Horse Trouble

by Bonnie Bryant

  “The only place we searched yesterday was the locker area,” Carole said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think it’s possible one of the cats found the pin where Veronica threw it and may have begun playing with it. You know how they are, right?”

  The girls did know. They’d often seen the cats at the stable begin playing with something that wasn’t a mouse. A cat could take almost anything—a pencil, marble, piece of straw—and bat it all over the place.

  “The tack room!” Lisa said.

  “That place is a mess!” Stevie said.

  “Exactly,” Carole said.

  In the utility closet they found two brooms and a mop, just what they would need to probe around on the dark and shadowy floor of the tack room, where they hoped they’d find Mrs. Reg’s pin. Lisa organized them. She got Carole and Stevie to begin in opposite corners, on their hands and knees, examining and sweeping every single inch of the floor as they moved toward one another. It wasn’t an easy job. The tack room not only had tack hanging from every inch of wall all the way around it, it also had racks and hooks lined up in the center of the room to house saddles and bridles. There were also the upper shelves, where the specialized saddles were kept, along with the tack for the wagons and the sleigh. Lisa had decided they could omit the shelves and the loft because it was unlikely that a cat would carry the pin that high. After all, real gold was heavy, certainly heavier than a mouse. It might be fun to bat around the floor, but it would be downright dangerous for a cat to carry it up a ladder in his mouth.

  “Got something!” Stevie said excitedly. She could hear the wonderful sound of metal being dragged across the old floorboards by her broom. She maneuvered the broom carefully because she couldn’t see what she was pulling toward her. She could only hear it, and her ears told her it was good news. Her ears were wrong. When the broom brought her quarry into the light, Stevie saw that it wasn’t a gold pin, it was a steel snaffle bit.

  “False alarm,” she said.

  In the opposite corner, Carole took her turn. She stuck the broom back into the dark corner under what seemed to be a curtain of leather straps hanging from the wall hooks. She brought the broom back toward her. It came back empty. It wasn’t actually completely empty. She had a significant dust bunny and something that looked like an old wad of gum. She also found a sponge with the remains of some saddle soap on it. She tried to imagine what would induce somebody to lose a saddle-soap sponge in the farthest, darkest corner of the tack room. She decided it must have been frustration—a feeling she suspected she was going to learn too much about in the next few days.

  Lisa wasn’t having any more luck than her friends. While they worked on the floor, she studied the morass of leathers and combed through the buckets of metal pieces, S-hooks, snap locks, curb chains, and the like. Tack seemed to be made up of equal parts of leather and metal, so there was an awful lot of metal in the room, but none of it was eighteen-karat gold.

  The girls were too busy at their jobs to notice the arrival of Max Regnery. He cleared his throat to announce his presence.

  They looked up. He stood by the door with his hands on his hips and a smile on his face.

  “When you girls fill in for my mother, you really fill in! I never saw her cleaning the tack room. What happened? You couldn’t find any unsuspecting riders with free time on their hands?” He laughed at his own joke.

  It surprised Lisa to find that Max was actually amused by his mother’s habit of assigning jobs to people who happened not to be frantically busy when she saw them.

  “Very funny,” Stevie said, recovering from her surprise and rising from her knees. “Actually, though, it’s just that this really needed to be done, and we knew there was nobody who would do a better job than we will. So we’re doing it. You wouldn’t believe the dirt we’re finding.”

  “And the sponges,” Carole said.

  Max looked at her quizzically. Whatever he wanted to ask or say, he decided to skip it. Some questions were best left unasked. He cleared his throat again. “Well, then, um, I’ll let you girls get back to work. I’m taking a group out onto the trail. I won’t be back for a while. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, speaking of tomorrow,” Carole said. “There’s a new class beginning at eight o’clock. Did you know about that? I’ll take care of tacking up their mounts when I get here early.”

  “I do know about them,” Max said. “I have to be in town all morning. Red’s taking the class for me. I wish I could be here. I like that team, but I can’t. I’ll tell Red you’ll have the riders’ horses ready. Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Carole said. “We’re just trying to be helpful.”

  “I can tell,” Max said. “I’ll be back by ten o’clock. See you all in jump class. Good-bye for now.”

  “Bye,” Lisa said. She then turned her attention back to the buckets arrayed in front of her. Carole and Stevie reached their brooms back under the leathers. The girls worked in silence, each hoping for the sound of metal—specifically gold.

  “Oh, look, the three blind mice,” Veronica diAngelo said, walking into the tack room to deposit Garnet’s tack on its rack. “Usually you’re running away from work, but now that Mrs. Reg is gone, you three can’t work hard enough to impress Max, can you?”

  Once again Veronica had managed to astonish Lisa. It stunned her to realize how far from the truth Veronica was. Actually, she realized a second later, it was very logical. Veronica always did everything she could to get out of doing work that Mrs. Reg assigned, and also always tried, whenever it wasn’t much effort, to impress Max. She naturally assumed that others had the same motivations she did. Lisa certainly didn’t want to tell Veronica the truth, so she did the only other sensible thing—she agreed with her.

  “You’re so right, Veronica,” she said. “And Max has already noticed our good work. He was so impressed that the next thing you know, he’ll have us painting the stable! Want to help?”

  “Hah!” Veronica said. She knew an exit line when she heard one. She was gone in a flash.

  It provided a moment of laughter, but it was only a brief one. The girls had a lot of work to do and little time to do it. However, an hour later they were reluctantly concluding that the time had not been well spent. All they had to show for their work was a substantial pile of things they’d found on the floor that now had to be thrown out or put away. It wasn’t what they’d had in mind when they’d begun cleaning the tack room. The worst part was that the tack room didn’t look any cleaner for its careful dusting.

  “Let’s go, girls,” Lisa said, putting her dust mop back in the utility closet.

  “Fiddle-dee-dee,” Stevie said as she put the broom next to Lisa’s mop. “Tomorrow will be another day!”

  That’s just what they were all afraid of.

  SINCE CAROLE LOVED everything about horses, it was difficult for her to choose what she loved most. High up on her list after riding them, though, were the quiet moments spent alone in a stable surrounded by horses. It made her feel more at one with them. This morning was no exception. She’d arrived at Pine Hollow before seven. Max was in town with his errands. Mrs. Reg was still at her friend’s house, and Red hadn’t arrived yet. The place was totally quiet, except for the comfortable sounds of horses, munching on hay, chomping on grain, the occasional stomp of a hoof on a straw-covered floor, a relaxed snort, a whinny.

  “Good morning, boys and girls,” Carole said, chatting easily to the ponies, who were all housed near one another. Nickel stuck his head up over the door to his stall. Carole patted his soft nose.

  There were four riders coming in the beginners’ class. Carole decided to tack up Nickel, Dime, Quarter, and Penny for the class. Pine Hollow, a stable filled with traditions, had the tradition of naming its ponies after coins—small change. Carole liked that tradition. The young riders always got a kick out of that, too. She was looking forward to seeing the smiles on the faces of the stable’s newest riders when they arrived in forty-five minutes.


  Carole began the process of tacking up the ponies. Ponies were smaller than horses; the usual definition of a pony was that it had to be less than 14.2 hands, measured at the pony’s withers. A hand was four inches—the approximate width of a man’s hand across the knuckles—and the .2 meant two inches. Thus a pony was no taller than fifty-eight inches from the floor to the area at the base of its mane, called the withers. Because they were relatively small, ponies were ideal mounts for young beginners. They did everything full-sized horses did; they were just smaller and less likely to frighten a new rider.

  Although ponies were small, they needed the same amount of tack as horses, so it took Carole more than half an hour to tack up four of them. When she was done, all four ponies were ready and seemed eager to meet their new riders. One by one Carole led the ponies to the paddock near the front of the stable so they could greet the riders when they arrived. They would be such a welcoming sight that Carole was sure these youngsters would be as thrilled with riding as she was. Another thing Carole loved about horses was being able to share the joy of them with others. This seemed like a wonderful opportunity to do that.

  Carole climbed up onto the paddock fence and waited to welcome the new beginners. She almost wished she didn’t have a class coming up right away. She was eager to introduce the kids to the ponies, show them how to climb into their saddles, teach them how to hold their riding crops and everything else that first-timers needed to know.

  She could almost see the smiles on their faces and hear their excited giggles. Carole loved to watch little girls and boys in their brand-new riding clothes—boots without a scratch, pants that are a little loose so the girls can grow into them—actually sitting in a saddle for the first time. Carole sighed contentedly just thinking about it all. She was so involved in her own daydream that she never even saw Red O’Malley walk over to her, followed by four extremely tall men in riding clothes.

  “Morning, Carole,” Red said. “Max told me you were taking care of tacking up horses for the new class today.”

  “Yep,” Carole said proudly. “I’ve got Nickel, Penny, Quarter, and Dime all ready and raring to go. The kids ought to be here any minute.” She looked at her watch. It was already eight o’clock. “Funny. They should already be here.”

  One of the men standing near Red cleared his throat. “They are already here,” he said.

  Carole looked at him. A fog began to clear, and she didn’t much like what she saw. In front of her were four very large men. Behind her were four very small ponies. This wasn’t a class of beginning children riders. These were definitely grown-ups—and very big ones at that. Then she remembered that Mrs. Reg’s note had said something about a “team,” and Max had used the same word. One more look and she didn’t have to ask the question. She knew what the word “team” meant. These men were basketball players from the local professional team. They were well over six feet tall. One of them was probably seven feet tall, and Carole had saddled up the stable’s smallest ponies for them!

  She wanted to die.

  One of the men started laughing.

  “I thought we were supposed to do the riding, but if these little fellows need to go somewhere, I guess we could carry them,” another said.

  Red laughed, too.

  “I’d thought—” Carole began, but she couldn’t go on. Everybody knew what she’d thought. She didn’t need to explain. She just felt terribly embarrassed. She also could imagine what her father—a big basketball fan—was going to say when he heard about her mistake.

  Since dying didn’t seem to be a real option right then, Carole decided that her only other choice was to correct her mistake. She slid down from the fence and unhitched two ponies to return them to their stalls. Then, at just exactly the right minute, Stevie and Lisa arrived. One glance and they knew what they had to do. They each took a lead rope and followed Carole into the stable. Without discussion the girls saddled up Pine Hollow’s four tallest horses and had them hitched in the paddock within ten minutes.

  All images of the joyful faces of happy children and the gleeful giggles of young learners had fled from Carole’s mind. The only thing she wanted to see was the backs of four very tall men on four very tall horses disappearing around the far side of the stable where she couldn’t see them laughing at her silly mistake. Carole didn’t like to appear ridiculous, but she thought she’d done an awfully good job of it that morning. She cringed as she held the horses’ leads while the men mounted, and she shuddered with relief when Red finally led the group to the ring.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to her friends.

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” Lisa said.

  “No problem,” Stevie agreed. “I got the feeling that this was the funniest thing that had happened to those guys in a long time. They loved it.”

  Carole gave her a withering look. Stevie realized that Carole did not see the humor. She hadn’t loved it at all.

  “Shouldn’t we be tacking up our own horses for class?” Lisa asked.

  “And untacking the ponies,” Carole said pointedly. Not only had she made an awful mistake, but she’d also caused herself and her friends a lot of unnecessary work. No matter how funny the men thought it was and no matter how lightly Lisa and Stevie took it, the whole thing upset Carole a lot.

  She was calmer, but still upset, when her class began. On Wednesdays they began their day with drill work, followed by jump class. These were two things Carole loved. She loved the precision of trying to make her horse do just exactly what she told him to do so he would be coordinated with the other horses. It was a challenge for her horse, Starlight, who tended to be a little resentful of very structured activities, but that was a challenge Carole was usually willing to meet. This day she found she wasn’t so willing, and as a result, Starlight was even less willing. She had to take him out of the drill and work with him alone until he was calmed down, but she knew that it wasn’t Starlight who needed calming; it was Carole.

  Jump class was even worse. By then Max was back and he’d heard about Carole’s mix-up from Red. Since the basketball players thought it was funny, Max thought it was funny. He thought it was funny enough to tease her about it so that although only a few people had known at the beginning of the class, by the time Carole had been asked to take Starlight over a few jumps that were just one inch high, everybody knew and was laughing.

  “They’re not laughing at you,” Stevie said. “They’re laughing at the situation.”

  It didn’t make Carole feel any better. By lunchtime she found herself actually looking forward to painting the stable. At least she could be on a ladder so high above everybody else that she couldn’t see them laugh.

  WHEN THREE O’CLOCK came around, The Saddle Club groomed their horses and put them back into their stalls for the day. Class was done, it was time for the real work to begin.

  Stevie had a list. It read: paint, brushes, ladders. Lisa also had a list. It read: paint (red and white), pans, brushes, ladder, turpentine, hats, drop cloths, tape.

  Carole looked at both lists. It confirmed her suspicion that Lisa was a better list maker than Stevie.

  “I’m sure all this stuff is in the utility shed,” Carole said. The three girls went there and found that Carole was right.

  Carole found the cans of paint and stacked them for ease of carrying. Lisa found the pans, brushes, turpentine, tape, hats, and drop cloths—

  “What do we need drop cloths for?” Stevie asked. “We’re painting outside, not inside. Do we really have to protect the ground?”

  “You never know,” Lisa said, sounding very much as if she did, in fact, know. Then, to prove it, she spread one of the drop cloths out, put all the equipment onto it, and then folded up the corners of the drop cloth so she could use it as a carrying bag. Stevie thought that sometimes Lisa was almost too organized for her own good.

  Stevie spotted the folding ladder and picked it up. It was long and awkward, but it wasn’t awfully heavy, and she found that a
s long as she held it in the middle, she could manage it. The three girls walked together back toward the stable.

  As they walked, it occurred to Stevie that it was just about perfect painting weather. The sun was bright; the sky was cloudless. It wasn’t too hot and it wasn’t humid. There was something about the lovely summer day that made Stevie feel good. She wasn’t alone either. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Pepper, an old retired horse, positively frolicking in his pasture.

  “Oh, look at that!” she said, turning to watch.

  Her sudden movement accomplished several things. It gave Stevie a better view of Pepper, but it also made the ladder turn with her, knocking both of her friends off their feet.

  “Oomph!”

  “Watch—”

  “Oh, sorry,” Stevie said when she saw what she had done. She turned back, much more carefully than she’d turned around in the first place.

  “That’s quite a weapon,” Lisa remarked, looking warily at the ladder.

  “In the right hands,” Carole said pointedly.

  “You guys okay?” Stevie asked. She really hadn’t meant to hurt her friends, and she felt bad about it.

  “We will be as long as we don’t walk next to you again!” Lisa said. She wasn’t hurt, but she was more than a little annoyed that Stevie’s mistake had made her drop everything she was carrying, and now three painter’s hats were blowing across the pasture toward Pepper.

  “I’ll get them!” Stevie offered, once again swinging around so she could see where they were going. Lisa and Carole dived for cover—this time managing to get out of the way of the swirling ladder.

  “I’ll get the hats,” Lisa said. “And Stevie, you walk ahead—way ahead.”

  Sheepishly Stevie agreed.

  “LOOK, ALL WE have to do is put some white paint on the white parts and some red paint on the red parts. What’s so hard about that?”