Ranch Hands Read Free Page A

Lisa nodded numbly.
    “We knew you’d be surprised,” said Mr. Atwood. “And we wanted it to be a surprise, too. You can’t imagine how hard it’s been.…”
    Lisa’s father began a long explanation about how the phone call Lisa thought was a wrong number the other day had actually been the travel agent. Lisa barely heard the story. All she really heard was Europe and four weeks. She’d even be gone before her friends would leave for Eli’s. She’d be in places where they didn’t have horses, where they couldn’t ride every day. She’d even be in places where they didn’t speak English and didn’t know her and she didn’t know anybody. She wouldn’t have any friends around, just her parents.
    Lisa looked at the two of them. They’d seen the blank look on her face and took it to be excitement. Lisa was glad of that. She loved her parents. She couldn’t disappoint them when they had gone to so much trouble for her.
    “… the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. And don’t forget Nôtre Dame. I read that there’s a boat trip you can take on the Seine through the city. They call it The City of Lights, you know.…”
    The City of Lights—a place she’d never been, filled with strange people, strange foods, strange words. What did it hold for her? Not much, Lisa thought. She wanted to go to the ranch. She wanted to ride and be with her friends.
    She had to try to tell her parents. She took a deep breath and interrupted an explanation about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
    “Kate Devine’s invited us all to go to a Western riding camp that Eli’s running this summer. It’s called High Meadow. We’d be working—”
    “No work for you this summer. Just pleasure!” her mother interrupted.
    The ranch trip was dead and Lisa knew it. She was going to Europe with her parents.
    She felt totally overwhelmed. She couldn’t even take a bite of the meat loaf. She just put down her fork. She had to be alone. She wanted to cry, and she didn’t want her parents to know how disappointed she was.
    “Excuse me,” she said. She stood up from the table and headed for her room as quickly as she could.
    “She’s going to call her friends and give them the good news,” she heard her mother say to her father.
    The tears welled up in Lisa’s eyes. The
terrible
news she silently corrected her mother.
    *  *  *
    A PEA FLEW across the table and hit Stevie squarely on the forehead. She stuck her tongue out at her twin brother, Alex.
    “Stop that!” Mrs. Lake said to Stevie.
    “He threw the pea at me!” Stevie protested.
    “What
are
you talking about?” Alex asked sweetly. “Of course I didn’t throw a pea at you—though, of course, I might have if I’d thought of it, because a certain sister of mine is a total dirty rotten fink.”
    Stevie knew what he was talking about, but she didn’t agree that she’d been rotten. After all, if Alex actually liked Melissa Sanders and thought she was cute, what was wrong with Stevie letting Melissa know it? How could she have anticipated that Melissa would then post a large, public note on Alex’s locker saying she wouldn’t go out with him if he were the last boy on earth. Stevie hardly thought she should be held responsible for that. It was Alex’s poor taste in girlfriends that brought it on, not her telling Melissa that Alex thought she was cute.
    “I’m going to get you,” Alex said. “Every day this summer I’m going to hide by the trails at that precious stable and scare your horse as you ride by.”
    Stevie sneered. “Shows how much you know,” she said. “I won’t be here this summer.”
    There was a silence at the table.
    “Just where do you plan to be?” Mrs. Lake asked.
    “Out West,” she said. “See, Eli is running this Western riding camp, and he’s asked The Saddle Club to come help him. We’re going to be like junior counselors.”
    “No,” her parents said in a single voice. That surprised Stevie just a little bit. Normally, it took a few