Free Show Judge by Bonnie Bryant Page A

hard when I watched my dad do it, but you made it seem easy.”
    Lisa bit her lip. In some areas Stevie was obviously a much better teacher than she was. Slightly depressed again, she followed Jasmine to the tack room and watched as the younger girl collected the items on her list. As she supervised, she mulled the braiding problem over in her head. It would really benefit Jasmine to have Stevie teach her how to braid, but it wouldn’t befair of Lisa to ask unless she could offer Stevie something in return. The question was, what?
    “That’s everything on the list,” Jasmine announced.
    Lisa eyed the pile on the ground. “Okay, then that’s all you’ve got to work with. If you’ve forgotten something, you’ll have to do without it, and so will Outlaw.”
    Actually Lisa had already spotted a couple of items missing from the list. It would be interesting to see how Jasmine was going to clean her pony’s feet without a hoof pick or get him water without a bucket. This exercise would certainly help her learn some organizational skills. Which gave Lisa an idea. Stevie might be really good at teaching braiding, but she was notoriously bad at record keeping and organization, an area Lisa excelled in. Maybe she had something to offer in exchange after all! She hurried off to find Stevie and ask her.
    C OREY HAD DONE such a good job on Samurai’s mane that Stevie decided they could move on to his tail. “We always use a French braid on a hunter’s tail,” she explained, “but there are two different ways to do it. The first one I’m going to teach you is the under braid, which is the easiest. Once you can do that, we’ll move on to the over method.”
    “That makes sense,” said a voice from outside the stall.
    Stevie turned, startled to see Carole. For some reason, in spite of the fact that Carole had sounded approving, Stevie felt like she had been caught doing something wrong. She resented the feeling. “Carole, I didn’t expect to see you here today.”
    Lisa came hurrying down the hall. “Carole, what are you doing here?”
    “I decided I needed a good old-fashioned trail ride, and I was hoping you two might want to come along.”
    “I’m sorry, but I really can’t,” Stevie said. “I still have a lot of work to do with Corey.”
    “Me too,” said Lisa. “Only with Jasmine, of course,” she added.
    Stevie felt bad when she saw Carole’s disappointment. “Lisa did have a great idea, though. She suggested a hayloft sleepover tomorrow night. That is, if Max approves.”
    “He already did,” Lisa told them happily. “So what do you think, Carole, you up for a long overdue Saddle Club meeting tomorrow?”
    “Tomorrow night?” Carole said. “Well … I’ll have to check with Dad. I think there might be one of those all-night old-movie marathons on, and you know howhe loves to have me watch with him. But if not, I guess I can. I think.” She strode off down the hall.
    Stevie exchanged glances with Lisa, who seemed equally surprised by Carole’s unenthusiastic response. Of course they all had to check with their parents first, but that was hardly ever a problem. They all automatically assumed they could do these things until they were told differently. This time Carole seemed to assume right off the bat that she
wouldn’t
be able to.
    Lisa put her hands on her hips. “What’s up with her these days?”
    Stevie shook her head. “I have no idea. It’s not like she’s the one under pressure to perform.”
    “Yeah,” agreed Lisa. “She’s the ringmaster and we’re the performing ponies. Speaking of which, I’ve got to get back to Jasmine.”
    Stevie spent the rest of the afternoon perfecting Corey’s tail braiding technique and reminding the girl not to get so absorbed by her work that she placed herself in a position to be kicked. From time to time she noticed Carole hanging around the locker room, which struck her as odd since she had said she was going on a trail ride. Perhaps