Driving Team (10 page)

W
EDNESDAY AFTERNOON WAS
cold and cloudy, so riding class was held in the indoor ring. Stevie sat on Belle expectantly, watching for Veronica to lead Danny in. When Max began the class without her, Stevie knew Robespierre’s condition must be grim.

“What’s the matter with you?” Lisa asked as they warmed the horses up in an extended trot. “You look like you’ve lost your last friend.”

“I was just thinking about Veronica,” Stevie replied sadly. “She’s not here today. I bet she’s at poor Robespierre’s bedside, just waiting for the end to come!”

“Oh, Stevie, you don’t know that. Why not try to be optimistic?” Lisa said, smiling hopefully. “Maybe the
dog got better and Veronica went shopping to celebrate.”

“Well, I guess that’s a possibility,” Stevie admitted.

“Anyway, you’d better pay attention in class now and worry about Veronica and her dog later, when Max isn’t watching.”

“You’re right,” said Stevie, trying to smile. “There’s nothing I can do about Robespierre, anyway.”

Riding class passed quickly, ending with one of Stevie’s favorite exercises, in which the riders dropped their reins and jumped a series of cavalletti with no hands. Max congratulated the class on doing a good job, and soon all the riders except Stevie had brushed their horses down and were on their way home.

“Hey, Stevie, what are you doing this afternoon?” Carole asked as she and Lisa stopped by Belle’s stall, their school backpacks slung over their shoulders.

“I’m going to work with Danny and Belle in the driving harness,” replied Stevie, holding up one set of the harness she’d cleaned over the weekend. “Red said he would help me.”

“I would help you, too, except I’ve got to go to the dentist.” Carole looked over at Lisa. “Could you stay and help Stevie this afternoon?”

Lisa shook her head. “I’d like to, but I’ve got this huge report in French due tomorrow, and I’ve barely cracked the book.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Stevie said with a smile. “I’ll be fine. And Red will be terrific.”

“Will you call us and let us know how it goes?” asked Carole.

“Sure,” Stevie replied. “I’ll talk to you both tonight.”

Carole and Lisa left, and Stevie and Belle were alone. Stevie draped the heavy harness over her shoulder and clipped a lead line on Belle. “Come on, girl,” she said, unlatching the stall door. “Let’s go see if we have better luck learning to drive with Red than we did with poor Veronica.”

By the time Stevie got back to the indoor ring, Red had the rest of the harness laid out. “Hi, Stevie,” he called. “Are you sure you want to get into this now? It’s pretty late in the afternoon.”

“I have to, Red. Time’s running out, and Veronica just can’t be bothered with this right now.”

“No kidding.” Red’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. “And when can Veronica be bothered with anything?”

“I don’t know,” replied Stevie. “But not now. She’s got some problems at home.”

“Yeah, right.” Red gave a disbelieving snort. “How far did you two get the other day?”

“Not too far,” Stevie admitted, remembering all the kicking and biting between Belle and Danny. “As equestriennes, it wasn’t our finest hour.”

“Then let’s start from scratch and get these horses
accustomed to the harness. We’ll fit Belle first, since you’re used to working with her; then we’ll fit Danny. I’ll show you how all these little pieces of leather work together.”

Stevie grinned. “Thanks, Red.”

Explaining as he went along, Red began to show Stevie how driving tack was different from riding tack. There was a breech strap that stopped the wagon when the horse stopped, a crupper that kept the back pad from shifting forward on the horse’s withers, and a checkrein that kept the horse’s head in the right position. Though the bridles were similar, driving bridles came with blinders to keep the horse from seeing anything from behind.

“Why wouldn’t they want the horse to see behind him?” Stevie asked as she carefully fit the blinders close to Belle’s eyes. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Because if a horse doesn’t know what he’s pulling, he’s okay with it,” explained Red. “But if he looked back and saw a weird-looking thing like a wagon or a buggy right up against his tail, he might get scared and bolt or buck. Then you’d have a real mess on your hands.”

“I never thought of that before,” said Stevie, giving Belle a pat on the neck. “But I guess it’s for their own good.”

“Yours, too,” Red said.

They worked a few more minutes on Belle, getting
the tack adjusted comfortably under her tail and around her shoulders. Then it was Danny’s turn. Red brought him out slowly. Stevie wondered what he would do when he saw Belle in such a funny-looking harness, but he stood quietly when Red led him to the center of the ring and Stevie began to put the same contraption on him.

“Okay,” Red said when Danny stood outfitted just like Belle. “Let’s walk them around for a little bit and let them just get used to the way this stuff feels. You take Belle, and I’ll take Danny.”

“Okay,” said Stevie. They walked the horses around the ring several times. Mostly the horses behaved as if they wore driving tack every day of their lives, although Belle twitched her tail against the crupper.

“I don’t think they mind this too much at all,” Stevie said, amazed.

“They’re both doing well,” said Red. “Let’s attach the reins and you can drive them around the ring.”

He clipped a set of reins to each bridle, then pulled the horses up side by side. “Okay,” he said to Stevie. “Here are your reins. The two in your right hand are Danny’s, the two in your left are Belle’s. See if you can drive them around the ring.” He frowned at her hands. “You brought gloves, didn’t you?”

Stevie shook her head. “I didn’t know I needed them.”

“Try to remember them next time, or you’ll get blisters.”

“Okay.” She took the reins and stepped back from the horses. With butterflies fluttering in her stomach, she looked over at Red. “What do I do now?”

He laughed. “Just say giddyap and see what happens.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Here we go. Giddyap!” She popped the reins gently over both horses’ backs, and all at once they began to move forward. Danny tried to push ahead of Belle several times, but mostly they walked side by side, with Stevie walking behind them. When they reached the end of the ring, Stevie didn’t know what to do.

“How do I turn them?” she called frantically to Red.

“Just pull back on Danny a little. They should get the idea.”

Stevie pulled back on Danny, but she pulled too hard. The big gray made a complete turn. Suddenly he was walking toward Stevie while Belle was walking away from her!

“Uh-oh,” laughed Red. “You’ve got them going north and south at the same time! Stop them and let’s try it again.”

Stevie pulled Belle to a stop and managed to turn Danny around. They tried again. This time Belle wanted to charge ahead of Danny, and they seemed to bound around the ring in spurts, rather than with a
smooth gait. The next time, both horses turned completely around when Stevie tried to negotiate the turn. After an hour of stop-and-go driving practice, Stevie, Danny, and Belle all stood before Red, sweating and exhausted.

“Wow,” breathed Stevie with a wide grin. “This is hard work, but it’s lots of fun!”

“You did okay,” said Red. “Next time we’ll see how they’ll do hitched to the wagon.”

“When can we try that?” Stevie asked excitedly. “We’ve only got about ten days before the demonstration for Cross County.”

“How about Friday afternoon?” suggested Red. “Not much is going on here then.”

“Great,” said Stevie. “I’ll be here right after school. And thanks, Red. You’ve been wonderful!”

“My pleasure,” said Red with a grin. “Only next time, don’t forget those gloves!”

Stevie untacked both horses and cooled them down, then put them back in their stalls with an extra forkful of hay. She was so excited about her driving success that she practically ran all the way home. She couldn’t wait to tell Carole and Lisa how much fun driving was, but first she wanted to call Veronica and find out how poor Robespierre was doing. Maybe if the news was not good, hearing about how wonderfully Danny had done would make her feel better. As soon as she reached her house,
she hurried upstairs to her room and dialed Veronica’s number.

The phone rang once, then twice, then three times, and then an answering machine switched on.
“This is the diAngelo residence,”
a snooty voice said.
“Leave your message at the tone, and your call will be returned.”

Stevie frowned and hung up. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving a personal message about poor Robespierre with the cold voice on the diAngelos’ answering machine.

“Maybe I’ll e-mail her,” Stevie said aloud. “That way she can read my message and nobody else can hear it.”

She looked up Veronica’s e-mail address and hurried down to her father’s study, where the Lakes kept their home computer. Fortunately none of her brothers was online or playing one of their space invader games, so Stevie had the machine to herself. She logged on, then began to type her message.

Stevie reread her message, then clicked on Send Now. She turned off the computer and smiled. Veronica would probably feel a whole lot better once she read that message. At least she would know that somebody who understood how people could feel about animals was thinking about her and cared about what happened to poor Robespierre.

“B
YE
, M
OM
!” S
TEVIE
called as she walked out the door. “Thanks for lunch. I’ll see you later!”

She heard her mother’s muffled okay from the laundry room, then took a bite of her slice of still-warm gingerbread. There was nothing she liked better than finishing her lunch while she walked to Pine Hollow. She figured the eating part probably saved her five minutes of just sitting at the table, and the walking part gave her time to ponder what was going on in her life.

She sighed as she thought about what was going on in her life right then. Earlier that day she’d attended the Horse Wise meeting at Pine Hollow and taken her regular riding lesson. Veronica hadn’t attended either of
them, nor had she practiced driving with Stevie on Friday afternoon. Stevie had seen Veronica after gym class at school on Friday, but she’d been with a group of her own friends and they hadn’t had any time to talk. Though she’d answered Stevie’s e-mail, her message had only read, “Thanks. Okay. See you.”

Stevie took another bite of gingerbread and frowned. The more she thought about that e-mail, the more uncomfortable she felt—as if she had poured out her heart to Veronica and Veronica had said nothing in return. Maybe she’d been wrong to express so much sympathy about Robespierre. Maybe that had upset Veronica even more, reminding her of something awful that she didn’t want to be reminded of. Maybe Stevie should have said nothing about the dog and only told her about how good Danny was at learning to drive.

Stevie kicked a pebble across the street. Maybe she shouldn’t have e-mailed Veronica at all. She shook her head. Sometimes when she tried her hardest to do the right thing, she wound up doing exactly the opposite.

Suddenly a familiar car came into view—a white Mercedes with dark-tinted windows. It was the diAngelos’ car! Stevie gulped down her mouthful of gingerbread and smiled, but the car did not stop or slow down. It cruised past her, away from Pine Hollow.

“In the direction of Doc Tock’s,” Stevie said aloud,
turning and watching the car glide smoothly down the street and around a curve. Sudden tears stung her eyes as she imagined what must have happened. Veronica must have been at Pine Hollow waiting for her to come and work with the horses. Doc Tock had called to tell her that her dog was almost gone, and her parents had come to get her—to say a final good-bye to her beloved Robespierre.

“That’s so sad,” Stevie said, using her gingerbread napkin to wipe her eyes. She turned back toward the stable.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about Robespierre,” she told herself. “That’s all up to Doc Tock. But I can help Veronica by taking the driving-team pressure off her shoulders. That way she can concentrate on Robespierre’s last days, and we can still have the best driving team Pine Hollow has ever had!”

Stevie finished her gingerbread and hurried into the stable. She walked directly to the locker room without even saying hello to Belle. There was something important that she had to do right away. In the back of her cubby, hidden behind a couple of old sweatshirts and wrapped inside a plastic shopping bag, was the elegantly wrapped package that contained the china dog she and Carole and Lisa had bought for Veronica. Stevie had planned to give it to her later, but now was the perfect time, when Veronica needed to know that someone was
thinking about her in her time of sadness. Surely Veronica would come to the stable soon, to be with Danny, the one remaining animal she loved.