Horse Shy Read Online Free PDF Page A

well and Stevie couldn’t help being a little proud of her. After all, who had helped her since she’d started riding!
    While Stevie stole peeks at Lisa and Pepper, she saw, to her astonishment, that Lisa was pulling in on Pepper’s reins. It wasn’t easy to see, but she definitely moved them toward her hips. In an instant, Pepper drew to a walk. He broke his gait! That automatically meant victory for the Blues! Stevie completed her circle, pulled Comanche back into her place in the circle, and waited for Lisa to finish her round.
    As Stevie watched, she expected to see embarrassment on Lisa’s face. After all, breaking from a trot to a walk was really baby stuff. Lisa was better than that. But when Stevie looked at Lisa’s face, what she saw instead was a sly smile, and then she understood.
    Lisa had seen Veronica’s stunt. If she’d tattled, it might have ruined the whole camp-out. So she’d donethe only thing that would guarantee the right outcome of the game. She’d thrown it. She had intentionally pulled Pepper into a walk. Everybody would believe it was just a mistake since that was the kind of thing that happened to new riders.
    Stevie was proud of the way Lisa had handled the situation. She wondered if she’d have had the guts to do the same thing.
    “How could you
do
that?” Veronica wailed at Lisa.
    “I dunno,” Lisa said dumbly.
    “Well, you’re not going to be on
my
team again! Ever!” Veronica declared.
    “
Fine
by me,” Lisa said.
    Stevie grinned over at Carole.

“C AROLE , SOMETIMES I wonder what I’d do without you,” Max said.
    Carole beamed. Max wasn’t the kind of man who complimented people easily. In fact, he hadn’t said anything nice about her riding until the third class she’d taken with him!
    “I like to help,” she said, straightening Patch’s blanket and retying the strings at his neck. It was always cool in the mountains at night and the horses would be glad for the covers. “Besides, if I’m ever actually going to own a horse farm, I’ll have to get used to the work.”
    “And it’s a
lot
of work,” Max assured her.
    “It’s a lot more work than it ought to be if you’ve got somebody like Veronica boarding her horse withyou,” Red said, as Max walked away to check Diablo’s blanket. The disgust in his voice was clear. “She didn’t even bother with grain for Cobalt’s dinner—”
    “I’ll take care of that,” Carole said eagerly.
    “I did it already,” Red said. “I thought you did your part at lunch.”
    Carole wasn’t surprised that Red had also noticed Veronica’s carelessness at lunchtime.
    “These are really barn horses,” Max told Carole when he returned. “They need extra special care when they are on the trail.”
    That reminded Carole of something she’d been meaning to ask him. “Gosh, Max, speaking of that, Delilah’s been acting strangely. Could she be sick, do you think?”
    “What do you mean?” Max snapped, instantly concerned.
    “It’s like she’s suddenly sort of ladylike, more gentle than usual. But, then, she tried to bite me when I was feeding her tonight. She just seems unpredictable.”
    Max laughed. “Women,” he said. “It doesn’t sound to me like there’s anything to worry about.”
    But Carole still wasn’t sure.
    S TEVIE LEANED AGAINST a tree, scratching her tired back on its rough bark. The day had been great, and now she knew they were about to play one of the students’ favorite games. It was informally called Who Was Max the First?
    Maxmillian Regnery III was the current owner and operator of Pine Hollow Stables. It had been founded by his grandfather early in the century. Some people around town remembered Max’s father, known as Max the Second. He was a stern, sour-faced man, known for strutting along the town’s sidewalks, slapping a riding crop into the palm of his hand. Max the First had died more than 50 years earlier and it had become a Pine Hollow tradition to sort through the wild