Free Million-Dollar Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page B

only a few seconds to leave the stable, and that was a good thing,because a few seconds was as long as Stevie could contain her joy at the scene she and her friends had just overheard.
    The three of them hugged one another to stifle their giggles and shrieks.
    They still wanted to talk with Max but realized that now might not be the very best time. He would still be steaming mad at Veronica, and it was just possible that that anger might extend to anyone in Veronica’s age bracket.
    “I think we can talk to him later. In the meantime, let’s go on a trail ride,” Stevie suggested.
    They agreed that putting a little distance between themselves and Max was probably a wise idea. They fetched their grooming buckets and tack and headed to their horses’ stalls.
    Lisa clipped a lead rope on Prancer and brought her out into the hallway to cross-tie her for a quick brush-down. It took just a second to see that something was wrong, and Lisa called Carole and Stevie over to take a look.
    Carole ran her hand down the mare’s right foreleg and then, for comparison, down the left one. There was no doubt that Prancer had a problem.
    “Here, feel this,” Carole said, offering Prancer’s lower leg to Lisa. Lisa gently took hold of the horse’s right leg.Prancer flinched a bit as she did so. Then Lisa felt the left leg.
    “It’s warmer and it’s swollen,” she said.
    “Right,” Carole said.
    “Sure signs of some kind of hurt,” Lisa said.
    “Probably a strain or something. Usually these things aren’t serious and will clear up pretty much on their own, but let’s wrap it for now and ask Judy to take a look at it when she comes by. In the meantime, of course, you can’t ride Prancer.”
    Those were words any rider dreaded hearing. It wasn’t as if Prancer belonged to Lisa, but she felt as if the mare did. She always rode Prancer. She’d loved Prancer from the first moment she’d set eyes on her. She didn’t want to ride any other horse, but this time she didn’t have a choice.
    “So, now what do I do? Which horse should I ride?” Lisa asked.
    Normally Mrs. Reg assigned horses, but she was sick with a cold. When Mrs. Reg wasn’t available, Max performed that particular job, but The Saddle Club had already decided they didn’t want to talk to Max about
anything.
Red was giving a class, so that left no one free to help them.
    “I’m afraid that any schooling horse we choose for you will already be reserved by someone else,” Carole said. “I’m not sure what we should do.”
    “I’ve got an idea,” Stevie said. The mischievous look on her face indicated to her friends that this might be one of her wild schemes.
    “And that is?” Carole asked.
    “Honey-Pie,” said Stevie.
    “We’re not supposed to ride her,” Lisa said.
    “Says who?” Stevie countered.
    “Paul and Mr. Stookey,” said Lisa.
    “And what do they know? We all heard Max saying that Honey-Pie should be ridden.”
    “And we all heard him agree that he’d follow Mr. Stookey’s orders, too.”
    “Maybe we heard that part wrong,” Stevie suggested. “There was a lot of noise in the barn then. I’m sure I heard Starlight snorting.”
    “Isn’t that when the big truck was backing in to deliver some grain?” Lisa asked. “That made a lot of noise.”
    Carole looked at her two friends. She knew what they were up to and she was reluctant to get drawn into trouble with them. On the other hand, the important thing here was what was good for Honey-Pie, and there was no question whatsoever in Carole’s mind that Honey-Pie would love a nice trail ride.
    It took only a second. “Wasn’t Red yelling at a student to keep her heels down?” she asked. “You’re right.There
was
a lot of other noise going on at exactly that moment. We couldn’t possibly have heard what Max said, now, could we?”
    The pact was sealed. Ten minutes later, the girls were on their way across the field to the woods.

L ISA SETTLED INTO the saddle on