Horse Games Read Free Page B

there. And, by the way, how are you feeling? Any more sign of that fever you had earlier today?”
    “I never did have a fever, Dad,” Carole said.
    “But you were sick this morning,” he reminded her.
    “No. You just
thought
I was sick. I’m in fine shape—healthy as a—”
    “I remember,” he said. “You’re healthy as a horse. Just see to it you stay that way, okay?”
    “Deal,” she said. She took his hand, which was resting on the seat of the car, and squeezed it. Sometimes it was a nuisance having a father who could start worrying about you at any moment. Most of the time it wasn’t a nuisance at all.

“H ELLO ?” S TEVIE ’ S VOICE sounded sweet and cheery. It wasn’t exactly the way she felt, but it was the way she wanted a certain telephone caller to
think
she felt.
    “Hi, it’s me,” Phil Marston said.
    “Oh, wow, hi,” Stevie said. No matter what she was scheming, the sound of Phil’s voice was always welcome and she couldn’t help her enthusiasm. “I was hoping you’d call. Wait until I tell you what we did today in Pony Club.”
    Phil waited. Stevie went on. “We actually learned how to play polocrosse. Can you believe it? I mean, after all, we were just talking about that earlier and
boom
that’s the very next activity Max had for us. It was a blast—just like you said it would be.”
    “What position were you playing?”
    “Attack,” Stevie said, trying to sound casual.
    “Score many goals?” he asked.
    “We only played one chukka,” she told him.
    “Score any goals?” he asked.
    “Just four—or was it five?” Stevie knew perfectly well that the answer was four, not five. And she also knew that that was the total number scored by both teams the entire day. Of those, two were disqualified because Attack was too close to the goal, another was disqualified because the ball had been carried over the penalty line, and the fourth wasn’t anything to boast about because it had been made in the team’s home goal. Stevie had not been personally responsible for any of those disasters. Her own goal attempt had missed completely. The ball had flown out of her racquet, off the playing field, and into the stable, startling three horses and a stablehand. Stevie didn’t think she needed to mention that.
    “Hey, that’s pretty good for your first time at polocrosse,” Phil said.
    “Oh, I don’t know. I think we’re going to get a lot better.” She certainly hoped so, anyway!
    “Probably,” he said. “Practice makes a lot of difference in a game like polocrosse.”
    “Well, maybe,” Stevie said. She didn’t actually doubt that he was right and she knew that her team would have to do a lot of practicing very soon, but she needed to take another angle right then. “Sometimes, though, I think if you simply practice with other people who are new atsomething, you just study mistakes. The best thing would be to actually play against somebody really good. Do you know anybody really good that we could learn from?”
    “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of any other team’s Attack that scored four or five goals in one chukka the first time it practiced,” Phil said. “I mean, what’s the point of trying to learn from somebody else when you’re already that good?”
    Of all the nerve. He was as good as calling her a liar.
    “You don’t believe me?” Stevie said.
    “I didn’t say that,” he protested, but she knew he didn’t believe her and it annoyed her. It didn’t occur to her right then that he had a very good reason for not believing her and that was because what she’d said simply wasn’t true.
    “Well, if you don’t think we’re very good, why don’t you just give us a chance to show you? I mean, all you have to do is bring a team over to Pine Hollow and you can see for yourself!”
    “I might just do that,” Phil said. “As a matter of fact, there’s going to be a Pony Club rally in two weeks. Why don’t you ask Max if he thinks Horse Wise can