Lisa shook her head. “It’s still kind of hard to believe these kids are so poor they can’t even afford Halloween costumes,” she said.
“I know,” Carole agreed. “That’s why it’s so important that they all have a wonderful time on Saturday.”
“Well, like Max said, they’re sure to have more fun than they can handle with The Saddle Club helping plan things,” Stevie said confidently. “Remember how great the Halloween fair was last year? We could do some of the same stuff again here. You know, like the costume contest, the candy corn contest—”
“Hold on a minute, Stevie,” Lisa interrupted. “Even though all those things were fun, some of them were really mostly to raise money for the cause. This time we’re not trying to raise money at all, just show a good time to a group of city kids.”
“Hmm. I guess you’re right,” Stevie said. “But Max obviously thinks we can do it. That’s why he put us in charge of the entertainment. We should be able to come up with plenty to do—you can hardly help having fun on Halloween.”
“True,” Carole said, remembering her earlier thoughts. She smiled. Now she’d get a chance to wear her costume after all!
“Besides,” Stevie continued, “if anyone can show those kids a good time on Halloween, it’s me. After all, I am the undisputed queen of spooky Halloween pranks.” She gave Phil a sidelong glance, expecting him to protest. Stevie and Phil had a very competitive friendship, and it wasn’t like him to let a challenge from Stevie pass without comment.
But Phil seemed distracted. He was digging around in his jacket pocket, looking worried. “Listen, you guys, I think I left my watch inside,” he said. “I took it off during the meeting because the band was pinching me, and it must have fallen out of my pocket.”
“Then it’s probably still lying on the floor in the indoor ring,” Lisa said.
Carole nodded. “You’d better go get it before a horse steps on it.”
“Good point,” Phil said. He glanced around at all three girls. “Want to walk me in? It must be about time for you to start tacking up.”
Lisa glanced at her own watch. “Oops, you’re right. We’ll have to hurry if we don’t want to be late.”
Inside, the girls said good-bye to Phil, then hurried to the tack room.
“Maybe we should get together later and do some more planning,” Lisa suggested as she slung a bridle over one shoulder. “We don’t really have much time if everything’s going to be ready by Saturday.”
“Good idea,” Carole agreed. “How about a Saddle Club meeting at my house right after our lesson?”
“It’s a deal,” Stevie and Lisa replied in one voice.
“I THINK MY father will let us use some of his old military uniforms,” Carole said as The Saddle Club walked toward her house from the bus stop. A light rain was falling, but the girls were so busy discussing where they could find costumes for the city kids that they hardly noticed.
“Great,” Stevie said. “They’ll be too big, but that’ll be part of the fun. I wonder if my brothers will let me borrow some of their sports team uniforms?”
“Probably not,” Lisa predicted with a laugh. “But I’m sure they’ll let you have their old Halloween costumes. Didn’t you say something about pirates earlier?”
Stevie snorted. “Believe me, we have more pirate costumes than you can shake a peg leg at. Besides that, once in a while they actually come up with something original. Alex was Paul Revere last year, and Chad went to a party as Rusty the Robot. He painted a bunch of cardboard boxes silver and wore them. But just as he was walking home from the party with some girl he had a crush on, it started to pour. Chad’s boxes got a little soggy, and before he knew it they had fallen right off. He had to run home wearing only his long Johns. The girl never spoke to him again.” Stevie grinned. “My only regret is that I wasn’t there to witness it.”
The girls were still laughing when they walked into the Hansons’ kitchen. Colonel Hanson was there pouring popcorn into the popper. “Hi, girls,” he said when he saw them. “Your after-stable snack will be ready in a minute. In the meantime, why don’t you towel off. Oh, and Stevie, your parents called a few minutes ago. They want you to give them a call right away.”
“Uh-oh,” Stevie muttered, heading for the phone. “I wonder what my brothers are blaming me for now.”
Carole, Lisa, and Colonel Hanson laughed. They all knew that Stevie’s brothers did their best to get Stevie in trouble with her parents as often as possible. But they also knew that Stevie’s own mischievous nature was a lot more likely to get her in hot water than her brothers were.
While Stevie dialed her number, Carole and Lisa filled Colonel Hanson in on Saturday’s event. Colonel Hanson nodded when Lisa mentioned the name of the organization.
“City Kids/Country Kids is a good group,” he said. “I’ve read about some of the work they’ve done in D.C. You girls should be proud of helping such a worthwhile cause.”
“Funny you should mention helping, Dad,” Carole said. “I was just about to ask if you’d like to come along and help on Saturday.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Colonel Hanson exclaimed. “I’ll be there with bells on.”
“Actually, we were hoping you’d be there with your uniform on,” Lisa said. “We’re all supposed to come in costume.”
“I see,” Colonel Hanson said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “And you thought I might like to dress up as, say, an officer of the United States Marine Corps?”
“Right,” Carole replied.
Colonel Hanson gave both girls a smart salute. “Orders understood. You can count on me.”
Just then Stevie, who was still on the phone, let out an excited shriek. “You’re kidding!” she cried, almost dropping the receiver.
“What is it, Stevie?” Lisa asked.
Stevie waved a hand for quiet, her attention on her conversation. “When does she … that soon? How did she convince them to let her come? Uh-huh. Hmm. I see … Oh, that sounds like fun. Everyone here will be glad to see her.… Of course. Okay, thanks for telling me, Mom. I’ll be home in time for dinner. Right now I’ve got to tell Lisa and Carole the news!”
She hung up and turned to her friends. “Dinah’s coming!” she announced.
“Dinah?” Lisa repeated blankly.
But Carole understood right away. “She is? Oh, that’s great!” she exclaimed. “Remember, Lisa, Dinah Slattery is the girl Stevie went to visit in Vermont that time. She used to live in Willow Creek, and she rode at Pine Hollow before you started going there.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Lisa said. “She used to go to Fenton Hall with you, right, Stevie?” Stevie attended a private school called Fenton Hall, across town from the public school Carole and Lisa attended.
“I think I remember her,” Colonel Hanson put in. “She’s the one Stevie used to get into all kinds of trouble with.”
“That’s the one,” Carole confirmed. Stevie just grinned.
“When is she coming?” Lisa asked.
“That’s the best part. She’s flying in Tuesday afternoon and staying until Sunday, so she’ll be able to help with the Halloween event,” Stevie said. “Her school in Vermont has a midsemester break, and her parents are going on a cruise for their anniversary at the same time. Naturally, she convinced them to let her come here for a visit.”
“That’s great,” Carole said. “Don’t you have a couple of days off from school, too?”
“Yep,” Stevie said. “Thursday and Friday Fenton Hall is closed for teachers’ meetings. Dinah will be able to come to school with me on Wednesday and see all her old friends. Then we can spend all day Thursday and Friday at Pine Hollow.”
Carole let out a mock groan. “Lucky you. Meanwhile Lisa and I will be slaving away at school. Still, I can’t wait to see Dinah again.”
“And I can’t wait to meet her,” Lisa added. “I’ve heard so much about her that I feel like I already know her.”
“She feels the same wa
y about you,” Stevie assured her. “I bored her silly with stories about The Saddle Club when I was in Vermont. She knows all about you.”
“And with Dinah here to help, I’m sure you girls will make this Halloween one those city kids will never forget,” said Colonel Hanson.
“True,” Stevie said. “Dinah’s almost as good at coming up with fun stuff as I am.” She glanced at Carole. “Remember the time she filled Veronica diAngelo’s expensive new riding boots with cat food?”
Carole laughed. “I sure do. The locker room smelled like tuna for weeks. And I remember the look on Veronica’s face when she found out who did it. I don’t think she ever really forgave Dinah.”
“It’s a good thing Veronica is away on vacation with her parents until after Halloween, then,” Lisa said. Veronica diAngelo, a spoiled, snobbish girl who rode at Pine Hollow, had just left with her wealthy parents for a two-week vacation in Italy.
“I guess so,” Stevie said. “Although it would have been fun to team up with Dinah to torture Veronica, for old times’ sake.” She shrugged. “But with her gone we’ll have more time to plan for the Halloween event—bugging Veronica is a full-time job. Maybe Dinah can help me play a few Halloween tricks on Phil instead.”
The popcorn had finished popping. Colonel Hanson poured it into a bowl and salted it. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to Carole. “Enjoy.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Carole said. She carried the bowl of popcorn into the living room. Her friends followed.
Stevie was still thinking about the good times she’d had with Dinah. “Most of our greatest triumphs took place at school, not the stable,” she told the others. “There was the time Dinah had the idea to free all the crickets from the science lab. They used them to feed the snakes and frogs and stuff. The only problem was, we kind of lost control of them before we got their cage outside. There was chirping in the halls of Fenton Hall for months afterward.”
Lisa laughed. “No wonder you and Dinah are such good friends,” she told Stevie. “You sound like two of a kind.”
“They sure are,” Carole said. “Dinah was always a lot of fun at Pine Hollow. We were all sad when her family moved away.” She took a pad of paper and a few pencils out of her father’s desk, then sat down on the floor beside the popcorn bowl. “Come on, we’d better start planning. We’ve got the costumes to figure out, and don’t forget the treasure hunt Max asked us to plan.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of ideas for that,” Stevie said.
“Me too,” Lisa said. “But there’s one thing I don’t have any ideas for at all, and that’s my own costume. Since we weren’t planning to dress up this year, I hadn’t thought about it at all.”
“Me neither,” said Stevie. “But I’m sure I’ll come up with something before Saturday.”
“It’ll be hard to beat our costumes from last year,” Carole said. “Remember? The three blind mice?”
“Hey, that gives me an idea,” Lisa said excitedly. “Why not do a group costume again? Maybe we could be the Three Stooges.”
Stevie shook her head. “That’s a good idea, Lisa, but it won’t work. Dinah will be here—there will be four of us, remember?”
“Well, then we could be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Carole joked. “After all, we’ll be on horseback part of the time.”
“The what?” Stevie repeated blankly.
“Oh, it’s just this old movie my dad is always talking about,” Carole said. “Anyway, I was just kidding. Actually I already have an idea for my costume.”
“Really? What is it?” Lisa asked.
Carole shook her head and smiled. “You’ll have to wait and see. It’s a surprise. Besides, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do it.”
“Well, if you think of any more brilliant ideas, let me know,” Lisa said.
“If you’re really desperate, I’m sure Alex would let you borrow his Paul Revere costume,” Stevie offered. “At least that has something to do with horses.”
Lisa shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll think about it. It doesn’t really seem spooky or exciting enough for Halloween, though.”
“Speaking of spooky and exciting,” Stevie said, grabbing a handful of popcorn, “thinking about all those pranks Dinah and I used to play at school gave me an idea. Wouldn’t it be great to play a Halloween prank on her while she’s here?”
Carole laughed. “She’d probably love that. It would be just like old times.” She glanced at Lisa. “Stevie and Dinah didn’t just play practical jokes on other people—they were also constantly playing them on each other.”
“Right,” Stevie said. “But we were so good during my visit to Vermont that she’ll be completely off guard and not expecting a thing. It’s the perfect opportunity. It will be sort of a welcome-back-to-Willow-Creek prank.” She sighed. “Now I just have to think of the perfect prank.”
“Well, we’ll try to help you come up with something if you promise us one thing in return,” Carole said.
“What’s that?”
“That you’ll stop talking about Dinah’s visit long enough to help us do some planning for Saturday,” Carole replied with mock sternness.
Stevie laughed and agreed.
TUESDAY MORNING SEEMED to crawl by for Stevie. By the time she got to English class, she couldn’t believe the day wasn’t even half over. At least it was almost lunchtime. Then there would be only a few classes to go until her father picked her up on his way to the airport to meet Dinah’s plane. Carole and Lisa were going, too.
Stevie couldn’t wait. The only unfortunate thing was that she still hadn’t been able to come up with just the right prank to play on Dinah. She had thought of idea after idea but rejected all of them. Either they were too obvious, they were too difficult to set up, or they’d been done before. Now, while the rest of the class was busy reading some boring short story in their textbooks, Stevie racked her brain. She thought about turning all Dinah’s clothes inside out while she was sleeping, or giving her a mask with black ink on the inside, or trying to convince her that Pine Hollow had been bought by foreign investors, or telling her that Veronica diAngelo had joined The Saddle Club. She even thought about rigging something in Mr. Toll’s wagon so that Dinah would fall out halfway through the hayride on Saturday.
That last idea was the silliest one yet, but it made Stevie think of something else. “I’ve got it!” she shouted suddenly, sitting bolt upright in her seat. When she realized where she was, she blushed and looked around at the surprised faces of her classmates.
“All right, Stevie,” Ms. Milligan, the English teacher, said dryly. “You seem to have been particularly moved by this story. So I’m sure you won’t mind answering a few questions about what we’ve just read.”
“Uh—uh—” Stevie stammered, glancing down at the textbook page. The title at the top was “The Sisters’ Day Out.” That didn’t sound too complicated. Stevie had faked her way out of more difficult problems.
“First of all, Stevie, what did you think was the major conflict in this story?” Ms. Milligan asked.
“Um, I guess it was the conflict, um, between the two sisters?” Stevie ventured.
The teacher looked a little confused. “Well, that’s an odd way of putting it,” she remarked. “What do you think the turning point of the story was?”
Stevie was feeling more confident now. “It was when they decided to go out,” she said.
“When they decided to go out?” Ms. Milligan repeated. “Exactly when was that?”
“Um, after they talked about it?” Stevie said, once again uncertain. Maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as she’d thought.
“Talked about it?” the teacher repeated again. “Stevie, you know I encourage interpretive readings in this class, but really—just who did you find doing any talking in this story?”
“Well, the sisters,” Stevie said.
Ms. Milligan shook her head. “Stevie, you didn’t read the story at all, did you?”
<
br /> Stevie gulped. “I—I started to,” she said. “But then I got distracted by, um, thinking about the title.”
The teacher shook her head again, looking exasperated. “Well, I’ll let it go this time, Stevie. But for future assignments,” she added sternly, “please try to read a little farther than the title. Although honestly, even for pure guesswork, your answers have me mystified.”
Stevie sank down into her seat, her face flaming. The teacher surveyed the room. “Jason, could you tell us what you thought was the main theme of the story ‘The Two Birch Trees’?”
Stevie’s gasp of surprise was drowned out by the ringing of the bell signaling the end of class. Sheepishly she flipped through her English book to the correct page and glanced down at the title of the story she was supposed to have been reading. “Who cares about a couple of stupid trees, anyway?” she muttered, slamming the book shut. “I’ve got more important things to think about.” She grinned. One of those things was her new idea for a prank. She was sure it would work. It was so simple that it was perfect.
A few minutes later Stevie was seated at a table in the cafeteria with Patty Featherstone, Gail Porterfield, and Betsy Cavanaugh. All of them had known Dinah before she moved, and all of them were eager to see her during her visit to Fenton Hall the next day. And, of course, all of them remembered the practical jokes and other assorted trouble that had made Dinah and Stevie famous—or rather, infamous.
“Do you remember the time you and Dinah had Miss Fenton’s high-school yearbook picture blown up to poster size?” Patty said as she dug into her plate of sliced turkey and lima beans.
“Yeah, and then they hung it on the front of the podium during morning assembly,” Gail put in eagerly. “Poor Miss Fenton had no idea why everyone was laughing all through her speech about the canned-food drive.”
“That was nothing,” Betsy put in. “My favorite was the time Stevie and Dinah replaced all the ketchup in the cafeteria with three-alarm hot sauce. That was pure genius.”
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