Horse Trouble

by Bonnie Bryant

  Stevie’s own words echoed in her head. It had all seemed so easy when she said it, but now she appeared to be very busy putting the white parts on the red parts and vice versa, and the overall effect was definitely more pink than anything else.

  “Grrrrr!” she commented.

  Lisa and Carole were beneath her at ground level. Stevie had claimed the ladder, thinking it would be fun to be up high. What it really was, was harder. Every time she needed something, she had to step down, and the ladder wobbled in a very unpleasant way.

  “Trouble up there?” Lisa asked, looking at Stevie’s scrowl.

  “I’d like to be able to say that I’m seeing red,” Stevie said sardonically. “However, it seems to be more like pink.…”

  Lisa stepped back and looked up. Stevie had a point. The stable was definitely taking on a pink hue, and that wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

  “I did the white and then I did the red, but the white got mixed in with the red and the red with the white, and I think I’d better not make any long-term plans to be a house painter.”

  Lisa squinted to see what was causing the problem. She was such a logical person that she didn’t always understand when other people weren’t as logical as she was. Stevie was a special problem in that regard! Then she figured it out.

  “Masking tape,” she said. “You need masking tape.”

  “I do?” Stevie asked.

  “Definitely,” Lisa said. “See, first you paint all the red parts, more or less trying to avoid the white ones, but if you get some red on those, it’s okay. When the red is dry, you put tape around the edges of the white and you paint the white. So then, if you slosh a little over the edges, all you’re painting is the tape, not the red. When the white is dry, you remove the tape and bingo, it’s perfect.”

  “It is?” Stevie was not convinced.

  “Try it,” Lisa said. She handed up a roll of tape.

  Stevie looked at the parts that Lisa had already done, and she had to admit that they looked an awful lot better than what she was working on. She put down the brush with white paint and picked up the one with red paint. She began again, blotting out all the pink with red. It looked better immediately. Stevie painted with renewed enthusiasm.

  “Well, if it isn’t the three blind mice again,” Veronica said icily. “Scurrying like crazy, trying to impress Max again, huh?”

  “Watch it, Veronica,” Stevie said from above. “We’re armed.” She held her red paintbrush menacingly above Veronica’s head. The idea of red splatters on her designer breeches and jacket was more than Veronica could stand. She dashed off. The Saddle Club was not sorry to see her go. They resumed their work.

  Lisa found that she had developed a rhythm to her strokes. Up down, up down, shift to the right, up down, up down, time to refill the brush. Up down, up down … It went quickly enough, and the results were good. The trouble was that it was tiring for her arm. She shifted the paintbrush to her left hand and resumed her work. That was okay for a while. Then she spent more time taping around the white sections on parts of the red that were already dry. That was when a sound caught her ear. It was the playful whinny of a horse romping in a paddock. Then she remembered.

  “Diablo,” she said. Carole and Stevie looked at her. “I left him in the paddock after class,” she explained. “He seemed to need more of a cool-down than I had time to give him, so I just set him loose in the paddock. I thought that would help.”

  “He’s probably cooled down by now,” Carole said. “Why don’t you take a break and bring him into the stable.”

  Those were the very words Lisa’s weary arm had been waiting to hear. That way she could take a break, but still be doing something useful. “Okay,” she agreed.

  Diablo sniffed curiously as Lisa approached him with a lead rope. At first she thought he was sniffing at her, but then she realized that the smell of paint seemed to be alerting him. Lisa had often wondered what was on a horse’s mind, and she did so again. Horses often had early warning systems that told them something dangerous was around, even when there wasn’t anything dangerous at all. Prancer’s fear of cats was like that. Diablo seemed to be nervous about the smell of paint. Lisa spoke to calm him.

  “Don’t worry, boy, there’s nothing to fear. We’re just doing a little work for Mrs. Reg. It won’t be long, and then imagine how nice the stable is going to look—at least from the front. Your home is going to be so beautiful that you’ll be proud to invite your friends to come see it.”

  She knew the horse couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but she also knew that he understood her tone of voice and that was all that mattered. Reassured, Diablo followed her to the stable. She kept chatting all the while.

  “And when I put you in your stall, I’m going to give you some fresh hay and water, and that’ll be so delicious and smell so good, you won’t even notice the paint, will you?”

  Lisa was totally occupied with her chattering. She was too occupied to notice what Stevie was doing on top of the ladder as she and Diablo approached. Stevie had peeled out a yard-long piece of masking tape. It was too long and immediately became an unruly tangle. As she tried to untangle it, it stuck onto the cloth she’d been using to wipe her hands and her brushes. Then the tape attached to the brush with red paint.

  “Oh, drat!” Stevie said, trying to loosen everything from the mass of tape.

  Lisa didn’t see any of this. Diablo saw it all. Lisa tugged at his lead rope, bringing him right between the legs of the folding ladder where Stevie was perched at just the moment when Stevie shook the sticky tangled mess of tape, rag, and brush most vigorously. It was all Diablo could take. He didn’t exactly rear, though he came close to it. He shied and he bucked. It was just enough to jiggle the ladder seriously, and when that happened, something else happened, too. Two paint buckets, once carefully balanced on the ladder’s shelf, became unbalanced and toppled over.

  Lisa had already passed under the ladder. Most of Diablo had not. Much to the horse’s dismay—to say nothing of the girls’—his rear half was drenched by the toppled red and white paint. It was all he could take. He bolted. Lisa was so astonished that she simply let go of the lead rope and watched helplessly while he fled right through the stable, out the other side, and into the paddock at the back of the stable. Normally that would be enough to contain him, but not in his frightened state. Diablo took one look at the paddock fence and flew right over it.

  Stevie growled again. Lisa hollered “Stop him!” but there was nobody there to stop him, and even if there had been, he was too frightened to be stopped. When it came to horse trouble, Carole was the most logical thinker in the group. She put down her paintbrush.

  “I’ll take Starlight out and catch Diablo,” she said. “He’ll stop running pretty soon, and I know he’s going to be easy to find.”

  “Sure,” Lisa said, dismayed. “How many horses are there out in the field dressed as a clown?”

  “He did look pretty funny, you know,” Stevie said, trying to emphasize the absurdity of it all. The humor was lost on Lisa. She gave Stevie a withering look. Stevie realized this might not be the best time to try to joke about what had happened. From the look on Lisa’s face, it seemed that sometime in the future—like fifty years into the future—would be a better time. She turned her paint buckets back upright, took her brush in her hand, and resumed painting. She reminded herself that as long as Carole was going to fetch Diablo, the best thing she could do was paint. Lisa didn’t say anything. She just picked up her paintbrush and got back to work, too.

  Carole took off her painter’s hat and went to Starlight’s stall. She was always glad for an excuse to ride her horse, and this seemed an especially nice time, since it gave her an opportunity to be away from a guilty Stevie and an angry Lisa. She hoped they’d both be in better moods by the time she got back.

  She didn’t want to take the time to tack up Starlight. She decided to ride him bareback. She slipped a bridle on him, led him to the rear
door of the stable—away from the painters—and hopped onto his back. Riding Starlight bareback was always a special joy. It made her feel closer to her horse and closer to the origins of riding. After all, the first riders had hardly had choices between English and Western saddles, pads and blankets. They just sat on their horses’ backs and rode. Now that was what Carole was doing, too. She felt the strong and supple horse beneath her, and with every step she pulled farther and farther away from everything that had gone wrong—the ponies and the basketball players, the dreadful drill class, the embarrassing jump class, the miserable painting job they were doing, the horrible paint spill on poor old Diablo.

  Starlight seemed to sense Carole’s need for freedom and liberation from the less-than-perfect day. He took a deep breath and lengthened his stride, moving more quickly, more surely, as his rider directed him.

  It didn’t take Carole long to spot Diablo. For one thing, he was the only red-and-white horse in the field. For another, he was the only horse in the field at all. He seemed unaware of the new color he’d taken on, and he was munching quietly at the sweet grass. Starlight picked up a trot and approached him. Diablo lifted his head when he heard the other horse approaching. Apparently that was enough quiet munching for Diablo. Another possibility was that he recognized Carole as one of the people who had covered him with paint, and he didn’t want anything more to do with her. He moved away.

  Carole drew in Starlight’s reins. He slowed to a walk while Carole thought about the situation. If Diablo didn’t want to be caught, she and Starlight had two choices. The first was to be patient and wait for Diablo to change his mind, approaching him slowly all the time. The other was to try to chase him down. Carole opted for patience. Starlight stopped about twenty feet from Diablo. Diablo seemed a little nervous at first, but once he became convinced he wasn’t being chased, he turned his attention to the grass at his feet. Carole had Starlight take another few steps. Diablo took a few steps, too. Carole stopped. She waited and then she tried again. This time she and Starlight closed the gap to fifteen feet. She waited and tried again. Starlight took three steps, Diablo took only two. It was slow, but it was working. Carole waited some more and tried again. She found that if she watched Diablo’s ears very carefully, she could tell when he was relaxed enough for her to approach him just a little bit.

  She was less than six feet from the horse when a group of riders appeared at the edge of the field. Diablo’s ears perked up alertly. He lifted his head. This horse had already had as much trauma as he could take for one day. Five more horses, with riders who might or might not be planning something for him, were just too much for Diablo. He took off and fled, and at that moment all of Carole’s patience fled, too. She took the only other option open to her. She raced after him.

  Diablo tore across the field, challenging the trail riders by racing right at them. At first Carole saw only that there were five riders and that one of them was Red O’Malley. All of her concentration was on the red-and-white-splattered horse ahead of her. Then the sound of laughter distracted her enough to make her look at exactly who those riders were. Her second look was all it took, for she could see that all of them, except Red, were very, very tall. The beginners’ class of basketball players had apparently talked Red into a follow-up trail ride, and they were enjoying themselves immensely—at Carole’s expense.

  That was when Carole stopped seeing red and white speckles and began to see only red. She was only trying to do the very best job she could, and it seemed that the harder she tried, the bigger mistakes she made and the more these men ended up laughing at her. She was furious!

  Beneath her, Starlight felt a sudden change in her mood and her position. Starlight always tried to please Carole, and so he wanted to do what he thought she wanted. He didn’t always do the right thing, but this time he did. Without further urging, he began moving faster and more surely in pursuit of the frantic Diablo. Once Starlight was committed, it didn’t take long. Carole and Starlight flew past the laughing riders. She never looked back—just concentrated totally on the loose horse in front of her. Diablo tried dodging, he tried running, he tried doubling back. None of it worked. Starlight had him in his sights, and Carole was totally determined to win. Within a few minutes Starlight had come up alongside the fleeing bay. Carole reached over and grabbed the dangling lead rope. Without further instruction Starlight did exactly the right thing. He watched Diablo out of one eye and matched his own pace to Diablo’s. Carole tugged gently on the lead rope. Diablo wanted to run some more, but he was a well-trained horse and knew a sharp signal when he felt one. He slowed. Starlight slowed as well. Diablo slowed some more. So did Starlight. Soon Starlight and Diablo were walking. Carole began speaking to the frightened horse.

  “Don’t worry, boy. We’re going to take care of you. We’ll get you back to the stable and see if we can’t get some of that nasty paint off you. We’ll get you some hay and some grain and a nice bucket of fresh water. You’ll have your friends nearby, and not a one of them will dare make fun of you. Nobody’s going to laugh at you at all.”

  Diablo listened to Carole. Even though he couldn’t understand the words, he understood the tone. Carole spoke to him the entire way back to the stable—even as she passed Red and the basketball players. She knew that as long as she was talking to the horse, they wouldn’t try to say anything to her. As she passed, however, she did hear Red explaining her chatter to the tall men.

  “She’s calming the horse down,” Red said, “and she knows exactly what she’s doing.”

  “She does?” one of the men asked, sounding rather astonished. The other three began laughing.

  For the second time that day, Carole wanted to die. Instantly.

  CAROLE WENT DIRECTLY to the stalls with Starlight and Diablo. She called out to Stevie and Lisa to let them know that she was back and had Diablo. She didn’t want to be anywhere in public where anyone, especially four basketball players, one head stable hand, and one stable owner, might see her and start laughing at all the foolish things she’d done all day long. Animals were more forgiving than people. The horses, even Diablo, seemed happy for her company.

  She removed Starlight’s bridle, gave him a quick brushing, and set him loose in his stall. She’d already groomed him once that day, and that should be enough. Diablo was going to be more of a challenge. She found some old rags and began working on the paint. It was oil-based, fast-drying outdoor paint. It didn’t want to come off at all. She knew she could use turpentine on it, but that stuff was very abrasive and could harm the horse’s skin. Since Diablo tended to have sensitive skin, she thought it was a bad idea. Moreover, turpentine was very flammable, and she didn’t like the idea of using something very flammable in the stable where fire was always a danger. Finally, the thought of the strong, unpleasant odor filling the stable was enough to convince her not to use turpentine. She rubbed, she washed, she brushed, she combed. She actually got some paint off, but not much. After working on it for fifteen minutes, she decided that it would be no worse tomorrow, when she could work on it outdoors and use some turpentine carefully.

  “Sorry about that, Diablo,” she said, patting his shoulder affectionately. “For now you’re just going to have to live with it. Tomorrow Stevie and Lisa and I will begin work on your make-over. We’ll get you back to a nice glistening brown, okay?”

  He nuzzled her and tickled her neck. “If that’s an apology for your misbehavior, I accept it,” she said, and hugged him back. At least Diablo didn’t seem to be inclined to laugh at her. She gave him fresh hay and water and a ration of grain for his supper.

  She found the four basketball players’ horses in the paddock by the stable’s rear door, waiting to be untacked and put up for the night. When there was work to be done, Carole was always glad to do it. She knew her friends could use help with the painting, but Carole just didn’t feel ready to be with other people right then. She felt more like staying with the horses. She wondered where Red had disappeared to, but whe
n she heard his voice in Max’s office, she knew he would be particularly happy to have her help. Max and Red were having a loud conversation, making plans for the rest of the week. It seemed that The Saddle Club members weren’t the only people who missed Mrs. Reg.

  Without further hesitation Carole began her next job. One by one, she took the horses into the stalls. Each one had to be untacked, groomed, watered, and fed. Since it was evening and they wouldn’t be going out of the stable again until morning, it had to be done right. Carole was good at this kind of work, but there weren’t many shortcuts when it came to taking good care of horses. It was almost an hour before she could return to her friends. They would understand. At least she hoped they would.

  When the last horse was groomed and fed and put up for the night, she was ready to go back to the painting. It was twilight. Carole hated to think about how much more work there would be to do. Three girls simply couldn’t paint the entire front of stable in a few hours—even three very determined girls. They would have to work into the night and be at the stable even earlier the next morning. And then there would be tomorrow night.…

  The thought alone exhausted Carole.

  “Here I come,” she announced to her friends as she walked toward the stable’s front door. “Give me a brush. What needs to be done most?”

  “Nothing,” Lisa said as Carole emerged from the stable into the dim twilight. “It’s all done.”

  “Very funny,” Carole said.

  “No joke,” said Stevie.

  Carole looked. The sky was darkening, but it wasn’t so dark that she couldn’t see the whole job had been finished. The front of the stable was now a beautiful deep red with a sparkling white trim. The job was done. The ladders, buckets, brushes, drop cloths, and hats were nowhere in sight.

  “How could the two of you do all that work by yourselves?” Carole asked. She was totally astonished.

  “We had some help,” Lisa said.