Rocking Horse

by Bonnie Bryant

  Max led them to a stream with a tiny log propped on one bank. They jumped into the water, all in a long, spread-out row. Prancer, true to Lisa’s word, didn’t like the water, but she followed the other horses in, and after she’d jumped the log back and forth several times, she seemed more at ease. Lisa patted her.

  “Veronica,” Max said sharply, “aren’t you planning to jump this one?”

  For the first time Lisa noticed that Veronica had reined Danny in at the bank. “No, I’m not,” Veronica said haughtily. “I don’t see the point. I’d just get my breeches splashed, and it’s not like Danny has any problem with water.”

  Danny, Lisa knew, really didn’t have a problem with water. Max seemed to agree, because he ignored Veronica’s tone and instead asked, “What would you like to jump, then? What problems would you like to work on?”

  Veronica sniffed. “We don’t have any problems. If it weren’t for some people messing up our chances, we would have been perfect on Saturday.”

  Max’s quiet voice concealed the annoyance Carole was sure he must feel. “No horse is perfect,” he said, “and every rider, no matter how skilled, still has plenty to learn.”

  “Well, I don’t want to learn anything today.” Veronica seemed close to tears. Her voice was trembling. “I just can’t bear to be in this lesson with people who cheat.”

  Stevie started to speak, but Max held up his hand and Stevie was still. “We’ll take several jumps in order then, on our way home,” he said. “Everyone keep several lengths between you and the horse in front of you, and stop if anyone has a problem. I’ll bring up the rear. Go ahead, Veronica.”

  Stevie couldn’t believe Veronica was getting off so easily. If she ever spoke to Max like that, she’d be grounded for a week. Plus, it burned Stevie up that Veronica kept calling them cheaters. She’d pointed out the dangling bridle rack to Veronica. She’d even offered to help!

  They rode back quietly. As Max dismounted, he asked The Saddle Club to come to his office when they were finished taking care of their horses.

  “Sure,” Lisa said. Max often asked for their help with different projects. She hoped it was something exciting this time.

  When they went into the office, however, Lisa could see that Max wasn’t planning anything fun. With a very serious look on his face, he asked Carole to shut the door. She did. Lisa suddenly felt as if she was in trouble, but she didn’t know why.

  “Veronica’s been saying a lot of things about you three that I don’t like to hear,” he began. “You know that I expect—and that the Pony Club expects—certain standards of behavior to be upheld, both here at the barn and anywhere you represent the Pony Club or Pine Hollow.”

  “Of course, Max,” Carole said, looking confused. “But Veronica’s the one who’s misbehaving, not us. We’re sorry about what happened to her, but we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “That’s not how I understand it,” Max said. “I really didn’t think there could be anything to her accusations—at first. I know Veronica likes to complain. But I don’t think she’d persist this long if there weren’t some truth to what she’s saying. And in this case, any truth is too much. Did you break her bridle rack or fill her tack room with mud?”

  “Max!” The three members of The Saddle Club were so astonished that they all spoke at once.

  “We’d never—” Lisa said.

  “I even said I’d help her—” Stevie protested.

  “Max,” Carole repeated, “you know us. You know we’d never do anything like that. I don’t ever want to win if I can’t win fairly.”

  Max took a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you—”

  “Then believe us!” Lisa said. They told Max the whole story of the weekend—from Meg and Betsy doing all Veronica’s work, to Stevie’s finding mud in Belle’s tail, to Stevie’s offering to help Veronica. “Even after her saddle fell, we tried to help,” Lisa said. “But she started yelling at us right away. I think she just feels bad about messing up—she and Danny would have been fantastic if she’d even paid attention to what Stevie said. And she doesn’t want it to be her fault; she’d rather it were ours.”

  “Plus, she tried to wreck our chances,” Stevie said. “If she blames us loudly enough for what happened to her, then maybe we won’t be able to blame her for what she did.”

  Max shook his head. “Did any of you see Veronica in Belle’s stall?” he asked. “I don’t like anyone—you or Veronica—making unfounded accusations.”

  “But that’s what you’re doing!” Stevie said. “You should consider our reputations and Veronica’s, then figure out who’s telling the truth.”

  Max shook his head but, for the first time, grinned. “Veronica’s reputation is pretty tarnished, I admit. But, Stevie, so is yours. I seem to remember several incidents around the stable—”

  “But not like this,” Stevie said. “I want to win, all right, but I don’t cheat. You know I don’t. I never have.”

  “I know,” Max admitted. “I also know how much you three dislike Veronica. And I can’t help thinking that mud isn’t exactly Veronica’s style. I’ve never known her to get her hands dirty.

  “So,” he continued, “what I’ll say is this. I won’t blame you three, and I won’t blame Veronica, and I won’t hear another word from anyone on this subject. And nothing—nothing—like this had better ever happen again. No getting even, Stevie Lake. Do you hear me? This all gets dropped now.”

  “Of course,” Carole said. She felt relieved; she could tell Max was listening to them, and she felt certain he believed them.

  “I don’t need revenge now,” Stevie said saucily. “Why should I? We won.”

  Lisa swung the office door open and very nearly walked into Veronica. “Oh—hi!” she said, startled. “I didn’t know you were standing right there.”

  Veronica brushed past Lisa and Stevie and Carole. “Max,” she said sweetly, “do you think Danny’s going to need his turnout rug anymore? It’s getting so warm. I could take it home and have the maid wash it.”

  “Whoa,” Carole said as they walked toward the locker room. “That was weird. What’s gotten into Max?”

  “He’s been worn down by two days of constant Veronica,” Lisa said. “What was she doing right outside the office? I’d swear she was listening through the door.”

  Stevie nodded. “I thought so, too. And I didn’t like the way she was smiling. She’s up to something. She’s not going to let this drop.”

  Carole shrugged. “What can she do?”

  “I don’t know,” Stevie said, “but I bet that sooner or later we’ll find out.”

  “REALLY? COOL!” STEVIE said into the phone. She waggled her hand at Lisa and Carole and gave a thumbs-up sign. Lisa rolled her eyes in response, but she still felt a little jolt of excitement run through her. Stevie was talking to Phil. It was Friday night, and they were just about ready to leave for the dance. “See you in a few minutes!” Stevie cooed. She hung up and grabbed Lisa’s hands, spinning her around.

  “He’s coming!” she said. “It’s official! Bart’s coming to the dance! Whee!”

  “Stop it!” Lisa said, laughing. She could feel herself starting to blush again. “I mean, I’m glad, but—just stop it, Stevie. It’s not like he’s coming with me or anything.”

  “But he’s coming,” Stevie said practically. “That’s a lot better than him not coming.”

  “True.” Lisa grinned. “So, how do I look?” She struck a ballet pose in the middle of Stevie’s bedroom. They had all decided to spend the night at Stevie’s. Mr. and Mrs. Lake were going to drive them to the school and then go out to dinner and a movie with some friends before picking the girls back up.

  “Fabulous!” Carole answered. Lisa hadn’t bought the pink sweater that Stevie had so admired, but she had done a little shopping with her mother the evening before. She had on a brand-new pair of dark blue jeans, a white short-sleeved sweater, and a new pair of off-white sandals.


  “Mom won’t let me wear actual white shoes before Memorial Day,” Lisa explained as she fastened her sandal strap.

  Stevie nodded, though she had no idea what Lisa was talking about. Lisa’s mother had very old-fashioned ideas about clothing, and it was a miracle she hadn’t expected Lisa to wear a velvet dress to the dance. Stevie said so.

  “Oh, no,” Lisa said, laughing. “She thinks you can only wear velvet between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.”

  Stevie shook her head. She knew she would never understand. “What do you think of this?” she asked, zipping her skirt and holding her hands out to show off to her friends. Stevie almost never wore skirts, and when she did they were very modern, like this one—a short, straight, jazzy black knit. Stevie’s sweater was pink—a shocking, electric, Stevie-like pink.

  Carole laughed. “You two will put me in the shade. I’m just wearing old leggings and tennis shoes.”

  “Yeah,” Stevie argued, “with the most fantastic top I’ve ever seen.” Carole’s shirt was a cross between a sweater and a sweatshirt. It was bright yellow, a shade that perfectly complemented Carole’s skin, and it had concentric red and purple designs on it. “It’s sort of a take on an old African design,” Carole explained. She carefully fastened her wooden horse necklace—a very old family heirloom—around her neck, then brushed her hair back into a low ponytail. “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Me too,” said Stevie. When Lisa nodded, Stevie said, “I’ll go see if my folks are ready.” She started toward the door, but before she reached it, her phone rang again.

  “That’s Phil,” Lisa joked, “calling us to say that Bart isn’t coming after all.”

  Stevie shook her head at Lisa. “Stevie Lake,” she said cheerfully into the phone. Then, as her friends watched, the color seemed to drain out of her face. “Sure,” she whispered. “But what—Sure. We’ll be right there.” She hung up the phone.

  “That was Max,” she said to her friends. “There’s some sort of problem at the barn. He says it’s not our horses, but he needs us there right away.”

  “It must be the horses,” Carole said. They clattered down the stairs and quickly convinced Stevie’s parents to take them to Pine Hollow instead of the dance.

  “If we take you there, we can’t come get you and take you to the dance,” Mrs. Lake warned. “We’ve got plans tonight, for once, and we’re not interrupting them to taxi you around.”

  “That’s fine,” Stevie said distractedly. She’d been looking forward to the dance for weeks, but at this moment it hardly seemed to matter at all. “I don’t think we’re going to the dance. Max seemed really upset. We’ll just get him to drive us home whenever we’re done at the stable.”

  “I wonder what it could be,” Lisa said.

  “The horses,” Carole said again. “Starlight.” She shivered, thinking of all that could have happened to her beloved horse. He could have colicked or foundered or cast himself in his stall …

  “He said it wasn’t the horses,” Stevie said. “He wouldn’t lie to us.”

  “What did he say exactly?” Lisa asked.

  “That there was a problem at the stable, and he wanted the three of us there immediately. Then he said not to panic, it wasn’t our horses, and then he hung up.”

  “Okay,” Lisa said. She patted Carole’s arm. “It’ll be okay.” But she didn’t have the first clue what the problem could be.

  When Stevie’s parents pulled up at Pine Hollow, most of the stables and even Max’s house were dark. Only the windows of the office and the first section of stalls were lit. In the driveway, a car sat with its engine running. The Saddle Club could see Deborah, Max’s wife, and Maxi, their baby daughter, waiting inside. They waved, and Deborah waved back. The girls tumbled out of the car, and Stevie’s parents left.

  The girls hurried into the stable. Max was pacing up and down in his office. “Gosh,” Stevie blurted, “you look really nice.” Max was dressed for an evening out. He wore clean khaki pants and a nice sweater, and his hair was still damp from a shower. His expression, however, was anything but nice.

  “I don’t feel nice,” he said. He snapped the office lights off and pointed the girls down the stable aisle. “I feel annoyed, delayed, and most of all, disappointed. Also, I admit, rather furious.” He pointed toward Danny’s stall.

  Carole felt her mouth drop open so fast she was surprised that it didn’t hit her knees. Danny’s stall was a wreck—absolutely and completely trashed. Slick, dark, half-dried mud was slathered all over the bedding, halfway up the walls, and all over poor Danny himself. His lovely gray coat was covered from nose to hoof to tail.

  Stevie and Lisa were likewise stricken dumb, but Max seemed more than capable of speech. “It’s just a good thing I decided to check on the horses one last time before we left,” he said. “As I’m sure you know, we’ve had a very quiet afternoon here. In fact, you three were the only kids around. The mud’s getting fairly dry, so I guess this happened around an hour ago—plenty of time for you to go home and get yourselves cleaned up.”

  “But Max!” Lisa protested. “We never—”

  “I said I wanted these pranks stopped,” he said. Lisa had never seen Max so angry. “They don’t have a place in my barn. Veronica’s tack looks exactly the same way. It could be ruined, for all I know. I asked my mother, and the only people she saw down here all afternoon—the only people—were the three of you.”

  The Saddle Club had taken a short trail ride that afternoon, and Stevie remembered how quiet the stables had been. But she also knew that when they left, Danny and his stall had been sparkling clean. “Veronica—” she began.

  “—would have been very noticeable, pulling up in her chauffeur-driven Mercedes,” Max said dryly. “I don’t want to hear any theories, Stevie. I don’t want to hear a word. I don’t care what kind of explanations you three have. I want horse, stall, and tack spotless by the time I get back here. I don’t care if you have to work until dawn.”

  He turned on his heel and started walking toward the door. The girls looked at each other in stunned silence. “But we’re going to a dance,” Stevie said quietly.

  “No,” Max said, without turning around, “you thought you were going to a dance. I’m afraid you have work to do.” The stable door shut behind him with a click, and the girls could hear the car pulling away. They looked at each other hopelessly.

  “He can’t really think—” Carole said.

  “He does,” Stevie said. “Wow. He really thinks we did it.”

  “He’s just so angry right now,” Lisa guessed. “He might listen to us later—like, in about a week or three.”

  “Right. But what about tonight?”

  They surveyed Danny in silent gloom. He looked truly horrible. Mud made his mane stand up in tufts like a punk rocker’s hair. “Poor boy,” Carole murmured, patting the one non-muddy spot on his nose. “Who would do something like this to you?”

  “I guess we have to clean him up,” Lisa said with some reluctance. She felt sorry for Danny, but she didn’t like being blamed, even temporarily, for something she didn’t and wouldn’t do.

  “You guess?” Stevie said. “Do you want to have Max come back and see this horse like this again? He’d kick us out of the stable forever, if he didn’t kill us first.”

  “Plus, it’s not fair to Danny,” Carole said. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  Lisa blew out her breath. She looked at her new white sweater. “Let me go see what else I can wear,” she said. Unfortunately, she’d cleaned her cubby out that afternoon, and, like her two friends, had taken most of her grubby old clothes to Stevie’s house. They were in the Lakes’ washing machine at this very minute.

  “Oh, no,” Stevie said, realizing what Lisa was thinking. “That was lousy timing, wasn’t it? And I felt so virtuous, putting all that laundry into the machine.”

  It was true. Even combining all that they had in their three cubbies, plus everything they could drag out of the lost
-and-found box, they couldn’t do much to protect their party clothes. Stevie found some crusty socks and exchanged her sandals for cowboy boots, but she was still stuck in a skirt. Lisa put on a pair of Carole’s old paddock boots instead of her sandals, and Carole managed to exchange her leggings for a pair of breeches, but that was all.

  They had just gone back to Danny’s stall when they heard the main door open. Carole’s first thought was that it was Max, back already, and he was going to be furious. But it was worse than Max. It was Veronica. She was wearing an ivory satin ensemble, dance shoes, and tons of jewelry, and she flipped her lustrous hair in The Saddle Club’s direction as she walked to Danny’s stall.

  “My,” she murmured, raising an eyebrow at them, “he is a mess, isn’t he? When Max phoned, I was so … surprised. But then, I’d been getting ready for the dance all afternoon. I took a mud bath—so good for my complexion.” She grinned.

  Lisa heard a strangled noise that she guessed was Stevie trying to hold her temper.

  “It’s such a shame that you girls won’t get to come to the dance,” Veronica purred. She held a carrot out to Danny, and he took it. “But then,” she continued, giving The Saddle Club another glance, “I can see by the way you look that you weren’t really planning on going. Stevie, those boots are adorable—and that skirt is just right for cleaning stalls.”

  Stevie lunged toward Veronica, but the other girl was already tripping back toward the door. “Mustn’t keep the chauffeur waiting,” she said. “Toodleoo.And don’t forget, I like all my tack oiled except for my saddle.”

  “I’ll kill her,” Stevie spit. They heard Veronica’s car pull away. “Did you see her face? And that comment about mud baths? She set this whole thing up! She did it! I hate her!”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Lisa said grimly. “We have to clean Danny up. Max said so.”

  “Oh, Max!” Stevie paced the aisle in fury. “He and Veronica are acting just alike! What was it Meg said? She felt like Cinderella? We’re Cinderellas! Don’t you see?”