Lisa did see, and despite the awfulness of the situation, she had to laugh. “Sure,” she said. “That’s us exactly. Max is the wicked stepmother, Veronica is the wicked stepsister—”
“Danny must be a toad or something—the ugly toad—”
“Wrong fairy tale,” Carole cut in. “But it doesn’t matter, because it all means the same thing. We can’t go to the ball.”
THE SADDLE CLUB stared glumly at Danny. The horse, looking for another carrot, nosed at them hopefully. The mud didn’t seem to be bothering him, though Carole knew it could irritate his skin if it was left on him for a long time.
“Do we have to?” Stevie wailed.
Lisa slumped down onto a hay bale in the aisle. She put her chin in her hands. “There’s ‘have to’ and ‘have to,’ ” she said. “Nobody can force us to clean up that horse—”
“—and the stall, and the tack—”
“Right. But I think it’s probably best if we do. Max looked pretty serious.”
“He can’t think that we would do something like this,” Carole said, sitting down beside Lisa.
Lisa looked sideways at her friend. “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t even care who did it. Maybe he’s just sick of this stuff going on at his stable, and he wants to stop it, and he thinks this will do the trick.”
“If Veronica wins here,” Stevie moaned, “she’ll torment us forever. Not that it matters, because as soon as I get to the dance, I am personally going to take her out.”
“Which brings up another point,” Lisa said. She chewed on the end of her hair, something she tended to do when upset. “How do you think we could actually get to the dance, if and when we’re ready to go? My parents are out of town, remember? They went to see my aunt.”
“And my dad’s supervising weekend maneuvers at some base down in Georgia,” Carole said. Her father was a colonel in the Marines.
“And my parents will kill me if we call them out of the theater,” Stevie said. “We told them Max would take us home. Where’s Mrs. Reg?”
Carole shook her head. “Gone. I don’t know where, but if she were here, some of the lights in the house would be on.”
“Maybe we could walk to the school,” Stevie suggested.
“Six miles, at night, in my sandals?” Lisa said. “Besides, we’d have to cross a highway. We can walk back to Stevie’s house, but we can’t walk to the school.”
“The highway means we can’t ride there, either,” said Carole. “It would be too dangerous for the horses.”
“We could hitchhike.”
“Stevie!” Neither Lisa nor Carole took that seriously.
Stevie sighed. “I guess we’re stuck. When’s Max getting back? Where did he go, anyway?”
Lisa shrugged. “I never heard him say where he was going. If they took Maxi, they can’t be out that late.”
“Unless they were dropping her off with Deborah’s mom,” Carole said. “Then they could be out all night.”
“In which case, we don’t have to clean the horse until morning.”
“Stevie, you know we do. Besides, if we’re stuck here, we might as well start working.”
They got out their grooming buckets, but Danny was still a hopeless case. The mud on his body hadn’t fully dried, and until it did, brushing it would only drive the dirt farther into his coat.
“We’ll have to wait until he’s all the way dry, then whack the big clods out with stiff brushes,” Carole said. “Then curry and brush him forever to get out all the dust.” She groaned. Grooming was never easy when the horse had rolled in mud, and Carole had never seen an animal more thoroughly coated than Danny. Restoring him to his usual pristine state was going to take forever, even with three of them working.
“We’ll start on the stall,” Lisa said. “I’ll put him on the cross-ties.” She haltered Danny gingerly, then led him out to the aisle. Danny rubbed his head enthusiastically across Lisa’s shoulder. “Oh, Danny!” Lisa cried, looking at the streak of mud running down her new white sweater. “How could you!”
“Simple,” Stevie said, coming out of the stall with Danny’s grimy water bucket. “Mud itches, and you looked good for a scratch.”
Lisa was fighting back tears. She’d had such hopes for this night. “See how many jokes you make when it’s your clothes that get ruined,” she spit at Stevie.
Stevie put down the water bucket and displayed a muddy skirt. “I can never take down full buckets without leaning right against them,” she said. “And, of course, I always splash water on myself.”
“I’m sorry,” Lisa mumbled. “It’s just mud, after all. It’ll wash out. Only—I keep thinking—Bart finally decided to go to the dance—”
“I know,” Stevie said. “I keep wondering what Phil is going to think when I don’t show up. I hope he won’t be angry.”
“He won’t be angry at you,” Carole said. She was handling a wheelbarrow very gently to try to keep her own shirt clean. “He might get worried, but he’ll understand once you tell him what happened. How are we going to get the mud off the walls in here?”
Stevie and Lisa went into the stall. “Maybe brushes?” Lisa suggested. “A broom?”
“A power water hose,” Stevie said.
Carole raised her eyebrows. “That would do it, but where would we get one? I guess a broom is our best bet.” They started whacking at the dirt smeared on the sides of Danny’s stall. The brooms did remove it pretty well, but instead of just falling to the ground, the dirt seemed to fly up into their clothes, faces, and hair. Soon they all looked as though they’d been dipped in powdered dirt. Lisa sneezed.
From the office, they could hear the phone ringing. It sounded very far away. “Just ignore that,” Lisa said. “It’s after hours; the answering machine will pick up.” The phone stopped ringing, but after a moment it started again.
“It’s Max checking up on us,” Stevie decided. She ran down the aisle and caught up the receiver. “We’re still here,” she announced.
“What I’d like to know is what you’re doing there in the first place,” Phil said. “Though when you didn’t show up here at the dance, I knew you couldn’t be anywhere else. Belle’s not sick, is she? Are you okay?”
At the sound of his sympathetic voice, Stevie nearly dissolved. “Oh, it’s so awful!” she wailed. She told him the whole story.
“That really stinks,” he agreed. “I’m using the pay phone at the corner of the school, and I can see Veronica from here. She’s dancing with some eighth-grader—some stylish-looking red-haired guy.”
“I know him,” Stevie said. “Carole and Lisa told me all about him. His name’s Stone or Rock or something like that. Apparently he’s new in town, and all the girls have this huge crush on him. He’s rich, too. I can’t believe it. Not only does she get to go to the ball, she even gets the town prince.”
“What?” Phil asked.
“Never mind.”
“Well, I wish I could help, but I don’t see how I can, aside from pulling down the whole tent on their heads. In a few years, when I have a driver’s license and a car—”
“—we should be just about finished cleaning this horse.” Stevie laughed despite herself. “It’s so hopeless. You have no idea.”
“I’ll see what I can do about the tent,” Phil promised. He hung up, and Stevie trailed dispiritedly back to her friends.
“I’m glad he won’t be worried about us,” Carole said.
“Did Bart come?” Lisa asked.
Stevie put her hand over her mouth. “I forgot to ask. I’m sorry!”
Lisa snorted. “What difference does it make? It’s not like it changes anything. I’m here, no matter where Bart is.”
Half an hour passed. They decided the stall walls looked as good as they were going to look. “He’ll need fresh bedding,” Carole said. She grabbed the wheelbarrow again.
Lisa ran her hand along the top of Danny’s back. “He’s still wet. It’s amazing how thick this mud is.”
/> “Come on,” Stevie said to her. “We can get started on the tack.”
They went into the tack room but ran back out when they heard Carole scream, “Danny!”
“I was the only one of us who looked even halfway clean,” Carole said. “Now look!” Danny had blown green horse slime across the front of her sweater. “He’s ruined it!”
“If you sort of look sideways at it and squint,”Stevie offered, “the green looks like part of the pattern.”
“Oh, it does not,” Carole said crossly. “This whole evening is a disaster.”
“I know,” Stevie said. “What we really need is a fairy godmother.”
“HUH,” LISA SNORTED. “A fairy godmother? I’ll look in the yellow pages. Would that be under F for fairy or G for godmother?”
“Under 1 for impossible,” Carole said. She dumped the wheelbarrow load of fresh shavings into Danny’s stall and joined Lisa and Stevie, who had returned to the tack room. Veronica’s tack wasn’t quite as bad as they’d feared. Working quickly, they took the bridle apart and dunked its bit into a bucket of hot water. They got out Max’s saddle soap and began cleaning the leather pieces.
“We could at least hope,” Stevie persisted.
“Why?” Lisa asked. She glared at Stevie over the bucket. “Have you ever seen us in a situation more hopeless?”
“You’re such a pessimist,” Stevie shot back. “What we need here is a plan.”
“A miracle,” Lisa said. “Think one up, Stevie, and I’ll go along with it.” She couldn’t help the angry tone she knew was in her voice. She’d been looking forward to the dance so much. She knew that it wasn’t Stevie’s fault they couldn’t go, but she felt she had to blame somebody.
Stevie thought while they finished the bridle. Surely there must be something they could do. Lisa reassembled the bridle while Carole and Stevie started on the saddle. It wasn’t often that Stevie Lake was stumped for a plan. In fact, Lisa couldn’t remember its ever happening before. But now she seemed entirely, hopelessly, completely stumped.
“The fairy godmother is our only option,” Stevie said at last. Lisa snorted. “I wish you’d quit making that noise,” Stevie said.
“Sorry,” Lisa said. “I’m in a bad mood, but I know it’s not your fault any more than it’s mine or anyone else’s.”
“It’s Veronica’s,” Stevie said. There was another noise.
“Cut it out!” Stevie said. “That’s so rude!”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“There it is again!”
“It’s not Lisa,” Carole said. “It’s something outside. Listen.”
They went to the door of the tack room. From there they could make out the noise of a truck pulling slowly into the gravel driveway. Carole turned on the outdoor lights. “It’s Judy!” she said. Judy Barker was Pine Hollow’s veterinarian, and she was a favorite of the three girls.
The Saddle Club hurried out to greet her. Behind her heavy-duty pickup truck she was pulling a two-horse trailer—the reason, no doubt, that she was driving so slowly.
“Hey!” Judy greeted them as she got out of the cab. “I didn’t expect a welcoming committee. I told Max I’d be bringing Mrs. Repass’s horse back from surgery, and he told me everyone would be gone. What are you guys doing here?”
“Suffering,” Stevie said succinctly.
“I can see that,” Judy said, looking them over. “Those aren’t exactly barn clothes you’re wearing, are they? Are the horses okay?”
“They’re fine,” Carole said. “It’s a long story.”
“A horrible story,” Stevie added. “Veronica stuck us here taking care of her horse while she’s at the big junior-high dance.”
“Max said we couldn’t leave until everything was clean,” Lisa added. “We’ve done the stall and the tack, but Danny is going to take hours. He’s all over crusted mud.”
Judy looked confused. “You’d better tell me the whole story,” she said. “I’ll unload Mrs. Repass’s horse. You guys talk.”
They filled Judy in while she carefully backed one of the adult boarders’ horses down the trailer ramp. “It’s so unfair!” Lisa added as they followed Judy and the horse down the aisle of the stable.
“I’d say so,” Judy agreed. “Max was upset, and unfortunately he took it out on you. You guys definitely deserve to be at that dance.” She smiled. “I think you should go. In fact, I think I can fix everything.”
“But that’s impossible!” Lisa said.
“It’s too much,” Carole agreed. “Danny’s such a mess. We haven’t been able to get started on him yet, it’s going to take hours—”
“—and none of our parents are home to take us to the school—”
“—and we can’t go like this!” Stevie said, holding out her grimy shirt. “We look like we’ve taken baths in a pigpen!”
Judy smiled harder. Then she laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I can easily drive you there myself, and I don’t mind picking you up when it’s over, either. My husband is out of town and I was planning on making a few late-night calls.
“Your clothes,” she added, “are a problem. But fortunately I don’t dress up very often.”
The Saddle Club had never seen Judy dressed in anything more formal than a sweater and khakis, and tonight she was wearing old jeans and a sweatshirt. Stevie looked Judy over. She was about the same height as the three of them, and she wasn’t very large—but surely Judy didn’t mean they could trade clothes. Stevie would rather go in her own dirty shirt than in Judy’s dirty shirt. Besides, there were three of them.
“Come on,” Judy said, leading them back to her truck. She threw open the passenger door. “Ta-da!”
“It’s a truck,” Lisa said, totally confused.
Judy reached behind the seat. “It’s my dry cleaning,” she said. “Look, I only take it in about twice a year, and, lucky for you guys, I just picked it up today. As long as you’ve got pants …” She glanced down at Carole’s torn breeches.
“We’ve got pants,” Carole said, nodding to include Lisa. “Stevie doesn’t.”
“Then Stevie can have the red dress,” Judy said, handing a plastic-sheathed minidress to Stevie.
Stevie peeked beneath the plastic. “Cool!” she said. “Thanks, Judy!”
“No problem. And for Carole … Purple? Here, take this sweater.” She gave Carole a short-sleeved fine-gauge sweater. “And Lisa … Hmm, you wouldn’t look very good in my tweed skirt. Not in my white blouse, either—too fluffy for a dance …”
“How about this?” Lisa asked. She pointed to a plain light blue silk blouse. It wasn’t as fancy as her new sweater, but she wouldn’t look like a geek in it, either. “I’d be really careful with it,” she added.
“Fine,” Judy said. “Now, let me see this horse.” They trailed back into the barn.
“He’s the worst of it,” Carole warned her. “The other problems were easy compared to how Danny looks. And Max—I mean, I think we’d better make sure Danny is clean before we leave. And all that dirt isn’t going to just fly out of his coat. It’s going to take hours.”
“So you’ve said,” Judy said. She looked Danny over, her hands on her hips. “He’s a walking disaster. No problem. I’ll clean him up while you girls go to the bathroom and clean yourselves up. You’ve got dirt down your neck, Stevie.”
“But Judy—” Carole protested. She knew Max wouldn’t be satisfied with a horse that was less than totally clean.
Judy made shooing motions with her hands. “Go,” she said. “I’ll deal with him. Go—and be sure you wash your hands before you put on my clothes.”
“See?” Stevie said as they headed for the bathroom.“I told you nothing was impossible. I told you all we needed was a fairy godmother.”
“Yes, you told us,” Carole admitted. “We just didn’t believe you. And I’m still not going to believe you until that horse is clean.”
Lisa started to laugh. “I never thought of Judy as a fairy godmother! W
hat do you think she’ll do, wave a magic wand over Danny?” She washed her face and hands and smoothed her hair back with her damp fingers.
“I don’t particularly care, as long as it works,” Stevie said. She stepped out of her soiled miniskirt and into Judy’s shimmering red dress. “Look, this fits!”
“It looks fantastic,” Lisa said. “Wait until Phil sees you!”
Stevie grinned. “Wait until Bart sees you!”
“Wait until Veronica sees all of us,” Carole added.
“Yep,” said Stevie. “We’ll show her she couldn’t keep us from having a good time.”
“We certainly will,” Lisa said. A tiny flicker of an idea started in her brain. It was crazy, but it might be funny. In fact, it might be the perfect end to this strange night. Lisa smiled to herself and adjusted the tail of Judy’s blouse.
“Come,” cried Stevie, “our pumpkin awaits!”
When they got back to the aisle, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Danny, on the cross-ties, was nearly clean—and Judy was waving a long stick over his body!
“What’s that?” cried Carole.
Judy waved the stick at them. “It’s a magic wand, of course!” When The Saddle Club looked blank, she laughed. “Surely you’ve noticed the parallels between your problem and Cinderella’s? This is a horse vacuum, guys. Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“No,” said Lisa. They came closer. Down by Judy’s feet was a small square canister making a familiar vacuum-cleaner noise. A thick hose connected it to the wand in Judy’s hand.
“Watch,” Judy instructed in a satisfied tone. She ran the wand down the one remaining filthy spot on Danny’s flank. Mud and dust disappeared, leaving only shiny gray hair. “I’ve always wanted one of these, but they’re expensive,” Judy said. “Today I finally bought one, and I’ve been carrying it around in my truck all day. It really works!”
“That’s amazing!” Carole said. “We’ll just get a brush and go over his face with it.”
“No, I’ll get a brush,” Judy said. “You three are going to concentrate on keeping clean, at least for a few minutes.” She brushed Danny’s face with soft, expert strokes. “Take the vacuum back to my truck. There’s a hairbrush on my seat and some lip gloss in my purse. Help yourselves. As soon as I get this horse back to his stall—your carriage awaits!”
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