Blue Ribbon Summer (8 page)

As Brooke and Foxy approached the barn half an hour later, Livi rushed out and waved at them.

“She's back! Hey, Robin, Brooke's back!” the blond girl shouted.

She hurried forward. Paige and Hannah emerged
from the barn and rushed after her. Soon all three of them were dancing along beside Foxy, keyed up and extra-talkative.

“Wow, I've never seen Robin so freaked-out,” Hannah commented. “She thinks you're, like, dead or something.”

“We were worried too,” Livi added.

“Yeah,” Paige said. “Why'd you ride off like that?”

Before Brooke could answer, Robin rushed out, her expression pinched and anxious. “Brooke!” she exclaimed. “Thank goodness! What were you thinking, riding off alone like that?”

Brooke was taken aback. “I ride alone all the time at home,” she said. As Robin's frown deepened, Brooke quickly added, “But I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was against the rules.”

Robin glanced at the other girls. “All right, she's obviously alive. Now get back to your tack cleaning—it's almost time for lunch.”

As the trio wandered off, whispering to one another, Brooke slid down from Foxy's back. “I'm really sorry,” she
told Robin. “I didn't mean to make you worry. We just rode down to the water.”

“The water?” Robin said. “That's several miles away.”

Brooke nodded, thinking back on the ride. “We ran into an old woman on the shore,” she said. “She seemed kind of, um, cranky.”

“An old woman? What did she look like?”

Brooke described the woman as best she could. “There was a girl with her too. Maybe fifteen or sixteen? She called the woman Miss Alice.”

“Oh.” Robin's expression cleared. “Yes, that would be Alice Foster. She lives in an old house overlooking the water—her family has owned the property for generations. But she lives alone, so I have no idea who the girl could have been.”

Just then one of the adult boarders emerged from the barn. She flashed a quick, distracted smile in Brooke's direction, then started babbling at Robin about a stone in her horse's shoe.

“Be right there,” Robin told the woman. “Brooke, put Foxy in the pasture and get washed up for lunch.”

Brooke nodded, giving a tug on Foxy's lead as the barn owner hurried away. “Come on, girl,” she said. “The fun's over.”

Foxy nickered, and Brooke smiled and rubbed her nose. Despite how their adventure had turned out, she couldn't quite be sorry she'd had it.

CHAPTER

MONDAY AFTERNOON PASSED QUICKLY FOR
Brooke. After lunch, the younger campers went swimming and then had a horsemanship lesson. Unlike in the riding lesson, Brooke had no trouble keeping up, thanks to her lifelong habit of reading everything she could about horses. Robin complimented her several times on her knowledge, and the other girls seemed impressed too.

That evening, after feeding the horses and having their own dinner, the whole group gathered in the living room to watch some horse videos, and by the time they'd finished, everyone was yawning. Brooke fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit her pillow, feeling only the
slightest pangs of homesickness and thinking that maybe camp wouldn't be so bad after all.

But the next morning after breakfast, she was dismayed to discover that the younger campers were scheduled to spend the morning playing tennis.

“It'll be awesome!” exclaimed Abby, the counselor. She was a college student with short straw-colored hair, a snub nose sprinkled with freckles, and an enthusiastic attitude about everything. “Come on, gang, let's hit the courts!”

The girls piled into Robin's old minivan and Abby drove them a few miles down the road to the same estate where they'd gone swimming the day before. Brooke glanced longingly at the pool as they passed it.

“I wish we were going swimming again instead,” she murmured.

She was talking to herself more than to the others, but Paige heard her. “Don't you like tennis?” she asked.

Brooke shrugged. “I'm not sure. I've never really played before except a couple of times, goofing off at the park.”

She thought back a few summers to the day she and Adam had taught themselves to play using his parents' old
racquets. They'd spent more time trying to hit each other with the ball than actually following the rules. It had been fun—the kind of fun she and Adam used to have together all the time.

Brooke's smile faded as she tuned back in to the conversation in the van. The other girls were all discussing how long they'd been playing tennis, how many years of lessons they'd taken, and in Livi's case, how many junior tournaments she'd won playing doubles with her sister.

Yikes,
Brooke thought.
I guess that's just one more thing they're all better at than me.

“Maybe you guys should go ahead and play without me,” she said. “I can just watch. I don't mind.”

“No way, Brooke!” Abby sang out from the driver's seat. She pulled into a parking spot near the courts. “Life's for living, not for watching. It'll be fun!”

Brooke winced. She'd known Abby less than twenty-four hours, and she could already tell “It'll be fun!” was one of her favorite phrases.

“Yeah, you've got to play,” Hannah added. “For one thing, we need four to play doubles.”

Paige nodded. “You can be my partner, Brooke.”

Brooke smiled weakly. “Um, okay.”

It went about as well as Brooke might have predicted. The other girls all played as if they were warming up for Wimbledon, while Brooke didn't even know how to serve properly until Paige showed her. Even then, Brooke could barely get the ball across the net.

After her third or fourth flubbed serve, Brooke had had enough. As she hurried forward to retrieve the ball she'd just sent into the net, she feigned a stumble.

“Ow!” she said. “Um, I twisted my ankle. I'd better sit out for a while—I don't want to make it worse so I can't ride.”

“Are you sure?” Abby looked as if she wanted to argue, but instead she bit her lip and glanced at the other three girls. Hannah and Livi were trading a look, and Paige was staring at the ground. Brooke had the feeling they all knew she was bluffing, but she didn't care. She gazed defiantly at Abby.

“I'm positive,” she said, limping over and handing the counselor her racquet. “You can take my place. It'll be fun.”

Brooke ate her lunch as fast as she could, barely hearing the other girls' chatter. The youngers were scheduled for their next riding lesson in a little while, and Brooke really wanted to spend some quality time with Foxy before everyone else got to the barn. Besides, she figured the pony could use some extra grooming. Even though Brooke had curried and brushed her several times since their arrival, Foxy still looked a little scruffy next to the pampered horses all around her.

The barn was quiet when Brooke entered. Only a few horses were in their stalls waiting to be ridden instead of out in the pastures. Robin, Abby, and the other campers were still at lunch. None of the adult boarders were around, and Felicia had already finished her morning chores and gone home. Brooke was glad—she'd felt much better after her private time with Foxy the day before, and since it seemed she wouldn't be allowed to repeat their solo ride, this would have to do.

Foxy was outside in her paddock when Brooke reached her stall, but the mare came inside at Brooke's whistle.
“Good girl,” Brooke said, rubbing her pony's nose. “Ready for your beauty treatments?”

Foxy snorted, which Brooke decided to take as a yes. She led Foxy out of the stall, clipped her into the nearest set of crossties, and went to work. She'd finished picking out Foxy's hooves and was working on a muddy spot with a rubber curry when Paige entered.

“Hey,” Paige said, wandering over with her usual friendly smile. “I thought you might be out here. Want some company?”

Brooke already had all the company she wanted in Foxy. But it didn't seem polite to say so, so instead she said, “Sure. I was just giving Foxy a good grooming.” She shot the other girl a shy sidelong look. “Your horses are all so sleek and shiny, it sort of inspired me.”

“Aw, thanks.” Paige looked pleased by the compliment. “I can't take all the credit, though. Snow is on full care at my home barn, and the grooms do an amazing job keeping her clipped and pulled and clean.” Suddenly her eyes lit up. “Hey, I have an idea. Want to pull Foxy's mane? I could help you—I'm actually pretty good at it.”

“Pull her mane?” Brooke glanced from Foxy, with her long, wild mane, to the horses in the nearest stalls. All of their manes were tidy and short. Brooke liked the look; she'd thought about pulling Foxy's mane once about a year earlier after reading a how-to site on the Internet. But somehow she'd never gotten around to it.

“Yeah.” Paige sounded enthusiastic. “She'd look adorable with a pulled mane! Like the world's cutest show pony.”

That made up Brooke's mind. Foxy might not always act like she belonged here, but this way at least maybe she'd look the part.

“Sure,” Brooke said. “Thanks. That would be great. How do we start?”

“First let's brush out her mane and get it all lying on the right side of her neck,” Paige said, digging into Brooke's grooming bucket for a big plastic comb.

That part went pretty well. Foxy didn't seem to mind being fussed over. She didn't even object when Paige fetched a spray bottle from the tack room and squirted the mane with water to make it lie flat.

“Okay,” Paige said, finally seeming satisfied. “Now
we'll start pulling.” She'd grabbed a little metal comb from the tack room while she was in there, which she now used to separate out a small section of mane. “You hold the comb like this and wrap the longest ends around it. See? Then give it a sharp yank, like this.”

She did just that, pulling out some of the mane hairs with the comb. Foxy jerked her head up and took a step backward. “Easy, girl,” Brooke said, rubbing the pony's neck. “Did that hurt?”

“It doesn't hurt them,” Paige said, flipping her own red hair out of the way, over her shoulder. “Not any more than it hurts them for you to grab a handful of mane to steady yourself while you're riding.” She shrugged. “Foxy's probably just not used to the feeling, that's all. She'll get over it.”

But she didn't. With each yank of the pulling comb, the mare got more agitated. Brooke stood at her head, trying to soothe her with words and pats. Finally, though, Foxy had had enough. As Paige pulled another cluster of hairs out, the mare jerked her head up and back. The crossties snapped, and Foxy was loose.

“Whoa!” Brooke cried, alarmed. “Easy, girl.”

“What's going on?” It was Hannah. She'd just arrived in the barn, with Livi right behind her.

“We were pulling Foxy's mane, and she set back and broke the ties. No biggie.” Paige didn't sound that upset.