Mallory and the Dream Horse Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Letter from Ann M. Martin

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Scrapbook

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Yankee Doodle went to town a-riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his hat and called it Mack and Roni!”

  “Claire,” I giggled, “I think it’s macaroni. You know, like the noodle.”

  “Noodle!” my sister squealed as she clutched an old mop from the basement. “That’s what I’ll call my horse.”

  Claire patted her mop on the head and said, “Good Noodle.” Then, singing at the top of her lungs, she galloped around my bedroom.

  Well, it’s not really my bedroom. I share it with Vanessa, another sister of mine. We have to share rooms because there are so many of us Pikes. We have (are you ready for this?) eight kids in our family. Add two adults and you’ve got a pretty crowded house.

  I’m Mallory Pike. I’m eleven and I’m the oldest Pike. Then come the triplets, Byron, Adam, and Jordan, who are ten, and Vanessa, who’s nine. Nicky’s eight, Margo is seven, and Claire is five.

  All of us Pike kids have brown hair and blue eyes, but I’m the only one who has curly reddish hair. I am also the only one with braces (lucky me). Plus, I have to wear glasses.

  Being the oldest is not as great as it might sound. Lots of times my parents expect me to help out with baby-sitting, which I don’t mind doing, but not all the time. For awhile I felt like they were really taking me for granted, but we worked it out, and now they always schedule my sitting jobs just like we do in the BSC.

  What’s the BSC? It stands for the Baby-sitters Club, which is the greatest group of friends anyone could have. But I’ll tell you about that later.

  Anyway, it was a Saturday and Jessi Ramsey, my best friend in Stoneybrook, Connecticut (and the world), was at my house for the day. We were doing what we usually do on rainy Saturday afternoons — talking about horses.

  Jessi and I love horses. In fact you could say we are horse-crazy. We love to read books about horses. Our favorites are those by Marguerite Henry, who wrote Misty of Chincoteague. But we’ll read any book about a horse. Someday I hope to be a great author and write and illustrate books about horses of all kinds — mustangs, quarter-horses, Appaloosas, Clydesdales, Percherons — you name it. I love them all.

  While I would like to be an author, Jessi wants to be a ballerina. And she will be. I’m sure of it. First of all, she’s got the perfect dancer’s body — slim, long legs, a beautiful neck, and graceful fingers. Second of all, she has already danced several leading roles in ballets in nearby Stamford. We (the rest of the BSC and I) always go to her performances, and boy is she good.

  Jessica (that’s her formal name) has a younger sister, Becca, short for Rebecca, and a baby brother, John Philip Ramsey, Jr., which is a very big name for such a little guy. Everyone calls him Squirt. Jessi’s Aunt Cecelia lives with her family, too. So altogether the Ramseys have six people living in their house. We have ten. That’s one of the main differences between me and Jessi. Also, Jessi is black and I’m white. It doesn’t matter to me, but it did to some people in town when the Ramseys first moved to Stoneybrook. They really had a tough time in the beginning, but that’s all in the past. Now things are much better for Jessi and her family.

  Anyway, Jessi was lying on my bed with one of her legs extended in the air. It nearly touched her ear. (Ow!) Jessi always does stretching exercises when she’s sitting around so that she’ll stay limber for ballet. I’ve gotten so used to it that I hardly notice it anymore. She was reading Misty of Chincoteague again and I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading the ending of Black Beauty for the two hundredth time, when Claire burst into the room, straddling her mop.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” I said, after she’d circled the room several times. When Claire pulled her mop (I mean, horse) to a stop, I asked, “What are you doing riding Noodle in the house?”

  “I’m practicing for the circus. I’m the bareback rider.” Claire pointed proudly at the mop handle. “See? No saddle.”

  “I think your horse could use some more oats,” Jessi said, trying to keep a straight face. “He’s kind of skinny.”

  Claire put her hands on her hips, and her mop-horse clattered to the ground. “He is not. He’s perfect.”

  “Claire,” I said, pointing to the mop lying on the rug, “you dropped your horse.”

  Claire looked at the mop and declared, “Noodle is resting. He’s very sleepy.” She stifled a yawn as she spoke.

  My parents were home, so I wasn’t officially on baby-sitting duty, but I knew when Claire needed a nap. I picked up Noodle in one hand and guided Claire out of the room. “Meet me in the rec room,” I called to Jessi over my shoulder. “We’ll make popcorn and watch The Black Stallion again.”

  “Great!” she replied. The Black Stallion is one of our absolute favorite movies.

  “But I have to practice my riding,” Claire protested feebly as I helped her onto her bed.

  “Noodle’s too tired,” I explained, laying the mop on the floor beside my sister’s bed. “He just needs a quick nap and then he’ll be ready to do higher leaps and gallop even faster around the ring.”

  “You really think so?” she murmured, snuggling her head into her pillow.

  “I know so.” I draped a light quilt over Claire and then tiptoed out the door and down the stairs. It was very quiet upstairs, but downstairs was a different story.

  Vanessa, Margo, and Nicky were playing so loudly in the dining room that it was hard for Jessi and me to hear our movie in the rec room. Finally we just turned down the volume and talked about our favorite subject: horses.

  “Okay,” Jessi announced as she stretched her legs out to the side, practically in a split. (Double ow!) “If you could pick your dream horse, what would it be?”

  “Oh, boy.” I sank back in the overstuffed chair by the television and thought for a second. “He’d have to be an Arabian. They’re the nicest. A pure white one with a long flowing mane and warm brown eyes.”

  “A pure white Arabian,” Jessi sighed. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “He’d be extremely smart, so if I fell off his back and broke my ankle in the woods, he’d know to go get help.”

  Jessi chuckled. “Just like Lassie.”

  I tossed a pillow at Jessi. “You know what I mean.”

  Jessi grinned. “Mine would do cute things like bring me his bridle and count to ten with his hoof.”

  “Mine would live in a stable in my backyard and we’d go riding every day. And we’d enter horse shows all over the country and win.”

  “But you’d have to know how to ride first,” Jessi reminded me.

  “Well, of course I’d take lessons,” I said. “As many as I wanted and as often as I liked.”

  It’s funny. Both Jessi and I dream of having our own horse and riding every day, but neither one of us has ever had even one lesson.

  “Remember that old movie with Shirley Temple called The Little Princess?” Jessi stretched forward and put her elbows on the floor. “She played a rich girl named Sara Crewe in Victorian England who had her own pony.”

  I nodded. “And she went riding every day.” I leaned back and sig
hed. “I’d give anything to be Sara Crewe and have my own horse.”

  “Me, too,” Jessi murmured.

  I sat up and squeezed my eyes closed. “All right. I’m going to count to ten, and when I open my eyes I’ll have my dream horse, riding lessons, and contact lenses.”

  Jessi squeezed her own eyes shut. “When I open my eyes, I’ll have my dream horse, riding lessons, and I will dance the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker next Christmas.”

  We held our breath and started counting, but before we could reach ten, Nicky burst into the room, wearing a pair of swim trunks. An old pink bathroom rug was draped across one shoulder. He’d pinned big black construction paper spots onto the rug to make it look like leopard fur. He pounded his chest with his fists and let out a deafening yodel. “I’m Tarzan, King of the Apes, and I can wrestle alligators.”

  “Nicky!” I protested. “Can’t you see we’re doing something very important here?”

  Nicky’s shoulders slumped and I felt awful. “But that’s okay,” I added. “Because I have never even seen an alligator, let alone one that wrestles. Where is it?”

  Nicky cupped his hands around his mouth and let out another loud yodel. Margo entered the room, a bed sheet wrapped around her shoulders. She held our hamster Frodo cupped in her hands. Frodo had a little green felt cape tied around his shoulders and didn’t look very happy about it.

  “Here’s the ferocious alligator, Tarzan,” Margo said, handing the hamster to Nicky.

  Nicky clutched the animal to his chest and said, “Thank you, Margo the Magnificent.”

  “Margo the Magnificent?” Jessi repeated.

  “Yes!” Margo grandly swept her bed sheet over one shoulder. “I am the world’s greatest magician,” she announced. “I can turn apples into oranges and lots of other things into ordinary household items. Want to see?”

  Jessi and I looked at each other and tried not to giggle. Margo sounded like a television commercial.

  “Wait a minute!” Nicky bellowed. “First they’re going to watch me wrestle Frodo — I mean, the vicious alligator.” He dropped onto his knees and tried to make Frodo sit still on the carpet.

  Margo ignored him and pulled an apple out of her sheet, then set it on the coffee table. “This is just an ordinary apple,” she said. “I simply wave my magic cape across it —”

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing as Margo struggled to hold the sheet in the air while she switched the apple with an orange that was hidden beneath her other arm. The orange slipped out of her fingers onto the rug and rolled toward the hamster, who bolted out of the way beneath the couch.

  “Oh, shoot,” Margo muttered. “I keep messing that part up.”

  “Now look what you did!” Nicky shouted. “My gator’s escaped.”

  “Never fear, Reena’s here,” Vanessa cried from the doorway. She was dressed in a pink leotard and tights. “I walk the high wire at the top of the tent. I carry a pole that is straight, not bent.” Vanessa writes poetry and likes to rhyme when she talks. She rolled a strip of pale blue ribbon out in front of her and pretended to walk along it, carrying a broom as a balance stick.

  “Give me that stick,” Nicky said, gesturing for his sister to hand him the broom. “I’ll nudge Frodo and get him out from under the couch.”

  Vanessa executed a perfect turn on the ribbon and headed back to the door. “As soon as I get off the wire, I’ll give you my pole,” she called over her shoulder.

  “No, I need it now.” He grabbed Vanessa around the waist, and she wobbled wildly from side to side.

  “Don’t do that, Nicky!” she cried. “Can’t you see I’m working without a net? Stop!”

  The two of them tumbled onto the carpet in a tangle of knees and elbows. While they wrestled, Margo continued to struggle with her disappearing orange trick.

  Jessi doubled over with laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” I called over the racket.

  “Your family,” she replied. “It’s like a looney bin in here.”

  Then Claire galloped into the room on her mop-horse Noodle, her eyes still puffy with sleep. “Is it showtime?” she cried. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

  As Claire rode her horse into the chaos, I grinned and shouted back to Jessi, “Make that a three-ring circus. The Pike Family presents The Craziest Show on Earth.”

  It was almost five o’clock on Monday when I realized that no one in my family had picked up the mail. Usually Margo and Nicky fight over who gets to bring it from the mailbox, but they were in the backyard inventing new talents to show each other.

  The mailbox was filled with the usual stuff — a few bills, a couple of catalogs, a yellow envelope from a sweepstakes place that read, “You could be a winner!” and a flier for a sale at the local supermarket. I was just about to drop it all on the table by the front door when a green-and-white brochure slipped out and fluttered to the floor.

  I bent over to pick it up and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was a picture of an elegant thoroughbred and an equestrian dressed in English riding clothes. They were posed beside a ring made of rails and posts painted a crisp white.

  “ ‘Horseback Riding Lessons, English Style,’ ” I read out loud. “Classes starting soon at Kendallwood Farm, Connecticut’s finest riding school.” I looked at the address and gasped. Kendallwood was on the outskirts of Stoneybrook, just an easy bike trip from my house. “This is wonderful!” I exclaimed. “I can ride a horse without owning one. Every week!”

  I clutched the brochure to my chest and spun in a circle, not knowing whether to race through the house looking for my mother, or run to the phone to call Jessi. Luckily, before I did any of those things, I glanced at the clock on our mantel. It said ten after five.

  “The Baby-sitters Club!” I gasped. Our meetings start promptly at five-thirty every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon at Claudia Kishi’s house. If I hopped on my bike and left that instant I would have a few minutes before the meeting began to tell Jessi about my wonderful discovery.

  I carefully tucked the brochure in my jacket, grabbed my bike, and pedaled as fast as I could to Claud’s house.

  This is probably a good time to tell you about the Baby-sitters Club and how it got started. There are seven of us in the club. Jessi and I are the youngest (we’re in sixth grade) so we’re called junior officers. The other five members are Kristy Thomas, Claudia Kishi, Mary Anne Spier, Stacey McGill, and Dawn Schafer. They are thirteen and in eighth grade.

  It was Kristy’s idea to start the club, which is probably why she is also the president. Kristy got her great idea over a year ago when her mother couldn’t find a sitter for her younger brother, David Michael. Kristy listened to her mother dial number after number with no luck. And that’s when the brilliant idea hit.

  Why not have one number where a parent can reach several sitters at one time? Kristy thought. So she talked to Mary Anne, Claudia, and eventually Stacey. Together they made up advertising fliers and passed them out to everyone they knew. They decided to hold meetings in Claudia’s room, since she has a phone of her own. And soon the calls were pouring in! In fact, things grew so busy that they decided to add a few more people — Dawn, Jessi, and me. Now we have even added associate officers, Logan Bruno and Shannon Kilbourne. They don’t attend meetings, but they’re ready to fill in if the rest of us are busy.

  Our meetings are half an hour long. Dues are collected by Stacey on Mondays — the money is for fun things like club parties and sleepovers. It also helps to cover Claud’s phone bill and to replace items in our Kid-Kits.

  What are Kid-Kits? Just another one of Kristy’s brilliant ideas. (She’s got a million of them!) Each of us found a cardboard carton that we decorated with paint and fabric and other art supplies that Claudia gave us. Then we filled the boxes with toys, crayons, puppets, and games from our own houses. Kristy figured that children would much rather play with somebody else’s toys than their own. And she was right! The kids love them.


  Another great idea of Kristy’s is the club notebook. It’s like a daily diary in which we write up each job that we go on. It’s really useful because we find out if a kid has developed a new fear, or is having trouble at school, or is allergic to something and needs to take medication. Some of the members think writing in the notebook is a pain, but I really like it.

  Each member of the BSC is a real individual, which I think makes for a perfect club. Kristy, our president, is outgoing and filled with terrific ideas. Her mom was divorced but then she married Watson Brewer, a genuine millionaire, and the Thomases moved to this huge mansion across town from the rest of us. Now, in addition to her three brothers she has a stepbrother, stepsister, and an adopted sister. Kristy doesn’t care a whole lot about how she looks and generally can be found wearing jeans, sneakers, a turtleneck shirt, and a sweater (it’s almost like her uniform). Kristy’s big love is sports, which is why she coaches a junior softball team called Kristy’s Krushers.

  Mary Anne Spier is our club secretary and Kristy’s best friend. But the two of them couldn’t be more different. While Kristy is outgoing, Mary Anne is very shy. Her mom died when Mary Anne was a baby, so her father raised her all by himself. (He used to be really strict and not let her wear anything too adult, but that’s changed. And boy, is Mary Anne relieved!) Mary Anne is also very emotional. She cries at the drop of a hat. I’m not kidding. I’ve even seen her cry at a sad TV commercial. And she’s a romantic. In fact, Mary Anne was the first one of us in the BSC to have a steady boyfriend. (Logan Bruno. He’s one of the associate officers I told you about.) Besides being Kristy’s best friend, Mary Anne is also Dawn Schafer’s best friend. And stepsister. It was really strange how that happened.

  You see, Dawn used to live in California, but when her parents got a divorce, her mom decided to move Dawn and her brother Jeff back to the town where she grew up. So that brought Dawn — with her waist-length blonde hair, blue eyes, and perfect skin — to Stoneybrook.

  Dawn dresses in her own unique style — we call it California casual. Plus, she is a total health food nut. The sight of a hamburger makes her gag. And she loves mysteries and ghost stories. That’s why it was absolutely perfect when her mom bought this neat old colonial farmhouse that actually has a secret passageway in it.