Lisa Read online

  “I want to show you something,” he said. “Come with me.”

  I was feeling a little off balance, having my hand in his. John seemed to have that effect on me a lot. I sort of forgot about that, though, when I saw what he wanted to show me. It was the mare—the one he’d been with the night before. Standing at her side was a tiny, wobbly, adorable little foal!

  “Oh, when was it born?” I asked breathlessly. The foal stared at us curiously with liquid brown eyes that seemed almost too large for its head.

  “This afternoon,” John replied. “Isn’t she cute?”

  She definitely was that. We chatted about the filly and her mother for a couple of minutes. John said the mare hadn’t had any trouble delivering the foal, but he’d been there with her the whole time, just in case.

  “How did you learn so much about horses and foaling?” I asked.

  John hesitated for a minute. “My mother was a horse breeder,” he said at last. “She taught me everything I know. It’s part of the legacy she left me.”

  “Left you?” I repeated, not really understanding.

  “She’s dead,” he said bluntly. From the way he said it—and the way a sort of curtain seemed to fall over his dark eyes, making them impossible to read—I knew I shouldn’t ask any more questions about his mother. I felt a little hurt that he trusted me so little, but I didn’t want him to see that. I decided it was time to change the subject.

  “We saw the stallion again tonight,” I told him.

  “Still running free?” John asked.

  “As you very well know,” I replied with a bit of a smirk. After the incident with the coyotes, when Kate and Christine and I had been sure we’d seen a rider on the stallion, we’d talked it over and decided it had to have been John playing a trick on us. We already knew he had a sense of humor and liked to use it on us. And what other explanation was there?

  I guess I’d sort of hoped to one-up John by showing that I knew about his trick. But he just looked puzzled at my comment. “Why should I know?” he asked. “I don’t know when they round up the horses for adoption.”

  “Nice try,” I said. “But we saw you. You were there when the coyotes were calling.” I told him how we’d seen a rider on the stallion’s back.

  John was silent for a moment. “You saw somebody,” he said. “I believe you. But you didn’t see me. I was here. I came home on the school bus, and I never left the mare’s side. The filly was born at five o’clock this afternoon, and I stuck around to keep an eye on her.”

  That stopped me cold. I stared at the filly, knowing that he had to be telling the truth. I hadn’t known John very long, but I felt certain of one thing. There was no way he would have abandoned the mare just to play a trick on us. No way at all.

  That was weird enough. But when Stevie told us about what had happened to her out in the desert, it seemed even stranger. She’d assumed the rider who helped her escape from the snake was John, out playing pranks again. But John had been at the fair with us the whole time. So how do you explain that? I guess you don’t, at least not in any way that makes sense.

  Another thing that’s still kind of hard to explain about that whole trip is John himself. I spent quite a bit of time talking with him as we all cleaned up after the fair. It was really nice—he’s smarter and funnier than most guys I know, and there was something else. Something that happened while we were talking.

  I don’t quite remember how we got on the subject. We were just chatting about stupid things like costumes and crepe paper, and suddenly John was looking very serious and telling me the truth about his family.

  “I had a sister,” he said. “Her name was Gaylin. She was wonderful, always happy, always laughing. Then one day Gaylin got sick—very sick. My father had to drive her and my mother to the hospital. I came along, too. I sat in the front seat with Dad. Mother was in the back. Gaylin lay on the backseat with her head on Mother’s lap. She was so sick she was sweating with her fever. Dad knew it was bad, and he drove as fast as he could. But it turned out to be too fast, because when a deer ran across the road, Dad tried to stop and swerved to avoid it. He missed the deer but ran the car right off the edge of the road and down a shallow ravine. He and I were okay. We’d had our seat belts on. But Mother and Gaylin weren’t so lucky.”

  I gulped, suddenly understanding why he had looked so strange when he’d mentioned his mother the day before. Poor John!

  He told me the rest of the story. Some people thought his father had been drinking before the accident, and there were lots of rumors. That was why Walter seemed so somber and serious all the time.

  My mind wandered back to John’s mother and sister. “You must miss them both.”

  “I do,” John replied. “But in some ways I still have them, here in my heart. Every time I see a happy child, I feel I am with Gaylin again. And my mother? I remember her through the stories she used to tell us. She was the great-granddaughter of a chief, and it was her family’s responsibility to carry the traditions to each succeeding generation.”

  “You mean like the story about the stallion?”

  “It was her favorite. She swore it was true, too. She believed that no matter what else happened, there was always the stallion to help those who tried to do good things for our people. Sometimes I’m sure it was White Eagle who carried her and Gaylin out of the car …”

  “How beautiful,” I breathed, amazed by the thought.

  Suddenly I noticed that John was looking at me deeply. There was no curtain blocking the emotion in his eyes now. I felt my heart start to pound as he moved a little closer.

  “Got one!” Stevie shrieked at that moment, totally interrupting the moment as she rushed over to blab at us about the candy corn counting contest. I was more than a little annoyed with her, even though I knew she had no idea what was going on between John and me. Still, the moment was ruined … but only for that particular moment.

  You see, we made up for it later. It was in the barn, just before I left to come back home. As my friends were doing some last-minute packing (well, actually, just Carole was packing. Stevie was frantically scribbling some notes for the essay she was supposed to write during the trip, which of course she hadn’t even started yet), I went to say good-bye to the new little filly. I was hoping a certain wrangler’s son would be around for good-byes, too—I hadn’t seen much of him since Stevie’s interruption.

  I wasn’t disappointed. John was leaning on the stall door when I arrived. He looked happy to see me. Nobody else was around—it was just us and the horses. We chatted a little bit about this and that, and then he reached out to take both my hands in his.

  I looked down at our clasped hands, suddenly feeling strangely shy. It wasn’t that I’d never been close to a boy before, but John was … well, he was different from most boys.

  “I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon, Lisa,” he said.

  I looked up at him then. His gorgeous dark eyes were so close. “Me too,” I managed to squeak out. His face came closer, and closer …

  As soon as our lips touched, I wasn’t nervous at all anymore. It just felt natural. Really nice, actually. Am I blushing? Well, I don’t care. It’s not like anyone is ever going to read this except me.

  Anyway, that was our good-bye. It was a wonderfully perfect end to a fun, exciting, action-packed, sometimes confusing, always interesting trip.

  Dear Diary,

  I’m pasting in a letter we all got from Kate today. Actually, she sent it to Carole. But it was meant for all three of us, and Carole said I could keep it if I want. Here it is:

  Dear Carole, Lisa, and Stevie,

  You’re hearing from the proud adoptive parent of a beautiful wild horse. She’s a mare—mostly quarter horse, I think, and she’s got a foal, too! They’re both sorrel. I’ve named the mare Moonglow. She’s so beautiful! I can’t wait to show her to you girls. You’ve got to come back and meet her. Walter says we should start gentling her—that means getting her used to a halter a
nd a lead rope—within a week or so. After that, we begin the real training. She’s got wonderful lines. I know she’s going to be a fine riding horse for me someday, and her foal is a beauty, too.

  I suppose you want to know about the stallion, and, frankly, so do I. I can tell you what happened, but I certainly can’t explain it.

  Dad and I went to the adoption, looking for the stallion. We’d even spoken to the man in charge of it to warn him that was the horse we wanted. He said he didn’t know the horse we meant, but since we’d had our application in for so long, we should have a good selection, as long as we got there early.

  It was the stallion’s herd all right. I recognized some of the mares. You would have, too. But there was no sign of the stallion. There was a stallion with the herd, but he wasn’t silvery, and he didn’t have a nick in his ear. In fact, he was a kind of ugly skewbald pinto.

  Dad and I asked all the Bureau of Land Management people about the silvery stallion with the nick in his ear. Every single one of them said they’d never seen such a horse with this herd. Never even seen a horse like that around here. So, what do you think?

  Your friend,

  Kate

  Dear Diary,

  As I was turning in a history essay today in school, for some reason it made me think of that report Stevie promised to do for her headmistress during our trip to the Bar None the week before last. I realized I’d never asked her if she finished it or what Miss Fenton thought. When I mentioned it at Pine Hollow today, it turned out she’d just gotten it back. It was crumpled up in her backpack, but she took it out and showed it to me. When I asked if I could have it to paste in here, she said I could. Actually, what she said was something like, “Be my guest. I certainly don’t ever want to see it again.” I guess that’s because Miss Fenton gave her a stern lecture about thoroughness or something when she handed it back (and she didn’t even know that Stevie wrote most of it at the breakfast table the morning it was due!). After reading it myself, I could sort of see Miss Fenton’s point. Not that I would ever tell Stevie that, of course!

  THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY SERVICE

  by Stevie Lake

  Community service means doing good things for other people, whether you know them or not. That’s what my trip to the Bar None Ranch was all about. I was busy, busy, busy for the whole trip making other people’s lives happier and more fulfilled and even more educated, too. It was very gratifying for me to help so many, many, many people so very, very, very much. I didn’t even mind sacrificing my own time to help others, even though it meant I didn’t have much time to work on this essay. I had to make a decision—help others by concentrating on the Halloween Fair that would benefit a whole community, or help myself by selfishly spending valuable time working only for my own purposes and grades?

  It wasn’t an easy decision, but I think it was the right one. I chose to devote myself to others, and that’s why this essay is shorter than it was supposed to be. That in itself makes an important point about the value of community service, don’t you think?

  Thornbury Hall

  London, England

  Dear Lisa,

  It was great to find your letter waiting for me when I got back to my dorm after the summer! Thanks for writing back. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, and it was terrific to hear your voice again (well, you know what I mean …). I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to reply. I never realized how busy my last year of college would be—it’s nothing like my senior year of high school, when there seemed to be plenty of time for hanging out and doing nothing!

  Anyway, how is your new school year going? Actually I guess it’s not so new anymore—by the time you get this it will probably be almost Thanksgiving. I wish I could come home for the holiday this year, but as you know the Brits don’t celebrate it, so I don’t have any time off. Maybe I can get Mom to FedEx me some turkey and stuffing. (On second thought, I’d better not mention it to her, even in jest. Knowing her, she’d actually do it!)

  It was nice to hear that you were having an interesting summer, riding a lot and hanging out with your friends Steffie and Carol. I hope I get to meet them sometime—they sound like nice girls. By the way, how is Francine Potts doing? Do you still see much of her?

  In any case, that business you wrote about—I think you called it the Mystery of the Missing Pin—gave me a terrific idea. I might have written last time about how I was doing some newspaper reporting this summer, right? Well, after a couple of months on the job, I decided that journalism probably isn’t for me. I liked the writing part well enough, and the traveling was fun, too. But I just couldn’t get comfortable with interviewing strangers all the time, asking them all sorts of personal questions. I don’t think I have the personality for it, you know?

  So ever since I got back to school, I’ve been trying to figure out what else I could do for a living once I graduate. Mom and Dad (well, mostly Mom) are already on my case about starting to look for a “real” job. I guess they didn’t like my idea of working part-time as a waiter or something and writing at night. I had to promise to send out a few resumes just to get them off my case.

  But now I think I have a better answer. I’ve sort of been thinking about trying my hand at screenwriting—you know, writing scripts for movies. And I know movies for kids your age are a big thing right now, and when I got your letter and realized how interesting your life is, I got inspired. So now I’m hoping you’ll agree to write back whenever you can and fill me in on more of what you and your friends do. That way I should have enough straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth (ha ha) info on people your age to come up with a really great script. And if I finish by the end of the school year, maybe our parents will actually believe I can make a living by writing and they won’t tie me up and shove me, kicking and screaming, behind a computer in some insurance or accounting office somewhere!

  What do you think? Write back soon and tell me!

  Love,

  Peter

  Dear Diary,

  Well, I’m glad Peter finally wrote back. I was beginning to think he’d forgotten all about me. I’m also glad he seems to have gotten the hint that I’m not an infant—this letter actually sounded more like an ordinary one between two mature people. Of course, it was still a little weird realizing how out of touch we’ve actually been lately. I’m sure I must have mentioned Stevie and Carole at least a million times in notes and phone calls (not to mention in my last letter), but he still got both their names wrong. Hasn’t he been paying attention? I guess not, or he’d know that Francine Potts moved away three years ago—not that I cared much, since we haven’t been good friends since second grade!

  Still, I guess it takes two to lose touch, right? Maybe I haven’t been communicating that well with him, and that’s why he doesn’t seem to know what my life is really like these days. Ms. Shields says it’s important to be clear when you’re trying to convey information in your writing. She had us do an exercise in technical writing the other day, where we weren’t allowed to include any judgments or emotions, but simply reported the facts.

  I don’t know if this is the same kind of thing, though. I mean, shouldn’t Peter and I be better at communicating with each other? After all, we’re brother and sister. If we can’t understand each other, who can?

  But his idea about becoming a screenwriter is exciting. It would be cool to have a big brother who’s some kind of Hollywood mogul. Maybe he could fly me and my friends out to the West Coast to “do lunch.” Just about the only thing cooler than that would be to see The Saddle Club immortalized on the silver screen. I can’t wait to tell Stevie and Carole about that when I see them tomorrow!

  Still, I’ll have to be careful. Whatever our communication problems in the past, I’ll have to be extra clear about whatever I write to Peter from now on, since it could end up in his script. Even though his letter was a lot more normal this time, I don’t want him getting any wrong idea about what “kids your age” (to use his own words) are like
. I don’t want his screenplay messed up because he thinks I’m still some kind of baby.

  FROM: Steviethegreat

  TO: LAtwood

  SUBJECT: Hooray for Hollywood!

  MESSAGE:

  Hi, Lisa! I’ve been thinking about what you told us this afternoon about your brother’s screenplay. I still can hardly believe that The Saddle Club could be coming to a theater near you someday soon! How cool is that???

  Anyway, I was also thinking about something else. You know how you’re always seeing articles and shows about screen tests, where directors look for the next hot young star for their movies? Well, you should tell your brother that if they do anything like that for our movie, he should let us know. Because with our talents and natural charm, who better to play ourselves than ourselves? (Plus, I’m sure Carole would insist that no horse could play Starlight better than Starlight himself—ha ha!)

  Dear Diary,

  I just had a great idea. I was still thinking about what I wrote the other day about wanting to be clear when I write to Peter again. And suddenly I remembered Ms. Shields’s favorite two words in the English language: rough draft. Maybe I’ll do a rough draft of my next letter right here in my diary, just to make sure I get it exactly right before I send it. I want to try to keep it as clear as I can, sort of like that technical writing exercise we did in class. No emotions, no judgments … Here goes!

  Dear Peter,

  Thanks for writing back. It was good to hear from you. Your new screenwriting plan sounds very exciting interesting. I will write to you as often as I can to tell you about me and my friends.

  School is fine. I’m taking a special elective creative writing course along with my other classes. It’s really interesting. So far my grades are fine.