Free English Rider by Bonnie Bryant

you do that.” She glanced at the aisle with a frown, though Lisa was still holding her back. “Anyway, who says I don’t want her to hear me? I think she has a right to know why I’m going to throttle her.”
    “Get real, Stevie,” Lisa said. “Since when do you believe Veronica’s silly gossip? She made the whole thing up. I mean, come on. This is Phil we’re talking about.” She hesitated for a split second before adding, “And Tessa. Neither one of them would ever do anything like that.”
    Stevie thought about that. “Well, Tessa has been acting awfully weird lately,” she muttered. She sighed. “But I guess you’re right. I trust Phil.” She clenched her fists. “Still, why would Veronica make up something like that?”
    Carole shrugged. “Why does Veronica do anything?” she asked philosophically. “She’s probably just trying to start gossip and make trouble. As usual.”
    “Or maybe she’s just trying to get out of cleaning all that sweaty tack,” Lisa suggested. “This way she can make Tessa and Phil do all the work and still take credit for it with Mrs. Pennington—and Miles, of course.” In the past few days it had been obvious that Veronica’s crush on Miles hadn’t faded one bit.
    “Hmmm.” Stevie was silent for a moment. She knew her friends were right. So why did she still have the urge to rush straight to the tack room and find out for herself what was going on? “All right,” she said casually. “Well, since Veronica abandoned them with all that tack to clean, maybe we should go help them out.”
    Lisa rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “I guess we could do that.”
    The girls left Starlight’s stall and headed down theaisle. Stevie gritted her teeth as she realized that Veronica was still whispering about Tessa and Phil.
    “… so I bet they’re smooching in there right now,” Veronica was saying gleefully. “I could see it in their eyes …”
    Stevie forced herself to stop listening. “Come on,” she said, hurrying around the corner at the end of the stable aisle.
    She almost barreled into Max, who had just come out of the locker room. “Whoa,” he said. “What do I always tell you about running in the stable?”
    “I wasn’t running,” Stevie protested immediately. “Just walking fast.”
    Lisa elbowed her in the ribs. “Um, what Stevie meant to say is ‘Sorry, Max. It won’t happen again,’ ” she said.
    Max frowned. “All right, then,” he said. “Since you girls seem to have so much energy, why don’t you go help with Hodge and Podge? Red and Miles cooled them out, but they still need grooming. And their stalls could probably use cleaning.”
    Stevie glanced at the tack room door, which was shut. She opened her mouth to protest. Then she noticed the look in Max’s eye and remembered that The Saddle Club was still on probation. “Sure, Max,” she said meekly. “We’d be glad to help out.”
    I T SEEMED TO take hours to make the Cleveland Bays comfortable, though with all three girls and Miles workingtogether, it actually took less than half an hour. Finally The Saddle Club was free to return to the previous order of business.
    “Do you think they’re still in there?” Carole asked as she and her friends approached the tack room door, which was still closed. “What could be taking them so long?” Realizing what she had said and what it could mean, she glanced at Stevie and gulped. “Oops,” she said quickly. “I mean, they had a lot of tack to clean.”
    Lisa shot her a dirty look. Then she smiled tentatively at Stevie. “Okay,” she said, her voice a little too cheerful. “Well, let’s see if Phil is ready to head over to TD’s.”
    Before the three girls could step closer, the door suddenly flew open. Tessa and Phil rushed into the aisle, looking at each other and giggling. As soon as they noticed the three girls standing there, they immediately stopped laughing.
    “Oh, um, hi,” Phil stammered, his face turning