PLAYING TO WIN!
“Because of unforeseen scheduling problems, the match is going to take place on Saturday,” said Max.
“This week?” Stevie screeched. “But we won’t be ready. We’ll never win!”
“No, I’m sure we won’t,” Max said quite calmly. “I wouldn’t expect us to win our first match in any event. So think of it as an intense practice rather than a real match.”
This was more than Stevie could handle. As soon as the practice chukka started, Stevie started too—on the players.
Lisa and Carole waited on the sidelines to be called in to play. “It was bad enough when she thought the match against Phil’s club was going to be in two weeks. Now that it’s this week, there’s no stopping her,” Lisa complained.
“When Stevie gets an idea in her head—”
“I know, I know. Even an atom bomb can’t blast it out. But if she doesn’t stop being so awful to everybody, somebody’s going to go to a lot of trouble to find an atom bomb somewhere—”
“If we don’t just strangle her with our bare hands first,” Carole finished the sentence for Lisa.
Read all the Saddle Club books!
Horse Crazy
Horse Shy
Horse Sense
Horse Power
Trail Mates
Dude Ranch
Horse Play
Horse Show
Hoof Beat
Riding Camp
Horse Wise
Rodeo Rider
Starlight Christmas
Sea Horse
Team Play
Horse Games
Horsenapped
Pack Trip
Star Rider
Snow Ride
Racehorse
Fox Hunt
Horse Trouble
Ghost Rider
Copyright © 1991 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller
Cover art copyright © 1991 by George Tsui.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
“The Saddle Club” is a registered trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller.
“USPC” and “Pony Club” are registered trademarks of the United States Pony Clubs, Inc., at The Kentucky Horse Park, 4071 Iron Works Pike, Lexington, KY 40511-8462.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-82497-4
Originally published by Bantam Skylark in May 1991
First Delacorte Ebook Edition 2012
v3.1_r1
I would like to express special appreciation to Linda Kiss, who got me started on this book, and to Pat Lebs, president of the American Polocrosse Association, who helped me complete it. They each provided me with information and enthusiasm. Thank you both.
For Emmons Hiller
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
About the Author
PHIL MARSTON THINKS he’s such a hotshot rider! Like he invented the whole idea of riding!
Stevie Lake stormed along the roadside. Her dark blond hair bounced with each determined step. The Phil Marston in her thoughts was her boyfriend. Most of the time, they were very good friends. They felt the same way about a lot of things. The exception was deciding which one was the better horseback rider.
He even thinks he’s better than I am. We’ll show him!
The we in her thoughts included her two best friends, Carole Hanson and Lisa Atwood. Carole and Lisa rode horses at the same stable where Stevie was headed right now, Pine Hollow. The three of them loved horses and riding—and each other—so much that they called themselves The Saddle Club.
At that moment, Stevie was forgetting that they had invited Phil Marston to be in The Saddle Club. At that moment, Stevie was, in fact, forgetting everything about Phil Marston, except that he had just been telling her on the telephone about a new sport his Pony Club was playing. It was called polocrosse.
She’d been excited when he’d started to tell her about the sport.
“It’s a combination of polo and lacrosse,” he’d said. “You play with three horseback riders on a side in a big rectangular field with goalposts on either end.”
“This sounds great,” Stevie had said.
“It is,” Phil had agreed. “Each player has a position, and the positions are numbered. The number 1 player is Attack, number 2 is the Center, and number 3 is Defense. Only Attack can score goals. I’ve been playing Attack. The teams we’ve played against so far really haven’t been very good. I’ve scored a lot of goals.”
Stevie could hear the unspoken challenge in Phil’s description of the game. He wanted to play against a good team. Stevie thought that would be a fine idea. She wanted him to play against a good team, too, only she wanted to be on that good team and she wanted Phil’s team to lose to it!
“He won’t think he’s such a hotshot for long!” she whispered under her breath as she entered the stable. She was so intent on her conversation with herself that she didn’t notice Max Regnery, her riding instructor, directly in front of her. She walked right smack into him.
“Who won’t what?” Max asked, grabbing her by the shoulders before they both fell down.
“Oh, sorry! I guess I—oh, wow! Max! Just the person I need to see. Can we talk?”
“Looks like this must be important,” he said. “Sure, come on into my office.”
CAROLE SNEEZED. ALMOST instantly, her father’s hand came over and brushed her forehead. She knew he was sort of pretending that it was just a touch of affection, but she also knew he was really feeling for a fever. Reassured, he casually smoothed her shiny black hair and his hand returned to the steering wheel.
“I’m okay, Dad. I really am.”
“That’s the second time you’ve sneezed this morning,” Colonel Hanson reminded her. He turned the car off the highway and onto the road that led to Pine Hollow Stables.
“There must be some dust in the car,” she said. “I don’t have a cold. I promise you.”
“It’s just that I care,” he said.
“I know,” Carole said. “But I’m okay, I really am. And even if something were wrong, the most healing thing in the world for me is horseback riding, and I’d only get sicker if I had to miss the Pony Club meeting today.”
“So you are sick,” he said instantly.
“No,” Carole said, annoyed with herself for having invited further speculation. “I’m healthy as a horse.”
Colonel Hanson glanced sideways at his daughter and smiled. He then turned his attention back to the road. Carole sighed with relief. Although she was convinced that he was just about the best father a girl could have, he did have his faults. He’d go through periods when he’d pay too much attention to her and worry too much about her. This was one of those periods.
In a way, Carole understood it. Her mother had died of cancer almost two years earlier and her father still worried that he should have known and should have done something earlier than he did. He turned his worry to Carole and expressed it with concern for her. Most of the time, Carole didn’t mind, but when it threatened to interfere with her horseba
ck riding, she minded a lot.
“HAVE YOU SEEN Stevie?” Lisa asked when Carole arrived at Pine Hollow. Lisa was in the middle of tacking up Pepper, the horse she usually rode.
“No, but her backpack is in her cubby in the locker area, so she must be here,” Carole said.
“Max’s office door is closed,” Lisa said. “Do you think something’s wrong?”
Carole scrunched her face in thought. Max was serious about riding and thought it was a great privilege. When his students didn’t behave, or when their grades at school slipped, Max would suspend their privileges. Stevie, whose idea of “fun” was not always within Max’s definition of “behave,” spent an awful lot of time in Max’s office “explaining.” She was good at explaining. At her young years, she’d already had a lifetime of experience explaining.
Carole shrugged. “I don’t think he could have found out about the spilled soda in Veronica’s cubby.”
“Cross your fingers,” Lisa said.
“I will, but it makes it hard to tack up a horse!” Carole joked.
“Horse Wise will come to attention in ten minutes!” the P.A. system warned.
Horse Wise was the name of their Pony Club, and ten minutes wasn’t a lot of time to tack up a horse and get ready for the meeting.
Carole waved her hand, fingers still crossed, at Lisa, uttered a quick “See you!” and headed for the tack room. Lisa turned her attention to Pepper. She tugged his forelock out from under the crownpiece of his bridle and smoothed it for him.
When she was finished with that, she lifted Pepper’s saddle onto his back and slid it into place. She checked to make sure the saddle pad was smooth.
“Hi, Lisa,” Stevie greeted her, dashing past Pepper’s stall, carrying Topside’s tack.
“Hey, Stevie, what’s up?” Lisa called after her.
“See you at Horse Wise!” was her only answer.
It was enough, though. As long as Stevie was going to be at the meeting, it meant either she’d never been in trouble, or she’d explained her way out of it. Lisa finished tacking up Pepper and hurried to the meeting.
All Horse Wise mounted meetings began with inspection. Stevie was a little worried about that. She’d been in such a hurry to tack up Topside she wasn’t even positive she’d gotten his saddle on frontward. She glanced down. It was okay. Her bridle, however, wasn’t. Topside used a full bridle with two reins and she’d gotten the leathers twisted. Today, of all days, she didn’t want to delay the beginning of the real meeting. She leaned forward and untwined them as quickly as she could.
“Ready for inspection?” Max asked.
“I am now,” she said, smiling.
Max smiled back weakly. “Proceed to the meeting,” he said, approving her tack. She and Topside entered the outdoor ring.
A few minutes later, Max appeared with the final rider and the meeting began.
“Today,” Max said, “we are going to learn a new game. It’s called polocrosse.”
Stevie almost cheered out loud. She wanted to tell everybody what had happened. It had been very eerie to appear in Max’s office to talk about polocrosse only to find that he had already bought the equipment, marked off the field, and was planning to teach it to Horse Wise this very same day. It was just great. All they’d need to do was to have a few practice sessions and then they could compete with Phil’s team—and beat them, of course! She’d show him a thing or two about scoring points. He’d see!
Carole had already heard about polocrosse, but she’d never played it or seen it being played. She watched with excitement as Max displayed the equipment: a rubber ball about the size of a softball, and a long-handled racquet with a shallow net used to scoop up, carry, and throw the ball.
“This is going to be great!” she whispered to Lisa, who was next to her in line at the meeting.
“Just three people play on each side at a time?” Lisa whispered back.
“Three’s always been enough for us, hasn’t it?” Carole asked.
Lisa smiled, remembering that three was, indeed, a very special number for The Saddle Club.
“Are you listening or talking?” Max asked, glaring at Carole and Lisa.
“Listening,” they answered in a single voice. Then they turned their full attention to everything he was saying.
“This is what the field looks like,” Max said, pointing to a chart that he had tacked to the fence of the ring. “All six players are allowed in the center area. Only Attack and Defense—from opposite teams, of course—are allowed in the goal-scoring areas. There’s one at each end of the field, behind the penalty line. Attack must be in the goal-scoring area to score, and nobody can carry the ball over the penalty line. They have to throw it to another player on the other side of the line, or bounce it and pick it up themselves—like dribbling in basketball. Got it?”
“Can the Attack just carry the ball into the goal?” Lisa asked.
“Good question,” Max said. “And the answer is no. The ball has to be thrown or bounced between the goalposts, and the Attack is not allowed closer to the goalposts than eleven yards. There’s a large semicircle marked on the ground around the goal. So, now, you’ve got the general idea. Who wants to try it first?”
Every single hand went up.
Max regarded his riders studiously. His eyes darted around. Lisa could feel her excitement rising. She really wanted to play.
“Well, that’s good news,” Max said, “because we need twelve players. Six will be on each team, with three playing at a time. What we have here is twelve volunteers.”
Within minutes, Max had six players on the field that adjoined the ring. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole were all on the same team, but they were going to play the second “chukka,” as Max told them the six-minute periods were called.
“Go, Blue!” Stevie shouted encouragement to her teammates on the field.
“Max hasn’t even tossed out the ball,” Carole said. “Why are you yelling already?”
“Because we need to encourage our teammates to do the best they can,” Stevie told her. “I was talking to Phil this morning and he told me about this game. The really funny thing is that at practically the same time I decided I had to learn it, Max had decided the same thing—”
“That you had to learn it?” Lisa teased.
“No—that all of us had to learn it, of course. Anyway, I can’t let Phil go on thinking all his life that he’s this super polocrosse player, you know?”
Carole and Lisa exchanged doubting looks. When Phil and Stevie had first met at riding camp, their friendship had almost been ruined by the competition between them.
“Are we looking at another bout of ‘I can do anything better than he can’?” Lisa asked Carole.
“Sounds like it to me,” Carole said. “Let’s ask her.”
Stevie glanced at both her friends. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s just that he was boasting and I hate it when he does that.”
“I don’t know,” Carole said. “I’m not so sure you hate it when Phil says he’s better at something than you are. What I think you hate is when you think he might be right.”
The moment Carole said that, she was sorry. It wasn’t that it wasn’t true. It was just that she knew Stevie didn’t want to hear it.
“Shows how much you know,” Stevie said.
“Okay, second squads!” Max called out.
Stevie kicked Topside and pulled away from her friends.
“Saved by the instructor,” Lisa said to Carole when Stevie was out of earshot.
“Maybe,” Carole said, but it turned out that Lisa was right. Stevie’s burst of temper at Carole disappeared almost as suddenly as it had arrived, for as soon as the three got onto the playing field, Stevie’s attention was focused on mastering a new sport. She was too busy to be angry.
Max gave each of the girls a number. Stevie was 1, so her position was Attack. Lisa was 2—the Center. Carole was 3, Defense. He handed them each a racquet, lined them up next to the other t
eam, and tossed out the ball.
“Got it!” Stevie yelled, but she didn’t have it at all. The other team’s Attack had it. Before Stevie could even get Topside turned around to try to get the ball from the Red Attack, he’d passed it to his Center. Lisa rode hard, trying to catch up with the Center, reaching for Red Center’s stick, to hit it upward with her own. That was the way Max had told them they could get the ball from another player.
Lisa reached out and flailed at Red Center’s stick with hers. She wasn’t even close.
“Get it!” Stevie screamed.
“I can’t!” Lisa screamed back.
“I can!” Stevie yelled with determination.
She then proceeded to dash after Red Center, waving her racquet as she approached.
The whistle blew.
“You can’t threaten another rider with a racquet,” Max scolded Stevie. “Remember, you can attack the ball, but not the ballcarrier.”
Stevie nodded. Play resumed.
It seemed impossible to Lisa that the chukka was only six minutes long. How could it be that the players could make so many mistakes in six minutes? In that very short time, the ball was tossed out-of-bounds five times, and absolutely lost twice. On two occasions, five riders had chased one rider into the scoring area only to find that none of them had the ball, or even had any idea where it was!
The whistle blew.
“Whew!” Lisa said. The chukka had been fun, but it had been very hard. She was pretty sure her friends were feeling the same way she was, but she was wrong.
“Wasn’t it wonderful?” Carole asked, clearly exhilarated.
“Boy, have you guys got a lot of work to do so we can beat Phil’s Pony Club!” Stevie said.
Sometimes it amazed Lisa how three girls could be such good friends and so different all at once.
“I’LL JUST BE a minute, Dad,” Carole said, hopping out of the car. She picked up Crystal’s teddy bear and entered the children’s hospital. Max had asked her to do this as a favor to him, but, really, it was something Carole was glad to do. A few weeks earlier, Carole had been running pony-cart rides for patients at the hospital during a festival sponsored by Stevie’s school. She hadn’t noticed when five-year-old Crystal left her bear under one of the seats. Max had come across it and asked Carole if she remembered to whom it belonged. There was no way Carole could forget the frightened little girl who clutched her teddy bear getting into the cart—or the excited and smiling child who got off the cart a few minutes later. Returning Crystal’s teddy was more like a special honor than a favor.
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