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  TRAPPED!

  “Quick! Get down here!” a voice whispered from the darkness.

  Regina didn’t waste any time. She slid through the door and Stevie followed right after her.

  It wasn’t completely dark. A dim light shone from a single bulb in the middle of the basement ceiling. Peter, Liza, Ann, and Gordon were all huddled under it.

  Peter had a silencing finger at his lips. Stevie couldn’t imagine why, but the look of terror on Gordon’s face told her that there was a reason.

  “Someone’s upstairs,” Ann whispered, barely audible.

  Stevie sat down on the box next to Liza and listened.

  Someone was upstairs. They could hear footsteps on the front steps leading up to the house’s main entrance on the parlor floor. There was the click of a key turning in the lock.…

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  CAMY BAKER’S HOW TO BE POPULAR IN THE SIXTH GRADE by Camy Baker

  HORSE CRAZY (The Saddle Club #1) by Bonnie Bryant

  AMY, NUMBER SEVEN (Replica #1) by Marilyn Kaye

  PURSUING AMY (Replica #2) by Marilyn Kaye

  ANASTASIA ON HER OWN by Lois Lowry

  THE BOYS START THE WAR/THE GIRLS GET EVEN by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  RL 3.6, ages 008–012

  HARD HAT

  A Bantam Skylark Book / March 2001

  “The Saddle Club” is a registered trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller.

  The Saddle Club design/logo, which consists of a riding crop and a riding hat, is a trademark of Bantam Books.

  “USPC” and “Pony Club” are registered trademarks of The United States Pony Clubs, Inc., at The Kentucky Horse Park, 4071 Iron Works Pike, Lexington, KY 40511-8462.

  All rights reserved

  Text copyright © 2001 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller

  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: 978-0-307-82602-2

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Skylark is an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. SKYLARK BOOK and colophon and BANTAM BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  Special thanks to Sir “B” Farms and Laura Roper

  For my cousins, Peter and Michael—

  with love,

  Bonnie

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books You Will Enjoy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  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

  “HEY, GUYS! We’ve got to hurry up!” Stevie Lake said, glancing at her watch. She was walking with her two best friends, Lisa Atwood and Carole Hanson, toward their favorite place in the world to do their favorite thing: to Pine Hollow Stables to ride horses.

  “What time is it?” Carole asked, picking up her pace.

  “It’s already ten minutes to eight!” Stevie said, walking even faster.

  That made Lisa walk faster still. If there was one thing Max Regnery hated, it was lateness from his students. In fact, he hated it so much, he referred to it as tardiness, which meant the same thing as being late but sounded much more serious.

  “How did it get to be sooo—” Lisa asked, trying to look at her own watch, which was hard to do at the pace she was walking.

  She stopped. Her watch said 7:30. “Stevie time,” she announced. Carole stopped, too. The two girls began laughing.

  “I told you you’d get into trouble setting your watch twenty minutes fast,” Lisa said.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to be late,” Stevie said sheepishly. The girls continued their walk at a normal pace.

  “I don’t mind you getting into trouble,” Carole said.

  “It’s when you get us into trouble along with you that bothers me.”

  “So what else is new?” Lisa asked. The girls laughed again. Reluctantly, Stevie reset her watch to the correct time. They were about five minutes from the stable, and that would give them plenty of time to check on their horses before Max called their Pony Club meeting to order at 8:00 A.M. sharp.

  Carole breathed in the clean, fresh air, almost certain she could detect the sweet smell of horses and fresh hay from where she stood. Although the three girls could hardly have been more different from one another, their bond of friendship was sealed by a common love of horses. In fact, they loved horses so much that soon after they’d first met, they had formed their own club: The Saddle Club. It had only two rules, and the first one was easy: All members had to be horse-crazy. That was a test all three of them passed with flying colors. The other rule was more difficult, though they were generally willing to follow it: Members had to be willing to help each other out, no matter what. That was a rule that had gotten them into trouble almost as many times as it had been exercised to get them out of it.

  As they walked along the country lane that led to Pine Hollow, Lisa glanced at Stevie and smiled, thinking about her watch. It was typical of her to try to fix a problem (chronic lateness) and thus create another (panic). Stevie was more creative about ways to get into trouble than anybody else Lisa had ever known. When you asked Stevie how her school day was, the answer was invariably peppered with explanations about what she’d had to say to Miss Fenton—her school’s headmistress—when she’d been sent to her office that day.

  Stevie wasn’t bad. She wasn’t even naughty or a troublemaker. She thought of herself as being creative—in ways teachers were inclined to think unnecessary. Lisa remembered hearing about the time Stevie had managed to get food coloring into the vat of mashed potatoes. Green potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day had seemed like a great idea to Stevie. Somehow, the cafeteria workers at Fenton Hall had not been amused, just as her biology teacher hadn’t been impressed by Stevie’s claim that one of her brothers had substituted a disappearing ink pen for the one that Stevie had thought she was using for her homework, now a sheaf of blank pages.

  Even though Stevie was a practical joker, she had a big heart. Nobody came to other people’s rescue faster than Stevie did, and nobody cared more about others. It was as if her own troubles made her understand how much other people could need her. But if someone annoyed her, Stevie’s hot temper could flare.

  Carole and Lisa loved her with all their hearts. Sometimes Lisa thought it was because Stevie was everything she could never be. For all of Stevie’s flamboyance and unpredictability, Lisa was calm, organized, logical, and coolheaded. Lisa was a straight-A student, and she never missed homework deadlines.

  Her clothes were always clean and neatly pressed, her hair always smooth and combed.

  Lisa’s older brother, Peter, didn’t live at home anymore, so Lisa felt like an only child. Lisa often wondered what it was like for Stevie to live with three brothers. Chad was older, Alex was Stevie’s twin, and Michael was the youngest. Sometimes it seemed like Stevie was at war with all three of them. Lis
a’s mother had wanted the best for her daughter and saw to it that Lisa had all the opportunities she and Lisa’s father could reasonably give her. Her mother’s idea of giving Lisa the best was to have Lisa take lessons in everything she considered proper for a young girl. Lisa had studied dance, violin, piano, voice, ballet, painting, even needlepoint. But all those activities lost their appeal the day Mrs. Atwood had decided Lisa should learn a little bit about horses—as every young lady should. Lisa didn’t want to learn a little bit about horses. She’d found that after her first lessons, she’d wanted to learn everything in the world there was to know about the horses!

  Carole and Stevie had been there to help her learn, and Carole especially was the perfect person for that. Of the three horse-crazy girls, there was no doubt that Carole was the horse-craziest. From the time she was four, she’d known that all she ever wanted to do in her life was to work with horses. She knew she had a lot of options. She could ride, train, breed, race, compete, care for, or heal them. Or she could do all of those. She hadn’t decided which career with horses would be just right for her, but she knew it would be one of them.

  As the threesome walked up Pine Hollow’s driveway, the whole place seemed in disarray. There was more confusion than usual, and the first hint of it was that Max was dashing across the driveway, knees bent, arms extended, trying to catch his daughter, a rambunctious toddler named Maxi, short for Maxine.

  “Stop that child!” he declared in time for Lisa to pick up the little girl. Maxi had a delighted grin on her face. She clearly thought this was a game and she’d won. Lisa gave her a little hug before handing her back to her father.

  “Meeting starts in ten minutes sharp!” Max announced as if he were ready for it to begin, which he obviously wasn’t.

  “Right,” Carole said, snapping him a smart salute.

  “Has anyone seen Red?” Max asked. Red was Pine Hollow’s head stable hand.

  “No, we just got here,” Stevie reminded him.

  “Right, well, somebody’s going to have to look after Maxi.”

  “Don’t you mean chase after Maxi?” Lisa suggested.

  “That, too,” Max said. He left, apparently in search of a temporary baby-sitter.

  Twenty minutes later Max called the meeting to order. Horse Wise, which was the Pine Hollow chapter of the U.S. Pony Clubs, met every Saturday morning. Max usually alternated weeks of mounted and un-mounted meetings, meaning that one week their meeting would be on horseback, working on riding skills, and the next week they’d meet in Max’s office and have a presentation or discussion of stable management, veterinary care, shoeing, or some other important aspect of horse care and ownership. Today’s discussion was on the general subject of safety.

  Max stood in front of the group, holding Maxi on his left hip.

  “All right, then,” Max said, frowning at the clock on the back wall. “Who can tell me some of the things we have here to protect riders?”

  “Helmets,” said Joe. Max nodded. Riding helmets were required of all riders whenever they were on horseback.

  “The mounting block,” said May, reminding everyone that a secure beginning to a ride was always a good idea.

  “The good-luck horseshoe,” said Jasmine. Everyone nodded. One of Pine Hollow’s traditions was a horseshoe nailed over the door that every rider touched before beginning a ride. Some people claimed it had magical powers because no rider had ever been seriously hurt at Pine Hollow. Most riders recognized that it was more a matter of reminding all riders that the sport could be dangerous and they needed to take precautions. Whatever the reasons, it seemed to work.

  Maxi wriggled, trying to loosen Max’s grasp. She pounded her father on top of his head and wriggled some more. Absentmindedly, he put her down.

  “Deborah is away today,” he said, explaining the obvious. Deborah, Max’s wife, was an investigative reporter for a major Washington newspaper. “And she’s working on a story, so even when she’s home, like she will be tomorrow, she’ll be too busy to look after Maxi for a couple of days.”

  Lisa grabbed for the fleeing child. Max nodded with pleasure when he saw that Maxi was secure—for a few minutes at least. Clearly he was a little befuddled by his joint responsibilities as father and riding instructor.

  Lisa plopped Maxi down on her lap and handed the girl a pencil and some paper to scribble on. There was a moment of quiet, and Max continued the meeting.

  “And safety precautions for the horses?” he asked. There were lots of answers, including locks on their stable doors, bandages for their legs when they traveled, careful feeding, shoeing, and preventive vet care.

  Maxi dropped the pencil and paper, got up from Lisa’s lap, and trundled over to look at the shiny gold chain around Veronica diAngelo’s neck. She reached for it.

  “Eeew!” said Veronica, recoiling from the little girl’s moist grasp and wrinkling her nose.

  Max sighed. “Needs a change?” he asked. Veronica nodded distastefully.

  “I’ll do it,” Lisa volunteered. Max thanked her and handed her a diaper bag. Lisa picked up Maxi and took her into the bathroom. She loved Maxi, as did her friends. In fact, they’d been there when she’d been born, looking after Deborah all the way through her labor until the newest generation of Regnerys arrived.

  A few minutes later Lisa returned to the Horse Wise meeting and settled down, once again trying to contain the little girl she’d taken as her charge. It didn’t work. Maxi went from lap to lap, interrupting the meeting repeatedly. Nobody really minded, except perhaps Veronica, but nobody cared what Veronica thought anyway.

  Veronica diAngelo was The Saddle Club’s least favorite rider. She was the daughter of one of Willow Creek’s wealthiest citizens, and she never let anyone forget it. She considered herself better than everyone, and the result was that she wasn’t as good as anyone. She hated doing her own chores, and her only spark of creativity was in finding ways to get other people to do her jobs. This was not a popular attitude at a stable built on cooperation and shared work.

  Once their meeting was over, the riders prepared for riding class. Today they were going to work on jumping techniques and, as a sideline, baby-sitting. The riders took turns looking after Maxi, who had been fitted with a riding helmet, just to be on the safe side.

  It turned out that Maxi’s hard hat was a good idea. Although she managed to stay out of the way of the horses, Maxi wasn’t awfully secure on her feet, and she fell down several times. Stevie was picking her up for the third time and giving her bumped knee a kiss when Deborah arrived. Maxi ran to her mother, arms open for a big hug, which Deborah seemed more than happy to give. She set down her computer and the bagful of notes she was carrying in order to embrace her daughter. A few seconds later the two of them joined the watchers at the rail of the jumping class.

  Max was working with Katya, a very new rider, on basic skills. It wasn’t that everybody couldn’t benefit from review, but The Saddle Club had a thorough knowledge of the material, so they took the opportunity to chat with Deborah. Max was apparently so pleased not to have to worry about Maxi for a few minutes that he didn’t even glare when they stepped aside to talk.

  “Was she a nuisance?” Deborah asked.

  “Just a little bit,” Stevie said.

  “No, she was mostly just fun to be with,” Carole assured Deborah.

  “And chase after,” Stevie added.

  “And hold,” said Lisa.

  “So, tell us about the story you’re working on,” Stevie said. “Max said it’s really important.”

  Deborah smiled. “He would say that. Well, it’s pretty important, anyway. It’s about corruption.”

  Deborah wasn’t just any reporter: She was an investigative reporter, which meant she would look for stories that required a lot of background and research to put together, and she’d often uncover crimes and misdeeds. It was sometimes dangerous, but it was always interesting.

  “It’s about the construction industry here. See, there’s
so much building going on that some of the people can get away with overcharging people for their work. And when they do, I’ve found cases where they then proceed to do shoddy work and pocket the difference. Some of these guys are getting away with murder.”

  “Murder?” Stevie echoed.

  “Well, not really murder. But lots and lots of money. And in some cases they use a portion of that money to pay off building inspectors to say a building is safe when in fact it might not be.”

  “That’s terrible!” Carole said.

  “Somebody ought to do something!” said Lisa.

  “I am,” Deborah assured them. “I mean, I will—right after I give Maxi some lunch!”

  “We can help,” said Lisa.

  “No, you’ve got your class now.”

  “I don’t mean now,” Lisa said. “I mean we can help with Maxi while you’re working on the research for your story. Max has to teach classes, but when we’re not in the classes we can certainly baby-sit. Right, girls?” She looked at Carole and Stevie.

  Sometimes, when The Saddle Club wasn’t busy helping one another out, they had what they’d come to think of as Saddle Club projects. They usually decided together that they were going to pitch in to do something. This time, it seemed Lisa was volunteering their services. On the other hand, it was perfectly clear to all of them that Max and Deborah needed their help and they were able to give it.

  “I’ll pay you,” Deborah offered. “I mean, the usual baby-sitting rate.”

  That clinched it. All three girls nodded and smiled. Getting paid to do something they liked as much as chasing after Maxi was a very good deal.

  AFTER CLASS THE girls hurried over to Stevie’s house for their planned sleepover. When they had showered and changed their clothes, they met in the Lake kitchen for a snack. Lisa was full of ideas about ways to look after Maxi.

  “We can switch off days. I’ll take Monday. Carole you do Tuesday, Stevie Wednesday.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more fun and easier if there were two of us at any one time?” Stevie asked.