Free Million-Dollar Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page A

opened the door to the stable and walked in.
    “If Max is in his office, I think we should talk with him,” Lisa said. “He should know that we know about Honey-Pie, and he should also know that Paul’s been lurking around here trying to talk us into doing bad things for her.”
    “Max knows we’d never do those things!” Carole said.
    “Right, but he may not know that Paul’s been trying to talk us into doing them—like overfeeding her and overexercising her.”
    The girls turned toward the stable office, but the door was closed. It was a sure sign that no one was welcome to knock or come in.
    But the door wasn’t closed tightly and, standing right outside it as they were, it was impossible for The Saddle Club not to hear what was going on.
    “It is clear from what our daughter says that the staff here is inadequate to take care of …”
    No question whose voice that was. Nobody but a diAngelo would speak to Max that way. It had to be Veronica’s father. Her mother was there, too.
    “She said that boy, Red Something—”
    “O’Malley,” Max supplied.
    “… just doesn’t care about the horses the way he ought to. I mean, we know you don’t have any other particularly valuable horses here, but if you want to have any in the future, perhaps you’ll have to consider hiring a more professional staff.”
    There was a pause. Outside the office door, the girls didn’t move. They weren’t going to miss a second of this. They knew what was going on. Max was taking a deep breath and thinking about what he was going to say.
    “Mr. and Mrs. diAngelo,” he began. “I appreciate the fact that you have heard everything that happened from Veronica’s point of view. Perhaps there were one or two things that she failed to mention to you.”
    It was music to the girls’ ears to hear Max list the things Veronica had left out, like that it wasn’t Red’s job to latch the stable door, that Veronica frequently treated him as if he were her personal servant, that every other rider in the stable understood that it was his or her own job to look after his or her horse, that every single horse in the stable was valuable. The only difference was that some cost more than others.
    He talked about Veronica’s attitude problems and her inability to get along with the staff—including his mother—and with the other riders. By the time he was finished, there was almost nothing even Stevie would have added about Veronica’s shortcomings, except that she wouldn’t have said any of it nearly as nicely as Max had done.
    “And now we have to consider what’s going on with Danny,” Max went on. “The horse ran away yesterday. He’s been in the woods almost twenty-four hours and there’s no sign of him. There isn’t another rider in the stable who wouldn’t have set out on a personal search for her horse if he’d run away. Veronica, on the other hand,is right here. Those woods are not a safe place for a horse accustomed to the security of a stable. What do you intend to do about it?” Stevie knew he was glaring straight at Veronica.
    “Th-There’s the reward …,” Veronica stammered.
    “We need to talk about that,” said her father. An iciness came into his voice as he spoke to his daughter.
    “It’s been posted,” said Max. “Right there on my bulletin board. You can’t withdraw it.”
    “I realize that,” said Mr. diAngelo. “What I hadn’t realized was Veronica’s part in the carelessness that allowed Danny to run away. The reward stands. The only change is that I won’t be paying it. Veronica will.”
    “Daddy!”
    “It’ll come out of your allowance. Of course, if you find the horse yourself …”
    “Daddy!”
    “It’s up to you, Veronica. I think it’s time for us to go now.”
    Aware that the office door was about to open, Stevie gave her friends a hasty shove. By the time the door swung wide, they were in Nickel’s stall, crouched down behind the half wall. It took the diAngelos