Free Riding Class by Bonnie Bryant Page A

their trail ride, they had told Emily about The Saddle Club and its rules.
    “We’ve got a whole week until the competition,” Stevie said. “That’s ages, compared with how much time I’ve had to plan other things.”
    “I ride every day at Free Rein. I’ll be able to spend a lot of time practicing.”
    “We’ll come there and help you get P.C. ready,” Carole said. “We can set up some obstacles in the ring like the ones Max described.”
    “Maybe you can bring P.C. to Pine Hollow next Friday and take another trail ride,” Lisa suggested. “We know Max’ll let you do that, and we’ll ask him about the handy right away.”
    “No,” said Stevie. The other three looked at her. “No, Lisa, not right away. We’re not going to go back to Pine Hollow and say, ‘Max, Veronica was mean to Emily, so she’s going to ride in the handy.’ Think about how that will sound.”
    Lisa grimaced. “You’re right,” she said. “Max won’t really understand. He’ll think we’re just—”
    “Whining,” Stevie concluded. “Going off half-cocked. Remember, I’ve got a lifetime’s experience dealing with three brothers and sibling warfare. What we need to do is work on our own until we’re all the way ready. Then we’ll tell Max.”
    “I’ll wait to tell my mother, too,” Emily said, agreeing with Stevie. “She’s not as into revenge as my father is.”
    S TEVIE ’ S PARENTS WERE lawyers, so they had conference calling on their home phone. Stevie used it later that night to call the rest of The Saddle Club and Emily all at once.
    “Time to talk strategy,” Stevie said. “Let’s think about what Max said we’d need to do at the stations on the trail. Then we can think about how to teach P.C.”
    “He said he wasn’t going to tell us exactly what the stations were,” Emily said.
    “Yes.” Lisa thought hard. “But Max is fair, and he wants us to listen to him, so what he says is usually important. He gives out a lot of hints. The stations probably won’t be exactly like what he said, but if we know how to do what he said, we should be in good shape.”
    “P.C. really felt comfortable on the trail,” Emily offered.
    “He looked comfortable,” Carole agreed.
    “Practically Comatose,” continued Emily. The Saddle Club laughed.
    “If you come over on Friday, we can practice creek crossings,” Carole said. “But he didn’t seem spooked by being near the stream today.”
    “He wasn’t. I don’t think that walking backward or forward through any kind of obstacle is going to bother him, either. We do a lot of that at Free Rein already, and he’s used to having all kinds of crazy stuff around him. I mean, there’s even a basketball hoop in the arena. It’s the jumping that’s worrying me.”
    “Can you hold your two-point position at a trot?” Carole asked. Stevie snorted. Sometimes Carole already sounded like a riding instructor.
    “Yeah, if I grab mane,” Emily said. “Remember? I did it in the ring when you were watching me. That’s how P.C. and I warm up.”
    “Then you’ll be able to jump okay,” Carole assured her. “It’s only going to be a single fence, and the hardest part about jumping is putting all the fences in a course together. Plus, whatever you might jump has to be small enough for the little kids to clear it easily on their ponies, and P.C.’s a pretty good-sized horse. He’ll probably even be able to step over the fence. All we’ll have to do is teach him to get to the other side.”
    “We can do that,” Emily said. “He learns fast.”
    “How about opening a gate?” Stevie asked.
    “Will I be allowed to use my crop?”
    “Sure,” Stevie said. “I use mine when I open a gate from horseback. It isn’t hard. I’ll show you.”
    “Sounds great.”
    “Uh-oh,” Lisa said.
    “What?” asked the other three at once.
    “I just remembered something else Max said. He said he might make us dismount and remount our horses.”
    There was a moment of dead