Stevie shook her head ruefully. “I can’t believe that you two are passing up the one perfect chance to get Amelia out of our lives. Wait. No, I can believe it. And you’re right, Carole, Max has given me lots of second chances.
“Besides,” she added, “you almost lost your assistant instructor job over this. If you want to let Amelia keep riding, I’ll go along.”
“Me too.” Lisa put out her hand and pulled Stevie to her feet.
WHEN THEY WALKED back into Max’s office, Lisa was surprised to see that Amelia’s face was deathly pale. She jumped to her feet when they came in and stared at them with wide, anxious eyes.
Max smiled. “Well?”
Lisa nodded. “We all agreed. As long as she behaves from now on, she can still ride.”
Amelia blinked hard. “Thanks,” she said, moving shakily toward the door. Her eyes widened, and she struggled not to cry. Suddenly Lisa had the feeling that these tears were more real than any of the others Amelia had shed recently. “Thanks very much,” Amelia said. She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and tried to smile nonchalantly. “I’d better go saddle up, since I’m riding. Delilah, right, Max?”
“Wait a minute,” Max said. He gave The Saddle Club a proud smile and put his arm around Carole’s shoulder. “Amelia,” he said, “meet Carole, my assistant instructor. I’m putting her in charge of you.”
“OKAY,” CAROLE SAID, “first you go for the big piles.” She leaned over the door of Delilah’s stall. Behind her, Stevie and Lisa suppressed giggles. The first part of each day of camp was called stable management—a fancy name for manure mucking, tack cleaning, and all the other chores done around a stable. Amelia was the only camper who had never cleaned a stall before. The big pitchfork looked awkward in her small hands.
“Be careful not to get the wheelbarrow too full,” Carole cautioned. “It’ll be too heavy for you to push it. You’re going to have to make several trips.”
“Oorgh,” Amelia muttered. Her pitchfork tilted, and its contents dropped back onto the stall floor. “I can’t do this!” she cried in frustration.
“Of course you can,” Carole said cheerfully. “Look at it this way: It’ll build up your arm muscles, and that’s great for riding.”
“It’s hard,” Amelia said.
“Well,” Carole said, “it is hard, but you’re doing a super job. Delilah will be much happier with a clean stall.”
Amelia straightened and put her hands on her hips. “I hope so. Is this really part of camp, or is this part of my punishment? Because it seems like punishment. It even smells like punishment.”
Stevie snorted and Lisa rolled her eyes.
“It’s really part of camp,” Carole said mildly. “Not only that, it’s part of life. Every rider needs to know how to take care of her horse, and keeping its stall clean is the first step. I cleaned Starlight’s before you got here this morning—and I know that when you get a horse of your own, you’ll want to take really good care of it. Besides, if you don’t do stable management here at camp, you don’t ride.”
Carole smiled, even though she didn’t feel like it. She hadn’t expected Amelia to be thrilled about cleaning Delilah’s stall, but she had hoped that maybe she would be able to work a little faster. Now that Carole was back to being Max’s assistant, she had a lot to do, and she still had to soak Starlight’s sore foot. She looked at her watch worriedly.
Stevie saw and immediately understood. “Hey, Assistant Instructor,” she said. “What if Lisa and I become assistant’s assistants? We’ll help Amelia here while you go take care of Starlight.”
“Thanks,” Carole said. “It’s only for fifteen minutes—Amelia won’t be done with the stall yet …” She hurried off.
“I’m glad you thought of that,” Lisa told Stevie, as they took up Carole’s position by the stall door. “I know Carole’s worried, but I’ve been so”—she glanced at Amelia—“preoccupied lately, I haven’t been much help.”
“She still thinks it’s navicular,” Stevie said in an undertone. “I hope Judy can come today.”
“We’ll keep our fingers crossed,” Lisa said. “Poor Starlight!”
“Out of my way, please.” Amelia had filled the wheelbarrow three-quarters full and pushed it to the door of the stall. Lisa scooted to one side, and Stevie held the door open. Amelia struggled to steer the barrow without overturning it.
“Hey, that’s pretty full,” Lisa said. “I bet it’s heavy, and your arms are short. Why don’t you let me take it outside?”
“I can do it,” Amelia said. “I’m strong enough.” She made a tremendous effort and got the wheelbarrow rolling down the aisle.
Lisa shook her head.
“She’s tough enough, anyway,” Stevie remarked. “I’d like to see her take on my brother Chad. I bet she’d win.” When Amelia came back with the empty wheelbarrow, a scowl still on her face, Stevie added, “You know, Amelia, this honestly isn’t punishment. Everyone works at Pine Hollow.”
Amelia wielded the pitchfork with vigor. “I don’t mind working, but I’m behind everybody else,” she said. “The Pony Tails are already finished with their stalls. They’re in the tack room. They’re telling jokes.”
“They’re cleaning their saddles,” Lisa told her. “That’s what you’ll be doing as soon as you’re done here.”
“By then they’ll probably be riding,” Amelia said.
“Probably,” said Stevie.
Lisa shot Stevie a look. “They won’t start the lesson without you,” she assured her cousin. Amelia looked relieved.
After Amelia’s third wheelbarrow load, Stevie and Lisa declared the stall clean enough. “Good,” said Amelia, dusting her hands on the seat of her jodhpurs and heading for the tack room.
“Not so fast,” Stevie said, grabbing her shoulder. “You took three loads of dirty sawdust out, so you’ve got to put three loads of clean sawdust back in.” She pointed down the aisle. “The sawdust pile is next to the grain room. Use a shovel instead of a pitchfork. It’ll go faster.”
Amelia grunted as she grabbed the empty wheelbarrow. Lisa and Stevie watched her march down the aisle. “Think I should clean Delilah’s water bucket for her?” Stevie asked.
“No way,” Lisa replied. “She’s not being punished. She’d have to do this work whether she’d gotten in trouble or not.”
“I know,” Stevie said. “But the fact is, she is a lot slower than the rest of the campers, just because she’s never done this stuff before. If we helped just a little, she’d be even.”
“Stevie!” Lisa burst out laughing. “One minute you want to kick her out of the stable entirely, and the next you want to do her work for her. I said I’d try to be nicer to her, and I will, but she needs to do this herself.”
Stevie grinned. “You’re right. Only the faster she gets done, the sooner we can go ride!” They’d agreed to take a trail ride while Carole helped Max teach the morning camp lesson.
Stevie was demonstrating how to properly fluff the new bedding in Delilah’s stall when Carole came back. She paused in the aisle to hug Delilah, who was waiting patiently on cross-ties for her stall to be cleaned. “Good old girl,” Carole murmured soothingly. She had always loved Delilah.
“You know,” she said to Amelia, “besides Starlight, of course, Delilah is my favorite horse at Pine Hollow. I rode her for years, starting when I first came here. You should be glad to ride her. A horse doesn’t have to be high-strung and have a fancy pedigree to be good. I always knew that Delilah would try to do anything I asked. You can’t expect a horse to be better than that.”
Amelia shrugged. “Prancer is prettier. Her legs are longer, and her face is nicer.”
Lisa sighed. Max had told Amelia in front of all of them that she would not ride Prancer this week and that she was not likely to ride a horse like Prancer for years. He had told her that she would ride Delilah for the rest of the week, without complaining, or she wouldn’t ride at all. Amelia hadn’t complained.
&n
bsp; “Prancer and Delilah are just very different,” Carole explained patiently. “Prancer’s a Thoroughbred. Delilah is mostly quarter horse. Why are you so sure you’d like Prancer better, anyway?”
Amelia pressed her lips together, which made her look pouty. “Lisa rides Prancer,” she said at last, without looking at her cousin.
“Ohhh,” Carole said, in an understanding tone. She glanced at Lisa. “And you want to be like Lisa.”
Amelia shrugged. “Not really.” She looked up at Lisa, then continued, “My mom said that Lisa was riding a Thoroughbred, a very valuable horse. She thought it was really neat. So I thought she’d like it if I rode Prancer, too.”
Lisa felt a sudden rush of sympathy for her. To Amelia, riding Prancer must have been like having fancy jodhpurs—a status symbol. “Whether a horse is valuable or not isn’t an important thing about riding,” she said. “The best horses aren’t always the fancy ones, and the best riders are the ones who really love it.”
“I know,” Amelia said. “But my mom doesn’t.”
“Hey,” Stevie reminded her, “don’t you ride a pretty fancy horse at home anyway? You were telling us all about her.”
“Star,” Lisa remembered. “Star the Wonder Horse.”
Amelia scowled harder than ever. “She’s just a normal horse. I just happen to like her, that’s all.” She turned to Carole. “Aren’t I supposed to be cleaning tack?”
“Sure,” Carole said. Directing a roll of her eyes to her two friends, she led Amelia down to the tack room.
“I guess that means we put the wheelbarrow away,” Stevie remarked. “And it looks like I’ll be cleaning the water bucket, after all. Just this once, of course.”
“Your wish come true,” Lisa said jovially. “You get to do something for Amelia after all. But wasn’t that weird? Star isn’t so amazing after all. She’s just a good, honest horse.”
“Did you expect anything different?” Stevie asked.
“No,” Lisa admitted. “What surprises me is that Amelia knew the truth all along. I always thought her instructor had convinced her that Star was really special. I never guessed that Amelia was trying to convince us—and her mother, I suppose. My aunt Marianne can be strange sometimes. She’s like my mother, only much worse.”
Stevie nodded understandingly. Lisa’s mother’s preoccupation with high society wasn’t all bad—Mrs. Atwood had urged Lisa to start riding because it was something she thought all well-bred young ladies should do—but it was sometimes annoying for Lisa.
“I agree that your cousin is a constant surprise,” Stevie said. “What I don’t understand is why we’re standing around talking about her when we could be out riding our horses and talking about her.”
Lisa grinned. “Good point.”
MOST OF THE young campers had gathered in the tack room by the time Amelia and Carole got there. They greeted Amelia in a much friendlier way than they had the day before. Carole guessed from the look on the Pony Tails’ faces that the news of Amelia’s tantrum had spread, and she was equally sure that the Pony Tails somehow knew the rest of the story: that Amelia was still allowed to ride, but only if she shaped up. All the younger riders looked ready to give Amelia a second chance, and Carole felt grateful to them. The people at Pine Hollow really were friendly.
“Hello, Amelia,” Corey said softly.
Amelia looked at the floor. “Which tack do I clean, Carole?” she asked. Carole took Delilah’s bridle off its peg and handed it to her. “Can you show me how?” she whispered, looking embarrassed. “At my stable—at home they don’t show us how to do any of this.”
Those were almost the only words Amelia spoke while she cleaned her tack. The rest of the kids laughed and chattered, asked Carole questions, and talked about their ponies, but Amelia sat silently, scrubbing at the pieces of Delilah’s bridle as Carole directed her. The only time she talked at all was when Carole made her scrape the green crust off Delilah’s bit with her fingernail.
“This is disgusting,” she said.
“That’s because you didn’t wipe it off after you rode her the last time,” May piped up helpfully. “She probably had some chewed-up hay in her mouth, and it got on the bit and dried there overnight.”
Amelia hunched her shoulders. “Poor Delilah,” she said.
“Hey, it’s okay,” May said. “You’re cleaning it now, before she has to wear it.”
Carole noticed that Amelia worked until the bit was sparkling clean.
Max stuck his head in the tack room door. “Anyone here want to ride?” he asked.
“Yeah!” all the kids chorused, as they grabbed their clean tack and trooped out the door. Amelia remained with Carole.
“I haven’t cleaned my saddle yet,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Carole assured her. “It’s not very dirty, and you can do it later today.” She helped Amelia balance the saddle on her arm. “Do you need me to help you tack up?”
“No thanks. They teach us some things at my other stable, you know.” Amelia headed down the aisle.
Carole sighed, then went to pat Starlight before checking to make sure that Amelia had done it right.
BEING AN ASSISTANT instructor became much more fun the moment Carole took her place in the center of the riding ring next to Max. Eight small riders on horses or ponies circled the ring at a walk. Carole surveyed them all critically, mentally noting errors of position or control.
“Speak up,” Max told her, looking down at her with a grin. “You go ahead and get them started. I’ll add what I think.”
“Okay,” Carole said with a nervous grin. This was fun! “Everybody walk on. And May,” she commanded, in a voice that carried across the arena, “you need to relax your hands a little. Let Macaroni get warmed up before you try to collect him. Joey, push Nickel on. He’s being lazy. Excellent job with Penny, Jessica, but try to put more of your weight in your heels.” She looked up at Max, who smiled and nodded; then she turned her attention back to the class.
“Amelia, squeeze with your legs to encourage Delilah to go forward.” Carole knew Delilah sometimes started out slowly. Amelia squeezed, and when Delilah didn’t immediately respond, she clucked to the horse encouragingly. “That’s right, Amelia! Good job!”
Carole went through the rest of the class, gently correcting and encouraging the kids. She was careful not to tell them to change too many things at once, and she tried to give them lots of praise. That was how Max had taught her. She knew how nice it felt to be told you were doing something right.
“Okay, everybody into the jump position, and trot.” Max always had them do this at the start of the lesson. In the jump position, the rider stood slightly in the saddle. This took the rider’s weight off the horse’s back and gave the horse a chance to warm up thoroughly. It also encouraged the rider to use good leg position, which warmed up the rider.
“Grab the mane if you have to, Sarah. That’s right. Keep your eyes straight ahead, Corey, and look through your turns. Good! Back straight, Jasmine. Great job! Doesn’t that feel better?” Jasmine nodded, smiling. “Keep your chin up, Amelia. Good!”
Carole took them through several exercises at the posting and sitting trots, with Max adding his suggestions and comments as the class went along. Carole loved watching the kids improve under her teaching, and she would have been having a wonderful time if, in the back of her mind, she hadn’t been worried about Starlight.
“Go ahead and tell them to canter,” Max said quietly.
“All canter!” Carole told the group.
Neither Carole nor Max understood what happened next. Amelia gave Delilah a soft, correct canter signal, and Delilah leaped into the canter with a giant buck. Amelia sailed over Delilah’s head and landed flat in the arena sand.
She didn’t move or cry. While the other riders brought their mounts to a halt, Max and Carole hurried to Amelia’s side.
The little girl looked up at them with wide, unblinking eyes.
“Are you okay?” C
arole asked anxiously. She knew that most falls didn’t do more than shake the rider up, but they were still scary. Most kids cried hard when they fell off. Amelia’s silence worried her.
“Yes.” Amelia got slowly to her feet with Max’s help. He asked her several quick questions—“Does your head hurt?” “Are you dizzy?”—before seeming satisfied that she was okay.
Amelia looked up at Carole. “What did I do wrong?” she asked. “Does Delilah hate me?”
“OF COURSE SHE doesn’t hate you. And you didn’t do a single thing wrong,” Carole said. She put her arm around Amelia. “I promise.” She looked up at Max, who smiled sympathetically; then Carole took Amelia’s hand and led her over to Delilah. The mare was standing at the side of the ring, her reins dangling. She looked sorry. Carole gathered Delilah’s reins and handed them to Amelia. “Have you ever fallen off before?” she asked.
Amelia shook her head.
“Everyone does,” Carole said.
“I know,” Amelia whispered. “But it was scary. Why did Delilah do that?”
“I don’t know,” Carole said honestly. “She’s probably just feeling her oats. She’s a horse. No one understands horses all the time.”
Amelia looked up at the palomino mare. Cautiously she touched Delilah’s nose. “Am I still allowed to ride?” she asked.
“Of course,” Carole said. “The lesson isn’t over.”
“Good.” Amelia looped the reins over Delilah’s neck. “Could you give me a leg up?”
“Sure.” Carole boosted her into the saddle. She tried not to show how pleased she was that Amelia was getting right back on. Carole had known beginners who were so upset by their first fall that they gave up riding entirely.
Amelia’s second attempt at a canter was a success. The girl looked nervous, but she still rode gently, and Delilah behaved well.
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