Horse Sense

by Bonnie Bryant

  Lisa liked to do things for horses too, but mucking out stalls wasn’t high on her list. “I’ve got to find Stevie. Know where she is?”

  “She was in an awful hurry right after class, but I don’t know where she went. Try the indoor ring. She was headed in that direction.”

  “See you,” Lisa said, but she really didn’t think her friend heard her at all. Carole was already headed for Delilah’s stall. Lisa made her way down the knoll and into the stable. It seemed terribly dark inside, in comparison to the bright summer sunshine. They were spending almost all of their riding time outdoors, mostly in the ring, and sometimes on the trails. It was nice to be out in the fresh air. The class only used the cramped indoor ring on rainy days. It seemed a long time since Lisa had taken her first lesson in that ring.

  Lisa passed the tack room and peered into the indoor ring. There was Stevie. She’d borrowed a pony. Lisa knew that any horse less than four feet ten inches tall at the withers was called a pony. A lot of mounted games took place on ponies because the ponies were what the little kids could ride. Stevie, it seemed, was trying to determine whether a pony could do one of the games she was planning.

  While Lisa watched, Stevie climbed onto Nickel, a pretty silver-colored pony. She held a Hula-Hoop in her right hand. She put the hoop around her right arm and began trying to get it to swing around her arm. It did just fine when it was up, but as soon as it came down, it smacked into the soft dirt and bounced off her arm. It wasn’t working at all. The pony was just too short. She tried swinging it over her head, but right away, it got tangled in her hard hat. Angrily, Stevie threw the thing across the ring.

  Next, Lisa watched her take a spoon with a marshmallow on it, climb on Nickel, and begin galloping across the ring. The marshmallow fell off right away. Stevie dismounted, picked it up, and climbed up again. This time the marshmallow fell off before she even got back in the saddle. She picked it up a third time, mashed it into the spoon so it was more of a glob than a marshmallow, climbed into the saddle, and was off. The only problem was that when she got to the end of the ring, where there was a bucket, she couldn’t get the gooey marshmallow out of the spoon and into the bucket. After the third try at shaking it loose, she threw that across the ring as well, so it landed near the abandoned Hula-Hoop.

  Something told Lisa this was no time to try to talk to Stevie. As quietly as she had come, she left, going into the tack room. There, she quickly spotted Stevie’s shoes. She rolled up a copy of the rules and stuck it into one of Stevie’s shoes, leaving a note about the Thursday meeting at TD’s.

  Stevie would find the note there and they could talk about the new rules on Thursday at TD’s. She was sure Stevie would be in a better mood by then. Well, pretty sure.

  Lisa fetched her own sandwich and soda from the refrigerator and looked for a place to eat. Just as she stepped into the stall area, she saw Estelle Duval, the new French girl, eating alone.

  “Can I sit down?” Lisa asked.

  “Mais, oui,” Estelle said. “Of course.”

  Lisa just loved the sound of her accent.

  ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON, Lisa couldn’t find Stevie and Carole after camp was over. It was time for The Saddle Club meeting at TD’s—their favorite ice cream store, in the nearby shopping center—and it was an important meeting, too. It was the meeting Lisa had called so they could discuss and approve all the rules she’d written.

  When she couldn’t find her friends, Lisa decided they must have left for TD’s, thinking she’d already gone. She changed into her jeans and street shoes and set out for the shopping center, a little annoyed to have been left behind.

  As soon as she crossed the roadway, Lisa spotted Estelle walking in the same direction she was headed. She and Estelle had eaten lunch together two days in a row and Lisa was really getting to like her. She was so chic, so sophisticated, so nice!

  It surprised Lisa that Estelle seemed to want to be her friend. After all, Estelle had told her she had been riding since she was a toddler, and most of the friends she talked about were really fancy people, like princes and counts and children of diplomats. She’d been to school in several different countries and spoke four languages. Lisa only spoke English, a few words of French, and pig latin!

  “Hey, Estelle! Wait up!” Lisa called, and jogged up to the French girl. “Which way are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to the little shopping center,” Estelle told her. “I wanted to see if there is a jewelry store there. I have a necklace that needs to have a new gold chain.”

  “Well, I’m going that way, too, though I don’t have to buy any jewelry today,” Lisa joked. Then she explained she was meeting friends at TD’s. “You were having some trouble today on Nero, weren’t you?” she asked after a moment as they continued on their way.

  “Oh?” Estelle said. She seemed to be surprised that Lisa had noticed, but the fact was that everybody had noticed. Nero had ended up doing almost exactly what he’d wanted to do all through the class. That was really bad. Lisa had been taught from her very first lesson that a rider had to be the one in control, and the horse needed to know it.

  “Nero was in such a bad mood!” Estelle explained. “You see, I am much more used to my own horse, Napoleon. He would never behave that way.”

  “Your own horse!” Lisa exclaimed. “And you had to leave him in France, I guess. You must miss him a lot.”

  “I certainly do. He’s a white horse, a beautiful stallion. He was a gift to me from a friend of my father’s—the ambassador,” she explained. “But I have had him since my seventh birthday. I rode him for hours that day, and every day since, when I am at home. He never acted so naughty like Nero was today.”

  “I thought you lived in the city of Paris. Do you keep him in the city?” Lisa asked, recalling her earlier conversations with Estelle.

  “Oh—uh, no, but he is kept at our country home in Normandy, northwest of Paris. We go there on weekends and for vacations. That’s when I ride him. At other times, the stable manager exercises him for me, you see?”

  Lisa did see. Her mind’s eye built a spacious country estate with a large barn and rolling hills where horses frolicked gracefully through the spring flowers in the pastures. Liveried staff tended to the home while the Duvals were in Paris, and catered to their every whim when they returned to the country. It seemed so incredibly elegant that Lisa could hardly believe it was true.

  “You know, Estelle, I haven’t been riding very long,” Lisa explained. “I just started a few months ago. I really love it, though, and every time I hear about somebody like you, who has been riding since she was really little, well, it makes me wish I’d started it a long time ago, too. I hate to think of all the wonderful rides I missed!”

  “But Lisa, all the rides are not wonderful,” Estelle corrected her.

  “You mean like all the trouble you had with Nero today?”

  “Well, that too, but let me tell you about the pony I had before Napoleon. That one was a mare. Her name was Étoile—French for ‘star’ because of the perfect five-pointed star on her forehead. But it was the only perfect thing about her. One day I was riding her. I was just a little girl then, of course. By mistake, I happened to tug at her mane when I was standing up in the saddle, trying to get my balance. It must have hurt her terribly, for right away, she began trying to kick at me with her hind foot. I pulled the reins to make her stop. Then I climbed down from her saddle right there in the middle of the field, and I told Maman I was never going to ride the beast again!”

  Estelle laughed so hard at the story that Lisa began laughing, too. She could just see the stubborn child informing her mother she was through. But she couldn’t see herself trying the same thing with Max! Max certainly wouldn’t force people to ride if they didn’t enjoy it. But there was no way he would let somebody quit just because one bad thing happened—even a nasty fall. Lisa decided it was a good thing for Estelle that Max wasn’t her mother.

  The two girls strolled acros
s the parking lot of the little shopping center. It wasn’t really a mall. It only boasted a supermarket, a few shoe stores, a drugstore, a music store, a jewelry store, and the ice cream parlor, TD’s. If what you wanted after riding class was an icecream sundae, there was no place better than TD’s. Lisa paused at TD’s, but there was no sign of Stevie or Carole. Realizing they must have been delayed, she continued to walk with Estelle.

  Together, the girls went into the jewelry store. Estelle spoke with the salesman for a long time, though Lisa couldn’t hear what she was saying. Lisa loved jewelry and always had fun looking at it. She could imagine a day when she might have long conversations with jewelers the way Estelle was, but for now, she satisfied herself with glancing at the costume jewelry section. She looked at the pins under the glass counter. There, in the center, was a pin with the silhouette of a horse head superimposed on a horseshoe. The horse’s ears were perked alertly, his mane brushed slightly by the wind. The whole effect was so pretty that it nearly took Lisa’s breath away. Somehow, that pin seemed to represent everything Lisa loved about horses. If only …

  “Oh, this man can’t help me at all,” Estelle whined, interrupting Lisa’s thoughts. “I have wasted my time!”

  “Not exactly,” Lisa consoled her, turning from the showcase with the horse-head pin. “We got to walk together and have a nice talk.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Estelle said, leading Lisa back onto the shopping center sidewalk. “You have to meet your friends now, no?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lisa said, heading for TD’s. But even before she entered the ice cream shop, she could see through the window that neither Stevie nor Carole was there yet. She wondered what had happened. How could she have missed them at Pine Hollow? She was just about certain they’d gone by the time she left.

  “What’s the matter, Lisa?” Estelle asked.

  “I’m looking for Stevie and Carole,” she explained. “We were supposed to meet here. I’m sure they’d left Pine Hollow by the time I did, so where are they?”

  “Carole Hanson and Stevie Lake?” Estelle asked. Lisa nodded. “But I saw them go,” Estelle said. “Carole, she went off in the truck with that woman doctor, Judy is her name? And, then, Stevie, she saddled up the pony, Nickel, and was taking him out into the field. She had the most tremendous bag full of things, but I don’t know what was in it.”

  Lisa got a deep sinking feeling. It was clear that both Carole and Stevie had completely forgotten The Club meeting they were supposed to have. Each was so wrapped up in her own special project that she didn’t even remember Lisa’s special project! Lisa was just about to explode with anger and hurt. How could her best friends let her down?

  “So look at us now,” Estelle said brightly. “You came here to meet your friends, but they’re not coming. I came here to go to the jewelry store, but they did not have what I wanted! We are in the same pair of shoes!”

  Lisa laughed at Estelle’s joke and she was glad for it. She swallowed hard and scrunched her eyes to hide any possible tears. “Well, since neither of our plans worked out, how about some ice cream?”

  “That’s a great idea,” Estelle agreed, and together they headed for TD’s.

  Within a few minutes, they’d found a table and ordered their sundaes. Lisa was surprised to learn that Estelle wasn’t familiar with all the possibilities at an ice cream parlor.

  “Don’t you have ice cream in France?” she asked.

  “Of course we do, but we don’t have it so fancy as you do here—and I don’t know what these things are.” She lifted the menu and pointed. “Like what’s this ‘marshmallow fluff’?”

  The way she said fluff made it sound more like floof. Lisa laughed.

  Estelle seemed a little hurt. “I’m sorry,” Lisa said quickly. “It’s just that you make it sound so much better than it is! But it’s pronounced fluff,” she said, emphasizing the short u. Estelle tried it again and got it right. Lisa told her what it was.

  “But it must be marvelous—sort of like meringue, eh?”

  “Want to try it? They can add it on top of your hot fudge.”

  Estelle’s eyes sparkled at the idea. Lisa stepped over to the counter and asked the waitress to add marsh-mallow fluff to one of the sundaes. Then she returned and the two girls talked.

  Lisa found that talking to Estelle was fun. She had done so many exciting things in her life, and lived in so many interesting places, that Lisa was almost jealous.

  “Did I tell you about the princess who used to be in my class at boarding school?”

  “Princess? A real princess?” Estelle nodded. “What country?” Lisa asked breathlessly.

  “Oh, goodness, I’m not sure I remember. One of those small ones, you know?” Estelle told her.

  Lisa didn’t know, but she told Estelle she did. It was one thing if a person needed to know what marsh-mallow fluff was. Anybody could need to know about that. But it was another thing altogether to need to be told about entire countries, even small ones. Lisa decided to cling to her ignorance rather than exhibit it.

  Estelle went on to tell a story about how this girl had invited everybody in the class to her parents’ castle for the weekend, but it turned out that it was such a small estate that there wasn’t room in the castle for all the girls to have their own rooms. As the tale unfolded, Lisa was simply swept away. To her, it was like a movie come alive, a dream come true. She just loved listening to Estelle’s stories. What a life she’d lived—and how lucky Lisa was even to know her.

  Before she knew it, she had an empty sundae dish in front of her, and the clock on the wall told her it was time to get home.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said. “My mom will be expecting me.”

  “Me too,” Estelle told her. “My chauffeur is picking me up here in a little while. Would you like a ride home?”

  Lisa was tempted. Really tempted. But her house was only a short walk and she really couldn’t wait any longer. “Another time,” she said.

  They paid their check and left TD’s. Lisa set off for home at a quick pace. She’d had such a nice time with Estelle that, for an hour, she’d completely forgotten about Carole and Stevie and how much they had hurt her. She’d forgotten about how much she’d been looking forward to discussing her rules with them. Talking to Estelle was like being swept away in the fantasy land of a wonderful book. Everything about her was so different, and so exciting!

  Lisa’s copy of the Club’s rules was in her tote bag. She hadn’t even taken it out at TD’s because there hadn’t been a meeting.

  But there had been, she told herself. She’d called a meeting at TD’s and just because two people hadn’t showed up it didn’t mean there hadn’t been a meeting. There was nothing in the rules that said that everybody had to be there for a meeting. So, she would simply tell Stevie and Carole that the meeting had taken place without them and the rules had been voted into effect. Unanimously.

  After all, that was true, wasn’t it?

  THE NEXT MORNING, Stevie slipped into the locker area of the tack room. She was really tired. After class yesterday, she’d spent about three hours trying to teach Nickel not to shy when he saw the Hula-Hoop twirl. The only thing she accomplished was getting him to shy as soon as he saw the thing, whether it was twirling or not. A Hula-Hoop race was definitely out. Today she’d try something with the baton from her closet. She couldn’t think of any use for the broken umbrella.

  She took off her sneakers and pulled on her riding boots. A lot of the time Stevie liked to ride in jeans and low boots, but in the summer, when she was spending five or six hours a day on horseback, breeches and high boots, though hotter, were a lot more comfortable. The high boots protected her legs from the straps and flaps on the saddle.

  When her boots were on, she tried to shove her shoes and her boot hooks into her cubby, but there was something in it at the back, blocking the way. She leaned over to look into the knee-high nook. She couldn’t see anything, but she also still couldn’t fit her sho
es in. It wasn’t until she got down on her hands and knees and peered at the back of the cubby that she saw, crumpled and torn, the papers that Lisa had left for her the other day.

  She reached in and pulled them out. At the top it read:

  THE SADDLE CLUB

  Rules

  That was when Stevie remembered that Lisa’s note called for a Saddle Club meeting at TD’s. She’d gotten so busy with Nickel that she’d forgotten all about the meeting! She sat on the bench, staring at the papers. There was a dull, empty feeling in her stomach. She’d let her friends down.

  Just then, Carole came into the locker area.

  “Oh, Carole, I’m so sorry about yesterday,” Stevie began, serious for once.

  “What about yesterday?” Carole asked.

  “The Club meeting at TD’s …”

  Carole looked blank for a second, then gasped. “Oh, no!” she said. “I forgot all about it. What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Stevie said. “That’s what I’m sorry about. I wasn’t there.”

  “You weren’t? I wasn’t either. I went over to the stable with Judy to check on that newborn foal. She was afraid the filly was getting sick, but it turned out she was okay. I looked for you to see if you wanted to come along, but I couldn’t find you.”

  “Yeah, well, I was pretty busy too, planning the gymkhana, but that means we left Lisa out in the cold. Unless maybe she forgot, too.”

  “No way, considering how excited she was about those rules. Boy, I feel like a worm! Let’s see if we can find her.”

  “Yeah, let’s.”

  “Oh, Stevie!” It was Mrs. Reg, calling from her office off the tack room. “Come in here a moment, will you?”

  “Sure, just a sec,” Stevie called back. Then she turned to Carole. “Listen, you find Lisa and tell her how sorry we are. We can have a meeting at my house after drill practice this afternoon, okay? I’ve got to talk to Mrs. Reg. I’ll see you both in class.”