Beach Ride

Horse lover
CAROLE …

Practical joker
STEVIE …

Straight-A
LISA …

#1:
HORSE CRAZY

#2:
HORSE SHY

#3:
HORSE SENSE

#4:
HORSE POWER

#5:
TRAIL MATES

#6:
DUDE RANCH

#7:
HORSE PLAY

#8:
HORSE SHOW

#9:
HOOF BEAT

#10:
RIDING CAMP

#11:
HORSE WISE

#12:
RODEO RIDER

#13:
STARLIGHT CHRISTMAS

#14:
SEAHORSE

#15:
TEAM PLAY

#16:
HORSE GAMES

#17:
HORSENAPPED

#18:
PACK TRIP

#19:
STAR RIDER

#20:
SNOW RIDE

#21:
RACEHORSE

#22:
FOX HUNT

#23:
HORSE TROUBLE

#24:
GHOST RIDER

#25:
SHOW HORSE

In an instant, Carole was completely submerged in the surf. This time, instead of propelling her upward and toward the shore, it pulled her down, tugging fiercely at her feet, dragging her down to the sandy bottom.

Carole had never felt a force like this. There was no fighting it. It was mightier than a team of horses, stronger than anything she’d ever known. Her hair swarmed around her, tugged every which way by the water. Her body scraped the bottom, and where the sand had once seemed silky, it now abraded her skin. And her lungs screamed for air….

“G
IRLS
, I
WANT
to introduce you to a new rider,” Max Regnery said. “This is Alice Jackson. Alice, I’d like you to meet Lisa Atwood, Stevie Lake, and Carole Hanson.”

The three members of The Saddle Club had been trying to untangle some tack. It took them a few seconds to disengage themselves from the mass of leathers, but the three girls smiled a welcome to the newcomer. She nodded shyly in return. Alice was a girl about their own age. She was tall and slender. She had long dark hair that she wore in a neat braid. She carried a riding hat under one arm and her riding clothes had a nice used look. With one glance, Stevie,
Lisa, and Carole figured out that Alice already knew a lot about riding. That made her their kind of rider.

“Class starts in fifteen minutes,” Max said, looking at his watch in his not-too-subtle manner. He hated it when his students were late to class. “Can one of you help Alice tack up Comanche for the flat class?”

“I’ll do it,” Lisa volunteered. “I’m riding Barq today, and he’s already got his saddle on.” She glanced at her friends and felt a twinge of guilt about leaving them with the tangle of bridles.

“Go ahead,” Stevie assured her. “Four hands in this mess are enough. We’ll see you in class.”

Carole nodded to show her agreement. Then, as if to prove the point, she pulled gently on one particularly intractable piece of leather and saw, to her delight, that the entire tangle disappeared.

“Ta-da!” she announced.

While Lisa was introducing Alice to Comanche in a nearby stall, Max dropped his voice to speak confidentially to Stevie and Carole.

“Listen, keep an eye on Alice, will you? She may need some friends.”

“Sure Max, no problem,” Stevie said. “We always like to help newcomers anyway.”

“Great,” Max said. “Now you can feel like you’ve
earned your vacation. See you in class,” he said, and then disappeared around a corner.

Carole sighed as she continued unknotting the leathers. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be reminded about vacation. This was Tuesday. She and her father were leaving for five days in Florida on Saturday. It was going to be fun, because they’d be staying with family and there were so many great things to do in Florida. The problem was that it meant she might not do any riding for almost a week. The thought made Carole cringe. It was her midwinter break, and if she weren’t going away, it would be easy to ride every single day. She definitely felt torn about going.

As Lisa and Alice headed for the tack room, Lisa saw the look on Carole’s face and immediately knew something was bothering her. After all, they were The Saddle Club—and that not only meant that they were three horse-crazy girls, it meant they were best friends. In fact, one of the main requirements for membership in The Saddle Club was that the girls had to be willing to help one another when help was needed. Lisa had a feeling that this was one of those times. She gave Carole a sympathetic look and made a mental note to check in with her friend after class. Right now she had a job to do, and that was helping Alice Jackson with her horse.

“You’re going to love Comanche,” Lisa said to the new rider. “I’ve ridden him, and he’s got some wonderful gaits, though he can be a little headstrong. You must be a pretty good rider if Max is putting you on Comanche for your first ride at Pine Hollow. Have you ridden a lot? I ride a lot, though I just started a couple of years ago. My friends Stevie and Carole—the girls you just met—are better riders than I am, but I do love learning, and Max says I’m doing well. Did he give you a test ride? He made me take a test ride when I started.”

Lisa was prepared to ask a few more questions, but she realized that Alice was laughing. “I’m chattering, aren’t I?” Lisa asked.

Alice nodded.

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Lisa said, now a little embarrassed.

“I know,” Alice said. “And you
are
being helpful. Everything you can tell me about the horses and the stable will be useful. So keep on doing it. One thing, though—”

“What’s that?”

“When you ask a question, why don’t you pause a second and let me answer it?”

“It’s a deal,” Lisa said. She smiled and they shook hands on it.

In the tack room Lisa showed Alice where Comanche’s tack was stowed. Alice carried the saddle, Lisa the bridle to Comanche’s stall. Together the girls tacked up the horse.

As the girls talked, Alice’s initial shyness seemed to melt away. Lisa found she liked Alice a lot. It turned out that Alice had actually done a lot of riding. She lived in Ohio and was on her school midwinter break. She was visiting her grandmother in Willow Creek, Virginia, where Lisa and her friends lived.

“To tell you the truth, I’d rather be home,” Alice said. “But it’s been sort of a nightmare there recently. My parents are fighting all the time. I think they’re going to get a divorce, and they just don’t want me to hear them scream at each other. They think I don’t know how much they fight, and I don’t want to let them know how much I do know. It’s awful, Lisa. Really.”

Lisa felt terrible for Alice. Lisa thought the most awful thing in the world would be to have her parents divorce. She got an unhappy tingling in her stomach just thinking about it. If she felt that way when it wasn’t true, how must Alice feel when it was? A lump rose in her throat. She swallowed hard. There must be something she could do to help her.

“I don’t mean to bore you,” Alice added, when she noticed Lisa’s faraway look.

“It’s not boring,” Lisa assured her. “I was just thinking. But we’d better get back to work. We’ve got to get this girth tight before class. See if you can distract Comanche so he doesn’t take his usual gigantic deep breath before I pull on the girth. He usually tries to fool me about how tight it is. It used to work, but I’ve gotten wise.”

Alice laughed. It was an easy laugh and made Lisa glad that she’d changed the subject. Maybe that was the one thing she really could do for Alice, who spoke then. “The horses I ride try that deep-breathing trick, too. Let’s see if we can’t outfox him.”

Alice began petting Comanche’s head and talking to him soothingly. Lisa patiently watched the horse’s belly for signs of breathing. A girth didn’t hurt a horse, but it was sometimes uncomfortable for a few minutes when it was first tightened. That was why some horses played games, taking in a deep breath while it was tightened and then letting it out so the girth felt loose. This time, though, the riders out-fooled the horse. Comanche was enjoying Alice’s attention so much, he didn’t even notice while Lisa pulled the girth snugly.

“Success!” Lisa announced. The girls exchanged
high fives, finished the tacking-up process, and then walked the horse to the stable door.