As the girls slowly walked their horses around the ring to cool them down, Carole shook her head. “I still can’t believe how much trouble Veronica manages to cause all by herself,” she said angrily. “It’s just like the time she took that flash picture and made Stevie fall off.”
Lisa nodded. “It’s also a little like my very first day at Pine Hollow,” she said softly.
“That’s right!” Carole said. “I’d almost forgotten.” On Lisa’s first day at the stable, Veronica had carelessly let a door slam, just as she had today. The noise had startled the horse Lisa was riding and made him run wild.
“That time she spooked my horse into action,” Lisa said. “Today she spooked my horse into inaction.” She smiled a little as she thought about the irony. But her smile faded quickly as she thought about how much work was likely to be in front of her and Prancer. She knew that horses, despite their limited intellects, can form bad habits rather quickly, especially if they learn them in a stressful or frightening way. Despite what Carole had said, Lisa knew there wasn’t much chance that Prancer would go back to jumping normally the next day.
“Well, Veronica is just lucky I gave up practical jokes,” Stevie said. “Otherwise I’d be ready to play a big one to get back at her for this.”
Carole rolled her eyes. If Stevie still wanted to pretend she’d given up pranks for good, she wasn’t going to argue. “Well, if Max really thinks she set off that alarm thing on purpose, he’ll probably kick her out of Horse Wise again,” she said. “That would be the best revenge of all.”
The others agreed wholeheartedly with that.
* * *
AFTER DINNER THAT NIGHT, Stevie went up to her room. She knocked a pile of clean clothes and some magazines off her desk chair and sat down. It took only a few minutes of digging through the piles of books and papers on her desk to locate the book of fairy tales she’d taken out of the library a couple of weeks before. After a grimace when she realized the book was four days overdue, she flipped it open to the contents page.
“Let’s see,” she muttered to herself, scanning the names of the stories. The more she thought about Ms. Vogel’s speech, the more she realized that her new film was going to have to be awfully good. That meant she couldn’t do some boring fairy tale like Sleeping Beauty this time. She was going to have to come up with a really great tale to retell.
But all the tales in the book sounded boring to her. There was no way Ms. Vogel was going to be impressed by another dull rendition of Hansel and Gretel or Cinderella.
Be clever, Stevie told herself. Maybe I should do Beauty and the Beast, starring Veronica diAngelo as the beast, she thought, smiling a little at the thought. I could cast myself as Beauty.
Suddenly Stevie sat up straight in her chair. She had just given herself a great idea.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed out loud. “I’ll set my fairy tale on horseback!” As soon as she said it, she knew it was the perfect solution. The clever part wasn’t picking an unusual story, it was doing a familiar story in an unusual way. Wasn’t that what Ms. Vogel had said—bigger, better, or more original? And what could be more original than a fairy tale on horseback? For that matter, what could be bigger or better?
Since her treatment would be so original, Stevie decided she might as well choose the most familiar fairy tale of all, Cinderella. She would simply do it as it had never been done before. Stevie herself would play Cinderella, of course. Carole and Lisa could be the nasty stepsisters. And who better to act as Prince Charming than her very own Prince Charming, Phil Marsten?
“It’s brilliant,” Stevie whispered to herself. She scrabbled around on her desk for a pencil and a blank piece of paper and began making notes. Instead of a fairy godmother, her version would have a talking lucky horseshoe. Instead of a royal ball, the couple would fall in love at a dressage exhibition. Instead of cooking and scrubbing, poor Cinderella would have to spend her days mucking out stalls and cleaning tack.
Soon she had most of it figured out. The only thing that wasn’t absolutely perfect was that she couldn’t think of anyone to cast as the evil stepmother. She thought about asking Mrs. Reg to play the part, then decided the kindly woman wouldn’t make a convincing villain. And she was pretty sure none of her brothers would agree to dress up as a woman, even for a starring role in her film. Finally, she decided she’d just have to do without. The pair of wicked stepsisters would be enough, and Stevie was sure Carole and Lisa would be up to the parts. After all, Lisa had acted in local plays before, and Carole had perfected an evil cackle when she had dressed up as a witch a few Halloweens ago.
Stevie grabbed another piece of paper and continued to write. There was so much to think about. She would have to type up a script for her actors and come up with the appropriate props and costumes. She would also have to figure out how to arrange the filming so that she could direct and act in the film at the same time. But she knew she could do it; after all, famous actors in Hollywood did that sort of thing all the time.
Her mind almost bubbling over with ideas, she dropped her pencil and hurried over to the phone on her bedside table. She just had to tell someone about her brainstorm. She tried Carole’s line, then Lisa’s. Both were busy, and Stevie guessed that they were talking to each other. She tried Phil’s number. Phil himself answered after three rings.
“Hi, Stevie,” he said, sounding pleased to hear from her. “How are you? Did Veronica try to get back at you today for that joke you played on her over the weekend?” The couple had talked on the phone Saturday night, and Stevie had told Phil all about her practical joke.
“Sort of,” Stevie said, twirling the phone cord around one finger. “But I’ll tell you about that in a minute. First, I have an important question to ask you.”
“Shoot,” Phil said.
“How would you like to be a movie star?” Stevie asked.
“Huh?” Phil sounded confused. “You mean when I grow up? I hadn’t really—”
Stevie interrupted him impatiently. “No, not when you grow up. I mean right now. I have to make another film for my class, and I want you to be one of my stars. This time I’m going to do a horseback version of Cinderella.”
“Another film?” Phil said. “I thought you just handed one in.”
“I did,” Stevie admitted. “But my teacher handed it right back to me. I have to redo it.” She filled him in on her conversation with Ms. Vogel. “But it was all for the best,” Stevie finished. “She made me realize I was spending too much time on stupid practical jokes. So I decided that’s it. No more pranks for me.”
Phil laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“No, I mean it,” Stevie protested. First Carole and Lisa, now Phil. Why didn’t any of her friends believe her?
“Okay, whatever,” Phil said, still chuckling. “And now you want me to star in some wacky version of Cinderella? Let me guess—you want me to play the mean stepmother. You’re going to make me wear a dress, and then sell the tape to my sisters.”
Stevie frowned. “Of course not. I want you to play Prince Charming.” Even though you’re not being very charming right now, she added to herself. But she didn’t say it. She needed Phil to agree to be in her film. Sometimes movie directors just had to be tactful, whether their actors deserved it or not.
“All right, all right,” Phil said. “I’ll play along. Prince Charming it is. When do we start shooting?”
“Well, I need a day or two to get the script ready and stuff like that,” Stevie said, leaning back on her bed. “How about Wednesday after school?”
“I can’t do it Wednesday,” Phil said. “I have a riding lesson. But I’m free on Thursday.”
“Good,” Stevie said. “Thursday it is.” They talked about other things for a while, including the upcoming Horse Wise competition and Lisa’s fall that day. Finally Phil had to hang up.
“I’ll see you on Thursday,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Stevie replied. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too,” Phil said with a laugh. “Whatever it is!”
Stevie sighed as she hung up and got ready to try Carole again. She really had given up practical jokes for good. Why didn’t any of her friends believe her?
“SISTER DEAR, LET us depart,” Carole read. “We don’t want to be late for the dressage ball.” She let out a snort. “A dressage ball? What in the world is that?”
Stevie frowned. It was Thursday afternoon, she had just passed out the script for Cinderella, and her cast was already being difficult. “It’s obvious,” she replied. “It’s a ball where the dancers are on horseback, doing dressage.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Lisa pointed out. “Why would anyone bother to do ballroom dancing on horseback?” She was perched on the fence of the outdoor ring. It was a beautiful springlike day, and the girls and Phil had decided to practice outside. Their horses were tied up nearby. Max had agreed to let Phil ride one of the stable horses, Diablo, though he had looked skeptical when Stevie had told him the reason.
“Don’t ask such silly questions,” Stevie told Lisa, deciding that in this case the best defense was a strong offense. She had spent two days perfecting her script, and she wasn’t interested in editorial comments from the actors. “Now hurry up and read through the whole thing. Then we’ll start practicing. I thought we’d begin with the dressage ball scene, since that will be the hardest. I’ll be right back—I have to get some props.”
She disappeared inside. But instead of reading the script, Carole and Lisa went back to discussing the same topic they’d been discussing all week: Prancer.
“She still won’t go near the jumps?” Carole asked Lisa. She leaned back against the wooden fence encircling the ring, letting the stapled pages of her script fall closed. She had had a dentist appointment the afternoon before, so she hadn’t been around for Lisa’s latest attempt to get Prancer to jump.
Lisa shook her head. “No way,” she said. “She’s perfectly fine as long as we stay on the flat. But any time she gets near a fence, her ears go back and she just plain refuses. I don’t want to force her, but I’m not sure what to do to help her. Nothing I try seems to help.”
Phil had heard all about the incident, and the girls had already filled him in on the problem Lisa was having with Prancer. He knew that Lisa had been working carefully and patiently to make the mare feel comfortable about jumping again. She had led her all around the jump course. She had left her tied to one of the obstacles for several minutes. She had even trotted her over a series of cavalletti on the ground. None of those things bothered Prancer one bit. But the minute Lisa tried to ride her to a fence, Prancer stopped cold.
“It’s really a shame,” Phil said, glancing over at Prancer. The pretty mare was nipping at a small patch of grass growing below the fence. “I can’t believe Max let Veronica get away with something like that. Someone could have been badly hurt. Lisa almost was.”
“I can’t believe it, either,” Carole said. “But Veronica keeps insisting the whole thing was just an accident. It’s her word against Stevie’s suspicions.”
“And mine,” Lisa added.
Carole nodded. “Mine too,” she said. “And probably Max’s. At least he told her never to bring that alarm thing to Pine Hollow again. I guess he can’t punish her for something nobody can prove she did.”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” Phil said. He propped one elbow on the fence beside Lisa. “I guess that applies even to rats like her.”
“I know,” Lisa said sadly. “But it doesn’t help me figure out what to do about Prancer.”
Carole reached up and patted her friend comfortingly on the knee. “Don’t worry, Lisa,” she said. “You’re a good rider, and Prancer is a smart horse. We’ll figure out a way to help her get over her fear of jumping.”
At that moment Stevie emerged from the stable carrying a large red rug and several other items. Seeing that her cast was talking instead of reading their scripts, she let out a cry of dismay. “What’s the big idea?” she said, letting herself into the ring and dropping her pile of props on the hard-packed ground. “You’re supposed to be reading!”
“Sorry, Stevie,” Lisa said, feeling a little guilty. Even if this whole movie was part of some elaborate Stevie scheme, as she and Carole strongly suspected, she figured they should at least play along until they figured it out. Besides, she figured they were pretty safe today—Stevie didn’t even have the camcorder with her. “But I have an idea. Why don’t we do a read-through?”
“What’s that?” Phil asked.
Lisa hopped down off the fence. “It’s what we did at the first rehearsal the time I was in Annie,” she explained. “The whole cast just sat around in chairs and read their parts in the script out loud. That way everyone got familiar with the whole play right away instead of just concentrating on their own parts.” She sat down cross-legged on the ground, a safe distance from where the horses were tied.
“Sounds good to me,” Carole said, plopping down beside her and turning to the first page of her script. “Let’s get started.”
As Phil sat down beside Carole, Stevie gazed at them with her hands on her hips. She wasn’t sure whether to get angry or be grateful. She was annoyed that her friends weren’t taking her production seriously and that they weren’t obeying her instructions. After all, she was the director, as well as the scriptwriter. But she had to admit that Lisa’s suggestion was a good one. And if it was the way professional theater people did things, all the better.
Finally she gave in and sat down, completing the circle on the ground. “Okay, good idea, Lisa,” she said. Directors could afford to be gracious, she decided. “Let’s do it.” She opened to the first page and began: “ ‘Oh, dear me, what shall I do? My terrible stepsisters have left me to clean out the stable all by myself. Oh, poor me—poor Cinderella …’ ”
AFTER THEY HAD READ through the entire script, Stevie decided to return to her original plan and practice the dressage ball scene. She spread the red rug on the ground near the gate and asked the actors to mount. Then she sent Carole and Lisa out of the ring and made Phil and Diablo stand in the center. The idea, as she explained, was that in this scene, the “dancers” would enter, march down the red carpet, and “curtsy” to the prince.
“These horses can’t curtsy,” Carole pointed out bluntly. “Maybe if we were riding circus horses—or Lipizzaners from the Spanish Riding School—we could do it, but I don’t think you can turn Starlight and Prancer into haute école stars in the next two weeks.”
“Of course not,” Stevie said. “They’re not really going to curtsy. I’m going to do it with special effects. Just like in the real movies.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a large, juicy carrot. “Watch this.” She stood about five feet in front of Starlight and Prancer and raised a carrot above her head so they could see it.
Prancer took one look at the delicious-looking snack and stepped forward with an eager snort. Starlight, not wanting to be left behind, moved forward a couple of steps as well.
Stevie jumped back, keeping the carrot out of the horses’ reach. “Hey, you guys, you have to keep them under control,” she told her friends. “Don’t let them move forward.”
Carole and Lisa shared a glance. Then, without a word, they signaled for their horses to step backward onto the end of the red carpet. Starlight obeyed immediately. Prancer, who was less experienced with this particular command, hesitated for a moment, then did as Lisa asked.
“Okay,” Stevie said, when they were back in position. “Let’s try this again.” She held the carrot above her head.
This time, Carole and Lisa firmly ordered their horses to stay put, despite the tempting carrot. The horses obeyed. But when Stevie suddenly dropped the hand holding the carrot, the horses’ heads followed. To an observer, the horses seemed to be bobbing their heads, almost as if they were—well—curtsying.
Stevie laughed out loud. She had been pretty sure the trick would work, but not entirely
sure. Now she knew it would look perfect on camera.
“That was great!” she called. “Let’s try it one more time, then I’ll let them have their carrots as a reward.”
She raised her hand over her head again, but this time, before she could lower it, she felt a tug on the carrot. She looked up, startled, and saw Diablo’s big teeth nibbling at the top of the carrot. As the horse plucked it out of her fingers, Stevie whirled around to see Phil’s grinning face.
“I guess the prince’s horse didn’t like the curtsies,” Phil said.
Stevie stuck out her tongue at him in reply. Behind her, she could hear the wicked stepsisters laughing hysterically. With a sigh, Stevie pulled two more carrots out of her pocket and walked over to give them to the curtsiers. She was learning that it wasn’t easy being a director—not to mention a special effects specialist.
“LEFT! LEFT!” STEVIE called frantically. Lisa heard her and quickly adjusted Prancer’s stride so the mare was moving to the left. Unfortunately, Phil heard her, too, and thought the direction was intended for him. He turned Diablo to the left, too, almost running him into Prancer.
“Oops,” Carole said with a giggle. She was sitting astride Starlight nearby, watching the other two practice what Stevie called their ballroom dressage.
“Cut!” Stevie yelled, even though there was no camera in sight. She let out a noisy sigh of frustration. The dressage ball scene wasn’t going very well. She had carefully worked out the choreography the night before, and she knew it would look perfect when the actors got it right. Or, rather, if they got it right. Right now it wasn’t looking good.
“Sorry, Stevie,” Phil said. “It wasn’t Lisa’s fault. It was mine.”
“At least Prancer is obeying me whenever I ask her to do something,” Lisa said, trying to look on the bright side. “Maybe that means she’ll be ready to jump the next time I ask her to do that.”
Horse Capades Page 4