Stables S.O.S. Read Free

Collins’s son said to upset Bean so much?
    Bean gulped. “He told me that he was selling Laurel Farm for development.” Bean started crying. “The paper was covered in plans for new houses in this very field, and he said that we would all have to find new homes for the ponies!”

We wasted no time setting off alarm bells with everyone else who was at the stables that day.
    â€œAre you absolutely certain, Bean, that’s what he said?” asked Nicky, leading her daughter Bethany around the yard on their ancient and tiny bay pony, Pippin. “I mean,” she added, giving everyone a knowing look, “you do sometimes get the wrong end of the stick, don’t you?”
    â€œWe all went and talked with Robert-bleeping-Collins,” James told her, defending Bean. “He confirmed it. He told us that Mrs. C isn’t able to look after herself anymore and that she’ll be going into a home.”
    â€œAnd he’s selling the land to a developer,” interrupted Katy, “who’s going to build hundreds of houses on the field!”
    The field where Drummer and his friends graze , I thought. I looked over Nicky’s shoulder to the field and the outdoor arena where we all schooled the ponies and imagined buildings covering the grass.
    â€œIt’s a prime site,” James said, echoing Robert Collins’s words. “Houses will sell like hot cakes around here.”
    â€œHe didn’t seem very upset about his mom,” Bean said. Her eyes were still red where she’d been crying.
    â€œAren’t we sitting tenants or something?” asked Katy. “He can’t just kick us all out, can he?”
    â€œPerhaps we should have a sit-in. You know, stop the development, make banners, petition the government, or something,” I suggested, imagining us all lined up on the drive facing up to big yellow bulldozers.
    â€œGreat idea!” enthused Katy, her eyes flashing. “We can ride to city hall on the ponies. That will get the press behind us.”
    â€œTiffany’s terrible in traffic,” mumbled Bean.
    â€œSlow down,” said James, holding up his hands. “Oh, good, here’s Sophie. She always knows what to do.”
    Sophie’s gigantic horse trailer rolled past us, a tricolor champion ribbon fluttering in the front, next to a red and a blue ribbon. It had been a good day , I thought. And we were about to spoil it, big time. We all followed in its wake, waiting impatiently for Sophie to park and turn off the engine. Dee-Dee jumped down from the cab.
    â€œYou all look so gloomy,” she said. Her cream showing shirt was crumpled and the front of it hung outside her butter-colored showing jodhpurs. She’d replaced her boots with sneakers, her brown hair was scooped up in a hair clip, and she had a smudge on one cheek and what looked like chocolate around her mouth. “What’s up?”
    We all explained in a jumble of words and Dee and her mom listened in shock. When we’d finished, and Sophie had gotten to the bottom of all the jumbled explanations, she pressed her lips together and frowned.
    â€œHmmmm,” she murmured. “Is this Robert Collins person still here?”
    â€œNo,” I told her. “He drove off half an hour ago. The woman went with him. She was a surveyor or something.”
    â€œHmmmm,” Sophie said again. “And Mrs. C is going into a home?”
    â€œThat’s what he said,” gulped Bean. “Poor Mrs. C. She’ll hate it in a home. Who will look after the cats? Who’ll have Squish?”
    â€œSlow down, Bean,” Sophie told her. “I went to see Mrs. Collins at the hospital yesterday, and she didn’t say anything about going into a home.”
    We all looked at her, appalled.
    â€œYou mean she doesn’t know?” asked Katy. “That’s terrible!”
    â€œWell, things could have changed,” Sophie told us,