Horse Shy Read Free

them pass.
    All at once, though, he began charging. He was perhaps fifty yards from the horses, and although his legs were short and he was stocky, he was fast. Very fast.
    “Get out of here!” Stevie hollered, turning Comanchearound and heading for the fence. Delilah and Pepper took off as well. Then, in horror, Lisa realized that there was no gate there! They’d be cornered! A rabbit was one thing for Pepper to contend with, but a bull? Before Lisa could figure out what the answer was, Stevie showed her. As soon as Comanche got close to the fence, Stevie leaned forward, rising in the seat. Then Comanche was airborne, lifting himself gracefully over the fence, landing smoothly on the other side. Stevie cantered on a few steps and then drew her horse to a halt, waiting for her friends.
    Carole, on board Delilah, cleared the fence with a foot to spare. It looked so easy!
    Terrified, Lisa rose in the saddle as she’d seen her friends do. She leaned forward, grabbing some of Pepper’s mane in her sweaty hands. Just when she was afraid they would crash headfirst into the wooden fence, her friends cried “Now!” Maybe Pepper heard them. Maybe he just knew what he was supposed to do. It didn’t matter to Lisa how it happened, because it happened. While she clutched the saddle and mane with all her strength, she felt Pepper lift off the ground and sail to safety on the other side of the fence.
    Lisa had never been more thrilled—or more scared—in her life. Stevie and Carole cheered wildly, clapping for Pepper and for Lisa.
    “Gee, I didn’t know you could jump!” Stevie said.
    “Neither did I,” Lisa said. “Neither did I.”

“I F ONE MORE person asks me where the extra stirrup leathers are, I’m going to scream!” Carole announced. But nobody was listening to her.
    Everything around the stable and front driveway of Pine Hollow Stables was in an advanced state of confusion. It seemed to Carole that she was the only organized part of it.
    The eleven people and eleven horses who were going on the Mountain Trail Overnight—or the MTO, as the girls called it—were swarming around the bus and horse vans. All the riders were trying to make sure their own things were packed. Carole clutched a clipboard tightly in her hand. She checked it one more time—a
final
time, she hoped—but she knew better.
    “Need any help?” Stevie asked, hauling her own bedroll and knapsack over to the bus.
    “Hey, thanks,” Carole said. “Everybody else wants to know how I can help
them
.” Carole looked at the clipboard again. “Oh, here’s what you can do. We’re going to need hoof-picks. Joe Novick said he’d get them, but right after he promised, I saw him go in the opposite direction and I haven’t seen him since. Grab a couple from the tack room, will you? And put them in with the grooming gear?”
    Stevie saluted with a grin and headed for the stable’s tack room. Carole put a second check mark next to “hoof-picks.”
    Veronica diAngelo was standing near the bus. Three of her friends—more like ladies-in-waiting, Carole thought—were gathered around her. Carole stifled a giggle when she noticed that each of them—Meg Durham, Lorraine Olsen, and Betsy Cavanaugh—was wearing the identical riding pants that Veronica had worn. Last week. They’d probably driven their mothers crazy trying to imitate Veronica’s fashion-show riding habit.
    As far as Carole was concerned, there was nothing about Veronica that she wanted to imitate—but Veronica did have one thing Carole longed for. Veronica’s father had bought her a beautiful Thoroughbred stallion named Cobalt. Carole would have given anything to own Cobalt, and sometimes it almost seemed like she did. Veronica liked owning a prize Thoroughbred.She didn’t like taking care of him and exercising him regularly, though. She often asked Carole to help and Carole never said no. She loved that horse.
    “Did we remember to bring horse blankets?” Red O’Malley, one of