Summer Rider by Bonnie Bryant

signed up another fifteen sponsors. And Stevie wasfeeling optimistic about their mission in town today. Their plan was going to work—it
had
to work.
    The kids were down to forty-three bottles of beer on the wall when Mike pulled onto the main street of the small town. He drove past the small, grassy town square and found a parking place in front of the library. Stevie grinned, remembering the excuse she had given Barry.
    “Okay, everybody out,” Mike said, turning off the engine. “We’ve only got about three hours before we have to head back, so do your thing.”
    “Ugh,” Carole grunted, trying to move enough to open the door. The backseat was so crowded that her arm was wedged against the armrest. Finally she managed to extricate herself. She waited on the sidewalk, rubbing her arm, while the others clambered out one by one. “I think I’ll walk back to camp.”
    Stevie was already giving orders to her troops. “Carole and Lisa, why don’t you two stake out the town square over there and talk to everyone who walks by,” she said, pointing. “Todd and Melissa, you take the businesses right around here. Phil and I will head down that way and start knocking on some doors. Helen and Bev, you go the other way.”
    Carole gave her friend a crisp salute. “Aye, aye, captain,” she said. “Let’s go raise some money!”
    The other kids let out a whoop, then parted ways. Mikecrossed the street to run some errands at the drugstore while Stevie and Phil hurried down a residential street.
    “We can talk to more people if we split up,” Phil pointed out. “I’ll take this side of the street if you’ll do the other side.”
    “Sounds good,” Stevie said, smiling at him. It was no accident that she had paired herself with Phil. This stay at camp hadn’t exactly been the romantic idyll she had pictured, but she would take romance where she could get it. Working together to save Moose Hill seemed pretty romantic to her. “We’ll meet at the end of each block and compare notes.”
    Phil nodded, and Stevie crossed the street and approached a white clapboard house with a neat, flower-filled yard. At her knock, the door was opened by a petite, red-haired young woman holding a baby.
    “Hi there,” Stevie said. “My name is Stevie Lake, and I’m staying at Moose Hill Riding Camp, just down the road. A group of us are trying to save the camp from being sold to land developers, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to sponsor me in our horse show next week.” She had rehearsed the speech all morning and had taught it to the others at lunch.
    The woman smiled. “You’re a Moose Hill camper?” she said. “That’s wonderful. I spent some great summers there during high school.” She sighed. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard it was being sold. It’s terrible.”
    “You mean you know about that already?” Stevie asked, surprised. From everything Barry had said, she had supposed the deal was a deep, dark secret known only to a few people.
    The woman nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said, jiggling the sleepy-looking baby up and down on her hip as she talked. “The sale has caused a lot of commotion around town. My husband is on the zoning commission, and they did their best to block the whole deal.” She shook her head. “But it didn’t work.”
    Stevie was fascinated. “Did your husband try to prevent the sale because you used to go there?”
    The woman laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “Although that would be reason enough.” She blushed. “It’s where he and I first met.”
    Stevie’s eyes widened. It seemed she and Phil weren’t the first couple to be brought together by Moose Hill’s magic! “Then why?” she asked.
    “Everyone around here knows Moose Hill, and it’s been a good neighbor over the years,” the woman said. “Nobody wants to see it razed for a bunch of fancy vacation condos for rich people. This area has always been rural, and we like it that way. That’s why most of us