Lisa

by Bonnie Bryant

  But not right now—I got a little distracted looking back at the last few pages of my diary, but I didn’t open it to write about Peter at all, let alone homework. There are too many other things to write about, like Briarwood, which is coming up in just six days now. Believe it or not, even Stevie’s silly screenplay thing gave me shivers, just because it reminded me that the show is coming up soon!

  I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else since Max gave us the news. I guess that’s why I had that incredible dream last night … But before I write about that, I want to jot down a few notes about what’s been happening lately, since I haven’t written in almost a week and a lot has been going on.

  The more I ride Prancer, the more thrilled I am with her. We had our first trail ride together the Monday after we found out about the show. It was wonderful, even though she was a little frisky and fidgety. She fought the bit a little and kept switching to faster paces without my permission. Once she actually started to gallop on the trail! I was pretty embarrassed when I finally pulled her up—I knew I had messed up in a big way.

  “I just broke every rule the most amateur rider in the world knows and let my horse run away with me,” I told my friends ruefully.

  “Prancer, you bad girl!” Stevie scolded my horse.

  “It wasn’t Prancer, it was me,” I reminded her, even though I was sure she was joking. “I never should have let her trot without signaling her.”

  “Well, maybe,” Stevie agreed. “But it seems to me that you paid too high a price for a little slip. I mean, you did make a mistake, but at some point before a gallop, Prancer should have listened to you. You gave her every signal in the book. She just wasn’t paying attention.”

  “I can’t blame her,” I replied. “I wasn’t doing it right.”

  My friends seemed kind of surprised—I guess they’ve both been riding for so long that they’ve forgotten how complicated everything can seem sometimes when it’s still new. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d done wrong, but obviously I’d messed up somehow, and I know I can do better. I have to do better if I expect to keep riding a valuable, beautiful horse like Prancer.

  By the way, before I forget to mention it, Carole has been thinking about something other than horses, horses, horses for once. Well, sort of, anyway. She met this girl Cam on a computer bulletin board thing for riders, and they’ve been e-mailing back and forth for a little while now. I guess Cam must know almost as much about horses as Carole does, because Carole keeps talking about her. It turns out that she’s going to be at Briarwood, too, so she and Carole will have a chance to meet in person. Isn’t that nice?

  Anyway, back to Prancer. I’ve been working with her all week. And yesterday before our riding class, Max called the four of us (me, Carole, Stevie, Veronica) into his office to talk more about the show.

  “There’s one other aspect of Briarwood I wanted to discuss with you,” he told us. “It’s not official from Briarwood’s point of view, but it is from mine. As you know, I believe all my riders must meet certain standards—nothing unreasonable, mere excellence …”

  I smiled along with my friends at that, feeling kind of nervous. Max’s tone was light, but I knew he was only half joking. I also knew that riding an excellent horse like Prancer would challenge me even more than usual.

  “I believe that excellence comes from within,” Max went on. “I also believe that one person’s excellence cannot be judged by another’s standards. So here’s what I want you to do. I want each of you to think about what your own goals are for riding, especially for riding at Briarwood. You’ll each be in five classes, and that means you should be thinking about your goals for each class. For instance, in the Fitting and Showing class, one of you may think of her goal as keeping her horse calm. Another may feel that there’s progress to be made in hoof cleaning. When you’ve decided what your personal goal is, you are going to write it down on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope—one for each class. Then you are going to seal the envelopes and give them to me. After the show we’ll meet again. I’ll return the envelopes to you, and you can open them to remind yourself of what you thought was important before the competition. You then get to grade yourself. I won’t ask what your goals were; I’ll simply ask you if, in your opinion, you met them. I will then give you whatever ribbon you tell me you deserve.”

  I thought that was kind of an interesting idea. While my friends (and Veronica) asked Max some questions, I started thinking about what my goals might be. I was still thinking about it when I started tacking up Prancer for class. There were so many possibilities—I still sometimes have trouble keeping my legs perpendicular to the ground and my heels down; sometimes I lose track of which diagonal I’m supposed to be posting on; stuff like that. But somehow, when I looked at Prancer, none of those things even seemed worth writing down.

  Prancer was still pretty frisky in class, though I’m sure it was just because she’d been cooped up in her stall for so long during her recovery. She was eager to go faster than Max was letting us go a few times, and when we started jumping she practically sailed over the low jumps, clearing them by yards (well, it seemed that way to me, anyway). It was kind of hard to keep up with her sometimes, but it was fun, too. She’s such a great horse! I’m sure she’ll settle down in time for the show next Saturday. And by the way Max kept paying extra attention to us in yesterday’s lesson, singling us out to try things while the others watched, I’m pretty sure he’s expecting big things from her at Briarwood.

  And so am I. Actually, by the time I got home from the stable last night, I wasn’t too sure anymore that Max’s idea about writing down goals made much sense. When I thought about it, wasn’t that what the judges were there for? Still, if he wanted us to do it, I’d do it. I got ready for bed and then settled in against my pillow with pen and paper. I closed my eyes to think about everything I’d learned so far about horseback riding. I guess the long day at the stable caught up with me then, because I fell asleep before I’d written a word. And that’s when I had the dream.

  It started out kind of scary. It was sort of like one of those dreams where I walk into class and find out there’s a big test that day and I haven’t studied any of the material for it. Only in this case, I found myself riding Prancer into a show ring where a jump course was set up, and I realized I had no idea what the path was. I almost panicked, but then I realized that Prancer knew what she was doing and there was nothing for me to worry about. We started the course at a smooth canter, and we cleared every jump perfectly. Prancer made her way easily through the complicated course as if she’d jumped it a thousand times before. All I had to do was focus on my own form, keeping my head up, eyes forward, legs in, heels down, hands firm but not tight, and so on. And I was doing it all right as if it were the easiest, most natural thing in the world. When we finished the course, Prancer drew to a halt in front of the judges’ stand while the judges tallied the scores. Then the judge in the middle stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “there is no point in continuing this competition. This rider, Miss Lisa Atwood, is simply the finest rider any of us has ever seen. And her horse, Prancer, defies all description. This may be just a local horse show, but you have been treated here to a performance that could take the blue even at the American Horse Show. We don’t need to see any other riders, we have our winner right here!” The audience broke into loud applause as I rode forward, knowing that we deserved every word of praise. And that wasn’t all. When the judge clipped the blue ribbon to Prancer’s bridle, I suddenly remembered that we’d already won the blue in every other class we’d entered. That meant there was just one prize left. I leaned forward to speak to the judge. “Does this mean that I’m—” The judge didn’t even let me finish. She smiled. “Champion,” she said. “Yes, you are the champion.” The audience went wild at that, making an incredible amount of noise … and a moment later I woke up to the buzz of my alarm clock. But the wonderful feeling of the dream still lingered. It’s st
ill with me now, actually, as I write this.

  That feeling made it easy to know what to do about Max’s little assignment. As soon as I woke up, I realized I was still clutching five pieces of white paper. My pen was beside me, and I picked it up and wrote the same word on each piece of paper: Blue.

  With a horse like Prancer to ride, what other goal could I possibly have?

  FROM: LAtwood

  TO: Steviethegreat

  TO: HorseGal

  SUBJECT: It’s almost time!

  MESSAGE:

  Just a reminder—let’s meet at Pine Hollow a little early so we can help each other check all our tack and stuff like we discussed, okay? I know we went over everything today before we left, but better safe than sorry, right? We wouldn’t want a worn stirrup leather or a dusty saddle to cost us any ribbons!

  See you tomorrow—I just hope I can manage to sleep tonight. I’m not sure I’ll be able to, though. I’m too excited!

  Dear Diary,

  What a difference a day can make. It’s Saturday night, and I’m writing this by the night-light in the hall outside Carole’s room. Carole and Stevie are both sound asleep, and so is Carole’s dad, but I’m wide awake. I just can’t stop thinking about everything that happened today—so much happened, so many things, so many emotions and thoughts and everything … I thought maybe if I wrote it all down here it would start to make more sense, and then I could stop thinking about it and go to sleep.

  This morning I woke up with butterflies in my stomach. I remembered right away that it was the day of the show, and I hopped out of bed immediately, not wanting to waste a second. I met my friends at Pine Hollow, and after that the next hour or two were a blur as we got our horses and equipment ready and loaded onto the van for the ride over to Briarwood. Even Veronica was on time for once, and the trip came off without a hitch. Soon we were set up in our temporary stalls at the show grounds, and I set to work on Prancer’s grooming. I wanted to make sure she looked her very best, especially since she would be judged partially for her grooming in the first class, Fitting and Showing.

  By the time the class was about to start, there was no doubt in my mind that Prancer was going to be the most beautiful and best groomed horse in the ring. Her coat was gleaming, her mane and tail lay perfectly smooth and flat, and her incredible breeding and conformation showed in every move of her muscles. I led her out of her stall, following my friends to the east ring, where we would wait until it was time to enter the show ring. Most of the other horses looked good, too, but none of them could hold a candle to Prancer.

  As we waited, Prancer fidgeted a bit, stomping her feet and looking around at all the other horses. Figuring she was a little nervous, I patted her neck to put her at ease. She nodded her head and then shook it, mussing her mane. I smoothed it quickly and soon she looked perfect again.

  “This way, riders!” a woman announced, calling everybody in the ring to the gate that led to the show ring.

  With her words, everything in the world faded to gray for me—everything, that is, except for myself, my horse, and the judges. I held Prancer’s reins firmly and followed the horse in front of me into the ring, visions of blue ribbons dancing in my head.

  We were asked to line up in front of the judges’ stand. I did so as quickly as I could and then stared at the flag hanging from the center of the stand, not wanting to look like I didn’t know what I was doing. I faced straight forward, standing at attention. I think I sort of noticed that Prancer was tugging at the reins, but I didn’t look around at her. My eyes were focused on that flag.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. I was vaguely aware that the judges were bustling around the ring, checking over the horses, asking questions, and doing I don’t know what else.

  After a while, the boy standing in front of the horse next to us glanced over at me and spoke. “Uh-oh, here comes the judge,” he joked.

  I didn’t laugh. I didn’t think there was anything to laugh at. I just stood a little straighter, still keeping my eyes on the flag.

  The boy noticed. “Relax,” he said. “They’re looking at your horse’s conformation, not your posture.”

  I hardly heard him. I gripped the reins tightly, determined not to let anything distract me. I didn’t want to take a chance of messing up somehow, of ruining Prancer’s chances of getting the blue ribbon I knew she deserved.

  Suddenly I felt Prancer tug hard at the reins. I was a little worried, but I didn’t dare turn around, because a judge was approaching us.

  “Hi there,” she said. She glanced at Prancer. “Your horse seems uneasy.”

  “She’s fine,” I assured her, still gripping the reins tightly.

  “I don’t know about that,” the woman said. “She keeps shifting around. She’s as nervous as you are.”

  “Oh, I’m not nervous,” I said. It was true. I was being careful not to mess up, but so far I was sure I was doing everything exactly right. I was sure it was only a matter of minutes before that blue ribbon was fluttering from Prancer’s bridle.

  The judge stepped forward. “I’m going to check out the mare’s conformation. Hold her steady, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. I kept my tight grip on the reins, not daring to watch as the judge examined Prancer. I was afraid if I watched, the judge might think I wasn’t confident about our chances, so I focused my eyes on the flag once again.

  I felt the reins tighten and guessed that Prancer had moved quickly away as the judge approached her. Suddenly I remembered that while Prancer loved every kid she met, she wasn’t crazy about most adults. As the thought crossed my mind, I heard a commotion behind me. I didn’t see what happened, naturally, since my eyes were still on that stupid flag. But other people told me about it later.

  As the judge ran her hand along Prancer’s flank and then down the mare’s leg, Prancer finally lost it. She’d been nervous all along, but this was too much. She bucked. She simply lifted her hindquarters off the ground and kicked back. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the judge hadn’t been crouched there by her hind legs at the time. Prancer wound up kicking the poor woman right in the rib cage.

  When the judge howled in pain, it finally broke me out of my trance. I turned and saw the judge sitting on the ground holding her ribs while Prancer skittered away from her nervously. Half the people around us were staring at the judge in concern.

  The other half were scowling—at me!

  Another judge was already hurrying toward us. “Move that horse,” he told me sternly.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered when I realized what was going on. Could Prancer really have done that? Could she actually have kicked the judge, knocked her down?

  “You’re excused,” the second judge said.

  I was a little surprised that he had accepted my apology so easily. I felt that I should do more to help the injured judge. “Can I do something?” I offered.

  “You can leave the ring,” the second judge said coldly before bending over his colleague.

  At that, it felt as though all the blood in my body suddenly rushed to my face. Leave the ring? I realized that “You’re excused” didn’t mean the man had accepted my apology. It meant that I was excused from the class. I was done. Out. No blue. No ribbon at all. No chance.

  If any doubt remained in my mind, what came over the public-address system a second later cleared it up completely. “Competitor number two seventy-three has been disqualified. Lisa Atwood, please remove your horse from the ring.”

  I don’t think I saw or heard anything around me for the next few minutes. All I was aware of was my own humiliation. I could hardly believe it was over almost before it had begun. But it was true. The horse show was over—for me and for Prancer.

  Somehow I led Prancer out of the ring and back to her stall. My mind was a jumble of thoughts and feelings. The biggest emotion was disappointment, though somehow that word doesn’t seem strong enough for what I was feeling just then. The main thought was that it couldn’t p
ossibly be our fault. Prancer and I hadn’t done anything wrong. That judge must have done something to provoke Prancer, to make her kick like that. There was no other explanation. And now all my dreams were shattered.

  The worst part was that I couldn’t even leave, rush away from the show and that horrible word disqualified. Mom and Dad weren’t coming until later in the day, and there was no way to reach them. I had to stay. But I didn’t have to stay where anybody could see me or talk to me. I felt completely alone, and I wanted to stay that way for a good long while. Even the thought of facing my best friends, seeing their sympathetic faces, practically made me sick to my stomach.

  I wandered down the temporary aisle and then into Briarwood’s main stable building. Finding a staircase, I climbed up into the loft and found it was empty of anything except bales of fresh, sweet-smelling hay. I sat on one bale and leaned back against another.

  I tried to shut out the sounds of the horses below me and the show continuing outside, but I couldn’t. The amplifier for the public-address system was mounted just outside the upper door to the loft, and the sounds of the judges’ instructions blared at me, echoing off the wooden ceiling. I crammed my fingers into my ears, but it didn’t do any good. So I just gave up and listened.

  When the amplifier went silent at last, I crawled over to the window to see what was going on. I found I had the best seat in the house. I could see the ring perfectly, but nobody looked up and saw me watching.

  Fourteen horses were lined up in the ring, a rider beside each one. As they waited for the judges to reach a decision, some of the kids chatted with each other. Others patted their horses. None of them were standing at attention, which made me wonder. If nobody had really good form, would the judges actually award the blue ribbon to anybody?