Free Show Judge by Bonnie Bryant

Tuesday’s lesson, she hadn’t even spoken to them on the phone. For the members of The Saddle Club, that was unprecedented. She made up her mind to do something about it. “Come on, Corey, I’ll walk in with you,” she offered, jumping up from the hay bale. “Jasmine, keep working, I’ll check your list when I get back.”
    Stevie, who was waiting for Corey by Samurai’s stall, looked surprised to see Lisa.
    “Hi, Stevie, how’s it going?” Lisa asked, trying to sound casual and not wanting to make a big deal about their recent lack of communication.
    “Uh, hi. Things are great,” Stevie answered. “You working with Jasmine today?”
    “Yeah. You working with Corey?”
    “Yeah.”
    There was an awkward silence. Corey was looking at the two of them curiously. “Corey,” Stevie said, “start cleaning Samurai, but don’t tack him up; we’re not going to be riding today.”
    The girl hurried into the stall, obviously eager to get started.
    Lisa decided to make the first gesture. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you. School stuff kept me really busy.” It wasn’t quite true, but she wasn’t ready to talk about the real reasons yet.
    “I know what you mean. I haven’t had a second to myself!” Stevie responded with sincere exasperation. “In fact, I haven’t talked to Carole, either.”
    One part of Lisa was relieved to hear it. Ever since she had asked Carole for help and had been refused, she had felt out of sync with her friends and had been afraid that Stevie and Carole might be talking behind her back. But another, larger, part of her was alarmed.
None
of The Saddle Club had been speaking to each other. Something had to be done immediately. “I was thinking,” she said. “We haven’t been able to get together all week, so what about a sleepover? I could ask Max if we could use the hayloft tomorrow night.”
    Stevie hesitated, a slight frown clouding her face.
    Lisa was surprised and a bit hurt that Stevie wasn’tjumping at her suggestion. “Look, if you don’t want to—”
    “No, no, of course I want to,” Stevie said.
    Lisa was still puzzled by her initial hesitation. Was it possible Stevie didn’t want to spend time with her because they were in competition with each other? Stevie could be very competitive, but perhaps there was more to it. The important thing was to get them all together so that they could clear the air and get back to normal. “One of us should ask Carole. Have you seen her around?”
    “No, but then Corey and I haven’t made any
mistakes
today.”
    Lisa was taken aback by the resentment in Stevie’s voice. Perhaps Stevie and Carole were having problems of their own. “It wouldn’t be a Saddle Club meeting without her, though. Right?”
    Stevie looked ashamed. “Of course not. Tell you what, we’ll call her later when we finish our lessons.”
    “Great. I’ll go clear it with Max.”
    “Good. Meantime, I’ve got to get to work with Corey. I’m going to teach her about braiding today. Wish us luck.”
    “Believe me, I do!” said Lisa, recalling her own exasperating experience trying to teach Jasmine that particular skill. She hurried off to find Max, who, as itturned out, was in the hayloft and didn’t mind at all if they made use of it Saturday night.
    It was with a much lighter heart that Lisa returned to her work with Jasmine. She carefully checked the girl’s list. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you can think of?”
    Jasmine shook her head.
    “Okay, let’s go to the tack room. You’re going to get Outlaw ready for a show using only the items that you put on this list, and if you’ve forgotten something …” She shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.
    On their way to the tack room they passed by Samurai’s stall. Lisa couldn’t resist peeking in to see how it was going. Samurai’s mane was a neatly braided work of art.
    “Excellent work, Corey,” Stevie was saying.
    Corey grinned at her Pony Partner. “It always looked so