Horse Trouble

by Bonnie Bryant

  “I can’t tell you how awful it was to learn that only the man’s name was French! He was as American as I am—as we all are—and he spoke pretty good French, too. Can you imagine? I thought he was the ambassador!” Lisa found herself reliving her profound embarrassment when she realized the mistake she and her friends had made.

  “Do you think it was my fault?” Stevie asked defensively. “I mean, that’s what Mrs. Reg’s list said.”

  “I truly wish I could blame you for it,” Lisa said. “But the fact is, I saw the list just like you did, and I drew exactly the same conclusion you did. We both got to thinking about Estelle and the Brazilian ambassador. No, I don’t blame you.”

  Carole snapped the pop top of a can of soda and took a long drink. It tasted awfully good on the dusty warm afternoon. Lisa sipped at her apple juice. Stevie just stared blankly at the soda can in her hand. She was thinking hard.

  “You know who we could really use at a time like this?” she asked.

  Lisa nodded. “Sure, Mrs. Reg. She’d have a story for us about how some horses tried to band together when a friend of theirs left.”

  “No, maybe it would be about how Max—her Max—tried to fill in for the county doctor when he went on vacation,” Stevie suggested.

  “Or about how the farrier’s wife learned to shoe horses just because her husband sprained his knee in the three-legged race at the church social and couldn’t hold a horse’s hoof between his knees long enough to shoe it,” Carole said.

  Lisa liked that one. She began laughing a little. It was the first time she’d laughed all day, and it felt pretty good. Mrs. Reg’s stories were always more than a little offbeat, and sometimes the girls suspected that they weren’t based on the absolute truth. It didn’t take away from their charm, because they knew that there was always something to learn from them. Right now it seemed that the one thing one of Mrs. Reg’s stories could do for them would be to provide a good laugh.

  Suddenly Lisa had a mental image of the farrier, complete with his leather apron, running a three-legged race. The image was absurd and it tickled her funny bone.

  That was when Lisa’s shoulders started shaking with laughter. Then while her friends watched, her giggles exploded, and they were positively infectious. Within a matter of seconds, Carole and Stevie joined in. None of it made any sense at all, and all of it seemed like the funniest thing that any one of the three of them had ever thought about. They laughed until the tears came, and then they laughed some more—until the tears rolled down their cheeks.

  Each, in a corner of her heart and her mind, understood what was happening. The three of them had taken on an enormous amount of worry and work when they’d offered to do Mrs. Reg’s job, and it seemed that everything they tried to do came out all wrong: a humongous paint job they couldn’t possibly finish themselves, culminating in paint splattered on Diablo; saddling up ponies for six-foot-tall men; French lessons for an American rider; and at the bottom of it all, there was still no sign of Mrs. Reg’s pin. The perfect antidote for such an exhausting and nerve-racking week was being together and acting silly.

  Finally the laughter began to subside, but not the wonderful feeling of warmth and friendship it had brought. The girls understood, without saying anything among themselves, that the most valuable thing they had—more valuable even than a solid-gold pin with a diamond—was the love and friendship they had for one another.

  “I just had a thought,” Carole said when she could finally speak. Lisa and Stevie looked at her. “I was thinking about Mrs. Reg and what she would say if she could see us right now.”

  “That’s easy,” Stevie said.

  Lisa painted a stern Mrs. Reg look on her face (although Mrs. Reg rarely looked stern), lowered her voice, and spoke the words for the absent woman, “What are you girls laughing about? Isn’t there work to be done around here? You think this is some kind of game parlor?”

  Since that was just about exactly what Mrs. Reg would have said, all three girls began laughing again. But they didn’t laugh as hard this time. The mention of Mrs. Reg reminded them what the underlying problem was. In the first place, they weren’t doing her job very well. In the second place, but it was really the first place, they still hadn’t found the pin.

  “Oh, right,” Stevie said, suddenly very sober.

  “This was fun, but you know, I think we’re really mess-ups,” Lisa said. “I mean, every time I think about that poor Mr. French, I just can’t believe what I did.”

  “We did, you mean,” Stevie said generously. “But don’t take it so hard, Lisa. After all, the guy thought it was funny, and he seemed to have a wonderful time. He did make an appointment to come back again next week.”

  “You’re right,” Lisa said. “But when he made the next appointment, he made me schedule it for Mr. English.”

  “See, he has a sense of humor,” Carole said. “That’s more than I can say for those basketball players.”

  “What are you saying?” Stevie asked. “They loved you.”

  “Sure, because they think I’m a complete ditz.”

  “Who cares?” Lisa asked. “I mean, I know they hurt your feelings, but you must have also impressed them. They pitched in and helped with the painting. We never would have finished if it hadn’t been for them.”

  “I guess if it hadn’t been for the painting, we never would have had a horse for Mr. Jarvis to ride, would we?” Carole said slowly.

  “It seems that there’s a pattern emerging here,” Stevie said philosophically. She wasn’t usually philosophical, so her friends listened carefully. “On the surface of it, we appear to be messing up totally, but when you look a little closer, it seems to be working for the best.”

  Lisa thought about that for a moment. Stevie was right, but she had the nagging feeling that doing things right in the first place was easier than messing up and then trying to find the silver lining to the cloud.

  “You have a point,” she finally conceded. “On the other hand, there’s always tomorrow.”

  “Like what do you mean?” Carole asked.

  “Well, we have until five o’clock tomorrow afternoon when Mrs. Reg is due back. Just think of all the things we could mess up before then.…”

  “No, don’t,” Stevie countered. “Think of all the things we can make go right before then.”

  “Think of all the gold pins we can find before she gets back,” Carole said.

  Lisa looked at her watch. They had twenty-three and a half hours until Mrs. Reg’s return. Considering what they’d done with the previous seventy-two hours, she wasn’t very hopeful. She didn’t share that thought with her friends. She didn’t have to. The looks on their faces said they’d had the same thought all on their own.

  ON FRIDAY MORNING Stevie sat at Mrs. Reg’s desk and tugged at some of her hair. During these days when she and her friends had been trying to fill Mrs. Reg’s shoes, Stevie had often found herself tugging at her hair. It didn’t help much, but it was better than gritting her teeth. Her hair would grow back.

  “But he did the wrong thing!” a very unpleasant voice whined at Stevie.

  The voice belonged to none other than Veronica diAngelo, and the fact that it was unpleasant was nothing new. The fact that it was whining at her wasn’t particularly new either, but the fact that she was supposed to do something about it was new, and Stevie didn’t much like it.

  The problem had to do with Garnet’s grain ration. Most of the horses at Pine Hollow got the same feed for every meal all the time. Most horses had special diets some of the time, and a few had special diets all of the time. Pine Hollow could certainly manage that. There was a big chart in the feed shed, not far from the clipboard where Stevie had found the papers for the feed order, that showed who was supposed to eat what. Garnet had been put on a special diet. She was supposed to get a mixture of bran and whole oats in the morning for a week, while most of the other horses in the stable simply got crimped oats.

  “There wasn’t any bran i
n her feed this morning, and I could see that the oats in her bucket were crimped and not whole. Once again, Red has made a terrible mistake.”

  Red was standing next to Veronica. Right then his face was bright red with anger—even redder than his hair. He wasn’t saying anything, though. He’d learned long ago not to argue with Veronica. She was just too dangerous. So it was up to Stevie to solve the problem.

  It was a problem, too. Red had made a mistake. Veronica’s horse wasn’t supposed to get crimped oats because Veronica’s father paid extra for her to have whole oats. Also, Judy Barker, the vet, had advised them to add the bran to Garnet’s feed as a mild laxative because Veronica had been complaining that the horse had seemed sluggish. Garnet wasn’t in any way sick, so Red’s mistake was just that—a little goof—one that could easily be corrected with the horse’s evening meal. However, Veronica seemed determined to make a federal case out of it.

  “Judy prescribed this special diet for my horse, you know. It’s not just that I think it would be nice for Garnet to get something special. It’s been prescribed by a doctor.”

  Stevie was fully aware of the fact that Judy was a doctor, and she didn’t need Veronica to spit the words at her. In fact, she didn’t think she needed Veronica at all. She wished she had the power to tell Veronica exactly what she was thinking, but she didn’t. Veronica was a paying customer of Pine Hollow and deserved to get what she paid for.

  Stevie looked at Red for help, but she could tell she wasn’t going to get any. Red was holding his breath to keep from saying what was on his mind, and it wasn’t an apology. Stevie thought Veronica deserved an apology. She also thought she deserved something else, and she suddenly had an idea of how she was going to deliver it to her.

  “Well, Red,” Stevie said finally. “It looks like we have made a little mistake here.…”

  “Little!” Veronica sputtered, but Stevie continued talking before Veronica could start in again.

  “… and we’re just going to have to make apologies and amends.”

  Those were the words Veronica was waiting to hear, and in her usual thoughtful and kind way, she told Stevie so.

  “And just exactly how do you propose to do that?” she demanded.

  Stevie pasted an angelic smile on her face. “Well, we’re going to give Garnet the correct feed right now. Red?”

  “Now?” he asked. “But Ste—”

  “Now,” Stevie said. She tried to sound authoritative without being bossy. It wasn’t easy. She hoped she was managing it. Red didn’t seem to think so. He tried again.

  “I don’t think—”

  “We ought to correct this goof immediately,” Stevie said calmly. “We wouldn’t want Garnet to go without her bran and her whole oats, would we?”

  “I could, but …”

  “I know you’re busy, Red,” Stevie said sympathetically. “However, Veronica is right, and we just can’t waste a second. We have to make it up to her. Right away.”

  Red got it. “You’re absolutely right, Stevie. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thank you,” Veronica said in a superior tone, “it’s about time you took me seriously.” She turned on her heel and stormed out of the office.

  When they were pretty sure she was out of sight and earshot, Red offered his hand to Stevie for a high five. “I’m out of here,” he said. “I’ve got work to do!”

  Stevie grinned to herself. She’d accomplished something really good, and she felt good about it. Red was going to feed Garnet another full ration of grains, including the bran. The horse really didn’t need the additional feeding, but it wouldn’t harm him. It would, however, harm Veronica. There was no way she would be allowed to ride Garnet right after the horse had his ration of grain. It was a bad practice to ride a horse hard on a stomach filled with rich grains. So what Stevie had accomplished through the back door was something she never could have done in any direct way—she’d gotten Veronica out of jump class for the morning. It was just for an hour, but an hour without Veronica was a whole lot better than an hour with Veronica.

  Satisfied with her own cleverness, she sat back in Mrs. Reg’s chair, propped her feet on Mrs. Reg’s desk, and grinned to herself.

  “You look like the cat that ate the canary,” Carole commented, walking into the office. She brushed Stevie’s feet off the desk and laid out her new daily horse-assignment chart. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Stevie did. Carole loved it. She especially liked the part that a nice horse like Garnet would be getting a double treat—two rations of grain and the opportunity to miss a class with Veronica.

  “Can’t tell who’s getting the better end of this deal, can we?” Carole asked.

  Stevie was so proud of what she’d done that she wished there were more time to gloat. However, class was about to begin, and Mrs. Reg’s office flooded with young riders, each clamoring for his or her favorite horse or pony. Carole was suddenly totally immersed in horse assignments.

  “Oh, Stevie!” It was Lisa, calling from the front of the stable. Stevie was glad because that meant she had somebody else to tell about her victory over Veronica. It probably also meant that the delivery of hay and grain from Connor’s was arriving. She grabbed the invoice from the last order just so she could check what was being delivered. She left the desk and the horse assignments to Carole and went to join her friend out in front of the stable.

  “Stevie!” There was an urgency in Lisa’s voice that made Stevie quicken her step, though she wasn’t really worried—because what could possibly ruin a morning in which she’d so totally outmaneuvered Veronica diAngelo?

  When she stepped out the door of the stable, the answer to the question was right in front of her nose. It was an eighteen-wheel semi with large letters proclaiming it to be from Connor Hay & Grain.

  The driver leaned out the window. “Where does Mrs. Reg want me to put all this stuff?” he asked.

  “In the feed shed, like usual,” Stevie said.

  “This doesn’t fit in the feed shed like usual,” the man said. “This is a big order.”

  Stevie and Lisa looked at the truck. It was big. Really big. Stevie had seen deliveries from Connor’s before. They usually just brought a few bags of grain and a couple hundred pounds of hay in the back of a pickup truck. They never brought it in a big truck like this—except for once when there was a three-day event at Pine Hollow and more than five times the usual number of horses were staying at the stable in temporary stalls.

  Stevie tugged at her hair because as sure as Veronica diAngelo was going to have to stay out of jump class, Stevie knew that she’d done something wrong ordering the feed. But what?

  Then a thought began forming in her mind. She hadn’t looked at the date on the invoice before. She pulled the sheet of paper from her pocket and looked at it.

  “Girls, why don’t you go get Mrs. Reg so she can tell us what to do?” the driver asked. He was getting a little annoyed at Stevie, but not anywhere near as annoyed as Stevie was getting at herself.

  There was the answer in black and white. The order she’d so happily duplicated had been placed exactly one week before the horse show at Pine Hollow. What she had sitting in the driveway was enough grain, hay, and straw to feed and bed hundreds of horses—not just the ones who lived at Pine Hollow, but ones from all over the county and then some.

  It occurred to Stevie that perhaps the whole truckload wasn’t for Pine Hollow. The stable had been doing business with Connor’s for generations. Connor’s certainly knew how much food they delivered regularly and that this “standing order” was intended to apply only to the annual horse show. Stevie felt silly having thought that the worst had happened.

  “This whole truckload isn’t for us, right?” Stevie asked confidently.

  “Every bit of it,” the man answered. “Just like you ordered. Now would you please go get Mrs. Reg?”

  The worst had happened.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Stevie said weakly. She grabbed Lisa’
s sleeve and pulled her with her toward the office.

  “What’s going on?” Lisa asked.

  It was hard to admit what a gigantic mistake she’d made, but Stevie explained it to Lisa, and when she did, Lisa groaned. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But why don’t you just tell them we don’t need it?”

  “I ordered it; I begged them for it,” Stevie said.

  “But we can’t keep an order that size. There’s no place to store it, and it will go bad.”

  Lisa was right about that. Fresh hay and grain were important. Horse feed that sat around was likely to become moldy, and moldy feed led to sick horses. She didn’t have any idea what they were going to do, but the answer was not going to be to keep the whole order.

  Stevie didn’t even bother sitting at Mrs. Reg’s desk. She just picked up the phone and dialed the number on the invoice.

  She recognized the voice of the man she’d talked to earlier in the week. “Hi, I’m calling from Pine Hollow,” she began.

  “Oh, it’s you,” the man said. He sighed. Stevie wondered what that meant. “Listen, I’m glad you called. I got to ask you something really important.”

  Stevie was preparing herself to explain about her awful goof. She was so busy doing that in her mind that she almost missed what he was saying.

  “… Look, I’m sorry to ask you to do this, but there’s an emergency over at the racetrack.”

  “What?” Stevie asked.

  “I said, they had a fire in their grain shed at the racetrack. Everything is gone. The whole barn just blew up. And there’s a meet going on. They’ve got a couple hundred horses over there, and they all need feed and grain. I’m asking all the stable owners around if they can cut back on their orders for right now so that we can supply the racetrack. I mean, if I don’t get a truckload of feed over to them today … I know you need this order, but could you consider just taking partial delivery—for now? Please?” His words hung in the air. Stevie was stunned. She dropped into the chair at Mrs. Reg’s desk, apparently completely unaware of the fact that she was sitting on Carole’s lap.