Lisa

by Bonnie Bryant

  That settled it. I wasn’t completely confident about what I’d just said. But Carole is as honest as the day is long. If she doesn’t think we’re cheating, that’s good enough for me. And for Stevie.

  At least I think it is. We agreed to keep what happened between us, since we don’t want Max to feel he has to go through all the work of coming up with new questions—new questions that probably won’t be as good as the first set.

  It all made perfect sense at the time. But when I got home, I found it hard to concentrate on other things. I tried to read that book about harnesses, but my mind kept wandering back to the Know-Down. Is what we’re doing really all right? If the mix-up with the questions had happened at school, there would be no doubt—it would be wrong. But Pine Hollow isn’t school, and the Know-Down isn’t really a test. It’s a game, and the idea is to show how much you’ve learned. And my friends and I have been working hard and learning a lot.

  I just don’t know what to think. It’s been driving me crazy all evening. And reading boring information about harnesses hasn’t been much of a distraction.

  There is one other thing I’ve been thinking about a little, though. I’ve had the funniest feeling for the past few days that Carole and Stevie are feeling weird because they both have a boyfriend coming to the Know-Down and I don’t. I’m not sure why I think that, but I do. It’s something about the way they look at me—and at each other—whenever Phil’s or Cam’s name comes up.

  The truth is, it doesn’t bother me one bit. It’s always fun to have Phil around, and Cam seems like a really nice guy. And a Horse Wise meeting isn’t exactly the high-school prom or anything like that. I don’t know why they think I’d mind not having a “date” for it, whether they do or not.

  I’m not quite sure how to let them know that, though. They haven’t said anything to me about it directly, and bringing it up seems kind of awkward. I mean, if I bring it up, that means I’ve been thinking about it. And if they think I’ve been thinking about it too much, they’ll be more convinced than ever that I have some kind of problem with it. So I guess I’ll just keep quiet, at least for now.

  And I know one thing. Keeping quiet about that seems a lot easier just now than keeping quiet about those mixed-up Know-Down sheets.

  Thornbury Hall

  London, England

  Dear Lisa,

  Thanks for your nice letter and your congratulations. I’m really excited about my internship, and surprisingly, Mom and Dad seemed kind of impressed when I told them about it. Suddenly graduation doesn’t seem quite so scary anymore!

  Thanks, also, for telling me about the wedding you threw at your stable. It sounds like you had a lot of fun and really helped your friend Dorothy. Stevie sounds like a very creative person—kind of wacky, too! I wish I could meet her and Carole sometime. I doubt it will be anytime soon, though—it doesn’t look like I’m going to make it back to the United States before I have to leave for Africa. Oh well.

  So, speaking of love and romance, is there anything I should know about my little sister’s love life? Mom just sent me your new school picture, and it’s hard for me to believe that the gorgeous young lady in the picture is my little sister. I’m guessing that you’re fighting the boys off with a stick these days. Don’t be afraid to share all the details! Remember, I need all the info I can get if I want my screenplay to ring true. (And I promise not to tell your friends if you’re afraid they’ll be jealous!)

  But seriously—I hope you know that you really can tell me anything you want and have it be just between us. A secret brother-sister thing. (Remember how I taught you to drive? I never did tell Mom and Dad about that—did you?) I never really noticed how much I missed you until I got to know you again through your letters. Keep them coming—please. The mail in Africa is bound to be a little slower, but that will just give me longer to look forward to hearing from you!

  Love, Your brother,

  Peter

  P.S. I haven’t forgotten that I promised to send you part of my screenplay soon. I’m working away on it, and I think I’ll have some scenes ready to send off before long.

  Dear Diary,

  Okay, today definitely wasn’t one of my best days ever. Actually, I’m sort of ashamed even to write down what happened. But I figure it’s the kind of lesson I really don’t want to forget, so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.

  I won’t go into detail—I don’t want to remember that much—but suffice it to say that I learned even more from Max’s Big Sis/Little Sis project than May did. You see, at today’s riding lessons it was time for us to give our presentation. Tuesday isn’t an official Pony Club day, but most of the kids in Horse Wise take lessons then, so they were all there to watch me and May hitch Nickel to the pony cart. Or rather, they were there to watch May do it. I mostly just stood there and looked like a dope. You see, I never did quite get around to reading that book. And I guess I didn’t pay much attention when I was watching May practice what she was learning.

  That’s why I had no idea what to do when May asked for some help. She wanted me to do something with some piece of the harness—the crupper, I think she called it, though I wouldn’t swear to it. It was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life, sort of like that dream I have sometimes that I have to take a big exam that I haven’t studied for at all.

  As usual, my friends stepped in to help. Stevie even managed to cover my ignorance, mostly. But I knew the truth, and so did she, and so did Carole. And so did Max, of course. He didn’t say much about it, but I had the funniest feeling he knew exactly what had happened and why. I guess he figured I’d learned my lesson, so he didn’t give me a hard time. I still feel terrible about the whole thing, though. Maybe May didn’t end up needing my help—she learned everything she needed to know just fine on her own—but I really let Max down. I don’t plan to let that happen again.

  That’s not the only important thing that happened today. We decided to tell Max the truth about the Know-Down study sheets.

  I’m not exactly sure how it happened. I mean, I know how it happened for me. With each passing day, what we were doing seemed more and more like cheating. Each morning when I woke up, I was a little less happy about keeping our secret. I guess the same sort of thing was happening in my friends’ heads, too. The Saddle Club seems to work that way sometimes.

  After a quick Saddle Club meeting after our lesson, the decision was made. We went to talk to Max. Colonel Hanson and the other parent volunteers were in his office, which made what we had to do seem even harder. But we weren’t about to back down.

  “Max, there’s something we have to tell you,” I said. I went on to describe exactly what had happened, from the way we all gave away our study sheets to our theory about Carole’s birthday to the discovery after Nickel’s escape. “We’re sorry, Max,” I finished at last. “We really are. We didn’t mean to do this. For a little while after we discovered it, it seemed like a great thing, but in the end we know it’s just not right. We need to learn everything there is to know about horses, not just what we’re going to be tested on.”

  Nobody said a thing for a few minutes. Max blew out a chestful of air and sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful. The other adults kept silent and still.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Max said at last. His voice was calm.

  “Disqualified?” Carole asked anxiously. “Are we out?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Max gazed at us each in turn. “I suspect you three have been working very hard. No, what it means is that I’m going to have to make up new questions.”

  “It’s going to be a lot more work and we’re really sorry,” Stevie said.

  “I don’t mind the work,” Max said. “What I mind is that I thought I’d made the meanest, sneakiest, and toughest questions possible out of that material on the study sheets. Now I have to be meaner, sneakier, and tougher—all because of you.”

  “You’re very good at it,” Stevie told him sincerely.
I guess she realized then that what she’d said might not sound exactly like a compliment. “I mean, it takes one to know one,” she added hastily.

  Max smiled weakly. Then he stood up. “Back to the drawing board,” he said. “Now get out of here. I’ve got a lot of work to do. And so do you.”

  We’ve been feeling kind of bad since we left the office, because we know we let Max down. We’re also worried because we have a lot more studying to do if we want to be prepared for the Know-Down. But most of all, we’re relieved. It’s finally all out in the open. We did the right thing, and we’re glad.

  FROM: Steviethegreat

  TO: LAtwood

  TO: HorseGal

  SUBJECT: HELP!

  MESSAGE:

  What are the five major internal parasites? AARGH! I CAN’T BELIEVE WE ACTUALLY HAVE TO KNOW THIS STUFF!

  Oh well. Maybe I can use the info to gross out my brothers sometime. If I ever remember the right answer.

  HELP! MAYDAY! SOS!

  FROM: HorseGal

  TO: Steviethegreat

  CC: LAtwood

  SUBJECT: Parasites

  MESSAGE:

  Botflies, bloodworms, pinworms, intestinal worms, and stomach worms.

  From now on, remind me not to answer my e-mail while I’m eating leftover spaghetti as an after-school snack. Ugh!

  Dear Diary,

  I just got back from visiting Promise at the stable. She’s such a cute little filly! It’s amazing that after being in the world for only a couple of days, she’s already frolicking and running around like an old pro on her long, skinny little legs. Things seem to happen so fast sometimes … though some things don’t happen quite as fast as I expect them to …

  I still can’t believe how worked up I was back when I thought her mother was going to give birth a week or two early. I was so sure I was right, that I knew what was going to happen.… I guess there’s been a lot of that going around lately. I mean, just look at what happened with May and the pony cart project. I thought I was just there to help her, because I’m older, and she ended up teaching me a whole lot (even if she didn’t know it). And now that I think about it, I guess Carole and Stevie’s worries that I’d feel left out when their boyfriends came to Horse Wise fit into that, too. They thought they knew how I would feel about it, and once they made up their minds, they didn’t even notice that they were totally wrong.

  Actually, it turned out to be a lot of fun having the two boys at the Know-Down. I think they enjoyed it, too. And I know Carole and Stevie were glad to have them there. We were all a little nervous before the Know-Down started, but that didn’t last too long. Max divided us into teams, with four members on each one. May and I ended up on the same team. I’m pretty sure Max did that on purpose just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten what I’d learned from the Big Sis/Little Sis project, though naturally he would never admit such a thing. Carole was on a team with Cam, and Stevie and Phil were teammates, too.

  For the first round, most people wanted to start with pretty easy questions. When it was Stevie’s turn, she was daring and asked for a three-pointer.

  “Where is the Spanish Riding School?” Max asked.

  I almost laughed because I knew the answer to that right away, thanks to the first letter from Peter last summer. I crossed my fingers on Stevie’s behalf, hoping she would remember, too. I’d mentioned Peter’s visit to the Spanish Riding School when we’d first come across a reference to it on our study sheets. But as I recalled, around that same time Stevie had been distracted because her brothers kept poking their heads into her room, where we were studying at the time, and neighing like horses.

  Stevie scrunched up her eyebrows as she thought. Suddenly her face lit up. “Austria,” she said. “It’s in Austria!”

  “Yes,” said Max.

  “Nice,” Phil commented, clapping Stevie on the back.

  Stevie blushed, then shot me a quick, meaningful look. I smiled, then glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed. Nobody else seemed to, but one person did have a strange look on her face. Veronica. She looked confused and slightly annoyed, and I wondered why. As the game continued, I couldn’t help noticing that she was missing a lot of pretty easy questions. That seemed odd, since we’d all seen her studying from her sheets all week.

  It was Carole who first figured out what must have happened. When Nickel got loose that day, she’d left her study sheets—the old sheets, the question-and-answer ones—lying in Prancer’s stall. Veronica must have suspected that our sheets were different from hers and had snitched them and made a copy before Carole returned to retrieve them. That was why she did poorly. She’d studied only the questions she thought Max was going to ask, not realizing that he had changed almost all his questions after we’d told him the truth about our study sheets. Therefore, she’d ended up not knowing any of the answers and looking like a real dummy. We figure it served her right!

  Thornbury Hall

  London, England

  Dear Lisa,

  Well, here it is. The moment you’ve been waiting for. My screenplay! Ta-da!!!!

  Ha ha. Actually, what’s here is just a sketchy idea of how one of the scenes might play out. I’m trying hard to nail down the proper atmosphere (not to mention the characters), and this scene is my best attempt so far. I’m not sure it will actually appear in the final version of the screenplay, but I still want your honest opinion about it so I can get an idea of whether I’m on the right track. I’ll send more when it’s ready, but in the meantime …

  FADE IN:

  INTERIOR an aisle in a well-kept stable. Three girls, S, L, and C, are carrying some tack down the aisle. The three girls are around thirteen years old, dressed in cutoff shorts, sneakers, and tank tops. It’s nighttime, and moonlight pours through the stable windows.

  CUT TO

  CLOSE UP on L, an attractive girl with light brown hair.

  L

  This moonlit trail ride should be fun. I’m glad you thought of it, S.

  PAN TO shot of all three girls as they pause in front of a stall with a tall white horse inside.

  S

  Me too. Just remember—we can’t tell Mr. Renney when he gets back from his vacation. You know he doesn’t think it’s safe for young girls like us to ride at night.

  C

  (nervously)

  I know. Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, nobody even knows where we are.

  S opens the stall door and pats the white horse. Then she begins putting the bridle and saddle on the horse while her friends watch.

  S

  (confidently)

  We know. Besides, what could happen? The three of us can look out for each other. We’re best friends.

  C

  Okay. Well, I’d better go tack up Starshine while you finish with Moonglow.

  The camera follows C and L as they move down the aisle. L stops in front of another stall.

  L

  Here I am at Dancer’s stall. I’ll meet you guys outside, okay?

  As C nods and moves on, L enters the stall, where a beautiful bay Thoroughbred is waiting for her. L pulls a handful of sugar lumps out of her shorts pocket and begins feeding them to the horse.

  L

  Hi there, girl. Are you ready for a nice long ride?

  The horse whinnies in response and licks L’s hand as the girl begins to buckle on her bridle.

  That’s all I have so far. Be brutally honest when you write back. What do you think? Do I have the atmosphere right?

  Love,

  Peter

  FROM: HorseGal

  TO: LAtwood

  SUBJECT: Your brother’s screenplay

  MESSAGE:

  I just read the scene you gave us today. Parts of it are pretty good. The characters are interesting and I think showing them tacking up is a really good idea. It will give moviegoers a feel for stable life. But I do have a few comments about some of the specific details. First of all, obviously, the characters shouldn’t be wearing shorts
and sneakers to ride in. For another thing, they shouldn’t be riding at night, especially if nobody knows where they are. It’s not safe for them or for the horses. (And I can’t help wondering if this is happening too soon after the horses have eaten their dinner, and if the characters have considered this.) Also, the way this is written makes it sound like the characters put on the horses’ bridles before their saddles instead of the other way around. And if this Mr. Renney is supposed to be the stable owner or manager, it’s not very realistic that he would be away on vacation. Can you remember the last time Max took a vacation? I can’t. Also, he calls one of the horses “white” when it should probably really be “gray” or “light gray.” Only albino horses are truly white; the rest are just darker or lighter shades of gray, even if they look white. And I would suggest changing the sugar lumps L feeds her horse to carrots or apples or something. Too much sugar isn’t good for a horse. And at the very end, he says that Dancer licks L’s hand. Dancer is a horse, not a dog, so she wouldn’t lick Lisa unless she was trying to lick the last few bits of sugar off her hand or something like that. More likely, she would snort or shake her head, and maybe nudge at L with her nose like Starlight usually does after I feed him a treat.

  Those are the most important comments. In addition, it would be even better if Peter described things in a little more detail. What kind of stable is it? How many stalls? Do the doors open to an outdoor aisle or an interior one? What size are the stalls, and what bedding is used inside? Are the girls carrying English tack or Western? What do the horses look like? Are they all Thoroughbreds or just Dancer? How big are the horses? How old are they? What are their personalities like? Are they calm or skittish or friendly or sleepy?

  Aside from that, it’s really good.

  FROM: Steviethegreat

  TO: LAtwood

  SUBJECT: Movie review

  MESSAGE:

  Okay, so Peter’s little scene was pretty good. A worthy attempt, aside from a few little mistakes like having the girls ride in sneakers. But I don’t think he’s quite captured the true essence of The Saddle Club. Not that I blame him—it’s a very complex and subtle thing. So rather than trying to explain, I thought I’d provide an example you can send to him. Tell him this kind of scene would be much more typical of our daily life.