Wild Horse (9 page)

T
RYING
TO
CHOKE
back her tears, Lisa managed to get Prancer tacked up. Her fingers fumbled with the billet straps on the girth, then with the bit, but finally Prancer was ready. Lisa led her out and got on. Once she was mounted, however, she couldn’t face going to the lesson. She didn’t even care about the questions Max would ask when she failed to show up. She knew it would be no use trying to learn anything.

Hardly thinking, she spurred Prancer toward the trail. She trotted and cantered until they were a good distance from Pine Hollow. Then she slowed Prancer to a walk and gave her a long rein. Slouched in the saddle, she let the mare loaf along, not even stopping her from grabbing bites of grass and leaves. And finally, out on the
trail where no one could hear her, Lisa let herself cry. She cried and cried, thinking back over the past twenty-four hours. Prancer turned her head around and nudged Lisa’s stirrup to ask what was wrong. That only made Lisa cry harder, realizing that she wouldn’t be able to take Prancer with her to Wentworth. Prancer wasn’t hers, and anyway her parents would never be able to afford the board. It probably cost half of their salaries.

“I wonder who will ride you when I’m gone,” Lisa said, stroking Prancer’s chestnut neck. “If only they had scholarships for horses, too. Then you could come with me and it wouldn’t be so bad. I could tell you about the other girls, and you could tell me about the other horses.…”

Lisa prolonged the ride, letting Prancer wander from meadow to meadow. Not until it started to get dark did she turn back toward the stable. She wondered how many more rides she would have before she left. Maybe it would be better not to come anymore. Dragging out the good-bye would only make things harder. Sure, she could come back and visit, but it would never be the same. In fact, it already felt different. With the way things were between her and Stevie, it felt as if The Saddle Club had broken up. And that was by far the blackest part of it all.

T
HE
PARENTS
OF
The Saddle Club almost never allowed sleepovers on school nights. They agreed that the girls saw plenty of one another at Pine Hollow, on the weekends, and during the trips they often took together. So Sunday through Thursday nights the three of them were expected to stay in, do their homework, and go to bed at a reasonable time. But every once in a while, a circumstance arose that was dire enough for the girls to convince their parents that they absolutely had to have a weeknight sleepover. When Lisa disappeared on Prancer instead of coming to the lesson, Stevie and Carole agreed that this was one of those nights. They simply
had to have a two-thirds meeting of The Saddle Club. Right away. No matter what it took. So after two anxious phone calls and some hasty arrangements between Colonel Hanson and Mr. and Mrs. Lake, Carole found herself at the Lakes’ for the evening.

She and Stevie wasted no time. They went directly up to Stevie’s room to put their heads together and find a way of saving Lisa from Wentworth Manor. They felt a little guilty about having a meeting without Lisa, but, as Stevie put it, “You can’t save a drowning man by jumping into the ocean.”

“Huh?” Carole said.

“Never mind—it’s just an expression,” Stevie replied.

Mrs. Lake rapped on the door and poked her head in. “I thought this was an emergency meeting of The Saddle Club,” she said, putting down a plate of cookies for them. “The
whole
Saddle Club.”

Stevie and Carole looked at one another, not knowing if they should explain Lisa’s absence. “It is, Mom, but you see, Lisa
is
the emergency,” Stevie said.

“She’s not sick, is she?” Mrs. Lake asked quickly.

“No,” Stevie said. Somehow she wasn’t sure her mother would be very sympathetic when she found out what they were meeting about. She had purposely left that vague when she’d asked permission to invite Carole
over, emphasizing that it was definitely an emergency and that her mother should trust her judgment. “She’s not sick.”

“Then where is she?” Mrs. Lake asked bluntly. “What’s the emergency?”

“We have to save her from being sent to Wentworth Manor,” Stevie said just as bluntly.

“Lisa’s going to boarding school?” Mrs. Lake asked.

“Next week,” Carole said.

Mrs. Lake frowned. “So, I still don’t see what the emergency is. If Lisa and her parents have decided that that’s the best place for her, why should you interfere?”

“But Mom!” Stevie protested. “
Lisa
didn’t decide anything! She just went along with it because her mom wants her to go there. She’d hate it there! And she’d miss us and The Saddle Club and Pine Hollow!”

“I’m sure it’s hard for you to imagine her going away, but make sure you’re thinking about Lisa, sweetheart. It’s her future. Wentworth might be a great opportunity for her,” Mrs. Lake said.

Stevie waited until her mother had left to respond. “That is so typical!” she hissed. “Parents always band together! I’ve
heard
my mother call Wentworth a chi-chi riding school, but now she’s siding with Mrs. Atwood.”

“To be fair, maybe we should consider the possibility
that Lisa would be better off at Wentworth,” Carole said reluctantly. She and Stevie were silent for about five seconds.

“She wouldn’t,” Stevie and Carole said at the same time.

“If she wanted to go there, she would still be sad to leave, but the point is, she’s not acting sad,” Stevie reasoned. “She’s way beyond sad.”

“She’s miserable,” Carole agreed. “And confused and upset and tortured. And this is one time when we know how she feels and her parents don’t. If they knew how much she hated Wentworth, they would never want her to go there.”

“Well …,” Stevie said doubtfully, remembering Mrs. Atwood’s history of pressuring Lisa into things.

“No, seriously, Stevie. Her mother might make her look at the place, but she wouldn’t make her go there,” Carole insisted.

“I guess you’re right,” Stevie conceded. Frustrated, she crossed her arms over her chest and sat back on her bed. “If only we could get Lisa to talk to her mother!”

“But she won’t—or can’t,” Carole said, sighing.

“And you know what really gets me?” Stevie said, after thinking for a few minutes. “Everyone keeps mentioning the great opportunities at Wentworth, but how great are they? I think the greatest opportunity is for Lisa
to stay right where she is, where she’s always been happy.”

“And successful,” Carole added. “She aces everything, but she has enough competition so she doesn’t get bored.” Carole knew about the crowd of supersmart kids Lisa competed with academically. She’d often heard Lisa say that certain of her classmates, as well as her teachers, kept her on her toes.

“That’s one thing she won’t have at Wentworth,” Stevie said scornfully. “None of those girls could be half as smart as Lisa. All they care about is their appearance.”

“Do you think Mrs. Atwood realizes that it’s not that great academically?” Carole asked.

Stevie shrugged. “Who knows? She’s probably so caught up in how prestigious it is that she’s forgotten all about academics.”

The girls talked for almost an hour without thinking up any solutions. They wanted to call Lisa and beg her to talk to her parents, but they were scared that that would backfire. They were afraid that Lisa, sick of their interfering, would refuse to talk to them, upset that they were persisting in making it worse for her.

When Mrs. Lake knocked on the door again to tell them to go to bed, they were beginning to feel desperate.

“You’ll have to get your own breakfast in the morning, girls,” Mrs. Lake told them, “because I’m not going to be here. I’m leaving very early to get my hair cut before work.”

“Where are you getting it cut?” Stevie asked idly. She could never keep straight which salon her mother went to because she always seemed to be changing hairdressers.

“I’m going back to Cosmo Cuts,” said Mrs. Lake. “Everyone agrees it’s the best. It’s owned by that man—”

“Charles,” Stevie and Carole said in unison.

Mrs. Lake looked at them, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Mrs. Atwood took Lisa there, and Mrs. diAngelo and Veronica get their hair done there once a week,” Carole explained.

“It sounds like the place to go, then,” Mrs. Lake said. “There’s cereal and fruit for the morning, okay?”

At her mother’s insistence, Stevie turned the lights out. She waited until she heard her mother go into her own bedroom and shut the door. Then she turned the lights back on—and sat bolt upright. “Carole,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “do you think that if Lisa’s mother suddenly changed her mind
about Wentworth, Lisa would feel okay about not going?”

Carole stared at her friend curiously. “I think that if Lisa could get out of this without having to upset her mother, she would do it in a second. Why? What do you have in mind?”

“Remember what you told me Lisa said about the hair salon?” Stevie asked.

Carole considered Stevie’s question for a moment. “You mean what the women were saying about Max and Veronica?”

“Not what they were saying, but
that
they were saying it,” Stevie said breathlessly. “Lisa said that Cosmo Cuts was a great place to eavesdrop—a great place to overhear things.”

“So?” Carole said. As usual, she was utterly failing to follow Stevie’s train of thought.

“Well, what if Mrs. Atwood were to overhear negative things about Wentworth at her next appointment?” Stevie said. She paused to let her idea sink in, watching Carole process the suggestion. “What if someone were to say that Wentworth is a horrible school?”

“Then Mrs. Atwood might decide that it’s not such a great opportunity for Lisa after all,” Carole said slowly. “But she couldn’t hear it from just anyone.”

“No, she’d have to hear it from a socially prominent person,” Stevie said, thinking hard.

“Who? Your mother? I doubt she’d want to take part in a setup like that,” Carole said.

The very thought of her mother’s agreeing to be in cahoots with them made Stevie laugh. “She sure wouldn’t, and she’d give us a lecture on scheming behind people’s backs, too.”

“So what are you getting at?” Carole asked. Stevie’s idea was all well and good, but the chances of some person’s bad-mouthing Wentworth while Mrs. Atwood was there were almost nil. Obviously they had to get someone to do it. But adults were annoying that way. They’d want to know all about the plan, and then they’d probably try to put a stop to it instead of joining forces.

“I’m not sure exactly,” Stevie admitted. “But if we could think of someone …”

“Wait a minute,” Carole said. “
Wait a minute!
It’s perfect—oh my gosh, it’s perfect!”

“What? Who?” Stevie demanded.

“Who gets her hair done there every week?” Carole asked.

Stevie’s eyes grew large. “And hates Wentworth already!”

“Mrs. diAngelo!” they both cried—or at least, they
would have cried, except that they were whispering so that they wouldn’t get into trouble with Stevie’s mother.

“Do you think if somebody prompted her, she would say bad things about Wentworth?” Carole asked.

“I know she would. I’ve heard her rant and rave about the place. The question is, who’s going to do the prompting?” Stevie said.

“We certainly can’t—that would be way too obvious,” Carole said. One by one, she considered people and rejected them.

“Oh no!” Stevie moaned all of a sudden.

“What?” Carole said. “What is it?” She could tell that Stevie was about four moves ahead of her. She had seen through to the end of the plan.

Stevie let out a long-suffering sigh. “I just realized who I’m going to have to pick to be cochair of the dance committee.”

Carole’s face lit up. “Veronica!” she exclaimed. She didn’t need Stevie to explain any further. She understood perfectly: Stevie was going to bribe Veronica with the dance committee job. Veronica would already be at the salon with her mother. It would be easy for her to casually mention Wentworth Manor. If all went as planned, Mrs. diAngelo would do the rest. “Brilliant,” Carole breathed. “Absolutely brilliant.”

“There’s a flaw, though,” Stevie said. “I just realized what it is. We’re going to have to involve Lisa. We can’t wait until Mrs. Atwood needs another appointment. That could be weeks, and chances are it would be on the wrong day of the week. Lisa is going to have to get her mother to go to Cosmo Cuts at the same day and time as Veronica’s mother.”

“You’re right,” Carole agreed. After reflecting for a minute, she said, “But you know, I don’t think that’s a flaw. I think we should talk to Lisa and tell her about this. It’s her life, after all. I say we have emergency meeting number two tomorrow after school at TD’s, only this time with the whole Saddle Club. I’ll speak to Lisa in school. I’m sure I can get her to come if I pretend it’s for one last time before she leaves.”

The two girls went over the plan again in detail. Both of them would have felt better if Lisa had been there with her notebook to jot it all down and look for loopholes. But they had to do the best they could without her. When they met tomorrow, they had to present her with a finished plan.