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  Read all the Saddle Club books!

  Horse Crazy

  Horse Shy

  Horse Sense

  Horse Power

  Trail Mates

  Dude Ranch

  Horse Play

  Horse Show

  Hoof Beat

  Riding Camp

  Horse Wise

  Rodeo Rider

  Starlight Christmas

  Sea Horse

  Team Play

  Horse Games

  Horsenapped

  Pack Trip

  Star Rider

  Snow Ride

  Racehorse

  Fox Hunt

  Horse Trouble

  Ghost Rider

  I would like to express my special thanks to Arlene deStrulle of the New York Aquarium for her help to me. —B.B.

  Copyright © 1990 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller

  Cover art copyright © 1990 by George Tsui

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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

  “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.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

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

  eISBN: 978-0-307-82495-0

  Originally published by Bantam Skylark in January 1991

  First Delacorte Ebook Edition 2012

  v3.1_r1

  For Bill Gucker, a/k/a Gooch

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  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

  “WHAT DO YOU think? Should I go swimming or riding first when we get to the resort on San Marco?” thirteen-year-old Lisa Atwood asked her friends as she hefted a saddle off its rack. She was getting ready to tack up a horse before their riding class.

  “Riding,” her two best friends answered at the same time. That made all three of them laugh. Lisa and her friends, Stevie Lake and Carole Hanson, were three very different people, but there was one thing they agreed on: Horses and horseback riding came first wherever they were.

  “What time does your plane leave tomorrow?” Stevie asked.

  Lisa’s surprise Christmas present from her parents was a trip with them to the Caribbean. As far as Lisa was concerned, the best part about it was the horseback riding offered at the resort.

  “We leave at nine-thirty in the morning,” Lisa replied. “I should be on the beach by four o’clock. That includes a quick stop at the stables to sign up, of course.”

  “Of course.” Carole grinned happily. “And by then, I’ll already have been riding for three hours.” Her friends nearly groaned with envy. Carole’s Christmas present had been her very own horse. He was a big, beautiful bay gelding with a lopsided star on his forehead. She had named him Starlight. For the rest of her vacation, Carole intended to ride Starlight as much as she could. “It’ll be work, though,” she reminded Lisa and Stevie. “Starlight really isn’t done with his training, and training a horse is hard work.”

  “Yeah, right, just like lying on the beach is hard work,” Stevie said. “Think of all the work you have to do to get your tan just the right shade. I’m the one who really has a lot of work to do in the next week. I have to find a dress for the New Year’s Eve dance!”

  “Oh, no!” Lisa said, pretending to sound terribly concerned. “Poor Stevie. You’ll have to spend so much time at the mall trying on beautiful dresses, and we all know what a terrible chore that is. And then at the dance you’ll have to spend hour after hour dancing with Phil Marston right up until the New Year. It sounds pretty awful.” Lisa giggled. “I wonder what I’ll be doing at midnight. I think I’ll be thinking about you. Hey, do you guys believe in ESP?” Stevie and Carole shrugged dubiously. “Well,” Lisa continued, “at midnight, we are all going to be apart, but maybe, if we think of one another at the same moment, it will be like being together.”

  “Sure,” Stevie said, catching on, “this could be an experiment. If it works, maybe we’ll get written up in some textbook.”

  “It would be more fun if we could just be together,” Lisa said.

  “I don’t know,” Stevie said. “I like you guys just fine, and at midnight on New Year’s Eve, I promise to think of you—a little—but I’m looking forward to being with Phil.”

  “It’s a tough job,” Carole said brightly, “but somebody’s got to do it. And, speaking of tough jobs, Max asked if we could mix up some grain in a winter blend after class. Can you two stick around?” Stevie and Lisa willingly agreed. It might be the last chance the three of them would have to be together until Lisa got back from her vacation.

  The Max Carole mentioned was Max Regnery, the owner of Pine Hollow Stables, where the three girls had met and become friends. They had riding classes together twice a week and Pony Club meetings there every Saturday. Pine Hollow was also the place where Carole’s horse, Starlight, lived. Sometimes their families thought the horse-crazy girls lived there, too! The three friends loved horses and horseback riding so much that they had formed their own group, The Saddle Club. The club had simple requirements for membership. First of all, members had to be horse crazy, and second of all, they had to be willing to help one another out. Sometimes the helping had to do with horses and sometimes it had to do with other things, like schoolwork. Whatever it was, when a friend needed help, The Saddle Club came to the rescue.

  The P.A. system buzzed to life. “Class in ten minutes,” came the familiar voice of Max’s mother, universally called Mrs. Reg.

  “Yipes, and we’ve still got to tack up!” Carole cried, grabbing Starlight’s saddle and bridle. “See you in the ring!”

  With that, she shot out of the tack room to Starlight’s stall. Lisa and Stevie weren’t far behind her.

  Lisa was still huffing as she hoisted Pepper’s saddle and settled it onto the horse’s back. Tacking up a horse usually took only a few minutes, but that was almost more time than she had. Max was pretty relaxed about most things, but when it came to horses, he was as strict as could be. That included being on time for his classes.

  As soon as Pepper’s saddle girth was tightened, Lisa climbed onto her horse and proceeded as quickly as possible to the indoor ring, where her class was to take place. She only paused to brush the stable’s good-luck horseshoe, posted by the large doorway. That was one of Pine Hollow’s many traditions, for no rider who had touched the horseshoe had ever gotten seriously hurt riding.

  “Whew!” Lisa sighed to herself when she found that the class had not yet been called to order. She brought Pepper out into the ring and proceeded to walk him in circles as a warm-up.

  “Miss Atwood?” Max asked. Lisa didn’t like the sound of his words. He never called anybody Miss or Mr. unless something was wrong.

  “Yes, Mr. Regnery?” she asked nervously.

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked.

  Lisa looked down at Pepper. Before she spotted the problem, she heard the titters. One of her classmates—one she vowed never to talk to again—even pointed. It took Lisa a second to see he
r mistake.

  Lisa could feel herself flush. She’d been in such a hurry to put on Pepper’s saddle that she’d completely forgotten about his bridle. The horse was still wearing his halter and a lead rope.

  “I—uh—” she began. She didn’t have the faintest idea what to say. She was so embarrassed, she didn’t even know what to do.

  “Nice job!” Stevie said, approaching her. “Here’s the bridle now.” Stevie slipped Pepper’s bit into his mouth and brought the bridle up over his head. She fastened the buckle, handed the reins to Lisa, and talked to Max the whole time. “Wasn’t Lisa doing a good job, Max?” she asked. “It’s so important for a horse to learn to respond to leg signals and when Lisa suggested that it would be a good exercise to work without a bridle for a while, well, I wasn’t sure she was ready for that, but she was sensational, wasn’t she? Pepper did everything she asked!”

  For a few seconds, Max just looked at Stevie. An amused look crossed his face. Stevie could be so outrageous. Everybody knew that. But right then, Lisa and Max knew that what she was being was a friend.

  “Yes, nice work, Lisa,” he said. “Now, would you like to try riding the usual way?”

  “Of course,” Lisa said. She untwisted Pepper’s reins and twined the leather around her fingers properly. By the time she was ready, Carole had also entered the ring, and class began.

  “WHAT WAS GOING on in there?” Carole asked later when the three girls met after class in the feed-storage room. “I mean, I thought Max was going to blast me for being late, but there you were, just adjusting your reins when I got there.”

  “It’s a long story,” Stevie said.

  “But it’s worth telling,” Lisa added.

  “And it’s got to be worth hearing, too. Whatever it was, you guys saved me from getting a lecture from Max.”

  “And Stevie saved me from worse,” Lisa said. Then, with a lot of help from Stevie, she told Carole about her mistake and Stevie’s clever rescue.

  “Do you think Max actually believed you?” Carole asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa said dubiously.

  “Not for a minute,” Stevie said, confirming Lisa’s suspicions. “He knew it was a whopper, but there wasn’t any reason for you to be laughed at.”

  “I guess that’s just one more thing to love about Max,” Lisa said.

  “Are you girls going to talk or work?” Max asked, startling all three of them at once. They hadn’t even heard him open the door. Lisa wondered briefly if he’d heard what she’d just said. Then she decided very sensibly that she didn’t have to think about that because she’d been embarrassed enough for one day.

  “Work,” Carole said earnestly. “As soon as you tell us what it is we’re supposed to do.”

  Max showed them what he wanted. There were four bags of grain that he wanted mixed up. Two bags contained a brand the horses were being fed now. Two bags were a new brand he wanted to get the horses used to. But changing feed could be tricky, so he wanted the girls to make four different blends, gradually changing from mostly old feed to mostly new.

  With that information delivered, Max left them to their own devices. As far as Lisa was concerned right then, one of the things not to love about Max was his utter confidence in their ability to solve a complicated problem.

  “I say we just dump all the feed out on the ground and begin mixing it together,” Stevie said, reaching to open the first bag.

  “No way!” Carole said. “We have to measure.”

  “Sure, okay, measure,” Stevie conceded. “But measure what? And how?”

  Both girls looked at Lisa. Lisa was a straight-A student at school. This was something she’d probably be good at.

  Carole sighed. “This is like one of those dumb problems where the store has cashews for three dollars and fifty cents a pound and peanuts for a dollar-fifty a pound and if they sell three pounds of blended nuts—”

  “I know the one, and the answer is that the customer should mix them when he gets home. Or better still, don’t blend them. Cashews are much better by themselves,” Stevie declared.

  “I agree, but that’s never on the answer sheet,” Lisa said. “So here’s what we do.” She pulled a piece of paper and a pencil out of her backpack and began scribbling furiously. She scratched out some numbers and put in new ones while Carole and Stevie waited patiently.

  “Got it!” she said at last. “Bag one will be one part new feed, five parts old. Bag two will be two parts new, four parts old. Bag three will be four new, two old. And the last bag will be five new, one old. That’s twelve parts of each grain unequally divided among the bags. We need another bag or bin to hold the new mixture, a coffee can to measure, and let’s go—”

  “Brilliant,” Stevie pronounced, and ripped open the first bag of old feed and began counting out five measures.

  “Hold it,” Carole said. “I just remembered something. We can’t use the coffee can. We have to weigh the grain. Horses are fed by weight, not volume. All these bags weigh the same, but the bags with the new grain are larger. That would have been a bad mistake.”

  Lisa was surprised, but when she took another look at the sacks, she saw that Carole was absolutely right. She bent her head to her notebook. A few more scribbles, a few more cross-outs, some more calculations, and—

  “Bingo!” Lisa announced. “Here’s how many pounds of each we need in each bag.”

  Stevie hauled out a scale and the three of them got to work. It was hard, but it wasn’t unpleasant because they were working together. Carole weighed while Stevie mixed and Lisa kept track.

  “Just think, Carole,” Stevie said. “Lisa’s going to spend an entire week without having to do one Pine Hollow chore!”

  Lisa grinned at her friends. “Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?” she asked, making a note of the next six pounds of mixture to be put in the sack they were working on. “Living on a tropical island, away from winter storms and grain that needs to be weighed …”

  It sounded nice to Lisa even as she said it. She felt a quiver of excitement. She could almost feel the warm breeze and the hot sun on her back. She could almost smell the mangoes and the coconut oil. She could almost taste the fresh seafood and feel the soft sand beneath her feet, hear the sound of the azure waters lapping at the shore by her cabin. The picture seemed almost perfect. Still, something was missing and Lisa couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  “Earth to Lisa!” Stevie said mischievously, startling Lisa out of her daydream. “There goes another six pounds,” Stevie added as she stirred the feed vigorously.

  Lisa checked her calculations. “That’s all for that bag,” she told the others.

  “Keep mixing it, though,” Carole said. “It’s really important for the feed to be mixed thoroughly.”

  Stevie continued mixing. “Speaking of tropical islands,” she said, “do you know why flamingos stand on one leg?”

  “Unh-unh,” Lisa said. It was actually something she’d never thought about. She didn’t even know if there would be flamingos on San Marco. “Why?” she asked.

  “Because if they picked up the other one, they’d fall down,” Stevie replied, and grinned when Carole groaned.

  It was then that Lisa realized the worst thing about her trip to San Marco. There would be no Stevie, and no Carole.

  LISA PRESSED HER nose against the small window of the airplane. The water below was a stunning turquoise. Small boats dotted the surface. To the left, she could see an island. She wondered if that was San Marco. She felt the plane descend, and decided it was.

  The island seemed to be ringed by white concave crescents.

  “Beaches!” she said out loud. It was strange to think that within a very short time she could be on one.

  Soon, the plane landed and Lisa followed her parents down the aisle and onto the tarmac. The hot, humid air of the tropical island hit her the instant she stepped out of the air-conditioned airplane.

  “Oh,” she said, surprised as she took her f
irst breath of San Marco. The air was sweet with the scent of flowers, mixed in with the acrid smell of airplane fuel.

  It took only a few minutes for the Atwoods to retrieve their luggage, pass through customs and immigration, and get into a taxi. Their hotel was a short drive from the airport. It seemed to Lisa that she’d barely gotten used to being on the ground when she found herself unpacking.

  The contents of Lisa’s suitcase, which had seemed so out of place in snowy, cold Virginia, were exactly right for San Marco. She had brought shorts and tank tops, bathing suits, T-shirts, a couple of cotton dresses, and her riding clothes. Not surprisingly, her riding clothes, with her boots and her hat, took up more than half of the space in her suitcase.

  With a sigh of relief, Lisa took off her wool skirt and heavy sweater and replaced them with a bathing suit covered by a pair of turquoise shorts, a bright pink top, and a pair of sandals. She found her sunglasses, her sun hat, and her sunscreen.

  “I’m ready for anything,” she told her image in the mirror, and after checking with her parents and agreeing to meet them at the pool in an hour, she set out to explore.

  The hotel, it turned out, was a long, narrow building, running parallel to the ocean. The dining room and public areas were situated in the center of the complex, close to the pool. Just beyond the pool, a perfect white beach stretched along the island’s coast. The water was the same incredible blue she’d seen from the air. Even up close, the color was hard to believe.

  Beaches and pools, however, were not what Lisa really wanted to find. She walked out to the other side of the hotel, which faced away from the beach, and looked for signs of the stable.

  Before her arrival, Lisa had tried to imagine what a tropical island would be like. She had thought that it would be like Virginia in the summer, with palm trees. Now she knew that the idea came nowhere near the truth. It didn’t take into account the heavy, humid air, the sweet scent—now minus airplane fuel—and the unusual trees and bushes. Even the grass felt different as it brushed her feet. It was coarser than the grass at home.

  She glanced at the sky above her. It seemed impossible that this was the same sky she could see out her window in Willow Creek, but it was. Now it was clear, with a few scattered puffy white clouds. In the far distance, she could see a large mass of darker clouds.