Chasing Gold (10 page)

“GOOD BOY!” HALEY SAID AS
Wings lengthened his trot stride along the fence. “Good, good boy!”

“Excellent!” her instructor called from the center of the paddock Haley used as a riding ring. “You're looking good today—both of you.”

“Thanks!” Haley brought Wings back to a walk and gave him a pat, feeling pleased. Jan Whipple was only in her midthirties, but she definitely took after the old-school horsemen who'd taught her when she was Haley's age. That meant she wasn't the type of instructor to give compliments unless she meant them. The first time Haley had attempted the lengthening, all Jan had said
was, “Hmm. Again.” But this time, a wide grin split her tanned, freckled face beneath its battered old Wisconsin Dairy Association ball cap.

“Okay,” Jan called out. “Now pick up left lead canter at A.” She winked. “Well, where A should be, anyway.”

Haley had moved all the jump rails and standards out of the paddock a couple of days earlier after their last show jumping school, but she hadn't had time to lay out a real dressage ring, with letters marking the spots where transitions were supposed to happen. But that didn't really matter. They weren't practicing tests today, just schooling various movements.

And so far, Wings was doing great! When he'd first come to live with Haley, learning to jump had come easily to him. But he hadn't had much patience for the slow, intricate dressage work she'd started asking him to learn as well. In his old life with the neighbor's daughter, he hadn't been asked to do much other than run and circle around the barrels—turn and burn, as some barrel racers called it—with a little easy trail riding in between competitions.

But dressage was different. Riding a successful test
involved performing specific gaits, figures, and transitions as accurately as possible, and precision hadn't exactly been Wings's forte at the beginning. Or Haley's, either, for that matter. She loved running and jumping—that was why she'd been attracted to eventing in the first place. At first she'd considered dressage as just something to get through on the way to the fun stuff.

Then she and Wings had entered their first competition. It hadn't been anything big or fancy or recognized—just a tiny, informal starter horse trials at a lesson stable over in the next county. Wings had been a superstar at the jumping parts. He'd gone double clear in cross-country and stadium, barely seeming to notice the tiny elementary-level obstacles.

But the dressage test had been another matter. It was just a walk-trot test, and aside from memorizing it, Haley had barely bothered to prepare for it at all outside of her occasional lessons with Jan. And it had shown—they'd blown a couple of transitions, with Wings jumping into a canter once when he was supposed to be trotting. He'd also jigged through the halt, and their circles were shaped
more like melting snowballs. They'd ended up with a pretty terrible score, which had dropped them out of the ribbons completely.

After that, Haley had taken dressage a lot more seriously. She'd even started to enjoy it most of the time. It helped that Jan was so enthusiastic about it, constantly pointing out all the ways that getting better at dressage would also improve their jumping. For instance, she'd first started teaching them lengthenings by asking Haley to trot or canter Wings between two poles or small jumps in different numbers of strides—doing the same distance once in five strides, then in six, then in four. Both Haley and Wings had found that exercise a lot of fun, and Haley had soon discovered that being able to adjust her pony's stride could come in handy out on cross-country as well.

They'd come a long way since then. Now their circles were mostly round and their transitions usually came at the right place. But there was always something new to work on!

The rest of that morning's lesson flew by. Haley was surprised when she checked her watch at the end and
realized they'd gone fifteen minutes over the allotted time.

“Thanks so much for coming all the way over here to teach us today,” she said as she stopped Wings beside Jan.

“You're welcome.” Jan rubbed Wings's nose as he nudged at her, looking for treats. “I didn't mind a bit. It's not every day that a student of mine is getting ready to ride with Zina Charles.”

Haley smiled. “I know, right? I can hardly believe it's really going to happen.”

At least it will if I get everything done and earn enough money,
she added silently, though she didn't say it to Jan.

“Well, I think you two are ready. I can tell you've been working hard,” Jan said. “You and Wings have made a lot of progress since our last lesson.”

“Thanks.” Haley beamed and leaned forward to rub the pony's withers. “He's a superstar!”

“That he is.” Jan dug a slightly dusty carrot-flavored horse treat out of her pocket and fed it to Wings. “I'll expect a full report after the clinic, okay?”

“Promise.” Haley slid down from the saddle and ran up her stirrups. She'd pretty much forgotten about the rest
of the world while she was riding, as usual. But now she was back to thinking about everything she still had to do before the clinic. There was no time to dawdle, especially today.

“Stay, Bandit.” Haley closed the picket gate in the dog's face.

He whined at her from the barnyard, wagging his tail hopefully. But Haley knew better than to let him into the garden. The last time he'd sneaked in there, he'd dug up half of Aunt Veronica's prized irises and eaten all the blooms off her roses.

Haley reached over the gate to give Bandit one last ear scratch. Then she headed into the house. It was after four thirty already, and she would have to hurry if she was going to have time to take a shower, change clothes, and grab something to eat before Emma's mother came by to pick her up for Tracey's party.

Uncle Mike was still out in the barn changing the oil in the tractor, but Aunt Veronica was in the kitchen getting dinner started. “Tracey came by an hour or so ago,”
she told Haley. “Left you something. It's in your room.”

“Okay, thanks.” When she got upstairs, Haley found a garment bag lying on her bed. Unzipping it, she pulled out a flouncy floral skirt and a pale green blouse. A note was pinned to the front of the blouse, written in Tracey's big, loopy handwriting.

Surprise! I know u r busy, so I thought u could wear this. It will look cute on u! See u at the party!

After that came several hearts and flowers and smiley faces, followed by Tracey's signature. Haley glanced at the clothes, feeling both touched and annoyed. It had been nice of Tracey to take the time to figure out something for her to wear and drop it off, especially since she had to be pretty busy herself today. But couldn't she see that this outfit wasn't exactly Haley's style?

She dropped the garment bag on her bed and wandered to her closet. Swinging open the door, she stared blankly at the clothes inside.

Then she sighed and returned to the bed. She didn't
have the energy to come up with something else to wear. Tracey's outfit would have to do.

Half an hour later, Haley was showered and dressed. She headed downstairs, following the scent of roast beef.

When she entered the kitchen, everyone else was already at the table. “Wow!” Aunt Veronica said with a smile. “You look beautiful, Haley!”

Jake glanced up from shoveling mashed sweet potatoes into his mouth. “That's not Haley,” he said through a mouthful of half-chewed food. “That's a girl.”

“Yeah, where'd that girl come from?” Danny smirked. “We don't allow those around here.”

Aunt Veronica shot them a sour look. “Enough, boys,” she said.

“Sit down, Haley,” Uncle Mike said. “Have some grub before you go.” He winked at her. “Shrimp cocktails and dainty tea sandwiches won't fill you up after the long day you just put in.”

Haley giggled as she slid into her seat. “I don't think Tracey's serving shrimp cocktails and tea sandwiches,” she said. “But thanks, I am pretty hungry.”

She filled her plate with food. Danny watched her, his fork suspended above his plate.

“Careful, Haley,” he said. “If you eat too much, you might bust out of your froufrou flowery outfit.”

“Daniel,” his mother said warningly.

Haley ignored the boys as she ate. She'd barely taken the time to wolf down a sandwich at lunchtime, and it really had been a long day. After her dressage lesson, she'd mucked out all four stalls and rebedded them, followed by various other farm chores. Then her uncle had asked her to help him stack firewood and sweep out the machine shed, and Aunt Veronica had needed help carrying things down to the root cellar. After that Haley had dashed over to the Tompkins' to take care of their plants and cat, then rushed back to start the afternoon chores. It made her tired just thinking back on it all.

She'd just finished her third helping of sweet potatoes when a car horn sounded outside. “Oops, that must be Ems.” Haley quickly wiped her mouth with her napkin, then jumped to her feet and picked up her plate.

“Leave that, Haley.” Her aunt pulled the plate out of her hands and set it down. “The boys will clear.”

“What?” Danny exclaimed, sounding annoyed.

Aunt Veronica ignored him, standing up and adjusting Haley's ponytail. “You really do look pretty, sweetie,” she said. “Have a nice time tonight, okay?”

“I'll try.” With some effort, Haley managed not to grimace. Her aunt was right—she was stuck going to this party, like it or not. She might as well at least try to have a good time.

An hour and a half later, Haley stifled a yawn as she checked her watch for about the fifteenth time. It felt as if she'd been at Tracey's party forever. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't seem to stop thinking about all the much more important stuff she could be doing right now. She'd wiped down her dressage saddle before her lesson that morning, but there had been no time to give it a proper cleaning and oiling. And of course she hadn't touched her jumping saddle at all. She hadn't managed
to get Wings's mane pulled yet either, or polished her tall boots, or dug through her tack trunk for her good crop and helmet cover. . . .

“Haley!” Emma danced over, holding a plastic cup of punch. “Isn't this a blast?”

Emma's face was flushed, and her glasses kept getting steamed up. But she seemed to be having fun. Haley wasn't sure why. The party seemed to consist of people standing around shouting at each other over the too-loud dance music. Only a handful of people were actually dancing. Ashley and Phil, their grade's only official couple, were swaying together in one corner, arms wrapped around each other. Emma had been fast dancing with Tracey and a few other girls for a while, though most of the group had drifted off to pick at the snacks laid out on the coffee table, which had been pushed up against the living room wall along with most of the other furniture. It was drizzling outside, which meant everyone was crammed indoors instead of the party spilling out onto the deck as Tracey had planned, and the place felt stuffy and too warm.

“Where's Tracey?” Haley asked Emma.

“What?” Emma scrunched up her face and leaned closer. “I can't hear you!”

“I said, where's Tracey?” Haley shouted into her ear.

Emma shrugged and glanced around. “I don't know—wait, there she is!”

Now Haley saw her too. Tracey was winding her way through the crowd, pulling Owen along by one wrist.

“There you are!” Tracey exclaimed when she reached Haley and Emma. “I've been looking everywhere for you, Hales!”

Haley doubted that. For one thing, she'd seen Tracey giggling and leaning against Nick Jankowski just a short while earlier. For another, Haley herself had been standing right there in the arched doorway leading to the kitchen hallway for at least the past fifteen minutes.

But she just smiled weakly. “Here I am.”