Horse Wise (9 page)

Stevie didn’t seem to notice that Lisa had something on her mind. “I was at the stable today,” she said. “I left my backpack in my cubby after Horse Wise on Saturday. So, of course, I had to go get it because I
had my homework assignments written on the back of The Letter, which was still in the backpack. Anyway, guess who else was there? It was good old Veronica diAngelo. Was she there to exercise Garnet and take care of her, groom her, and things like that? No, she was not. She was there because she wanted to check the color of Garnet’s blanket against samples she had for a new pair of riding pants and jacket. She wanted to match her clothes to the blanket so they’d be color-coordinated when they had their picture taken together. Can you believe her?”

“No, I can’t,” Lisa said truthfully. “Sometimes it seems like we’ve seen everything, but when it comes to Veronica, I’m afraid we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. Some people deserve horses. Veronica definitely doesn’t.”

Stevie took out the chart she’d devised for noting the progress of her seedlings and carefully measured the tallest of the radish plants. It was three eighths of an inch high. She wrote that down and then wrote large zeros in the other columns. “It feels like a real accomplishment,” she announced, replacing the pots on the windowsill. “I’m actually going to have all the information I’m going to need to do this science project right. You are such a pal.”

“Thanks,” Lisa said. She didn’t feel like a pal. Stevie’s comment about Veronica and Garnet brought back all of her doubts about sharing her secret. Half an hour later, when Lisa returned to her own room and
the Wars of the Roses, she still hadn’t told Stevie about her parents’ decision to buy her a horse.

“A
N IMPORTANT PART
of being a Pony Clubber is keeping your own horse’s health and maintenance book,” Max told the members of Horse Wise the following Saturday.

He handed each club member a folder with individual record sheets in it.

“You’ll need to fill these out and bring them to every rating and, even more important, you’ll need to keep them up to date. As you’ll see, the sheets require certain specific information. Judy is here today to help you all learn how to check on your horse’s health and fill out these sheets …”

As Max continued talking, Carole looked at her booklet. It was designed to be a year-long log of everything from the horse’s basic health, like his normal pulse rate and temperature, to the veterinary visits, cost of horse care, and income of the rider. Carole knew about the care book from the last time she’d been in a Pony Club.

“The first thing we need to do is to learn how to check a horse’s pulse,” Judy said. “Colonel Hanson, can you show us how to do this?”

Carole felt a nervous twinge in her stomach. If her father had read one of the three books she’d left on his bedside table last week, he might, just might, have learned what to do. Otherwise, it was going to be another
embarrassing moment for her. She held her breath.

The colonel stepped forward to where Judy held Patch, a black-and-white pinto, by his lead rope. To Carole’s dismay, he grinned and reached down and put his hand against Patch’s foreleg, as if it were the horse’s wrist.

Carole groaned out loud. Nobody heard it, though. Everybody was laughing too loud. Carole hung back in a corner, hoping that nobody could see her, hoping, in fact, that nobody would know she existed.

“Nice try, Colonel,” Judy said. “But you flunk.” More giggles. “Anybody want to show this man what to do?”

A few hands went up. Judy called on Stevie. Stevie showed Colonel Hanson and everybody else the two easiest places to check a horse’s pulse. The first was in between the animal’s jawbones, at the curve of the cheek. The second was on the horse’s belly, right behind his elbow.

Stevie put her hand under Patch’s jaw, checked Judy’s watch, which had a sweep-second hand, and counted the beats for fifteen seconds.

“Twelve,” she announced. “Multiply it by four and get, uh—” She looked at Lisa, frantically. Lisa just gave her a dirty look. “Oh, yeah, forty-eight,” Stevie concluded sheepishly.

Judy and everybody else laughed. Then Judy had everybody come and check Patch’s pulse rate. When all
the Pony Clubbers had done it, she turned back to Colonel Hanson. “Think you can do it now?” she asked.

“I’ll try,” he said, and then, to Carole’s relief, did it correctly.

Judy then proceeded to demonstrate how to check the horse’s respiration or breathing rate. This is important for a rider to know, because the respiration rate, among other things, is an indication of whether a horse is overheated or not. After Judy had completed her instruction, each rider was told to fill in the record book for his own horse.

Carole picked up a pencil and headed for Barq’s stall. Barq wasn’t her very own horse, of course, but he was the horse she had been riding most recently at Pine Hollow. The horse she had ridden before Barq was Delilah, a palomino mare who was a wonderful horse to ride. But she had just foaled a few months earlier and was spending her days with her colt, Samson. Samson’s sire, or father, had been Veronica’s stallion, Cobalt. Carole had to pass their little stall and paddock on her way to Barq’s. She noticed Samson frolicking around the paddock, obviously in a good and playful mood. Delilah stood serenely nearby, watching him with one eye, and nibbling at grass sprouts. Sometimes horses seemed very human to Carole, and this was one of those times. Samson was like a rambunctious toddler, and Delilah his overtired mother. The sight made Carole smile for the first time
since the Horse Wise meeting had been called to order.

She continued to Barq’s stall. It took her only a few minutes to check his condition and jot down the figures. Then she had to draw his significant markings. For Carole, that would take a little longer. Barq was a bay with Arabian blood, and he had a white blaze on his face that looked like a streak of lightning. That was how he got his name, because
Barq
meant lightning in Arabic. It was a tricky marking to draw. Carole turned over his water bucket, sat on it, and studied the horse so she could draw it properly. Drawing was not one of Carole’s strongest talents. In fact, she doubted that she’d be able to draw it properly no matter how hard she tried.

“Rats,” she said, breaking the point of her pencil on the point of the lightning streak. She’d have to go to Mrs. Reg’s office to sharpen it. Carefully, she fastened the stall door behind her and walked toward the office.

The whole stable was bustling with activity as all the Horse Wise members were trying to complete the work in their health-and-maintenance books. Judy was helping one young rider take her horse’s temperature. Stevie was checking to see if Topside had a tattoo. Even Veronica was working. She was sketching in Garnet’s color. Since she was a solid chestnut, it was fairly easy to do, but Carole had to give Veronica some credit. It was work.

While Carole was sharpening her pencil, her father
came into the tack room, which adjoined Mrs. Reg’s office.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “Listen, Max wants to have a short sponsors’ meeting after Horse Wise is dismissed. Would you mind waiting around for me?”

“No problem,” she said. She really didn’t mind, and besides, it would give her a chance to talk with Stevie and Lisa alone.

“Thanks,” he said. “And one other thing—what’s normal temperature for a horse?”

“Ninety-nine and a half to a hundred and a half,” Carole answered automatically.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I thought that little fellow out there might be coming down with something and I wasn’t sure what I should do for him. But it’s just a normal temperature.”

“What were you going to do if he had been sick?” Carole asked out of curiosity. She was sorry the minute she asked.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Tea and cinnamon toast and he can stay home from school one day, but he’d have to see the doctor to be allowed to stay home any longer than that.”

Carole knew, beyond any doubt, that he’d used that line on whatever Pony Clubber he was “helping.” It was his rule of thumb whenever Carole got sick at home. It made sense at home and always made her laugh, too. But that was at home. This was at Pine
Hollow. They weren’t the same at all. Carole knew that. Why didn’t her father?

She didn’t know what to say to him, so she decided not to say anything. “See you later,” she said, escaping to the privacy of Barq’s stall. On her way there, she found Stevie and Lisa and told them they
had
to have a Saddle Club meeting in the tack room after Horse Wise. While her father was busy, she could use the time to apologize to her friends for his dumb behavior. She hoped they would understand.

S
TEVIE TOOK
T
OPSIDE
’
S
saddle off its storage rack and rested it on the bench in front of her so she could clean it. She’d finished her Horse Wise work before her friends and was able to get a head start on cleaning tack. She was already working on the stirrup leathers by the time Carole and Lisa arrived.

“You know, I think I preferred it this summer when we could ride every day, not just twice a week,” Stevie told them.

“Of course you did!” Lisa said, laughing. “Riding five or six times a week is
much
better than going to school.”

“For once, that isn’t what I mean,” Stevie said. “It’s that there’s so much to learn about horses. I don’t think you can learn all you need to know twice a
week—even with Horse Wise, which, by the way, I love a lot!”

“Me, too,” Lisa agreed. “Everybody does. Even Veronica was doing something for Garnet when I passed her stall.”

“Not something really tricky like untacking her, was it?” Stevie asked sarcastically.

“No, she was patting her,” Lisa admitted.

“Well, that’s a step,” Carole said. “I didn’t think she knew that much about horse care.” Carole shook her head in disbelief. “Why her parents ever bought her another horse—especially a horse like Garnet—is beyond me.”

“Well, because they could afford it,” Lisa offered tentatively.

“Money isn’t the issue,” Carole snapped. Lisa and Stevie looked at her in surprise. “Well, I suppose in Veronica’s case, it
always
is. But that’s not what I mean. You shouldn’t get a horse because you can afford it, or because your parents think you’re wonderful, or because you can talk them into it. You should get a horse because you can take care of it, because you know the things you need to know, because you can be responsible for it.”

Carole picked up Barq’s bridle and began polishing it vigorously. She continued talking. “The thing is that I don’t envy a lot of stuff Veronica has, like the big house and the designer clothes and all that. But I
do
envy her owning Garnet. It makes me so angry because I don’t understand it. She’s a pretty good rider, all right, but she doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of her.”

“You have to deserve a horse,” Stevie agreed.

“Anyway, that reminds me of what I wanted to talk to you guys about,” Carole said. “My father.”

“You deserve him!” Stevie said. “He’s just wonderful. We all adore him, you know.”

Carole looked at her quizzically. “I guess I do know, but what I don’t know is, why? I mean, Horse Wise is about getting wise about horses, not answering his ‘whys’ all the time. He knows less than Veronica does. It’s really embarrassing.”

Stevie was surprised by Carole’s words. It had never occurred to her that Carole could be embarrassed by Colonel Hanson. Stevie could be embarrassed by her parents all the time. But her parents were parents. They did typical things like believing her brothers, or telling Stevie she couldn’t ride if she didn’t study first, or even telling her teacher that she
hadn’t
read the book that she’d written the A report on.
That
was embarrassing. But Colonel Hanson told corny old jokes and sang Elvis Presley by heart. He was just wonderful!

“Of course he doesn’t know anything,” Stevie said. “He’s never had a chance to learn, but he sure is learning now. You know, I only had to show him once how to assemble a bridle and he had it. He even remembered the names of all the parts. You should have seen
him showing that little boy in Horse Wise, Liam, how to mount his pony. Your dad was terrific. And he did it right, too. And he made it fun. Your dad—”

Stevie thought she could have gone on for hours about how great Colonel Hanson was. She also had the feeling that if she did, Carole would never speak to her again. Whatever it was that Stevie thought about Carole’s dad, Carole didn’t seem to agree. Stevie paused to think about it, exploring the possibilities as she finished soaping the saddle’s skirt. Their silence was interrupted by Max’s arrival. Max didn’t look very happy. In fact, he looked a little frantic.

“Oh, good, girls, I thought I would find you here. I need some help. Someone took off on a trail ride across the fields and left the paddock gates open behind them. Samson’s on the loose. Can you saddle up and help find him?”

Max didn’t have to ask twice. Each girl took her partially cleaned tack and ran back to her horse’s stall. Stevie had Topside tacked up in about three minutes. She was still tightening the girth when she met her friends at the door to the stable. A little colt could get into a lot of trouble in a very short time. There wasn’t a minute to waste!