“Yeah! Like carrot, sugar, and peppermint scents?” I asked.
“Exactly. Who doesn’t love the smell of hot carrots in the air?”
I closed the book and checked my watch. “I’ve got to get going. See you around the stable?”
“See you later.”
We smiled at each other and I got up and headed for the door.
“Don’t try to patent my genius candle idea without me!” Eric called after me.
15
STRESS BUSTER FOR CHARM
INSIDE THE STABLE, I CAME AROUND THE corner and saw Jasmine leaning her back against Charm’s stall door. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes followed me as I walked up the aisle. She should have been named Phoenix. She kept disappearing and then popping back up again.
“Why are you standing near my horse?” I asked, looking inside to be sure he was okay.
“Oooh, so protective,” Jasmine said. “Relax. I didn’t even look at your nag. I came to talk to you.”
I stepped closer to her. “I told you never to call him that.”
Jasmine lowered her eyes for a second and then raised her chin. “Whatever. I only came to find out why you bother.”
“Bother with what?” I asked impatiently. I so didn’t have time for her games today.
“Coming to the clinic. You keep messing up. The teachers are probably laughing about you behind your back. You’re the worst rider here. The lunging? I was embarrassed for you.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t have time for this,” I said. “We have class. And get used to it—I’m here whether you like it or not.”
“Fine,” Jasmine said. She pulled out a clear, shiny gloss and smoothed it over her lips. “Till they kick you out.”
I glared at her and saw Callie standing just behind Jasmine. I wondered how long she’d been there. Her mouth was open, as if she wanted to say something. Had she come to defend me against Jasmine? Callie’s eyes met mine and I knew it—she wanted to tell Jas to go fall in a muck pile. But she wouldn’t because of the Eric sitch.
Finally, Jasmine, and then Callie, walked away. I reached for the sliding bolt on Charm’s stall door and stepped into the stall. After a quick grooming, Charm and I headed for the indoor arena. My schedule had said to bring Charm untacked. I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t be lunging again.
When everyone in my group arrived, Mr. Bright stepped into the center of the arena. “Hi, everyone,” he said. “You ready to get started?”
We nodded.
“Today, we’re going to work on stretching our horses. We’ll also talk about techniques to calm an anxious horse. Go ahead and spread out around the arena and keep your horses facing me.”
We did as he asked. Charm and I ended up between Violet and Cole.
Charm kept an eye on Phoenix—his new rival—and I took a breath. This had to go well—no matter what.
The arena door opened and Eric led a dark bay mare inside. It was Hazel—one of Mr. Conner’s lesson horses. Eric handed the mare’s lead line to Mr. Bright and gave me a quick smile on his way out.
“This is Hazel,” Mr. Bright said. “She’s my assistant for this session. You’ll watch me demonstrate with Hazel before you try it with your horse. If you need help, I’ll be right over. Let’s get started.”
We all kept our eyes on Mr. Bright and Hazel.
“Does anyone have a horse with a previous or current leg injury?” Mr. Bright asked.
We shook our heads. “Good,” he said. “Now watch as I stretch Hazel’s foreleg.”
Mr. Bright ran his hand down Hazel’s left front leg and asked her to lift it. He stood in front of her and took his time bringing her leg forward. We watched as he stretched the other legs and told us to try. After half an hour of leg stretching, Mr. Bright taught us signs of a stressed horse. Charm slept through most of the discussion—like he needed stress relief.
“That’s it for today’s exercises,” Mr. Bright said at the end of the class. “Before you go, I’m going to ask each of you a question from last night’s reading. After you’ve answered correctly, you may leave. If you miss your question, you have to stay while I ask the rest of the students theirs. Then, I’ll ask you another.”
“Jasmine,” Mr. Bright said. “What’s the purpose of blindfolding a horse?”
Jasmine froze. “Umm, you blindfold to…help the horse go to sleep?”
Mr. Bright gave her a sympathetic smile. “No. Stay there. Let me ask that question to Aaron.”
“Horses feel safe blindfolded because they can’t see whatever they thought was dangerous,” Aaron said. “So, they have to follow whoever is leading them.”
“Great, Aaron. See you next class,” Mr. Bright said.
Aaron nodded and led his horse out of the arena.
“Sasha, if Charm got nervous before a show, how would you calm him?” Mr. Bright asked.
I didn’t need the handbook to teach me that. “I’d lead him in small circles, talk to him and take him away from the busyness of the event.”
“Good ideas,” he said. “You may go.”
I patted Charm’s neck and led him out of the arena. I had a feeling Jasmine would be there for a while.
16
THE BOY-STEALERS DESERVE EACH OTHER
BY THE TIME I’D GOTTEN CHARM BACK TO HIS stall, I was in full-out daydream mode. I couldn’t stop obsessing about the e-mail. It had been three days. Three. Days. Jacob totally had to have read it by now. What, he couldn’t e-mail back to say anything? This was torture! Had I gone too far by telling him I liked him? It had felt like the right thing to do at the time, but maybe it just totally freaked him out. Maybe I should have just stopped at the apology. Or maybe I—
Charm snorted and jerked me out of my fog. “What?” I asked him. Then I saw it. “Oh, Charm! I’m sorry!”
I’d accidentally put grain in his water bucket. I threw everything out and started over. Charm rubbed his head up and down on my arm like he was trying to remove his halter.
“Poor boy,” I said. “I’m the worst.” His halter was inside out. I fixed it and looked at him. “Do you want to go outside? I’ll get you a blanket and you can hang out in the pasture for a while.”
Charm nodded.
I grabbed his blue quilted blanket from the tack room and buckled him into it, making sure it was snug before I led him outside.
“You can stay out while I clean your tack,” I said. “Then I’ll bring you in.”
Charm’s breath was visible in the cold air as he followed me to the pasture. I saw another horse grazing in the side field. Charm saw the horse, too. His pace quickened and he let out a loud neigh.
The horse’s head jerked up and turned in our direction. Now I could see it was Black Jack. Charm practically pulled me to the gate, his breath steaming out of his nostrils.
“Easy,” I said, giving his lead line a little tug. Charm shifted from hoof to hoof as I unlatched the gate.
“I guess this has been tough on you,” I said, nodding toward Black Jack, Charm’s best buddy.
My frozen fingers fumbled as I tried to unclip the lead line from his halter. “Go have fun.” I snapped the clip off Charm’s halter and he bolted forward. Black Jack, in a red blanket, tore off at a fast canter from the far end of the pasture.
I closed the gate and climbed the fence to watch them. Across the pasture, Callie stood on the lowest board of the fence. Our eyes met before we both turned back quickly to watch the horses. Their hooves pounded the ground as they stretched into gallops. My breath caught. For a second, I thought they’d collide. But they slid to a halt inches before banging heads. They touched noses and their visible breaths mingled and floated into the sky.
I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Having fun together. I looked at Callie again. Things were a mess.
Charm playfully nipped Black Jack’s neck and Jack shot off at a canter to the opposite end of the field. Charm took off after him and the horses seemed to play tag. Their red and
blue blankets were vibrant against the dry winter grass. When Charm reached Jack, the dark horse turned around and chased Charm. They thundered down the pasture as they galloped up and down the fence line. Then, as quickly as they’d started their game, they stopped and started to graze.
I took a deep, calming breath and smoothed on my stress-fighting eucalyptus gloss. It was time to say something to Callie. She needed to understand about Eric. I hopped down from the fence and walked toward her.
Callie, I practiced in my head. Please listen to me and really believe that Eric and I are just friends . I still like Jacob.
I was yards away when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket.
“Hey!” she said. “What’re you doing?”
I stopped. She wasn’t even paying attention to me. It was all about the Mystery Caller.
“The clinic is going really well,” she said.
She looked over and saw me. “Hold on,” she said into the phone and turned to me. “Problem?” she asked, tucking a lock of black hair away from her face.
I could have screamed. Our horses were smarter and more mature than we were!
“Never mind,” I said. I turned and headed back to the stable. Callie knew where to find me if she ever wanted to talk. But that didn’t seem likely.
Inside the toasty tack room, I filled a small bucket with warm water and grabbed a tin of saddle soap. I folded a saddle pad on an overturned bucket and sat down by Charm’s saddle. I took off the stirrup leathers and mixed my sponge into the water and soap. I started scrubbing as hard as I could. The yellow soap bubbled on the leather and I splattered soapy water onto the floor. I brushed hair out of my eyes and cleaned the seat with both hands.
“Are you trying to ruin your saddle?”
I looked up at Julia and Alison, standing in the doorway. They closed the door and stared at me.
“Did you come to clean tack, too?” I asked.
“Hardly,” Julia said. “We saw you.”
I looked up at her. “Okay…”
“With Callie,” Alison finished. “Stop trying to make her your friend again. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Stay out of it,” I said. “Callie and I will become friends again sooner or later, so you need to get over it.”
Julia laughed. “Whatever. And you can have your new BFF Heather. You two boy-stealers deserve each other.”
Callie totally had to stop telling people that I “stole” Eric!
“Yeah,” Alison said. “And you can tell your new best friend that we’re not talking to her till she dumps Ben and apologizes to Julia. Maybe we’ll never talk to her.”
They opened the door, exited, and then slammed it behind them.
Callie used to hate Julia and Alison and now she was hanging out with them more than she hung out with me. I couldn’t believe her! Plus, no matter what Callie thought I did, she didn’t have to blab our private business to people who already hated me. She was taking this too far. Part of me—gag—felt sorry for Julia. Her BFF had stolen her BF. I didn’t know how that felt, but I could imagine it was completely awful.
Once I finished scrubbing Charm’s tack, I put it away and went out to the pasture to get him. Black Jack was already gone. Charm nudged me with his muzzle and practically pranced back to the stable.
“Feeling good, huh?” I asked him. “You needed to hang out with Jack. Just like I still want to be friends with Callie.”
He stood still while I took off his blanket. As soon as I was done, he ambled to the quietest corner of his stall and started to fall asleep.
“Sasha?” Mike came up behind me. “Mr. Conner wants to see you in his office.”
“Just me?” I asked, wondering what I’d done wrong. Had he heard how awful I was during the lunging exercise?
“No, you and the other seventh-grade advanced team.”
“Oh. Okay, thanks.”
I left Charm and went to Mr. Conner’s office. Julia, Alison, and Callie—aka the Trio II—were already waiting inside. I grabbed a seat in the front and Heather came inside and sat by me.
Mr. Conner walked in and shut the door. “We need to have a serious talk,” he said.
Uh-oh.
“I take that back. I’ll talk, you’ll listen,” he said. He stood with his arms crossed in front of him, looking down at us. It suddenly occurred to me that a back row seat would have been a better idea.
“Over the past few days, I’ve noticed several things. Distraction, fighting, ignoring, glaring. Am I right?”
No one moved.
Mr. Conner unfolded his arms to gesture. “Look at yourselves. You’re supposed to be a team. This is not how my advanced team members act. The behavior all of you have displayed during the clinic has been below Canterwood’s—and my—standards. It will not continue. Understood?”
We nodded.
“You will start acting like a team or this will be the last invite to a clinic that you’ll receive. Scouts and trainers value teamwork. If you don’t start acting like a team, others will take notice…if they haven’t already.” He paused. I kept my eyes down, and out of the corners of my eyes, I saw that Heather’s head was bent, too. “You may leave.”
We stood and left the office silently. Callie, Julia, and Alison veered down the main aisle and Heather and I ended up going for the side door. We almost smacked into Jasmine. She’d probably been lurking to try to hear what Mr. Conner had said to us.
“Watch it!” Jasmine snipped. She looked at us and smiled. “You two! Together again. That’s just sad, Heather. Did you lose all of your real friends?”
“Aw, you’re just upset that we can totally take you in the arena,” Heather said. “Is the clinic just too much for you, Jas?”
Jasmine laughed and adjusted her leather gloves. “You wish. I’m just sorry that Sasha’s the best you can do for a friend. But don’t worry. You’ll have better options soon.”
Jasmine stepped around us and walked away.
“What did that mean?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Heather said. “And I really don’t care.”
We zipped up our coats and stepped outside, ambling toward the courtyard. “We’re getting distracted from the real issue, aren’t we?” I asked.
Heather suddenly slowed. “We can’t get yelled at like that again. Mr. Conner will kick us out next time.”
“It’s been hard to focus,” I admitted. “The thing with Callie is messing with me.”
I expected Heather to laugh or make a snarky comment, but instead she looked at me and nodded.
“I get that, but you have to remember why we’re here. To ride. This is our big chance in front of the scouts. Look, I’m not your biggest fan…” I rolled my eyes. “But you’re not a bad rider.”
I stopped. “Say that again? I thought I heard you say I’m not a bad rider.”
Heather snorted. “I’ll deny I ever said that. But it’s kind of true. You’re not the best rider here, but you work harder than a lot of people. Like Julia and Alison.”
“But they’re so good that they don’t have to work as hard,” I said.
Heather shook her head. “No way. When you get that ‘good,’ you have to work harder to stay there. They don’t realize that.”
I almost forgot I was talking to Heather. This felt like a conversation I could have with Callie.
“So…how do we get our focus back?” I asked.
“I don’t care how you fix your mess, but after this thing with the Belles on Wednesday night, I’m out. Done. Completely focusing on riding till after the demo.”
“What about Ben?”
“I’m breaking up with him.”
“After all of the fighting with Julia and Alison, you’re dumping him?!”
We reached the stone benches in the courtyard and Heather perched at the edge of a bench.
I sat across from her. I’d never seen her like this—she looked like she wanted to cry.
“Ben was a stupid decision,” Heathe
r said. “Julia’s one of my best friends. I knew she’d hate me and I did it anyway.”
“Why?” I asked cautiously. “You can have any guy in our grade. Why go after Julia’s boyfriend?”
I braced myself—expecting her to snap and morph back into normal Heather.
“Whatever, Sasha. Don’t think I don’t know what Canterwood boys think of me. They think I’m snobby and mean. Guys don’t like me the way Jacob liked you.”
“That’s not true,” I argued.
“Yes,” Heather said. “It is.”
I tried not to shake my head in disbelief. I never knew Heather had boy problems. She was pretty, smart, and a good rider. But I could see it in her face. She was afraid guys would reject her if they got to know the real Heather—not the snarky, tough-girl front she showed most people.
“Then you should let them get to know you. You can be cool when you want to be. Not,” I added, “that I ever said that.”
Heather sniffed and let out a breath. “Thanks. I might actually consider your lame idea. But don’t ever pep talk me again.”
“Deal.” I laughed.
17
RACE YOU!
MR. CONNER’S CLINIC, DAY 7
DAYS UNTIL BELLES MEETING: 4
IT WAS LATE ON SUNDAY MORNING AND I HAD the day off from classes. I had just gotten off the phone with my parents and had worked hard to sound cheerful and not at all stressed. Mom had wanted to talk more about the clinic, but when I’d told her I had to go work Charm, she’d let me go.
Charm did need a workout, but I didn’t want to practice. What had happened to riding for fun? I missed trail riding and exploring the woods around the campus.
I pulled on my riding boots. You and Charm both need the practice, so stop whining, I told myself.
I checked my e-mail one last time. Zero unread messages. Argh!!!! I was so sick of seeing that message! Maybe my e-mail to Jacob had gotten lost. But if I re-sent it and he got it twice, I’d look desperate. I shut down the computer and looked at my phone. I didn’t have to ride for practice. If I wanted to trail ride, why not?
The Canterwood Crest Stable of Books Page 39