Horse Wise (5 page)

She poured water into two of the pots and then realized that Lisa was being strangely silent.

“Is something wrong?” she asked Lisa. “I mean,
other than the obvious fact that Veronica doesn’t deserve Garnet?”

“Oh, no,” Lisa said. “It’s just that—uh, well, I’m sorry I missed seeing Garnet today. I guess she’s a real beauty.”

“She is,” Stevie assured Lisa. “But don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to see Garnet, and groom Garnet, and feed Garnet, and clean Garnet’s tack. You just won’t have a chance to ride Garnet. That privilege will be saved for the queen herself. Now help me find a space in my closet for the pots that don’t get any light, will you?”

T
HAT NIGHT
, L
ISA
lay in her bed, her head swimming with confused thoughts. Something was terribly wrong, and she needed to understand it. As she had done with Stevie’s science project, she tried to sort the facts into logical order.

She had some good news, really good news, but if she told the two people she most wanted to tell, she might hurt them. It wasn’t as if it were good news that she could hide. After all, a horse was too big to hide for very long. Then her friends would be angry at her for not telling,
and
jealous of her as well.

Because it was jealousy that made them so angry at Veronica, wasn’t it?

C
AROLE WAS HAVING
a difficult time concentrating on her riding class. She found herself looking at the door almost every minute. She was waiting for her father. He’d said he would be there and she knew she could count on him. She wasn’t worried that he wouldn’t show up, she was just anxious that he was coming. She was also more than a little anxious to know what the meeting after class was all about.

“Now I want you all to canter without stirrups,” Max announced. “This is a balance exercise for you. Cross your stirrups up over your saddle and … begin!”

Carole followed his instructions, as she always did, but her eyes remained on the doorway. It confused her horse. One of the first things a rider learns is to look in the direction she wants her horse
to go. Horses seem to sense that, perhaps from a shift in balance. Not looking in the right direction is one of the easiest ways to lose points in a competition.

“Eyes forward!” Max warned her. He didn’t have to say it again, though, because just then Colonel Hanson arrived. Carole grinned at him and then completely turned her attention to her riding.

Soon after her father sat down on one of the benches around the ring, other parents started arriving. Within a short time, parents were waving at riders, riders were waving at parents, and Max was totally frustrated.

“Okay, I guess it’s time to call it quits,” he told his students. “I want you to dismount and walk your horses until they’ve cooled down. Then untack them, water and feed them, and our meeting will begin.”

Carole slid down out of the saddle. Her father walked over to her and tentatively patted her horse, Barq.

“Why do you have to walk him?” he asked.

Carole explained that if you put a horse in his stall before he had a chance to walk and cool down, he could stiffen up and have some bad muscle problems, and sometimes complicated digestive problems.

“Oh,” the colonel said, holding the reins while Carole loosened Barq’s girth for his cooling walk.

Carole was surprised, during the next half hour, at how much she had to tell her father. She had been around horses and loved them all her life. He had always supported her love of horses, and she had always assumed that he knew as much as she did. But, she realized, he really didn’t know much about them. He didn’t even know how to lead a horse!

Finally, the work was finished. Barq and the other horses were cooled, groomed, bedded, and fed. The riders had changed into their street clothes. It was time for the meeting to begin. All the young riders and their parents gathered in the spacious living room of Max’s house, which adjoined Pine Hollow Stables.

“I’ve asked you all to come,” Max began, “because I want to talk to you about an exciting new opportunity for my young riders and their parents. I have just received a letter from the U.S. Pony Clubs, approving my application to begin our own club at Pine Hollow.”

Carole couldn’t contain her gasp. Their own Pony Club! Max smiled while the others looked at her in surprise. Carole could tell that she and Max were the only ones who really knew what that would mean. She listened excitedly while Max explained it to the others. Pony Clubs were local groups, part of a national organization that sponsored instruction and activities for young riders.
There were usually weekly meetings for each local club and then monthly or seasonal “rallies” where several nearby clubs could get together and have competition and instruction periods.

Pony Clubs also had their own rating systems for members, based on the completion of specific tasks and goals. They weren’t just things you could learn from books, either. Every Pony Club member was expected to learn not only about riding, but also about horse care, stable management, and even veterinary care. Pony Clubs really covered just about everything having to do with horses.

“One of the most important factors in having our own Pony Club,” Max continued, “actually, the one essential thing, is parent support. Unless we have a minimum of parents from five families, we won’t be able to have our club. It would be a big time commitment, I know, but I can promise you that if your son or daughter cares about horses, the time you invest in our Pony Club will be well worth it. Has anybody here ever been in a Pony Club before?” Max asked.

Carole raised her hand. Once, when her father was stationed at a large base in California, there was a Pony Club on the base. At that time, Carole’s father had been doing a lot of traveling, so he hadn’t been able to be involved at all. Now that she knew how little he knew about horses, Carole didn’t think that was so bad.

She told the other riders how much she’d liked the Pony Club and how much she’d learned. “One of the neatest things about it was that you learn so much about everything—and you’re tested on it, too. You may be the best rider in the stables, but if you don’t know how to mix bran mash for your horse, you’re a D-1 with the eight-year-olds.” Carole couldn’t help smiling to herself. She had the funniest feeling that the arrival of Garnet might have had something to do with Max’s interest in a Pony Club for Pine Hollow. Something good was going to come out of Veronica’s incompetence after all!

During the next forty-five minutes, Max gave everybody booklets from the USPC, handed out copies of
The Manual of Horsemanship
, explaining that it was the Pony Clubbers’ bible, and answered what seemed like hundreds of questions.

One of the parents asked if everybody had to have his own horse to join the Pony Club.

“Not at all,” Max said. “The fact is that most Pony Clubbers do have their own horses, but it’s not a requirement. Very few of the riders here own their own horses, but they’re all eligible for membership. Pine Hollow will permit the use of its horses for approved Pony Club activities. Pony Clubs are good for riders, but they’re good for riding, too.”

“Will you do all the instruction?” another parent asked.

“No, though I’ll usually be part of the meetings. Instruction will come from other experts. Judy Barker, my vet, has agreed to help. Also, the children will learn from other local professionals, the farrier, the saddlery, the grain-and-feed place. But mostly, the riders will learn from you, their parents, and from themselves. Which brings me back to where I began. You parents are a critical part of this. The club needs your help. Do I have any volunteers?”

There was silence in the room. Carole, who was sitting on the floor near Max between Stevie and Lisa, turned to look. All they needed were five hands to go up, five family volunteers who would make the difference between Pony Club and no Pony Club.

Nobody moved. Carole crossed her fingers.

Meg Durham’s mother raised her hand.

“Thank you,” Max said.

Carole crossed her legs.

Betsy Cavanaugh’s father and mother both raised their hands.

“Thank you,” Max said.

Carole crossed her arms across her crossed legs.

A pair of parents she didn’t even know raised their hands. Another mother raised her hand.

“Thank you,” Max said.

Carole crossed her eyes.

Colonel Hanson raised his hand.

“That’s it, that’s five!” Max announced. “We can have a Pony Club!”

Dad? What is he doing raising his hand? He doesn’t know the first thing about horses. He doesn’t even know how to lead them!
Carole could hardly keep from staring at her father. He beamed back at her proudly. Carole shrugged to herself. What did it matter, anyway? Most of the other parents knew a lot about horses. The only reason her father needed to raise his hand was to keep Max and the USPC happy.

“Now our next order of business is to come up with a name for our club,” Max said. “A lot of times, the clubs are named after the towns or the stables they’re in. We could call this Willow Creek Pony Club or Pine Hollow, if you like. As far as I know, though, there’s no limitation. This is our club and we can call it anything we like, but I do have to put a name on the final application. Any suggestions?” Max paused, but no one spoke. “I’ll tell you what,” Max continued. “We’ll take a little break now. My mother has set out some cold drinks and we can talk about a name when we reconvene in about ten minutes.”

“I have a suggestion,” came Veronica’s unmistakable voice.

“Yes?” Max said.

“Why don’t we call it The Saddle Club?”

There were three gasps in the room at once. Carole knew just where the other two had come from. This was Veronica’s revenge for being excluded from their club.

“Not bad,” Max said. Carole realized he’d seen the
looks of concern on the girls’ faces and was stalling for them. “Let’s have our break now,” he said. “We’ll take other suggestions and then vote.”

Carole, Lisa, and Stevie looked at one another and nodded. They knew what had to be done. It was time for an emergency Saddle Club meeting. They gathered in an isolated corner of the room, far away from the apple cider and homemade cookies.

“We’ve just got to vote it down, that’s all,” Lisa said. “I mean, The Saddle Club is
our
name. It’s special and it’s not something I want to share with Veronica. She just wants to steal our name.”

“I don’t think so,” Stevie said. “I think she just wants to know what The Saddle Club is. She’s forcing our hand so we’ll have to tell everybody. Frankly, I don’t mind telling anybody about The Saddle Club, but I do mind being forced into it by Veronica.”

“Same here,” Carole said. “But it’s a terrific name. How do we get it voted down?”

“Simple,” Stevie replied. “We come up with something better!”

“But what could be better?” Lisa asked. “The Saddle Club is a just about perfect name!”

“For us it is,” Carole said. “But when you think about it, it’s not really what Pony Clubs are about. Pony Clubs are about learning about horses, not just riding. It wises you up on subjects like stable management and horse care, safety, training. The whole idea is to teach everything. The qualifications aren’t just to
be horse crazy, like our club, but to learn all the whys and wherefores of horses.”

“That’s it!” Stevie interrupted her. Carole and Lisa looked at her in surprise. “You said it,” she told Carole.

“Me? What did I say?”

“You said it twice, in fact. You said this club will wise us up and teach us all the whys of horses. The proper name of the club, therefore, is Horse Wise.” Stevie smiled beatifically, and folded her hands on her lap.

Lisa and Carole, laughing, had to agree. The Saddle Club meeting was over. It was time to return to Max’s meeting. They took the last three glasses of cider and returned to their places near Max.

When Max asked for other suggestions, Carole raised her hand. She stood up and explained what she knew about Pony Clubs, stressing the idea of how they made riders
wise
and didn’t just teach them about riding, as the name Saddle Club might suggest. She tried to sound very polite to Veronica, but she knew Veronica knew she wasn’t being polite. She used every bit of debating skill she had to convince people to vote on their name. Only four people in the room really knew what was going on. It didn’t matter, though. The fact was, Carole was winning and she knew it.

“… so, my friends and I would like to suggest that we name our club Horse Wise.”

“Hey, great idea!” Max said, publicly casting his
vote. That was what they’d needed. By voice vote, their Pony Club got its own, unusual name.

Carole felt so good at the end of the meeting that she didn’t even care when Veronica make a nasty remark on her way out. “Nice job, Carole,” she snapped, “but it means that the first time you ride Garnet will be when it snows in July.”