Free Horse-Sitters by Bonnie Bryant

aisle when she heard the annoying sound of Veronica’s voice.
    “Oh, Red!” Veronica called sweetly from outside Danny’s stall. “Could you come here for a minute, please?”
    Stevie paused long enough to swipe at her sweaty forehead with one arm. She groaned as she remembered, too late, that she’d just been pouring feed and that her arm was covered with little bits of grain. Now her face was covered with it, too. Stevie glanced at Veronica, who looked cool and perfectly attired asalways. It didn’t seem fair that The Saddle Club should be working so hard when Veronica had just been hanging around all day doing nothing.
    “What is it, Veronica?” Red asked, walking over to her.
    Veronica smiled at him insincerely. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. You see, I accidentally knocked over Danny’s water bucket and spilled it. I need you to refill it for me immediately.”
    That was all Stevie could take. With a mighty heave she slung the feed bag over her shoulder and stomped away.
    “O H , THERE YOU ARE ,” Eugenia said, cornering Lisa in the tack room, where she had paused just long enough to wolf down a sandwich. “Hmm, having a little snack, are we? It’s best not to eat between meals, you know.”
    Lisa didn’t bother to tell her she wasn’t really eating between meals. It was almost three o’clock, and Lisa didn’t think the old woman would believe this was the first chance Lisa had had to eat lunch. Instead she just nodded.
    “Anyway, I’ve been looking all over for you and your little friends,” Eugenia continued. “I have some lovely news.”
    Lisa was amazed. Was that a smile on the grouchy old woman’s face?
    “I’ve decided to have some dear old friends over for tea next Wednesday,” Eugenia said. “That’s the last day of my visit here, you know. They live in this area, and I haven’t seen them in ages.”
    “How nice,” Lisa said politely. She had no idea why Eugenia was telling her this, but she was afraid to ask.
    “I’ll need you and those other girls to assist me with the party, of course,” Eugenia said, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. “For one thing, I’ll want to show off my Honeybee. So I thought the easiest thing would be to hold the tea party here, in that shady spot behind the stable under the big apple tree. You girls will need to see that Honeybee looks her very best that day, braids in her mane and all that.”
    “Oh,” Lisa said, relieved. “Of course.”
    “And naturally you’ll be doing the shopping and the preparations for the party itself,” Eugenia continued.
    Lisa’s jaw dropped. “Um, excuse me?” she said. “I, uh, that is, we aren’t really experts at that sort of thing.”
    “No matter,” Eugenia said briskly. “You aren’t exactly experts at taking care of horses, either, but you seem to be doing adequately with that so far. And of course I’ll pay you a bit extra since it wasn’t part of our original arrangement. You can pick up the food at the market in town. Max has an account there; you can charge everything to him. Now, we’ll want at least three kinds of tea to choose from, some sandwiches—but nothing too heavy. And a good assortment of sweets.…”
    “Ms. Eugenia,” Lisa said, mustering up her most reasonable and sincere tone of voice, “we really appreciate your thinking of us for this, but I’m afraid it’s just not possible. We’ll be in school on Wednesday, and we have a lot of work to do here as well, so we really just won’t be able to manage. As you said, it wasn’t part of our original arrangement.” She shrugged. “And I know you wouldn’t want us to neglect our duties with Honeybee.”
    “Oh, push-tosh,” Eugenia said, waving aside her objections. “Iwon’t take no for an answer. Now, I’ve got to go. I must speak to Deborah about arranging transportation for my friends.”
    Before Lisa could open her mouth again, the old woman was gone.
    C AROLE MANAGED TO PUT aside her