A Blue for Beware Read online

  “Junior Pleasure Class next,” the announcer says. “Juniors in the ring, please.”

  Pleasure Class is supposed to show that your horse is easy to ride, with nice manners and smooth gaits. This will be the class, Lily thinks. Beware is a pleasure to ride, and the judge will see that.

  As Lily goes into the ring, Mandy rides up close to her. Mandy’s eyes sparkle, and she is smiling. She doesn’t say anything. She is waiting for something.

  After a second Lily makes herself say it. “Congratulations.”

  As soon as she says it, Lily knows it doesn’t sound right. Her voice comes out mean-sounding, and she doesn’t want to be mean to Mandy.

  But it is too late. Mandy flushes. “Good luck!” she says. Her voice sounds just the way Lily’s did. She rides forward to say something to Ginger Taylor and leaves Lily staring at her back.

  Pleasure Class goes the same way Equitation did.

  Walking is okay. But as soon as trotting starts, there is too much to watch out for. Slow horses. Fast horses. Horses passing too close. Horses that want to kick. Beware’s trot feels rough and jerky, not smooth the way it is at home.

  And when cantering comes, and Shane runs away again, Beware tries to run with him. For a second it is a race, Shane and Beware side by side.

  Then Lily slows Beware down. But Shane gallops twice around the ring before Mandy can stop him.

  Finally it is time to line up. All Lily wants is to get out of the ring and take her hot jacket off. She will not get a ribbon—but if the judge could come home with her, if the judge could see Beware jump over the brook and canter up the hill and trot smoothly along the trail through the woods, then Beware would get a blue ribbon. Then the judge would see that Beware really is a pleasure.…

  “Sixth place goes to number sixty-two,” the announcer says. Lily waits for someone to move out of line and go get the green ribbon. She wishes the person would hurry.

  “Number sixty-two?” the announcer says. “I can’t read this name.…”

  “Hey, that’s you!” says the girl next to Lily. She points to the number on Lily’s arm.

  “Oh!” Lily rides forward, and Beware stops all by herself, right beside the judge. Beware has won lots of ribbons before this, and she knows just what to do. She stands quietly, and she lowers her head so the judge can put the green ribbon on her bridle.

  The judge looks up and smiles. “Nice,” she says. “Now you just need to relax.”

  Lily hangs the green ribbon on the side of the truck. Across the wide space it faces the green ribbon on Mandy’s trailer. Lily looks from one to the other.

  Gramp isn’t happy, though. “She was better than any of ’em!” he says, and he feeds Beware a carrot. “You should have won, little mare.”

  “Linwood!” Gran says warningly.

  “The judge said I need to relax,” says Lily, and Gramp snorts.

  “Relax! How can you relax in the middle of a goldarned stampede? Tell them others to relax—or go home and learn how to ride!”

  Lily is surprised that Gramp is mad. Last year, when Lily got upset, he told her that horse show ribbons didn’t matter. “It’s the horse that matters,” he said then, “and having fun.”

  Last year Lily did have fun. And a couple of times the pony even did what she told him to do.

  But last year she didn’t have to ride against Mandy.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “THE WINNER in Western Pleasure, Don Rice,” the announcer says. “Now, could we have a few people in the ring to help set up the trail course?”

  Gramp goes, and some other men. They set up a little jump and a wooden platform, like a bridge, for the horses to walk over. They drape a sheepskin over a barrel, to look like a bear. They hang a raincoat on a post, and they set up another post with a mailbox on it.

  Lily and Mandy ride over to the ring. They get there at the same time, and they stop side by side. But they don’t say anything.

  After a minute Gramp and Mandy’s mother come over. Gramp says, “Congratulations,” to Mandy, and Mandy’s mother says, “Congrats!” to Lily. Lily and Mandy look at each other now, but they still don’t say anything.

  One by one the little kids ride around the trail course. Some of them look scared, alone in front of all those people. They sit frozen on their ponies. When the ponies do the wrong thing, the riders don’t do anything to stop them.

  Other kids aren’t scared at all, and they try hard. They pull on the reins. They kick the ponies’ sides. But the ponies keep on doing what they want to, whether the riders try or not.

  “That’s me!” says Mandy, pointing, as a pony backs away from the sheepskin. “That’s what Shane’s going to do.” Lily can’t think what to say, but she feels better that Mandy has spoken.

  “You have to be firm with him,” Mandy’s mother says. “Don’t let him get away with things.”

  But Gramp winks up at Mandy. “Don’t know as I’d want a horse that’d walk straight up to a bear. Would you?” Mandy laughs.

  The little kids get their ribbons, and now it’s the Juniors’ turn. Ginger Taylor goes first, and her horse does everything perfectly. Lily strokes Beware’s neck as she watches.

  At home Beware does all these things, too. She walks over bridges, and she stands still while Lily gets the mail out of the mailbox. She doesn’t get scared when Lily puts on her rattly raincoat.

  But Lily knows that Beware would not walk up to a bear. She would turn and run. She would get both of them safely away. If Beware thinks that sheepskin is really a bear, she will not get a ribbon in Trail Class.

  The announcer calls Mandy’s name. “Uh-oh!” Mandy says, and rides into the ring. Shane is supposed to walk, but he is already trotting. He trots right past the mailbox. Mandy has to turn around and come back. After she has opened the mailbox, Shane moves away, and Mandy leaves it open.

  Shane leaps high over the jump. He snorts and sidesteps when Mandy tries to put on the raincoat, and he makes her drop it. He won’t even go near the sheepskin. And every time Mandy tries to guide him down the middle of the platform, Shane swerves at the last minute and walks beside it. Finally the judge tells Mandy to give up.

  When Mandy comes out of the ring, her face is red. Her eyes are glittery with tears. For a second tears prick Lily’s eyes, too.

  “He’s being awful!” Mandy says as she goes past. Shane won’t stop, even now.

  Gramp steps in front of Shane and catches him by the rings of the bit. He gives the bit a little shake, and he makes Shane stand still. “There! You ain’t a bad horse,” Gramp tells Shane. “Just got speed on the brain. Taking him in Barrel Racing?” he asks Mandy.

  “I don’t think so.” Mandy wipes her eyes.

  “You ought to,” Gramp says. “Might settle him down if he gets the chance to run.” Gramp turns to talk to Mandy’s mother.

  Lily stares at him. Why is Gramp telling Mandy to go in Barrel Racing when he won’t let her? Does he think Mandy is a better rider? Does he think Shane is a better horse?

  But now the announcer is calling her name. Lily rides into the ring. She looks at the people standing by the fence. There is Gran in her gingham dress, and Mom, smiling. Lily looks away. She sits straight and still in the saddle, like a molded plastic rider.

  Beware stands quietly while Lily opens and closes the mailbox. She trots up to the little jump and hops over it. She doesn’t move while Lily puts on the raincoat.

  “Good, Beware,” Lily whispers. She doesn’t care, now, that everyone is watching. She walks Beware toward the sheepskin. “It’s not a bear,” she tells Beware.

  Beware’s steps falter for a moment. She snorts at the sheepskin. But when Lily squeezes with her legs, telling Beware to go nearer, Beware does.

  “Good girl!” The sheepskin was the hard part. As she heads toward the platform, Lily is thinking that Beware has done everything perfectly. Maybe this will be the class for a blue ribbon.

  Beware walks up to the platform. She pricks her ears and
looks down at it.

  Then, quietly and carefully, she walks past it, on the grass.

  A groan goes up from the people watching. Lily’s face gets hot. She turns Beware around, and she comes back toward the platform. She makes her legs firm on Beware’s sides, and she shortens the reins. She points Beware straight at the middle of the platform. “Walk!”

  Beware gives a big sigh. She lowers her head, and she walks across the platform. Above the thud of her hooves on the wood, Lily hears clapping.

  “She goes over bridges all the time!” Lily says, outside the ring. “She never does that!”

  “Course not,” says Gramp. “She’s got more sense!” He rubs with the flat of his hand under Beware’s forelock. “And she’s got more sense than to walk on a piece of wood when there’s safe ground right next to it.”

  “That was just a pretend bridge,” Mom says, “and Beware didn’t know she was supposed to pretend.”

  But Lily should have known. She should have expected Beware to walk beside the platform, and she should have been ready. Gramp turns to tell Don Rice’s father how smart Beware is, and Lily knows it is true. But it doesn’t make her feel better.

  She leads Beware toward the truck, and she thinks, just for a moment, that horse shows are stupid.

  CHAPTER SIX

  NOW IT IS LUNCHTIME. Lily takes Beware’s saddle and bridle off and ties her on the shady side of the truck. She gives Beware some hay, and Gramp brings a bucket of water. Gran and Mom spread out a blanket on the grass and open the picnic basket.

  “Are you having a good time, Lily?” Mom asks.

  Lily knows she should say yes. Mom and Gran and Gramp have helped her come here. It isn’t nice to be ungrateful.

  But it isn’t nice to lie, either. Lily just nods, and she takes a big bite of sandwich so she doesn’t have to say anything.

  Gramp shoves her leg with the toe of his work boot. “Relaxed yet?” he asks, and he gives Lily a twinkly look from under his hat brim.

  Lily swallows her bite of sandwich. “How come you told Mandy to go in Barrel Racing when you won’t let me?”

  “Thought she might win,” says Gramp. “Got a bet on with Pete Rice.”

  “Linwood!” says Gran. Gran doesn’t always notice when Gramp is joking. She doesn’t always think he should be joking.

  Gramp squashes his hat back on his head, and he winks at Lily. When Lily doesn’t wink back, he says, “Racing makes a horse hard to handle, and Beware’s too good to spoil. That horse of Mandy’s is spoiled already, so I figured it couldn’t do any harm.”

  Mom asks, “How many classes do you have left, Lily?”

  Lily counts, and there are only two: Costume, which is just for fun, and Jumping. All three morning classes where she thought she might win a blue ribbon are over. Lily had been looking forward to them for a long time, but they went by too fast.

  Mom looks at the green ribbon, fluttering in the breeze. Then she says, “Pop, you’re right about Barrel Racing. But the Flag Race isn’t that bad. Don’t you think Lily could go in that?”

  Lily tries to remember the Flag Race. That’s the one with three coffee cans nailed to posts around the edge of the ring. Each can has a little flag in it. You ride in carrying a flag, stop at the first coffee can, drop your flag in and take the other flag out, and keep doing that all the way around. The fastest one wins.

  “That can get pretty wild, too,” Gramp says.

  “But it doesn’t have to be,” says Mom. “You can just trot if you want. Beware has a nice fast trot, and she’ll stop on a dime. She might do okay.”

  Gramp scratches under his hat, the way he does when he is thinking. The hat tips way over on the side of his head. He looks at Beware, and Beware turns away from the hay to look back at Gramp.

  “All right,” Gramp says. “I’d like to see that.”

  “Then after lunch,” says Mom, “Lily and I will go enter.”

  Mom and Lily walk over to the announcer’s tent. Now there are ribbons with long blue, red, and yellow streamers hanging up. These are for the show champions, the people who have won the most ribbons. Don Rice will get one, and so will Ginger Taylor. Last night in bed Lily thought that she and Beware might get one, too. Now she knows they won’t.

  Mom says, “I want to enter Lily and Beware in Flag Racing—”

  “Hi, Lily,” says Mandy, coming up behind them. “My mother says I can go in Barrel Racing.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Mom turns to look at Lily and Mandy. “And Breakaway,” she says. “I’m entering you both in Breakaway.”

  “Why?” Lily asks. She can’t even remember what Breakaway is.

  “Because you do it together,” Mom says, “and because it’s fun. I think it’s high time you two had some fun at this show!”

  After lunch everybody puts on a costume. There are tramps and ballerinas, pirates, and a cow. The cow is a horse with plastic horns on its head. The udder is made of an inflated rubber glove.

  Lily is the Headless Horseman. She wears a big black cape tied over the top of her head. It is hot inside, and the eyehole in the front keeps shifting so she can’t see.

  Mandy is a foxhunter. She has a red velvet jacket of her mother’s. Mandy’s father has brought their dog Flutters down. Flutters is a beagle, but he looks sort of like a foxhound. Mandy has to walk, so she can lead Shane and Flutters. She is even hotter than Lily.

  Everyone in Costume Class gets a purple ribbon. Mandy’s ribbon is for Best Props. Lily’s is for Scariest. Lily pokes her head out now, and she rides over to the truck to leave her ribbon and her cape. The next class is Jumping, and she doesn’t know if she wants to ride in it or not.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LILY MAKES SURE her girth is tight. She buckles on the hot helmet. She takes a drink of water, and she lets Beware have a swallow. Then she rides back to the ring, to watch the others jump.

  The jumps are low, just a little higher than a horse’s knee. Lily and Beware have jumped higher than that. But Lily has never jumped six jumps in a row before. She has never jumped with a lot of people watching. She tries saying to herself, I don’t care! She tries saying, Horse shows are stupid! But her stomach just gets tighter and tighter as she watches the first horses go.

  Ginger Taylor’s horse jumps perfectly. But some horses knock the poles down, even though the jumps are low. And one horse is so tall he doesn’t seem to notice them, way down there. He won’t pick his feet up high enough, and his hooves clunk on every single pole.

  Another horse stops suddenly. Everyone gasps. The rider flies over his head and lands on the other side of the jump. But she lands on her feet, smiles, and shrugs. Lily knows if Beware does that, she will not land on her feet. She smooths Beware’s neck with her hand.

  “I’m not going in this,” Mandy says suddenly. “I’ll get killed.” She rides away toward the announcer’s tent. Gramp scratches under his hat.

  “She’s prob’ly right,” he says. Lily’s stomach turns like a washcloth being wrung out.

  “Next,” the announcer says, “Lilian Gifford on Beware.”

  “Nice and easy,” Gramp says. “Pretend they’re logs on the trail.” He slaps Beware on the rump. “Off you go!” And Lily rides to the gate.

  The timekeeper stands there, holding his stopwatch. He smiles at Lily and looks down at his watch. Lily looks ahead at the jumps.

  This class is judged on how many times the horse touches the poles, and it’s judged on speed. Other people have cantered. But when the timekeeper says, “Go,” Lily makes Beware trot. She wants to go more slowly, so she can stay in control. The jumps are all in front of her, white and blue and yellow striped poles. Now they look high and like a lot more than six.

  Beware trots toward the first one. It seems smaller and smaller, the closer Lily gets to it.

  Suddenly the jump disappears. Beware is hopping over it, easily and smoothly. She points her ears toward the next jump, and she trots a little faster. All of a sudden Lily’s st
omach feels fine.

  The next jump is easy, too. Now Beware wants to canter, and Lily lets her—but slowly. They are all by themselves in the ring, and Beware’s canter is as smooth as it would be at home. This is just like jumping logs on a trail—but more fun, because after this jump there is another, and another.

  Lily rises in her stirrups when Beware jumps. Her hands follow Beware’s reaching head, so she never jerks on the reins. She sinks softly back into the saddle when Beware lands, and she looks ahead to the next jump. She knows she is riding beautifully, and she has a free, singing feeling inside.

  Then the last jump is behind her. But Lily feels as if she’s just gotten started. She wants to canter right around the ring and jump them all again. Instead she has to ride out through the gate.

  The timekeeper clicks his watch and calls out the time. Behind him Lily hears clapping. She stops and leans forward to hug Beware’s neck.

  Beware is hot and sweating. Her big breaths move Lily in the saddle. She tosses her nose up and down. Beware would like more jumps, too.

  “She looks pleased with herself!” Gran says, coming up to them. Gran hardly ever notices how a horse looks.

  “Beautiful!” Mom says. Gramp grins so broadly his pipe falls out of his mouth, and he has to catch it.

  And Lily can’t stop smiling. She hardly listens, even when the winners are announced. Sixth. Fifth. Then—

  “Fourth place, Lilian Gifford on Beware.”

  The judge looks hot and tired now. She is sipping lemonade. She pins the ribbon on Beware’s bridle, and she looks up at Lily. “I wish I could have given you the blue,” she says. “You both looked lovely. You were right to start out slowly, but—I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” says Lily. She rides out of the ring with the white ribbon on Beware’s bridle. She is glad the judge has finally noticed what a good horse Beware is. She is glad that in the judge’s mind that white ribbon should be blue. But mostly she is glad because the jumping was so beautiful.