Hobbyhorse

by Bonnie Bryant

  “How lovely, dear,” Mrs. Atwood said. Lisa pressed her lips together.

  “Yes, and I’m probably going to get my own saddle soon, and Mummy said I might get a horse for my birthday. I probably will. I don’t know if Ruth will sell Star, of course, because she is such a good horse, but if not we’ll have to find one just like her.”

  Lisa couldn’t believe this brat was getting her own horse. She hoped it wasn’t true. It sounded as if Amelia was just getting carried away, but who knew for sure? Meanwhile, Lisa’s parents seemed charmed by their niece’s conversation.

  When they finally got home, it was too late for Lisa to call Carole or Stevie, but the message light on the answering machine was blinking. Lisa hurried to play back the tape. It was Carole.

  “Lisa”—Carole’s voice quavered, as though she were near tears—“I called Judy, but she had to do an emergency colic surgery, and she couldn’t see Starlight today. But I looked his symptoms up in a book—I’m so worried—call me when you can.”

  That was all. Lisa reset the tape. Whatever Starlight’s problem was, it had to be awful for Carole to sound so upset. Lisa bit her lip. She’d have to wait until morning to find out what was wrong.

  “Who was that?” Amelia demanded, walking up to Lisa. “What was she talking about? Does she have a horse?”

  “That was my friend Carole.” Lisa began to explain about Starlight.

  “Why is her horse sick?” Amelia said. “What’s wrong with it?”

  Lisa closed her mouth and shut her eyes and silently counted to ten. If she didn’t, she was going to say something rude.

  “Star is never sick,” Amelia said. “What were the other messages?”

  “That’s none of your business. It’s my family’s answering machine,” Lisa said. “Besides, there weren’t any other messages.”

  Amelia looked stricken. “Didn’t my parents call?” she whispered.

  Lisa hadn’t even thought about that. She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  Amelia nodded and suddenly looked brighter. “I bet they called but just didn’t want to leave a message. They’ll call back soon.”

  Lisa’s parents came in from the garage with Amelia’s suitcase. “Are you showing Amelia around, dear?” Mrs. Atwood asked.

  “Uh, sure,” Lisa said. “Amelia, this is the living room.”

  Amelia looked around. “Oh!” She gave a cry of delight. “Where did you get that hobbyhorse?”

  Despite her bad mood, Lisa smiled. Amelia had discovered the most interesting object in the room. Between the two windows on the far side stood a beautiful antique hobbyhorse that Lisa’s parents had bought in England. It was made of polished wood with a real horsehair mane and tail and a real leather saddle and bridle, and it was more than two hundred years old. Lisa loved it.

  Amelia rushed forward and hugged the little horse. “Oh, it’s beautiful! Look at its saddle! Can I ride it?”

  “No,” Lisa said quickly. Amelia froze.

  “It’s just for decoration,” Mrs. Atwood explained. “It’s very old and fragile.”

  “It was made for little kids, anyway,” Lisa said. “You’re too big.”

  Amelia frowned and didn’t say anything. She smoothed the hobbyhorse’s mane and arranged the reins so that they rested on the saddle. Lisa wondered what she was thinking. It was impossible to tell.

  Lisa was relieved when her parents suggested that it might be time for Amelia to go to bed. Tomorrow would be a busy day, starting with the usual Saturday-morning Horse Wise meeting. Even though it was a little early for Lisa to go to bed, she followed her parents and Amelia up to the guest room.

  Amelia didn’t want to sleep in the guest room. She didn’t want to be alone in a strange house. It was really scary. Before Lisa knew quite what had happened, Amelia was being tucked into Lisa’s four-poster bed, and Lisa’s mother was handing Lisa a sleeping bag so that she could sleep on the floor.

  Lisa rolled herself into her bag and shut her eyes, but she couldn’t sleep. She fretted over Starlight and Carole. She tried to block out the sound of Amelia’s earth-shattering snores. She wished the floor weren’t quite so hard.

  It was going to be a very long week.

  IN THE MORNING Lisa woke to find Amelia rummaging through the drawers of her desk. “What do you think you’re doing?” Lisa demanded, sitting up and climbing out of her sleeping bag.

  “Just looking,” Amelia replied. “Who’s John Brightstar?”

  “Were you reading my letters?” Lisa asked in amazement. John was a friend of hers who lived on a ranch out West.

  “No, I just looked at the envelopes,” Amelia said. “He wrote his return address on them. Is he your boyfriend?”

  He wasn’t, but that was none of Amelia’s business. “You’re not allowed to look through my drawers,” Lisa said. She took her letters away from Amelia and jammed them back into the drawer. “You’re not allowed to look through any of my stuff.”

  “But I’m company,” Amelia said with a puzzled frown. “I’m supposed to be able to do whatever I want.”

  “Not in my room,” Lisa said. She grabbed her clothes and went to the bathroom to dress and brush her teeth. What a way to start the morning!

  When she came back into her room, she found Amelia sitting on the bed, which she’d made neatly. Amelia had folded Lisa’s sleeping bag, too, and put her own nightgown into her suitcase. She was completely dressed in a turtle-neck, wool sweater, and her hundred-dollar jodhpurs, and she’d braided her hair nicely. But the thing Lisa noticed first was that Amelia was reading one of her best books!

  “Give that back!” Lisa cried, snatching it out of Amelia’s hands. It was an old copy of Black Beauty, with beautiful color illustrations, and Lisa loved it. She didn’t want Amelia messing it up.

  “I was just reading it,” Amelia protested in a hurt voice. “I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to look at your books.”

  Lisa realized that Amelia was probably old enough now to be trusted with her books. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess you can look at them. Just be careful, okay?”

  Amelia still looked hurt, but she smiled. “Okay. Can we go to the stable now?”

  Lisa smiled back. At least there was one thing about Amelia she could stand. It was awfully early, but Lisa knew Carole would be there early today, and she hoped Stevie would be, too. “Great idea,” she said.

  LISA’S MOTHER DROVE them to Pine Hollow. On the way Lisa thought again about the Pony Tails and how glad she was that they would be around this week. They might take Amelia off her hands. “Do you have lots of friends at your stable at home?” she asked the little girl.

  Amelia looked out the car window for a long time without answering. “The other girls at my stable are not very friendly,” she finally said. She looked sideways at her aunt. “They’re elegant people, you understand, they just aren’t very friendly.”

  Lisa sighed. She could guess what that meant. Amelia had probably acted bratty in front of the people at her stable and no one there liked her. “The people at Pine Hollow are very friendly,” she assured her cousin. She knew it was true, but would they be friendly toward Amelia? Lisa hoped so.

  THE FIRST PERSON they saw when they went into the stable was Max. Lisa introduced Amelia to him. Amelia shook his hand gravely, a smile lighting her small face. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said. “Thank you for letting me ride here while I’m visiting Lisa.”

  “You’re welcome,” Max said. He smiled at Amelia and raised his eyebrows at Lisa as if to say he was impressed. Lisa wished she could explain that Amelia’s manners were only skin deep.

  “Look!” she said instead. “There’s Stevie and Carole!” She grabbed Amelia’s hand and pulled her down the aisle.

  “Bye, Max!” Amelia said, waving, as Lisa dragged her away.

  “Carole!” Lisa hugged her friend. “How is Starlight?”

  Carole and Stevie were both standing beside Starlight in the center of the stable aisle. Stevie he
ld Starlight’s lead rope. Carole had filled a bucket with warm water and set it on the floor. She was about to coax Starlight to put his sore foot into it. “Good boy,” she crooned to him. To Lisa she added, with a grimace, “He’s the same as yesterday. Still lame. Judy’s going to try to come out today, but she’s still tied up with the colicking horse.”

  Lisa nodded. It was important that Starlight see a vet, but his lameness probably wasn’t an emergency. “This is my cousin Amelia,” she said. Carole and Stevie both said hi, but neither of them did more than glance at the girl. They were both focused on Starlight.

  “Tell me what you were thinking, Carole,” Lisa said, moving to Starlight’s side. The gelding wore his usual calm, pleasant expression. He didn’t seem to be feeling too awful.

  “Well, it could be an abscess,” Carole explained. “That’s basically a pocket of infection in his hoof, and if that’s true, then he’ll be okay as soon as we take care of it.” She stroked Starlight’s neck as she talked. She knew he didn’t look too bad, but when he walked he limped, and his head bobbed in pain every time he put weight on his sore foot. Carole could barely stand to see him in pain. He’d never had anything seriously wrong before.

  “Abscesses are pretty common,” Stevie said.

  “Didn’t Patch have one last year?” Lisa asked.

  Stevie nodded.

  “As long as it is an abscess,” Carole said. “Look at the way he’s pointing with his foot.” Lisa and Stevie looked. Starlight was standing with his right front foot—his sore one—out in front of him.

  “He’s trying to take his weight off it,” Lisa guessed. “Because it hurts him.”

  Carole nodded miserably. “I was reading in my horse books last night. It’s a classic sign of navicular disease.”

  “Oh no,” Stevie said.

  “What’s that?” Amelia asked. She reached up to pat Starlight’s nose as she spoke. “Did he do something wrong?”

  “Of course not,” Carole said sharply. “It isn’t his fault.” As Carole bent to put Starlight’s hoof into the bucket of water, Lisa could see that she was scowling.

  Amelia nodded. “I guess not, because he looks like a nice horse. He’s really beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Carole said, straightening up. She bit her lip. She’d been struggling all morning not to cry. The navicular bones were some of the tiny ones in a horse’s foot. They corresponded roughly to the human wrist.

  “It’s too bad he’s hurt,” Amelia continued. “I’d really like to ride him.”

  Carole grinned at the little girl, but then she realized that Amelia was serious. “You couldn’t ride Starlight,” she said. “He’s not used in lessons.” Carole knew Lisa’s cousin was a beginning rider, and beginning riders had no business on spirited horses like Starlight.

  “Carole is the only person who rides Starlight,” Lisa explained patiently. “He’s still young, and she’s training him.”

  Amelia drew her mouth into a pout. “But I want to ride him,” she said, as if that were the only important thing.

  Stevie and Lisa exchanged looks. “But he’s hurt,” Lisa said.

  “I understand.” Amelia nodded. “What are you soaking his foot in?”

  “Water mixed with some salts Max gave me,” Carole explained. She went on to describe exactly what sort of salts they were, how much she put in the bucket, and how often and for how long she used them.

  Lisa and Stevie smiled at each other. It was entirely like Carole to recite all the tiny details of her horse’s care. Most little kids, even ones who liked horses, would have been bored, but Amelia listened carefully, nodding and peering into the bucket. When Starlight started to lift his foot out of the bucket, Amelia said “Whoa” and gently pushed it back in, even before Carole could.

  “She really likes horses,” Stevie whispered to Lisa in a tone of approval. “I don’t know, Lisa, she doesn’t seem that bad. After everything you told us about her, I expected a real brat.”

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “Sometimes she’s not that bad, but just give her time and you’ll see what I mean,” she said.

  “Hey, Carole,” Stevie said more loudly, “tell Lisa your good news.”

  Carole looked at Starlight and frowned. “What good n—oh, right! Lisa, Max asked me to be an assistant instructor for the kids’ camp this week. He said that since I couldn’t ride Starlight, I could help him. I’ll still be doing something around horses.”

  “That sounds great!” Lisa was happy for her friend. Being an assistant instructor would be fun, and Carole would learn a lot. But when she looked at Carole, Lisa could see that her friend wasn’t really thinking about her good news. She was worrying about her horse.

  “HELLO, MAX!” LISA heard May Grover shout outside the stable. Lisa stood on tiptoes to look out a window.

  “Hey, it’s the Pony Tails! Amelia, come on, I want you to meet them. Carole, we’ll be right back.”

  Corey, Jasmine, and May all had ponies of their own that they kept in their backyards. May’s father had a four-horse trailer, and he often brought May’s pony, Macaroni, Corey’s pony, Samurai, and Jasmine’s pony, Outlaw, over to Pine Hollow for Horse Wise, riding lessons, and other activities. Since the little girls would be going to the school-break camp, they’d arranged to have their ponies spend the whole week at Pine Hollow. That way Mr. Grover wouldn’t have to keep bringing them back and forth. Max had three empty stalls he was letting them use, but before Mr. Grover arrived with the ponies, the girls had to get the stalls ready.

  Lisa pulled Amelia down the aisle just as all three Pony Tails disappeared into the feed room. They emerged with wheelbarrows and pitchforks and hurried to the empty stalls. Lisa hurried after them. “Hey, guys! This is my cousin Amelia. She’s going to spend the week here and ride in the camp.”

  May stopped shoveling sawdust into her wheelbarrow just long enough to smile. “Super!” she said. “We’re going to have a lot of fun!” She wheeled the barrow across the aisle and dumped it into an empty stall.

  “Hi, Amelia!” Corey said. “I’m Corey. Lisa told us you were coming.” She hung Samurai’s special water bucket in his stall. Samurai could be particular, and he only liked to drink out of one special bucket.

  “You can help us if you want to,” Jasmine added. “Grab a pitchfork.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Amelia asked. She sounded genuinely confused.

  All the Pony Tails seemed surprised by her reaction. “Because it’s fun,” Jasmine answered.

  Amelia shrugged in a way that reminded Lisa instantly of Veronica diAngelo, her least favorite person. Lisa sighed. How could Amelia be so interested in Starlight’s treatment and so uninterested in preparing some stalls? To Lisa, they were both part of the same thing: taking care of horses.

  “At my stable,” Amelia said, “we don’t work.”

  Aha, Lisa thought. The snob factor difference.

  Corey and May stopped working and stared at Amelia. “At our stable,” Jasmine said, “we do.”

  Amelia blushed, then swept a glance over them. Her gaze rested longest, and most pointedly, at the ragged hole worn through the knee of May’s jodhpurs. “Of course,” she said with a shrug, “maybe you need to work. I don’t. At Windswept, the stable where I ride, everything is the very best. The best sort of people ride there.”

  Lisa winced. Amelia was switching into full brat mode. So much for Lisa’s hope that Amelia could spend the week with the Pony Tails. She could already guess that they weren’t going to like Amelia any better than Lisa did.

  “You should see the horse I ride,” Amelia continued. “Her name is Star, and she’s exceptionally well bred. She’s the nicest horse at Windswept. Of course she isn’t easy to ride, but my instructor says I’m naturally talented, and I handle her just fine. I’m a very advanced rider for my age.”

  May looked directly at Lisa. “Is that true?” she asked.

  Lisa wanted to say “Of course not, she’s being a horrible bragging brat”
—but then she’d never seen Amelia ride. “I don’t know,” she said after a pause. “I don’t think so.”

  Amelia flushed red. She looked furious. “Lisa! I told you all about it!”

  “I know you did,” Lisa said uncomfortably.

  “How long have you been riding?” May cut in.

  Amelia lifted her head proudly. “Since last September.”

  “Ohhh,” May said softly. She and her friends went back to their work.

  May had been riding since she was three years old, and Jasmine and Corey had both ridden for a long time, too. Amelia might think that four months was a long time to be riding, but the Pony Tails weren’t going to agree. Even a naturally talented rider needed longer than four months to become a good rider.

  “Come on,” Lisa said, reaching to touch Amelia’s shoulder. “Let’s go meet some more horses. I haven’t introduced you to Prancer.”

  Amelia swerved away from Lisa’s touch. “I told Lisa,” she said to the Pony Tails, in a loud voice. “She just must not have been listening. Star is a very good horse, she’s very beautiful, she’s very hard to ride—”

  “Excuse me,” May cut in, “but I think my dad just pulled up. We have to go get our ponies out of the horse trailer now.” The Pony Tails hardly looked at Amelia as they left the stable.

  Amelia stared after them openmouthed. “Do they all have their own ponies?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “They do.” She felt bad. On the one hand, Amelia had gotten what she deserved; but on the other hand, Lisa felt as if she should have stuck up for her cousin. Lisa was beginning to understand that bragging was Amelia’s way of trying to be liked. It wasn’t a good way, but maybe she just didn’t know any better.

  Amelia stamped her foot. “I don’t like the people at this stable, either!” she said.

  Lisa sighed. Feeling sorry for Amelia seemed like a waste of time.

  LISA LED AMELIA back to the other end of the stable and stopped outside Belle’s stall. Stevie was inside, grooming her beautiful mare. “This is Stevie’s horse, Belle,” Lisa said to Amelia. “And next to her is the horse I usually ride, Prancer.”