High Horse (9 page)

“Good racing,” Max said when they returned. “I hope you all learned something from that.” He looked at all the other riders, but especially at Amie and Veronica. “A horse wants to win a race. What you as a rider have to do is help your horse stay calm and concentrated. You have to help your horse run his own race.”

Tears gathered in Amie’s eyes again.

But then Max added, “Even more important is to keep on trying. Horses are just like people—they make mistakes sometimes. As a rider you have to let your horse know that one mistake isn’t the end of the world. And that’s what Amie did.”

Amie grinned.

“And now, what I suggest,” Max said, “is that some of the riders get the horses ready for the night, and the others start a fire.” Max looked at the sky, which was turning pink in the west. “I predict a clear, cold night with lots of stars. We’ll need a good fire so we can stay up and tell horse stories.”

“Horse
ghost
stories,” Stevie clarified. “I feel one
coming on already. It’s about this ghost rider in the sky who’s in this Ghostly Ghastly Relay Race.”

“Later,” Max said with a grin. “First the fire. Stevie and Phil, you two can make it.”

“You’re on.” Stevie quickly slid down from Topside and handed the reins to Jackie. As Phil dismounted, Betsy approached him.

“That was great,” she breathed. “You handled Teddy so well. I was afraid you were going to be thrown. It was masterful.”

Somehow Betsy has managed to come between us again, Stevie thought furiously. She was staring at the back of Betsy’s head with its shining chestnut hair, every strand in place.

“Thanks,” Phil said. “There was a minute there I thought I was going to wind up in a tree.”

“Not you,” Betsy said. “
You
would never wind up in a tree.”

Is he going to help me, or flirt with her all day? Stevie thought. In disgust she looked away from Betsy and glanced at Phil’s horse, Teddy.

As if he were reading Stevie’s mind, Phil spoke up. “Hey, Stevie, let me give Teddy to Liam, and we’ll get started gathering firewood.”

Stevie frowned. Now she was watching Teddy closely. The horse was shaking his head and pawing
the ground. “Maybe you should stay with Teddy, Phil. He’s still acting restless.”

At that moment Max came up. He looked concerned. “That’s right,” he said. “If you want a good ride tomorrow, it’s worth spending time with him tonight, Phil. If he has a bad night, he’ll be impossible to ride in the morning, and I’m counting on you to help supervise the trail ride.”

Phil looked disappointed, but he could hardly argue with Max. “Okay. Sure.”

“Stevie, why don’t you ask Carole for help?” Max said.

Stevie looked over at Carole, who was holding Starlight’s reins. “Do you want to come and gather firewood and start the fire?”

“Sure,” she replied. She gave Starlight’s reins to Max and looked around. “Seems to me we could use a couple of expert assistants.”

Carole went over to Amie and Jackie and said, “How would you like to help Stevie and me gather firewood and start a fire?”

Amie looked toward the woods. “I don’t know,” she said. Then she and Jackie exchanged glances. It was clear they didn’t want to go.

“It’ll be fun,” Carole promised. “We’ll talk.”

Amie and Jackie looked at each other again. Then
Jackie said, “That’s okay. I think we better stay here and help.”

Carole’s face fell. Stevie, watching her, could tell that Carole felt terrible. Amie and Jackie had such a good time during the horse games that Carole must have thought that all her problems with them had disappeared. Now here they were, unenthusiastic about her again.

“Come on,” Stevie said, touching Carole’s arm. “We don’t want to wait too long. It’s getting dark.”

“Sure,” Carole said, turning to her. “We better do that. We wouldn’t want to eat cold hot dogs.”

“You forget how much work overnights are,” Stevie said as they headed toward the woods. “All the things you take for granted at home, like heat and light, you have to provide for yourself out here.”

“I don’t mind that,” Carole said. “I just wish Amie and Jackie were having fun.”

C
AROLE AND
S
TEVIE
walked into a pine grove. The dried-up needles crunched under their boots.

“There’s one good thing about this overnight,” Stevie said.

“There is?” Carole said. “Tell me about it.”

“I got to see that Phil is madly in love with Betsy Cavanaugh.”

“No, he’s not,” Carole stated. “He thinks she’s a total drip.”

“So that’s why he spends all his time with her.”

“You mean that’s why he spends all his time
running away
from her.”

Stevie shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on between
him and me. But I’ll tell you one thing I do know. I have to stop acting so competitive around him. It’s like I just get carried away or something.”

Carole blinked. Stevie’s words sounded just like Lisa’s journal. She glanced at Stevie. Was it possible that Stevie had read Lisa’s journal, too? She wanted to ask her, but then again, if Stevie hadn’t snooped, Carole didn’t want to offend her.

“Listen,” she said finally. “There’s no point in getting upset about being upset.” She stopped, trying to put her thoughts together. “What am I trying to say?”

“That I should lighten up?” Stevie said.

Carole giggled. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

Stevie stopped and picked up a pine cone. “I guess we could use a few of these.”

“Good idea,” Carole said.

Stevie filled her arms with pine cones, and then Carole piled small fallen branches from pine trees on top. “We can’t gather the good stuff like hickory, because it will still be wet,” Carole said as they walked deeper into the forest. “We’ll have to go for the fast-burners like spruce and ash.”

“How do you know that?” Stevie asked.

Carole grinned. “Just another boring bit of MTO lore.”

They found a white ash tree that had fallen on top of an old log so that it wasn’t resting on the ground. “I believe we’re in luck here,” Carole said. She inspected the broken end of the tree. “It’s still dry.”

Stevie stood on top of the ash tree and jumped on it to break it in half. But when she landed, there was a dull thump and then nothing more. “This is one tough tree,” she said, and jumped again.

This time when she landed the trunk rocked, tossing her off into a drift of soggy leaves. “Great,” she said, getting up and picking up the pine cones and kindling she’d dropped. “I think I need your help. How about lending some of the weight of all that horse knowledge of yours to the job of breaking this trunk?”

“No problem.” Carole giggled and climbed up next to Stevie.

When the two of them jumped, there was a cracking sound. They climbed off and bent the two halves of the trunk toward each other, breaking them.

“Two more jumps and we’re out of here,” Stevie said.

When the two girls headed back to camp, the sun was low in the sky.

“I guess you saw what happened with Amie and Jackie,” Carole said. “They didn’t want to come and
gather wood. They’re tired of my horse lectures.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think I’m better around horses than people.”

Hmmmm, Stevie thought. There was something familiar about this. Could it be that Carole had read Lisa’s journal, too? Should she ask Carole and find out? But then Stevie realized that if Carole hadn’t read the journal, she’d just be making trouble between her and Lisa.

“Amie and Jackie are tired,” Stevie said. “They’re little kids, and it’s been a big day for them—an immense day when you come right down to it.”

Carole shrugged. “I guess I wanted to teach them everything—for instance, I thought they’d want to know that a horse won’t eat toadstools in the woods.”

Stevie shook her head. “Believe it or not, Carole, they’ve had enough of horses for today.”

Carole turned to Stevie. “That’s the reason? And I thought it was just because they think I’m a big bore.”

Stevie giggled. “Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, but if you insist …”

At that Carole burst out laughing. One of the wonderful things about Stevie was that she could often help Carole to see the humorous side of things—even if it had to do with Carole’s own worst side. She’d wanted to do a good job on the Big Sister/Little Sister
project and she’d just gotten carried away. Carole had to admit that Lisa had said pretty much the same thing about her in her journal. Only there it hadn’t been funny. It had hurt.

Stevie and Carole came out of the woods onto the edge of the meadow, where the tips of the grass were pink with sunset light.

“The meadow really changes,” Stevie commented.

“What?”

“It’s different every time you look at it.”

From the other side of the hill came voices and laughter.

When Stevie and Carole reached the top, they could see the campsite and the temporary paddock. The horses had been unsaddled and groomed, and now they were standing lazily, flicking their tails to keep away flies. The younger kids were running around the campsite, playing some kind of tag. The older riders were bustling with preparations for dinner. It was almost like watching a family.

Carole and Stevie walked slowly down the hill. When they reached camp, Max looked at their logs and said, “Nice work. White ash is a good bet for dryness.”

The two of them made a ring of stones and laid a bed of twigs and small branches inside. They put four
logs on top and lit the kindling with a box of matches that had been protected from the damp by being dipped in paraffin. The twigs sputtered and smoked, sending off a toasty smell, and then the logs suddenly caught fire.

“Am I glad to see that,” Joe Novick said. “I felt like I was going to be damp for the rest of my life.”

The riders gathered around the fire and watched it flare and take hold.

“Ten more minutes until I make my special hot dogs,” Phil said. “These are known as Phil’s Phabulous hot dogs. ‘Phabulous’ with a
ph
, of course.”

“That’s too long to wait,” Amie said.

“I’m practically dead with hunger,” Jackie said.

“They’re worth waiting for,” Phil promised. “You haven’t experienced phabulous until you’ve had one of my hot dogs.”

“I
know
it,” came Betsy’s voice. “I can’t wait.”

Carole and Stevie looked at each other, and Carole pressed her lips together as a sign that Stevie should let it go. Stevie went over to where Joe and some of the others were wrapping potatoes in aluminum foil.

“That was a great race you ran,” Joe said.

“Thanks,” Stevie said.

“You really know how to handle your horse.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Stevie said. “You too.”

The riders finished wrapping the potatoes and brought them over to the fire. They tucked them against the inside of the ring of stones. Soon the stones would be as hot as the fire, so the potatoes would be baked from both directions.

“Take a look at this,” Phil said. He had used two long, skinny branches to spear fourteen hot dogs. He held the hot dogs over the fire and said to Amie and Jackie, who were watching him, “The secret is to crisp them without burning them.”

“Crisp yes, burn no,” sang Amie.

“Brisp no, curn yes,” sang Jackie.

Phil had positioned the hot dogs exactly the right distance from the flames, so they sizzled without catching fire. At exactly the right moment Phil turned them over to crisp the other side. Then, when they were done, he said, “My assistant will now do the buns.”

He had been looking at Amie, but Betsy pushed her way forward and grabbed the buns. “The secret is to toast, not burn,” Betsy said.

Stevie wouldn’t have believed it, but Betsy managed to do it without scorching a single bun. Then Betsy slid the hot dogs into the buns.

Stevie usually didn’t like hot dogs—and she was hoping to hate this one—but actually it was delicious,
especially when it was slathered with lots of mustard. She finished her first one, and then she was still so hungry, she had a second. Probably she would wake up in the middle of the night with a severe case of hot-dog breath, but she didn’t care.

Phil tested a baked potato with a fork and pronounced it done, so he fished the rest out with the fork and distributed them. Stevie’s potato had a slightly smoky flavor with a distinct woodsy tang. But both of these tastes were completely eradicated when she added sour cream, cheese, sauerkraut, pickles, and onions. It wasn’t just on ice-cream sundaes that Stevie liked to eat weird combinations.

At last they all lay back with their feet to the fire. This was the first hot meal that they’d had since they started on the MTO.

Stevie looked up. The stars were so bright, they seemed to be hanging just behind the trees, and the air was so clean, it smelled sweet. Out in the forest there were foxes and raccoon and deer, maybe even a bear or two. Here around the fire it was safe and warm.

Someone started to sing, “Home, Home on the Range.” Amie and Jackie—and Peter and Liam, as well—sang in high soprano voices. A deeper voice rumbled off-key. Stevie looked—it was Red O’Malley.
And then a clear, strong voice rose through the other voices, “… seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.” It was Phil.