“I really do,” Carole said. “In the first place, you were exasperated with Belle, but you were never abusive to her. There’s a big difference between not training a horse entirely correctly and training it incorrectly. And second, you weren’t asking her to do anything that’s beyond what she can do. At this stage in her training, Belle should be more than ready to do a flying change. In fact, I’m kind of surprised she hasn’t already been taught to do it.”
“Plus,” Lisa added, “you’ve only been pushing Belle hard for one week. You may have gotten her a little bit upset, but it hasn’t been going on for very long, and she had this whole week off to relax. She’ll be happy and rested when we get back, and tomorrow the two of you can start over.”
Stevie smiled tremulously. “I’ve been so worried over the past few days,” she confessed. “I was really afraid that I had hurt her. I was afraid I’d go home and she’d hate me and not want to do anything that I asked her to at all. And then I was afraid that I wasn’t a good rider, and didn’t deserve my own horse, and then I was afraid that Belle wasn’t as good a horse as I thought she was—” She sighed. “Just telling you all this has made me feel a little bit better already.”
“Belle’s a terrific horse,” Lisa said. “And you’re a good rider. This was just one mistake.”
“Thanks.” Stevie returned Lisa’s hug. “Did you really mean what you said, Carole? You really don’t think I’ve hurt her?”
“Of course,” Carole said. “You didn’t hurt her.”
“Good. I should have asked you for help a long time ago.”
“I should have helped without your asking,” Carole replied. “I did try, sort of, but—” But I got angry instead, Carole thought, feeling a little ashamed of herself. The Saddle Club was supposed to stick together.
They lay back in the sunshine. “I feel better enough to tackle a sandwich now,” Stevie said, opening her lunch. “So, okay, tomorrow I’ll go home and ride Belle again, only with a different attitude. I don’t want to lose my temper with her, but I do want her to eventually learn a flying change. I know that I was pushing her too hard, and I know that my reason for wanting her to do it—because I wanted to be just as good as Phil—wasn’t a good one, but, no matter what, I still don’t understand why she hasn’t learned a change. We did those exercises for hours.” She bit down on her sandwich emphatically.
“Hmmm,” Carole said, crossing her hands behind her head and thinking hard. She knew Belle ought to be able to do a flying change. “Well, Stevie,” she said at last, “maybe you aren’t looking at the exercises from Belle’s point of view. You got them out of training books, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but they’re very good books,” Stevie said. “Max told me I should read them sometime anyway, and—”
Carole held up her hand to stop her. “No, I know they’re good books, and they’re probably very good exercises. That’s not what I mean.”
Both Stevie and Lisa looked confused. “What do you mean?” Lisa asked.
“Let me think—it’s not really easy to explain.” Lisa and Stevie grinned. Carole could sound very confused when she wasn’t talking about horses—it was a new experience for her to be confused when she was talking about horses.
“Okay,” Carole said, after a short pause, “it’s this. You read the book, so you know that the exercises are supposed to make Belle do a flying change, right?”
“Right,” Stevie said. “In the one I like best, the second one I tried, you pick up a canter, canter through a corner, then turn and double back through the same corner but going in the wrong direction. The horse is supposed to get thrown off balance by the turn on the wrong lead and do a flying change in order to get its balance back.” A seagull landed next to Stevie, and she tossed it a bit of cookie. Startled, it flew away.
“That’s just what I thought,” Carole said. “It’s exactly what I mean. You know the exercise is supposed to make her do a flying change, but Belle doesn’t know it.”
Stevie thought for a moment and then grinned, her face lighting up. “I get it!” she said. “I read in the book, ‘this is how to teach your horse to do flying changes,’ but Belle didn’t! She thinks I’m just asking her to change directions at the canter, and, as far as she can tell, she’s doing exactly what I want!”
“I get it, too,” said Lisa, her face shining. “I didn’t at first, but you’re right, Carole. You know how Prancer gets upset whenever I yell at her for doing something wrong? Belle’s sensitive in exactly the same way. Belle knows you’re upset with her, but she thinks she’s doing what you want, so she gets upset right back at you. In her mind you aren’t being fair.” She leaned back and dug her toes into the sand. “Wow. That was complicated, sort of, but I think we all understand it now.” For a few moments they all ate their lunches. Lisa began to pack their trash into one of the paper bags.
“I think that understanding Belle was the whole key,” Stevie said a few minutes later, “but my next question is, what can I do to help her do a change? I’ve been shifting my weight in the saddle to try to make her feel even more unbalanced. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“No, probably not,” Carole replied. She wiped the peach juice off her chin and threw the pit into Lisa’s trash bag. “See, you want to make this as stress-free for Belle as possible. You want to keep doing the exercises but without getting angry at her. Eventually she’ll do a change by accident, because it really will be more comfortable for her to go through the corner on the other canter lead. Once she does it, you’ll praise her and keep on doing it. Then she’ll come to understand that the flying change is the point of the exercise, and then you can teach her to do it off of a leg cue, like Teddy does.”
“Whew,” said Stevie. “Sounds like a lot of work.”
“No more work than you’ve already been doing,” Lisa replied. “I never saw you work so hard on any one thing before.”
“I guess that’s true. And anyway, it sounds like it’s something I can do—it sounds a whole lot better than the way I was trying to do it last week.”
“You needed to see it from Belle’s point of view,” Lisa repeated thoughtfully. “That’s good advice, Carole. That sounds like something Denise would say.”
Stevie drained her can of soda and stood up. “If you’ve finished eating,” she said, “I’d really like to go back to the woodland trail. Since the pony kicked me partway through, we never got to explore the rest of it.”
“Sounds great.” They packed up their trash and threw it away in the big container by the parking lot where they’d left their bikes. They rode away from the ocean, past another tidewater pool teeming with birds.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that blue heron again,” Stevie commented. “He looked like he’d know something about everything—he looked like an old professor or one of the ancient Latin teachers at Fenton Hall. You guys are lucky not to have to take Latin where you go to school.”
“I’d take Latin if it were taught by a heron,” Carole said with a grin.
They locked their bikes around a small pine tree just outside the entrance to the trail.
“I’m glad there aren’t too many people here,” Lisa said, as they began to walk through the shady trees.
“Me too,” Carole agreed. “You know, I really wanted everything about Chincoteague and Assateague to be just the same as in the Misty books. I didn’t expect the bridges or the cars, or all the tourists on the beach. I guess I’d forgotten how long ago the books were written. But when we get out by ourselves here on Assateague, I can forget all the modern stuff. I can imagine it any way that I want.” She smiled mischievously. “And when I look out at the ocean, I can see that Spanish galleon.”
Lisa laughed. “Usually I’m the one with too much imagination!”
“Last night Denise told me a little bit more about this natural horsemanship,” Stevie said. She walked first down the trail and held a thorny branch out of the way for her friends.
“Denise thinks tha
t if you’re training your horse for a specific event—say, show jumping—you should only spend twenty percent of your riding time actually jumping fences,” Stevie continued. “The other eighty percent should be spent doing more general riding, or having fun with your horse, so that your horse stays relaxed and happy.” She grinned. “I guess if I apply this rule to teaching Belle a flying change, it means I’ll be spending a lot less time on those exercises—and a lot more time on the trail!”
“Yeah!” cheered Lisa. “It didn’t feel right when we went without you.”
“It didn’t feel right to me, either,” Stevie admitted.
“We’ll help you with Belle,” Carole promised. “I don’t think it’s important that she learn to do a flying change before next week, but I’d really like to help you teach it to her.”
Stevie swung her arms and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder happily. “I wish I’d listened to the two of you earlier,” she said. “I would have enjoyed this week more. Doesn’t the air smell crisp? I love pine trees.”
“You might have been more willing to listen if Lisa and I had been more willing to talk,” Carole admitted. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you that one day. The Saddle Club has to stick together.”
“I think we do pretty well,” Stevie said. She felt so happy she was ready to sing. But, knowing how her singing voice sounded, she thought she would spare her friends. Not to mention the animals! After all, this was supposed to be a wildlife refuge. She wondered if she could get kicked off Assateague for scaring them. The thought made her giggle.
They rounded the bend to the clearing where they had seen the wild ponies before. “I wonder if we’ll see—” Lisa began. “Oh,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “There they are!”
“Careful, Stevie,” Carole warned, but Stevie didn’t need warning. A small band stood on the far edge of the clearing, in a patch of sandy marshland. Stevie knew she had never seen these particular wild ponies before, but she also knew, as soon as she saw them, exactly what she was going to do.
I’ve learned a lot on Chincoteague, she thought. These wild ponies have taught me as much as any well-trained horse ever did. Quietly, slowly, she walked across the clearing toward the band. Carole started to follow, but Lisa held her back.
Stevie picked out a young brown-and-white pinto mare grazing at the edge of the band. The mare had a scruffy mane and rough, unkempt coat, but her expression was alert and kind. She watched Stevie cautiously, but she didn’t seem afraid.
“Steady, girl,” Stevie said soothingly. She stood still for a moment, giving the mare and the rest of the band a chance to get used to her. Then she walked a few more steps forward and held out her hand. The mare raised her head and sniffed it. “Good girl,” Stevie said. Gently she began to rub the mare’s neck. The mare leaned into Stevie’s hand and half closed her eyes. Stevie rubbed a little harder, her fingers raising dust from the mare’s coat. The mare dropped her head and bit off another mouthful of grass, then raised her head and looked Stevie in the eye. Stevie patted the mare’s forehead.
The mare blinked, then took a small step backward. Stevie held her hand out to her. The mare began to edge away, back toward the other members of her band. Stevie dropped her hand and let her go. “Good girl,” she said again. The mare stopped and looked at her curiously. “See?” Stevie said to her. “I’m not really so scary—and you’re not that wild after all.”
STEVIE LEANED OUT the window of the horse van and waved. “Happy Birthday, Phil!” she cried. Red eased the van to a halt in the Marstens’ driveway next to their barn, and Stevie hopped out. She hurried to let Belle out of the rear. “Thanks so much, Red,” she said. “I really appreciate this.”
Red grinned. “I’ll be back to pick you up at four o’clock,” he said. “And you can muck out those twenty stalls for me anytime you want.”
Phil helped her lift the unloading ramp back into place. “I wondered how you would manage to bring Belle here,” he said. “Am I really worth mucking out twenty stalls?”
“Only on your birthday,” Stevie told him. “Besides, Belle and I have got a problem that we need your help with.”
“Belle’s allergies haven’t come back, have they?” Phil asked, his voice concerned.
“No—and if you’ll remember, I helped you with that one, not the other way around! No, this is something different—wait, Red!” The van was starting to pull away. Red stopped when he heard Stevie’s shriek. He opened his door and asked her what was wrong.
“The picnic!” Stevie said, running to open the passenger door. “I almost forgot our lunch!”
“You wouldn’t want to do that, not with what you brought,” Red agreed, laughing. “Or at least, I wouldn’t want you leaving it in my truck!” Stevie grabbed her backpack and shut the door, and Red drove away.
“What did you bring?” Phil asked.
“It’s a specialty—a Stevie Lake Specialty!”
Phil groaned. “I hope it isn’t like your ice cream sundaes,” he said. “Even I don’t see how you can stand to eat those!”
“It’s a very nice lunch,” Stevie said defensively. “And if you don’t like it, you can feed it to Teddy!”
“Oh, no—you brought me oats and apples!”
Stevie stuck out her tongue. “I’m not even going to show you,” she said.
“You didn’t dye everything green, did you? Because I seem to remember you serving me green hamburgers once. Or purple—Stevie, promise me it’s not all purple!”
Stevie laughed. “The green hamburgers were my brother’s fault,” she said. “If I remember correctly, you ate them. A little food coloring never hurt anyone.” She swung her backpack onto her shoulder and took Belle’s lead rope away from Phil. “Let’s go get Teddy. I’m dying to get in the saddle.”
“You didn’t dye your saddle purple, did you?”
Stevie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to ignore everything you say,” she said.
Phil turned and slipped his hand around her waist. “Will you ignore this, Stevie?” he asked, his face close to hers. “I’m very glad that you came to spend my birthday with me, I’m very glad you think seeing me is worth mucking out twenty stalls, and I’m going to show you just how glad I am.” He leaned forward to kiss her. Stevie closed her eyes.
“Phil! Phil-lip!” Phil sprang away from Stevie. Stevie’s eyes flew open. Phil’s mother came around the corner of the barn with a tattered knapsack in her hands. “Oh, there you are. Hello, Stevie, it’s always nice to see you. Phil, I packed the two of you a little lunch, just in case”—she glanced doubtfully at Stevie—“just in case you’re still hungry after—anyway, dear, have a nice time.” She handed the knapsack to Phil and walked back to the house.
“I understand why you don’t entirely trust my lunch,” Stevie said thoughtfully. “After all, you did have to eat a green hamburger. But I don’t understand why your mother doesn’t trust my lunch.”
Phil shrugged. “Maybe she heard about the green hamburgers.”
They took Belle into the barn. Stevie had groomed her and tacked her up before putting her in the trailer, and Phil had already groomed Teddy. Within minutes they were in the saddle. Phil signaled Teddy to walk.
“Before we go out to the trails, Phil,” Stevie said, “remember—”
“That’s right.” Phil pulled Teddy up. “You wanted to ask me about something, didn’t you? Something to do with Belle?”
“I thought maybe we could use your outdoor ring,” Stevie said, riding Belle toward the small, sand-filled arena next to the Marstens’ barn. “You see, Phil, I’m having trouble teaching Belle to do a flying lead change.” Stevie sighed. “I’ve been going through some exercises with her, but we’re still having trouble. You’ve done such a great job with Teddy. Can you help?”
Phil blinked. Slowly a big smile spread across his face. “Gosh, Stevie, I’d be glad to,” he said. “It’s kind of a new experience, your asking me for help. I’m glad that you thought to ask me.
What exactly have you and Belle been doing?”
Stevie briefly described the exercise she’d discussed with Carole and Lisa. Phil nodded. “That sounds like it should work,” he said. “Let’s see you ride it.”
Stevie walked Belle a few times around the arena, then trotted her several laps in both directions to be sure her muscles were warm and loose. Then she asked Belle to canter and went through the exercise, changing directions in a tight, s-shaped curve. Belle didn’t change leads, but, Stevie noticed, she was a lot more relaxed than she had been last week.
It’s because I’m not getting angry at her for something she can’t understand, Stevie thought. She could feel, too, a difference in her own riding—now that she wasn’t getting angry with Belle, her legs, seat, and hands all felt softer, and her balance was better, too. Much more like dressage, Stevie thought. She knew that in the very high-level dressage exhibitions she had seen, the rider’s cues to the horse were practically invisible. Today she was being much less obvious with her own cues, and Belle was certainly more relaxed. But Belle still wasn’t doing a flying lead change.
“See.” Stevie pulled Belle up to the rail near Phil and Teddy. “Last week I was upsetting her, although I didn’t mean to. Now at least she’s pretty calm about it. But she’s still not getting it. I tried to sort of shift my weight and throw her off balance, but all that did was harass her.”
Phil agreed. “You don’t want to upset her,” he said. “But the way you’re riding now, she can still manage to canter on the wrong lead all the way through the turn. Maybe you should make your circles smaller. Ask her to turn really tightly, and maybe that will make enough of a difference.” He grinned. “She canters really well, Stevie. She’s a beautiful mover. Not like Teddy—he’s a great horse cross-country, and he does everything I ask, but he’s nowhere near as elegant. Belle’s going to be really good at dressage someday.”
Stevie glowed at his praise. This was a new thing—she was asking Phil for help, and not only was he helping, but he was being awfully nice about it. Stevie vowed to let this be a lesson to her. Next time she wouldn’t get so caught up in competing with Phil. She’d remember what a really good friend he could be.
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