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  “For now, anyway,” Stevie said.

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “Don’t even think it,” she warned. “I’m looking forward to some time off.” She was already mounted and waiting on Prancer.

  Stevie straightened Belle’s new bridle before mounting. “Well, it was all worth it in the end, wasn’t it?” she said. “Belle has her bridle, you have your chaps …”

  “And I love them,” Lisa said, glancing down at the chaps she was wearing. As soon as they had finished talking to Mr. French on Friday, the girls had gone to the Saddlery and bought the things they wanted.

  “And I have my videos,” Carole added. “I watched the first one last night after dinner. It was really good.” She grinned. “I would have watched the second one, too, but my dad made me go to bed.”

  “So I guess it was worth it,” Lisa said as the girls rode out of the stable yard and headed across the fields at a walk. “Still, it’s not a week I’d like to repeat.”

  Even Stevie couldn’t disagree with that. “But you’ll have to admit, it would have been a lot easier if it weren’t for dear old Aunt Genie,” she said.

  “Well, easier might not be quite the right word,” Lisa said. “Less outrageously hard, maybe.”

  “And anyway, it was Aunt Eugenia who started us off, remember?” Carole pointed out. “She was our first client.”

  “True,” Stevie said. “Still, I have to say I wouldn’t mind if I never saw her again. Or her grumpy old horse, either.”

  “Me too,” Lisa said. “But we probably will. She’s Max and Deborah’s relative, remember?”

  “How could we forget?” Carole said. “I’m just glad Max finally stood up to her. I still don’t quite understand why he was acting so weird. It didn’t seem to make her like him any better, anyway.”

  “That’s true,” Stevie agreed. “He acted like his regular self for the end of her visit, and she didn’t change her attitude toward him one bit. She didn’t even seem to notice the difference.”

  “I think Deborah noticed, though. And I think she liked it,” Lisa said.

  “I’m not surprised,” Stevie said. “She doesn’t tiptoe around Aunt Eugenia, so why would she want Max to?” She shuddered. “I just can’t believe someone as nice as Deborah could put up with that old grump.”

  Carole shrugged. “She’s related to her. She has to.”

  “Well, I’m just glad I’m not related to her,” Stevie declared. By now the horses had reached the smooth, wide path leading into the woods. “Come on, enough talking. Let’s trot!”

  AFTER A LEISURELY ride along the twisting forest trails, The Saddle Club reluctantly turned and headed for home.

  “That was fun,” Lisa said with a contented sigh as the girls walked their horses slowly across the fields. “It feels good just to relax and have a good time in the saddle for a change.”

  Carole nodded and leaned forward to pat Starlight on the neck. “I know what you mean. I wouldn’t want to be a full-time horse-sitter—not right now, anyway. I still don’t think we could have managed at all without the help we got from Red. But you have to admit, it was kind of nice to know we were helping people out as well as making money.”

  Stevie frowned. “Although you’d hardly know it the way some of our clients—the human ones, I mean—acted. After all the hard work we did for her, Aunt Eugenia didn’t even bother to thank us.”

  “And of course good old Luke barely grunted when he picked up the polo ponies,” Lisa added.

  “Polly and Mr. French thanked us,” Carole pointed out. “And Billy Giacomin called me to thank us for taking care of Mr. Munch.”

  “Still, it would have been nice if the others had said something,” Stevie grumbled. “We did work awfully hard, and they should have acknowledged it.”

  “Public praise shouldn’t matter,” Carole said. “What’s important is that we did the job we were hired to do and earned the money we were paid.”

  Stevie brightened a little. “Well, that’s true. At least they paid us.” She shrugged. “But still …”

  “I know what you mean, Stevie,” Lisa put in. “We were super-responsible and hardworking all week, and hardly anyone seemed to notice. It doesn’t really matter, but it doesn’t quite seem fair, either.”

  “You know what really isn’t fair?” Carole said. “That Veronica isn’t getting punished for what she did.”

  “You can say that again,” Stevie said. She had confronted Veronica the day after the tea party with their suspicions. Veronica hadn’t exactly confessed—even she wasn’t that stupid—but she hadn’t exactly denied anything, either. The Saddle Club was more certain than ever that she had been behind Honeybee’s disappearance and Mr. Munch’s escape. “You know, I bet she actually planted Mr. Munch on the tea table.”

  “Do you think so?” Lisa said. “She seemed awfully scared of him. I don’t know if she’d pick him up—or even touch him.”

  “She would if she thought it could get us in trouble,” Stevie said with certainty.

  They were walking into the stable yard by this time. Carole squinted at a strange car in the driveway. “Who could that be?” she asked. There weren’t any lessons scheduled for the rest of the day as far as she knew.

  “Maybe it’s Aunt Genie, back for more,” Stevie guessed.

  “Ha ha,” Lisa said. The girls dismounted and started to lead their horses inside. Max came to meet them in the doorway.

  “Hurry and put your horses away,” Max said. “Just make sure they’re cooled down and untack them. You can do everything else later. There’s someone here to see you.”

  “Who is it?” Carole asked.

  “You’ll see,” Max said mysteriously. “Just come to the office when you’re ready.” He gave them a wink, then hurried away.

  “I wonder what that’s all about,” Lisa said.

  “Maybe someone else wants to hire us as horse-sitters,” Stevie suggested.

  The other two groaned. “I hope not!” they said in one voice.

  Moments later the horses were comfortable and The Saddle Club was hurrying to Max’s office. When they arrived, they found Max talking to Mick Bonner, the younger polo pony groom.

  Carole gulped. Was there some problem with the horses? Had they done something wrong? She glanced at her friends and guessed by their worried expressions that they were thinking the same thing.

  But Mick soon put their minds to rest. He grinned at them. “Hi, girls,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here. I guess I should have called before I came over, but I was so excited I had to rush over and thank you in person.”

  “Thank us?” Lisa said. “For what?”

  “I wanted you to be the first to know—I got a promotion,” Mick said. “I’m Mr. Haverford-Smythe’s new head groom.”

  The girls gasped. “That’s terrific,” Stevie exclaimed. “But what about Luke?”

  Mick shrugged. “It turned out my boss had been keeping an eye on Luke for a while,” he said. “You may have noticed, he’s not exactly the most responsible guy in the world.”

  “I suspected that,” Carole confessed. “He seemed a lot more interested in his vacation than he was in the horses.”

  “He was,” Mick said. “In fact, you might be interested to know that he only pulled that surprise second inspection here because his plans for that day got canceled.”

  Stevie rolled her eyes. “It figures,” she said.

  “It was hard working under him,” Mick said. “He’s careless, and he likes to blame his mistakes on others—usually me. I was afraid I would be the one to get fired. But it turns out that Mr. Haverford-Smythe was on to him. He saw exactly what was happening: Luke was messing up, and I was trying to fix all his mistakes. He was just waiting until he was sure I had enough experience for the job before he fired Luke.”

  “What finally convinced him?” Carole asked.

  Mick laughed. “Believe it or not, it was the lightbulbs,” he said.

  Carole and Lisa looked confused, but S
tevie’s eyes widened. “You mean my tour?”

  “Yep,” Mick confirmed. “After we brought the horses back, Mr. Haverford-Smythe came to see them. He started asking about Pine Hollow, and of course Luke couldn’t answer half the questions because he hadn’t been paying attention.”

  “But you could,” Lisa guessed, “thanks to Stevie’s tour.”

  “And because I was paying more attention the whole time we were here,” Mick admitted. “But it was right after I mentioned where you all keep the spare lightbulbs that Mr. Haverford-Smythe asked to speak to me privately.”

  “Wow,” Carole said. “So now you get to be in charge of all those gorgeous horses yourself.”

  “Hey, I figured if you three could do it, so could I,” Mick teased. “But seriously, I’ve been waiting for a chance like this. I’ve been working toward it all my life. And it just goes to show, hard and honest work always pays off in the end.”

  “I’ll second that motion,” Max put in, giving the girls a wink.

  “Well, I’d better get going,” Mick said, standing. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.” He shook Max’s hand, then each of the girls’.

  “Come on, we’ll all walk you out,” Max offered. They left the office and headed outside.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Mick said, stopping in front of the stable door. “I’m not the only one who wants to thank you for taking such good care of the ponies. My boss was really impressed when he heard that three girls were doing all the work themselves.”

  “Really?” Stevie said. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Veronica had just appeared from somewhere and was skulking around nearby. Stevie hoped she’d heard Mick’s comment—especially since Stevie suspected Veronica had been the one to give Mr. Haverford-Smythe that information.

  “That’s not all,” Mick continued. “Mr. Haverford-Smythe was so impressed that he wants to meet you. I’m supposed to invite you to the next polo match he and his ponies play in. He wants you to be his special guests at a tailgate picnic lunch.”

  “Wow!” Carole exclaimed. “That would be fantastic. Tell him thanks, and we’d love to come.”

  Lisa and Stevie agreed heartily. Stevie snuck a glance at Veronica. Whether or not Veronica had heard Mick before, she had definitely heard him now. Her face turned bright red. Stevie nudged her friends, and they saw her, too.

  “Anyway, thanks again,” Mick said. “I’ll see you soon at the polo grounds.” He got in his car and drove away, and Max went back inside. The Saddle Club turned to follow just in time to see Veronica storm away, her face now beet purple. They had never seen her so angry.

  And The Saddle Club horse-sitters couldn’t help agreeing that that was the best payment they could ever ask for.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bonnie Bryant is the author of nearly a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, and the Pony Tails series. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

  Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

  Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.

  Don’t miss Bonnie Bryant’s next exciting

  Saddle Club adventures …

  With bonus pages about real gold medal riders!

  GOLD MEDAL RIDER #54

  The Saddle Club is thrilled to be attending an international riding competition, even if it means they have to serve as humble grooms for Beatrice Benner and her horse, Southwood. Beatrice is the most spoiled rich girl they’ve ever met, but she is a talented rider. Then an accident threatens to end her career. Stevie, Carole, and Lisa want their friend Kate Devine to take over, but does Kate have what it takes to be a gold medal rider?

  With bonus pages about real gold medal horses!

  GOLD MEDAL HORSE #55

  Southwood is the most glorious horse The Saddle Club girls have ever seen. He has more than athletic talent—he has the heart and soul of a champion. What he doesn’t have is experience—or a rider. Stevie, Carole, and Lisa think this horse just needs a chance. If he gets one, Southwood could jump for gold at the world’s most exciting competition.