Free Riding Camp by Bonnie Bryant Page B

had been so obedient just a few hours ago when they’d been ridden. Her eyes searched among them for her own horse. But she didn’t see him. Maybe he was smarter than the others. Maybe he was already safe at the far end of the field.
    Then the realization hit her. Major wasn’t safe in the field. He wasn’t safe at all.
Major was in the barn!
    S TEVIE RAN TO the lower entrance of the barn where the horses were stabled. The fire had started in the loft, at the top of the barn. “Hot air rises,” she told herself. “It’ll burn, the whole thing will burn, but it goes up faster than it comes down. I’ve got time. I’ve got time.”
    But when she got to the barn, she wasn’t so certain.The air was filled with the sound of crackling fire and it was close, too close. She could barely breathe, but the only thought she had was for the horses. Especially one horse—Teddy. She had put him in the barn, and she would get him out. There wasn’t time to get Barry or Eleanor to help. All she had to do, she told herself, was to open the door. The horses would run.
    She could hear their loud whinnies and cries above the terrifying crackling of the consuming fire. The horses stomped on the wood floor in complete panic, drumming their hooves irregularly.
    The she heard one cry, louder than the rest. She couldn’t wait. She had to free the horses. It didn’t matter where they went. It just mattered that they didn’t stay.
    Without another thought, Stevie grabbed the handle to the door and pulled.
    N EARLY FIFTY HORSES pressed forward in the upper paddock toward the barn. The fence was strong, but it wasn’t designed to withstand pressure like that. Lisa could feel the wood wobbling under the crush of the horses’ power. She waved frantically at the animals, but it was as if they didn’t see her at all. They pushed her hands away with their noses. Debbie, next to Lisa, wasn’t having any more luck. Eleanor and Betty joined them, as did six other campers. Finally, with so manypeople trying to get them to move away, the horses stepped back, but the horses in the rear hadn’t gotten the message. They pushed the whole herd forward again, surging against the weakened fence.
    Lisa looked around, thinking furiously. They needed something really visible, something that would be impossible for the horses not to notice. She spotted a small stack of rags by the spigot that were used to dry the horses after their baths.
    In a flash, she hopped down from the fence, retrieved the rags, and handed them out to all the people standing by the fence. A few campers looked at them, momentarily puzzled.
    “Wave them!” Lisa yelled. “Anything to get the horses’ attention and frighten them away from the barn instead of toward it!”
    The campers followed her instructions. It seemed to help, but Lisa didn’t think that it would be enough.
    Then came two sounds that she had been expecting to hear—one bad, one good. The first was the collapse of the loft floor. There was a loud crash as it landed on the main floor of the barn, spreading the fire further and faster. The horses jumped back in surprise, but then quickly resumed their press toward the building.
    The second sound was one of sirens. The Fire Department had arrived. The barn was burning too fastto be saved, especially since the loft had collapsed, but maybe the firemen could keep the fire from spreading.
    Lisa returned to her work.
    N EARBY , C AROLE WAS thinking as hard and as fast as she could. She’d never seen anything like the horses’ frantic press to return to the barn, and she’d never seen horses less interested in nine people waving rags. If only just one horse would start to retreat, Carole was sure others would follow him to safety. Normally, waving a single rag would be enough to send a herd of horses on the run. She’d even witnessed Topside completely miss a jump in a horse show because a thoughtless spectator had waved her cloak.
    Topside—where is Topside?
Carole