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eight-passenger van.”Max had quite a bit more to say, but Stevie found her mind wandering a bit. She folded the schedule and put it in her pocket along with her list of activities. She couldn’t wait to get back to Carole and Lisa to let them know how cute the boys were—and how jealous Veronica was going to be!
    At last Max finished talking.
    “Okay, thanks, Max. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said on her way out of his office.
    Carole and Lisa were grooming Starlight when Stevie joined them. Automatically, she picked up a brush and joined in. One of the good things about horses was that they were big enough so that three best friends could groom one of them together. Starlight seemed to love the attention.
    “Max just gave me the schedule for the Italian boys,” Stevie announced. “I saw their pictures. Veronica is going to scream when she sees them. She’s going to be so jealous!”
    She filled her friends in on what Max had said and told them about some of the fun things she had in mind for them. She left out the tobogganing and water slide ideas.
    “A picnic! I love it!” Carole exclaimed. “Oh, it’s going to be a wonderful four days!”
    “It definitely is,” Stevie agreed. “Especially since a certain Veronica diAngelo is going to be furious and jealous every single minute of those four days!”
    “Imagine Veronica being jealous of you—and us,” Lisa added. “It’s going to be great.”
    “I’m not so sure,” Carole said. “Veronica isn’t the type to be jealous and not do anything about it. The girl will act, believe me. I don’t know what she’ll do, but it’ll be something, and it’ll be something bad.”
    Stevie shook her head. “I don’t think so. Look, if she tries anything, she’ll just get in hot water with Max. I don’t think she wants to do that, do you?”
    “I don’t think Max is going to be her target. I think Stevie is her target,” Carole said ominously.
    “Oh, phooey,” Stevie said. “Who cares about dumb old Veronica?”
    The question hung in the air.
    Mrs. Reg, Max’s mother, came over to Starlight’s stall. “Oh, there you are, Stevie,” she said. “You just got a phone call. It was your brother, Alex. Something about a bicycle? It wasn’t too clear, but he said that if he didn’t get it back right away, some picture of somebody named Phil was going to disappear.”
    “He
wouldn’t
!” Stevie cried.
    “I don’t know about that,” Mrs. Reg said. “But he didn’t seem awfully happy.”
    “Talk to you later!” Stevie said. She tossed Starlight’s brush into his grooming bucket and ran for Alex’s bike. She got on and began pumping as hard as she could to get home as fast as possible. She couldn’t let Alex rip upher picture of Phil! Brothers were just awful. Why did she have to have three of them?
    It didn’t really occur to Stevie that this situation was partly her fault, and that she’d been asking for trouble when she took her brother’s bike without asking.
    If he lays one dirty mitt on that picture
, she thought grimly,
I’ll
—
I’ll tell every girl in his class what a gross person he really is … and
 …
    It also didn’t occur to Stevie that the thoughts that were running through her head weren’t exactly appropriate for a person who had recently discovered the joys of doing things for others. Her thoughts were decidedly uncharitable.
    Stevie pedaled as fast and as hard as she could. She knew it was a good thing that the roads were empty because she wasn’t being careful at all. She wasn’t paying anywhere near enough attention to things as they whizzed past her. The only thing she noticed, in fact, was a poster with a girl on it that somebody had put up on a lamppost near Fenton Hall.
    Alex was standing on the Lakes’s front lawn when Stevie arrived.
    “About time!” he said. “You had no right—”
    “You didn’t hurt the picture, did you?” Stevie interrupted.
    “No, but next time I will.”
    “Sorry,” she