Carole remained standing by Max’s desk. She was staring at the paper in her hands, her face a war of emotions.
Stevie was about to suggest to Lisa that they go and see what was going on when Lisa bolted out of the room. “Lisa?” she called after the fleeing figure. She stood there, torn. Should she follow Lisa or should she go over to Carole? She decided to talk to Carole first, and then the two of them could go after Lisa. She approached her friend. “Is something wrong, Carole? You look kind of funny.”
“Oh, Stevie, I’ve done something terrible!” she exclaimed.
The stricken look on her friend’s face caught Stevie off guard. “What?”
“I’ve betrayed a friendship,” Carole replied, looking sadly at the door Lisa had disappeared through.
“What do you mean?”
Carole quickly filled Stevie in on what had been happening between her and Lisa over the last week: her suspicions, catching Lisa in the act, and how badly she had been treating her since then.
Stevie was shocked. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice things weren’t right between you two.”
“You’ve had other things on your mind,” Carole replied. “I expect Lisa has told Max all about it by now. Some judge I turned out to be, huh?” she said, hanging her head.
Stevie didn’t know how to console Carole. Lisa certainly had every right to be angry, and no one could blame her if she complained to Max about Carole’s behavior.
Carole sighed deeply. “I guess I’d better go find him and face the music,” she said glumly. “Not to mention apologizing to Lisa. I have no idea how I’m going to make this up to her!”
“How about starting with a sleepover in the loft tonight?” Lisa asked, appearing in the doorway. “I just cleared it with Max.”
SATURDAY EVENING FOUND the three girls holding their first Saddle Club meeting in weeks. Lisa hadn’t complained to Max about Carole at all. Figuring that the three of them needed some time alone to set things right between them, she had asked him if they could have their sleepover in the loft after all. Now they were sitting in a semicircle on their sleeping bags, armed only with sodas, chips, and very bruised feelings.
“I can’t believe you guys didn’t tell me what was going on,” Stevie complained.
“I did tell you,” Carole said quietly.
“Oh sure, about five minutes ago,” Stevie grumped, reaching for another potato chip from the bag at her feet.
Lisa smiled. “As usual you’re exaggerating. It was closer to five hours ago. Chips please.”
“Whatever. The point is, one of you should have at least mentioned it.”
“Actually,” Carole said, “I think the point is that none of it should have been going on in the first place.” She looked sadly at Lisa. “I still don’t know how I could have thought you would do something like that, Lisa. You’re one of the most honorable people I’ve ever met.” She hung her head.
“Carole, stop! You’ve already apologized twenty times and I’ve accepted.” Lisa took a sip of her soda before trying to put her feelings into words. “It hurt a lot that you thought I could do something like that, but what made it worse was that I couldn’t think of how to prove my innocence to you.”
Carole shook her head. “You shouldn’t have had to prove anything to me. I was supposed to be your friend.”
Watching Carole struggle to come to terms with what she had done over the last week, Lisa couldn’t help thinking that it was often easier to forgive someone else than it was to forgive yourself. She leaned across the space between them. “I’ve got news for you. You are my friend.” She held out the bag. “Chip?”
Carole took a big handful and smiled for what might have been the first time in weeks.
“Speaking of proving something,” Stevie said, leaning back on her elbows and eyeing Carole. “Why have you been so hard on Corey and me? Did we do something to make you mad?”
Carole looked surprised. “No!” She thought a moment. “Well, to tell you the truth, I did think you should have been teaching her better organizational skills, but other than that I don’t think I’ve treated you any differently than the others.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Stevie said incredulously.
Carole looked defensive. “Actually, I’m not.”
“I don’t know about Lisa, but you’ve been twice as hard on me and Corey as you have been on everybody else.” She saw the doubt on Carole’s face. “Remember the day you patted Samurai on the flank and he was dusty?”
Carole nodded.
“That same day Natalie’s horse had been so badly groomed that he had mud crusted on his belly.”
“That’s true,” Carole confirmed.
“I would be real curious to see what you wrote in your notes about the two things,” Stevie challenged her.
“I’m not sure I should be doing this, but for the sake of fairness …” Carole took out her judge’s folder and thumbed through a few pages. “Corey’s pony was filthy today,” she read from her notes. “Extremely lazy grooming habits.”
“Now read us what you wrote about Natalie that day,” Lisa urged.
Carole flipped a few more pages. “Natalie’s pony had a trace of mud on his belly. Probably an accidental oversight.” She closed the folder.
“ ‘Filthy’ with ‘lazy grooming habits,’ versus ‘accidental oversight,’ ” Stevie said. “You still think you weren’t being overly harsh on us?”
“I have to admit, in that instance I might have overstepped a little with you,” Carole acknowledged. “But I’m sure it was only that one time.”
“Carole, I’m sorry, but I really have to side with Stevie on this,” Lisa said as gently as she could. This might not have been the best time to hash all this out, but she felt she had as much of an obligation to stand up for Jasmine as Stevie did for Corey.
“You too, Lisa?” Carole asked. “Are you sure you don’t feel that way because of what was happening between us?”
Stevie sat up. “Yeah, Lisa, as far as I could tell, Carole was bending over backward to help you and Jasmine every time you asked.”
Lisa was completely surprised. “What are you talking about?”
“When I went to make that phone call in Mrs. Reg’s office, I came out and Carole was helping you with cavalletti.” She looked at her friends accusingly. “I don’t know what training secrets she shared with you, but it didn’t seem fair to the rest of us.”
Lisa and Carole exchanged looks. “What you saw, Stevie, was Carole giving me the brush-off,” Lisa explained. “I did ask for advice that day, and she told me that until the meet was over I was on my own, like everybody else.” She turned to Carole. “By the way, I think you were right.”
Carole looked grateful. “For what it’s worth, I never doubted you would figure out what to tell Jasmine, and you did. You just needed to have confidence in your own teaching abilities.”
“So all this time you weren’t helping her?” Stevie asked.
“Helping me? I thought she was helping you!” Lisa confessed. “When you guys stopped calling me, I figured you were talking to each other, about me and about … stuff.” Now that she’d said it aloud it sounded even more ridiculous than it had in her head all those weeks. “But Carole, I really do think you were being harder on our two Pony Partners than on the rest of the group.”
“Look, you two, I’m a judge. I have to be hard.”
“Hard, yes—” Stevie agreed.
“But equally hard on everybody,” Lisa finished.
Carole looked at them both. “You two are saying I’ve been harder on both of you?”
The girls nodded in unison.
“Tell you what,” she said, putting her folder on the floor in front of her. “Give me some specific instances and I’ll check them out. That way we can settle this, one way or the other. Okay?”
Again Lisa and Stevie nodded their consent. For the next fifteen minutes they rattled off incidents where they felt they had been punished for b
eing Carole’s friends. Carole checked out each of the complaints in her folder. Lisa and Stevie were surprised a few times to find out Carole had been just as strict with other competitors as she had been with them. However, when they were finished, Carole had to admit there were many more instances when she had definitely come down harder on her friends.
“It looks like I owe you both an apology,” Carole said, closing the record book. “I guess I didn’t realize how paranoid Veronica diAngelo’s comment must have made me.”
“You’re only human,” Lisa consoled her.
“That’s more than anybody can say about Veronica,” Stevie cracked.
Lisa and Carole laughed.
“You know, Max is right,” Lisa said suddenly. “Riding shouldn’t be about the ribbons and trophies, it should be about this.” She indicated Stevie and Carol. “It should be about friendship.”
“And horses,” added Stevie.
“I feel so much better now,” Carole said, smiling. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed talking to you guys.”
“Why didn’t you pick up the phone and call us?” Lisa asked. “Before the thing with your notes I mean,” she added hastily.
Carole smacked the folder on the floor in front of her. “It was this … thing!” she cried in frustration. “I felt in order to be absolutely impartial, I couldn’t tell anyone what I was thinking or how overwhelmed I was feeling.”
Stevie looked surprised. “But Carole, we were the ones under pressure to be perfect. You only had to choose who was doing it better.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to decide who, out of all the riders here, does the best job picking a hoof clean?” she moaned. “I felt terrible taking off points for mistakes that normally wouldn’t mean a thing.” She threw herself flat on her sleeping bag. “And everybody hates me!” she howled.
Stevie turned to Lisa. “Did you know she could be this melodramatic?”
Lisa considered Carole writhing on her bag. “No, I have to say this is a new side to her. She’s almost as good as you.”
“Carole, don’t be dense,” Stevie chided her. “You’re going to be a hero around here. Don’t you know that?”
Carole sat up. “What do you mean?”
“She means,” Lisa said, taking over, “our team is almost certain to take every prize at that under-twelve pony rally, thanks mostly to your being such an irritating, nitpicky perfectionist.”
“She’s right,” Stevie assured her. “They may want to burn you at the stake today, but a couple of weeks from now they’ll be carrying your ashes in a parade.”
“It’s true,” added Lisa.
“You really think so?” asked Carole.
“Absolutely,” Stevie assured her.
“It’s really too bad Max canceled our rally,” Lisa said wistfully. “Even though we were all pretty bad sportsmen, we did get a lot of other things accomplished.”
Stevie eyed Carole. “I have to admit, it would have been interesting to see who you would have picked.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Carole said, slipping into her sleeping bag. “At least now the pressure is off.” She sighed, putting her head down on her soft pillow.
“Maybe for you,” Stevie replied, thumping her own pillow with obvious annoyance. “For me it’s only getting worse by the hour!”
“The anniversary thing?” Lisa asked as she settled herself in for sleep.
Stevie moaned. “How can my brothers and I possibly show our parents how much we love them when we can’t even work together long enough to come up with a present?”
Carole rolled onto her side and propped her chin in her hand. “Don’t worry, Stevie. Present or not, your parents know you love them. You show them every day.”
“Sure,” Lisa said from the snugly warmth of her own sleeping bag. “Like they say, some of the best presents don’t come with wrapping paper.”
For the first time in many days, all the members of The Saddle Club fell asleep with smiles on their faces.
CAROLE RAN THE soft cloth gently down Starlight’s nose, taking special care to make sure the lopsided white star on his forehead was clean. Suddenly the horse began to rub his face on her chest. “Hey,” she laughed, bracing herself. “Did I tickle you?” Starlight continued using her as a scratching post for a few more seconds before backing off. Carole looked down at the front of her shirt, which now had little horsehairs stuck all over it. “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Now I have to change before the meeting.” Starlight regarded her so solemnly she couldn’t resist throwing her arms around his neck. “I don’t care what Chad Lake says,” she whispered, breathing in his warm, horsey scent. “I love the way you smell.”
“Can I interrupt, or do the two of you want to be alone?” Stevie said, standing in the aisle outside the stall.
“Do you have an appointment?” Carole asked, glancing with fake haughtiness over her shoulder.
Stevie leaned on the stall door. “No, but I do know the girl who shovels the manure around here. Will that get me a hearing?”
Carole addressed the horse. “What do you think, Starlight, should we grant her an audience?”
“Enjoy your days in power while you can, Madame Judge; they may be coming to a quick end,” Stevie warned her. “I just saw Max going into his office.”
“Oh gosh,” Carole cried, letting go of Starlight and slipping out of the stall. “I’ve got to change my shirt.” She hurried toward the locker room. “Hey, where’s Lisa?”
“Oh, I think she’s in the locker room guarding your judging file,” Stevie said casually, tagging along.
Carole threw her a dirty look. “That is so funny I forgot to laugh. Have you ever considered going professional?”
Stevie looked hurt. “What makes you think I’m not?”
“Your jokes,” Carole replied emphatically.
As it turned out, Lisa was in the locker room, along with half a dozen other people getting ready for class. Everyone seemed to be speculating about what Max planned to tell them. Carole put on a clean shirt and kept quiet. She already knew what she was going to say when she got to the meeting. She hadn’t told Stevie or Lisa yet because she knew they would try to talk her out of it, and she couldn’t let them do that.
Lisa came over to her. “All set?”
Carole grabbed her judging folder. “Lead on.”
As the three of them made their way to Max’s office, Carole had a sudden inspiration. “Remember when I asked you guys to go on a trail ride with me, and you said you couldn’t?”
Stevie and Lisa nodded.
“Well, if Max is going to cancel the rally, why don’t we go on one today?”
“That’s a great idea,” said Lisa.
“We might as well, since we’re already here,” Stevie conceded happily.
The three of them trooped in to Max’s office. Since they were among the last to arrive, they had to stand at the back.
Max started the meeting. “First off I should tell you that I got a call from May’s parents this morning. It turns out she broke her wrist.” Everyone grew solemn at this bit of news. “It was a greenstick fracture,” he continued, “which means she’ll be out of her cast in a few weeks.”
Carole, who had grown particularly fond of the little girl, was saddened to hear the news. She knew from the time she had spent with Judy Barker, the Pine Hollow vet, that a greenstick fracture was like a crack in a bone instead of an outright break. Judy had shown her what one looked like by stripping a small living branch off a tree and bending it practically in two. Because it was so fresh, the little twig had split instead of snapping apart.
Max looked serious. “I hope you all took some time last night to think over what I said.”
Several heads around the room bobbed, acknowledging that they had done so.
“Well, so have I. I no longer think that we should postpone our rally.”
There were murmurs of surprise and delight throughout the room.
Max
held up his hands for silence. “All things considered, I feel it might be in everyone’s best interest to cancel the rally altogether.”
Max was peppered with protests from practically every corner.
Stevie stepped forward. “Maybe he’s right,” she said loudly. Everyone focused on her. “Look. We have to admit we kind of blew it. Our attitude toward each other has become more about winning than about learning and teaching. Especially mine,” she confessed. “I’m not saying we all haven’t gotten a lot of good things out of this, it’s just that good sportsmanship wasn’t one of them.” The younger kids looked glum and the older ones guilty. “I think maybe we should salvage what we can from the experience and move on.”
Jessica looked like she was going to cry. “But we worked so hard.”
“We weren’t all bad,” Leslie protested.
Natalie nodded, her little face already getting blotchy from unshed tears. “Couldn’t we just try harder?” she asked in a quavering voice.
Carole decided it was time for her to say something. “Excuse me.”
“Yes, Carole? Do you have something to add?” Max asked.
Carole cleared her throat. “Yes, I guess I do.” She looked at the small sea of sad faces. This was going to be hard, but she knew she had to say it. “I have a confession to make. The problems with the rally weren’t being made by only you guys. I was making them, too. I tried my best to be fair and impartial, and I failed.” She found she didn’t want to look anyone in the face.
“How is that?” Max prodded gently.
Carole took a deep breath. “I know for a fact that I was unjustly hard on some people and unreasonably easy on others. The problem is that it doesn’t seem fair of me to try to choose a winner when all around me I keep seeing people trying their best. Because that’s what I think is really important: trying your best.” She met Max’s eyes. “If that makes me a bad judge, then I understand if you want to replace me.”
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