Tight Rein

by Bonnie Bryant

  Plus, what if Lisa tried to do it in front of Carole and failed entirely? That would be the worst thing. Carole rode so well. Lisa shuddered and tried to think of something else. But the only something else her mind seemed interested in was Stevie. Camp without Stevie. Lisa sighed. She’d never felt so depressed while sitting on a horse.

  Carole heard Lisa sigh and knew exactly how she felt. Even though riding Starlight was always a joy, without Stevie the trail ride wasn’t the same. “Without Stevie, camp won’t be the same, either,” Carole said.

  “I know,” Lisa said. “It kind of amazes me how this all happened. Not Stevie’s being grounded—I understand how that happened. I mean how it all got started—how she fights with her brothers all the time. Especially Chad. Do you understand it?”

  “Do I understand sibling rivalry, you mean?” Carole asked with a laugh. “Think about it, Lisa. I’m the only one of us who doesn’t have any siblings. How could I?” She smoothed Starlight’s mane.

  “I’ve got a sibling, but I don’t think we have a typical sibling relationship,” Lisa replied. “Most of the kids at school seem to fight with their brothers and sisters a lot. I never fought with mine when he still lived at home.”

  Carole nodded. Suddenly she remembered how she had felt when her father’s girlfriend’s daughter, Marie, had stayed with them. Carole’s father had paid a lot of attention to Marie, and at first it had made Carole jealous. “Jealousy,” Carole said. “That’s part of it.”

  “You think Stevie and Chad are jealous of each other?” Lisa asked. “I don’t know. I think they just like playing tricks on each other.”

  Carole had to admit that Stevie never really seemed to want what Chad had, or vice versa. “Well, okay,” she said, “but even if I don’t understand sibling rivalry entirely, I think I’m starting to get the idea.” She grinned. “In fact, I’m starting to feel just like Stevie feels. Now I want to get even with Chad. It’s his fault Stevie’s missing camp!” She shook her head. “Let’s canter!”

  Lisa gladly agreed. They let their horses canter along the edge of a meadow grown tall with flowering grasses. A bird flew out of the grass, startling Starlight. Carole steadied him with a quiet murmur and a soft hand. Starlight quickly regained his composure. Lisa felt another pang of envy at this latest example of Carole’s beautiful riding.

  The girls brought their horses back to a trot as they entered the woods.

  “We have to find a way for Stevie to go to camp,” Lisa said.

  “I agree,” Carole said. “We’ve got to spring her somehow. I just don’t know how.”

  They discussed the problem for several minutes. “What if we apologize?” Lisa suggested at last. “What if we tell Mr. and Mrs. Lake that everything was our idea, and our fault and only our fault? If they think Stevie didn’t have anything to do with it, maybe they’ll unground her.”

  “Maybe,” Carole said after a moment’s thought. “I doubt it, but after all, Stevie’s parents can’t ground us.”

  “Right,” said Lisa. “There’s no risk. We just have to grovel.”

  “For Stevie’s sake, I can grovel a lot,” Carole said firmly. “The only problem is that apologizing doesn’t help us get even with Chad. But we can deal with him later.”

  THEY RETURNED TO Pine Hollow, took care of their horses, and walked over to the Lakes’ house.

  “Okay,” Lisa said as she rang the doorbell, “get ready to grovel.”

  Carole laughed nervously. “You’re the actress.” Lisa had once played the lead role in Annie with the Willow Creek Community Theater.

  “Carole,” Lisa said gently, “this isn’t hard. Remember, they can’t ground us.” Lisa had always thought Stevie’s parents were nice, especially considering all they had to put up with from Stevie and her brothers.

  “You’re just better at this stuff than I am,” Carole said. Before Lisa could reply, the door opened. Chad was standing there. He was wearing his soccer uniform and no shoes.

  “Sorry,” he said, closing the door partway, “Stevie’s in solitary. No visitors. No phone calls. Bread and water twice a day.” He grinned wickedly.

  Carole put her foot in the door. “You creep! I suppose you think it’s funny that—”

  “Chad,” Lisa cut in softly, “Carole and I want to talk to your parents, not Stevie. Are they home?”

  “Sure.” Chad shrugged. He let them inside and pointed down the hall to the back door—the one with the ripped screen. Carole winced. It hadn’t been repaired yet. “They’re by the pool. Help yourself.” He walked into the living room, turned the television up a little louder, and began dribbling a soccer ball around the room.

  “Creep,” Carole repeated under her breath. “I’m glad I don’t have a brother!”

  Lisa grinned. It wasn’t like Carole to be this upset. But Lisa knew how devastated Carole would be if she had to miss camp. Carole was just feeling devastated on Stevie’s behalf.

  Lisa was upset, too, but suddenly she felt confident. The Saddle Club had never failed. They wouldn’t fail now. They wouldn’t let Stevie miss camp.

  “WELL,” LISA SAID as she and Carole walked out the front door, “I would have groveled on my hands and knees, but I’m not sure even that would have helped.”

  “No,” Carole said. “I don’t think it would have. They didn’t budge an inch.”

  Lisa shook her head. She had been as polite and earnest as she knew how, but Stevie’s parents hadn’t believed for a second that Stevie was blameless. Even if she had been, Mrs. Lake had said, that was not the point.

  “I didn’t know Stevie had done all that other stuff, did you?” Lisa asked.

  Carole shook her head. “I knew about Chad’s clothes, of course, but I didn’t know about the tacks in his soccer shoes. Or that Stevie let all the air out of his soccer ball and bicycle tires and then hid the air pump. She didn’t tell us about that.”

  “Chad can’t prove Stevie did it. It could have been Alex, or even Michael.”

  “That’s what Mr. Lake said.”

  “Yeah.” Lisa sighed. “He also said it didn’t matter.” That was the crux of the problem. Stevie’s parents weren’t interested in proof. They were pretty sure Stevie was behind most of the pranks they knew about, and they were pretty sure she was behind other pranks they didn’t know about, and they were tired of living in a combat zone. Stevie was grounded. Two weeks, no early parole. No way.

  “Nice try, girls,” Mr. Lake had said to Carole and Lisa.

  “Oh well,” Lisa said. They ducked around the side of Stevie’s yard to take the shortcut back to Pine Hollow. Stevie’s bedroom window was two stories above them, and they paused to look up at their friend. Sure enough, Stevie was sitting by the window, looking sadly in the direction of Pine Hollow. Lisa knew that from Stevie’s room you could just see the top of the weathervane on the stable roof.

  When Stevie saw them, she waved frantically. Carole and Lisa waved back. Stevie held up one finger and then disappeared.

  “She wants us to wait,” Carole said.

  “I hope she doesn’t try to climb down on a bedsheet or something,” Lisa said. “If she gets in trouble again, she’ll be grounded for life.”

  In a moment Stevie was back. She opened her window and sailed a tiny paper airplane down to her friends. Lisa caught it and unfolded it. Stevie had written them a note.

  I heard you talking to my parents, it read. Thanks for trying. I can’t talk—I promised I wouldn’t. Lisa smiled. No matter what, Stevie never broke promises. That was why she so rarely made them. But they never said I couldn’t write notes. How’s Belle?

  Lisa tried to pantomime She’s fine. She didn’t do it very well. Stevie looked puzzled. Lisa wished she knew sign language.

  “We can talk,” Carole said to Lisa. “And I think Stevie’s allowed to listen.”

  Stevie nodded, grinning. Lisa smiled. “Of course. Stevie, Belle’s fine.”

  “We hung your sign, and we groomed her for you,” Carole
added.

  “And don’t worry about camp,” Lisa said firmly. “We’re going to spring you. We made it a Saddle Club project.”

  Stevie gave them a thumbs-up sign.

  “We’ve got a plan,” Lisa added. “Don’t worry. It’ll work for sure.”

  “ ‘WE’VE GOT A PLAN’?” Carole repeated as they hit the main road back to Pine Hollow. “We don’t have a plan! Or if we do, I don’t know about it!”

  “I know,” Lisa said. “We don’t have one.”

  “Then why did you tell Stevie we did?”

  “We’ll get one,” Lisa replied. Even though groveling to Stevie’s parents hadn’t helped, Lisa still felt confident. “Besides,” she continued, “I didn’t want Stevie to feel desperate. If she feels desperate, she’ll come up with a plan of her own, and who knows what’ll happen then.”

  Carole shuddered. Usually it was Stevie who came up with their plans, and usually what she came up with was good, but if Stevie got caught doing something else wrong now, she’d be grounded until her hair turned gray. Carole saw Lisa’s point.

  Back at Pine Hollow, they sat on the hay bales outside Belle’s stall and tried hard to think of some way to help Stevie. Lisa remembered Mr. and Mrs. Lake’s polite, unyielding faces. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “What’s wrong, girls? Why the long faces? You look like somebody got your goat. And where’s Stevie?” It was Mrs. Reg, Max Regnery’s mother. She ran the stable. She had come to get one of the bales they were sitting on.

  “Oh, Mrs. Reg, didn’t Max tell you?” Carole asked. She and Lisa helped Mrs. Reg break the hay bale apart and feed it to the horses nearby. While they worked, they told her the whole story.

  “I see,” Mrs. Reg said, nodding. “That’s too bad.”

  “Stevie and Chad have been fighting all summer,” Lisa added. “Stevie did some things she shouldn’t, but Chad did, too, and he isn’t being punished at all.”

  Mrs. Reg nodded again sympathetically. “You know,” she said, “I don’t know if I ever told you, but the expression ‘get your goat’ is actually a horse term.”

  Carole and Lisa exchanged agonized glances. Mrs. Reg was famous for her stories, which usually seemed pointless, though they often weren’t. But now? Talking about goats when they were so worried about Stevie?

  “Yes,” Mrs. Reg continued, not seeming to notice how the girls squirmed, “it comes from racing. Many horses, you know, feel uncomfortable in strange environments, and a racehorse that isn’t happy won’t do well on the track. At the same time, racehorses are always being moved to different racetracks and different stalls. So, especially in the old days but sometimes even now, racehorses often traveled with an animal companion, such as a goat. The horse felt comfortable with his goat friend around, even when everything else was different.”

  Carole suppressed a sigh. She’d heard all this before. Mrs. Reg went on. “So, if you wanted to upset someone else’s racehorse, you stole his goat. You got his goat!” Mrs. Reg smiled.

  “We know that story, Mrs. Reg,” Lisa said politely. “When we went to the Preakness with Max and Deborah, some of the horses there had goats.” Lisa was surprised that Mrs. Reg didn’t remember this. She rarely forgot anything.

  Mrs. Reg nodded and patted Lisa’s arm. “It’s always good to consider all your resources,” she said gently. She paused to pat Belle, too. “Poor mare,” Mrs. Reg said sadly. “Poor, lonely Belle.” The office telephone rang, and Mrs. Reg hurried away.

  “What was that about?” Carole asked in amazement. “The goat story again? And why was she so sorry for Belle? She should be sorry for Stevie!” Really, Carole couldn’t remember a time when Mrs. Reg had been so vague—and that was saying something.

  Lisa scrunched down on the remaining hay bale, thinking hard. She was sure there had to be some meaning in what Mrs. Reg said. Suddenly she jumped up. “I’ve got it!” she said. She hugged Carole. “That’s it! The plan!”

  Carole cheered. “Tell me all about it!”

  A FEW MINUTES LATER they knocked on the door of Max’s office. Mrs. Reg wasn’t there anymore, but Max was sitting at his desk, looking at the lesson schedule.

  “Well,” he said when he saw them. “How are you two holding up?”

  “Pretty well, considering everything,” Lisa said.

  “Considering that we got up at seven to clean toilet paper off bushes,” Carole added.

  Max grinned. “If I remember right, taking the toilet paper off the bushes is never as much fun as putting it on.”

  Lisa couldn’t imagine Max TP’ing anybody. “We’ve got a favor to ask you,” she said. “We just remembered that Stevie wanted Belle to have her teeth fixed—”

  “Floated,” Carole corrected.

  Lisa winced. She still didn’t know the right words. When would she learn?

  “Sure,” Max said, nodding. “It’s been almost a year since she had Belle’s teeth done, hasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Carole said, “and Belle’s starting to act as if bridling hurts her.”

  “So would you mind calling Judy Barker for Stevie?” Lisa asked. “Because Stevie’s not allowed to use the phone.”

  “No problem,” Max assured them. “It’s a good time to have it done, since Stevie won’t be riding for a few weeks. I’ll have Judy come out as soon as she can.”

  “And then”—Lisa paused—“do you think you could call Stevie’s parents and tell them when the appointment is, so Stevie knows about it? We’d call them, but … Stevie’s parents aren’t exactly happy with us right now.” She looked down at her feet. Carole gave a sad sigh.

  Max chuckled. “I’ll bet not,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Thanks, Max!” They left the office.

  “THAT WENT WELL,” Carole said as they walked out of the stable and headed down the road toward the Willow Creek shopping center.

  “Yep,” Lisa said briskly. “The first step is in place. Now it’s time for some research!” She felt energized, much better than she had felt that morning, or, really, anytime since their lesson the day before. “Good thing I got my allowance yesterday morning—before you guys spent the night!”

  “You mean before we spent half the night,” Carole said.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “Even after paying for the screen door, I’ve got something left. But if we’d gotten in trouble first, I bet my parents would have kept my allowance, too. See—we were lucky about something, after all!”

  Carole smiled. Lisa’s enthusiasm was contagious. Carole felt much better, too. She thought it was just possible that Lisa’s plan might work.

  THEY RETURNED ONCE AGAIN to the stable, this time armed with several small bags from various fast-food restaurants. They took them all into Belle’s stall. Carole checked the aisle. “No Max,” she reported. “No Red, no Mrs. Reg, no nobody. We’re all clear.” There were no lessons on Sunday, and the stables were usually quiet.

  “Good.” Lisa rummaged through the bags and pulled out a paper cup. “Number one. Diet Coke.” She held it under Belle’s nose.

  Belle sniffed the rim of the cup curiously.

  “I don’t think she likes it,” Lisa said.

  “Give her time,” Carole said cautiously. “Let her get used to it.”

  Lisa knew Carole was right. They couldn’t afford to have this part of their plan fail.

  Belle stuck the tip of her nose into the cup. She slurped once, then drew back, startled. “I don’t think she likes the fizz,” Carole said. She took the cup from Lisa, used a straw to stir some of the fizz out of the soda, and offered it to Belle again. This time the mare took a cautious sip, then another.

  “Oh no,” Lisa groaned. “She likes it.”

  Carole laughed. “Who’d have guessed?”

  They set the diet Coke out of the way and opened the second bag. “Orange juice,” said Lisa.

  The orange juice didn’t work out, either—Belle actually drank the whole cup! She also seeme
d partial to the sweetened iced tea they gave her—she didn’t drink all of it, but almost.

  “She’s got a sweet tooth,” Lisa said.

  “Just like Stevie. Try the milk.”

  Belle, now eager for more treats, nosed the carton expectantly and, when Lisa opened it wide enough, plunged her nose into it. She drew back, looking appalled, and tried to shake the milk off the end of her nose.

  “Yeah!” Lisa said. “She doesn’t like it! That’s it!” She began to gather up the used bags.

  “We’ve got to be sure,” Carole said. “She doesn’t like it by itself, but that may not mean much.” Carole went to the feed room while Lisa waited impatiently. Sure enough, even though Belle refused to drink the milk alone, she was more than willing to eat a handful of grain soaked in it.

  Lisa tried not to feel annoyed because Carole was right again. “We’ve got one more,” she said. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to go back to the shopping center.” She pulled out the cup of lukewarm black coffee she’d saved for last. “Here goes.” She stuck it under Belle’s nose.

  Belle seemed offended by the very smell of the coffee. She backed away from the cup, refusing to take a single sip. Carole put a handful of grain in her feed bucket, and Lisa poured some of the coffee over it. Belle sniffed the grain, then ignored it.

  “Bingo!” said Lisa. She gave Carole a high five. They gathered all the cups and bags together.

  Carole watched Belle closely. “I don’t think she’ll eat that at all right now,” she said. “But remember, she just had her lunch. If she’s really hungry, a little coffee might not be enough to stop her.”

  Lisa nodded. As usual, Carole was making sense. “It’ll all depend on timing,” she said.

  “Poor Belle,” Carole added. She scooped the doctored grain into one of the paper bags and gave the mare a pat.

  “Belle’s fine,” Lisa said. She paused, thinking about the details of her plan. “What we need now,” she declared, “is some nice, fine dirt.”

  Carole laughed. “Whatever you say.”

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Carole and Lisa knocked on the door of Stevie’s house.