Horse Sense by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online

could she have missed them at Pine Hollow? She was just about certain they’d gone by the time she left.
    “What’s the matter, Lisa?” Estelle asked.
    “I’m looking for Stevie and Carole,” she explained. “We were supposed to meet here. I’m sure they’d left Pine Hollow by the time I did, so where are they?”
    “Carole Hanson and Stevie Lake?” Estelle asked. Lisa nodded. “But I saw them go,” Estelle said. “Carole, she went off in the truck with that woman doctor, Judy is her name? And, then, Stevie, she saddled up the pony, Nickel, and was taking him out into the field. She had the most tremendous bag full of things, but I don’t know what was in it.”
    Lisa got a deep sinking feeling. It was clear that both Carole and Stevie had completely forgotten The Club meeting they were supposed to have. Each was so wrapped up in her own special project that she didn’t even remember
Lisa’s
special project! Lisa was just about to explode with anger and hurt. How could her best friends let her down?
    “So look at us now,” Estelle said brightly. “You came here to meet your friends, but they’re not coming. I came here to go to the jewelry store, but they did not have what I wanted! We are in the same pair of shoes!”
    Lisa laughed at Estelle’s joke and she was glad for it. She swallowed hard and scrunched her eyes to hideany possible tears. “Well, since neither of our plans worked out, how about some ice cream?”
    “That’s a great idea,” Estelle agreed, and together they headed for TD’s.
    Within a few minutes, they’d found a table and ordered their sundaes. Lisa was surprised to learn that Estelle wasn’t familiar with all the possibilities at an ice cream parlor.
    “Don’t you have ice cream in France?” she asked.
    “Of course we do, but we don’t have it so fancy as you do here—and I don’t know what these things are.” She lifted the menu and pointed. “Like what’s this ‘marshmallow fluff’?”
    The way she said
fluff
made it sound more like
floof
. Lisa laughed.
    Estelle seemed a little hurt. “I’m sorry,” Lisa said quickly. “It’s just that you make it sound so much better than it is! But it’s pronounced
fluff
,” she said, emphasizing the short
u
. Estelle tried it again and got it right. Lisa told her what it was.
    “But it must be marvelous—sort of like meringue, eh?”
    “Want to try it? They can add it on top of your hot fudge.”
    Estelle’s eyes sparkled at the idea. Lisa stepped over to the counter and asked the waitress to add marsh-mallow fluff to one of the sundaes. Then she returned and the two girls talked.
    Lisa found that talking to Estelle was fun. She had done so many exciting things in her life, and lived inso many interesting places, that Lisa was almost jealous.
    “Did I tell you about the princess who used to be in my class at boarding school?”
    “Princess? A
real
princess?” Estelle nodded. “What country?” Lisa asked breathlessly.
    “Oh, goodness, I’m not sure I remember. One of those small ones, you know?” Estelle told her.
    Lisa didn’t know, but she told Estelle she did. It was one thing if a person needed to know what marsh-mallow fluff was. Anybody could need to know about that. But it was another thing altogether to need to be told about entire countries, even small ones. Lisa decided to cling to her ignorance rather than exhibit it.
    Estelle went on to tell a story about how this girl had invited everybody in the class to her parents’ castle for the weekend, but it turned out that it was such a small estate that there wasn’t room in the castle for all the girls to have their own rooms. As the tale unfolded, Lisa was simply swept away. To her, it was like a movie come alive, a dream come true. She just loved listening to Estelle’s stories. What a life she’d lived—and how lucky Lisa was even to know her.
    Before she knew it, she had an empty sundae dish in front of her, and the clock on the wall told