She gulped. She pretended to hate her brothers, but the truth was she cared about them a lot. She didn’t like the thought of Alex sitting home tonight, alone and sad, while she was out having fun.
Before she realized what she was about to say, Stevie spoke up. “Hey, Alex,” she said, trying to sound casual. “If you’re not going to the dance, why don’t you come to The Nutcracker with us tonight? Lisa can’t go, so we have an extra ticket.”
Mrs. Lake’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Mr. Lake froze in midchew. Chad lifted an eyebrow. Michael almost choked on his milk. And Carole just stared at Stevie in amazement.
Alex took his time answering, and Stevie was sure he was going to say no. She knew that normally he would rather walk barefoot on nails than go to the ballet.
But Alex surprised her. “Sure,” he said, trying to sound casual but not quite succeeding. “I guess that would be cool.” He took a few quick bites of his food and then stood up. “I’d better go change clothes, right? They probably don’t like it if you wear jeans.”
Nobody spoke until he had left the room. Then Mr. Lake turned to Stevie. “I know I told you to think of somebody to invite, but I have to admit I’m surprised,” he said. “And pleased.”
Stevie shrugged. “No big deal, Dad,” she said, picking up her fork. “We had a free ticket, Alex had some free time—it was the perfect solution. I’m just glad he said yes.” And to her own surprise, she realized that was absolutely true.
THE STABLE HAD quieted down quickly after Stevie and Carole had left. There weren’t many riders around, and those who were there were hurrying to get home for dinner. Soon Lisa was alone with her thoughts and the sounds of horses moving around in their stalls, waiting for their evening meal. She finished dressing the mare’s scratches and cuts. They looked as if they were starting to heal. Then she went to find Red.
He was in the grain shed. “Hi, Lisa,” he said. “Let me guess. Is that gray mare of yours ready for her dinner?”
Lisa nodded. “I just wanted to remind you to add her medicine to her grain.”
Red held up a bucket partly filled with grain. “It’s already done. Feel like playing waitress?”
“Sure.” Lisa took the bucket and returned to the mare’s stall. After she fed her, Lisa left her alone to eat and went to help Red feed the other horses.
When she returned, the mare had stopped eating. Lisa saw that she had finished most of the grain ration and had nibbled at her hay. “You didn’t quite clean your plate, but I guess you did pretty well,” Lisa said.
She stood outside the stall for a moment watching the mare. By now all the other riders had left, and the other horses were quiet as they munched their dinners. Pine Hollow was as quiet as Lisa had ever heard it. It was a little spooky—as if the whole stable were waiting for something.
To take her mind off those kinds of thoughts, Lisa decided to give the mare a good grooming. She hadn’t been outside that day and her coat was pretty clean, but Lisa knew that regular and thorough grooming was one way to get a horse accustomed to being handled.
“Hi there, big girl,” Lisa said as she put the mare in cross-ties and set the grooming bucket where she could reach it. “Ready to have those feet checked out?” Lisa lifted the mare’s left front foot. As she did, she continued to talk to her.
“My friends are probably getting ready to leave for the ballet about now,” she said. For a moment she felt a little wistful. It would have been fun to be going with them. But that feeling didn’t last long. Lisa had an important job to do, and she didn’t really regret missing the ballet. She could see The Nutcracker again another year. “I’d much rather stay here tonight and take extra good care of you,” she told the mare, checking the thrush dressing in the foot. She took her time doing it, holding the mare’s foot for longer than was strictly necessary. That was partly because she wanted the horse to get used to being fussed over and partly because once it was over she wasn’t sure what she was going to do next. “You’re getting used to having me take care of you, aren’t you?”
The mare didn’t respond. Lisa wondered if she even heard her talking. She shrugged. Even if the sound of Lisa’s voice in the silence didn’t make the horse feel better, it made Lisa feel better. She decided to describe the plot of The Nutcracker to the horse, then she proceeded to do so, taking time out from the story to describe the way the costumes usually looked and to explain some basic ballet moves, as well as to hum a couple of the most famous melodies.
“Anyway, The Nutcracker is really great, but I’ve seen it lots of times before,” Lisa said at last. By this time she had finished checking three of the mare’s feet and was carefully examining the last, most seriously infected one. “I’d much rather be here with you. Because if you get better, that would be the best Christmas present ever. I know you can do it. I just wonder if you know it.”
She sighed and looked up at the mare’s face. To her surprise, the mare was looking back. Lisa let the foot she was working on drop and stood up.
“Hey, don’t tell me you’re actually listening to me?” Lisa said.
The mare let out a small snort and turned her head away. But Lisa could tell by the almost imperceptible twitches of the horse’s ears that she wasn’t completely disinterested in her presence.
“Well, how about that,” Lisa whispered. “You do know I’m here after all.” Not wanting to lose the horse’s attention now that she finally had it, Lisa continued to talk. She started with the Starlight Ride.
“It’s so wonderful,” she said, reaching into the grooming bucket and picking up a rub rag. “I’m sure you would love it just as much as everyone else does. Sometimes I think the horses must look forward to it just as much as the people.” She began rubbing down the mare’s body, beginning behind her ears and working toward her tail.
“It would be really great if you could be in it this year, but I don’t think there’s any way that will happen,” Lisa said. “But maybe if you get better you can be in it next Christmas. If you stay here at Pine Hollow, that is.” That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to Lisa. What would happen to the mare when she got better? Lisa was pretty sure she would never be returned to her owner. But that didn’t necessarily mean she would be allowed to stay on here.
Lisa decided to put the question out of her mind for now. There would be plenty of time to worry about that after the mare was better.
“Anyway, I hope you get to stay here with us. I know you’d like it a lot better than where you used to live,” Lisa said. “You’ve got to believe me when I tell you you’ve got a long life ahead of you. It could be a happy one if you just give yourself a chance.”
She moved around the mare’s forequarters and began to rub her other side. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the horse’s head following her movement. But she was afraid to look up and see.
“Sal didn’t have that chance, but you do,” she continued. “He wasn’t as lucky as you were. CARL didn’t find him in time to save him. But we’re trying to save you. We just need your help.” Lisa sighed. “It’s always so sad when a horse’s life is over. I was very sad when my favorite horse, Pepper, died a while ago.” Pepper had helped Lisa learn to love horses and riding. He had been very special to her, but he had eventually become too old and sick to go on. It had been very hard for Lisa to let him go when Max had finally decided to have him put down.
She was silent for a moment, rubbing the mare’s hindquarters slowly as she thought about Pepper. He had been a wonderful horse. Then she brought her mind back to the mare. She could be a wonderful horse, too. Lisa was sure of it. She just had to convince the horse of it.
“Anyway, it was sad when Pepper died,” Lisa went on. “But at least he’d had a long and happy and satisfying life. It was much sadder when Sal died. He never had the chance for that kind of life, just because a human was cruel to him.” Her eyes started to fill with tears at the thought, but she blinked them away. “I don’t want the same thing to happ
en to you.”
She dropped the rub rag in the bucket and looked up, half afraid that the horse would be standing dejectedly once again. But she was looking at Lisa. One ear still drooped lazily, but the other was perked forward.
“You really are listening, aren’t you?” Lisa said in wonder. Somehow, in the silence of the barn, the mare was coming back to life.
Lisa bent over and picked up the plastic dandy brush. “I think we can use this today, don’t you?” Tentatively, she held the brush out for the horse’s inspection. At first she thought the mare was going to ignore it. But suddenly her other ear perked forward and she reached out toward Lisa’s hand. Before Lisa knew what was happening, the horse had picked up the brush by its plastic handle and was holding it between her big teeth, looking very pleased with herself.
Lisa couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing. The mare looked surprised but not frightened at the girl’s sudden outburst.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lisa exclaimed, reaching out for the dandy brush. The mare dodged slightly, moving her head just enough to keep the brush out of Lisa’s reach.
Suddenly Lisa knew what the horse was doing. She was playing. And if she was playing, that was the most hopeful sign yet. Creatures that had lost the will to live didn’t spend their time playing games. Only creatures that wanted to get better did.
Lisa finally got the brush back. “You funny thing,” she said, staring at the brush in her hands. “I wonder if you have a taste for plastic. Or maybe you just thought I was being too slow about the grooming.”
The horse had quieted down again, but she was still watching Lisa. Lisa reached out to stroke her soft muzzle, and the mare didn’t pull away.
“You really are a beauty, do you know that, girl?” Lisa said. And suddenly, calling the mare “girl” didn’t seem good enough. “You know what? I think it’s time to give you a name,” Lisa commented. “In fact, it’s past time.”
As soon as Lisa started thinking about it, she realized it was easier said than done. She wished Stevie and Carole could be there to help her think of something. But now that she had decided the mare needed a name, Lisa couldn’t bear the thought of waiting one minute longer to give her one.
She stared at the mare’s pale gray coat. “Well, my first idea is to call you something like Moonlight or maybe Starshine,” she told her. “After all, in the right light you glow just like a silvery moon or a bright evening star. But both those names sound too much like Starlight’s name. You need your very own name that just sounds like you.” Lisa realized her last sentence didn’t make much sense, but the mare seemed to understand.
Lisa started to work on the mare’s coat with the dandy brush while she thought. “Maybe I should name you after something in The Nutcracker, since that’s what I’d be seeing right now if not for you,” she mused. “What do you think of being called Sugarplum? You know, after the scene with the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.” Somehow that name didn’t seem quite right, either.
Lisa kept thinking. “Well, it is almost Christmas,” she said. “You could have a Christmassy name. How about Merry? Or Jingle Bell? Or Holly?” But none of those names seemed to suit the mare, either.
Lisa sighed in frustration and replaced the dandy brush in the bucket, being careful to keep it out of the mare’s reach. As she stood up again, she noticed that a piece of straw had become entangled in the mare’s mane.
“Let me just get that knot out before I finish brushing you,” Lisa said. She grabbed the plastic mane comb out of the bucket and reached for the tangle. But before she could get to work on it, the mare had reached over and nimbly plucked the comb out of Lisa’s fingers.
“Hey!” Lisa exclaimed. She smiled at the horse. “I guess my first guess was right. You do have a taste for plastic!”
The mare didn’t argue. And she didn’t resist when Lisa took the comb back. Instead of continuing with the grooming, Lisa leaned back against the wall and looked at the mare for a moment.
“You know, maybe a miracle will happen after all,” she said. “Maybe you will be well enough to be in the Starlight Ride this Christmas Eve.”
She knew that wouldn’t really happen, but the thought had given her an idea.
“I know!” she exclaimed, so suddenly that the mare perked both ears forward and bobbed her head in alarm. “Sorry,” Lisa said soothingly. “But I just thought of the perfect name.” She reached forward with the grooming comb and tapped the mare lightly on the nose. “I hereby dub thee Eve. For Christmas Eve, you know. It’s perfect—Christmassy and special and pretty. And it just sounds like you.”
The horse snorted, as if in agreement. Lisa laughed again, and before she realized what she was doing, she had reached out and given Eve a big hug. She felt the horse tense slightly at first and then relax. To Lisa, it almost felt as though Eve was hugging her back.
WHEN JUDY BARKER arrived later, Lisa was just finishing her leisurely grooming. “Hi, Judy,” she greeted the vet cheerfully.
Judy looked a little surprised at Lisa’s mood. “Hello, Lisa. I just finished a call in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by and see how things are going. So how’s our girl?”
“You tell me,” Lisa said with a smile, stepping back to let Judy look.
The vet looked the mare over carefully. She checked her temperature, then listened to her breathing and her heart with her stethoscope. Finally she put away her tools and looked at Lisa with a smile. “I’m surprised. I was hoping she’d improve after that last rough spot, but I didn’t dare to hope she’d perk up this much. You must have the magic touch, Lisa. For the first time, I feel confident in saying that this horse is on the road to recovery.”
“Really?” Lisa said. She turned to the horse and gave her another hug. “Did you hear that, Eve? It’s official. You’re going to get better.”
Seeing the surprised look on Judy’s face, Lisa quickly explained how she had come up with the name. “Do you like it?” she asked the vet.
Judy smiled and nodded. “I think it suits her perfectly.”
After that, Lisa and Judy just stood quietly for a while, watching as Eve took a few sips of water, chewed a mouthful of hay, and then gradually fell asleep. And without either of them saying so, both of them knew they were watching a horse who had finally found a reason to live.
“DID YOU TALK to Lisa last night?” Stevie asked. It was Saturday morning, and she had just met Carole outside Pine Hollow. The girls had a meeting of their Pony Club, Horse Wise, a little later that morning, but they had arrived early because they had wanted to have a chance to talk first. It seemed as though they hadn’t had a real Saddle Club meeting in ages.
Carole yawned. “Nope. I was so exhausted when I got home that I went straight to bed. Did you talk to her?”
Stevie shook her head. “I wanted to call her, but my parents wouldn’t let me. They said it was too late.”
“Let’s go inside and see if she’s here yet.” The two girls hurried into the stable. They checked at the mare’s stall first, and that was exactly where they found Lisa.
“You haven’t been here all night, have you?” Stevie teased. Without waiting for an answer, she added, “So how is she?”
Lisa smiled. “First of all, we don’t have to keep calling her ‘she’ all the time. She has a name now.”
Carole and Stevie looked surprised. “She does?” Carole said. “What is it?”
“Her name is Eve,” Lisa said. She waited anxiously for her friends’ reactions. She really wanted them to like the name she had chosen.
They did. “It’s perfect,” Stevie declared. “I couldn’t have done better myself.”
Her friends couldn’t help laughing at that. It had taken Stevie a long time to give Belle her name.
“To answer your question,” Lisa said, “Eve is doing very well. She’s still got a long way to go, but Judy believes she’ll definitely make it. And so do I.”
“You must have had some night,” Carole said,
slowly reaching out to give Eve a pat on the nose. The mare looked a little nervous, but she didn’t step away.
“I did,” Lisa said. “Or should I say, we did.” She glanced at Eve. “Last night I realized that if I really wanted her to get better, I had to let her know. Otherwise she might not think anybody cared.”
“How could she think that?” Stevie asked. “You’ve been spending practically every second of the day with her since she got here.”
“I know,” Lisa said. “I was being very careful to take perfect care of her medical problems and stuff, and in that way I was caring about her a lot. But in another way, I was also being careful not to let myself get too attached to her. I was afraid of how much that would hurt if she died.”
Carole watched the mare, who was chewing on a mouthful of hay, and thought about that for a second. “I guess that makes sense,” she said slowly. “I mean, we were all afraid even to give her a name, weren’t we?”
Lisa nodded. “We were holding back. I didn’t realize it until last night, because I thought I was caring as much as I could. But I finally realized that if I really wanted her to get better I had to let myself care all the way. Naming her helped me do that, if you know what I mean.”
Her friends did. “Well, I guess you were right,” Stevie said. “It worked.”
“I know. And I’m glad,” Lisa said. “But even if it hadn’t, I would still be glad I figured it out.”
“I guess that’s what my dad calls a life lesson,” Carole said.
Lisa smiled. “Hey, by the way, how was the ballet?” she asked, leaning back against the stall door.
“It was great,” Carole said.
Stevie agreed. “And guess who ended up using your ticket?” she asked. “Actually, never mind, you’ll never guess. It was Alex.”
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