Dude Ranch (13 page)

“Max’ll see to that!”

There was a click and the public-address system came to life, announcing that they were boarding all passengers bound for Washington, D.C. The girls picked up their hand luggage and headed for the gate, filing quietly onto the plane. Stevie couldn’t help feeling that every airplane was taking her farther away from The Bar None—in more ways than one. Of course, each plane took them more miles from the ranch and their friends, but on each plane, there were fewer and fewer passengers dressed in Western clothes. There were fewer people around them who talked the way Eli liked to drawl. It was as if the trip itself were a way for them to make the long and difficult transition from ranch life to suburban Virginia.

The girls settled into their seats, three in a row,
buckled their seat belts, put their tray tables and seat backs into their full upright and locked positions in preparation for takeoff, and started talking again.

“The Saddle Club’s split up, now,” Stevie said glumly. “Kate’s way out west. We’re in the east.”

“Kate is the Western division of The Saddle Club,” Carole said. “We are the Virginia branch.”

Stevie grinned and thought that was an interesting way to look at it.

The three girls were all lost in their own thoughts as the plane began to taxi down the runway. Shortly after takeoff, flight attendants began to pass out sodas and snacks.

“You know,” Lisa said as she ripped open her bag of nuts, “I’ve been thinking about what Carole said before.” Both Carole and Stevie looked at her. “To me, The Saddle Club is what we are, who we are, wherever we are. Being together is nice, but just being The Saddle Club is nice, too. It’s not as if we’re split up by a measly couple of thousand miles. It’s that we’re joined by a common interest, a common bond. We’re us. We’re The Saddle Club.”

Stevie looked at Lisa and smiled. “That’s a pretty neat way to look at it,” she said. “You just might be right, too.”

“Lisa’s given me an idea,” Carole said. “Why don’t
we try to make The Saddle Club a worldwide operation? Everywhere we go, we’ll try to start new groups!”

“You planning to do a lot of traveling?” Stevie asked Carole. “International branches in London and Amsterdam and all that? Maybe even Sydney?”

Carole smiled sheepishly. “I guess I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself,” she admitted. “For now, I think
two
branches are just fine. And Lisa’s right, The Saddle Club
is
wherever we are.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Stevie quipped as she twisted open a bottle of soda. They clinked their plastic glasses together.

“One thing, though,” Stevie said. “I think that maybe we should get at least one more Saddle Club pin.” She glanced down at the silver horse head on her shirt collar. “And I think that the next time we go to The Bar None, we should give it to Christine.”

“That’s a
wonderful
idea!” Carole said as the three girls clinked their glasses again.

And as they did it, each thought that it was hard to tell which was the
better
part of the idea: having Christine join The Saddle Club, or returning to The Bar None.

It didn’t matter. They were
both
great ideas.

Bonnie Bryant is the author of nearly a hundred books about horses, including the Saddle Club series, the Saddle Club Super Editions, and the Pony Tales series.