Horse Trade Read online

  With twelve riders behind them, staring at their backs, the chances for a kiss did not look good, Stevie thought. She smiled to herself, thinking about No-Name’s reaction to her leaning out of the saddle, and she leaned forward to pat No-Name’s neck affectionately. But No-Name twitched to throw off Stevie’s hand. Thanks a lot, Stevie thought. First you wreck a kiss and now you won’t let me pat you. I thought we were friends.

  Then Stevie realized that No-Name’s coat felt unaccountably lumpy. She peered at the horse more closely, straining to see in the moonlight.

  It couldn’t be. But it was. There was a lump on the tender curve of No-Name’s left ear. Another at its base. As Stevie frantically examined the area around No-Name’s head and neck, she felt welts on No-Name’s muzzle and the underside of her neck.

  No-Name had hives.

  “She’s allergic to the soap we used,” Stevie whispered in horror. “No, she’s probably allergic to me.”

  “IT WASN’T AS much fun as I thought it would be,” Stevie admitted.

  “What could be bad about a moonlight ride?” asked Carole as she chewed on the end of a straw. The three members of The Saddle Club were holding a brief Saddle Club meeting before class on Tuesday afternoon.

  “It started off fine,” Stevie told them. “I was riding this great horse that’s staying at Phil’s stable.”

  “What’s the horse’s name?” Lisa asked.

  “No-Name,” Stevie said.

  “A horse has got to have a name,” Carole said, crossing her arms.

  “She does,” Stevie said. “Her name is No-Name.”

  Carole and Lisa rolled their eyes, both of them thinking that this was the Steviest of all possible names.

  “So anyway,” Stevie said, “here Phil and I were on this romantic ride, and not only did we have moonlight, we had mist.”

  “Very handy,” Lisa said with a smile.

  “We were totally alone and we were about to have …”

  “The kiss of the century?” Carole said.

  “That’s it,” Stevie said. “But No-Name started dancing in place.”

  “Doing a piaffe?” Carole said.

  Stevie frowned, thinking about Carole’s question. Now that she thought about it, No-Name had been doing the piaffe in the middle of the mist. Once again Stevie wondered about No-Name. Obviously she’d had some training in dressage; so how had she wound up in the bulk lot of horses that Mr. Baker had acquired?

  “I’ve got to meet this horse,” Carole said. “She sounds special.”

  “She is,” Stevie agreed eagerly. “She has white socks on all of her legs, and this really unusual upside-down exclamation point on her face.…” She went on and on, telling her friends every detail about the beautiful Arabian.

  A red car pulled up in the Pine Hollow driveway, and Hollie Bright jumped out and ran halfway to the barn. Then, as if it was an afterthought, she turned and waved to her mother, who was at the wheel of the car. Her mother gestured and said something, which caused Hollie to give a large, exaggerated shrug, shoulders up, hands out, as if to say—how can parents be so silly?

  Lisa smiled, remembering how her own mother had hovered the first time she rode at Pine Hollow, simultaneously assuring Max that Lisa was a fantastic rider and trying to make sure she wouldn’t fall off and get killed.

  “I’m glad you’re early,” Lisa said to Hollie.

  “Me too,” said Stevie.

  “Me three,” said Carole.

  “The whole Saddle Club is here,” Hollie said. “This is an honor.”

  “We want to get you off to a good start,” said Lisa, remembering her first day again, when she’d thought that Stevie was a creep and Veronica diAngelo, the stable brat, was an angel. Lisa had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot. She didn’t want the same thing to happen to Hollie.

  “Come and meet Delilah, the horse you’re going to ride,” Carole said. “You’ll love her.”

  As they walked toward the entrance to the stable, Stevie pointed to the horseshoe nailed to the wall over the outside mounting block. “If you want to make sure that nothing goes wrong, remember to touch the horseshoe before you head out on the trail. Because of it, nothing really serious has ever gone wrong at Pine Hollow.”

  “That’s because it reminds riders to be careful,” Carole said earnestly. “Not because it’s magic.”

  “We could have used a horseshoe backstage at Annie,” Hollie said to Lisa. “Especially on opening night when everyone was afraid they were going to forget their lines.”

  “I could have used one Sunday night,” Stevie said with a sigh. “Talk about things going wrong.”

  Carole and Lisa looked at her. “So far your ride sounds wonderful,” Lisa said. “What went wrong?”

  Stevie briefly filled Hollie in about her ride on No-Name. Then she continued with her sad tale. “On the way home No-Name came down with hives. Her face and neck were covered with them. And it’s all because Phil and I washed her.”

  “Back up,” Carole said. “What did you wash her with?”

  “Horse soap.”

  Carole shook her head. “Horse soap is usually hypoallergenic, which means that it doesn’t give horses hives.” This was something that she knew from her work with Judy Barker.

  “That’s a relief,” Stevie said. “I felt like I should be put in horse prison.”

  Hollie shrugged. “I have allergies from time to time, and it’s no big deal. I just ignore them.” She turned to Stevie. “The hives probably bothered you more than they did the horse.”

  “Actually,” Stevie said, “No-Name seemed remarkably calm.”

  “Hives don’t harm a horse,” Carole said, “unless the horse scratches them until they’re sore. Another danger is that the horse will get so upset, it develops digestive troubles,” she added.

  “Right,” Stevie said. She knew that emotions frequently affected a horse’s stomach.

  “A horse with stomach trouble can develop diarrhea or colic,” Carole said. “And if colic isn’t treated, it can result in death.”

  “Great.” Stevie shook her head. “I was worried before, but now I’m terrified.”

  They had reached Delilah’s stall. Delilah, the gentlest and easiest to ride of all the Pine Hollow horses, had her nose in her hay bag.

  “Come on,” Carole said, taking Hollie by the arm. “I’ll introduce you. You’re really going to like Delilah, and she’s going to like you.”

  Fifteen minutes later Hollie led Delilah into the outdoor ring, touching the good-luck horseshoe on her way. She got up on the block and mounted, looking eager and excited.

  Lisa kept a close eye on her friend, wanting to be as helpful to her as Hollie had been to Lisa at the beginning of rehearsals.

  Obviously, Hollie’s earlier riding lessons had stayed with her. She kept her hands low, her heels down, knees tucked in, and back straight. Most important, she was in communication with her horse, checking Delilah to make sure that she was alert and attentive. Pretty soon the two of them looked as if they’d been together forever. Seeing this, Lisa relaxed. She was more glad than ever she’d invited Hollie to Pine Hollow.

  As part of the class, Max had Carole demonstrate some “wrong” ways of jumping. One of these was “calling a cab,” when a rider held up her hand as if trying to hail a taxi. As all the riders could see, this threw Starlight off balance, making her clip the rail with her right rear hoof. Then Carole demonstrated another common error, the “suicide tilt,” leaning too far back in the saddle. At first the jump looked great because there was so little weight over Starlight’s front legs, but then the extra weight on her hindquarters prevented her hind legs from rising, so they knocked the top rail from the fence.

  Then, to show how jumping ought to be done, Carole and Starlight trotted along the edge of the ring with Carole leaning low over Starlight’s neck. Carole seemed totally relaxed as Starlight moved smoothly toward the jump. Horse and rider rose into the air and sailed over the fence. Then
they came down in a perfect landing.

  “See how easy it is,” Max said, his eyes bright with pleasure. “You just have to let your horse jump.”

  Next to Lisa, Hollie muttered, “That’s like saying anyone can play Hamlet.”

  Lisa giggled. “You have a point. But Max is a great teacher. I wouldn’t have made as much progress as I have if it weren’t for him.”

  Hollie looked uncertain. “We’ll see how I do.”

  But by the time Hollie had completed the first exercise, Lisa was more than a little impressed.

  “I was watching you,” she called to her friend. “That was almost perfect form. I think you’re a natural because of all your acting experience.”

  “You mean you dink it’s because I’m faking riding?” Hollie said, and let loose with a sneeze.

  Lisa shook her head. “It’s because you have self-confidence. You don’t get tense and self-conscious. Delilah’s pretty cool, but even she gets nervous with a beginner on her back.”

  “Do you dink you could give me a dissue?” Hollie said.

  Lisa blinked, trying to figure out what Hollie had said. Then she realized that Hollie was asking for a tissue. “Sure,” Lisa said, searching in an inside pocket in her riding jacket. This proved that Hollie knew her really well, Lisa thought. Because all of Lisa’s jackets and coats had packets of tissues put there by Lisa’s mother. “Help yourself,” she said, passing Hollie a new pack. “Do you have a cold?”

  Hollie shook her head. “Danks, I’m edernally dateful.”

  Lisa opened her mouth, about to tell Hollie that she was “endirely delcome,” when she noticed Max looking at them with irritation. With her eyes, Lisa signaled to Hollie that there was trouble, and Hollie blew her nose as softly as possible and slipped the tissues into the pocket of her riding jacket.

  After class Lisa explained that Max didn’t like people to talk for any reason when they were at a class or at a meeting of the Pony Club. “He says concentration is the most important part of riding,” she said.

  “He sounds like my acting doach,” said Hollie with a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sneeze.

  “Hey,” Lisa said, rising from her saddle, “there’s Judy Barker. She’s the vet here at Pine Hollow.” She pointed to a woman in jeans climbing out of a blue pickup truck. “If you think Carole knows a lot about horses,” she went on, “Judy knows more. In fact,” she added with a grin, “Carole’s ambition is to grow up to be Judy.”

  “Maybe,” Carole chimed in. “I’m still not sure if I want to be a trainer or a breeder or a vet.”

  “Whatever it is, it’ll involve horses—right?” Hollie asked.

  “How’d you guess?” Stevie put in. The four girls laughed.

  Later, when Judy got to Topside’s stall, Stevie bombarded her with questions. “How do you find out what a horse is allergic to? Can you treat allergies easily? What if the horse—”

  “Whoa,” Judy said, looking up from the shot that she was about to give Topside. “Who’s allergic?”

  “A horse at the Marstens’,” Stevie said.

  Judy finished giving Topside the shot and then massaged the spot to ease the sting and get the serum circulating. “You mean the horse they’re boarding?” Judy said. When Stevie nodded, Judy said, “I saw the horse just after they got her. They wanted me to check her bone splint, which is just fine, and her allergies. I couldn’t tell right off about the allergies, though I can do some tests. Allergies in horses are a lot like allergies in humans—they’re hard to track down. Have you ever had a friend with allergies?”

  Stevie shook her head and said, “No.” But then she remembered that Hollie had said something about having an allergy, so she said, “Actually, yes.”

  “Your friend can tell you that almost anything can cause an allergy. It’s the same with animals. It could be the horse’s food, or weeds in the pasture, or bug spray, or saddle soap,” Judy said. “Or it could be a combination of all of them.”

  “Great,” Stevie said. “Is No-Name going to go around for the rest of her life covered with welts?”

  “That’s the name of the horse?” asked Judy with a smile.

  “For the time being,” Stevie said. “Until I think of a permanent one.”

  Judy put the empty syringe in a pocket on the side of her bag. “You can usually treat hives with cortisone and antihistamine. The Marstens called me last night, and I told them to use the antihistamine.” She smiled at Stevie. “You’ll be glad to know that No-Name was fine in half an hour.”

  “But what if it gets worse?” Stevie said. “Can’t a horse get more and more allergic?”

  Judy looked at Stevie, her expression serious. “That can happen. That’s why we watch allergies so closely—and why we try to get to the bottom of them. It’s also why stables have to be ready for allergy emergencies—in both horses and humans. You know the first-aid box in the tack room?”

  Stevie nodded. The red, white, and blue first-aid box stuck out like a sore thumb among the brown saddles and tack.

  “There’s an EpiPen inside for any human who has an allergic reaction to a bee sting, or anything else,” Judy explained. “When that happens, the person’s air passages swell so badly that they can’t breathe. The medicine reduces the swelling and keeps them from suffocating. And for horses Mrs. Reg has cortisone and antihistamine on hand. An injection takes half an hour, the powder a little longer. Plus, you can always call me,” Judy said with a smile, putting her hand on Stevie’s arm. “Allergies aren’t usually dangerous unless you ignore them.”

  “I’m going to hunt down the cause of No-Name’s allergy if it’s the last thing I do,” Stevie said to Judy.

  “Good for you,” Judy said. “It’s going to take luck and patience.”

  “Hmmm,” Stevie said. “Luck is fun; patience I’m not so sure about.”

  “NO-NAME WAS BETTER in half an hour,” Phil said that night over the phone.

  “I guess you must have given her a shot rather than a powder,” Stevie said.

  “How did you know?” asked Phil, sounding startled.

  “My deep knowledge of horse medicine, plus a conversation with Judy Barker.”

  “She’s been treating No-Name, but it’s frustrating because we can’t find out anything about her past,” Phil said. “No one knows her previous history, so we don’t know what kind of fly spray her previous owners used, or soap, or anything.”

  “It probably wasn’t the soap,” said Stevie, showing off her new knowledge, “because most soaps are hypoallergenic.”

  “Hypo what?” Phil said.

  “ ‘Hypo’ is the opposite of ‘hyper,’ ” said Stevie, who had looked it up in the dictionary. “ ‘Hypoallergenic’ means ‘low allergy.’ ”

  “You’re a human dictionary,” Phil said.

  But meanwhile Stevie was thinking that it was time for the allergy detective, namely her, to go into high gear. For a second Stevie imagined herself in a Sherlock Holmes cap with a huge magnifying glass examining No-Name’s food and bedding.

  “How would you like to spend more time around No-Name?” Phil said.

  “Would I!” Stevie said. “In fact you can’t keep me away. I’m going to find out what No-Name’s allergic to.”

  “I could tell you liked her,” Phil said.

  “I’m crazy about her,” Stevie said. “She has personality. She has character. She has a certain …”

  “Stevie-ness?” Phil said.

  “You might put it that way,” Stevie acknowledged.

  “Come over to my place on Friday,” Phil said. “We can go riding and to the movies.”

  “Great,” Stevie said. She could picture the evening already. They’d ride, then discuss Teddy and No-Name through dinner, then choose a movie with horses in it. Mr. Marsten would probably drive them to the movie in the family pickup truck, which always had odds and ends of horse gear in the back. For a horse-crazy girl, it was the best possible kind of date.

  “I c
an’t wait,” she added.

  “One other thing,” Phil said casually.

  She knew Phil’s ‘other’ things. They were usually the main thing, so she said, “Yeeeeeees?”

  “Cross County is going to be taking part in a dressage exhibition,” Phil said. “And nobody’s better at dressage than you.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Stevie said modestly.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got some competition from another member of Horse Wise,” Phil said.

  “Carole and Starlight are getting pretty good,” she replied.

  “They’re still not as tight and disciplined as you,” Phil remarked. “Mr. Baker has given me a dressage test to practice, and I was hoping you could give me some pointers. Teddy is a good horse for dressage—he has those strong hindquarters, and he’s smart and takes direction well. The problem is me. I always make it look like work.”

  “That’s bad,” Stevie said. The heart of dressage was making it look as if the horse were doing everything from his own free will. The constant signals from the rider needed to be invisible.

  “I’m like a magician who telegraphs his tricks,” Phil said. “When it comes time to change tacks, you can see me sawing away with the reins. I get Teddy so agitated, he practically tips over.”

  “Whoa!” Stevie said. “The first rule in dressage is to respect your horse’s judgment and not try to do everything yourself.”

  “I can see that I have a lot to learn from you.”

  “It’s taken you this long to figure that out?” Stevie teased.

  “So you’ll teach me?” Phil said. “It’s a trade?”

  “I can ride No-Name as much as I want in return for helping you with your dressage?” said Stevie dreamily. “Mmmmm. I think you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “So I’ll see you on Friday,” Phil said.

  “I think I’ve almost got my parents persuaded to let me take the commuter bus to Berryville,” Stevie said. Berryville was a tiny town within walking distance of the Marstens’ place. “Tonight I’ll really work on them, and by Friday—with a little luck—I’ll be riding that bus.” Until now, whenever Stevie wanted to go over to Phil’s, she’d had to get one of her parents to drive her. Since both her parents were lawyers who worked in Washington, D.C., this was no easy matter.