Dream Horse Read Online Free PDF

him stand still and get calm for a while before we finish this?” Lisa asked. “We could go change into our riding clothes while he settles down.”
    “That’s a good idea,” said Carole. “But I’ve started to pick his hooves, and he’s refusing to let me do it. If I give in now, he might get ideas for the future. I’ll just finish this and then give it a rest.”
    Carole stood by Starlight’s left hind foot. She put her hand on his leg and bent to run her hand down to the foot. It was her signal to him that it was time to lift his foot for a hoof cleaning. He didn’t lift it. She tugged as a gentle reminder. He lifted it. Then he swung it forward, out of her grasp, and clumped it back down. It landed right on her sneakered foot.
    “Ouch!” she cried.
    “Wow,” Lisa breathed. “Just like in Stevie’s dream!”

M AX TAPPED HIS riding crop impatiently against his leg. “Okay, Veronica, try that jump again,” he said.
    It was Wednesday. Lisa and Carole were at the afternoon class, where Max was working on jumping techniques—just as they had been doing with Stevie only a few days before when she’d fallen because of Veronica’s thoughtlessness. Lisa wasn’t given to thinking mean thoughts, but it occurred to her that she might feel a special piece of joy in her heart if, just by chance, Veronica were to have an accident while she was jumping.
    “I hope she falls,” Carole whispered to Lisa.
    Lisa tried unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. She sometimesforgot how often The Saddle Club girls had exactly the same thought at exactly the same time. It was one of the things she loved about her friends.
    “Quiet,” Max said in response to Lisa’s laugh.
    The girls wouldn’t mind seeing something bad happen to Veronica, but not if it was their fault. They sat quietly and watched.
    Veronica had been riding for a long time and had mastered a lot of basic and some advanced skills. She could jump well. Her horse, however, had mastered all the skills any horse could ever need, and he was an excellent jumper. Danny could have made a rank amateur look like a seasoned rider. He made Veronica look like a champion.
    Danny was what some people called a push-button horse. All the rider had to do was push the right buttons and the horse did the rest. Veronica and Danny approached the jump at an even canter, and when they got three and a half feet from the fence, Danny simply rose and flew over the jump, landing smoothly, effortlessly.
    Carole sighed. Lisa thought maybe it was envy, but it wasn’t. It was admiration—for the horse.
    “Veronica, you can’t let your horse do all the work,” Max snapped. “You’ve got to be in charge or you are not learning anything at all.”
    Veronica frowned, and Carole and Lisa exchangedgrins. It was fun to see Veronica get criticized by their instructor.
    Max gave all the riders a short break. The riders walked their horses at a comfortable gait and chatted with one another. Max’s theory was that the riders would talk about what they were learning. In the case of Lisa and Carole, he was at least half right.
    “We’ve got to get back at her,” Lisa said. “For Stevie’s sake.”
    “But with Danny, what could go wrong?” Carole asked.
    “Maybe we could startle him,” said Lisa.
    “He’s pretty steady,” Carole said.
    “Maybe we could startle
her
,” Lisa suggested.
    “Worth a try,” said Carole. “We do have to be a little careful, though. We don’t want to take a chance that anything bad might happen to her horse. Danny is blameless.”
    “Danny is better than blameless,” said Lisa. “He’s to be pitied just because he belongs to Veronica! I promise not to do anything that would upset him.”
    The girls decided that a way to make Veronica self-conscious was to be sure everybody was staring at her. As they rode around the ring during their break, they whispered the plan to other riders. The class was more thanwilling to do something that might make Veronica