Stevie Read Free Page B

got Dinah’s letter inviting me to Vermont. An excerpt from her letter follows:
    Every year around spring break, we have sugaring off. That’s when we collect the sap from the maple trees and make syrup and sugar. We make up teams of three and I just learned that my team is one person short. Naturally, I thought of you. It’s a whole week full of fun. We do it the old-fashioned way, using horse-drawn sleighs and everything. You’re going to love it, Stevie. It’s a great time of year here, and I promise we wont spend a minute of it in the principal’s office!
    NOTE: Dinah’s reference to the principal’s office was just a joke. You may recall, Miss Fenton, that Dinah and I occasionally let our natural exuberance get the better of us so that we would have to come to you and explain ourselves. But of course, we were both much more mature than that by this time, so she was just kidding. She certainly didn’t intend for us to get into any trouble on this trip. Little did she know … But you’ll just have to continue reading to find out about the exciting and unexpected things that happened to us.
    Naturally, I was excited about the trip, even though it meant missing a very important meeting at Cross County Stables and having to give up many trail rides with my fellow members of The Saddle Club. Which brings us to …
    Close-up on: The Saddle Club
    The Saddle Club plays an important role in my story, so I’d like to introduce it here. It’s a club I started with my twobest friends, Carole Hanson and Lisa Atwood. We all ride together at Pine Hollow, and we’ve been best friends ever since Lisa started taking lessons there. Carole and Lisa both attend the public school in Willow Creek, so I’ll give you a brief idea of what each of them is like, since they’ll be appearing frequently in this report.
    Carole has been riding for practically her entire life, and she loves it more than anything. She’s the best junior rider at Pine Hollow, and she lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes horses. Every inch of her room is plastered with photos, posters, and drawings of horses, especially her own horse, Starlight, who was a Christmas gift from her father. Carole already knows she wants to work with horses somehow when she grows up, although she changes her mind every other day about exactly what she wants to do—competitive rider, trainer, breeder, vet, or who knows what else. Personally, I’m not sure she’ll ever be able to decide. She just might have to do them all! Carole has lived in Willow Creek for a few years, but before that she lived all over the country on different military bases because her father, Colonel Hanson, is in the Marine Corps. Her mother died of cancer a couple of years ago, and Carole still misses her, but she has a great relationship with her dad, who’s a pretty cool guy. In addition to her horse, Starlight, Carole has a cat named Snowball. She loves country and western music, making Rice Krispies treats, and watching funny movies, and she hates green peppers.
    Then there’s Lisa. She’s the newest rider of the three ofus, even though she’s a year older than Carole and me. But she’s almost as good as we are because she’s such a fast learner. And not just in riding—Lisa can do almost anything once she sets her smart, totally logical mind to it. Her grades are perfect, she plays about five instruments, takes ballet, and used to take art classes and tennis lessons. She even knows how to play chess and golf! Mostly it’s her mother who makes her learn all that stuff—Mrs. Atwood worries a lot about making Lisa into a proper young lady. But even without her mother bugging her, Lisa would probably still be a perfectionist. That’s just the way she is. Don’t ask me to explain it. At Pine Hollow, she used to ride a sweet, gentle horse named Pepper … but more on that later. Lisa has an older brother who’s studying in Europe, and a Lhasa apso named Dolly who can balance a Ping-Pong