This time Stevie’s laugh came a little less easily as she thought about Callie’s brother. Scott Forester was a friendly, outgoing, eminently likable guy, a star of his hometown debate team and a surefire candidate to follow in his father’s political footsteps. Unlike the more withdrawn Callie, he seemed able to get along effortlessly with almost everyone he met—but not with Stevie. Not anymore. Scott still blamed Stevie for the accident and his sister’s condition, even though Callie and her parents had long since forgiven her and the police had cleared her of any blame. Scott couldn’t quite seem to forgive and forget; he didn’t talk to Stevie in the easy way he once had. He couldn’t even meet her eye when they passed in the aisle at the stables.
Stevie tore her thoughts away from Callie’s brother and turned them back to Callie. “What class do you have now?”
Callie pulled her schedule out of her pocket and squinted at it. “Latin,” she reported. “Ugh. That was my worst class back home. I didn’t want to take it this year, but my dad insisted.” She grimaced. “He said it was because ‘Foresters aren’t quitters,’ but I think he’s really just trying to torture me—and keep me out of trouble and the media spotlight.”
Stevie grinned. Congressman Forester was sensitive about publicity issues, but Stevie could tell Callie was just kidding around. “Oh, well,” she said. “I’ve been taking Latin for two years and all I remember is that equus means ‘horse.’ Still, who said school was supposed to be fun? At least we have our picnic to look forward to this weekend.”
She sighed with anticipation as she thought about that, wishing it were Saturday already. Stevie, Carole, and Lisa had come up with the idea for the picnic the afternoon before as they were cleaning tack after their traditional last-day-of-summer-before-school-opens trail ride. Stevie had been bemoaning the start of yet another school year, claiming that she wasn’t sure she would be able to survive all those hours of dull lectures and duller homework. Carole had been quick to agree, obviously thinking that every minute spent at school was a minute spent away from the stable. Even Lisa, who was an excellent student and actually liked school most of the time, had admitted that she wasn’t quite prepared for the summer to end, especially since she had just returned to Willow Creek from a two-month stay with her father in California.
“It’s always kind of sad when summer ends,” Carole had said, sounding wistful as she scrubbed slowly at her horse’s bridle. “Things always get so busy at the beginning of the school year, don’t they? There never seems to be enough time for the important stuff.”
Stevie had opened her mouth to argue. They had all stayed plenty busy that summer, school or no school. Carole had spent practically every waking hour at Pine Hollow, working hard at her job as morning stable manager, while Stevie had spent far too many hours counting change and handing out detergent at her summer job at a local laundry. But Stevie shrugged and admitted, “I know what you mean. Time seems different in the summer. The days are longer, there’s more time for hanging out—”
“Going on trail rides,” Lisa put in.
Carole sighed. “Swimming and talking and spending time with friends.”
The idea for the picnic had seemed to come to all of them at once, like many of their best ideas. After that, all that was left was to plan it—and decide what to call it. Stevie was torn between calling it a last blast of summer or an I-survived-my-first-week-of-school party. Either way, the girls had quickly decided to make a real celebration of it by inviting a few close friends: Phil Marsten, Stevie’s longtime boyfriend, who lived in the next county; Phil’s best friend, A. J. McDonnell; A.J.’s girlfriend, Julianna; Stevie’s twin brother, Alex, who also happened to be Lisa’s boyfriend; and Callie, of course.
“You’re still coming, aren’t you?” Stevie asked Callie now. “Latin homework or no Latin homework?”
Callie’s expression brightened. “Definitely,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss it.” She shot Stevie an unreadable glance. “Scott still says he can’t make it. But I’ll see what I can do to change his mind.”
Stevie nodded, keeping her expression as neutral as she could. When Stevie had called the night before to invite Callie, she had also made a point of inviting Callie’s brother. But Scott had immediately declined, and Stevie was sure it was because of her.
“Anyway,” Callie went on, seeming to sense Stevie’s discomfort, “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of fun without him. Now that my leg is getting strong enough, I’m looking forward to testing it on a nice long trail ride.”
“Good.” Stevie glanced at her watch again. “Oops. I’d better run. My chem class is upstairs, and I’d hate to be late on my first day.”
“See you.” Callie smiled, then straightened her crutches and started down the hallway with her awkward, uneven stride.
Stevie watched her for a moment, then turned away, fighting back twinges of guilt. It’s amazing she’s made this much progress this fast, she reminded herself, trying to look on the bright side. Her doctors keep saying they’ve never seen anything quite like it. She smiled. Then again, they probably never met anyone quite like Callie before.
As she hurried toward the broad marble staircase at the center of the hall, her thoughts returned to Scott. Part of her was relieved that he wouldn’t be coming along on Saturday. It would make things a lot more comfortable, meaning that she would be free to enjoy her friends’ company without worrying about what Scott was thinking. But another part of her was disappointed. As long as Scott continued to hate her, Stevie wasn’t sure she would ever be able to return to her old, happy-go-lucky, preaccident self. And the longer he ignored her, the less likely it seemed that things could ever go back to normal between them. Stevie was smart and experienced enough to know that sometimes things really didn’t work out for the best, that some people just couldn’t get along no matter how hard they tried. But that wouldn’t be true of her and Scott, could it? It didn’t seem possible. They were both friendly, intelligent, rational people—in most ways, anyway. If he would just give her a chance, spend some time with her, try to get over his anger instead of ignoring her…
Still, if he doesn’t want to come on Saturday, he doesn’t have to, Stevie told herself as she walked into her chemistry classroom. And just because he actually nodded to me when I saw him at Pine Hollow yesterday doesn’t mean he’s suddenly ready to be my best friend. What is it that Mom always tells me? Two steps forward, one step back.
She did her best to push those thoughts out of her mind. She was going to need to focus her attention on this class if she had any hope of doing well. As she headed for an empty desk near the door, she glanced over the students already seated—and spotted a very familiar face in the front row. It was Scott.
Stevie gulped, suddenly remembering what Callie had said about her brother’s taking chemistry this year. As she stared, Scott looked up and saw her. His eyes met hers for the briefest of moments, registering surprise. Then his expression went blank, and he coolly turned away.
Stevie rolled her eyes and dropped her books on the scarred wooden desk with a thump. Great, she thought. This is just what I need.
At that very moment Carole Hanson was pinching herself on the arm, trying desperately to stay awake. She was sitting in the last row of her algebra class, bored out of her mind.
When am I ever going to need to know even the slightest little thing about this stuff, anyway? she thought, feeling disgruntled. I didn’t even want to take Algebra I freshman year. Now here I am, stuck learning even more boring useless, totally incomprehensible garbage in Algebra II.
She glanced at the portly, balding man standing at the front of the room. Mr. Whiteside seemed to be taking whatever it was he was currently babbling about—integers or something—really seriously. For that matter, so did the other students. Most of them were scribbling notes as if their lives depended on it. But Carole couldn’t quite manage to share their feeling of urgency.
Why do all my teachers feel the need to plunge right into the t
hick of things? Carole wondered idly. Why can’t they just give us a few days—or weeks—to recover from summer vacation and get used to being trapped here again?
But Carole knew that even if the teachers gave her six months, she would still have trouble adjusting to being stuck in class. For most of her life she had been a dutiful student. She had done her homework, kept up with her assignments, and not thought much about school one way or the other. But last year that had started to change. She had begun to wonder exactly why she had to spend all these hours studying subjects she didn’t care about and would never need to know. She had known for most of her life that she would work with horses someday. Now “someday” was getting close enough to taste, and she was starting to resent anything—math class, history class, English class—that stood in the way of learning everything she could about horses. Over the summer it had been easy enough to ignore such thoughts, since her job at Pine Hollow had kept her busy and happy. But now … It was only the first day of school, and Carole was already as restless as a horse that had been cooped up in a straight stall too long.
The only thing that kept her from complete despair was the thought that high school was the last step to college and a major in equine studies. The year before, thinking about all the useful things she would learn after high school had made it possible for her to sit through her classes day after day, listening to teachers spout off about all kinds of useless stuff. She just hoped those thoughts would be enough to carry her through this year … and next …
Carole felt her head falling forward heavily, and she quickly blinked and sat upright. She reminded herself that there was another reason she couldn’t afford to ignore her teachers. Max Regnery, the owner of Pine Hollow, had a strict rule about grades. Any student who rode at his stable had to keep a C average or higher in all classes or he cut off the student’s riding privileges. He was as serious about that particular rule now that Carole was a high-school junior as he had been back when she was in junior high.
Thinking of Max’s rule made Carole think of Max himself. The day before, as she was cooling down Starlight after the end-of-summer trail ride with her friends, Max had called her aside, saying he wanted to talk to her. Carole had assumed that he merely wanted to discuss the changes in her duties around Pine Hollow now that school was starting. He had wanted to talk about that, but first he’d had some other news to share with her. Some surprising, thrilling, worrisome, exciting, terrifying, and complicated news.
I still can’t believe it, she thought, automatically crossing her second and third fingers for luck as she had done since she was a little girl riding toward a tough fence. She had crossed them that way so as not to jeopardize her grip on the reins, and it had become a habit. I can’t believe I didn’t have a clue about this before. And I can’t believe he actually expects me to keep it a secret. How can I not tell my best friends something so wonderful?
Still, she knew there were at least a couple of reasons why Max didn’t want anyone else to know about this yet. Good, practical reasons. Besides, he was her boss, and he had given her a direct order. Carole had spent long enough as the daughter of a Marine colonel to know what that meant. She had to keep her mouth shut, like it or not. Even if it did make her feel as if she was being a disloyal friend. Even if it had been next to impossible to hide her thoughts from Lisa and Stevie as they all chatted in the tack room a few minutes later. Even if every fiber in her being had wanted to break down and shout with excitement and then spill the beans …
She shook her head again briskly, as if by doing so she could shake those thoughts from her mind. Max didn’t want her to tell anyone yet. That was all there was to it. Daydreaming about how her friends would react to the news—which they would hear soon enough anyhow if all went well—was almost as much of a waste of time as learning algebra.
Her deep brown eyes wandered toward the wide windows at one side of the room as, with a concerted effort, she turned her thoughts to more neutral topics. It was a beautiful late-summer day, and the weather promised to hold through evening at least. Carole was happy about that. She planned to head over to Pine Hollow right after school to give Starlight a good workout over some jumps in the outdoor schooling ring. Starlight had been fairly young when Carole’s father had bought him for her for Christmas a few years earlier, and Carole had been training him ever since, honing his technique and increasing his skills. The bay gelding was a talented jumper, and she had enjoyed molding him into the calm, confident, accomplished horse he was today. Together they had entered a number of shows and won quite a few ribbons.
Speaking of shows, Carole thought, it would be so cool if Starlight and I could enter the Colesford Horse Show. Now that would be a real test of his ability. Mine too.
She sighed and doodled absently in the margins of her math book as she thought about the article she’d read a few days earlier in the latest issue of her favorite horse magazine. The nearby town of Colesford had never hosted a major horse show before, but it was debuting with style. The article had raved for several pages about all the fabulous horses and famous riders already signed up to compete.
For a second, Carole allowed herself to sink into a daydream. … Starlight and I will be the underdogs, of course. When we ride into the ring for the stadium jumping event, hardly anyone will even applaud. But the second Starlight clears the first jump, the spectators will start to take notice. Then, by halfway through our clean round, they’ll realize that we are moving faster than any other competitor so far. Then …
She forced herself to snap out of it. Carole loved her horse, but she was realistic about him, too. When she was younger, she had been quite sure that her beautiful bay gelding could jump the moon if she asked him to. But now, with a little more experience under her belt, Carole knew that while Starlight was good, he wasn’t in the same league as the horses that would be jumping at Colesford. Not now, and probably not ever. It would be a waste of time and effort to enter the prestigious show—not to mention a tremendous waste of money. There was no way Carole could afford the entry fees, which according to the article were exorbitant even by horse show standards. Most of what she earned working part-time at Pine Hollow went toward Starlight’s care. And she didn’t want to ask her father for money, not for this show. It wasn’t that Colonel Hanson couldn’t or wouldn’t pay if she asked. And it wasn’t that Carole didn’t think there were valuable lessons to be learned at every show. But with so little chance of winning, she had to admit—reluctantly—that it just didn’t seem worth the money.
Finding these thoughts a bit depressing, Carole once again forced herself to change tracks and think of something else. Something more pleasant. Like the latter part of her discussion with Max the afternoon before—the part when they had talked about her new duties at Pine Hollow.
“I know you’ve had to deal with a lot of the paperwork and grunt work this summer, Carole,” Max had said rather apologetically.
“It’s okay,” she had assured him quickly. “It’s all part of running a stable, right? That means it’s automatically interesting.”
Max had cocked a skeptical eyebrow.
Carole had grinned weakly. “Well, okay,” she’d amended. “Maybe ‘interesting’ isn’t the right way to describe it. How about ‘an unfortunate part of the job’?”
“Okay, I’ll buy that.” Max had chuckled. “In any case, now that Denise has started as full-time stable manager and you’re going to be back at school, I think it’s time to shift things around a bit.”
“What do you mean?” Carole had been a little wary. The last time Max had talked about shifting things around, a couple of years before, he had ended up selling half a dozen Pine Hollow school horses to a stable in the next state, including a few of Carole’s old favorites like Coconut and Tecumseh. That had been a shift, all right. Carole wasn’t sure she was ready for another big change like that.
But Max was smiling. “I mean, part of the reason you’re working here is to learn everything about
running a stable, right?” He waited for her to nod, then continued. “Well, there’s more to it than paperwork, although sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. I think it’s time to give you a taste of some of the more interesting aspects of stable work before you decide to chuck it all and become an accountant or a stockbroker or something.”
Carole had grinned, knowing that he was kidding.
Now, as she thought back on the conversation, the possibilities of what those new tasks might include made Carole shiver with anticipation. But her job wasn’t the only thing she was looking forward to. She also couldn’t wait until Saturday and the big barbecue blowout by the banks of Willow Creek. It would be the perfect way to celebrate the end of the first week of school. Besides, she was looking forward to hanging out with her friends. Lisa had spent most of the summer in California, and Carole herself had put in an awful lot of hours at the stable. It would be nice to just kick back, relax, enjoy each other and the day and the horses.… Plus she would get to see A.J. for the first time in a while, and his girlfriend, too.… Callie would be able to show off the progress she’d been making in her physical therapy.…
Carole felt herself drifting off again. Mr. Whiteside’s voice was just a little too deep and soothing—it was putting her straight to sleep.
She forced herself to sit up straighter. That worked for a few seconds. But when she tried to focus on what the teacher was saying, she felt herself slumping again, against her will, deeper into her seat.
She pinched herself on the arm again—harder this time. Too hard.
“Ouch!” she cried involuntarily.
Mr. Whiteside paused and peered at her over the tops of his rimless glasses, looking surprised. “Ms.—er—Hanson?” he said, after glancing at his seating chart. “Did you have something to add?”
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