Stevie Read online

  I blushed. “Moi?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.

  “If the shoe fits,” Max remarked with a laugh. Then he started to tell us something about a map, when a loud, whiny voice interrupted him.

  “Re-ed!” it shouted. “I need your help! Where are you?”

  It was Veronica, of course. Late, of course. And, of course, she expected Red O’Malley to tack up her horse, Garnet, for her. Veronica never does any of her own stable chores if she can help it.

  Red excused himself and went to tack up Garnet while Veronica joined the group of riders. I was sure Max would have made her go tack up Garnet herself, but he probably thought it was more important for her to hear what he had to say.

  “As I was saying,” he continued, “I have made up a map, which all riders should carry with them. There are a few farmers who have specifically asked us not to ride on their land, and we must respect their wishes. Do you all understand?”

  Everybody nodded.

  “Okay, then, I think it’s about time for our fox to get going, so all you animals, come get your ears.”

  I was surprised when Max pulled out a bag full of headbands with fake ears sewn on. When I saw what the hounds were going to wear, I wrinkled my nose. They looked kind of silly.

  My own ears, on the other hand, were a different matter. They were orange, and pointy, and furry—and absolutely adorable! I pulled them on proudly over my helmet. When Phil saw me, he let out a loud whistle.

  “That’s a wolf whistle,” I joked. “Totally wrong for a fox.”

  “Well, let’s see just how good a fox you are,” he said. “I can promise you, you haven’t got a chance against an awesome huntsman like me.”

  I grinned. I recognized a challenge when I heard one. “We’ll see,” I told him. “We’ll just see!”

  Then it was time for me to get started. Max explained that I had two jobs. The first was to try to avoid being captured. The second and even more important job was to lead everybody on a ride that would be fun.

  “Fun is my middle name!” I told him.

  “Sometimes I think it’s your first and last names, too,” Max said. I wasn’t absolutely sure he meant it as a compliment, but I decided to take it as one.

  Max told me I would have a ten-minute head start before the other riders came after me. He handed me a bag of confetti and told me it was “scent.” I had to drop a handful of the confetti every five minutes so the “hounds” would have a trail to follow.

  “Gotcha,” I agreed, dropping my first handful of confetti right then and there. Then Topside and I headed for the woods at a brisk trot.

  My mind was already racing with the possibilities. Max was counting on me to be the wiliest of foxes, and I wasn’t going to disappoint him. I urged Topside through the woods quickly, dropping my confetti scent just as I was supposed to do.

  A plan was already brewing in my mind. I planted some confetti on the trail leading into a wooded hillside where there were lots of caves and gullies and other hiding places. I knew they were there, and I knew that Carole and Lisa (and probably most of the other Pine Hollow riders) knew they were there, too. I figured if they thought I was in there, they would spend a really long time searching every possible hiding spot. But they wouldn’t find me in a single one.

  I grinned. “Let’s get going!” I told Topside, feeling very pleased with my deception. I followed the trail I had taken toward the hillside in reverse, being careful to drop my confetti on the exact same spots where I had dropped it on the way in. That way, the hounds and huntsman would see the confetti, but they wouldn’t realize they were seeing a double dose.

  The only tricky part was getting to the creek before I had to drop any more confetti. I meant to go into the creek and stay there, following it all the way back to the field. That way, when I dropped my handfuls of confetti, it would float downstream in the water and the other riders would never see it.

  I almost laughed aloud when I thought of it. I had to be the cleverest fox any fox hunt had ever seen!

  “Well, the cleverest human one, anyway,” I told Topside, who didn’t seem the least bit impressed.

  The plan went perfectly. I reached the creek safely and was well on my way before I heard the distant sounds of the other riders approaching. I grinned and urged Topside forward a little faster through the shallow water.

  Once we were a bit farther downstream, I allowed Topside to choose his own pace. There was no real hurry now—my friends and the others would be occupied for quite some time on that hillside.

  Eventually we reached the edge of the field. Actually, it was the first of several sizable open fields lying between me and Pine Hollow, a little less than a mile away. I had to make sure the area was empty before I entered it. I didn’t want someone to spot me now, not after all my brilliant planning.

  I scanned the fields carefully. There was no sign of any other riders. I clucked to Topside, and we moved forward.

  “Okay, boy,” I told my horse. “We don’t want to blow this now. We’re going to have to do this fast.”

  He snorted, and I took it as agreement. Reaching into my bag, I dropped one last handful of confetti. At almost the same time, I urged Topside forward.

  Topside responded immediately, swinging into a trot that quickly turned into a canter and then a full-fledged gallop. “Yeeee-ha!” I whispered, not wanting to yell and risk attracting attention.

  There was a fence separating the first field from the second. I aimed Topside straight toward it, and he jumped it cleanly and easily like the champion he is. A few seconds later, we approached another fence.

  Suddenly I realized that we had a problem. “Oops,” I said. “That’s Mr. Andrews’s land. We’re not allowed to go that way.

  I knew Topside couldn’t hear me, let alone understand me. I was really talking more to myself. It was annoying to have to make a detour now, especially when I could almost taste my victory. But I knew I had no choice. Some people might think I have no trouble at all breaking rules, but all kidding aside, Max’s rule about other people’s land was sacred. I didn’t even consider breaking it for a second.

  I turned Topside sharply to the right and skirted Mr. Andrews’s land, going clean around it. Then I turned again, once more aimed straight for the stable.

  That was when I heard it.

  “Help!”

  I pulled Topside to a walk. Had it been my imagination?

  “Help! Help!” the voice came again. A young girl’s voice.

  “Where are you?” I called. Following the sound of the girl’s replies, I quickly spotted her. It was May Grover, one of the younger riders. She was sitting in the grass with tears streaming down her cheeks.

  I hurried over and dismounted. “What happened?” I asked the little girl.

  “My pony threw me,” May said. “One of the big girls was supposed to look after me, but she just rode on. She didn’t even notice.”

  I grimaced. I was pretty sure I knew who the “big girl” was—Veronica diAngelo. She’s the only member of Horse Wise who would be that irresponsible.

  I checked May over, and luckily she didn’t seem to be seriously hurt. She was just upset at having been thrown. I comforted her as best I could, then helped her to her feet.

  “I’ll find your pony for you,” I promised her.

  “You’d do that for me?” May asked, looking surprised.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “But you’re the fox!”

  I had been so concerned about her that I’d almost forgotten about that. But her words gave me an idea. “You know foxes sometimes travel in pairs, right?” I said.

  May nodded. “Max says two foxes are called a brace of foxes.”

  “You’ve been studying,” I accused her.

  May smiled proudly. “I wanted to know everything,” she explained.

  “Then you’ll make a great partner for me,” I said. I climbed back aboard Topside and hoisted May onto the saddle in front of me. Then we went l
ooking for her pony.

  It didn’t take long to find him. He was nibbling on some grass behind a small stand of trees nearby. Since May seemed comfortable sitting in front of me, I left her there and led the pony beside Topside. All parties seemed perfectly happy with that arrangement.

  Then we headed for Pine Hollow once again, May giggling as I carefully explained my foxy strategy to her. We had almost reached the paddock gate when something made me look back over my shoulder. It might have been a noise, or just a hunch. Either way, I spotted Veronica diAngelo waving wildly and screaming triumphantly as she rode toward us at breakneck speed.

  “That’s the girl who was supposed to take care of me,” May said. “Now it looks like somebody ought to take care of her. What’s wrong with her?”

  “She just thinks she’s so smart because she saw us first,” I replied, my heart sinking as I realized it was true. She had spotted us. “That’s why she’s waving her arms.”

  “I didn’t mean that part,” May said. “What’s wrong with her that she’s riding across Mr. Andrews’s field?”

  I gasped as I realized she was absolutely right. It was the best news I’d had all day! I gave May a big hug. “You’re quite a fox,” I declared with a grin.

  A little while later, all three of us were back at Pine Hollow. Actually, make that all six of us, including the horses. I was walking Topside around the indoor ring to cool him down after our ride. May was with me, walking her pony. We were being as quiet as possible because we were trying to hear every word that Max and Mr. Baker were saying to Veronica just outside.

  “Veronica, you are very familiar with the rules,” Max said in his sternest voice.

  “But I saw Stevie,” Veronica whined. “I had to catch up to her.”

  “It wasn’t your job to catch up to her. That’s the huntsman’s job. It was your job to inform the huntsman that you’d seen her.”

  Veronica continued to protest, but the two men weren’t having any of it. Finally she gave up.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again.” It sounded pretty insincere to me, and I figured Veronica was just tired of arguing.

  What Mr. Baker said next surprised her, though—and me, too. “You’re right about that,” he told her. “And it certainly won’t happen in any hunt that I have anything to do with. As of now, Max is withdrawing his invitation to you to participate further in this mock hunt, and I’m formally disinviting you to the junior hunt at Cross County next week.”

  “You what?” Veronica exploded.

  I could hardly believe it. It was a safe bet that nobody had ever disinvited Veronica to anything. This was better revenge than anything I could have come up with. “Isn’t it great?” I whispered to May.

  Soon our horses were ready to go back to their stalls, and May and I were ready to start digging into the hunt breakfast. But first I walked to the tack room to put away my tack. While I was there, I glanced out the window and saw Veronica standing by the road, obviously waiting for her ride.

  Then something strange happened. My brother Chad rode past on his bike. Or rather, he started to ride past. Because Veronica spotted him and waved, and Chad stopped.

  I rolled my eyes. Veronica may not be much in the personality department, but a lot of guys seem to think she’s pretty. It looked as though Chad was no exception. I figured he was probably thrilled that a girl wanted to talk to him.

  “You two deserve each other,” I muttered in their general direction. Then I turned and hurried out of the room, forgetting all about what I’d seen—for the moment, at least.

  May and I were into our second helpings of bagels and cream cheese when the first shouts came from outside the stable.

  “Here’s some more confetti!”

  “It can’t be! She must have dropped that on the way out!”

  “No way!”

  And so on. I grinned and winked at May as the voices came closer. Phil and Lisa were arguing about whether they should have checked more places on the hillside. Others were speculating on whether I could possibly have ridden into town for ice cream. The rest of the riders just sounded confused.

  Then I heard someone let out a loud “Woof! Woof!”

  “They must have just spotted Topside,” I told May complacently. “It sounds like they’re right outside his stall.”

  Sure enough, they had figured it out. A moment later they burst in, and May and I stood to toast them with our orange juice.

  “Gotcha!” I cried. Everybody laughed, then cheered.

  And by the end of the hunt breakfast, all the riders from the fox hunt—minus Veronica, of course—toasted May and me with their orange juice, bringing an end to one of the most enjoyable experiences of my whole life.

  FROM: HorseGal

  TO: Steviethegreat

  SUBJECT: Go to sleep!

  MESSAGE:

  It’s way too late to call, but I figured you’d probably still be up working on your report. My dad and I just got home from a double feature in town, and I couldn’t wait until our Horse Wise meeting tomorrow to tell you what happened on the way home from the theater.

  I talked Dad into stopping by Pine Hollow on our way home, because I’d asked Judy to leave me a schedule of when she wanted me to work with her. Anyway, Dad waited in the car while I rushed in. Of course, after I picked up the note I decided to stop by for a quick good-night to Starlight. On my way to his stall, I spotted movement at the end of the hall. For a second I was kind of scared, thinking it was an intruder. I mean, it was pretty late, and there were only a few lights on. Then I decided I was being silly, that it was just Max or Red checking on one of the horses.

  Still, I decided to play it safe. I stayed as quiet as a barn mouse as I crept forward, trying to see who it was.

  When I reached the corner and peeped around, I got the shock of my life. It wasn’t Max. It wasn’t Red. It wasn’t some ax murderer or escaped convict.

  It was Veronica!

  She was wandering around the section of the stable that’s the bottom of the U—you know, the part where Rusty and Delilah and a few of the ponies are stabled. I was confused because she was nowhere near Garnet’s stall. And she wasn’t even paying attention to any of the horses, even though Rusty kept sticking his head out to snuffle at her as she walked by. She was just sort of pacing.

  I was too surprised to say anything at first, and she didn’t see me at all. After a second, she stopped pacing and hurried down the other aisle (the one I wasn’t in) and disappeared. I came to my senses a moment later and raced around the corner to ask her what she was doing there—I was afraid maybe Garnet was sick or something—but she was nowhere in sight. I looked all around the stable, but there wasn’t another human being to be seen anywhere (or Veronica either, hee hee!).

  Anyway, it was so weird I just had to tell someone about it. Maybe Veronica has finally lost it! (Now if she’d just get lost … hee hee!)

  See you bright and early tomorrow for Horse Wise!

  Welcome to My Life …

  Now, I didn’t know about this next part of my story until Carole and Lisa told me later. But it seems they were still worrying about what my brothers might do to me. So they decided to get involved—directly. Really directly. They actually called up the three troublemakers and arranged a meeting.

  Those poor girls never had a chance. Somehow, my brothers managed to get them talking about the hunt. I suspect that Carole did most of the talking, since as you’ve seen before in this report, Miss Fenton, she really loves to talk about anything horse-related. Apparently she told them all about how a hunt works, and how if there are no foxes around, the would-be hunters will make it a drag hunt. Basically, that means someone goes out with a bag of scent and drags it around to create a trail that the hounds can follow, just as if they were on the trail of a real live fox. By the time Carole finished talking, my brothers probably knew almost as much about foxhunting as she did.

  But as I said, at the time I didn’t even suspect t
hat anything like that was going on. However, I was still mighty suspicious of my brothers’ behavior, which was still nice as pie. In fact, I spent so much time worrying about it that I completely forgot about one of my math assignments, and I only had time to finish half the chapter I was supposed to read in my history book. Okay, maybe it was more like a third. I was really worried.

  That Monday was rainy, and I was in a pretty stormy mood myself as I headed for Pine Hollow. I had seen something that day that had totally freaked me out. It was one of those things that sort of make you think the entire universe has just shifted in some cosmic way that allows the unthinkable to happen. Or something like that.

  Anyway, when I got to the stable, Red told me that Carole and Lisa were in the indoor ring. I let myself in. Lisa was over on one side working with Samson, a curious young foal who was born at Pine Hollow. Carole was aboard Starlight, working on gait changes. I just stood there for a minute or two, watching them work. Carole is such a good friend that sometimes it’s easy for me to forget how truly impressive she is when she’s working with a horse. I kind of take her talents for granted. But I was aware of them right then as I watched Starlight practically grow and learn in front of my eyes. Seeing that somehow put what I had seen that day in perspective and soothed me.

  Eventually Carole and Lisa noticed me standing there and came over to say hi. After a few moments of chitchat, I got down to business.

  “Something is definitely up,” I told them.

  “What makes you think so?” Lisa asked, looking worried as she stroked Samson’s short black mane.

  “It’s Chad,” I said. “He seems to have a new girlfriend.”

  Carole shrugged. “What’s so strange about that? The average life span of a romance for Chad is about four days, right? So it’s time for a switch.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at that, since it was true. “I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “His lacrosse stick looks like a bowl of leftover alphabet soup! Anyway, what’s funny isn’t that he’s got a new girlfriend, but who it is. Stand back, girls.” I took a deep breath. “It’s Veronica diAngelo.”