“Are you sure that’s not too much trouble?” Corey asked.
“I’m glad to do it for you,” replied Mr. Grover.
“Thanks,” Corey said. She loved Mr. Grover. He was so nice to the Pony Tails.
As soon as she got off the phone with Mr. Grover, Corey tried Jasmine again. Her line was still busy.
She’s probably talking to May about the drill team, Corey thought. Or asking Mr. Grover to bring Outlaw over, too.
Corey went back to her homework. By the time she thought of calling her friend again, it was too late. Oh well, Corey told herself. I’ll see Jasmine at school tomorrow. We can celebrate together there.
“Hello, Jasmine, this is Max.”
Jasmine gripped the phone tightly. She’d been waiting for this call.
“I’m really impressed with the progress you’ve been making this year,” Max began. “Your hard work is paying off. I wish I could choose everyone for the team, but …”
Max didn’t have to finish his sentence.
Jasmine knew what he was about to say. She swallowed hard. It felt as if there were a huge hole in the middle of her stomach and nothing would ever fill it. Max hadn’t chosen her. She hadn’t made the small drill team.
“What about Corey?” Jasmine finally said. “Is she going to be on it?”
“Yes. Corey will be on it, and so will Jackie Rogers. They’ll be the two youngest riders,” said Max. “I hope you understand. …”
“Sure,” Jasmine mumbled. Then she hung up.
She understood all right. It was very clear. Max was saying she wasn’t as good as the other riders—including her best friend Corey.
5 First Practice
The next day Corey didn’t ride the bus with May and Jasmine because she was at her father’s apartment. And she didn’t see them at school, either. The whole schedule had been changed around because it was the last day before vacation.
At the end of the day, Corey’s class had a holiday party in their classroom. Their teacher served juice and gingerbread cookies. Then everyone was supposed to make an ornament for the tree in the center of town.
Corey cut a star out of cardboard and wrapped it in aluminum foil. It wasn’t much of an ornament, but it would have to do. She was too excited about the drill team practice to think about anything else—even Christmas ornaments.
The second the bell sounded, Corey put on her coat. Her book bag was already packed. She was out the door before the bell stopped ringing.
Corey stood on the school steps waiting for Jasmine and May. She wanted to talk to Jasmine about the drill team practice and walk to Pine Hollow with her. As she waited, the cold wind whipped around her. But after ten minutes there was still no sign of Jasmine or May.
Today the whole school day had been different, Corey thought. Maybe their teachers had let them out early.
Finally she shrugged and hurried down the steps.
Pine Hollow Stable was just a short walk from Willow Creek Elementary School. But waiting for Jasmine and May had made Corey late. By the time she got to the stable, riders were already warming up their horses in the indoor ring. Corey glanced over at them, but she didn’t see Jasmine. She must be changing her clothes, Corey thought. She hurried to the locker area. It was empty.
She shoved her books into her cubby and quickly changed into her riding clothes. There wasn’t a minute to spare. She wanted to catch up with Jasmine in the stable where they could tack up their ponies together.
Samurai was waiting for her. Max had put him in an empty stall near Pine Hollow’s ponies. His tack was there, too. As usual, Mr. Grover had kept his promise. Corey would have to thank him later.
Corey looked around for Jasmine and Outlaw. But they weren’t in the stable, either.
Sam was as eager to get going as Corey was. He behaved perfectly while she gave him a quick brushing and then put on his saddle and bridle. Red O’Malley, Max’s assistant, gave Corey a hand tightening the girth. He held Samurai while she mounted him, then handed her the reins.
“Don’t forget the good-luck horseshoe!” he reminded her.
“I won’t,” she promised.
Pine Hollow had a horseshoe nailed to the wall by the door that led to the outside ring. Every rider was supposed to touch it before heading out. It was one of Pine Hollow’s many traditions. No rider who had touched the shoe had ever gotten seriously hurt in a riding accident.
Corey gave it a quick touch and then turned Samurai around to enter the indoor ring, where the practice would take place. Max was there. He looked at his watch and then nodded a greeting. It was exactly four o’clock. Corey had made it on time—just barely.
She sighed with relief, settled into her saddle, and began her warm-up circles around the ring. She looked at the other riders doing the same thing.
But something was wrong. Jasmine wasn’t there.
Uh-oh, Corey thought. Maybe Jasmine’s still waiting for me at school. Or worse—Corey swallowed—maybe something has happened to her.
But Max didn’t seem to notice Jasmine’s absence.
“All right,” he called. “Now that we’re all here, come on over and let me tell you what our program will be.”
Now that we’re all here. Max’s words rang in Corey’s ears. They weren’t all there. Jasmine was still missing.
Quickly Corey counted the other riders. There were five of them. Corey made six.
Then, for the first time, Corey understood. Jasmine wasn’t in the small group.
Corey had been chosen and Jasmine hadn’t!
6 Christmas Cookies
“Can you find the sugar?” May asked Jasmine.
Jasmine looked around the Grovers’ kitchen. It wasn’t easy to find anything. A fine white dust covered almost everything. That had happened when May dropped an entire bin of flour on the floor. May wasn’t exactly the neatest baker in the world.
Jasmine opened one of the bins on the counter. Coffee. The next was filled with tea. The last was sugar. She handed it to May.
May began measuring two cups of sugar to add to the bowl in front of her. Jasmine added the vanilla and the eggs.
The two of them were at May’s house making Christmas cookies. When May had invited Jasmine over, Jasmine had hoped baking cookies would keep her from thinking about Max’s phone call last night.
And she knew May was hoping the same thing.
Jasmine handed May a wooden spoon and then went to find the baking soda.
“I think it’s over the stove,” May said. “Or else it’s in the cabinet by the refrigerator, or maybe—”
“I’ll find it,” Jasmine said. She did, too. She only had to look in five cabinets, and then there it was.
The kitchen door swung open. It was Mrs. Grover. One glance around the kitchen and her face turned as pale as the coat of flour that covered the floor.
“May—” she began.
“No problem, Mom,” May said brightly. “Jasmine and I have read the recipe very carefully. You’re going to love our cookies!”
Mrs. Grover didn’t look at all convinced. Jasmine thought it wasn’t the cookies she was worried about. It was the mess in the kitchen.
“You’ve got to—” Mrs. Grover said.
“I know, Mom. You want us to remember to use mitts when we take the cookies out of the oven. Don’t worry. We won’t burn our fingers.”
“Don’t you—” Mrs. Grover started again.
“And we promise not to test the cookies before they’re cool. We don’t want to burn our tongues, either.”
“I hope—” Mrs. Grover tried to say.
“We won’t eat them all. I promise. There’ll be enough for everybody.”
“The mess!” Mrs. Grover said finally.
“I’ll help clean up,” Jasmine promised.
Mrs. Grover nodded weakly, then left the room.
“See? She trusts us!” May said brightly.
Jasmine wasn’t sure May was right about that. But May sounded so positive, i
t was hard to disagree.
May added the baking soda to the batter and chatted about what they could bake for the rest of the afternoon. “First we’ll finish these sugar cookies, and then I want to do some chocolate chips and some peanut butter cookies. But my very favorites are the almond ones, so we can do them after the peanut butter—or should we do them before?”
Jasmine glanced around the messy kitchen. “I think I’d better keep track of which cookies we’re baking,” she said. She went to her book bag and took out her loose-leaf binder.
“You’re so organized,” May sighed. “I wish I were as good at that as you are.”
Jasmine shrugged. Who cared about being organized? It would be much better to be able to ride as well as Corey.
She flipped open her notebook and reached for a pencil in the pocket of her book bag.
“Wow,” May went on. “You actually know where your pencils are, too!”
Jasmine looked up at her friend. “You can stop trying to make me feel good, May,” she said. “It’s not working.”
“I’m … I … but don’t you think …” May didn’t know what to say.
“Look, May,” Jasmine cut in, “you don’t have to say anything. The truth is, Corey did better than I did at the tryouts. That’s why I didn’t get picked.” Jasmine’s eyes started to fill with tears. She gulped and stopped talking.
“I’m not on the small drill team either,” May said softly.
“You didn’t try out,” Jasmine reminded her. “If you had, you’d probably be on it. You’re definitely better than I am, too.”
“Maybe I am—at some things,” said May. “But not everything. Nobody’s good at everything.”
May stuck the spoon in the cookie dough. But it was stiff and hard to mix. Jasmine took the spoon and tried it for a while.
“See, you’re better at cookie baking than I am,” May pointed out. “And you found the baking soda when I had no idea where it was.”
“May!” Jasmine cried. “Cut it out. You’re making me feel worse!”
May sighed. She wanted to make Jasmine feel better. But there wasn’t anything she could say that would change the situation. Corey was on the team. Jasmine wasn’t.
May stopped trying to cheer up Jasmine for a while. They just worked on the cookies.
A half hour later, three batches of sugar cookies were cooling on the counter. Jasmine’s half was neatly decorated. The other half was a mess. Sprinkles were scattered everywhere, and May’s fingerprints were visible in the middle of several of the cookies.
Jasmine giggled.
“Who cares?” May said. “They taste good, don’t they?”
Jasmine bit into one and nodded.
It was time to start the next batch of dough. Jasmine consulted her list.
“Chocolate chips next,” she said, and then she closed the notebook.
“Hey, that’s nice,” said May.
“What’s nice?” asked Jasmine.
“Your notebook,” said May. “Can I see it?”
“Sure.” Jasmine had covered her entire loose-leaf notebook with pictures of ponies and horses.
“I cut them from horse show programs and the Pony Club magazine,” she explained. “I pasted them onto the notebook and covered it with clear plastic paper. It looks cool, doesn’t it?”
Without thinking, May blurted out, “See, you’re organized and you’re artistic and”—she picked up one of Jasmine’s cookies and stared at it—”you’re a much better cookie decorator than I am.”
Jasmine shrugged. Then she looked down at the counter and began to work on the chocolate chips.
May knew immediately she’d said the wrong thing again. Jasmine wanted to hear she was good at riding—not that she was good at baking or art or anything else.
The two girls worked quietly for the next hour.
After the last sheet of peanut butter cookies went into the oven, Jasmine announced that it was time for her to go home.
“Already?” said May.
“My mother’s expecting me,” Jasmine told her. She picked up her books and her jacket and left by the kitchen door before May could even give her a box of cookies.
May watched her friend go, then dropped down on a stool. Mrs. James wasn’t expecting Jasmine, and May knew it. Jasmine had just wanted to go home.
“Oh well,” May mumbled. Her plan for today hadn’t worked out, but May would try to cheer up Jasmine again tomorrow.
In the meantime, she had another project—cleaning up the kitchen. Every inch of the room was covered with empty bowls, flour, sugar, eggshells, and globs of butter. Sugar sprinkles, chopped nuts, and frosting were scattered everywhere.
So far, trying to make Jasmine feel better was hard work!
7 Saturday at Pine Hollow
The next morning May sat between her two friends on the backseat of her father’s van. No one said a word.
May looked at Corey. She was staring out the window. May looked at Jasmine. She was staring at her hands. Today even the three ponies in the trailer were noisier than the three Pony Tails in the van.
It wasn’t easy when your two best friends couldn’t say the things they wanted to say. May couldn’t say those things for them, either. If she’d been able to, she would have told Corey that Jasmine wanted to be on the small drill team. And she would have told Jasmine that Corey wished she were on the team.
May wanted to say these things, but she knew that her friends would have to find ways to say them to one another.
May knew she just had to be patient. But being patient was not what May did best.
Mr. Grover drove the van into Pine Hollow. Max greeted them, and Mr. Grover helped the girls get their ponies tacked up. It was unusual for Horse Wise to have two mounted meetings in a row, but there was still a lot of work to do on the drill exercise.
With some help from Red O’Malley, the head stable hand at Pine Hollow, Corey got Sam’s tack on quickly. She touched the good-luck horseshoe and began circling the indoor ring at a walk. It was only yesterday that she’d been there for her small group practice. Sam glanced back at her as if he were surprised about being in the ring again today.
Corey patted his neck, lost in her thoughts. If only Jasmine were part of the small group, too! Sometimes Corey still felt like the new kid at Pine Hollow. She’d moved to Willow Creek pretty recently and had just joined Horse Wise. She felt funny being picked for the drill team when Jasmine hadn’t been. Especially since Jasmine was just as good a rider as Corey.
Corey felt tears welling up in her eyes.
Inside the area where the horses’ stalls were, Jasmine took longer than her friends to get Outlaw tacked up. He was trying to play a trick on her. Every time she went to tighten up his girth, he filled his chest with air. Normally this made her laugh. Today she wasn’t in a laughing mood. She glared at her pony.
“I see what you’re doing,” she said. Outlaw blinked as if he were bored. “You’re not fooling me.”
All Jasmine had to do was wait. The pony couldn’t hold his breath forever. She patted his neck and then began waiting.
As she held the girth in her hand and stared at his belly, she tried to picture yesterday’s practice. Had Corey been in the lead? She probably had been because Max liked to pair the riders by size, and Corey was one of the smallest.
Had she done well? Definitely, Jasmine thought. Corey did well at everything.
Was there music with the drill exercise? Max was probably using marching music. Jasmine could almost hear the wonderful beat of horses’ hooves, marching in time, moving in perfect unison through a precision exercise.
I’d make a mistake, Jasmine thought. I’d turn left instead of right, or mess up the trot. No wonder Max didn’t pick me. And Corey probably never wants to ride with me again!
Suddenly Outlaw let out his breath. Before he could take in another couple of gallons of air, Jasmine pulled the leather of his girth two holes tighter.
“Gotcha,” she said. The j
ob was done.
When everybody was in the ring, Max had them all line up.
“We’ve been working so hard on the drill that I haven’t even had time to remind you about something else that comes up even before that,” he said.
“Oh, the Starlight Ride!” Jasmine blurted out.
“Thank you, Jasmine,” said Max. He sounded a little sarcastic, but his blue eyes were twinkling. “Yes, it’s the Starlight Ride.”
Max looked at Corey. “Those of you who have been here for a while know about this tradition, but we do have some new riders who don’t know.”
“You’re going to love it!” May whispered to Corey.
“Thank you, May,” said Max. “You Pony Tails are being very helpful today,” he teased.
As Jasmine listened to Max talking about the Starlight Ride, her thoughts about Corey and the drill team drifted away. Christmas Eve at Pine Hollow was the most magical time of the year. The path through the woods would be decorated with lights, and the riders would proceed in a straight line to the center of the town, where a crowd would be gathered. Last year May and Jasmine had had a wonderful time. This year … Jasmine looked at Corey. She had been hoping that the three of them would have an even better time. But—
“This year I’ve asked Stevie Lake to lead the ride,” Max cut into Jasmine’s thoughts.
Jasmine knew it was a big honor to be in the lead. Max always chose a young rider who showed excellent progress. It had to be someone who could ride well but also someone who’d worked hard through the year. And because almost everyone in Willow Creek watched, it had to be someone Max completely trusted to do a good job.
As everyone looked around for Stevie, Max explained, “Stevie isn’t here now. She and her friends are visiting a dude ranch until Wednesday. They’ll be back in time for the ride, though. I want you all here at six o’clock on Wednesday evening.”
“What time does the ride start?” asked Corey.
“Seven,” said Max. “But we’ll tack up and warm up and have inspection before we leave. Wear warm clothes over proper riding attire. I don’t want to see a speck of mud on anybody’s saddle or a scruffy coat on anybody’s horse or pony. Remember, the whole town of Willow Creek will be watching us!”
Pony Tails 04- Jasmine's Christmas Ride Page 2