Horse Games Read online

  “Do you have to do all this work just because you own the horse?” Marie asked.

  Carole and Lisa laughed.

  “No,” Lisa answered. “All riders at Pine Hollow have to take care of the horses they use,” she explained. “There are two main reasons. First of all, if the riders pitch in, Max doesn’t have to hire so many stablehands and he can keep the costs down. A lot of us couldn’t take lessons or belong to Horse Wise if our parents had to pay any more than they do.”

  “The other reason,” Carole continued for Lisa, “is that Max believes horseback riding doesn’t begin when you climb in the saddle and finish when you dismount. Horseback riding is really horse care and stable management, too. As far as he’s concerned, you aren’t learning to ride a horse if all you’re ever doing is riding. You need to understand much more about the horse than that.

  And the more you know about your horse when you’re out of the saddle, the better off you’ll both be when you’re in it. See?”

  “I do see,” Marie said. “And you really like to do all this stuff?” she asked, watching as Carole cleaned out some accumulated manure.

  “Well …” Carole relented. “There are some things I like to do better than others!”

  “Don’t worry,” Lisa said. “That stuff doesn’t take much time. The thing that I keep in mind is that it’s all about horses. Come on, while Carole finishes up. All she has left to do now is get fresh water and hay for Starlight. I’ll introduce you to some of our other horses.”

  Lisa took the lead rope and walked Nickel slowly along the aisle of the stable.

  “This is Topside,” she began. “Our friend Stevie usually rides him, but he’s a championship show horse and really too valuable for polocrosse, although she used him in a few practices. She was riding a chestnut named Comanche today. Now, here’s Pepper. He’s the horse I usually ride. And this is Patch—”

  They paused at each stall while Lisa made the introductions. Most of the Horse Wise riders had finished their untacking and grooming. The horses were relaxing, munching contentedly on fresh hay and watching Lisa, Marie, and Nickel as they made their way through the stable.

  “… and this is Garnet. This is another boarder horse, like Starlight. She belongs to Veronica diAngelo, as you can tell by the initials on her blanket.”

  “Beautiful!” Marie said.

  Garnet stuck her head out over the top of her door. Instinctively, Marie reached out to scratch her forehead and rub her cheek. Garnet nodded affectionately.

  “Boy, is she friendly!” Marie said, pleased by the mare’s response.

  Lisa tried to think how to describe the situation. Veronica diAngelo was a spoiled rich girl who had found more ways to get other people to do her work than Lisa would have thought possible. It was hard to imagine ignoring the needs of a beautiful, valuable horse like Garnet, but Veronica managed it. “She is friendly, but it’s more like the horse is starved for love,” Lisa explained. “Her owner thinks of her as a fashion accessory.”

  “Oh,” Marie said. “How awful.”

  They met up with Carole in the tack room. Carole and Lisa then pointed out the riders’ locker area, Mrs. Reg’s office, the feed room, and the indoor ring. “We only ride in there when it’s really cold or raining. Outdoors is nicer,” Lisa explained.

  “You can say that again,” Marie said. “I’ve hardly been allowed to be outdoors for the last few months. I was surprised at how much I missed it.”

  “Well,” Carole continued, “outdoors, we’ve got the schooling ring, the game field, where today’s polocrosse—uh, um—” she couldn’t think of the right word. “Game” seemed much too tame.

  “Debacle?” Lisa suggested.

  “Maybe,” Carole said. She turned to Marie. “Lisa is a straight-A student,” she explained. “Sometimes she likes to use twenty-five-cent words. Anyway, if debacle means ‘humiliating defeat,’ then it’s the right word.”

  “That’s what it means,” Lisa said. “And Marie can note, for the record, that sometimes you use Marine Corps terms—like ‘humiliating defeat.’ ”

  Carole pretended to be insulted by the dig. “Why, how could you? The Marine Corps never uses the term ‘humiliating defeat’—unless, of course, they are talking about something other than the Marine Corps. ‘Retreat,’ maybe. ‘Advancing to the rear,’ more likely.”

  They were still discussing terms like rout, Waterloo, drubbing, licking, and thrashing when the tour group arrived at the scene of the crime.

  It was nearly abandoned now. All the Cross County riders had loaded their horses onto their vans and gone home to celebrate. The Horse Wise Pony Clubbers had dispersed as quickly, but without anything to celebrate. Max and the parent volunteers were having a meeting. The only sight on the playing field was Stevie Lake and Comanche. They were practicing polocrosse.

  Using her racquet, Stevie tossed the ball into midfield. Then, she kicked Comanche into a fast canter and approached the ball, trying to pick it up as she whizzed past it. She swung hard at it—and missed. She rode well past the ball, then turned Comanche around and tried it again. She rode even faster. Comanche did just what Stevie told him to do, and Stevie did the best she knew how, but it wasn’t good enough. This time, although she was able to touch the ball with her racquet, she still didn’t manage to pick it up.

  She pulled her horse to a halt, as if she were punishing him. She was too far away for Lisa, Carole, and Marie to hear what she was saying and it was clear Stevie had no idea that anybody was watching her. In fact, Carole suspected that if they’d stood right in front of Stevie and waved, Stevie wouldn’t have seen them. Stevie always had the ability to concentrate on a project when she set her mind to it, but Carole and Lisa had never seen her as driven as she was about polocrosse.

  Once again, Comanche started cantering toward the ball. Stevie used her polocrosse racquet as a whip and his canter switched to a gallop. Stevie leaned forward then and swung the racquet back for momentum. The horse raced across the field, closing the gap between himself and the ball at a dizzying rate. Now they were almost there.

  Stevie began her swing, but seemed to realize in the middle of it that Comanche was too far to the left. She tried to steer him to the right. He was going too fast to make it. Stevie had to make up the difference. She leaned and stretched. She couldn’t reach it! She shifted her weight in the saddle, struggling to gain another inch or two toward the right, toward the ball, angling the racquet to be able to scoop it up.

  Carole, Lisa, and Marie watched in horror as the scene played itself out. Stevie leaned to the right even more, putting all her weight on her right stirrup, straining and extending herself beyond the limits of her own balance. Then, as if in slow motion, Stevie’s friends saw Stevie’s left leg rise up over the far side of the horse, free of its stirrup, and Stevie herself flew out of Comanche’s saddle. She landed on top of the polocrosse ball. Comanche kept on going.

  It was almost comical. But Carole knew right away that it wasn’t comical. The shriek that came from Stevie wasn’t frustration and wasn’t anger. It was pain. She lay in the middle of the field, clutching her ankle.

  Stevie was in trouble; Carole and Lisa had to get to her!

  “STEVIE!” CAROLE AND Lisa called to her.

  “Ouch!” Stevie replied. “It’s my ankle—and it hurts!”

  Lisa got there first. When Carole reached her friends and squatted next to where Stevie lay, she knew exactly what had to be done.

  “Get her boot off if you can, before the ankle gets so big that the boot has to be cut off,” she advised Lisa. Lisa unbuckled Stevie’s jodhpur boot immediately and pulled it off gently.

  “Ouch!” Stevie said again. “But thanks.” Tears welled in her eyes. Carole knew her pain was real.

  “I’ll get help,” Carole said. She stood up to run to the stable and saw that she didn’t have to. For there, riding as fast as she could toward the stable, was Marie.

  “Mom! Come out here. There’s been an a
ccident!”

  As soon as Max and some of the Horse Wise parent volunteers came out the door of the stable, Marie turned Nickel around and kicked him into a canter to take her into the field.

  She rode easily and surely, rocking with the horse’s motion. As she neared the place where Stevie lay, she drew Nickel to a halt. He stopped immediately.

  “Nice riding!” Stevie said, genuinely impressed. Carole was impressed, too, but at the moment, she was happy that Stevie had something to take her mind off her pain.

  Very soon after that, Max and Mrs. Dana reached Stevie. Max took one look at her ankle, now enormously swollen, and said, “Hospital.”

  For a few minutes, there was discussion about who should take her. In the end, Mrs. Dana won the privilege because her car was set up for use by an injured person. There were a lot of cushions, and a space to lie down.

  Colonel Hanson climbed into the front seat next to Mrs. Dana, telling Carole to have Mrs. Reg call Stevie’s parents, and they left.

  The last thing Carole saw as the car pulled out of the driveway was Stevie, sitting up in the backseat. She was trying hard to smile, but the tears were running down her cheeks. It really hurt.

  “Oh!” Carole said almost involuntarily, feeling the pain for her friend.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Marie said reassuringly. “They’re good over at that emergency room. They’ll take care of her.”

  “Besides,” Lisa reminded Carole, “just a few weeks ago, Stevie was in charge of a whole day of entertainment for the patients there. They love her and won’t let anything happen to her!”

  Carole tried to smile, but, like Stevie, she felt the pain anyway. Injuries, hospitals, emergencies—no matter what, they always made her think of all the time her mother had spent in the hospital. She suspected that some of the same thoughts were running through Marie’s head. Then she knew it was time to do something more constructive.

  “I think we ought to round up Comanche. Where has he gotten to?”

  She looked around. The horse was at the far end of the playing field, munching on some strands of grass. Carole whistled hopefully. He glanced at her and then apparently decided he wasn’t interested. He continued munching.

  She and Lisa began to walk toward him. He walked away from them. It seemed that he’d been upset by the accident and wasn’t quite ready to return to his stall. Every time they approached him, he moved away, each time getting farther from the corner of the field, farther from the fence, and harder to catch.

  Carole was frustrated. Normally, she had all the time in the world for a horse, no matter what kind of mood he was in. But Comanche’s misbehaving didn’t suit her at all. Carole wasn’t quite sure what to do. If she’d been on horseback, it just would have been a matter of outsmarting Comanche. On foot, however, they had to outrun and outsmart, and Comanche was just plain faster than they were.

  Then, without warning, Marie came to their rescue. She’d circled around behind Comanche when his attention was on Carole and Lisa and, like a cowboy rounding up a stray, she moved him ahead by clapping him on the rump. He was startled and began trotting forward—straight toward Lisa and Carole.

  He tried to dodge, but it didn’t do him any good. He ended up loping between Lisa and Carole, enabling them each to grab onto his reins. His rebellion was over.

  “There boy, there. It’s okay,” Carole said as soothingly as she could. His eyes were opened wide, his ears flattened. She patted him on the neck, speaking in a low, steady voice all the time. “We’re here with you. Nobody’s mad at you. You were doing what Stevie told you. No problem, boy. It’s okay.” Carole rubbed his cheek. He relaxed then, his eyes narrowed, and his ears popped up again. He pranced nervously, but he was under control.

  Carole checked that the tack hadn’t gotten disarrayed in the accident and, finding it secure, she mounted the horse. As soon as she sat in his saddle and took firm control of his reins, he calmed down. It took a few tries to get him walking toward the stable, but by the time he reached the schooling ring, he was his old well-behaved self.

  Carole dismounted, walked Comanche to his stall, removed his tack, and slid the door closed. Then she turned to Marie, who, along with Lisa, had followed her into the stable.

  “Like Stevie said earlier, that was some riding. You are really good! You told me you’d just done a little, but you really know what you’re doing.”

  “No,” Marie protested. “I just saw a chance and thought maybe—”

  “Nonsense,” Lisa said in her matter-of-fact way. “You knew exactly what you were doing, and you were terrific at it. We all owe you thanks.”

  It was so clearly true that Marie didn’t try to deny it. The girl was obviously a good rider with some experience.

  “Come on, let’s finish up and get over to the hospital. I want to see what kind of mischief Stevie is really up to!”

  Lisa and Carole helped Marie dismount and then they untacked and groomed Nickel. Carole saw to it he got an extra-special ration of oats for his good partnership with Marie.

  Since Marie’s legs were still weak, and since they’d been used so much that day, Carole suggested that Marie might just want to sit down in Max’s office and not walk to the hospital. Marie wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted on accompanying them, and both Carole and Lisa thought she was a welcome companion.

  When the girls got to the hospital, they peered through a small window into the emergency room and saw a flurry of activity around one particular patient: Stevie Lake.

  “Oh, no, what could be going on in there?” Carole moaned.

  “I don’t know,” Lisa said.

  “Let me see,” Marie said, looking in with them.

  Then, when the door opened, their question was answered, for they heard Stevie’s unmistakable voice saying, “What’s that? I can’t hear you, Doc, I’ve got a banana in my ear!” It was followed by a burst of laughter.

  “She’s telling jokes!” Carole said. “Old ones! Bad ones—just like the kind my father tells. Here we are, thinking the worst, and Stevie’s cracking jokes!”

  “I’m afraid Stevie’s not the only one,” Lisa said ominously.

  They listened again.

  “Okay, so this gorilla goes into a soda shop—”

  “Dad!” Carole yowled. She burst through the door, followed by Lisa and Marie.

  “Just a second, honey,” Colonel Hanson said.

  Carole was not going to be stopped. “How’s Stevie?” she demanded.

  “I’m fine,” Stevie said. “Now let your dad finish this one. It’s one of my favorites.”

  Stunned, Carole, Lisa, and Marie waited.

  “And the gorilla orders a chocolate sundae. The soda jerk is a little nervous, but he figures he can pull one over on the dumb gorilla. ‘That’ll be ten dollars,’ he tells the gorilla. The gorilla pays him and eats the sundae. ‘You know, we don’t get many gorillas in here,’ the soda jerk says. ‘I’m not surprised,’ the gorilla tells him. ‘With sundaes at ten dollars apiece!’ ”

  “All right. Enough! My turn,” Carole interrupted the stand-up routines. “What is the story on Stevie’s ankle besides ‘fine’? ‘Fine’ doesn’t swell up like a balloon.”

  Stevie scooted forward on the gurney and showed Carole her ankle. It had a big elastic bandage that came, apparently, accompanied by a pair of crutches.

  “It’s sprained, not broken,” she said. “I have to keep the bandage on and I’m not allowed to walk on it—or ride—for at least three weeks. The good news is that it’s not broken. That would be more like six weeks.”

  “Three weeks without riding?” Carole said. Stevie nodded. “But aren’t we supposed to have another polocrosse match with Cross County in two weeks?” Carole asked. Nobody who knew Carole was surprised at her reaction. To her, walking was simply not as important as riding.

  Stifling a smile, Lisa nudged her. “Look at the bright side of that,” she said. “We can forfeit this time instead of being massacred!”

>   “Oh, no!” Stevie said. “We’ll play again. It’s just that this time, I’ll coach, not ride. I did learn a lot about the sport this afternoon.”

  “Right,” a doctor piped in. “Like the fastest route to the emergency room!” Everybody, except Carole and Lisa, laughed.

  Stevie’s father then offered his daughter a hand to help her get down from the gurney. “I think it’s time to go,” he said. “After all, I’m sure these people have a lot of things to do besides swapping jokes with you!”

  A few of the doctors and nurses tried to convince Mr. Lake that they’d really rather tell jokes, but when the P.A. announced that an ambulance was arriving, they were all business. They barely paused to wave good-bye as Stevie hobbled out, trailed by her friends, her father, Colonel Hanson, Max, Mrs. Dana, and Marie.

  Stevie accepted some help from her father and from Colonel Hanson. Max walked between Marie and her mother. He offered his arm to Marie for any extra help she might need.

  “We need to talk,” he said to her.

  “We do?” Marie asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “In fact, you did something very right. You did a good job of riding and it helped Stevie tremendously.”

  “Uh, Max,” Carole said. “You should have seen what she did when Lisa and I were trying to round up Comanche. You’d think she was a natural-born cowpoke.

  She flushed him right away from the fence and into our waiting arms. This girl is good!”

  “Here, here,” Lisa added.

  “And she’s going to get better,” Max said.

  Marie looked at her mother’s worried face. “I was all for it before today, but now I see it can be quite dangerous,” Mrs. Dana said.

  “Hey, I’ve been riding for years,” Stevie said. “This is the first time I ever got hurt—oh, yeah, except for the poison ivy I got when I fell off Patch, and the time I bruised my shoulder …”