Horse Feathers (5 page)

“Well, as I for one have no intention of standing on a horse, these exercises are a waste of my time,” grumbled Veronica, who had been doing the exercises with minimal effort.

“As a reward,” continued Max, “whoever does it first is excused from the rest of the class.”

With a sudden about-face, Veronica gracefully swung her feet to the back above Danny’s rump, held the position for five seconds, and then swung them to the front above his withers, finishing the exercise while most of the class was still struggling to hold the first position.

“Very good, Veronica,” Max congratulated her. “You’re excused. Take Danny for a walk to cool him out.”

Veronica quickly hopped off Danny and loosened
his girth. She glanced over her shoulder and smirked at The Saddle Club. “Enjoy the rest of the class.”

Stevie turned to Carole. “Have I ever mentioned that she annoys me?”

“This week, today, or in the last hour?” Carole responded sardonically.

Stevie grinned. “Well, I for one
do
intend to stand on a horse,” she declared, perfectly imitating Veronica’s snobby tone. “And I also intend to do these exercises, even if they kill me.”

“I agree,” said Carole. “Max wouldn’t be giving us these exercises unless they were important.”

Lisa nodded her agreement.

With renewed energy, the girls threw themselves into all the exercises Max gave them and even surprised him by asking for more.

“Okay, that’s enough for today,” Max said finally. “Put away your horses. And once you’re done, meet me outside in the grass ring for part two of the vaulting exercises.”

“Part two?” Lisa groaned. “I think I just used up all my energy in part one.”

“That’s where our second wind comes in,” joked Stevie. “At least I hope it does.”

The girls quickly untacked and groomed their
horses, making sure that they each had fresh water and plenty of hay before hurrying out to find Max.

They were surprised to find that the grass ring had been transformed into an exercise area. Blue foam-padded gym mats were strewn about the ring. To one side of the mats was a four-inch-high balance beam. But even more surprising to the girls was the oil drum in the center of the ring. A set of handles were attached to the top of the barrel, and the barrel itself was padded with several layers of carpet and covered with heavy denim cloth.

“Everyone gather around,” Max called out.

The last of the riders appeared, including a not-so-enthusiastic Veronica, and circled around Max.

“I’m sure you’re all wondering what that’s for,” said Max, pointing to the barrel. “Anyone want to take a guess?”

“We’re going to practice bull riding?” Stevie offered humorously.

The class laughed in response.

Carole put up her hand. Max nodded and pointed to her.

“It looks like a practice vaulting barrel,” said Carole. “I’ve read that they’re used by the vaulters to learn the moves before they get on the horse. It’s safer for both the rider and the mount.”

Max nodded. “Very good, Carole. You’re exactly right.”
Then he explained to the class, “Both the balance beam and the practice barrel are very important to help you establish balance. You need to learn how to do the exercises on a static object before trying it on a moving animal. The most familiar saying in vaulting is that if you can’t do it on the ground or on the barrel, then you’re not going to do it on
my
horse.”

Everyone laughed at the joke, although they realized Max had a good point.

“Let’s get started!” Max shouted.

As the last student finished the beam exercises, Max called the class over to the vaulting barrel. “One of the first things we’ll need to learn before we get
on
the horse is how to get
off
the horse safely, in case of an emergency.”

Although most of the riders were familiar with the exercise, Max walked the class through the emergency dismount just to be sure. The most important thing was to jump clear of the horse’s hooves and to roll with the momentum of the dismount, to prevent any type of impact injury. For practice, Max had the class try several emergency dismounts by leaping from the barrel to the ground.

Once he was satisfied that everyone was dismounting correctly, he surprised the class by calling Red in to demonstrate a couple of the more common vaulting
positions on the barrel. Red gracefully performed several different moves, including one called the Mill, in which the vaulter made a complete rotation on the barrel in four evenly counted phases, carrying each leg over the barrel in a high semicircle.

“That explains why Max had us do the around-the-world earlier,” said Stevie. “What it doesn’t explain is how he”—Stevie pointed to Red—“managed to make that look so easy.”

Red overheard the comment and laughed, then exchanged looks with Max.

Max smiled. “We cheated a little. Red spent a few years on a vaulting team before he moved to Willow Creek, which is why I thought he’d be the best person to act as our longeur.” Max’s voice went serious, as it always did when he was trying to get across an important point about riding. “Our number one concern is safety, for you and for Clara. Only a person with the experience to keep the horse moving forward at a safe and steady pace should be handling the longe line.”

As if anticipating the next question, Red said, “I know that you all know how to longe a horse. But it’s one thing to send a horse forward as a form of exercise. It’s quite another to control its every step.”

“And here I thought longeing was the easy part,” said Carole. Everyone laughed.

Max signaled for a ten-minute break, and the girls ran inside the barn for a quick drink.

“I hope we can all watch the eggs hatch together,” Stevie said as she reached into her cubby for her water bottle. She suddenly realized that it was the first time she had thought about the eggs all day. “Oh my gosh! What time is it?” she exclaimed, grabbing Lisa’s hand to check her watch. It was just after two o’clock. She had missed the midday turning of the eggs. “My eggs!”

Stevie shot off at full speed down the barn aisle, passing Veronica, who was taking a sip of her soda.

“What’s with her?” Veronica asked in a bored manner.

Lisa and Carole exchanged looks, then said in unison, as if no further explanation was necessary: “Mother Goose.”

S
TEVIE RACED UP
the stairs and burst into her bedroom, dreading the result of her missed turning. She’d only had the eggs for a day and already she was neglecting them. Some Mother Goose she was!

Stevie knelt beside the incubator, opened the lid, and very gently turned each egg. Then she grabbed the instructions. She sat back on her heels and went through them, line by line, to see if she might have done any permanent damage to the eggs.

From what she read it seemed as if the eggs would be all right. Not that it prevented her from being nervous. She checked and rechecked the temperature and humidity—everything was normal. Still, she was
reluctant to leave, even though it meant missing the rest of her lesson.

What if she had actually done damage and she just couldn’t tell yet? And then what if she left and the damage got worse?
The safest thing is just to stay with them
, she thought. With that decision made, she crawled onto her desk chair and leaned against the back of it, never once taking her eyes off the incubator.

Stevie was still sitting in the same position, staring at the incubator, when Lisa and Carole knocked on her bedroom door two hours later.

“Tell me you haven’t been sitting there this whole time,” said Carole, concerned.

Stevie looked at her guiltily. “Failure to turn,” she said seriously, “and it’s only the second day. How bad is that?”

Lisa came over and gently patted Stevie’s shoulder. “Stevie, the instructions allow a caretaker a good night’s sleep. And I read that the eggs are fine as long as you keep alternating the side that’s up, night after night. I really don’t think a few extra hours will have affected them.”

“Besides,” added Carole, “the eggs are in their last week of incubation and should be almost to the point where they don’t need to be turned at all.”

“Maybe so, but I’m not taking any more chances,”
Stevie announced determinedly. “They’re not leaving my sight until they hatch.”

“Have you forgotten about school?” Lisa asked gently.

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll just come home for lunch every day to turn them.” Then she suddenly remembered that they hadn’t told her about the last part of the vaulting lesson. “Oh! What did I miss?”

“Only the part where we actually got a chance to longe Clara,” Lisa said casually.

“And the part where Max explained to us about the different types of vaulting teams,” added Carole.

“Oh sure, he exercises us to death, and then the second I leave all the exciting stuff happens,” Stevie said with a frown.

Carole smiled and eagerly filled Stevie in on the types of vaulting teams that were allowed in competition. The first one was made up of eight riders and a longeur; the second was an individual rider and a longeur; and the third was commonly referred to as a
pas de deux
, which Max had explained was technically a young woman, a young man, and a longeur. However, if two vaulters of the same sex participated, it was called pairs. In every case, though, the longeur was a very important part of the team because he or she had to be able to keep the horse going at a steady pace.

“Of course, the type of teams are only important if we’re actually going to compete,” Lisa told Stevie. “Unfortunately, Max said that we only have Clara for a month—not exactly enough time to prepare for a real competition.”

“But,” Carole broke in excitedly, “on Clara’s last weekend at Pine Hollow, Max is going to let us demonstrate what we’ve learned in our own mini-competition.”

“Which doesn’t give us very much time to prepare,” said Lisa.

“And Mrs. Welch, Clara’s owner, has offered to be the judge,” Carole added. “Isn’t that cool?”

Stevie was still stuck on the one-month part. After the trouble she’d had with some of the exercises earlier that day, she couldn’t imagine that a month would be enough time to learn how to vault.

Lisa continued. “Max actually said that it’s not as hard as it looks.” Then she corrected herself. “Or, that it is, but if we work hard, we should all be vaulting by the end of the month—”

Lisa was interrupted by a knock on the door. Or more accurately, there was a quick perfunctory knock one second before all three of Stevie’s brothers tromped into the room. Stevie jumped to her feet, trying to push them back out the door.

“Girl space and you’re invading it. Later,” she said to her brothers.

“Oh, come on,” said Chad. “We were downstairs trying to make egg salad sandwiches to take to school tomorrow and realized we’re fresh out of eggs. Think we could borrow a half dozen until the next grocery run?”

Stevie let out a loud distressed howl and ran back to the incubator, standing protectively between it and her brothers. Then she burst into tears.

Chad, Alex, and Michael looked mystified.

Lisa and Carole were confused, too,
What in the world is wrong with Stevie?
Lisa wondered. If this was indeed Stevie. And she wasn’t at all sure that the girl standing in front of her, sobbing helplessly,
was
Stevie Lake simply because the
real
Stevie Lake would have instantly descended upon her brothers with a fierce, warriorlike battle cry. The sound Stevie made was more like that of a drowning cat.

“Hey, we were only kidding,” Alex said cautiously.

Chad looked just as uncertain as Alex about how to respond. “It’s okay, Stevie. Alex is right. We didn’t mean it. There are still plenty of eggs in the fridge,” he said awkwardly, apparently not realizing he’d made things worse until Stevie’s sobbing turned into a wail. Chad sneaked a glance at Lisa, who discreetly indicated that they might want to leave the room—fast.

“Ah … okay. Um … we’re going now.” Chad made a motion to his brothers to follow him and backed out of the room, quietly closing the door behind them.

Lisa and Carole rushed over and hugged Stevie.

“M-my—my e-eg-eggs …,” hiccuped Stevie as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Sssshhhhhhh. They’re not going to take your eggs,” soothed Carole.

Lisa and Carole exchanged concerned looks over Stevie’s shoulder. This wasn’t the Stevie they were used to. It certainly wasn’t normal for Stevie to be so vulnerable.
Or to be vulnerable at all
, thought Lisa. The only thing she could chalk it up to was the stress of impending motherhood. Or goosehood. Or whatever it was called.

Slowly, Stevie’s tears subsided. She brushed the dampness off her cheeks. “I’m okay now. Thanks.” She smiled at her friends. “You guys should probably be getting home.”

Carole glanced at her watch and realized Stevie was right. “I promised Dad I’d be back for dinner.”

Lisa gave Stevie an extra hug for comfort then headed to the bedroom door with Carole. “Remember,” she said, “we’ll be working on vaulting in Tuesday’s class.”

Stevie nodded.