Wild Horse (6 page)

“You
were
?” Stevie said, agog.

“You
were
?” Carole and Lisa repeated.

“Sure, why not? Hard work doesn’t bother me,” Veronica said, to the amazement of The Saddle Club. “Now, where’s that pitchfork?”

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole were so startled that it took them a minute to focus on what Veronica was asking. There was a long silence. “Veronica, the pitchforks and shovels aren’t kept in the tack room,” Lisa finally said.

“They’re not?” Veronica said, her face falling.

“No. They’re hanging in the empty stall at the end of the aisle.”

“Oh. Right.” There was another awkward pause.

To break the silence, Lisa said, “Say, Veronica, I met a friend of yours yesterday—Ashley Briggs. She says hello.” Lisa figured that was sufficient—she didn’t particularly want to add the part about Ashley’s missing Veronica “loads” and wanting to come visit.

“Where on earth would
you
have met Ashley?” Veronica asked, startled into dropping her polite act.

“Actually,” Lisa said, relishing the fact for a fleeting second, “I was interviewing at Wentworth Manor.”

“You?” Veronica cried. “
You
were interviewing at Wentworth? I can’t believe it! Why would
you
interview there?” Her dark eyes flashed angrily.

“My mother wanted me to,” Lisa said simply.

“
Your
mother! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” Veronica shrieked. She turned on her heel and stomped out of the tack room.

“Could someone translate that for me?” Carole asked, unable to make sense of the scene she had just witnessed. Veronica had gone from ingratiating sweetness to openly raging hostility in a matter of seconds.

“I’m pretty sure I can,” Stevie said. “Let’s finish up here and then go somewhere far away from her.”

“How about we take a nice long trail ride?” Lisa suggested. After being gone a day, she couldn’t wait to tack up Prancer and go for a ride.

“Good idea. Starlight needs to stretch his legs after all that drilling we did in Horse Wise,” Carole said. “And as a matter of fact, so do I.”

“Oh, how was the lesson?” Lisa asked. As they finished sweeping and tidying the tack room, Carole and Stevie filled Lisa in on yesterday’s Pony Club mounted meeting. Max had made them ride without stirrups through a series of dressage movements for most of the hour. It had been intense work that required high concentration on the part of horse and rider. A trail ride would be just the right change for today.

Working quickly, the girls had the tack room clean and the horses groomed and saddled within half an hour. They mounted up and set off at a leisurely pace, letting
Starlight, Prancer, and Belle walk on loose reins. As soon as the trail was wide enough for them to bunch up, Stevie turned eagerly in her saddle. “Now, where should I start? Which do you want to know first: why Veronica was being nice or why she freaked out?”

“I’ll bet I know why she was so nice at the beginning,” Carole ventured. “The dance, right?”

“Exactly,” Stevie said. “She heard that I haven’t picked a cochairperson of the dance committee. Yesterday, after Horse Wise, she was hinting that I should choose her, so I hinted back that first I would need to make sure she’s capable of hard work. I didn’t think she’d actually take the bait, but it looks like I was wrong.”

“It sure does. At least, she’s definitely working hard to get on your good side,” Carole commented.

“What dance committee, Stevie?” Lisa asked, her interest piqued. Anything that involved Veronica’s having to kowtow to The Saddle Club was sure to be good for a few laughs.

Briefly Stevie recounted her meeting Friday afternoon with Miss Fenton and her subsequent run-in with Veronica. “I got so mad at Veronica for insulting
my
dance that I pretended I’d been considering her for my cochair,” Stevie concluded.

“So, now she’s trying to get you to change your mind, huh?” said Lisa.

“Yes, and I must say that I look forward to watching her try—and try and try and try,” Stevie said devilishly.

“Why not? It will be good for Pine Hollow. She’s already learned where the pitchforks are kept,” Carole said with a laugh. “That’s a lot for her to absorb in one day.”

After walking for a while, the girls came to a grassy verge, and the horses began to pull on their bits, asking to go faster. Without further ado, Stevie challenged, “Race you to the top?” Not bothering to wait for an answer, she leaned forward over Belle’s neck and urged the mare forward. Carole and Lisa followed suit, and the three of them galloped up the small hill. Prancer beat the other two by a neck.

“We win in a photo finish!” Lisa cried, slowing the mare to a trot and then a walk.

“No fair riding an ex-racehorse!” Stevie called back.

Lisa grinned. “At Wentworth, they couldn’t believe that I don’t own a horse.”

“That’s because they all have five or six horses each. They bring a different one to school every semester,” Stevie said.

“Really, Stevie?” Carole asked, bringing Starlight in line with the other two.

“Okay, maybe not every semester, but I’ve heard of
girls there doing badly at a show and then calling Daddy to collect one horse and send another.”

“Boy, Veronica would fit in perfectly there,” Carole said. Veronica was known for blaming all her mistakes on whichever horse she happened to be riding.

“Actually, Carole, you’re almost right,” Stevie began mischievously. “But instead of fitting
in
at Wentworth, Veronica
had
a fit.”

“Huh? You mean Veronica used to go to Wentworth?” Lisa asked.

“Correction: She
wanted
to go to Wentworth; she
tried
to go to Wentworth—”

“But?” said Lisa.

“But Wentworth wouldn’t have her,” Stevie replied. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember this before, but Veronica looked at Wentworth once, too.”

“She interviewed there?” Lisa asked.

“Interviewed there, took the tour—the works.”

“So what happened? I would have thought her parents could have gotten her in,” Lisa said. Mr. diAngelo was a prominent banker and reputed to be the richest man in Willow Creek—just the kind of person Mrs. Cushing would love to brag about, Lisa guessed.

“Naturally,” Stevie said. “And I’m sure they would have. Except for one teeny little incident: Veronica got
into a screaming fight with her mother right in the admissions office.”

“You’re kidding,” Lisa said, grinning.

“Nope. She got so mad, she threw a vase across the room,” Stevie said gleefully.

“Did it smash?” Carole asked.

“It smashed all right,” said Stevie. “It hit the floor right as the director of admissions was coming out to meet the diAngelos.”

“You mean Mrs. Cushing?” Lisa asked, imagining the outraged expression on the older woman’s face.

“I think that was her name,” Stevie said. “The story was the best gossip in the Fenton Hall Parents’ Association for months.”

“Wow,” Lisa breathed, “Veronica versus her mother and Mrs. Cushing.”

“Yup,” Stevie said. “So now the diAngelos hate Wentworth Manor. If you want to see Mrs. diAngelo turn purple, just mention that school.”

“But if they hate it so much, why would Veronica care if Lisa’s applying?” Carole asked.

“Well, they do hate it, but it’s more complicated than that. Kind of what you’d call a love-hate relationship,” Stevie mused, warming to her subject. “The way I look at it is like this: The diAngelos know that Wentworth is
one of the snobbiest schools around, so they have to respect it because they love snobs, but they hate it for rejecting Veronica. And Veronica is still friends with Ashley Briggs, but she’s probably really jealous of her for going there. On the other hand …”

Stevie had plenty more to say about the diAngelos and Wentworth Manor, and by the time she finished, the girls had arrived back at Pine Hollow. After cooling out their horses and giving them another good grooming, they reconvened in the driveway, carrying halters and lead ropes. They were going to bring in a few horses Max needed for his afternoon lesson.

Veronica was there, too, waiting for her ride home. She seemed to have regained her composure after her earlier outburst. She came over to them, smiling brightly. “Did you have a nice ride?” she asked.

“We sure did,” Stevie said. “How about you? Did you take Danny out or were you too busy mucking stalls?” She couldn’t keep from snickering at the thought of Veronica mucking out.

“I was too busy with the stalls,” Veronica said sweetly. “Didn’t you notice how nice Belle’s looked?”

Stevie thought for a minute. She had noticed that it was less messy than usual when they got back, but she’d figured that Red O’Malley, Pine Hollow’s stable hand,
had been in there while they were gone. It was too hard to believe that Veronica had cleaned Belle’s stall. “So you actually cleaned it?” Stevie said.

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Veronica said, seeming to take Stevie’s comment as a thank-you. She turned suddenly to Lisa. “Did you get your hair cut, Lisa? It looks really good.”

“Thanks, Veronica,” Lisa said stiffly.

“No, I mean it,” Veronica went on. “What salon do you go to?”

“I got it done at Cosmo Cuts,” Lisa said.

Veronica looked momentarily taken aback, but she quickly recovered. “Great choice. I love that salon, and so does my mother. She and I get our hair done there every week.”

“Speak of the devil …,” Stevie murmured, seeing Mrs. diAngelo’s large white Mercedes turn onto the driveway.

“What did you say, Stevie?” Veronica asked.

“Nothing, nothing. I just said, keep up the good work—in the barn, I mean,” Stevie said. She couldn’t resist adding under her breath, “I’m sure I can find a lot more for you to do tomorrow.”

Before hopping into her mother’s car, Veronica complimented Lisa on her hair again. Then she waved good-bye to the group. “Ta-ta! See you all soon!”

The three of them watched the car disappear down the driveway. “Boy, I love it when Veronica’s running scared,” Stevie murmured.

“She really wants that dance job, doesn’t she?” Carole asked as they headed toward the pasture where the horses were turned out.

“Sure,” said Stevie. “She thinks it will boost her popularity. And now that she thinks Lisa is going to go to Wentworth Manor, she wants to get on her good side, too.”

“You think so?” Lisa asked skeptically. She couldn’t imagine being nice to someone just because of the school she went to.

“Definitely. She probably thinks you’ll make lots of socialite friends there and look down on her,” Stevie said. “Or else bad-mouth her to the other girls.”

“Gee, maybe Lisa should pretend she
is
going to Wentworth,” Carole suggested playfully. “Then she’ll have Veronica under her thumb, too.”

“Do you realize what this means?” Stevie said, looking eagerly from Carole to Lisa. “Veronica has to be nice to two of us—and for no reason at all! Because wild horses couldn’t make me choose her for the dance committee.”

“And wild horses couldn’t drag me back to that school!” Lisa said.

“B
YE
, M
RS
. D
OLAN
!” Lisa called to her bus driver, hopping off at her stop. She swung her book bag happily as she walked toward her house. It had been a great day at school. Sometimes, Lisa realized, it took leaving a place to make you realize how much you liked it. Having spent an afternoon at Wentworth Manor, Lisa had looked at her old school with new eyes. She’d noticed all kinds of things during the day that she was normally oblivious to—like how nice Mrs. Dolan was to the kids on her bus. Even things like the beat-up lockers at Willow Creek seemed homey.

Lisa had always liked her teachers, but today she’d
appreciated them even more. As for the other kids, there were some Lisa couldn’t stand, but she had lots of friends, too. The simple fact was that she belonged at Willow Creek, in a way she could never belong at Wentworth. In a sense, her mother was right: Interviewing at Wentworth had been a privilege—it had made her realize how privileged she already was.

Before going into the house, Lisa stopped to get the mail, as she always did. She flipped quickly through the pile of letters but didn’t see anything interesting—no foreign stamps meaning a card from the Italian boys The Saddle Club knew; no Los Angeles postmark indicating a letter from Skye Ransom, their movie star friend, who lived out in Beverly Hills.

“Mom, I’m home!” Lisa called, stopping in the kitchen to drop off the mail and grab an apple. She glanced at the clock above the kitchen table. She had just enough time to grab her riding clothes and walk to Pine Hollow. She didn’t want to miss watching Veronica do any of the tasks Stevie was going to think up for her. It was too funny to see Veronica doing actual work.

Lisa dashed upstairs to her room and was pulling her hair into a ponytail when she heard her mother cry out from the kitchen. She ran to the head of the stairs. “Are you okay, Mom?” she called.

“I’m—I’m fine!” Mrs. Atwood called back. “I’m just
shaken up. I can’t believe it! Oh, honey, it’s too good to be true!”