Show Jumper (12 page)

L
ISA FOUND
C
AROLE
and Stevie still discussing the morning’s competition. “Hey, Lisa,” Carole said. “We were just talking about the other riders. You weren’t the only one who had trouble with the in-and-out. Almost everyone misjudged that jump. And on the last jump …”

“Uh-huh,” Lisa said mechanically. She took Samson’s reins from Stevie and turned toward the stabling area.

“I thought that last jump was really tough,” agreed Stevie. “But you guys both took it like a dream. Whatever you did today, do tomorrow.”

“Did you see that one rider, the blond girl on the gray horse?” asked Carole. “She’s pretty good. I’ve seen her at a few shows, and …”

As Carole and Stevie continued discussing the competition, Lisa made a few monosyllabic comments but otherwise stayed silent. The three girls took Samson and Starlight back to their stalls and began to untack them.

Finally noticing Lisa’s nonparticipation in the conversation, Carole asked, “Lisa, are you all right?”

Lisa hesitated for a moment. Then she blurted out, “Why didn’t you say anything about my coat? Why did you let me ride out in front of everyone dressed all wrong?”

“Oh, Lisa,” said Carole, contrite. Immediately she guessed that Lisa must have overheard someone talking about the pink jacket. “I’m sorry, really I am. I did almost say something, but I only saw your jacket for the first time right before we were supposed to compete, and I didn’t want to say anything that could damage your confidence. Besides, it doesn’t even matter! Who cares what you wear? They don’t score you on wardrobe.”

“You could ride in pajamas, for all they care,” said Stevie. “Well, not really … but you get my point.”

Lisa thought for a minute. “I guess you’re right,” she said reluctantly. “I would have been destroyed if you had pointed it out to me before the competition. But I just overheard our evil twins and Veronica talking about me, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about the jacket. I’m so embarrassed! I can’t wear it again.”

“Never fear, Stevie’s here,” Stevie said. “I brought my own blue coat, and you can wear it tomorrow. It may be a little large, but it’s snug on me, so maybe not. But even if it is, at least it’s not red—or scarlet—or whatever that thing is you have on.”

“You brought your coat?” Carole asked, amazed. “Why?”

“Why, as a spare, of course,” said Stevie. “You guys are just going to have to get used to the new, organized me,” she added, grinning. “I’m finding your amazement at my preparation a little insulting. Was I really that bad?”

“No, never,” Lisa said gratefully, “and now you’re the perfect tack manager. I’d love to wear your blue coat tomorrow. Thanks so much, Stevie.”

The three girls headed back to the show rings to see if any other events were going on. During their walk, at least seven complete strangers walked up to Lisa and began asking about Samson. Comments like “Where have you been hiding him?” and questions about his breeding and training at first had the effect of restoring Lisa’s spirits. But after a barrage of questions about Samson and compliments about his ability, she began to get a little irritated.

“Why is it all about Samson, Samson, Samson?” she finally said in a peevish tone. “Why is it all about the horse and not the rider? Why hasn’t anyone said one single thing about me? Is it because of the jacket?”

Carole exchanged glances with Stevie. Lisa still looked edgy after her encounter with Margie and the others, and they could tell that her confidence was starting to erode. “It has nothing to do with the jacket,” Carole said. “It’s just natural. All anyone looks at in the jumping events are the horses. They assume we’re good because we wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Lisa said nothing but continued to frown. She very badly wanted to ask Carole and Stevie a question about that awful conversation in the bathroom. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to raise the topic. She already felt terrible about the pink jacket, and now everyone she met seemed interested in Samson. She was afraid that if she asked the question, she might hear an answer that would make her feel even worse.

Replaying over and over again in Lisa’s mind was Veronica’s last remark, that anyone could jump a clean round with a horse like Samson. What Lisa wanted to know was, was it true? Was Samson the only reason why Lisa had advanced to the final? She knew that if she could bring herself to ask Carole and Stevie the question directly, they would tell her the truth, even if it meant hurting her feelings. But she didn’t feel ready to hear the truth—if the truth happened to confirm her worst fears.

A
FTER THE EVENTS
of the morning were over, The Saddle Club returned to the Pine Hollow stalls. When they
got there, they saw Jock Sawyer leaning against the van and talking with Max. Eager to catch any tidbits of horse advice and knowledge, the three girls moved closer and joined the conversation.

“He’s some horse,” they heard Jock say.

“Yes, we thought he would make a fine jumper—his sire was a champion—but we didn’t know for sure until recently,” Max said. “We trained Samson at Pine Hollow, and he spent a season with a local trainer, Scott Grover.”

Max noticed that the girls had joined them. “Hi,” he said, smiling. He turned back to Jock. “But if you really want to know about Samson’s training as a jumper, you have to ask these three girls here. Not only did they help Samson enter this world, they also discovered his jumping ability and took on the bulk of his training over the past several weeks.”

With a surge of hope, Lisa saw a chance to partly redeem her mistake with the pink jacket. “Well, I was the one who first discovered his jumping ability,” she began. “I was exercising him and then I thought that maybe I could take him over a low jump. He cleared it like a pro! So then I brought Stevie and Carole into it. We realized right away that we had a natural jumper in Samson. We took turns schooling him over jumps. First we started low, and then we gradually took him over higher and higher fences.”

“How high?” asked Jock.

“This high.” Lisa demonstrated with her hand. “For a while, Samson was jumping too high over the fences, but we managed to correct him on that. We reined him in a bit more as he approached each fence and gave him leg signals to let him know not to overjump the fence.”

“Interesting,” said Jock.

As Lisa continued her recital, Carole and Stevie looked at each other, amused. Lisa sounded as professorial as Carole did when she talked about horses!

When Lisa finally wound down, Jock said cheerfully, “Well, that’s just great. Uh, all your methods obviously worked in that you have such a terrific horse as a result. But thanks for sharing that information with me, uh … you’re Stevie, right?”

“No, I’m Lisa,” Lisa said, her face falling.

“Right, Lisa,” said Jock, correcting himself and shaking her hand. “Well, I’ve got a lot of horses to check out this afternoon, so I’ll be catching up with you later, Max.” With a wave, he walked off.

Carole and Stevie didn’t appear to notice that anything was wrong with Lisa or that she had fallen silent again after Jock had displayed such an overwhelming interest in Samson but called her by the wrong name. “I’ve had enough work for one day,” said Stevie. “Let’s go on an autograph hunt and take in the sights.”

“I’m with you,” said Carole, patting the pocket of her jacket. “I’ve got my notebook right here. Let me
change out of my riding clothes and then I’ll be ready to go.”

“Not me,” said Lisa. “I’ve got some things to do here.”

“Oh, c’mon, Lisa,” pleaded Stevie. “We don’t get the chance to meet these riders very often. Let’s have some fun.”

“I’ll introduce you to some people I know,” Max offered. “Lisa, you really should take some time off today. Relaxation is as important as hard work in preparing for a big day. Besides, you and Samson did well today.”

“No thanks,” said Lisa firmly. “I’ll find you guys later, okay?”

L
EFT TO HER
own devices in the stabling area, Lisa slowly changed out of her riding clothes—tucking the hated pink jacket into a deep corner of her bag—and into her barn clothes. She pulled down her tack, sat down on a hay bale, and began obsessively rubbing and cleaning the tack with saddle soap and polish.

She knew that she was facing one of her biggest challenges ever with tomorrow’s round. She knew that Margie and her gang were, in general, not very nice people, she certainly knew what Veronica’s character was like, and at any other time, she would have been able to brush off their comments. Today, however, was different. Although Lisa tried to focus on cleaning her
tack, Margie’s and Veronica’s remarks kept replaying in her head, like a tape that refused to be turned off. She wasn’t especially worried that their little plan would break down her confidence—now that she knew what they were up to, she’d be able to tune those comments out. But tomorrow’s round looked like a whole different ball game.

When Lisa had first entered the Macrae, she had secretly fantasized about winning the event. But she hadn’t really let herself believe that she could win, nor did she want that badly to win for her own sake. What she wanted was for the whole world to see what a wonderful jumper Samson was. After the conversation in the bathroom, though, the nature of the competition had changed. No matter how many times Max had tried to drill into her that winning wasn’t important, Lisa wanted to win the junior jumping division and prove to people like Margie and Veronica that she was a lot better than they thought.

The only problem was, Lisa wasn’t any more sure today that she could win the competition than she had been yesterday. In fact, she was starting to suspect that her clean round today was just a matter of luck and Samson’s talent. If her confidence went down even further before tomorrow and hurt her concentration, could Samson alone save them? And if he did, what did that say about her?

Lisa put down the cloth she was using and laid her head on her knees. She felt exactly the same way she would if she were taking a huge test tomorrow, only this time she knew she hadn’t studied enough. Lisa was such a perfectionist that she was rarely unprepared for a test in school. But in the rare instances when she hadn’t studied enough, she had only managed to get her usual grade a few times. The other times, she had paid the price with failure—or, at least, with her definition of failure, which meant that she got a B-plus instead of an A.

With school, however, there was always another test and always another opportunity to get a final good grade in the class. Here, Lisa thought, there were no second chances. This was her chance to make it in the big leagues, the Macrae Valley Open. If she and Samson did well, she hoped Max would want her to continue riding the gelding in the big horse shows. But if all didn’t go well, then Lisa would be once again—just like at Briarwood—a green rider, a rider who wasn’t qualified to compete in the big shows.

Sitting on the hay bale, Lisa started to feel really sick to her stomach. Then she caught sight of something. Hanging across the aisle, outside Starlight’s stall, were Carole’s riding clothes, covered in plastic. Lisa gazed at Carole’s old black coat, the ratcatcher shirt she’d worn to umpteen shows, and her old breeches. Everything
looked neat, clean, and worn in. Compared to Carole’s clothes, Lisa’s outfit was stiff, flashy … and completely wrong.

Lisa’s target of misery changed from herself to her mother, and she was angry. Why had she let her mother buy her a whole new outfit? Didn’t she know better than to buy brand-new clothes for one event? And why hadn’t she protested more when she had tried on the pink jacket?
I can’t believe I actually thought clothes could make the rider
, thought Lisa. Her flash of anger made her feel momentarily better, since she was able to release some of her frustration. But deep down inside, she knew it wasn’t all her mother’s fault.

Maybe I should go hunt autographs with Carole and Stevie
, thought Lisa.
And then maybe I should tell them how I feel. That’ll cheer me up, I bet.

Just as she got up, her mother appeared. Lisa sighed.

“T
HERE YOU ARE
!” Mrs. Atwood said brightly. “Carole and Stevie said you’d be here. And they said to tell you that they’ve got tons of autographs, and Carole has asked some of the people to sign her book twice so that she can give some of them to you.”

“Great,” said Lisa. “I was just about to go and join them—”

“Wait a minute,” said her mother. “I’ve got wonderful news. I met some very nice people today, and you’ll never guess! They invited us out to dinner with them! We’re going to one of the best French restaurants in town. The food costs the earth, but it’s supposed to be wonderful.”

Lisa was dismayed. Mrs. Reg had offered to take The Saddle Club out to dinner, since Max was dining with
some old horse-show friends of his, and she would a thousand times rather do that than go to some fancy restaurant with her mother and her new society friends. She tried to think of a good excuse not to go. “Mom, you know I don’t have a dress to wear to a restaurant like that,” she said. “I just brought my riding and barn clothes with me.”