Beach Ride

  MEET

  THE

  SADDLE CLUB

  Horse lover CAROLE …

  Practical joker STEVIE …

  Straight-A LISA …

  #1: HORSE CRAZY

  #2: HORSE SHY

  #3: HORSE SENSE

  #4: HORSE POWER

  #5: TRAIL MATES

  #6: DUDE RANCH

  #7: HORSE PLAY

  #8: HORSE SHOW

  #9: HOOF BEAT

  #10: RIDING CAMP

  #11: HORSE WISE

  #12: RODEO RIDER

  #13: STARLIGHT CHRISTMAS

  #14: SEAHORSE

  #15: TEAM PLAY

  #16: HORSE GAMES

  #17: HORSENAPPED

  #18: PACK TRIP

  #19: STAR RIDER

  #20: SNOW RIDE

  #21: RACEHORSE

  #22: FOX HUNT

  #23: HORSE TROUBLE

  #24: GHOST RIDER

  #25: SHOW HORSE

  RIPTIDE!

  In an instant, Carole was completely submerged in the surf. This time, instead of propelling her upward and toward the shore, it pulled her down, tugging fiercely at her feet, dragging her down to the sandy bottom.

  Carole had never felt a force like this. There was no fighting it. It was mightier than a team of horses, stronger than anything she’d ever known. Her hair swarmed around her, tugged every which way by the water. Her body scraped the bottom, and where the sand had once seemed silky, it now abraded her skin. And her lungs screamed for air….

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  THE CHESSMEN OF DOOM by John Bellairs

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  DEAR CELESTE, MY LIFE IS A MESS by Francess Lantz

  GOING HOME by Nicholasa Mohr

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  KIDD STUFF: PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS TO KNOW by Alice Siegel and Margo McLoone Basta

  MOM IS DATING WEIRD WAYNE by Mary Jane Auch

  SEAL CHILD by Sylvia Peck

  THE WILD MUSTANG by Joanna Campbell

  RL 5, 009–012

  BEACH RIDE

  A Bantam Skylark Book / February 1993

  Skylark Books is a registered trademark of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere.

  “The Saddle Club” is a trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller. The Saddle Club design/logo, which consists of an inverted U-shaped design, a riding crop, and a riding hat is a trademark of Bantam Books.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1993 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller.

  Cover art copyright © 1993 by Garin Baker.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-82507-0

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  For Emmons B. Hiller

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Bantam Skylark Books You Will Enjoy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  “GIRLS, I WANT to introduce you to a new rider,” Max Regnery said. “This is Alice Jackson. Alice, I’d like you to meet Lisa Atwood, Stevie Lake, and Carole Hanson.”

  The three members of The Saddle Club had been trying to untangle some tack. It took them a few seconds to disengage themselves from the mass of leathers, but the three girls smiled a welcome to the newcomer. She nodded shyly in return. Alice was a girl about their own age. She was tall and slender. She had long dark hair that she wore in a neat braid. She carried a riding hat under one arm and her riding clothes had a nice used look. With one glance, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole figured out that Alice already knew a lot about riding. That made her their kind of rider.

  “Class starts in fifteen minutes,” Max said, looking at his watch in his not-too-subtle manner. He hated it when his students were late to class. “Can one of you help Alice tack up Comanche for the flat class?”

  “I’ll do it,” Lisa volunteered. “I’m riding Barq today, and he’s already got his saddle on.” She glanced at her friends and felt a twinge of guilt about leaving them with the tangle of bridles.

  “Go ahead,” Stevie assured her. “Four hands in this mess are enough. We’ll see you in class.”

  Carole nodded to show her agreement. Then, as if to prove the point, she pulled gently on one particularly intractable piece of leather and saw, to her delight, that the entire tangle disappeared.

  “Ta-da!” she announced.

  While Lisa was introducing Alice to Comanche in a nearby stall, Max dropped his voice to speak confidentially to Stevie and Carole.

  “Listen, keep an eye on Alice, will you? She may need some friends.”

  “Sure Max, no problem,” Stevie said. “We always like to help newcomers anyway.”

  “Great,” Max said. “Now you can feel like you’ve earned your vacation. See you in class,” he said, and then disappeared around a corner.

  Carole sighed as she continued unknotting the leathers. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be reminded about vacation. This was Tuesday. She and her father were leaving for five days in Florida on Saturday. It was going to be fun, because they’d be staying with family and there were so many great things to do in Florida. The problem was that it meant she might not do any riding for almost a week. The thought made Carole cringe. It was her midwinter break, and if she weren’t going away, it would be easy to ride every single day. She definitely felt torn about going.

  As Lisa and Alice headed for the tack room, Lisa saw the look on Carole’s face and immediately knew something was bothering her. After all, they were The Saddle Club—and that not only meant that they were three horse-crazy girls, it meant they were best friends. In fact, one of the main requirements for membership in The Saddle Club was that the girls had to be willing to help one another when help was needed. Lisa had a feeling that this was one of those times. She gave Carole a sympathetic look and made a mental note to check in with her friend after class. Right now she had a job to do, and that was helping Alice Jackson with her horse.

  “You’re going to love Comanche,” Lisa said to the new rider. “I’ve ridden him, and he’s got some wonderful gaits, though he can be a little headstrong. You must be a pretty good rider if Max is putting you on Comanche for your first ride at Pine Hollow. Have you ridden a lot? I ride a lot, though I just started a couple of years ago. My friends Stevie and Carole—the girls you just met—are better riders than I am, but I do love learning, and Max says I’m doing well. Did he give you a test ride? He made me take a test ride when I started.”

  Lisa was prepared to ask a few more questions, but she realized that Alice was lau
ghing. “I’m chattering, aren’t I?” Lisa asked.

  Alice nodded.

  “I’m just trying to be helpful,” Lisa said, now a little embarrassed.

  “I know,” Alice said. “And you are being helpful. Everything you can tell me about the horses and the stable will be useful. So keep on doing it. One thing, though—”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you ask a question, why don’t you pause a second and let me answer it?”

  “It’s a deal,” Lisa said. She smiled and they shook hands on it.

  In the tack room Lisa showed Alice where Comanche’s tack was stowed. Alice carried the saddle, Lisa the bridle to Comanche’s stall. Together the girls tacked up the horse.

  As the girls talked, Alice’s initial shyness seemed to melt away. Lisa found she liked Alice a lot. It turned out that Alice had actually done a lot of riding. She lived in Ohio and was on her school midwinter break. She was visiting her grandmother in Willow Creek, Virginia, where Lisa and her friends lived.

  “To tell you the truth, I’d rather be home,” Alice said. “But it’s been sort of a nightmare there recently. My parents are fighting all the time. I think they’re going to get a divorce, and they just don’t want me to hear them scream at each other. They think I don’t know how much they fight, and I don’t want to let them know how much I do know. It’s awful, Lisa. Really.”

  Lisa felt terrible for Alice. Lisa thought the most awful thing in the world would be to have her parents divorce. She got an unhappy tingling in her stomach just thinking about it. If she felt that way when it wasn’t true, how must Alice feel when it was? A lump rose in her throat. She swallowed hard. There must be something she could do to help her.

  “I don’t mean to bore you,” Alice added, when she noticed Lisa’s faraway look.

  “It’s not boring,” Lisa assured her. “I was just thinking. But we’d better get back to work. We’ve got to get this girth tight before class. See if you can distract Comanche so he doesn’t take his usual gigantic deep breath before I pull on the girth. He usually tries to fool me about how tight it is. It used to work, but I’ve gotten wise.”

  Alice laughed. It was an easy laugh and made Lisa glad that she’d changed the subject. Maybe that was the one thing she really could do for Alice, who spoke then. “The horses I ride try that deep-breathing trick, too. Let’s see if we can’t outfox him.”

  Alice began petting Comanche’s head and talking to him soothingly. Lisa patiently watched the horse’s belly for signs of breathing. A girth didn’t hurt a horse, but it was sometimes uncomfortable for a few minutes when it was first tightened. That was why some horses played games, taking in a deep breath while it was tightened and then letting it out so the girth felt loose. This time, though, the riders out-fooled the horse. Comanche was enjoying Alice’s attention so much, he didn’t even notice while Lisa pulled the girth snugly.

  “Success!” Lisa announced. The girls exchanged high fives, finished the tacking-up process, and then walked the horse to the stable door.

  Lisa always enjoyed showing new riders around Pine Hollow and introducing them to the stable’s many traditions. One of the stable’s traditions was that old riders showed new ones around. Another was that everybody worked. Traditions like these helped keep costs down for everybody, and the riders’ parents liked that a lot.

  “This is Barq, the horse I’m riding today,” Lisa said. She opened the stall door and took the reins of the bay with a jagged white streak running down his face. “Barq is part Arabian, and his name means ‘lightning’ in Arabian. Isn’t that neat?”

  “Yes,” Alice agreed. “He’s a beauty, too.” Lisa watched while Alice introduced herself to Barq, rubbing his soft nose gently. Lisa approved. This girl definitely knew about horses.

  “Are you staying for the jump class?” Lisa asked.

  “Oh, no,” Alice said quickly.

  “It’s right after the flat class,” said Lisa. “Max is just going to go over some basic techniques for about fifteen minutes.”

  “No, I can’t,” said Alice.

  Lisa was surprised by how quickly Alice had said no. Maybe Alice was worried about how much it would cost to stay for a second class, or she was concerned that her jumping ability wouldn’t be the same as the other students’ in the class. Lisa decided she could set Alice’s mind at ease on both those points. She could even do it diplomatically.

  “The nice thing about the jump class today is that because it’s going to be short, Max isn’t even charging anybody for it. Also, one of our traditions here is that people of all levels work together in classes. Carole, who is really good, takes the same jump class that I do. You’ll fit in. I’m sure.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Alice said.

  Lisa had the feeling a door had just been closed in her face, politely but firmly. She didn’t have time right then to figure out what had happened, but she wasn’t about to just let it drop. One thing she was sure of was that Alice would love Max’s jump classes. He made them so much fun that Lisa and her friends rarely realized how hard they worked and how much they learned. Also, jumping was so much fun that it would help keep Alice’s mind off her troubles.

  As soon as class started, Lisa knew that she was right about Alice’s skills. The girl definitely knew what she was doing on a horse. Comanche behaved perfectly. That, as much as anything, was an indication of how good a rider Alice was. Comanche was a great horse, but he had an independent streak that made him a bad choice for an inexperienced rider. A good rider, like Alice, knew how to explain to the horse exactly which one of them was in charge. Comanche wasn’t questioning that. Alice was in charge.

  Max had the class working on balance techniques. It wasn’t easy. They had to ride without stirrups and sometimes even with their arms crossed, directing their horses simply with leg movements. One of the things Lisa had realized early in her riding lessons was how important balance was. A horse relied on the rider’s balance to convey information. When a rider bounced around in the saddle, it could confuse the horse. She concentrated on improving her technique.

  When the class was over, Max called for a five-minute cool-down period before the short jump class began. Most of the riders were staying for the jump class and took those five minutes to circle the schooling ring at a walk and let their horses relax.

  Lisa saw Alice head for the exit. She wished Alice would stay for the class—maybe if she tried reassuring her one more time … Lisa gave Barq a little kick and hurried over to her new friend.

  “You can stay, you know,” Lisa said.

  “No,” Alice said. “I have to go.”

  Lisa tried again. “Some of the riders are new jumpers. Some are pretty experienced, just like in the flat class. We all just work together.…”

  “I don’t jump,” Alice said flatly. She clearly didn’t want to discuss it any further.

  “Will you be at the next class on Saturday?” Lisa asked.

  “Sure,” Alice said. “I already told my grandmother about it. She’ll get me here on time.”

  “See you then,” Lisa said. “And it was nice meeting you.”

  “Nice meeting you, too. And, thanks for the help.”

  Alice dismounted and walked Comanche into the stabling area. As she walked off, Lisa wondered what she might have done to convince Alice to join the jump class. Then she decided she’d done everything she could have done by herself. But perhaps three heads would be better than one. Perhaps she could enlist the help of The Saddle Club. She knew her friends would agree that jumping could be the perfect antidote to Alice’s unhappy family situation.

  “Are you joining us?” Max asked sarcastically, bringing Lisa out of her thoughts.

  Lisa glanced at her watch. It was exactly five minutes and three seconds since Max had announced a five-minute cool-down. That man could sure be specific when it came to class times!

  Fifteen minutes and three seconds later, Stevie, Carole, and Lisa made a plan for a Saddle Club mee
ting. They often gathered after class at TD’s—an ice-cream place at the nearby shopping center. Inside the stable Lisa noticed that Comanche had been untacked and groomed and there was no sign of Alice. As she walked with her friends to TD’s, she told them about the new girl.

  “She seemed awfully nice, but a little shy,” Stevie said. Compared to Stevie, everybody in the world was shy.

  “Her parents might be getting a divorce or something,” Lisa said. “It wasn’t too clear, but it sounds like it’s bad news. She’s here visiting her grandmother for vacation.”

  “Well,” Carole said, “at least she’s able to ride. Riding is always a good thing to do when times are tough.” Her friends were aware that Carole knew what she was talking about. Her mother had died a few years earlier, and she’d often found comfort in being able to ride.

  Then Lisa told her friends about how Alice seemed to be afraid of jumping.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Stevie said. “She’s a really good rider. Of course she can jump!”

  “Something’s keeping her from it,” Lisa said. “And I’d like to know what it is.”

  “Me, too,” Stevie said.

  “Well, we’re not going to find out here,” Carole said, opening the door to TD’s. “So we might as well get down to the serious business of ordering our sundaes.” She led the way to their favorite table in the back of the restaurant, and the three of them slipped into their usual seats. Carole and Lisa each picked up a menu to study the options. Stevie seemed to know exactly what she wanted already.

  That made Carole and Lisa a little nervous. Stevie was well-known for ordering very outrageous combinations. Her friends suspected she did it so nobody would want to take tastes of her sundaes. It also had something to do with trying to shock the waitress. It was a game they played. Stevie usually managed to win it.

  “Who is it you’re staying with in Florida?” Lisa asked Carole when she’d made up her mind.

  “Dad’s sister, Joanna,” Carole said. “Then there’s an Uncle Willie, and I have a cousin as well. Her name is Sheila. She’s sixteen years old.”