“When you want to get the scoop on a big story, do you wait for it to come to you?” she asked Deborah.
“Of course not,” Deborah replied promptly. “If I didn’t go after it, I’d never get the story—or I’d get it so late it would hardly be worth it.”
“Precisely,” Stevie said.
“So what exactly are you getting at?” Deborah asked, although from the glint in her eye, she already had a hunch about what Stevie was thinking.
“I’ve got an idea, see,” Stevie began.
BY THE TIME The Saddle Club reached Pine Hollow, it was fully dark. On their way back through—and this time around the fields—they had glimpsed the moon rising and the first stars coming out. It was a clear summer night.
“Perfect night for fireworks,” Stevie observed as they crossed the last field and came out onto Pine Hollow’s outside course.
“Sure is,” Deborah answered with a chuckle. She was riding double with Carole on Starlight.
Carole smiled. During the long walk back, she had had more time to talk with Deborah. Carole realized now that Deborah was eager to learn more about horses. But the reporter had been nervous and uncomfortable around the other riders. Knowing how much horses meant to Max had only aggravated the situation. And today at the picnic, she had decided to stay out of the way as much as possible to protect herself. But it was obvious from the questions she asked Carole that she genuinely liked horses. She had even been hesitant about riding with Carole because she thought it might strain Starlight’s back. Carole explained that riding double was all right as long as you didn’t make a habit of it and made sure that you both sat well forward, not back on the loins.
For her part, Deborah seemed impressed with Carole’s knowledge and—even more—with her ability to teach what she knew. All the way home Deborah peppered her with questions. “What’s the point of trotting over cavalletti?” “How do you know when to use a crop?” “What’s a martingale?” “How do you tell what diagonal you’re on?”
After answering all of them, Carole laughed. “Now I understand how you get the big stories. This feels like a Know-Down!” she said. Deborah, of course, asked what a Know-Down was, and so they told her all about Pony Club, Horse Wise, rallies, ratings, and finally, games.
“Oh, so you mean that miserable event where I got completely soaked was supposed to foster horsemanship and friendship, huh?” Deborah inquired.
“That’s right,” Carole said sheepishly.
“That was completely my fault, Deborah. I forgot to warn you about the side effects of being a human target,” Stevie said.
“That’s okay,” Deborah said. “If I’d known, I would’ve carried a water gun myself and shot back.”
“You learn fast,” Lisa complimented her. Lisa had also gotten a chance to talk with Deborah during the ride. She had asked all about what it was like to be a journalist for one of the country’s largest, most respected newspapers.
“It’s great,” Deborah told her. “There’s really never a dull day. You learn so much, and you’re constantly on the go. And, you know, you meet the most interesting people.” She winked at Lisa, who grinned back.
“So I guess in a way, we should all be thankful to the drug ring at the track or you’d never have had to learn about horses, and you’d never have come to Pine Hollow,” Stevie pointed out.
“I always say, give credit where credit is due,” Deborah said. “Especially when it applies to love or my own byline.”
Stevie wanted to clap Deborah on the back. Anybody who could quip the way she could was A-okay in her book. Instead she said, “I have just one more question.” They had reached the stable and were about to dismount. “Were you really buying the paper to brush up on local news?”
“I most certainly was,” Deborah replied indignantly. Then, trying to stifle a grin, she added, “I was trying to find out if they’d have any use for a reporter from the Washington Times—I figured at least then I’d be in the area!”
“You mean you were planning to come back, after all this?” Lisa asked.
“We redheads don’t scare off that easily,” Deborah said, with a toss of her shining hair. She swung down off Starlight gracefully.
“Ah-ah-ah-CHOO!” At the unmistakable sound of Max’s sneeze, Deborah and The Saddle Club whirled around.
“Deborah!” Max cried. He ran up to her and, oblivious to Carole, Lisa, and Stevie, embraced her. “Where did you go? I—I thought you had left for good. I—”
Max paused midsentence as he noticed the girls. “How did you get her back?” he asked, all at once putting two and two together. “What’s going on? How did they find you?”
Deborah disentangled herself from Max’s arms and put a finger to her lips. “You’ll learn everything you need to know, all in good time,” she told him.
Max was about to protest when, in the near distance, a crowd cheered, drowning out his words.
“The fireworks must have begun!” Stevie yelled.
“If we hurry, we won’t miss much,” Lisa urged.
Max glared at them, but Deborah took him by the hand. She led him off toward the hill where everyone had gone for the best viewing.
In a flash Lisa and Stevie had their horses back in their stalls. Having walked all the way home, they had cooled off completely from the long gallop. Carole decided to bring Starlight with her. She took every opportunity to expose him to new things and wanted to see how he would behave with the noise and the crowd.
“You know you really should rub down Barq and Topside with liniment,” she pointed out reluctantly, joining Stevie and Lisa at the door.
“Carole!” Stevie wailed. “We can’t miss the fireworks!”
“Who’s going to miss the fireworks?” Red O’Malley demanded, emerging from the feed room.
Lisa sped through an explanation. “You don’t say,” Red answered. Three heads nodded vigorously.
“Go on, then. I’ll do the horses. Never was much of a fireworks fan, anyway.”
The Saddle Club looked at one another for a second.
“Well, get going or they’ll be over!” Red barked. Stevie and Lisa thanked him profusely—and ran. Carole followed, leading Starlight at a quick trot.
It took only a few minutes to race up the little hill that overlooked the field where the fireworks were being set off. From a distance they could see all of the picnic-goers settled on the blankets that Mrs. Reg always provided.
“We made it!” Stevie hollered, as all three of them joined the crowd. She gave Carole ten fingers to hop up on Starlight for a better view.
“All you missed were the dumb ones at the beginning,” little Christine Kiernan told them.
“The end is always the best part, isn’t it?” Lisa said to no one in particular.
Willow Creek was known for its fireworks, and this Fourth of July display was no different. Once it really got going, everything was spectacular, both the groundworks—lights displayed from the ground—and the regular fireworks high up in the dark sky. There were dozens of starbursts in different colors up above and then a Catherine wheel from below. Back in the sky there was an astonishing burst of red, white, and blue lights in the shape of the American flag. The crowd cheered happily, including Max and Deborah. They were standing together, slightly apart from everyone else.
Then there was a moment’s pause as the technicians reloaded, followed by an unusual-looking set of groundworks.
“It looks like letters, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Reg said.
“Probably ‘America the Beautiful,’ ” Holly suggested.
“I don’t think so—that’s an M,” Nicole said.
The crowd fell silent, trying to puzzle out the message. They saw “M-A-R—”
“ ‘Mar’—what’s that?” Tiffani asked.
“Wait, it’s ‘marry’!” Mrs. Reg fairly shouted. Everyone waited breathlessly. “M-A-R-R-Y M—” sparkled across the sky.
“What is this?” Margery Tarr asked.
Finally the whole thing appeared: M-A-R-R-Y M-E M-A-X! The crowd seemed to turn as one to look at Max. Max, however, did not have to turn very far. He had eyes for one person only, and she was standing right next to him: Deborah Hale. She gazed up at him steadily.
Max grasped her shoulders. The crowd drew in its breath. Max looked completely overwhelmed by this romantic—not to mention very original—method of popping the question. He tried to speak but instead sneezed violently. Deborah blushed as crimson as her hair. And then, while everyone looked on delightedly, Max Regnery the Third leaned down and kissed Deborah Hale on the lips, sealing the deal.
The kiss got a bigger cheer than any of the fireworks. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole whooped with everyone else. Then they turned to each other and exchanged high fives.
“Best Fourth of July picnic I’ve ever been to,” the TD’s waitress said, shaking her head in amazement.
“Then you had a good time?” Stevie asked eagerly.
“Oh, sure,” the waitress said. “But you should have told me what this Max guy was into—if I’d known, I would’ve brought firecrackers instead of ice cream!”
AFTER THE YOUNGER children had all gone home, taking their parents with them, and Mrs. Reg had disappeared into the house to call relatives with the news, and Red had finally driven off in his pickup, and Deborah and Max had left for Washington to tell her parents, and every last barn chore was finished, Lisa, Stevie, and Carole found themselves alone in the tack room. None of them was eager to part company. As Lisa put it, “What’s a Saddle Club success story without a sleepover afterward?”
Fortunately Stevie predicted that her mother would be in a good mood after all the work she and her brothers had put in this week. She was right. Mrs. Lake picked them up, drove them home, and cooked a huge spaghetti dinner, complete with garlic bread, even though the other Lakes had eaten already.
About halfway through the meal, the phone rang. Stevie ran to pick up the receiver. To her delight it was Amy calling for Chad. This was the opportunity for revenge that she’d been waiting for.
Stevie yelled upstairs for him.
“I’ll take it up here!” Chad called back.
“Okay!” Stevie called. She held the receiver in her hand, getting ready to make a crack about being “green” with envy that the phone call was for him. But when Chad picked up the upstairs receiver, he sneezed loudly three times in a row. Carole, Lisa, and Mrs. Lake all looked up at the noise. Quietly Stevie hung up the phone.
Turning back to the table, she commented, “Looks like hay fever is starting all over again.”
“Do you think Chad’s getting sick?” Mrs. Lake asked.
“Don’t worry, Mom—he’s not really sick,” Stevie said knowingly. “Just lovesick.”
Mrs. Lake shrugged. The Saddle Club grinned at one another. Some things you just couldn’t explain to a parent.
“Sure beats green hamburgers, Mom,” Stevie said after a few mouthfuls. They had told Mrs. Lake about most of the day’s events, including Chad’s food-coloring ploy.
“I’m glad you like it, dear. Who knows? I might get used to cooking and cleaning again—every few weeks or so,” she teased, serving the girls second helpings.
After dinner they went upstairs to hang out in Stevie’s room and rehash the past few days.
“What I can’t believe,” Carole began, “is that we really thought Max wouldn’t be able to find someone for himself. How could we be that dumb?”
“I don’t know, but all the women we invited sure made me feel lower than a snake,” Stevie said.
“Tell me about it!” Carole said, already starting to giggle.
At the thought of the incident Stevie was referring to, the three of them burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. One of the most memorable scenes of the whole day had come after the fireworks had ended. As everyone walked back to Pine Hollow together, the women had begun to thank the girls for inviting them to the picnic. Stevie had turned to the group and said, “Oh, you’re welcome. I’m so glad you could all come. I’m just sorry it didn’t work out with Max.”
“What do you mean?” Nicole asked suspiciously.
“Yes, I thought he enjoyed giving us the talk, and a lot of us are planning to take a few lessons,” Miss Cartwright put in.
Stevie bit her lip. Somehow she didn’t think the truth would go over very well. But the women were staring at her, awaiting an explanation. “I just meant that it’s too bad that Max had already—uh—met someone because we were kind of hoping—” She stopped, noticing thirteen pairs of flashing eyes.
“We were hoping that one of you might marry Max,” Carole said succinctly.
Sergeant Kiernan stopped short. She put her hands on her hips and drew herself up to her full, highest-ranking-noncommissioned-officer-on-base height. “Carole Hanson, do you mean to tell me that you and your friends staged a manhunt, and we were supposed to chase after Max?”
Carole nodded reluctantly.
“It wasn’t exactly a hunt,” Lisa said defensively. “It was more of a—”
“A beauty contest?” Tiffani asked with a giggle. The women glared at her.
“A sort of an audition,” Lisa finished.
“Well, I can’t speak for the others, but I will tell you girls this: If you think I came here on this beautiful day to waste my time competing for some prize of a guy, then, honey, you have got another think coming.”
At the end of Sergeant Kiernan’s speech, the women had burst into applause.
Stevie reached across Lisa to grab a tissue from the box on the floor of her room. She wiped a tear from her eye. “The funniest part is,” she began when she could stop laughing, “we would’ve said the exact same thing if anyone had tried to get us to go after some boy, but that never even crossed our minds.”
“I know,” Carole said. “I figured that if they found out what was going on, they’d be flattered to have been asked.”
“One person was—Tiffani. I think she was hoping there would be a swimsuit and evening-gown competition following the picnic,” Lisa joked.
As they talked, the girls changed into their sleepwear—a flowered nightgown for Lisa, striped pajamas for Carole, and an oversize rally T-shirt and shorts for Stevie. They weren’t ready to sleep, but they wanted to continue talking in bed. They were about to get out the sleeping bags and pillows when the phone in Stevie’s room rang.
“I hope it’s not Phil,” Stevie said. “I can’t wait to tell him everything, but I’m too tired to describe today in detail again.” She picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.” After a second she mouthed, “It’s Max.” Carole and Lisa crowded around to try to hear what he was saying.
“Stevie,” Max said gravely, “I have some unfortunate news to share with you.”
“Yes?” Stevie asked nervously, her mind racing. Had Deborah left him again, but for good this time? Had the women been more upset about the picnic than they had acted? Had someone died of green-hamburger poisoning?
“When Deborah and I returned from Washington this evening, I got a call from Mr. Biddle,” Max said.
Stevie let out a huge sigh of relief. She could easily work her way out of this. “Max, I can explain,” she began, but Max cut her off.
“And I told Biddle that he ought to find better things to do with his time than yelling at three of the most gutsy, determined, clever, thoughtful girls I know.” Max paused.
Stevie, Lisa, and Carole were speechless with delight.
“I heard all the details about the search-and-rescue team,” he continued, “and all I can say, on behalf of Deborah and me, is thank you a hundred times.”
Carole and Lisa began to swing each other gleefully around the room. Stevie searched for the appropriate answer to Max’s thanks. She settled on the truth. “Max, there are some things a person has to do for himself—or herself. We really had nothing to do with it,” she said.
“I’ll never believe that for one second,” Max said. “And we can’t wait to thank you i
n person.”
Stevie tried to protest, but Max would hear none of it.
“Max thinks I was just being modest for us,” Stevie said after hanging up. “But I was telling the truth: There are some things people have to do for themselves.”
With that she yanked open the closet door to get pillows for Carole and Lisa. Instead of her own usual mess, she saw two huge wicker baskets, one filled with dark laundry, the other with whites. Clipped to one of the baskets was a note, written in her mother’s handwriting, with the heading: “Directions for washing and drying lights and darks.”
At Stevie’s groan Carole and Lisa came to her side and peered in.
“You know what?” Lisa said. “There are also some things that friends have to do together.”
She picked up the dark load. Carole picked up the light load. Stevie grinned, grabbed the detergent, and set off down the stairs. They still had a lot to talk about, but the best thing about being part of The Saddle Club was that they could talk anywhere—Stevie’s room, a stall at Pine Hollow, even the Lakes’ laundry room!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BONNIE BRYANT is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.
Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.
Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.
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