Starlight Christmas (13 page)

“Absolutely, one hundred percent. Your mother left me a little bit of money earmarked for you when she died. Actually, it was money she’d inherited from her own mother that she felt you should have. That’s enough to pay for your horse, to take care of him, and to board him here for a few years. In a very real sense, Carole, this is a Christmas gift to you from both Mom and me.”

The whole thing was like a dream come true. She was happier than she could ever remember being in her whole life. She got ahold of herself and stopped crying. There was something she needed to ask Max.

“About his name,” she said. “Would it be okay if I change it? I mean, is it registered anyplace or anything? Does it matter what I call him?”

“His full legal name is Pretty Boy Floyd, and that’s
what’s on his registration papers. That’s hard to change. However, you can
call
him anything you want. Horses are often called names other than their registered names and, in fact, it’s not unusual for a new owner of a horse to pick a new name. Do you have something special in mind?”

“Well, not really,” Carole said. “It’s just that Pretty Boy seems so silly, kind of vain. It doesn’t fit him. I’d like to have a name that’s more like him—”

“Floyd?” A.J. suggested.

“Give me a break,” Stevie said.

Then, for a few minutes, everybody had a suggestion. But nothing seemed quite right. Carole stood back in his stall and looked at her horse. His coat was a deep, rich brown and his black mane and tail were the velvety color of the night sky they had seen only a few minutes before on the Starlight Ride. The colors were beautiful, but they weren’t all that distinctive. What was distinctive was his marking. There, on his forehead, was the lopsided six-pointed star. Carole had her answer.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to meet my new horse, Starlight.”

“Perfect!” Stevie announced.

“Just right!” Lisa agreed.

“Welcome to our family,” her father said.

“Maybe that
is
better than Floyd,” A.J. joked.

Carole had a lot of work to do to see that Starlight was properly groomed and bedded down for the night. It was cold out and he’d had an active evening, to say the least!
She found that she loved doing everything for him just as much as she had known she would, maybe more. Starlight seemed to love it, too.

When she was finished and her friends had completed their chores, it was time to go home. Carole hugged Stevie and Lisa and wished them Merry Christmases. She hugged Phil and A.J. and whispered thanks to them for making Garnet “sick.” She hugged Max and Mrs. Reg and thanked them for everything. But most of all, she hugged her father.

On the way home, she told him about her day and all the wonderful things that had happened. “This is the most incredible Christmas of my whole life,” she said.

Her father squeezed her hand. “That’s all I wanted, honey. You’ve made me happy just by being happy yourself. I don’t want to get corny or anything, but you can’t imagine the joy I felt, knowing that your mother and I had a hand in this Christmas for you. I don’t want anything else for Christmas at all.”

Carole sat up in her seat in the car. “You’re not going to get off
that
easy,” she said. “You’ve got a present or two coming from me, too, you know.”

“I do?” he said. “I didn’t see anything under the tree for me.”

“Well, your presents aren’t under the tree,” she told him.

“Then where are they? I’ve looked over every single inch of the house and I couldn’t find a thing!”

Carole laughed. “If I’ve actually found a hiding place out of your snoopy reach, I have no intention of telling you where it is. After all, I may—repeat
may
—want to give you something next year, too!”

“Drat! Foiled again!” he teased.

Carole realized then, sitting next to her father, that she had never really had any reason to worry about Christmas. She was filled with joy because of Starlight, but she’d have had a wonderful Christmas with her father no matter what. They missed her mother, but they did have each other, and that was very special and very precious to both of them. In a way, Carole thought, that was her very best Christmas present of all.

“H
OW DID YOUR
father like his socks?” Lisa asked Carole. The three girls were standing outside of Starlight’s stall, having a Saddle Club meeting on the day after Christmas.

“He just loved them,” Carole said. “He put them on right away and didn’t take them off all day. He also liked the book and the record I gave him. The book was a history of rock from the fifties and the record went with it. He’ll be hogging the stereo all the time now. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to hear any
real
music after this.”

Carole wasn’t really complaining. She didn’t mind her father’s music and, besides, she had a horse of her own so it seemed impossible that there could be anything to complain about ever again! “But enough about that. Here are your presents from me,” Carole said, handing
each of her friends two boxes. “Merry belated Christmas!”

Stevie opened the small box first. It was a pair of kid riding gloves. “You remembered!” she said, slipping them onto her hands.

“Of course I did. I ruined your last pair rescuing Samson out of the briar patch. I had to replace them in case I ever needed to borrow them again!”

Lisa opened the small box Carole had given her. Her present was also a pair of riding gloves, but these were string gloves, meant for warm weather. “They’re beautiful!” Lisa said. “I guess you knew, didn’t you?”

Carole nodded. “So did Stevie,” she said. Mrs. Atwood had told both of them that Lisa’s Christmas present was a one-week trip with her parents to a Caribbean island where, among other things, there was horseback riding. The Atwoods would be leaving in two days. Carole had wanted to help outfit Lisa for the trip.

“Open this one!” Stevie handed Lisa a very large box. Inside, Lisa found a pair of waterproof riding boots. “They were mine,” Stevie told her. “I outgrew them and they’re just your size now. You’ll need them for riding in the ocean.”

“Can you believe it?” Lisa asked dreamily. “Riding on the beach, with the sun, sand, water, and palm trees? I can’t wait!”

“Sounds wonderful to me,” Carole agreed. “To be honest, though, I’d rather stay here, with Starlight.”

“I don’t blame you,” Stevie said. They all looked up at the horse, who was peering up over the door to his stall as if he were hanging on every word the girls were saying.

“Speaking of Starlight, that reminds me,” Carole said. “What’s the story about you two helping Dad get him for me?”

“Oh, that was fun!” Stevie laughed. “See, we ran into your dad the day we were at the mall, and he told us he wanted to get you a horse and asked if we had any ideas how he should go about it. So, I started to tell him he had to talk to Max, when Lisa said—”

“When I said I knew the perfect horse for you,” Lisa interrupted. “Remember when my parents got the bright idea of buying me a horse?” she asked. “Around the same time Max was starting Horse Wise?” Carole and Stevie nodded. They remembered because Lisa had been so reluctant to tell them about it, thinking they’d be jealous. “Well, one of the horses I saw was Pretty Boy. I knew he was terrific the minute I saw him, but as soon as I was on him, I also knew he wasn’t the horse for me. He needs a better rider than I am and he probably still needs some more training. I couldn’t own him, but even then I knew you’d be perfect for him. So when your dad said he wanted to look for a horse for you, I told him he didn’t have to. I already knew about one you’d love. Was I right?”

“You were right!” Carole said.

“Hi, girls. Have a good Christmas?” Judy Barker
greeted them. “Well, I know
you
did, Carole!” she teased, looking at Starlight. “How about your friends?”

“It was great,” they both told her.

“You here to check on Starlight?” Carole asked.

Judy stepped into Starlight’s stall and checked him over quickly. “Yes, and I’m glad to see he’s fine,” she said, approving his new quarters. “And I thought I ought to look at Garnet, too. Any problem there that I should know about?” she asked.

Carole tried to keep a straight face. She didn’t really want to tell Judy what had happened, but before she could control it, her laughter erupted, and so did her friends’. They just couldn’t help themselves. Almost without meaning to, they told Judy the entire story—including Veronica’s pranks and the stall switching.

Judy, who was normally quite reserved and who definitely took horse health very seriously, was soon laughing along with them, especially when they got to the shaving cream. That explained Veronica’s hysteria as well as Garnet’s speedy and total recovery.

“Don’t worry, I hosed her down and got all the soap off. She smells like a freshly shaved man,” Stevie promised.

“Well, I can see everything is under control here,” Judy commented. “I’m on my way back to Mr. Michaels’s to see the newborn filly.”

“So everything worked out all right there?” Carole
asked. She’d meant to call Judy and ask, but she’d been pretty busy herself.

“Just fine,” Judy replied. “Within half an hour after you left, Carol was up and nursing.”

“Carol? Huh?”

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Judy said. “Mr. Michaels named the horse Carol—no
e
—for Christmas Carol. Isn’t that sweet?”

“Well, sure,” Carole-with-an-
e
said. “I like the idea that my horse has a sister with the same name as me!”

On that note, Judy left to continue her rounds. Carole planned to go out with her again the next day. This day, however, was saved for her friends—Stevie, Lisa, and Starlight.

“Back to presents,” Stevie commanded. She’d been holding the other box from Carole for too long. It just had to be opened!

“Okay, so go ahead and open it,” Carole said.

Stevie did. She unwrapped a pink sweat shirt with a horse screen-painted on it. The horse was a bay who looked a lot like Topside. “It’s perfect!” Stevie told Carole.

“Now it’s your turn,” Carole said to Lisa.

“Is it the same?” Lisa asked, eyeing the box, which was the same shape as Stevie’s had been.

“Not quite,” Carole said. Lisa opened the box. Her sweat shirt was almost the same as Stevie’s, except that
her horse was a dappled gray who looked a lot like Pepper. “Wow!” she said. She and Stevie put on their new sweat shirts right away.

“You both look great,” Carole said. “One thing I always say is that you can never have too many horsey clothes!”

Both Lisa and Stevie hugged and thanked her.

“Too bad you can’t wear what we gave you,” Lisa remarked.

“I
love
what you gave me,” Carole insisted. Her friends’ gift to her was a complete horse-care kit for Starlight. They’d gotten some things, like Starlight’s blanket and halter secondhand, and lovingly cleaned them until they were spotless. Other things, like Starlight’s buckets and his grooming gear, were brand-new, and they’d had Carole’s name engraved on them for her. Best of all, Stevie and Lisa had bought a brass plaque for the door of his stall—the plaque that told everyone that Starlight was a privately owned horse. So far, the plaque only read

but soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, Max would take it to the shop where they’d put

above her name.

Carole took out her new currycomb and began to work on Starlight’s coat. She wanted it to gleam all of the time.

“You know, the thing I don’t get, Lisa,” she remarked as she worked vigorously, “is how Stevie managed to keep not one, but
two
secrets—your trip and my horse.”

“I don’t know how she did it, either,” Lisa said. “Her average secret-keeping time is much less than two weeks. It’s more like two minutes!”

“Maybe it’s because she’s been distracted,” Carole suggested. “She still hasn’t been able to make up her mind about what she’s going to wear to the big New Year’s Eve dance with Phil Marston.”

Stevie made a face. She didn’t mind their teasing, but she didn’t like to admit, even to her best friends, how much the dance had been on her mind. “Well, at least it gives me something to look forward to,” Stevie said, defending herself.

“Speaking of Phil, I think it’s time we made it official,” Carole said. “He and A.J. both earned their way into The Saddle Club on Christmas Eve with the Garnet prank, don’t you think?”

Stevie nodded, pleased. She’d wanted to invite Phil to join them ever since summer, but she was hoping her friends would suggest it. “I’ll call him tonight and ask,” she said.

“And you know what?” Lisa said. “The tie tack you gave him for Hanukkah will make a perfect Saddle Club pin for the boys.”

Stevie’s grin told her friends that she’d already thought of that.

“Can we get one for A.J.?” Carole asked.

“No problem,” Stevie said. “I’ll go back to the place I bought Phil’s and buy another one. I’ll give it to him from all of us when I see him at the New Year’s Eve dance.”

“Then it’s decided. We’re officially expanded,” Carole said proudly.

“Growing bigger every day,” Lisa said.