Horse Spy (29 page)

“Is there any way this physical therapy could be dangerous to her?”

“No, not really,” said the doctor. “As long as it’s carefully monitored.”

“What kinds of things will they do?”

“The therapist will develop a program that will begin very slowly, building up muscles and working on balance and coordination
skills. We’ve found that the progressive healing of patients in physical therapy is a lot like the way babies learn motor skills, crawling, walking, and so on. They try to create a program that is interesting as well as useful. I don’t know Callie other than as a comatose patient. Is there some activity that she enjoys more than others that we might try to incorporate in her therapy? Swimming perhaps?”

“Well, she does like to swim,” said Mrs. Forester.

“Horseback riding,” Mr. Forester said. “It’s the thing she loves the most in the world.”

The doctor smiled. “Have you ever heard of therapeutic riding?” he asked.

“No,” said Mrs. Forester. “But I have the feeling we’re going to hear a lot about it—and soon.”

A few weeks after that, Emily found Carole and Stevie in Fez’s stall.

“Ouch!” said Carole, shaking her hand. Fez had nipped at her fingers when she gave him a carrot. “Didn’t you ever hear the saying Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?”

“Being sick has not improved his disposition,” Stevie said.

“It rarely does,” Emily told them. “And, speaking of being sick, guess who called me. I hate it when people say things like that, so I’ll tell you. Callie Forester. She was calling me from the physical therapy room at the hospital. Her therapist thinks horseback riding would be good. They wanted her to go to Free Rein—the therapeutic riding center where I learned to ride—but she said that if she was going to ride again, it was going to be at Pine Hollow. She wants me to be her instructor.”

“Perfect,” said Carole. “Absolutely perfect. You’ll be perfect for her.”

“Maybe I will be, but PC definitely will be. He’ll be glad to have another rider from time to time.” Emily had utter faith in her horse, and everybody who had ever seen him perform knew she had reason to feel that way.

“When will she be at Pine Hollow?” Stevie asked.

“Right, how soon?” Carole echoed.

“We made a date for next Wednesday morning. You’ll both be here, won’t you?”

“Absolutely,” said Stevie.

“Of course,” Carole told her. “We wouldn’t miss that for anything.”

“Good, because she’ll be here with her therapist and her parents. I think Scott’s coming, too. It’s going to be a real family outing for them. There’s a lot of work to be done before then, too.”

“Yes,” Carole said. She knew what Emily meant, but she had work of her own to do before she saw Callie. She had to figure out how to apologize for the past and make the future better.

“Both her parents?” Stevie asked. “They’ll be here?”

“That’s what she said.”

Stevie felt a shiver. The whole family would be there. She hadn’t seen them since the hospital. Now she’d see them all. Scott, whom Stevie liked because he was charming and funny, probably wouldn’t be funny anymore. Stevie had been driving in the accident that hurt his sister. Congressman and Mrs. Forester wouldn’t want to see Stevie because Stevie’s car had nearly killed their daughter when it struck their horse.

And Callie?

Could Stevie look at any of them? What would she say? How could she say she was sorry in a way that meant anything when she’d hurt them all so badly? Could she ever face them?

She didn’t know.

T
HE FIRST
person to arrive on Wednesday was Scott. Carole, Stevie, and Emily were tacking up PC for Callie when Scott came up the driveway, riding a bicycle.

He looked around uncertainly and then, recognizing Carole, walked over to the girls. Stevie was glad she was standing on the far side of the horse. Maybe she’d never have to speak to anyone.

“Hi,” Carole said. “I guess it’s Callie’s big day.”

“I don’t know. This seems pretty crazy to me.” Scott shook his head.

“You’ll see.” Carole introduced him to Emily, who leaned forward with a crutch under her left arm to shake hands with her right.

“I know, I know,” she said, anticipating his concern. “You’re trying to figure out if this is a case of the blind leading the blind …”

Scott blanched. Clearly Emily had been right on the mark.
“I wasn’t going to put it that way,” he protested, shifting his eyes away from her crutch and back to her face.

“Of course not,” said Emily.

“Well, I guess my sister knows what she’s doing.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” Emily asked. “Anyway, I was as uncertain as you are, but I’ve talked with Callie’s therapist, and we have a pretty good program lined up for your sister. Besides, it’s not me who is going to be doing the instructing. It’s good old PC here. He knows absolutely everything. He’s the best teacher in the world.” She gave him a firm pat on the neck to punctuate her statement. The well-behaved horse didn’t budge.

“You named your horse after a computer?” Scott asked, smiling for the first time.

“No, it stands for Physical Courage,” said Emily.

Carole laughed. Stevie smiled tentatively. PC’s “real” name was an ongoing joke. Whenever somebody asked Emily what PC stood for, she had a different, and apt, answer.

“Is something wrong with your car?” Carole asked, noticing the bike for the first time. Stevie cringed, shifting herself even farther behind the horse. She had noticed the bicycle immediately and didn’t want to hear the answer. It wasn’t going to help to talk about cars.

“Uh, no—Well, yes—Sort of,” Scott stammered.

It was the accident. Stevie was sure. It had to be. Because of her carelessness, the congressman and his wife must have decided that all young drivers were unsafe. Or maybe it had frightened Scott so much that he couldn’t drive anymore.

“I’ve been grounded,” Scott said.

Stevie had to know. “Is it because of me?” she asked.

“No,” he said, looking at her for the first time. He seemed to be about to say something but changed his mind. Instead, he turned his attention to Carole and continued. “Not at all. It’s because of me. I was driving the Jeep a couple of weeks ago before we moved here and I backed into a stone wall on our neighbor’s property. I just made a small dent, but Dad found it last week and blew up at me. It wasn’t so much that I’d done the damage, he said, but that I’d tried to hide it. Being a congressman makes him especially touchy on the subject of cover-ups. Anyway, I’m on two-wheel transport for a month.”

“S-Scratch? Dent?” Stevie stammered.

“Yeah,” said Scott.

“Left rear?” she asked.

“You must have seen it in the body shop, I guess,” said Scott. “It really wasn’t much of a dent. It won’t even reach our deductible, but it definitely annoyed my father. He’s tough.”

That dent. It seemed like such a small thing compared to everything else that had happened, but it made Stevie feel a little better to know that she hadn’t made the dent in the Foresters’ Jeep. That didn’t change the fact that she’d tried to hide it, but that was too complicated now. She patted PC vigorously to mask her relief.

Carole looked over at Stevie. Stevie never was any good at hiding her feelings. She knew something had just happened to her friend, but she had no idea what. She’d find out later. For now, she had her own weight to lift.

The Foresters’ car pulled into Pine Hollow’s driveway. Carole could see Callie’s parents in the front seat. Callie and
another person—presumably her physical therapist—were in the back. It was time for Carole to talk to Callie, to do it right, to start all over again.

She walked over to the car when it stopped and waited for the door to open. With the help of the therapist and a pair of crutches, Callie got out. She was unsteady, unsure, and insecure in every way.

Carole took a deep breath, smiled at the girl, and stepped forward. She was determined to make this a new beginning, just as she’d done that day with Fez when she’d untacked him and started over.

“Callie, I want us to have a fresh start,” she said.

Callie nodded.

Carole offered her hand. “Welcome to Pine Hollow,” she said. “You’re going to love it here, I know.”

Callie looked at it uncertainly for a second, then tucked her left crutch firmly under her arm for balance and reached forward with her right hand, much as Emily had done a few minutes earlier with Scott.

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” said Callie, shaking Carole’s hand. She smiled back.

Callie’s parents also got out of the car. Max came out of the stable and greeted them warmly. The therapist helped Callie over to where PC was waiting for her. Max introduced Emily and PC to the Forester family.

Callie looked awkwardly at Emily. “I never really—and now—”

“It’s okay, Callie,” Emily said, cutting off the apology she knew was coming her way. “You already took care of that. What’s past is past.”

“I only wish …,” said Callie. She helped herself forward so that she could pat PC. “This is the boy who’s going to teach me to walk again?” she asked.

“He’s going to do his best,” said Emily. “And his best has always been pretty good. Stevie, can you bring him around to the mounting block?”

Stevie had been working so hard to be invisible that she was almost surprised that Emily had noticed her presence. And now everybody looked at her.

She didn’t say anything. She just walked the horse to where Callie would be able to mount. As soon as Callie was in the saddle, Emily and the therapist took charge. Stevie, Carole, and the Foresters stood back.

Stevie found herself next to Callie’s parents.
Apologize
. She had to do it. She had to say something. She’d been driving.
I’m sorry. So sorry
. The words stuck in her mouth.

She glanced at Congressman Forester next to her. She opened her mouth to speak. And then she closed it. He was watching his daughter on horseback, walking sedately around the schooling ring. Tears filled his eyes. He reached over to Stevie and put his hand on her shoulder as much to silence her as to accept her unspoken apology. He didn’t want to talk about it, either.

There would be another time when they could talk, and now Stevie knew that she could say what she had to say—that he would listen and maybe even understand.

The work was done for Stevie and Carole. This was a time when Max, Emily, the therapist, and the Foresters were all the help Callie needed. Carole and Stevie withdrew and retreated to a shady spot on a hill overlooking the ring where
they could watch. It was at times like this that they missed Lisa most. They each wished she could be with them to share their healing, to be a friend. Lisa had a way of seeing the calm center of a confusing world. Her presence touched her friends now from the other side of the country.

“Think she’s going to be okay?” Stevie asked, nodding toward Callie.

“Yeah,” Carole said. “She’ll be fine.”

“Not today. I mean ever. Will she get all better?”

“Everything will get all better one day,” said Carole. “Probably. You, me, Fez, Callie—we’re already better. A little better, anyway.”

“I guess,” said Stevie. “And I guess we shouldn’t ask for more.”

“Not yet,” said Carole. “There’s still a lot of healing to be done. We’ve got a long way to go.”

“But we’ve started, right?”

“Yes, we’ve started,” Carole agreed.

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of nearly a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, Saddle Club Super Editions, and the Pony Tails series. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.