Before They Rode Horses

by Bonnie Bryant

  They looked at one another. They looked at the house. They waited. They peered at the door. Maggie glanced at the windows. Madeleine shaded her eyes to see the house more clearly. There was nothing to see, nothing to hear. Nothing was happening. There was no sign of a ghost and there was no sign of me.

  Madeleine shrugged. Maggie put her hands on her hips. They waited.

  Finally they’d had enough. They couldn’t leave without me. How would they explain it to our mothers, especially since I’d made that scene about the haunted house? They had no choice but to come after me. They put down the tea party stuff and walked across the street and the porch to the door. They were good and angry with me. I heard their steps on the front porch. I watched them open the door, slowly. Madeleine came in first, followed by Maggie. They looked around. The door slammed behind them, making them each jump again. I loved it—every minute of it.

  Then there was a totally startling sound. It was a howling cackle coming from the second floor of the house. Madeleine jumped. Maggie’s jaw dropped. I screamed.

  “Stevie!” Madeleine howled.

  Maggie grabbed her. Madeleine grabbed the doorknob. It fell off in her hand. The door was locked. They were trapped.

  The fact that each of them knew, really knew in their heart of hearts, that there was no such thing as a haunted house, that Madeleine had made up the dumb ghost story about the sea captain, and that this was all supposed to be a trick on me didn’t change the fact that they were scared. They were so scared they could hardly talk.

  “W-W-W-W-W- …” was all Maggie could manage. This from a girl whose only word earlier had been whooo-ooooo! I loved it.

  “Where is she?” Madeleine said.

  The horrendous cackle erupted from the second floor again.

  “That’s her! I’m gonna get her and I’m gonna brain her!” said the previously refined Madeleine.

  I screamed. From the basement. They couldn’t fail to notice that the cackles and the scream were from different ends of the house.

  “We have to find her,” said Madeleine. Maggie would have disagreed if she could have talked, but she was too frightened now to make any sound at all. And although the second-to-last thing in the world she wanted to do was to take one step farther into the house, the last thing she wanted to do was to be separated from Madeleine. She clutched her arm tightly. Together, they stepped forward. They walked to the basement steps.

  A ghastly gust of wind penetrated the room, raising all the long white curtains at the same time.

  Maggie’s mouth opened to form a scream, but nothing came out.

  “Come on!” Madeleine demanded.

  There was a thump from upstairs, then a muffled dragging sound: thump-drag, thump-drag, thump-drag, across the floor above. They glanced at the ceiling, following the sound. It might have been the sound of a lame man. Maybe a one-legged sea captain’s ghost?

  “Stevie!” Madeleine called out loudly. “Stop that!”

  From the basement came my feeble voice, now too weak to scream.

  “Hellllllp!” I cried, gurgling as if I were drowning in the briny sea.

  “Where is she?” Maggie asked, looking first at the ceiling, then at the basement door.

  The kitchen door slammed and the water pipes screeched in protest. In the attic, an old ceiling fan sparked to life, slapping noisily at scattered airborne papers on each turn. And if that weren’t enough, a bat flew across the living room, squeaking loudly.

  Madeleine screamed and clutched Maggie. The two of them stood frozen in fear, holding one another tightly.

  Above them, the thump-drag sound continued slowly and relentlessly toward the rear of the house.

  Madeleine took a deep breath. “I’m going to kill her,” she said. “Come on.”

  The two of them headed for the stairs. Slowly, step by step, they came up to the second floor. They were greeted at the top of the steps by a weak flicker of light. Maggie sighed and nearly collapsed.

  “It’s just a mirror,” said Madeleine, dragging her friend to the top of the stairs. To one side of the mirror was a window shade, flapping wildly in the wind caused by a fan next to it.

  There was no lame sea captain limping across the floor.

  Thump-drag, thump-drag. It was now in the attic above them.

  There was a drop-down ladder in front of them that reached up to the attic. The ceiling fan there flap-flapped and the thump-drag sound persisted. They knew they were getting closer. They could smell victory.

  Madeleine went up the ladder first. There was no light in the attic. There was only the thump-drag sound, calling invitingly to them.

  “We’re coming up, Stevie,” Madeleine said. “We’re not afraid.”

  She really said that, but I can tell you she’d never been so afraid in her entire life. I knew Maggie was afraid, too, since she was clutching Madeleine’s ankle and wouldn’t let go.

  As soon as the two of them stepped off the top of the ladder, it swung up behind them and slammed shut as tightly as the front door had a few minutes earlier. A bright light came on and the ceiling fan sparked into its highest speed, stirring up a decade of dust bunnies and cobwebs.

  “Aaaarghhhh!” said Maggie.

  Madeleine dropped to the floor in a clump of nerves.

  And then everything stopped. The lights went out. The fan halted. There was no more thumping, creaking, cackling, or screaming. There was only darkness and silence.

  “Madeleine, are you there?” Maggie asked.

  Madeleine sat up. She reached out her hand until she found Maggie. “I’m here,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Maybe. How about you?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” said Madeleine. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Slowly, Madeleine got herself to her feet. It took her a few minutes to find the release for the ladder. The ladder dropped down smoothly, and in a second the girls were on the second floor of the house. They looked around. No light flickered in the mirror. No fan flapped at the window shade. The house was quiet. There was no sign of the mayhem that had so recently terrified them. It was an empty house, empty of ghosts and goblins, and mostly empty of one Stevie Lake.

  It didn’t take the girls long to figure out that they could leave by the back door. It opened easily, leaving the two of them standing, still terrified and confused, in the broad daylight of their very own neighborhood.

  They ran around the house, across the lawn, and across the street to where their dolls, blanket, and lunch box had all been dropped. They found the blanket neatly folded and the dolls seated in a tidy row on the blanket. The lunch box had been set upright next to the blanket.

  When the girls got home and walked in the door, they found the one thing they’d most feared. I was sitting at the kitchen table, having a cup of tea with Mrs. Pine and my mother.

  “Oh, I hope you had a good time,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to leave you, but my stomachache is almost all better now that I’ve had a nice hot cup of tea. Did you have fun at your party?”

  Maggie, in what had become her most familiar state, could say nothing. Madeleine stammered. “Um, uh, sure. It was … it was … um, ah …”

  “Interesting?” I suggested.

  “Very,” she said.

  “I bet you’d like to put the dolls away now so that they don’t get mussed sitting around the kitchen,” I said. “Then maybe we could all climb a tree. I’m pretty sure I feel up to it.”

  Maggie finally said something. What she said was that she was sure her mother was expecting her home now so she couldn’t stay another minute. She shoved the blanket and the dolls into Madeleine’s arms and ran out the door.

  “Um, I don’t think I really feel like climbing a tree right now,” Madeleine said. “Perhaps we could play with my dolls? Would you like to play with Elena?” she asked.

  Elena, the doll that belonged in a display case, and Madeleine was offering her to me. It was a bribe and I knew it. She was trying to buy my silence because
she didn’t ever want her mother—or mine—to know that she and Maggie had dared me to go into the haunted house. I grinned to myself. I didn’t need to play with Elena. I didn’t have to play with Madeleine, either. I just needed to do one more thing.

  “No thanks, Maddie,” I said. “I guess I’d rather just sit here for a while to be sure my stomach is really okay. I’ll see you later.”

  She glared at me and then stormed upstairs. My victory was complete.

  The rest of the visit was easy. She hardly said a word to me and I hardly said anything to her. She spent all day, every day, playing with Maggie, and I spent all my time over at the old house, by myself, reading some of the good books we’d brought along. When I wasn’t there, I spent time with my mother. I actually enjoyed being by myself, and even better I enjoyed the time I spent with my mother. It was a great trip.

  “What were you doing at the haunted house?” Deborah asked Stevie. “I mean, that place sounds pretty scary.”

  “There’s no such thing as a haunted house, Deborah,” Stevie said.

  “But all those sounds, coming from all over the place,” Deborah said. “How did that happen?”

  “It’s a story,” Stevie said. “You don’t expect me to tell you exactly everything that happened, do you?”

  “Stevie!” Carole said.

  “Well, it was mostly true,” Stevie said. “And the part about Madeleine and Maggie being scared out of their wits was definitely true, but the fact is they were so easy to scare that it wasn’t much of a challenge.”

  So, ten days later, Mom and I flew home on a plane. The trip had been good, but returning home was even better. Mad-uh-lane had been such a pain that she made Chad, Alex, and Michael look like saints. I was never so happy to see anyone in my whole life as I was to see the three of them, plus Dad, when we got home. I decided right then and there that I would never again be a bully to Michael or try to compete with Chad and Alex.

  LISA, CAROLE, AND Deborah all hooted with laughter because everybody knew that Stevie rarely did anything but compete with her brothers, unless she was trying to bully them!

  “Oh, go ahead and laugh,” Stevie said. “I know it looks as if nothing changed, but that’s not the case. The way I compete and bully since that trip is very different from the way I competed and bullied before the trip.”

  “Right,” said Carole. “And that makes all the difference.”

  “But stop a minute,” said Deborah. “Where’s my role model for mothering? I’m supposed to expose my little child to the worst behavior in the world and see what happens?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not the point at all,” said Stevie. “You mean you missed all the wonderful things my mother did?”

  “I liked the part about hugging in her room that first night,” said Deborah. “I can do that.”

  “Good idea,” said Lisa. “Hugs are always good.”

  “So’s encouragement,” Carole agreed. “Be sure to tell your kids when they’re doing something right, not just when they make mistakes.”

  “But there’s more,” said Stevie. “Lots more. First of all, my mother took me to a place where there was a kid who was so much worse than my brothers that she made them look good. There’s a little reality check. Next, the part about reading out loud: Remember how much we all loved that and I especially loved the Uncle Remus tales? Remember the story about Brer Rabbit who gets caught by Brer Fox, and Brer Fox is trying to figure out the most painful way to finish off Brer Rabbit? Brer Rabbit keeps saying that Brer Fox can roast him or skin him or hang him or cut off his legs, but no matter what, he shouldn’t throw him into the briar patch. Of course, that makes Brer Fox decide to throw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. Brer Rabbit outfoxed Brer Fox that time, because rabbits were born to live in briar patches. So he runs away, laughing at Brer Fox, and Brer Fox gets furious at him. See, that’s why I begged Madeleine and Maggie not to make me go past the haunted house—because it was the one thing I wanted the very most. So be sure to read good stories about clever characters to all of your children, okay?”

  “Well, I do love to read, so that will be easy,” Deborah promised Stevie.

  “And next, what my mother did that was wonderful was put me with the Miserable Madeleine, who was such an awful person that the only way to get back at her was to play a practical joke. I’d never played a practical joke on anyone before. Madeleine was the inspiration I needed to take up the fine art of practical joking. It’s a skill I’ve been honing ever since.”

  “I’m not sure the rest of us should thank her for that,” Carole said dryly. Lisa just groaned.

  “And there’s one more thing,” said Stevie.

  “Yes?” Deborah asked expectantly.

  “Well, when we got back to Willow Creek, my grandmother told my mother that the best thing she could do for me was to find something that I could do that my brothers wouldn’t do, something that would be mine and mine alone, something where I wouldn’t be competing with my brothers at all.”

  “Let me guess,” said Deborah. “Riding?”

  Stevie smiled proudly.

  “A perfect mother,” Lisa said. Carole nodded. There was no disputing that.

  Deborah’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling. “There’s no stopping you girls, is there?” she asked. “No matter what I ask you to do, you are completely incapable of telling a story that doesn’t actually have to do with horses and riding.”

  “Well, we are The Saddle Club,” Carole said. “Horses are what we like the best.”

  “But there was all this talk about how The Saddle Club can do anything when its members work together. So, what’s so hard about just telling me a little story that isn’t about riding? I’m here, doing something that’s very hard for me. Seems to me that you ought to be able to do that, even though it’s hard for you. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed the stories you’ve told me, Lisa and Stevie. It’s just that, well, a promise is a promise. Now I want to hear a story from Carole that doesn’t even mention one word that has to do with horses.” She grinned proudly because she knew it was going to be a gigantic challenge.

  Lisa and Stevie both looked at Carole. Telling stories that didn’t have much to do with horses had been very hard for each of them. Telling one that didn’t have anything to do with horses might prove to be absolutely impossible for Carole. But it was what Deborah wanted.

  “I can do it,” Carole said. “I really can.” And so she began.

  CAROLE’S STORY

  I

  I CAN TELL a story that doesn’t have to do with um … er … the h word, but I can’t tell you a story that happened to me before I rode h words, because I started doing that when I was so young that I don’t remember anything at all before that. Or maybe I just never have considered anything that happened before I first rode h words to be worth remembering. But I will tell you something that happened to me the summer I was nine. That makes it nice and even, doesn’t it? Lisa told a story about when she was ten, Stevie was eight when she met up with Madeleine, so it seems properly balanced that I be nine when this happened.

  This is almost as much a story about my mother as it is about me. None of you ever knew her, and I don’t talk about her much with you. Sometimes I think you’re afraid I’ll be uncomfortable talking about Mom, but really that’s not the case. Dad and I talk about her often. It’s a nice way of keeping our memories fresh. Even though she died a few years ago, I remember a lot of things about Mom, and most of them are really nice. I don’t think I’ll tell you about the time she bought me a sundress that was the wrong size or the time she tried to help me learn Roman numerals, only she got them all mixed up and I never have been able to tell the difference between D and L. Sometimes she’d forget to do things she really meant to do. There was one time she locked the keys in the trunk of the car when we were ready to leave on vacation, and she was forever forgetting to pack things she needed, like a toothbrush.

  Carole had to stop her story for a few minutes because Lisa and
Stevie were laughing so hard. They weren’t laughing at Carole’s mother, they were laughing at Carole. Forgetfulness was one of Carole’s best-known traits—next to being h word–crazy, of course.

  “All right, all right,” said Carole. “So now you know that I can’t help my faults. They are inherited traits!”

  “Oh dear,” said Deborah. “Does that mean that my child is going to make all the same mistakes I do?”

  “Not necessarily,” Stevie assured her. “In our family, Mom and Dad are always astonished at the new kinds of mistakes my brothers and I make, so don’t worry. There’s hope.”

  Deborah didn’t seem comforted by those thoughts, but there wasn’t anything Carole could do about it, so she went on with her story.

  Mostly, though, my mother was wonderful. Sometimes I think I can still hear her laughter. She loved to laugh and she loved to make me and my dad laugh. It always seemed to me that when I was feeling blue, for whatever reason, Mom found a way to make me laugh and feel better. Just sitting on her lap or watching her work in the kitchen or sew on a button made me feel that I was loved and safe. Mothers can be like that, you know, only often we don’t stop to think about it. Now I think about it a lot.

  Mom and I spent a lot of time together when I was little. It wasn’t just because I don’t have brothers like Stevie—or sisters, for that matter. And it wasn’t just because Mom was a stay-at-home mom like Lisa’s. Even though both of those things were true, we were often together because we were sometimes the only people around that we knew.

  Dad loves the Marine Corps, and Mom and I both liked a lot of things about his job, too. One thing we all agreed on, though, was that we hated having to move, and we did a lot of that. There was a time when we were moving every three years or so, and that means that by the time I was nine, my parents and I had already lived in three places. And then the summer I was nine, we were moved to the fourth.