Dream Horse (17 page)

Max turned and looked at her. “Do you think you should tell this group that there is something else she might have foreseen?” he asked, his voice dripping with irony.

Deborah grinned. “Could be,” she said.

“A new little rider is coming to Pine Hollow?” Carole asked.

“Max the Fourth?” Lisa asked.

“Could be,” said Deborah. “Could be.”

“Wow!” said Lisa, hugging Deborah excitedly but carefully.

“Yahooo!” Carole declared, patting Max on the back so vigorously that the car swerved.

“I wonder if Stevie knows that already!” said Phil.

Everybody laughed, and then cheered.

S
TEVIE HAD NO IDEA
about Max and Deborah’s baby. But she said she thought it was going to be a nice thing for them.

That wasn’t the reaction her friends had expected. They’d thought she’d be as excited as they were. Stevie didn’t seem to be in a mood to get excited about much of anything.

“Now let me get this straight,” Stevie said, shifting in her bed. She was staring intently at Lisa, Carole, and Phil. “You two took a blind horse up onto a mountain to rescue Phil because that’s what I would have done?”

Lisa and Carole nodded. “That’s right,” Lisa said. “You would have been so proud of us!”

“I would have had your heads examined,” Stevie said.

“We never would have thought of doing it if it hadn’t been for the dream you had. That, combined with the photographs that Veronica showed us, told us exactly what had happened, and there really was only one thing to do once we had the information,” Carole told her.

Lisa nodded agreement. “And the woman at the airport told us that there really was no way any kind of rescue vehicle ever could have gotten to where the glider was,” she said. “The horse was perfect.”

“But a horse that wasn’t blind probably wouldn’t have made it, either. No sighted horse with any common sense would have been willing to climb Rock Ridge,” Carole said.

“So even though you were here in bed, both of us felt as if you were with us every step of the way—you and your dreams, I mean.”

Stevie shook her head. “There you go, talking about my dreams again. What on earth do a couple of strange dreams have to do with anything? They’re just dreams.”

“Right, like Belle is just a horse,” said Carole.

“Belle isn’t just a horse,” Stevie corrected her quickly. “But at least we all know that Belle is real. I don’t even
remember having the kinds of dreams you keep telling me I had.”

“You don’t remember saying Phil was in a tree?” Lisa asked.

“Nope,” Stevie said positively.

“What about when you told us that Blondie had vision even though she was blind?” Carole asked. “That sure turned out to be true. It was as if she had some kind of sixth sense that calmed and guided her every step of the way.”

“How can a blind horse have vision?” Stevie asked. “That’s just not logical.”

Logic
was not something that Stevie had ever much concerned herself with before. It was this kind of thinking that made her friends worry about her. Was the real Stevie ever going to come back? Would this be a permanent change?

Phil, Carole, and Lisa all glanced at one another. Lisa shrugged ever so slightly. The doctor kept insisting that Stevie was getting better. Could he be right?

“Well, with or without your help, a few things have gone right,” said Carole. “Number one is that when Uncle Michael and I reported the behavior of the pilot of Mr. diAngelo’s plane, his license got suspended for a good long time.”

“Yes!” Lisa declared.

“And number two is that Veronica is not going to win the photographic contest,” said Carole. “At least not with pictures of a glider that’s about to crash.”

“Really?” Phil asked. “How do you know that?”

“Well, it seems that the rules of the contest require that the photographs be taken without any adult help. Hubert, childish as he is, is an adult, and by flying the plane, he was helping Veronica. Those photographs are all disqualified!”

“Oh no!” said Lisa.

“What’s wrong with that?” Carole asked.

“It means she won’t be gone for two weeks!” Lisa said.

“Oh, don’t be so sure of that,” said Carole. “When last seen, she was storming around saying she didn’t care a whit for that dumb old picture contest and she was going to get her daddy to let her go to Rome. She’d have a much nicer time going with her mummy, anyway. After all, her mummy is the one with all the credit cards!”

“Do you think we should warn the Italians about the invasion?” Lisa asked.

Phil laughed. “No, they’ll figure it out. And besides, they’ll only have to put up with her for two weeks. We’ll have her for the other fifty weeks of the year!”

“And then there’s number three,” Carole said. “And that’s Blondie. Phil’s father bought her from Mickey
Denver. Uncle Michael said a horse that wonderful needed to have a wonderful retirement, so now she’s living in a field next to Phil’s house.”

“Where she’ll get a well-deserved rest and lots of love. And an occasional trail ride,” said Lisa.

“But no mountains, no rocky ridges, and no more rescue missions,” Carole said.

“Definitely,” said Phil.

Stevie fluffed her pillow irritably. “This is all very interesting, I’m sure, but can you carry on about it someplace else? I’ve got some reading to do from my summer reading list.”

“Stevie, school just let out,” Lisa said. “You don’t have to read those books for two months!” She herself had begun work on her summer reading list the day after school closed, but it was more Stevie’s style to begin the work the day before school opened than two months ahead of time.

“Just two months?” Stevie said. “Well, there isn’t a moment to waste. Has anyone seen my copy of
Silas Manner
?”

“You’re reading
Silas Marner
?” Phil asked, surprised.

“
Moby Dick
was out of the library when Chad went over there for me,” Stevie explained.

“You wanted to read
Moby Dick
?” Carole asked, stunned.

“Until I can find my copy of
War and Peace
,” Stevie said, as if that explained anything. “Oh, there it is,” she said, spotting her book on the other side of the room. She sat up straight in bed and shifted her legs so that she could stand up.

“Here, Stevie, I’ll give you a hand,” Phil said.

“No, I’m okay,” Stevie insisted. “I didn’t break anything. I can walk all right.”

She stood up. Her friends knew that she’d barely been out of bed for almost a week, and that was enough to make anybody unsteady as they walked. Stevie was adamant, though. She was tired of being confused by the odd things that people said and the odd way they were treating her. She wanted to show them that she could walk across her bedroom, pick up a book, and walk back. She held the footboard of her bed for a moment to steady herself. Then, when she thought she was ready, she took a step, and then another one.

That was when the most peculiar thing began to happen. For some reason, the room began to spin. At first it moved slowly. Then it was a total sea of confusion. Lisa, Carole, and Phil seemed to spin with the room. Stars appeared in midair, their bright glare washing everything away from Stevie’s sight.

“Stevie?” Lisa asked.

“Are you all right?” asked Carole.

“Let me help you,” said Phil.

“I’m fine,” said Stevie. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”

And then the whole world was a blank.

“Catch her! She’s falling!” Lisa screamed.

Phil, Carole, and Lisa all ran to catch Stevie, but they were too late. Stevie’s legs simply collapsed, and she hit the floor with a bang. More accurately, her head hit the floor with a bang, and she was completely unconscious.

“Oh no! Not again!” Lisa cried.

The three of them gathered around Stevie. Lisa picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse. It was there. Carole noted that she was breathing evenly. Phil held her hand.

They waited a minute.

Stevie’s eyes fluttered open. She blinked a few times. She reached up to her head and rubbed the bump that was swelling up.

“Ouch!” she declared. Then, while her friends watched, wondering what would happen, Stevie pulled herself to a sitting position.

A fiery look of anger came over her face. She took a deep breath and spoke. “Where is that Veronica diAngelo?” she demanded. “I want to give that girl a piece
of my mind. Can you believe she took a flash picture right in our faces so that Belle got spooked and I hit my head?”

“It’s Stevie!” Lisa said, thrilled.

“She’s back!” said Carole. They both knew their friend when they saw her. This was the real Stevie, the one who loved to laugh, play practical jokes, get into trouble, and eat butter pecan ice cream with licorice bits.

“What am I doing out of bed now?” Stevie asked, still apparently confused.

“You were getting your copy of
Silas Manner
,” Phil explained, smiling.

“Why would I be doing that?” Stevie asked. “School doesn’t start for at least two months! Man, I’m starving. Do you suppose there’s anything to eat in the house? I could really go for some key lime sherbet with caramel sauce and mint sprinkles.”

Lisa and Carole looked at one another and then slapped their hands together in a high five. The Saddle Club was together again!

Bonnie Bryant 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.