Horse Games by Bonnie Bryant

with their racquets. Then Stevie had each of them pick up the ball, first standing still, then walking, then trotting.
    “Hey, it gets better!” Lisa declared, proudly showing off the trophy in her racquet’s net.
    “Not
it
—you,” Stevie corrected her. “When you practice, you get better. Next, throwing.”
    She led them through her program of exercises. With throwing, that included underarm tosses, sidearm tosses, and overhead heaves. Then it was time to practice catching. The riders faced each other on horseback and threw the balls back and forth. At first, catching was a disaster. Polocrosse balls were flying everywhere except into partners’ racquets. But then, it changed. By the fourth or fifth attempts, the riders learned how to control their racquets both as throwing and catching instruments. They were a long way from being good, but they were learning and that was something they hadn’t done much of in their first week as polocrosse players.
    When the half hour was up, all of the riders thought they had done a lot of work and that it had been good work. Everybody wanted to thank Stevie for her coaching. She had run a really good practice.
    The riders untacked and groomed their horses, fed them and gave them water, and then changed into street clothes and shoes. Within a very short time, there were only four girls left at Pine Hollow—The Saddle Club and Marie.
    “Where’s my mother?” Marie asked, suddenly realizing she hadn’t seen her since the end of class.
    Lisa, Carole, and Stevie looked at one another mischievously.
    “I think she got distracted by something,” Stevie said, putting a lot of emphasis on the word
distracted
.
    “By some
one
,” Lisa corrected her friend.
    “What are you talking about?” Marie asked.
    All eyes turned to Carole. “If you can believe it, my father invited your mother to go with him to the ice cream parlor.”
    A grin crossed Marie’s face. “You know what?” she asked. “That’s the first time in almost four months that I haven’t known exactly where my mother was. I mean, she didn’t even leave an emergency phone number!”

T WO DAYS LATER , Carole was tightening Patch’s girth for Marie. She handed the reins to Marie. “Let me just bring Starlight to the doorway and then I’ll help you into the saddle,” she said.
    Marie’s eyes were twinkling with excitement. She was obviously eager to get going.
    Carole had arranged to take Marie on a trail ride. All she had had to do was promise Max that she would watch her every second and pledge to Mrs. Dana that she wouldn’t let Marie’s horse go faster than a walk.
    Within a few minutes, all the work was done and they were ready to go. Carole led the way to the stable’s entrance. They each brushed the good-luck horseshoe and they were off.
    The two girls rode through the fields behind Pine Hollowside-by-side. Soon, they were talking easily, as if they had been riding through fields together all their lives.
    “This really is wonderful,” Marie said. “I spent so many months indoors that I had almost forgotten how nice fresh air is, how wonderful the fields smell in the spring, how beautiful the sky is when it’s filled with fluffy clouds, how—oh, I guess I must sound foolish. Is that what you were thinking?” she asked, blushing suddenly.
    “Not at all,” Carole said. “I was thinking how much you’ve changed.”
    “I have?” Marie asked.
    “You don’t know?” Carole was surprised.
    Marie shook her head.
    “Well, when I first met you a few weeks ago, you didn’t want to talk, much less admit that anything was wrong, or even ask for help. Now, you’re having fun, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah, I am,” she said. “And I want to have more fun, too. Can we trot?”
    “No way,” Carole said. “I promised Max and your mother on a stack of Bibles that this would be the safest trail ride anybody ever took. So, there is nothing you can say to convince me that we ought to go any faster than a