Horse Blues by Bonnie Bryant

effort, she managed to keep her voice pleasant, as the other girl caught up to her in the aisle. “Hello, Veronica.”
    “Hey, Stevie. I’m glad I ran into you. My mothertold me you had to retake the French test, too,” Veronica said.
    “That’s nice, Veronica,” Stevie replied. Veronica ignored her.
    “I’d offer to study with you—”
    “That’s nice, Veronica,” Stevie said, surprised that it was almost true.
    “—but since I have my own private tutor, it just wouldn’t be helpful to me to hear all of your errors.”
    Stevie bit her lip hard. “That’s nice, Veronica,” she said through clenched teeth. Her surefire plan wasn’t as easy to stick to as she had hoped. It was almost causing her physical pain not to retort to Veronica’s rude comments. Veronica followed her into the tack room.
    “You’re probably dying to hear how my lesson with Johannes was. Okay, I won’t keep you in suspense: It was amazing! He thinks I have real talent,” Veronica bragged.
    “How much did you pay him to say that?” Stevie muttered.
    “What?”
    “I said, that’s nice, Veronica,” Stevie replied.
    “Johannes thinks that Danny and I are headed for the Olympics,” Veronica gushed.
    “Yeah, when pigs fly,” Stevie muttered. Danny,Veronica’s expensive show horse, might actually have had a shot at the Olympics, but with a different rider—a rider far superior to Veronica.
    “What was that?” Veronica looked at Stevie curiously.
    Stevie thought about sticking her tongue out at Veronica or pulling her hair. Then she remembered Simon Atherton. Even the idea of sitting next to him in a dark movie theater made her stomach turn. Stevie cleared her throat. “I said, that’s nice Veronica. Very, very nice. Very, very, very, very, very, very nice. Got it? It’s nice, okay?”
    “Okay, okay, jeez—you don’t have to yell,” Veronica said.
    Stevie grabbed her hard hat and stuck it on her head, hurrying so she could escape to the trail.
    “Do you really have time to ride?” Veronica asked. “Shouldn’t you be home studying for the test?”
    “Shouldn’t you?” Stevie shot back. She cursed herself for letting Veronica get a rise out of her.
    “Me? No, I’ve got plenty of time to ride. My tutor is going to have me ready in no time. I’ll bet you’re dying to know who’s tutoring me, aren’t you, Stevie?” Veronica prompted.
    “No, I’m not,” Stevie snapped. Just because she had resolved to be nice to Veronica didn’t mean that she had to be extra polite, did it?
    “Fine. But when I get an A on the retest, you’ll be sorry!” Veronica chanted in a singsong.
    Stevie forced herself to take a deep breath and count to ten. “That’s nice, Veronica,” she repeated mechanically. As Veronica chattered away, Stevie did her best to block out the noise. So far, Stevie realized, her plan to annoy Veronica was utterly failing. Veronica hadn’t even noticed that she was repeating the same sentence!
    “What did you say?” Veronica asked sharply.
    Stevie snapped back to attention. “I said that it was nice.”
    “That what was nice?” Veronica demanded.
    “Whatever you said,” Stevie said, smiling. This was more like it.
    “But I don’t understand. I just said that it’s too bad Belle could never be the jumper that Danny is. Otherwise you could take lessons with Johannes Wendt, too.”
    Stevie beamed. “That’s nice, Veronica.”
    “Is that all you’re going to say?” Veronica demanded. “ ‘That’s nice’?”
    “Yup.”
    “But why should you think it’s nice? You sound like a broken record.”
    “That’s nice, Veronica.”
    “A horrible, scratched, annoying broken record—”
    “That’s nice, Veronica.”
    “—that ought to be thrown in the trash!” Veronica shrieked.
    Stevie didn’t respond. Instead she hunted through the tack room clutter to find her crop. She was so distracted by not being mean to Veronica that she almost didn’t notice what a mess the tack room was.