The Fox Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

to see if he had actually managed to talk the biology teacher into donating something that had been soaking in formaldehyde for months. Alex disappeared into the crowd. Stevie peered into the bag.
    It held a sandwich—clearly bologna and cheese on white with mayonnaise, just the way she liked it. That was the way Michael liked it, too, so it had to be his sandwich. There was also some apple juice. She would have preferred Cranapple, but Chad’s drink was apple juice. This was his drink container. Unopened. Then there was a large orange. Alex always had an orange in his lunch. Stevie crinkled her eyebrows in confusion. Each one of her brothers had contributed something he really liked to her lunch. Each one of them had done something very nice for her. That was odd—very odd.
    Stevie opened the sandwich and the apple juice and began eating slowly, thinking about the very weird things that were going on. Around her, her friends talked about other things: the history test coming up next week; the Emerson Circus; and the fox hunt.
    Stevie concentrated all her thoughts on her brothers. They’d been mean to her and Phil, and she’d been very angry with them. She’d gotten even. And now that they were even, her brothers were being nice to her, saying they got her joke and didn’t want her to play any more practical jokes on them. That’s what being even meant.
    Stevie was pretty sure she understood now. After all, they were her brothers and they were a good lot, even if they were sometimes hard to take. Brothers and sisters had to stick together most of the time, and the Lakes were all good brothers and sister. There was nothing to worry about at all.
    Or was there?

“I SN ’ T THIS WONDERFUL ?” Carole asked Stevie and Lisa. Her friends had to agree. In spite of the fact that it was seven-thirty in the morning, it was definitely wonderful. They were at Pine Hollow, and the riders from Cross County had just arrived, accompanying vans filled with their own ponies and horses. Everywhere anybody looked, there were horses and riders, tack and equipment. There was a flurry of activity, riders tacking up, grooms grooming, mothers and fathers delivering unnecessary instruction, and Max and Mr. Baker scurrying around. Both carried clipboards and were busily making notes about everything they saw—and didn’t see.
    “I can’t wait for it all to begin,” Lisa said.
    Carole looked around and smiled. “It already hasbegun,” she said. “Remember that riding is more than being on a horse. It’s also taking care of the horse and preparing for being on the horse.…”
    Sometimes Carole could be almost too serious about horseback riding. When that happened, her friends thought it was their responsibility to remind her about it. “Oh come on, Carole,” Stevie teased. “We know that as well as you do. But the mock hunt won’t really begin until we’re all here and on our horses.
That’s
what Lisa and I can’t wait for.”
    “Me, neither,” Carole admitted graciously.
    The three girls had been at Pine Hollow for more than half an hour. They were each dressed in proper hunt attire, which meant that they were wearing riding pants and boots, white shirts and ties, and jackets, as well as their usual safety helmets. Their horses were tacked up and ready to go. Carole was riding her own horse, Starlight. Stevie was on Topside, the show horse she usually rode. At her friends’ suggestion, and with Max’s approval, Lisa had agreed to try Diablo, the tall bay gelding who had gotten his name because of his unusually small pointed ears.
    While the three of them were all ready to go, it seemed that nobody else around them was—or for that matter ever would be. Everywhere was mass confusion.
    “Isn’t that my saddle?”
    “The horse tried to bite me!”
    “Where’s my horse?”
    “Does anybody have a crop I can borrow?”
    The Saddle Club secured their horses to the paddock fence and joined the fray. They figured that if