Stevie shrugged. “Maybe she’s sitting in the back.”
But when the class let out, the girls couldn’t find Lisa anywhere in the room. They stopped Helen, a girl from their cabin, to ask about her.
“She said she had a stomachache,” Helen said. “It sounded like it might have been something she ate at lunch. She went back to the cabin to lie down.”
Stevie and Carole exchanged concerned glances, then hurried out of the building. “Do you think Lisa’s getting sick?” Carole asked. “Maybe that’s why she’s been acting so weird lately.”
“Maybe.” Stevie started walking a little faster, then broke into a jog.
Lisa looked up when her friends burst into the cabin. She was sitting on her bunk with a book in her hands. “Hi,” she said, looking and sounding perfectly healthy. “What’s the matter?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Carole said breathlessly. “We heard you were sick.”
Lisa shrugged. “I’m fine. I just said that to get out of class.” She held up her book. “I started Frankenstein this morning, and I want to get through it quickly.”
Carole frowned. It wasn’t like Lisa to skip a class. It wasn’t like her at all. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “Um, you haven’t exactly been yourself lately.”
Stevie nodded. “Is there anything you want to talk about?” she asked. “I mean, we’re your best friends. If you’re having problems or something …”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lisa snapped. “Just because I’m trying to be responsible and work on my reading list, you automatically assume I have a problem?”
“Well, no,” Carole began hesitantly. “But—”
Lisa didn’t give her a chance to go on. “Look, I’m fine, okay?” she said. “I know you guys don’t understand why this stuff is so important to me, but it is. So believe me, I’m fine. Just back off, okay?”
“Okay,” Stevie said quickly. She couldn’t believe how easy it was to make Lisa angry these days. Maybe it was because she was staying up reading—Stevie had seen the flashlight glowing under the covers late into the night. “Um, it’s almost dinnertime. Are you ready to go?”
Lisa looked down at her book, not meeting her friends’ eyes. “You guys go ahead,” she said, her voice sounding calmer but still a little strained. “I want to finish this chapter. I’ll meet you at the mess hall in a little while.”
“Okay,” Stevie and Carole said in one voice. They quickly changed out of their riding clothes and left the cabin without another word.
They saved a seat for Lisa all through dinner, but she never showed up.
THE NEXT DAY after lunch, Stevie, Carole, Lisa, Phil, Todd, and a few other campers piled into Mike’s ancient, battered green station wagon for the trip into town.
“Next stop, Main Street,” Mike sang out as he skillfully negotiated the old car down the rutted road leading to the highway.
Stevie was crushed into the front seat between Mike and Phil. “Anybody for a singalong?” she cried. Without waiting for an answer, she launched into an enthusiastic, if slightly off-key, rendition of “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” She was in a good mood. After dinner the night before, Lisa had apologized for being so touchy and then had agreed to come along to the rec hall to make phone calls. Working together, Stevie, Carole, and Lisa had signed up another fifteen sponsors. And Stevie was feeling optimistic about their mission in town today. Their plan was going to work—it had to work.
The kids were down to forty-three bottles of beer on the wall when Mike pulled onto the main street of the small town. He drove past the small, grassy town square and found a parking place in front of the library. Stevie grinned, remembering the excuse she had given Barry.
“Okay, everybody out,” Mike said, turning off the engine. “We’ve only got about three hours before we have to head back, so do your thing.”
“Ugh,” Carole grunted, trying to move enough to open the door. The backseat was so crowded that her arm was wedged against the armrest. Finally she managed to extricate herself. She waited on the sidewalk, rubbing her arm, while the others clambered out one by one. “I think I’ll walk back to camp.”
Stevie was already giving orders to her troops. “Carole and Lisa, why don’t you two stake out the town square over there and talk to everyone who walks by,” she said, pointing. “Todd and Melissa, you take the businesses right around here. Phil and I will head down that way and start knocking on some doors. Helen and Bev, you go the other way.”
Carole gave her friend a crisp salute. “Aye, aye, captain,” she said. “Let’s go raise some money!”
The other kids let out a whoop, then parted ways. Mike crossed the street to run some errands at the drugstore while Stevie and Phil hurried down a residential street.
“We can talk to more people if we split up,” Phil pointed out. “I’ll take this side of the street if you’ll do the other side.”
“Sounds good,” Stevie said, smiling at him. It was no accident that she had paired herself with Phil. This stay at camp hadn’t exactly been the romantic idyll she had pictured, but she would take romance where she could get it. Working together to save Moose Hill seemed pretty romantic to her. “We’ll meet at the end of each block and compare notes.”
Phil nodded, and Stevie crossed the street and approached a white clapboard house with a neat, flower-filled yard. At her knock, the door was opened by a petite, red-haired young woman holding a baby.
“Hi there,” Stevie said. “My name is Stevie Lake, and I’m staying at Moose Hill Riding Camp, just down the road. A group of us are trying to save the camp from being sold to land developers, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to sponsor me in our horse show next week.” She had rehearsed the speech all morning and had taught it to the others at lunch.
The woman smiled. “You’re a Moose Hill camper?” she said. “That’s wonderful. I spent some great summers there during high school.” She sighed. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard it was being sold. It’s terrible.”
“You mean you know about that already?” Stevie asked, surprised. From everything Barry had said, she had supposed the deal was a deep, dark secret known only to a few people.
The woman nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said, jiggling the sleepy-looking baby up and down on her hip as she talked. “The sale has caused a lot of commotion around town. My husband is on the zoning commission, and they did their best to block the whole deal.” She shook her head. “But it didn’t work.”
Stevie was fascinated. “Did your husband try to prevent the sale because you used to go there?”
The woman laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “Although that would be reason enough.” She blushed. “It’s where he and I first met.”
Stevie’s eyes widened. It seemed she and Phil weren’t the first couple to be brought together by Moose Hill’s magic! “Then why?” she asked.
“Everyone around here knows Moose Hill, and it’s been a good neighbor over the years,” the woman said. “Nobody wants to see it razed for a bunch of fancy vacation condos for rich people. This area has always been rural, and we like it that way. That’s why most of us chose to live here.”
Stevie smiled. If most of the townspeople were against the deal with the developers, their job would be even easier than she had hoped. “In that case,” she said. “Would you be willing to help us out? We’re asking people to sponsor us for a certain amount for each fence we clear during the show. The money we raise will help the camp director outbid the developers and buy the camp.”
“What a great idea!” The woman laughed, startling the baby, who stared at Stevie with wide blue eyes. “How many fences are there?”
“Eighteen total,” Stevie said, “plus six more if there’s a jump-off in the show-jumping event.”
“You’re doing show jumping?” The woman looked impressed. “We never did that in my day.”
Stevie nodded. “It’s a new event,” she said. “If you’re
interested in coming to watch, the show is next Friday.” She gave the woman information about the schedule and ticket prices.
“I’ll be there,” the woman promised. “And you can put me and my husband down for two dollars a fence.”
Stevie took down the woman’s name, address, and phone number, then said good-bye and moved on to the next house. She couldn’t help whistling a little as she walked. Things were definitely looking up for Moose Hill.
NOT EVERYBODY WAS as eager to help as the red-haired woman, but Carole and Lisa were also finding that most of the people they spoke to were on their side. Almost everyone they asked agreed to pledge at least a little bit of money, and soon they had signed up more than ten sponsors.
During the lulls when nobody was walking by, Carole kept herself busy by thinking about Lisa. She was acting more like her normal self today, but Carole wasn’t convinced it was going to last.
She decided she had to try to talk to Lisa again, even if it meant making her angry. “Lisa,” she began tentatively when no townspeople were in sight. “I kind of wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”
“I understand,” Lisa said immediately. “I was really rotten to you guys, and I’m sorry about that.” She shrugged and smiled, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I guess I stayed up too late reading the night before or something.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Carole replied. She didn’t think Lisa’s moodiness resulted only from sleep deprivation. There was just too much odd behavior to excuse that way. “You already apologized for that yesterday. But I’m still kind of surprised you decided to skip class.”
“I know,” Lisa said. “But it was a one-time thing, really. I knew we were going to be talking about bandaging, and since Max has drilled everything there is to know about the topic into us over and over again, I thought I’d give myself a break and do some reading.”
“Oh.” Carole thought about that for a second. It sounded reasonable, but she wasn’t completely reassured. “Well, what about missing dinner like you did last night? It wasn’t the first time you skipped a meal in the past couple of weeks.”
“I guess that’s true,” Lisa said, leaning against a tree next to the sidewalk. She shrugged again. “It’s just that I get so hungry after all that riding. Sometimes I can’t wait for mealtime.” She laughed. “Believe me, whoever gets the money from those snack machines in the rec hall must love me. And once I’ve pigged out on that stuff, the last thing I want to do is go to the mess hall and look at more food.”
“All that junk food can’t be good for you,” Carole said, concerned.
“It’s not all bad,” Lisa said, straightening up as an elderly couple approached. “Besides, eating that stuff for a couple of weeks won’t kill me.”
The girls stepped forward to talk to the elderly couple. Once they had signed them up for fifty cents per fence, they relaxed again.
“I hope you don’t think Stevie and I have been nagging you lately,” Carole said. “I mean, about your reading and the extra riding practice and everything. We’re just worried that you’re pushing yourself too hard. Camp is supposed to be fun.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Lisa said. “I like hard work. I’m having a great time at camp. Everything is fine.”
Carole wasn’t sure what to think. She wanted to believe what Lisa was saying. After all, the members of didn’t lie to each other. It wasn’t exactly an official rule, but it was something Carole had always taken for granted. That was why she didn’t like her present suspicion—because it was telling her that Lisa was lying.
Before she could explore that thought any further, a group of teenage girls wandered around the corner and headed for them.
“Hey, there they are!” cried one of the girls. She hurried toward Carole and Lisa. “We heard you’re raising money to save the riding camp.”
“That’s right,” Carole said and launched into her spiel, pushing her concern about Lisa to the back of her mind. It was too hard to think seriously about the problem and look for sponsors at the same time. Carole was almost glad there was only one more week of camp. Maybe once they were home, Lisa would go back to normal.
LATER THAT EVENING, back at camp, Stevie and Phil set off hand in hand for a romantic stroll down to the pond, just like the day they had met. Unlike that first night, this night a full moon illuminated the paths for them, casting a romantic silvery glow over everything and making flash-lights unnecessary.
“This is nice,” Phil said as they picked their way carefully over the narrow, rocky path.
Stevie didn’t answer.
“Stevie?” Phil prompted. “Did you hear me? I said, this is nice.”
“Oh, right,” Stevie said. “Sorry. I was just thinking about something else. I was wondering if I should have started off our speech today by suggesting that people donate three dollars a fence. I don’t know about you, but most of the people I talked to didn’t pledge anywhere near that much.”
Phil shrugged. “Who knows? It’s too late now.” As they reached the edge of the pond, he dropped her hand and put his arm around her. “Aren’t there other things you’d rather think about right now, anyway?” he added softly.
Stevie nodded and tipped her head up to gaze into his eyes. “I wonder if we could convince the cook to bake some cookies before the show?” she murmured. “We could sell them to the spectators. I have a feeling we’re going to have a big crowd this year.”
“Whatever,” Phil said. “Did I ever tell you your hair looks really pretty in the moonlight?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said distractedly. She pulled away from his embrace and fished in her pocket for her calculator. “Let’s see, if we charged fifty cents per cookie … um …” She hunched over the calculator and punched in some numbers, squinting to see the readout in the dim light.
Phil sighed and sat down on a boulder. “Did I ever tell you about the time I was abducted by space aliens?” he said.
“Hmm? Oh, that’s nice,” Stevie muttered, still punching in numbers. Then she reached into her pocket again and pulled out a folded sheet of paper she had torn out of her notebook. She scanned it and then returned to her calculator. “I can’t believe it,” she cried a moment later. “Even with all the sponsors we’ve gotten so far, we’re still way short of what we need. And that’s assuming no one misses a single fence.”
Phil got up and came over to her. “Do you have to do that now?” he asked. He caressed her cheek gently. “I was hoping we could just forget about it and have a nice, romantic evening.”
“Well, maybe…,” she said, closing her eyes as Phil moved in for a kiss. But just as his lips grazed hers, her eyes flew open. “I’m sorry,” she said, moving away from him and raising her calculator again. “I can’t stop thinking about the fund-raiser. We just don’t have enough money pledged yet. And if we don’t do something about that in the next few days, we can forget about any more romantic evenings here at Moose Hill ever again!”
WITH EVERYTHING THE Saddle Club and their friends had to do, the following days passed in a blur. On Sunday, Stevie spent three hours on the phone, calling everyone she knew from school, Pine Hollow, and everywhere else she could think of. She called her friends at the County Animal Rescue League. She spoke to Chelsea Webber, Belle’s previous owner. She contacted her friend Dinah in Vermont. She even tracked down Mrs. McCurdy, the old woman who had lived next door when Stevie was in kindergarten. Every one of them promised to contribute, though Mrs. McCurdy only pledged ten cents per jump.
Stevie was glad that Carole had offered to get in touch with ‘s friends at the Bar None Ranch out West, and that Lisa was in charge of trying to contact their friend Skye Ransom, a movie star who lived in California. Even so, she had the funniest feeling that her parents were going to be a little surprised at all the charges on her calling card. She would just have to deal with that later.
MONDAY MORNING WAS cloudy. Carole, Phil, and Todd had a free period at
the same time, so they decided to go talk to the camp cook about Stevie’s cookie idea. They found him chopping vegetables for dinner.
Carole did the talking, explaining that they were hoping he could manage to make two or three hundred cookies for the show on Friday.
The cook put down his knife. “Oh, really?” he said, looking amused. “Is that two or three hundred cookies in addition to the lemonade and iced tea and popcorn I’m already planning to provide?”
Carole and the boys nodded. “Actually, we should probably talk to you about that, too,” Phil said. “We may have a few more spectators coming to the show this year than usual.”
“Yeah, a few hundred more,” Todd added with a grin.
“Really?” the cook said with a slight frown. “How do you know? Are you talking about parents? I thought we were filming the show again this year.” Since most parents couldn’t make it up to camp a day early to watch the show, Barry always had one of the stable hands videotape the whole thing. That way, any interested parents—or any camper who wanted a memento—could borrow the tape and make a copy.
Carole’s eyes lit up. “I wonder if Stevie remembers about the videos,” she whispered to Phil. “We could sell those, too.”
“Sell them?” the cook asked. Apparently his ears were as sharp as his knife. “What do you mean? What’s this really all about?”
Phil tried to change the subject back to cookies, but the cook wouldn’t leave them alone until they had told him the whole story. His eyes widened when he heard about the developers. “So that’s who those guys were,” he muttered. “I wondered why they kept hanging around Barry’s office.”
“You won’t tell Barry what we’re doing, will you?” Carole begged.
The cook grinned. “Nah,” he said. “Old Barry is a great guy—I’ve known him so long he’s like the brother I never had—but sometimes he’s too stubborn for his own good. If he’s convinced the camp is lost, he won’t change his mind until someone forces him to. If you kids really think you can do it, more power to you.”
Summer Rider Page 7