Rocking Horse by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online

next rider?” She picked up a microphone.
    Carole moved Starlight to the side. Stevie gave her a leg up just as one of the inspectors called, “Veronica diAngelo,” over the loudspeaker. No one came out of the now silent stable tent. A full minute passed.
    “Veronica diAngelo, please report to inspection,” the inspector called again, more firmly. “This is your second call.”
    “Wow,” Carole whispered to Stevie. “Where do you think she is? Three calls and you’re out. She’ll be eliminated if she doesn’t get out here.”
    “She was getting dressed,” Stevie whispered back. “Danny wasn’t tacked, but he was clean.” She looked back at the stable and then up at Carole and Starlight. “Don’t get distracted. Think about the course.”
    Carole nodded toward the starting box. “I think I’ve got a little while to wait. Someone out there must be having a problem.” Usually the starters sent a new rider out every five minutes, but now two other riders, and Carole, were waiting their turns. If one of the riders on course had fallen off, or if a horse had gotten loose, the officials wouldn’t allow anyone else to start until the problem had been fixed.
    The inspector was on the point of announcing Veronica’sname for the third and final time when a rider walked out of the tent. The inspector smiled and put down her microphone. “That’s not Veronica,” Stevie said. “That’s Lisa!”
    Lisa’s face was pale and her eyes held an expression of horror mixed with the faintest touch of amusement. “Veronica will be right out,” she said politely. “She’s coming—she’s just had a little disaster.”
    When Veronica appeared with Danny, it became clear that the word
little
in no way described the disaster that had befallen her. The near side of Veronica’s gorgeous saddle looked at first as though it had been dipped in chocolate—and then Carole realized that the chocolate was actually mud. Mud coated Danny’s bridle and breastplate, too, and was in the process of getting all over his once spotless gray coat. As Carole watched, horrified, a big splotch of gooey mud slid off one of Danny’s stirrup leathers and caught Veronica right on the thigh. It was obvious to Carole that Veronica had tried to wipe her tack off, but the mud was too pervasive. Cleanup would take hours.
    Veronica herself looked just as wrecked. Her clothes were so filthy it looked as if she’d worn them for weeks. Her hair was coming out of its net, and her helmet was askew. She was wearing onlyone glove. “Why won’t anyone help me?” she screamed.
    “I tried to help her,” Lisa whispered indignantly to Carole and Stevie. “She actually threatened me with her crop. She told me this was my fault—and I was in Prancer’s stall the whole time!”
    “What happened?” Carole asked.
    “I think when she took her saddle out of her trunk she tried to hang it on her bridle rack,” Lisa reported. “The rack collapsed, and the tack went everywhere—”
    “Right into that big mud puddle,” Stevie finished. “I saw it,” she added in response to her friends’ questioning looks. “I even told Veronica she ought to fix it, and the bridle rack, too. It was an accident in progress, all right. But no, I didn’t cause any of it. I told you I’d wait until we got home.”
    Carole and Lisa nodded, satisfied, then turned their attention back to the inspection area. The scene that was unfolding before them was awe-inspiring. Veronica had been so upset by the accident that she had gotten her girth twisted and put her breastplate on backward. When the inspectors pointed these major faults out to her, she flew into a rage.
    “What do you mean, you’re going to have to penalize me?” she shouted in her haughtiest, most diAngelovoice. “You can’t penalize a person because of a little mud!”
    “Riding with a twisted girth is a hazard to both the rider and the horse,” the second inspector said clearly. “Your saddle would