Beach Ride

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Perfect for what?” Alice said. There was a sharpness in her voice that finally alerted even Stevie to the fact that something was definitely wrong.

  “Perfect to show you that jumping is wonderful and you have all the skills you need to do it very well,” Stevie answered her. She was feeling a little defensive and hurt by the fact that Alice didn’t seem to appreciate all the work she and Lisa had gone to to make this be just right.

  “And who asked you to do it and said it would be okay?” Alice demanded. “Max Regnery wasn’t behind this, was he?”

  “No,” Lisa said. “Max didn’t know anything about it. It was our idea. We thought it was a good one.”

  “You thought wrong,” Alice said.

  Then, without a word, she turned Starlight around and began walking him back to Pine Hollow. She had him step back over the tree trunk very carefully.

  “Alice?” Lisa called.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “We just want to help,” said Stevie.

  “Then leave me alone from now on,” retorted Alice. That was the last word she said to them. She never turned around again as she and Starlight made their way back.

  “Shouldn’t we go with her?” Lisa asked Stevie. She was concerned about Alice.

  “What for?” Stevie said. “You heard her say she doesn’t want to talk to us or be with us. We have to move the tree trunk off the trail now anyway.”

  “Won’t she get lost?”

  “Starlight knows the way. He’ll get her back to the stable.”

  “Won’t Max be angry with us for letting her ride back alone?” Lisa asked.

  “So what else is new? He’d be angrier if he knew we’d lied about clearing the path,” Stevie said.

  The girls dismounted and secured their horses to a tree branch while they went to work moving the tree trunk a final time.

  When the tree trunk was safely off the trail and into the woods, Lisa sat down on it, put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “We were just trying to help. Why is Alice so angry with us?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided that she’s probably not all that angry,” Stevie said. “It’s just that we surprised her. Maybe she’s really angry with herself for letting so many jumping opportunities go by without trying it before now. The way I figure it, by the time she gets back to Pine Hollow, she’ll be really glad we tricked her and ashamed that she rode off alone.”

  “Maybe,” said Lisa.

  “Why, I bet she’s waiting for us so that she can apologize,” Stevie went on. “She’s probably talked to Mrs. Reg and signed up for a zillion jump classes for the rest of the time she’s here.”

  “Maybe,” said Lisa.

  But that wasn’t the case. By the time they returned to Pine Hollow, there was no sign of Alice. The only indication that she’d been there at all was the fact that Starlight was standing in the paddock, tacked up and riderless.

  WITHOUT A WORD Stevie and Lisa began doing the work they knew they had to do. First, they took care of the horses they’d been riding, untacking and grooming Topside and Barq. Then, when that was done and they’d each brought fresh hay and water to the horses, the girls met in Starlight’s stall to take care of him. That was when Mrs. Reg appeared.

  Mrs. Reg was Max’s mother, and she was a friendly person, kind and motherly. She was well-known for her habit of keeping young riders busy with chores that needed to be done around the stable and for her endless supply of stories. Whenever something happened, Mrs. Reg told a story that didn’t seem the least bit relevant to the circumstances. It usually took the girls a while to figure out what the point was, but when they did, they almost always learned something.

  This time Mrs. Reg didn’t have a chore, nor did she have a story. But she certainly had a piece of her mind to give to Stevie and Lisa.

  “I saw that horse in his stall, all lathered up, with his tack on,” she accused. “I don’t know what you two think you were doing, but you didn’t do it right. Alice Jackson came through here in a storm, just leaving Starlight alone. You two were responsible for her since she’s a new rider here, and it was your job to see to it that she took proper care of your friend’s horse.”

  “But Mrs. Reg—” Stevie began.

  “No buts. You know the rules.”

  “We did take care of him,” Lisa protested.

  “After he’d been standing in his stall for a full half hour,” Mrs. Reg said.

  This didn’t seem fair to Stevie. After all, they weren’t responsible for the fact that Alice had ridden off in a huff. Nor could they help the fact that they had to stay in the woods to clear the path.

  “But we—”

  “No excuses,” said Mrs. Reg. With that, she turned on her heel and marched back to her office, leaving the girls even more befuddled.

  “That wasn’t fair,” said Stevie.

  “Well, we couldn’t tell her what we were doing in the woods, could we? We’d already told Max that we cleared the trail. It’s a good thing she didn’t know we lied to him. Then she’d really be angry.”

  “Well, we were that lucky, but it still wasn’t fair that Alice left Starlight alone and left us to take the rap for it. She knows better than to leave a lathered horse tacked up in his stall.”

  “Maybe she didn’t even cool him down,” said Lisa. “Is he going to stiffen up? Should I walk him now?”

  Stevie considered that for a few seconds. “No, I don’t think so. Whatever he was when she put him in the stall, he’s cooled down now. I don’t think a walk will do him any good.”

  Lisa didn’t like the idea that Starlight hadn’t been perfectly taken care of while he was in their care. They’d made Carole a promise, and she felt as if they’d broken it.

  “That ungrateful girl!” Stevie scowled. “First of all, she doesn’t appreciate all the work we’re doing for her, and then she goes and gets us into trouble with Mrs. Reg!”

  “To say nothing of the fact that she might have hurt Starlight!” Lisa added.

  “Yeah,” Stevie agreed. “Poor Starlight.” She turned to the horse and looked at him. He didn’t seem particularly troubled by anything. He seemed much more concerned with the mouthful of hay he was munching than with their problems. Stevie put her arms around his neck and gave him a hug. He kept right on munching.

  “You know, I’d like to give Alice a piece of my mind!” said Stevie.

  “That’s a good idea,” said Lisa. “If she expects to ride here again, she’s going to have to prove she can take better care of the horses. And I think we should tell her that we can’t trust her with Starlight again, so she’ll have to ride one of Max’s horses. I know that’s not much of a threat, because all of Max’s horses are great horses, but not very many of them are as good as Starlight!”

  The anger felt good. At first the girls had just been confused by Alice’s behavior and weren’t sure how to react. But now, since Mrs. Reg had gotten angry at them for what Alice failed to do, they felt really mad.

  “Let’s go, then. Max isn’t here. We can use the phone in his office,” said Stevie.

  “But we’re not supposed to use the Pine Hollow phone unless it’s a stable emergency,” said Lisa. There was a pay phone the riders were expected to use for routine calls.

  “This is a stable emergency,” said Stevie. “Alice has to learn better, or some other horse will be hurt.”

  Lisa couldn’t really disagree with that, so the two girls marched into Max’s empty office.

  It took Stevie just a few minutes to get Alice’s grandmother’s telephone number from the directory, and soon they had her on the phone.

  “Is Alice there, please?” said Stevie.

  The woman asked Stevie to wait while she called Alice to the phone. Stevie waited, but not patiently. As she waited, she could feel herself getting angrier and angrier. She remembered Alice’s cold farewell and the danger she’d caused for Starlight. She
remembered how hard she and Lisa had tried to make the ride very special for Alice. She remembered how she and Lisa had expected Alice to be thrilled.

  “I don’t know who it is,” Stevie heard Alice’s grandmother say.

  There was a long silence.

  “Come on, dear. They won’t wait all day.”

  There was more silence. Then a tentative “Hello?”

  “Alice? This is Stevie Lake,” Stevie began. Then she continued without pause. She didn’t want Alice to have a minute to get a word in until she’d said everything that was on her mind. Stevie told her how Mrs. Reg had gotten angry and how it wasn’t fair to Starlight, to say nothing of how it wasn’t fair to her and to Lisa for Alice to treat a wonderful horse like Starlight in such an irresponsible manner and how horses needed to be cooled down and then untacked, fed, and watered, and how Alice knew perfectly well that all the riders at Pine Hollow were responsible for taking care of the horses they rode.

  “And,” Stevie concluded, “we thought you were a good rider, but we’ve learned that you’re not, because no good rider would ever do that to a horse!”

  Stevie had said all she’d wanted to say. Now it was Alice’s turn. And when Alice finally spoke, it wasn’t the humble apology that Stevie expected.

  “It’s not a question of whether I’m a good rider or not, Stevie,” Alice said. “It’s a question of whether I’m a rider or not. And I’m not. I quit. Good-bye.”

  She hung up the phone.

  “What did she say?” Lisa asked, looking with concern at a very rare sight—a speechless Stevie Lake.

  “She said she’s never going to ride a horse again,” Stevie said. “And I think she means it.”

  “THERE’S A STRANGE elbow sticking into me,” Sheila announced.

  “Not all that strange,” said Carole. “It’s mine.” Carole tried to shift her position in the backseat of Uncle Willie’s car so she wasn’t poking Sheila, but then she found she was crushing Aunt Joanna, who then squished Colonel Hanson. All four of them were in the back because Uncle Willie and Midge Ford were in the front bucket seats.

  The group was headed for Disney World, and Carole was very excited about it. She and Sheila had been up late the night before, reading a guidebook and trying to decide what they were going to do first. Since Sheila lived nearby, she’d been to the theme parks many times, but it was all still very exciting to her, and she was looking forward to showing it to her younger cousin.

  Carole flipped open the guidebook and looked once again.

  “What about this Tea Party thing?” she asked.

  “That’s for little kids,” Sheila said.

  “But it looks like fun,” said Carole.

  “It is,” Sheila conceded. “We have to do it. We’ll just pretend we’re little kids.”

  That seemed to Carole like a good attitude for a whole day at the Magic Kingdom.

  “My first stop is the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,” Colonel Hanson declared. “Are you game for that, Midge?”

  “In your dreams! That’s a roller coaster!”

  “I know,” said Carole’s father. “And I just love roller coasters.”

  “Wait until you try Space Mountain,” said Aunt Joanna. “That might change your mind. It’s a roller coaster completely in the dark.”

  “It’s supposed to be really scary, Uncle Mitch,” Sheila said. “I remember one time I went on that when my class had a day outing at the park. Colin McKenzie—”

  “Ahem,” Uncle Willie interrupted.

  “Enough,” said Aunt Joanna.

  Naturally, that made Carole very curious. “What?” she whispered to Sheila.

  “Threw up!” Sheila whispered back, but she whispered it loud enough so that everybody could hear. That made Colonel Hanson laugh, and when Colonel Hanson laughed, everybody around him laughed, too. In fact, all six people in the car were laughing by the time they reached the parking lot.

  Once they got inside the park and were oriented, they agreed to break up into what Carole’s father called “interest groups.” The “interest group” that was headed for the terrifying rides, Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, included Carole and her father. Aunt Joanna and Uncle Willie wanted to go on the Skyway—a funicular that reached from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland. Sheila decided she couldn’t wait to see the Mad Tea Party, and Midge felt the same way. Their interest group was headed there.

  Then Colonel Hanson announced that they should all meet at one of the restaurants at noon—it took only fifteen minutes to argue about which one—to eat lunch and rearrange their interest groups. Carole liked the fact that her father, who was in the military, was a natural’born leader and made good decisions. This was definitely going to be fun.

  Colonel Hanson offered his arm to his daughter, and the two of them headed for Frontierland and their first roller coaster of the day.

  There was a lot to see on the way to Frontierland. First of all, there were the sights that had been planned by the builders of the place—the castle that was at the center of it all, the play areas of Tom Sawyer’s Island, and people enjoying Mike Fink’s River Boats. There was a shooting gallery, where they stopped briefly.

  “Are you a crack shot, Dad?” Carole asked, remembering that her father had gotten several medals for his shooting ability in the Marine Corps.

  “The country is safe with me,” he assured her. Then he put some change on the counter and picked up a rifle. While Carole watched, holding her breath in preparation of being awed by her father’s skill, he took aim. Slowly, smoothly, he squeezed the trigger.

  “Ping!” The shot fired. Then nothing.

  The Colonel looked puzzled.

  “I think you missed, Dad. Try again.”

  “Missed? No way,” he declared. But he prepared to try again. Another ping, another miss. He had ten shots. Finally, on the seventh shot, he hit something, a light blinked, a bell sounded.

  “Nice shootin’ there, pardner,” said the young man behind the counter.

  Two more misses.

  “Well, I suggest you steer away from a career as a sharpshooter,” the man said.

  Colonel Hanson just gave him a dirty look.

  Carole wanted to try. She picked up a gun and took aim. It didn’t seem so hard. She just lined up the two little markers on the barrel with a target and—

  Ping! Ding! Flash!

  “Good!” said the young man.

  It really was easy. In ten shots Carole got seven hits.

  “You should give your father some pointers,” the young man said as they walked away.

  “You were trying to miss, weren’t you, Dad?” Carole asked.

  “Well, it’s very different using that kind of simple rifle,” he said, obviously ducking her question. “In the Marine Corps, we’re expected to know how to manage a complicated piece of equipment. Our weapons are high tech, and—”

  “You mean you weren’t trying to miss?” she teased.

  “I think it’s this way to Big Thunder Mountain,” he said.

  There was a short line at Big Thunder Mountain. They waited only a few minutes before boarding the “mining cars” of the roller coaster to begin a wonderful and exciting ride. As the little car jerked up and around, down and under, through the course of the ride, Carole and her father gripped the handrail with an iron-tight grasp. They cried, Oooh! Aaaaahhhh! and Yeoooooooow! together. And when they got off, neither would admit to the other that they’d been scared. Carole just gave her father a big hug. Then, when they saw that there was almost no line, they went right back in and did it again.

  That left them enough time to go on Space Mountain twice before it was time to meet the rest of the family for lunch. If Big Thunder Mountain was scary, Space Mountain was terrifying, and both Carole and her father adored every second of it!

  As they headed for the meeting place, they took a brief detour to Mars and ate ice-cream bars in the shape of a certain familiar mouse. Even though they arrived at the restaurant two mi
nutes late (it was actually ninety seconds according to Colonel Hanson’s watch), they were the first ones to get there. Everybody else was obviously having a good time, too.

  Once all six of them were at the restaurant, they began swapping tales of their adventures. Sheila couldn’t stop talking about the Pirates of the Caribbean. Colonel Hanson said he had to see that next. Aunt Joanna agreed and asked Midge if she’d like to come along with them. Midge said she’d been on the Pirates with Sheila, but wanted to buy a present for her son. Carole wanted to buy some things for Lisa and Stevie, so she said she’d go shopping with Midge. Uncle Willie said he wanted to try Space Mountain. Carole had loved it, but twice was enough. Sheila thought that, in spite of Colin McKenzie’s experience, she’d like to do that with her father. Thus, a whole new set of “interest groups” was born, though Carole could see that Aunt Joanna was disappointed about something. When they’d all finished eating, they agreed on their next meeting time and place. It would be on Main Street in time for the parade.

  Midge and Carole set off together and began poking into the zillions of specialty shops that seemed to be everywhere.

  “What was the matter with Aunt Joanna?” Carole asked Midge.

  “I think I let her down,” Midge answered.

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, to be honest with you, she thinks I ought to be sticking closer to your father. She said as much to me before we got to the table at the restaurant.”

  “Oh. That’s right. She’s trying to fix you up with Dad, isn’t she?”

  Carole was embarrassed to have said it, even though she knew it was true. Midge laughed at her bluntness.

  “Yes, she is,” Midge said.

  “But you don’t want to be fixed up? You don’t like Dad?” Carole surprised herself with the bold question. She couldn’t understand how any sensible woman wouldn’t be in love with her father, who was without a doubt the most wonderful guy in the world.

  “Of course I like your dad,” Midge said. “He’s a great guy. He’s kind, he’s funny, and he’s warm. Your dad isn’t the problem.”