Beach Ride (5 page)

“And I’ll be behind her,” said Lisa thoughtfully. “So in case anything does happen, I’ll be right there. She’s such a good rider, she’s sure to react naturally to the jump, and she’ll go over it smooth as glass.”

“With some help from Starlight,” said Stevie sensibly. “I wouldn’t trust any other horse to do this, you know.”

“I know. He’s the perfect choice. Then, can you see it?” Lisa’s mind began soaring with the possibilities. “Alice is sure to realize how silly she’s been about jumping—that it’s really a lot of fun and not dangerous. It’s like we’re opening up a whole new world of possibilities for her on horseback. She’s going to love it!”

“It won’t exactly make up for the fact that her parents are splitting,” Stevie added.

“But it will give her something else to think about,” Lisa concluded.

“That’s important, too. When something bad is going on that you can’t do anything about, you should have something good to distract you.”

“And by the time she leaves here, she’s going to be a super jumper!” Lisa felt warm and happy, and she
knew Stevie felt the same way. It was great to think that they had a friend who had a problem and they could do something about it. That was what The Saddle Club did best, wasn’t it? Now all they had to do was make sure that they did it right.

“We’ve got work to do,” Lisa declared.

“Like what?”

“We’ve got to get back to where that tree is and make sure that it’s not too visible from far ahead on the trail and that it’s as low as we can make it so it will be totally safe for Alice. We have to make it so Starlight has lots of warning and Alice only has a little—just enough.”

Stevie agreed. The girls finished their sandwiches and juice and spent the rest of the afternoon doctoring the “jump” to make it perfect for Alice. By the time they returned to Pine Hollow, they were totally satisfied with their work and so happy about what was going to happen tomorrow that they didn’t even mind the scowl they got from Max, who reminded them that they’d been due back at the stable sometime earlier.

“We were doing you a favor, Max,” Stevie assured him. “A tree had fallen across the creek trail, and we couldn’t just leave it where it was.”

“Oh, thank you,” Max said, changing his tune completely.
“Another rider told me about that tree. I was going to go out later today and move it.”

“No need to,” Stevie said quickly. “We moved it to a much safer place. And we’ll be going out on that trail tomorrow. We’ll check it again for you.”

Lisa almost gagged. What Stevie said was true, of course, but what Max
heard
was something else altogether. They had moved the tree. They’d moved it so it would be more of a surprise for Alice, and they’d made it lower to the ground so it would be a safer jump, and they’d covered parts of it with leaves to camouflage it.

“Thanks, girls,” Max said. “You could have just reminded me, and I would have done the work myself. I appreciate your help, though.”

At his thanks Lisa and Stevie felt a twinge of guilt. But it passed quickly, for tomorrow they really would be doing two things for Max: first, moving the tree trunk completely off the trail, and then, bringing him a new jumping student—one with a little bit of experience!

“O
H
, C
AROLE
! How wonderful to see you!”

Carole looked at the woman, a total stranger to her, except for the fact that they were apparently related. For that, she got a hug.

“You’ve grown so!” said another person—cousin Fred, she thought.

“Isn’t she the image of Mitch!”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I think she’s got Grandfather William’s eyes. And her nose—well, that’s the exact same as your brother’s was.”

Carole was quite befuddled. For one thing, she was starting to feel as if she’d been made of spare parts. For another, she couldn’t remember anybody’s name, and
they all remembered hers. Everyone also seemed to know things about her that she didn’t know, like who her relatives were.

“Well, Carole, this is your second cousin Jack.” Carole shook the young man’s hand, not having the faintest idea how she’d ever gotten a second cousin. “He’s Eloise’s boy,” Aunt Joanna said, as if that explained everything.

There were more than thirty relatives at the house, and Carole knew only a few of them. She swore to herself that she’d ask her father to help her construct a family tree that very evening so she could begin to understand where all these people came from.

Once Carole had been hugged by everybody there, it was time to work on the meal they would all share. Everybody seemed to want to pitch in and help on the food, and that made it even more confusing. Carole and Sheila carried a big vat of cole slaw between them, and somebody provided two large bowls for serving it. The two girls tilted the vat while somebody—cousin Eloise? or was it Elsa?—scooped it into the bowls.

“How many Hansons does it take to serve cole slaw?” Carole asked, mimicking the light-bulb jokes that had been so popular a while back.

“Oh, see! I told you! She’s just like her father!”
cried out a cousin from the corner of the kitchen. “She loves old jokes, too!”

It seemed that today Carole wasn’t even going to be allowed to call her sense of humor her own. She decided she should just relax and enjoy it.

Somebody handed Carole a plate of vegetables and dip and told her to find a place to put it. Carole took the plate to a table that wasn’t completely overloaded and set it there. Then she sampled some of the cauliflower—her favorite, as long as it was raw. She never much liked it cooked. She was savoring the deliciously spicy dip when Aunt Joanna approached her with somebody she assumed was another long-lost relative. This time it was a woman about Aunt Joanna’s age.

“Carole, I want you to meet Midge Ford,” said Aunt Joanna, and then she disappeared, leaving Carole with the newest guest at the party.

Carole smiled broadly and reached out to give the woman what she’d come to understand was the standard family hug.

The woman returned the hug, but seemed a little surprised.

“How are we related?” Carole asked politely and braced herself for an explanation about Uncle Fritz’s second wife’s first cousin.

“We’re not,” Midge said. “I’m the one nonrelative here, I guess. Joanna just told me there was a gettogether, and I should be here because there would be so many interesting people.”

Then Carole remembered. This was the woman Joanna had invited for her father.

“I had no idea it was really a family reunion. I feel kind of awkward because I don’t know anybody here—except Joanna and now you.”

Carole said the first thing that popped into her mind. “Don’t worry. I don’t know anybody here, either. And I think a lot of them don’t as well,” she said, gesturing to the sea of relatives. “Just tell them that you’re cousin Elbert’s second daughter by his third wife, and they’ll all hug you.”

“Because nobody wants to admit they don’t remember me?”

“
Or
cousin Elbert …”

Midge began laughing. She had a nice laugh. Carole liked that.

“The least I can do is carry my own weight here and pitch in to help. What needs to be done?” Midge asked.

Carole looked around. It seemed that just about every flat surface was covered with a food that was somebody’s specialty. She also knew that the kitchen
was mobbed with relatives who were putting the finishing touches on something or other. There really didn’t seem to be anything to do, and she was telling Midge this when her father approached.

“Hi, honey, how’s it going?” he asked, giving her yet another hug. Carole thought she was probably into triple digits on hugs for the day already, but she could never have enough of the ones that came from her dad. She hugged him back.

She noticed that her father was looking at Midge then, as if trying to place her. Carole decided to help.

“Dad, this is Midge Ford. She’s cousin Elbert’s second daughter by his third wife.…”

A confused look came across the Colonel’s face, and then it cleared. “Midge Ford,” he said. “You’re Joanna’s friend, aren’t you? The one she’s trying to fix me up with?”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “And you must be Mitch Hanson—the ‘single’ brother she won’t stop talking about.”

“Guilty,” he said, offering her his hand. They shook. “And I see you’ve already met my daughter.”

“Yes, I have, and we’ve already had a laugh together.”

“Well, then, let me introduce you to some more of the family,” Colonel Hanson said. “And did you try
the punch? I’m told that one bowl is alcohol free and the other has some of Edgar’s homemade brew in it, but nobody will say which is which. Are you bold enough to try?”

“Definitely,” said Midge. She laughed again and walked off with Carole’s father.

Carole looked around for a few seconds, not sure which way to turn. She spotted Sheila then, surrounded by younger cousins. She didn’t know for sure what they were talking about, but she heard words like “saddle” and “conformation” coming out of the group, so she was, naturally, drawn to it. Her suspicions were correct. They were talking about horses.

“But just exactly what
is
the difference between Western and Eastern riding?” one young cousin asked.

“English,” Sheila said, correcting her automatically. “There are a lot of differences, which mostly have to do with their original purposes being different. A lot of English riding developed from military use of horses. Some, too, from use of horses in hunting. Western riding was all work—cattle work. The tack in each type of riding is different.”

“And the horses, too, are they different?”

“Yes and no,” Sheila said. It was a complicated question, and Carole could tell by the look on Sheila’s face that she was eager to answer it.

Carole smiled. This was right up her alley, and Sheila seemed to be as interested in giving a complete answer as Carole herself would have been. Carole’s friends sometimes teased her that she had many more complete answers than they did questions and she could go on and on a lot. She took their teasing good-naturedly, but it was a relief to be with someone who liked to share information as much as she did.

“Each breed of horse has distinct strengths,” Sheila began. “English riders like to use Thoroughbreds or ‘warmbloods’ because they are so graceful and fast and such good jumpers. Cowboys would generally choose a quarter horse. They’re admired for their bursts of speed, which come in handy chasing after dogies on the range. Then there are horses like the Morgans, who have incredible strength and endurance.…”

Carole was with her all the way. She added that Arabians were known for their endurance as well as their beauty, but on the Arabian desert, perhaps their finest trait was their ability to go without water for long periods of time.

“Not too long, though. Of course, they can become dehydrated, just like people can.”

“And then there are draught horses that aren’t really either English or Western, but are meant to pull loads—”

Suddenly Sheila and Carole looked at each other. They had lost their audience. All the younger kids had wandered away from them, drawn to another room by a new video game.

“Uh-oh,” Sheila said.

“Don’t worry. It happens to me all the time,” Carole comforted her. “Nobody in the world cares about horses as much as I do—and my best friends, of course.”

“Except me,” said Sheila.

That was true. Even though the audience of younger kids was gone, it didn’t mean Carole and Sheila couldn’t talk about horses. So they did.

Sheila knew Carole’s horse was named Starlight, but she didn’t know much more about the horse. Carole took the opportunity to fill her in on all the wonderful details. Sheila had some suggestions about further training for the horse, but she certainly agreed that most of what Carole was doing was just right.

“Especially since it’s working,” Sheila concluded. “It is, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Carole agreed. “We were at a horse show not long ago, and we did very well. Came in second overall.”

“That’s great. My parents wish I could do that.”

They were nearing a subject Carole was curious
about but didn’t want to raise. She waited to see what else Sheila would share.

“Maverick and I are like one person,” Sheila said. “We’ve been riding together for so long that I just can’t imagine what it would be like to ride another horse. And I don’t want to find out, either. I mean, I wouldn’t mind riding another horse now and again, but I can’t stand the idea that Maverick and I wouldn’t be together again. I love him so much.…”

“Everybody! Everybody! May I have your attention, please!” It was Uncle Willie. The whole family quieted down for Uncle Willie’s announcement. “It’s time for a little softball game in the backyard. I’m captain of one of the teams. Mitch here claims he’s too good to be a captain. He’s going to be the colonel of the other!” There was laughter. “Everybody up for softball. We’re going to choose up sides. Knowing which side my bread is buttered on, I call for Joanna first!”

Teams formed quickly and the game began. It was followed by some volleyball and then a wonderful meal. By the end of the day, as darkness fell, the family members turned to quieter moments and, finally, singing. Carole was surprised to find that there was a whole group of people who knew many of the same
silly songs that her father had been teaching her since the first time she could sing. Her favorite was one about a little froggy who jumped from lily pad to lily pad all day long, accomplishing nothing at all. She always liked it when she and her dad sang it together. Now she found she liked it even better when thirty people sang it all at the same time. Even though she’d never met most of them, or didn’t remember meeting them until today, they seemed to be bound together by more than the fortune of their births. They were bound by a family tradition that crossed generational lines, as well as state borders. This was family. Carole found she liked it.