Team Play Read online

  “Come on. What can Veronica do to me?” Stevie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa said. “But whatever it is, she’ll try it. Count on it!”

  “Well, I call for a change of subject,” Stevie said. She was getting tired of listening to her friends’ warnings.

  “All right, I’ve got a new one,” Carole said. “What’s Phil Marston going to think about you escorting four handsome Italian boys around town while they’re here?”

  Phil was Stevie’s boyfriend. They had met the summer before at riding camp. He lived in a nearby town, and although they only saw one another about once a month, they talked every week.

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with Phil,” Stevie said. “And besides, it means you guys will have four handsome, probably rich, and dashing Italian boys to share. You know as well as I do that Max didn’t just volunteer me, he volunteered you, too.”

  The waitress arrived, holding her tray high. “One hot fudge on vanilla.” She put it in front of Lisa. “One caramel on vanilla.” Carole got that. “And one, uh—oh, I can’t even say it.” She slammed the dish down in front of Stevie and dashed away.

  “I can’t think what comes over that woman!” Stevie said. “Isn’t she just the silliest?” She picked up her spoon and then asked politely, “Anybody want a taste?”

  “No, thanks,” Lisa and Carole said at the same time.

  Lisa continued, “You mean you think hosting this Italian equestrian team is some sort of Saddle Club project? That Carole and I are going to have to pitch in and spend a lot of time with these handsome, dashing, rich, talented Italian boys?”

  “That’s exactly what I had in mind.” Stevie grinned proudly.

  “I wonder how good they are at riding,” Carole said. Although all three of them were certifiably horse crazy, Carole was the horse craziest of the bunch. She had long ago decided that horses would be her life. She hadn’t decided whether she was going to train, ride, raise, or heal them, but it would be one or all of them, of that she was certain. “I mean, I wonder if they’re as good as Kate Devine,” she mused.

  Kate Devine was an out-of-town member of The Saddle Club. Her parents owned a dude ranch in the southwest which The Saddle Club had already visited twice, and hoped to visit again in the future. Before moving to the ranch and taking up Western riding, Kate had been a championship English rider. She’d helped The Saddle Club girls with both kinds of riding. In turn, they had helped her remember how much fun riding could be when she’d given it up because she’d stopped enjoying competing.

  “Wouldn’t it be neat if these guys were going near Kate’s ranch and she could see them, too?” Lisa asked.

  Stevie grinned. “Somehow I don’t see these boys traveling into cowboy country with their dressage show, do you?”

  “No, I guess not,” Lisa agreed. “It was just an—uh-oh.”

  Lisa’s “uh-oh” could only mean one thing.

  “Ah, the winner of the Helping Hand Award has arrived?” Stevie said sarcastically. Lisa nodded. Veronica sauntered in, looked disparagingly at The Saddle Club, and chose a table as far away from them as she could get. “Wow, I just got a neat idea,” Stevie said excitedly, leaning forward and whispering to her friends. Lisa and Carole had learned from past experience that Stevie’s neat ideas were usually wonderful, and often got them all into a lot of trouble. They suspected this time would be no exception.

  Stevie signaled the waitress and explained what she wanted. The poor woman gawked in horror and shook her head, but agreed to do as Stevie asked.

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” Stevie said. Lisa and Carole agreed that that was the wisest move.

  As they were leaving, the beleaguered waitress was delivering an order to Veronica.

  “That one,” she said, pointing to Stevie, “she says she owes you an apology or something. Wanted you to have this sundae. She paid for it. It’s just like the one she had, too.”

  “Oh, really?” Veronica asked. Stevie could see a smug look of victory cross her face. Veronica thought she’d won. “What is it?”

  The waitress’s face paled. “It’s spumoni,” she began. “With pineapple, walnuts, coconut—” She couldn’t finish, however. Veronica was already shrieking.

  ALL SUNDAY AFTERNOON, when she should have been starting her homework, Stevie worked on a list of things to show the Italian boys, places of interest in town, places of interest at the stable. She planned a full-scale tour of Washington, D.C., because, after all, it was only about forty-five minutes away. Stevie did notice that her list encompassed activities that would take a determined person a few months rather than a few days to accomplish. But, she told herself, at least the boys would have some choices.

  She also borrowed an Italian phrase book from the library and spent all of Sunday evening, when she should have been finishing her homework, making a list of words and phrases she thought she might need to know. That included everything from “horseback riding” (a cavallo) to “Can you repair a flat tire?” (Può riparare una gomma a terra?), although she wasn’t quite sure how she would work the last phrase into a conversation. The end result of all her work was that she was up way too late on Sunday, finishing the homework she should have done much earlier, and overslept on Monday morning.

  Stevie fairly flew out of bed when she saw what time it was. She pulled on her clothes, hoping, as an afterthought, that she hadn’t put on her sweater backwards, and dashed downstairs and out the door, grabbing a doughnut from the kitchen counter as she raced through the room.

  “Glad to see you eating a balanced breakfast!” her mother called after her. Stevie couldn’t answer. Her mouth was full of doughnut by then.

  Stevie went to a different school from the one Lisa and Carole went to. She went to Fenton Hall, which was a private school in town. Lisa and Carole both went to Willow Creek’s public school. Stevie had been at Fenton Hall ever since kindergarten and she liked it, although she would have loved to see Lisa and Carole every day, not just on riding days. But Fenton Hall was good, as schools went. Its only major drawback was that Veronica diAngelo went there, too, and was in some of Stevie’s classes.

  None of this was on Stevie’s mind as she walked quickly to school. She was thinking about all the work she’d done to prepare for the Italian boys’ visit. She pulled one of her lists out of her pocket and admired the plans she’d written there for them. People often accused Stevie of hurrying through work and not being thorough. But this list was nothing if not thorough! Stevie was very pleased with herself. It occurred to her that she might be turning over a new leaf. She liked the feeling of being prepared. She liked knowing that she was helping others. In a small way, she was doing something that was going to make a difference, and she felt good about it.

  Then she looked at her watch and didn’t feel quite so good. Mondays always began with a school-wide assembly and she’d missed it. All of it. With a bit of luck, she might be able to mingle with the crowd returning to her classroom. If it weren’t for the fact that she was still wearing her jacket, she might even be able to mingle right into her first class without anyone noticing. Maybe Miss Epworth hadn’t taken roll yet.

  “Hey, congratulations on your new job!” one of her classmates greeted her in the hallway.

  Stevie smiled and nodded and tried to look inconspicuous. News got around fast at a small school like Fenton. Quite a few of Pine Hollow’s riders went there. Stevie figured one of them must have told some of the other students about the Italian boys.

  “You’re going to be great,” Patty Featherstone said, clapping Stevie on the back. Stevie didn’t think Patty Featherstone had ever clapped her on the back before. She wouldn’t mind if she never did it again, either. Stevie’s shoulder smarted from Patty’s enthusiasm.

  Stevie followed a group of students into her classroom, slipping out of her jacket on the way. She slid it into her book bag and tried to look as if she’d been at school for a long time.

  “Oh, Stevie
, how nice to have you join us,” Miss Epworth greeted her. So much for that idea, Stevie thought. Then she wondered why Miss Epworth didn’t seem angry.

  By fourth period, Stevie began to smell a rat. The third person to congratulate her that morning also mentioned that it was Veronica who had told them the news. Stevie was sure that Veronica would never do anything nice to her. Therefore, this news that Veronica was telling everyone had to be something bad. So, then, why was everybody congratulating her and clapping her on the back?

  Stevie found out at lunchtime. She was about to bite into the school cook’s version of pizza when the P.A. system called her and told her to report to the principal’s office.

  Stevie could think of dozens of reasons why the principal might want to see her, up to and including being a half hour late this morning. What she couldn’t figure out was how the principal had heard about those dozen things, and why it was that wherever she’d been all morning, people had kept clapping her on the back.

  “You wanted to see me, Miss Fenton?” Stevie asked.

  “Oh, yes! Good, come on in, Stevie.” It was the first time she’d ever seen Miss Fenton smile and call her Stevie. Something was definitely wrong with the world today. Stevie came in and sat down.

  “My dear,” she began. “You have agreed to take on an important task and responsibility.”

  Stevie was about to reach for her lists. She wanted to show Miss Fenton that she’d really already done most of the work.

  “What you are doing can make an enormous difference to these youngsters.”

  Enormous? Really, what’s the big deal here? Stevie thought.

  “The hospital counts on Fenton Hall students to show the young patients a good time for one afternoon. Frankly, Stevie, when I learned it was you who had volunteered to chair the event this year, I was pleased. You’re not the best student in the school, but you do show a certain, shall I say, genius, when it comes to amusement—though there have been times … No, I won’t go into that now. In any event, dear, I am confident that you will use that genius to give the hospital patients a wonderful time at the annual festival at the end of this month.”

  Stevie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. If she got it right, Miss Fenton was under the impression that she had volunteered to be the chairman of the school’s annual Children’s Hospital Festival. That meant taking the kids in the hospital for wheelchair rides. Stevie had been one of the pushers one year. The kids had been bored to tears.

  “Often, I’m afraid,” Miss Fenton continued, “our student volunteers have been rather unimaginative when it came to entertaining the young hospital patients. With you at the helm, Stevie, I’m sure those days are past.”

  “Oh.” It was all Stevie could think of to say. Her mind was scanning every second of every day of the last week, trying to remember exactly when it was that she had volunteered for this particular job. Her thoughts were interrupted by Miss Fenton.

  “On your way out, Miss Ward will give you some material on the hospital, the name and number of the person to call there, and information on what has been done in previous years. Good luck, dear.”

  Stevie went to Miss Ward’s desk, took the material, and returned to the lunchroom and her lunch.

  Her classmates had all finished their lunches and had escaped to the gym until next period, which was in ten minutes. Stevie was almost alone. It gave her time to think of the astonishing events of the day so far.

  It was unusual for everybody to be so nice to her. She wasn’t crazy about being clapped on the back, but it was nice to have people think good things about her. Weird as Miss Fenton was—and that was pretty weird—it was nice that she’d been so confident that Stevie would do a better job with the hospital festival than had ever been done before. The Festival had been as dull as could be in the past. Stevie probably could do a better job. In fact, she decided, she would. There were a lot of kids in Children’s Hospital who could stand to have some fun, a really good time. It must be terrible to have people constantly stick them with needles and do tests on them and make them take medicine. Maybe Stevie and her schoolmates couldn’t heal them, but there was no reason why they couldn’t give them a good time.

  Stevie smiled to herself. She’d done most of the work she would need to do for the Italian boys last night. How much more work could this be? All she had to do was to think of something fun, arrange it with the hospital, and she’d be done. And she’d feel even better about herself. Stevie realized that she was a lucky person. She had all kinds of resources, including her imagination. With a little bit of effort, she could share those resources and actually make a difference in somebody else’s life. It didn’t matter whether that somebody else was an Italian rider or an American hospital patient. Stevie could help.

  She was definitely turning over a new leaf.

  STEVIE COULD HARDLY wait to share her news with her friends. She had gotten the most wonderful idea about using horses for the Children’s Hospital Festival. Although the festival was a Fenton Hall project, Stevie would never do anything with horses without consulting Lisa and Carole, too.

  As soon as she got home, she dashed for the phone. There was no answer at Carole’s house, and she got an answering machine when she called Lisa. Stevie thought for a minute. It was very likely that her friends were both at Pine Hollow. Since they went to the same school, they’d probably walked over to the stable together. Pine Hollow was a short walk from Stevie’s house. It was an even shorter bike ride. She borrowed her twin brother Alex’s bike—hers had a broken chain—and headed for the stable.

  As she had suspected, Carole and Lisa were in the outdoor schooling ring, working with Carole’s horse, Starlight.

  “Hi, guys!” Stevie greeted her friends.

  “Oh, great!” Lisa called back from her perch on the wooden fence around the ring. “Come see what Carole’s doing—and explain it to me!” she joked. Lisa had begun riding fairly recently, and though her progress had been impressive, there was still a lot she didn’t know.

  Stevie rode the bike up to the fence, hopped off, and propped it against the railing. She climbed up on the slats and sat next to Lisa, waving to Carole once she had gotten her balance.

  Carole was standing in the middle of the ring and had Starlight on what looked like a long, flat leash. He was trotting clockwise in a large circle while Carole was turning and guiding him with a long-handled whip. Carole held his lead in her right hand and the whip with her left. She concentrated totally on what she was doing and hardly seemed aware that Stevie had arrived.

  “That leash thing is a lunge line,” Stevie said.

  “I know that,” Lisa said. “And I also know that the poles on the ground are cavallettis. What I don’t know is what she’s doing with them.”

  “Hmmm. Let me watch for a bit,” Stevie said.

  Carole had laid six cavallettis on the ground on one side of the ring. As Starlight trotted around the ring, he had to trot over them. They were spaced a little further apart than the natural length of his trot up until the time he reached them. Starlight had to make an effort to make his strides land between the cavallettis. When he did that, his trot was smoother and more balanced.

  “She’s teaching him to lengthen his strides,” Stevie said. “Watch what happens after he passes the cavallettis.”

  The next time around, when Starlight got to the cavallettis, he adjusted his stride with less apparent effort than before and cleared them evenly. After he’d gone through all six, his stride remained long and smooth for eight or ten strides before it shortened again, reverting to his natural stride.

  “It looks like he remembers for halfway around and then forgets again,” Lisa observed.

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Stevie said. “The idea is that if she keeps him going around and around, eventually he’ll learn that it’s easier on him to keep the long sleek stride. When that happens, he will have learned to lengthen his stride.”

  “Very clever,” Lisa said. “
So once again, the lesson is that when you’re teaching a horse something, you have to repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, and eventually it sinks in.”

  “That’s the way it is with horses,” Stevie said. “And when they get it, they’ve got it for life.”

  “Hi, Stevie. I didn’t see you get here,” Carole said, bringing Starlight to a cooling walk. Stevie patted the forehead of the bay gelding when he drew to a stop next to her and Lisa.

  “Well, when I got home, I tried to call you guys and when nobody answered, I had a feeling I’d find you here,” Stevie explained.

  As she stroked the horse’s soft cheek, she found that some of his mane had gotten a little tangled in his bridle. Automatically, she began untangling it.

  “The lesson looked pretty good,” Stevie commented as she worked. “He’s learning, isn’t he?”

  “He is,” Carole said. “But it can be pretty frustrating sometimes. I know he’s working hard and he wants to please me, but sometimes it seems like it takes forever! Tomorrow I think I’ll try the same thing again, only riding him. Maybe I can get him to maintain the longer stride all the way around.”

  “Can I try lunging him?” Stevie asked.

  “Sure,” Carole said. “Have you ever lunged a horse before?”

  “No, but I’ve seen it done lots of times.”

  Carole nodded. “Go for it.”

  Stevie hopped down from the fence and took Starlight’s lunge line. She walked out to the middle of the ring, put the lead in her left hand, the whip in her right, and began walking him in a small circle around her in a counterclockwise direction. As he got the idea, she lengthened the lunge line and the circle became bigger. When she thought the circle was large enough, she gave Starlight a verbal command.

  “Trot!” she said. He did.

  “Look at that!” a new voice called from the far side of the fence. It was Veronica. “Whenever anybody needs a hand, there Stevie is, ready to pitch in! She’s really something, isn’t she? Your friends must be very proud of you, Stevie. I know all of Fenton Hall is.” With that, she walked back into the stable.