “So I took a couple of saddles. That doesn’t mean I have to freeze to death with a busted leg.”
“Stay right there,” Carole said.
“What do you think I’m doing?” the thief said. “Does it look like I’m running around?”
“We’d better tie him up,” Stevie said.
“That’s it,” Carole agreed.
But they didn’t have any rope.
“I read about how the Indians made rope out of bark,” Stevie said. “Maybe we could do that.”
They looked at the trees that lined the creek bed. Somehow making rope seemed like a long-term project. They needed to tie up the thief right away.
“I took a basket-weaving course once,” Carole said. “And they said that vines have incredible strength.”
“Basket-weaving!” moaned the thief. “I’ve been brought down by a couple of hobbyists.”
There was a tangle of vines next to the creek. Carole pulled them out by the roots and walked gingerly toward the thief.
“Reach for the sky,” Carole said.
“Reach for the sky yourself,” he sneered.
In action movies it was never like this, Stevie thought.
Carole held out the vines. They looked about as strong as limp spaghetti.
“Will you two bimbos get me out of here?” said the thief. “I’m freezing. My leg feels funny.” His stern mouth grimaced. “I’m injured.”
Stevie and Carole were always ready to help someone who needed it. But how did they know he was telling the truth?
“How exactly does your leg feel?” asked Carole. She knew a little about first aid from her work as a vet’s apprentice to Judy Barker.
“It feels great,” the thief said bitterly.
Carole stepped over to look. The thief’s right leg was at an impossible angle. She could see that it was broken.
“We’d better get him out of the creek,” Carole said to Stevie. “He could go into shock. If he goes into shock, he’ll turn pale and break out into a sweat, and his blood pressure will go way down. Shock is very dangerous. He could die from it.”
Now the thief really was pale.
“We don’t want him to die under our noses,” Stevie said.
They waded into the creek.
“We should use a balanced lift here,” Carole said. “If we don’t, he could fall and, if his leg is broken, that could drive bits of bone into a nerve, and if the nerve is severed, the leg could become paralyzed for life. At least, I think so.”
“I don’t feel so hot,” the thief muttered. He was no longer pale. He was green.
“On the other hand, if his spinal cord is broken, and we lift him, that could be really dangerous—his whole body might become paralyzed,” Carole said. “But I don’t think we should leave him in this frigid water. It’s sort of a fifty-fifty thing.”
“Please move me,” said the thief in a timid voice. “I’ll do anything.”
Stevie knelt down, holding the thief’s left arm. Carole knelt down, taking his right.
“Easy,” he groaned.
“Breathe deeply,” Carole said. “Try to relax.”
“Yeah, right,” he muttered. But Stevie could see that he was trying. He was taking long, slow breaths.
“Can you stand on your good leg?” Carole said.
The thief pushed his left foot close to his body, and Stevie and Carole lifted him.
“Careful,” he whispered.
They helped him hop to the bank and then eased him onto the grass.
The thief closed his eyes and leaned back, sweat pouring down his face. He opened his eyes, wiped his forehead, and said, “I’m not going to die, am I?”
“The next half hour is crucial,” Carole said. “If we get help right away, you might make it.”
“But I don’t think it looks good,” Stevie said. “It’ll take us more than a half hour to ride for help. And I’m riding slower than usual these days since I’m using a borrowed saddle.” She narrowed her eyes meaningfully at the thief, but by now his eyes were closed again.
Above them they heard the sound of hooves. They looked up. Lisa was on Prancer.
“Where’ve you been?” said Stevie.
“I went to catch the gray horse,” Lisa said. “The way he was running, I was afraid he’d injure himself. And then I went back to the orchard, found Max and Phil, and told them what happened.”
Just then Max and Phil appeared on horseback.
“We got him,” Stevie said triumphantly.
Phil grinned. “I thought I was going to be the big surprise of this weekend, but once again the big surprise is The Saddle Club.”
“What can we do?” said Stevie modestly. “We just stumble into things.”
“Hey, guys!” said the thief. “What about me?”
“Have you got any dying requests?” Stevie asked.
“Yes,” croaked the thief. “Call the police. Please.”
Phil reached into his saddlebag and whipped out a cellular phone.
Stevie stared at it with wonder. “Where’d you get that?”
“Max gave it to me for emergencies,” Phil said. With a dramatic gesture he handed the phone to Stevie. “Since you guys caught the real thief, I think you’re the ones who should call the police.” He looked over at Max, who nodded.
Stevie punched 911.
“I’d like to report that a crime has been solved,” Stevie said into the phone. “No, we don’t need help. The varmint has been caught and wants to confess. Go to County Route 11, pass the intersection with Route 46, and turn left. You’ll find a fire road with a gate.” Stevie listened. “That’s right, a gate,” she said. “Be sure you open it toward your car, or you’ll damage the hinges. And don’t forget to shut it afterward. Once you’re in the pasture …”
By the time Stevie finished, everyone except the thief was laughing.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE Max is paying for this,” Stevie said as she licked the marshmallow, fudge sauce, peanut butter, and lime sherbet from her spoon.
The girls were at TD’s, the local ice cream parlor, a few days later.
“If he saw what you were eating, he probably wouldn’t believe it either,” said Lisa as she watched Stevie swallow the weird concoction.
“That’s a dull one—for her,” said the waitress. “I’d say that one is practically normal—for her.”
“Normal!” said Stevie, looking at the sundae in horror. She looked up at Lisa and Carole. “Tell me it’s not normal.”
“It’s not normal,” said Lisa and Carole together. The waitress stomped off.
Stevie licked her spoon and said, “You know what the truth is?”
“What?” said Lisa.
“We don’t deserve these sundaes,” said Stevie dramatically.
“How come?” said Carole.
“Max is thanking us for letting Jessica, Jackie, and Amie take credit for solving the pretend mystery,” Stevie said. “The thing is, they did solve it. They followed the red yarn to the apple orchard. They spotted Nickel. They won the prize fair and square.”
“Hmmm,” Carole said. “I believe you’re right.”
“We found Nickel totally by accident,” Stevie said. “We didn’t follow the red yarn clues. We were following the barred shoe prints, which had nothing to do with the pretend mystery.”
“On the other hand, we did solve an actual crime,” Lisa said.
“There’s that,” Stevie agreed.
“And the thief won’t be stealing saddles in the near future.”
“Or ever again,” Stevie said. “Officer Kent told Max that the thief said he’s going to do something nice and safe from now on, like mop floors.”
“That’s after he gets out of prison—if he goes to prison,” Lisa said.
“He was a terrible horseman,” Carole said. “Did you see the way he jerked that horse’s reins?”
“Disgusting,” Lisa said. “Max is going to find a good home for the gray horse.”
Max had said that he couldn’t keep the gray horse at Pine Hollow because of its soft hooves. A stable horse had to have strong feet. But the gray horse would do well on a farm with only one rider.
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br /> Stevie sighed happily and said, “I will never, never forget Veronica’s expression when she found out that she hadn’t solved either the pretend mystery or the real mystery.”
“She was so upset, she spilled spaghetti sauce on her yellow vest,” Lisa said. “And you know how spaghetti-sauce spots never come out.”
“Yes, that was totally heartbreaking,” Stevie said, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye. “Those long, dribbly red streaks.”
“They went with her red fingernails,” Lisa said.
“The ones that weren’t broken,” said Carole with a grin. Veronica had brushed her gel-stiffened hair so vigorously that she had snapped a couple of nails.
The Saturday night celebration had, in fact, been pretty outstanding. Max had made a huge pot of spaghetti and his special sauce, Max’s Mouthwatering Marinara. Deborah made garlic bread from a recipe she had gotten when she was working as a reporter in Italy. Mrs. Reg made her Salad Supreme, which was so good that even salad haters liked it.
There had been an award ceremony in which Max presented Jessica with a magnifying glass like the one that Sherlock Holmes used; Jackie with a deerstalker hat, like the one Sherlock wore; and Amie with a pipe, like the one Sherlock smoked. The only difference was that Amie’s pipe was a bubble pipe. The younger kids had wound up running around chasing bubbles.
The older riders were in a great mood because the pretend mystery had been solved, which meant that they didn’t owe the D.C. a day of work. In fact, everyone except Veronica was in an excellent mood.
Phil had worn his one-armed red sweater to the party, which made him a big hit with the younger children. He sat next to Stevie and said that he liked being a thief so much he was thinking about taking up a life of crime. Stevie said that if he did that, The Saddle Club would have to take up detection on a permanent basis.
A.J. and Bart admitted that they had known all along that Phil was the “thief.” They hadn’t tried to solve the crime, but had just gone out on trail rides around Pine Hollow. Phil had brought Nickel to the rear paddock at night to sleep. When A.J. had come downstairs on Friday night—supposedly to admire the moonlight—he was trying to prevent The Saddle Club from going out to the paddock because he knew that Nickel was there.
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