Horse Trade (5 page)

“Would I!” Stevie said. “In fact you can’t keep me away. I’m going to find out what No-Name’s allergic to.”

“I could tell you liked her,” Phil said.

“I’m crazy about her,” Stevie said. “She has personality. She has character. She has a certain …”

“Stevie-ness?” Phil said.

“You might put it that way,” Stevie acknowledged.

“Come over to my place on Friday,” Phil said. “We can go riding and to the movies.”

“Great,” Stevie said. She could picture the evening already. They’d ride, then discuss Teddy and No-Name through dinner, then choose a movie with horses in it.
Mr. Marsten would probably drive them to the movie in the family pickup truck, which always had odds and ends of horse gear in the back. For a horse-crazy girl, it was the best possible kind of date.

“I can’t wait,” she added.

“One other thing,” Phil said casually.

She knew Phil’s ‘other’ things. They were usually the main thing, so she said, “Yeeeeeees?”

“Cross County is going to be taking part in a dressage exhibition,” Phil said. “And nobody’s better at dressage than you.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Stevie said modestly.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got some competition from another member of Horse Wise,” Phil said.

“Carole and Starlight are getting pretty good,” she replied.

“They’re still not as tight and disciplined as you,” Phil remarked. “Mr. Baker has given me a dressage test to practice, and I was hoping you could give me some pointers. Teddy is a good horse for dressage—he has those strong hindquarters, and he’s smart and takes direction well. The problem is me. I always make it look like work.”

“That’s bad,” Stevie said. The heart of dressage was making it look as if the horse were doing everything from his own free will. The constant signals from the rider needed to be invisible.

“I’m like a magician who telegraphs his tricks,” Phil said. “When it comes time to change tacks, you can see me sawing away with the reins. I get Teddy so agitated, he practically tips over.”

“Whoa!” Stevie said. “The first rule in dressage is to respect your horse’s judgment and not try to do everything yourself.”

“I can see that I have a lot to learn from you.”

“It’s taken you this long to figure that out?” Stevie teased.

“So you’ll teach me?” Phil said. “It’s a trade?”

“I can ride No-Name as much as I want in return for helping you with your dressage?” said Stevie dreamily. “Mmmmm. I think you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“So I’ll see you on Friday,” Phil said.

“I think I’ve almost got my parents persuaded to let me take the commuter bus to Berryville,” Stevie said. Berryville was a tiny town within walking distance of the Marstens’ place. “Tonight I’ll really work on them, and by Friday—with a little luck—I’ll be riding that bus.” Until now, whenever Stevie wanted to go over to Phil’s, she’d had to get one of her parents to drive her. Since both her parents were lawyers who worked in Washington, D.C., this was no easy matter.

Stevie said good night to Phil, then hung up the phone
and raced quickly downstairs. It was never too soon to get started working on her parents.

The next day, which was Wednesday, The Saddle Club planned to meet at Pine Hollow after school. They had so much to talk about that it seemed to Stevie that Wednesday was the longest school day in human history. Usually she liked math, kind of, but today the fifty minutes felt like fifty hours. Did her English teacher really have to read so much of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
out loud? And did the Fenton Hall cafeteria have to have a four-block line that ended with mystery lasagna?

By the time Stevie got to Pine Hollow to meet Lisa and Carole, she was frazzled. But once she had checked Topside’s water and put some fresh hay in the hay bag, and checked the straw underfoot and found that it was still dry and clean, she began to feel calmer.

She wandered into the tack room and stared at the bridles and halters hanging from pegs and at the coils of straps on the floor. Usually, she wasn’t crazy about cleaning tack, but now the leathery smell and faint dustiness of the tack room seemed cozy and welcoming.

Looking at the black velvet riding helmets that hung on the wall above the tack, she got a sudden idea. For some reason the fact that No-Name had no name was bothering her. It was one of the reasons that she’d had trouble concentrating today. No-Name seemed to have
no medical history and no past, almost as if she didn’t exist.

Stevie reached up and took down some of the hats. Then she rearranged them on the wall to spell “No-Name.”

“What’s this? A protest of some kind?” said Lisa from behind Stevie. From the straw on Lisa’s boots, Stevie could tell she’d been mucking out Prancer’s stall.

“Kind of,” Stevie said, flopping down on a pile of horse blankets. “It’s a protest against No-Name’s lack of a name.”

“I can see that,” Lisa said. She sat down next to Stevie and stretched out her legs. “Don’t you know
anything
about her?”

Stevie shook her head. “Only that she belongs to Mr. Baker, who got her from a bulk lot.”

“Hi, guys.” Carole came through the doorway with a thick horse manual under her arm. “What’s new?”

“Stevie’s in love,” Lisa said.

“I knew that,” Carole said with a twinkle in her eye.

“Not with Phil,” Lisa said. “With No-Name.”

“She’s right,” Stevie agreed. “Luckily I’ll be seeing a lot of her in the coming weeks. I’m going to be over at Phil’s helping him with his dressage for an exhibition. And I’ll also be figuring out what makes No-Name allergic.”

“Great,” Carole groaned. “I don’t mean to be selfish or
anything. But first Lisa was off working on
Annie
; now you’ll be over at Phil’s. When is The Saddle Club ever going to be together again? We’re practically not a club anymore.”

“The dressage exhibition is only a couple of weeks away,” Stevie said. “And I won’t be there all the time. Anyway, I’m worried about No-Name. This horse is practically an orphan.”

“Dressage?” came a voice from the doorway. They all jumped and saw Max, his blue eyes gleaming. “This reminds me that Horse Wise has been invited to a certain dressage exhibition in almost two weeks,” he said.

“Could it be?” Stevie said.

Max smiled. He’d met Phil several times, and he knew that not only was Phil a member of Cross County, but also that he and Stevie liked each other.

“You’ve got it, Stevie,” Max said. “The exhibition is at Cross County. Mr. Baker is an excellent riding instructor and horse trainer, so I’m sure we’ll have a lot to learn.”

Stevie was elated that the members of The Saddle Club, as well as the rest of Horse Wise, would be at the dressage exhibition. She resolved to work as hard as she could with Phil so that he’d knock them out with his dressage skills.

When Phil met Stevie at the commuter bus stop on Friday, he stared at her in disbelief, as if she were an illusion of some kind. “I can’t believe your parents actually let you take the bus.”

“I wasn’t sure they were going to until this morning,” Stevie answered. “We were still discussing it at breakfast.”

“No-Name is eager to see you,” Phil said. “No more welts, no more symptoms.”

“I missed her,” Stevie said. “I’ve been thinking about her all week.”

Phil kicked a rock and grinned. “I was thinking that if you were a horse, you’d probably have an upside-down exclamation point on your nose, too.”

“Thanks a lot,” Stevie said, but she didn’t entirely mind the idea.

The Marstens’ house was one of the oldest in the area, built of irregular gray stones that seemed to have grown into each other. The chimney was made of bricks so old that their corners had worn off. The house wasn’t fancy—that wasn’t the Marstens’ style; instead it had simply become a beautiful part of the landscape.

At an upper window Stevie saw a grinning face topped by soft brown curls.

“Great,” Phil said, looking up. “I thought Rachel had karate class this afternoon.”

“She’s into karate?”

“Karate and chickens,” Phil said. “Though why she needs karate, I don’t know. It can’t be self-defense. People run when they see her.”

Rachel appeared in the doorway of the Marsten house and said, “Hi, Stevie, coming to see your boooooooooooyfriend?”

Stevie smirked. This was just the kind of feeble thing her younger brother Michael would say. She shrugged and said, “That’s about it, Rach.”

Clearly, this wasn’t the response that Rachel had expected. She looked at Phil and said, “I guess she fell for it, Phil. You must think you’re pretty clever.”

“Come on, Stevie,” Phil said, turning toward the barn.

Alarms went off in Stevie’s head. She didn’t want anyone to think she was a fool, not even a ten-year-old. “Fell for what?” she said to Rachel.

“The horse thing,” said Rachel, putting her hands on her hips. “He knew you would,” she added.

“What horse thing?” Stevie said, turning to Phil.

But it was Rachel who answered. “He wanted this silly horse to stay here, so he kept telling everyone that I was going to find out what she was allergic to. Like I’m really going to do that. I don’t even like horses.”

The wheels in Stevie’s mind whirred. Rachel had never really offered to find out what No-Name was allergic to? The whole thing had been an invention by Phil so that
No-Name could stay, and Stevie would visit his place more often?

Stevie turned to Phil and saw that his face was beet-red. Phil was blushing! How sweet, Stevie thought. However, it was also embarrassing for Phil, and she didn’t want to make him feel totally humiliated. She turned to Rachel and said, “Too bad you have such an empty life.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel said, looking indignant.

“Following your brother around all the time. Neglecting your life to poke into his. It’s kind of sad, really. Ask your teacher to see if you can get a pen pal or something. Lonely kids like you often get a lot of benefit from friends in far-off places.”

That did it. Rachel was gone.

“Thanks,” Phil said, looking at the empty doorway where Rachel had been. “I get so angry at her that I want to clobber her. But if I clobber her, my parents won’t like it.”

“Parents tend to frown on clobbering,” said Stevie, remembering a couple of bad experiences of her own.

“Next time I’ll try using humor,” Phil said, though he didn’t sound hopeful about it.

“It’s easier to be funny with someone else’s brother or sister,” Stevie said. “With Michael I always go right over the edge.”

“So you know what it’s like,” said Phil.

“Those are among my worst memories,” Stevie assured him. “But don’t worry, we’ll get back at Rachel. In a nice way, of course.”

“Nice, but not too nice,” Phil said. “Let’s not go overboard with the niceness.”

“Okay,” Stevie agreed. As they headed toward the stable, Stevie’s thoughts turned back to her plan to unmask the substance that was causing No-Name’s allergy. Likely candidates were the fly spray used before rides to keep No-Name’s eyes clear, saddle soap from a newly cleaned saddle, and No-Name’s regular snacks, which were carrots and apples. Of course she couldn’t eliminate all these things from No-Name’s life—it wouldn’t be fair to deprive her of apples and carrots, and if she was never sprayed again, flies would drive her crazy. What Stevie was going to do was use a technique that Judy Barker had suggested. Each day for three days she’d use one possible allergy causer on No-Name. The first time it would be fly spray, the next it would be saddle soap, and the next it would be snack food. Today Stevie decided to test fly spray. So she sprayed No-Name’s head liberally.

When she and No-Name met Phil and Teddy in the Marstens’ outdoor ring a few minutes later, Phil sniffed the air. “Phew. What’s that smell?”

Stevie felt a little embarrassed. “Fly spray. I’m checking
to see if No-Name is allergic to any of the ingredients in this brand.”

“If she is, we’ll know soon,” Phil said, moving Teddy to the side to get out of smelling range. “Ready for the dressage lesson?”

“Ready,” Stevie said. “So which is Teddy’s stiff side?”

“His left,” Phil replied. Stevie knew that the muscles on a horse’s stiff side were longer than they were on his soft side. This was because horses naturally favored one side over the other, just the way humans favor their right or left hand.

“Can I see?” Stevie asked, backing No-Name into the center of the ring so she could watch.

Phil urged Teddy into a sitting trot, a gait that was gentle enough so that he didn’t have to post. Teddy was now turning toward his left, his stiff side, and stretching his right side, his soft side. A horse who hadn’t been trained would resist this maneuver. But Teddy was trotting easily, and Stevie could see that Phil was using a minimum of rein contact.

“You’ve been working with him,” she commented.

“Hey, Teddy deserves the best,” Phil said with a happy smile.

“How about some figure eights?” Stevie said.

“With pleasure,” Phil said, turning toward the center of the ring. When Teddy got to the middle of the eight and
moved to the left, Stevie saw how supple his spine was—this was also the result of good training, she knew. Stevie also saw that Teddy changed his bend from left to right with no resistance.