Secret of the Stallion by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online Page B

looking after Copperfield approached to help her out of the saddle.
    Carole shook her head. “Not me,” she said. “Riding is a lot more than climbing into the saddle, riding, and then climbing back out. It’s about being totally responsible for your horse and knowing everything there is to know about his—uh, excuse me Miss Havisham,
her
—welfare. That’s one thing Max is one hundred percent right about.”
    “But while we’re here, can we just pretend it’s okay to let someone else do the work?” Stevie asked.
    “Okay.” Carole relented, handing her reins to the lad waiting for her.
    The three girls dismounted, thanked the lads, and left the stable to return to the hotel.
    They were rounding the castle wall where the road led to the main street of Cummington town when they first saw Veronica.
    “I thought she was taking a nap,” said Carole.
    “Why is it we always forget to never believe a word she says?” Stevie remarked.
    “What is she doing?” asked Lisa. That was a better question than Stevie’s because whatever Veronica was doing, it certainly looked strange.
    The Saddle Club ducked behind a tree so they could watch Veronica without being readily visible. Veronica was walking around the grass outside of the castle wall, studying the area intensely. She looked around at the ground, and she looked around at the sky. Her eyes followed the bed of the creek that fed the castle’s moat. There was a large old tree near where she stood. She studied it as well.
    “She’s flipped,” said Stevie finally.
    “Why do you say that?” asked Lisa. “She seems to know exactly what she’s doing.”
    “Maybe these are the symptoms of severe shopping withdrawal,” Stevie reasoned. “After all, she never did get to Harrods. So maybe she’s just looking to see if there’s a branch of Laura Ashley at the castle wall.”
    Lisa didn’t think it was a very likely explanation, but it was as good as any.
    “Maybe,” she conceded.
    “And maybe we don’t have to pay any attention to her,” said Carole. “Let’s get back to the hotel.”
    They cut across the grass to the road to return to the hotel. Whatever Veronica was doing, she was concentrating too intensely to notice them, and that was all right as far as The Saddle Club was concerned.

S IXTEEN P ONY C LUBBERS and all four of their coaches, plus Mrs. Reg, met in the hotel lobby that night to go out to dinner.
    “I’m Miss Thimbleby,” said the English coach. “Everybody calls me Thim, though, so you might as well, too.” The Pony Clubbers and their coaches spent the next few minutes exchanging names. It was easy for the Horse Wise group and the Italian boys, because they knew one another. The English riders and the Dutch took a little longer to remember. Also, the Dutch coach had a very long name—Herr von Heudenbroek. Lisa hoped she’d never have to call him anything!
    Thim continued. “Since you’re here in our nation, wethink of ourselves as your hosts, and so we are inviting you all out to dinner tonight. We’ve reserved a room upstairs at one of the downtown restaurants—”
    “There
is
a downtown here?” Veronica whispered to Lisa. “All I saw was a little village.”
    “—of course, downtown is just the little village of Cummington,” Thim went on. “So it will only take us a few minutes to walk there. Follow us, then. We’ve chosen a place called Azzip. It’s famous for having the best pizza within a twenty-kilometer radius of Cummington. Isn’t that just mouthwatering? We thought that would be a special treat for you young visitors.”
    The news was more than a little surprising to the American girls. The Saddle Club was beginning to think that the only food available in England was pizza.
    “Have you ever heard of the idea of too much of a good thing?” Stevie asked her friends.
    “Oh, don’t make such a fuss,” said Lisa. “Everybody is just trying to be nice to us.”
    “Maybe they’ll be a little less nice to us