Horse-Sitters Read online

  “Do you want to trade?” Carole asked.

  Stevie thought for a moment. Did she really want to explain to Max why there was an iguana in his tack room, and then convince him to let them keep it in his garden shed? Suddenly lugging straw and filling water buckets didn’t sound so bad after all, and she said so.

  When Carole had gone, Lisa turned to Stevie. “Do you realize what you’ve gotten us into?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Stevie replied. She grinned and started singing “We’re in the Money.”

  “But, Stevie,” Lisa interrupted her, “we’re supposed to earn all that money by taking care of nine horses. Nine. And one iguana. And in the meantime, we’re supposed to do our normal chores, go to school—oh yeah, and eat and sleep if we have any spare time. I’m not sure we can do it.”

  “But it will all be worth it when we have those things we wanted,” Stevie said. “Just imagine the look on Veronica’s face when Belle has a bridle identical to Danny’s.” She grinned. “I bet Veronica will throw hers away immediately. Anyway, I don’t see what you’re so worried about. The Saddle Club can do anything, remember? And this time, what we’re doing is heading for easy street.”

  “Not so fast,” Lisa said grimly. “First we have to survive the next five or six days. And I have a feeling that’s not going to be easy.”

  “UGH. MY BLISTERS have blisters,” Carole mumbled from her position on the Lakes’ living room sofa.

  “My blisters’ blisters have blisters,” Lisa countered, not moving from the spot where she had collapsed on the floor in front of the TV. “Stevie, what was that you were saying earlier today about easy street?”

  Stevie groaned. “Don’t mention streets to me,” she said. “That reminds me of walking. And I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less right now. Except maybe stand up.” She was sprawled in a large, comfortable easy chair. There was a bag of potato chips on the table beside the chair, but Stevie hadn’t eaten any. It required too much effort to reach over and get one.

  It was Friday night, and the girls were gathered at Stevie’s house for a sleepover. Usually their sleepovers involved more talking than sleeping, but it seemed this one might be an exception. The girls had barely managed to stay awake through their late dinner, which Stevie’s parents had reheated for them when they arrived. And when Mr. and Mrs. Lake had offered to take them to the movies, The Saddle Club had been too exhausted to accept. They had barely managed to work up the energy to wave good-bye when Stevie’s parents and brothers had left the house.

  “I can’t believe we got everything done today,” Carole said.

  As her friends thought back on all the work they’d done, they had to agree with her. The girls had worked hard getting the polo ponies’ stalls into shape. They’d also removed the traveling bandages and given each horse a quick grooming. After that, Carole and Stevie had held a joint training session for Memphis and Romeo in the outdoor ring. Meanwhile Lisa had headed to the garden shed. Max had okayed the idea of keeping Mr. Munch there, and Carole had moved the iguana’s cage in earlier. But when Lisa opened the door, she found the cage empty, its door swinging open. Just when she started to panic, Mr. Munch strolled toward her from behind the riding mower, and she breathed a sigh of relief. How did you get out? she wondered. When she read the care instructions pinned to the cage, she got her answer. Billy Giacomin warned in his notes that Mr. Munch liked to escape from his cage whenever he was bored. And he was very good at it. But Lisa wasn’t too worried—the garden shed latched from the outside, so even if the iguana broke free he couldn’t get out of the shed. Nobody but Max and Red ever went into the garden shed, and both of them knew the iguana was there. She’d put Mr. Munch back in his cage, fed him, and left, latching the shed door carefully behind her. Then she’d stopped by the nearby paddock to pick up Honeybee. She got the old mare settled in for the night, then made the rounds of the polo ponies for one last check. One of the bays, a gelding named Nighthawk, had managed to knock down his water bucket, so she had to replace the wet straw and refill the bucket. By the time she finished, Carole and Lisa had finished their lesson. All three girls worked together to untack and groom Memphis and Romeo. Then Lisa had volunteered to clean their tack while Carole and Stevie walked Belle and Starlight around the schooling ring a few times to stretch their legs. They agreed gratefully, and Lisa got started on her task equally gratefully. At least she could sit down while she was doing it. Finally, after helping with the evening feeding, the girls had headed to Stevie’s house for dinner.

  “I can’t believe we have to go back tomorrow and do it all over again,” Lisa said, rolling over onto her stomach and resting her head on her arms.

  “Don’t worry,” Stevie murmured, her eyes drifting shut. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. We’ll have all day to get everything done. And it’ll be worth it. You’ll see.” With that, she was sound asleep.

  THE NEXT MORNING came early for The Saddle Club. By seven o’clock they were at Pine Hollow, stretching and yawning as they got started on the day’s work. They began by parting ways to check on all the horses under their care, giving them each a quick grooming and making sure they’d eaten the breakfast Red had given them.

  “Now what?” Lisa asked when the girls met up again in the tack room. “It’s too early to start exercising the polo ponies, right?”

  Carole nodded. “We want to be sure they’ve digested their breakfasts. Lisa, you should go take care of Honeybee’s medication now. And I hate to say it, but I think Stevie and I should probably start mucking out stalls so we don’t have them all to do later.”

  Stevie yawned and grabbed a pitchfork that was leaning against the wall. “Just the way I like to start the day.”

  A COUPLE OF HOURS later, Carole dismounted from Tempest’s back and led him back inside. He had been a dream to ride—responsive and intelligent—but Carole had been too tired and anxious about everything else she had to do to enjoy it as much as she normally would have. After mucking out stalls for an hour, she had ridden one of the other polo ponies for half an hour, then cooled him down, groomed him, and saddled up Tempest. Luckily Stevie, who had just come in from an hour’s work with Romeo, volunteered to clean Carole’s first set of tack along with her own.

  “Thanks for the ride, boy,” Carole said, patting Tempest’s neck. The horse snorted and nodded his head. He seemed to be in good spirits after his exercise. Carole wished she could say the same thing about herself.

  * * *

  MEANWHILE LISA WAS unlatching the door to the garden shed. “Time for breakfast, Mr. Munch,” she sang out as she entered. “Sorry it’s a little late.” She saw that the cage was empty. “Oh, no. Not again,” she muttered. She looked around and soon spotted Mr. Munch dozing on the vinyl seat of the riding mower. She scooped him up and shoved him back in his cage.

  After she fed the iguana from the bag of food Billy had left, she returned to Honeybee’s stall. Eugenia and Deborah were spending the morning at a museum, but she wanted to make sure the old horse looked good when her mistress returned. She pulled out a hoof pick and started cleaning Honeybee’s feet.

  “READY?” STEVIE ASKED Carole later that morning, hurrying over to where Carole had one of the bay polo ponies cross tied in the aisle. She had just finished exercising him and was giving him a good grooming.

  Carole looked up, startled. “Ready for what?”

  “Horse Wise, silly,” Stevie replied, sounding a little impatient. “It starts in about three minutes.” Horse Wise was the name of Pine Hollow’s Pony Club. Its meetings were held every Saturday.

  “Oh, gosh!” Carole gasped. “I completely lost track of time! I haven’t tacked up Starlight yet—Max is going to kill me—”

  “Relax,” Stevie interrupted. “It’s an unmounted meeting today.”

  “Thank goodness,” Carole said. “Come on, help me get this guy back in his stall. Then maybe we can both be on time.”

  * * *

  THE HORSE WISE meeting gave The Saddle
Club a chance to rest their weary bones. When it was over, they hardly remembered what it had been about. Along with the rest of the class, they had to hurry to saddle up their horses for riding class.

  “Belle?” Stevie greeted her horse, pretending to be confused. “Is that really you? I’d almost forgotten what you look like.”

  Belle just snorted in reply. She reached forward to snuffle Stevie’s face.

  “Okay, I get it,” Stevie said, giving her a pat. “You almost forgot what I look like, too. Sorry about that, but it’ll all be worth it in the end. You’ll see.” She smiled, picturing how wonderful Belle would look in her new bridle.

  CAROLE WAS GIVING Starlight a final rubdown after class when she heard the scream. It was loud and shrill, and it came from somewhere outside, in the direction of the back paddock. She dropped the rag she was holding into Starlight’s grooming bucket and hurried out of the stall. Stevie emerged from Belle’s stall at the same time.

  “What’s going on?” Carole asked.

  “Beats me,” Stevie replied. “Come on, let’s go see.”

  They raced outside and discovered a small crowd gathered around the garden shed. Several of the students from their own class were there, as well as some of the adult riders who had the lesson after theirs.

  “Oh no,” Carole said. She suddenly had the funniest feeling she knew what had prompted that scream. “Mr. Munch!”

  Sure enough, when the girls pushed their way past the curious onlookers, they saw the big iguana standing in the doorway, staring out at all the people curiously. Nearby, a middle-aged woman was leaning against the paddock fence while another woman fanned her with her hard hat.

  “I just needed a rake,” the first woman was moaning. “But then I opened the door and that … that monster was standing there!”

  Stevie turned to face the crowd while Carole grabbed Mr. Munch. “That’s it, folks,” Stevie announced. “Nothing to see here. Show’s over. Move along.”

  Inside the shed, Carole shoved the iguana back into his cage and latched it shut. “You think you’re pretty clever, huh?” she told him. “We’ll just have to make sure you don’t get out again.” She fished in her pocket and pulled out a string that she’d picked up off the tack room floor that morning. She wrapped it several times around the cage door, then sat back on her heels to admire her handiwork. “There, that should do it.”

  STEVIE WAS LUGGING a heavy bag of feed down the aisle when she heard the annoying sound of Veronica’s voice.

  “Oh, Red!” Veronica called sweetly from outside Danny’s stall. “Could you come here for a minute, please?”

  Stevie paused long enough to swipe at her sweaty forehead with one arm. She groaned as she remembered, too late, that she’d just been pouring feed and that her arm was covered with little bits of grain. Now her face was covered with it, too. Stevie glanced at Veronica, who looked cool and perfectly attired as always. It didn’t seem fair that The Saddle Club should be working so hard when Veronica had just been hanging around all day doing nothing.

  “What is it, Veronica?” Red asked, walking over to her.

  Veronica smiled at him insincerely. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. You see, I accidentally knocked over Danny’s water bucket and spilled it. I need you to refill it for me immediately.”

  That was all Stevie could take. With a mighty heave she slung the feed bag over her shoulder and stomped away.

  “OH, THERE YOU ARE,” Eugenia said, cornering Lisa in the tack room, where she had paused just long enough to wolf down a sandwich. “Hmm, having a little snack, are we? It’s best not to eat between meals, you know.”

  Lisa didn’t bother to tell her she wasn’t really eating between meals. It was almost three o’clock, and Lisa didn’t think the old woman would believe this was the first chance Lisa had had to eat lunch. Instead she just nodded.

  “Anyway, I’ve been looking all over for you and your little friends,” Eugenia continued. “I have some lovely news.”

  Lisa was amazed. Was that a smile on the grouchy old woman’s face?

  “I’ve decided to have some dear old friends over for tea next Wednesday,” Eugenia said. “That’s the last day of my visit here, you know. They live in this area, and I haven’t seen them in ages.”

  “How nice,” Lisa said politely. She had no idea why Eugenia was telling her this, but she was afraid to ask.

  “I’ll need you and those other girls to assist me with the party, of course,” Eugenia said, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. “For one thing, I’ll want to show off my Honeybee. So I thought the easiest thing would be to hold the tea party here, in that shady spot behind the stable under the big apple tree. You girls will need to see that Honeybee looks her very best that day, braids in her mane and all that.”

  “Oh,” Lisa said, relieved. “Of course.”

  “And naturally you’ll be doing the shopping and the preparations for the party itself,” Eugenia continued.

  Lisa’s jaw dropped. “Um, excuse me?” she said. “I, uh, that is, we aren’t really experts at that sort of thing.”

  “No matter,” Eugenia said briskly. “You aren’t exactly experts at taking care of horses, either, but you seem to be doing adequately with that so far. And of course I’ll pay you a bit extra since it wasn’t part of our original arrangement. You can pick up the food at the market in town. Max has an account there; you can charge everything to him. Now, we’ll want at least three kinds of tea to choose from, some sandwiches—but nothing too heavy. And a good assortment of sweets.…”

  “Ms. Eugenia,” Lisa said, mustering up her most reasonable and sincere tone of voice, “we really appreciate your thinking of us for this, but I’m afraid it’s just not possible. We’ll be in school on Wednesday, and we have a lot of work to do here as well, so we really just won’t be able to manage. As you said, it wasn’t part of our original arrangement.” She shrugged. “And I know you wouldn’t want us to neglect our duties with Honeybee.”

  “Oh, push-tosh,” Eugenia said, waving aside her objections. “I won’t take no for an answer. Now, I’ve got to go. I must speak to Deborah about arranging transportation for my friends.”

  Before Lisa could open her mouth again, the old woman was gone.

  CAROLE MANAGED TO PUT aside her worries about getting everything done, at least temporarily, while she rode Memphis. She found that the books she had read were right—Memphis had clearly inherited the ability to do the running walk, and all her rider had to do was help her along. Once Carole had adjusted to the long stirrups she was supposed to use, doing so had been a pleasure. The high-stepping walk was indeed as fast as a normal trot, and much easier to sit. Besides that, Memphis was a good-tempered, personable horse. Carole couldn’t help enjoying herself, and she vowed to keep track of Memphis’s progress even after the week was over.

  After forty minutes, she reluctantly dismounted. “Great work, girl,” Carole said, patting the pretty chestnut mare on the neck as she walked her slowly around the ring a few more times to make sure she was properly cooled down. “That was a lot more fun than mucking out stalls, I’ll tell you that.” As she led the horse inside, Stevie suddenly rounded a corner and skidded to a stop in front of her. Luckily Memphis wasn’t spooked by Stevie’s sudden appearance, but Carole was. She jumped a foot in the air.

  “Sorry,” Stevie said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. But we’ve got big problems. Emergency Saddle Club meeting—now.”

  * * *

  “A TEA PARTY?” Carole repeated in stunned disbelief. The Saddle Club was holding their emergency meeting in the quietest spot they could find, the shady hillside overlooking the back paddock. Carole had quickly stowed Memphis in her stall, promising her a full grooming in a few minutes.

  Lisa nodded. “She won’t take no for an answer,” she said bleakly.

  “There’s no way we can do it,” Carole said, shaking her head. “I’m not sure how we’re even going to manage all the horses next week w
hen we’re in school all day.”

  “Didn’t you tell her we couldn’t do it?” Stevie asked.

  “I tried,” Lisa said. “I even tried to talk to Max about it. But he was so busy figuring out where to get folding chairs for the party and exactly when Red should mow the lawn that he didn’t pay any attention to me.”

  “This is bad,” Carole declared.

  But Stevie had that thoughtful look on her face again. “Maybe we can pull it off,” she said.

  Carole and Lisa just stared at her. “Stevie, I think all this hard work is going to your head,” Carole said.

  “No, just listen,” Stevie said. “Lisa, your mother is around after school, right? We’ll have her pick us up and drive us to the supermarket. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to do the shopping. And they’ve got that huge deli counter there with all the salads and things already made up. We won’t have to do any of the preparations ourselves. We can just dump it all into some nice dishes and we’re all set.”

  “But that really doesn’t allow us enough time,” Lisa pointed out. “By the time we get out of school, finish shopping, get over here and set up …”

  “Hmm, maybe you’re right,” Stevie said thoughtfully. “Well, no big deal. We’ll just have to do the shopping on Tuesday. I’m sure everything will keep in Max and Deborah’s refrigerator overnight.”

  “But what about all the other stuff we have to do?” Carole asked.

  “We’ll manage,” Stevie said confidently. “After all, Polly comes home Wednesday, so we don’t really have to do much with Romeo. And the polo ponies go home Thursday evening—we can exercise them after the tea party and then give them a really thorough grooming Thursday right after school. Same thing with Memphis—Mr. French comes back Friday.” She grinned. “And the best part is, right after the party Honeybee and Aunt Genie will be out of our hair—permanently. They’re leaving before dinnertime.”

  “I still don’t think we can do it,” Carole said flatly.