responded.
“Good,” said Veronica. She turned on her heel, making her way out of the arena.
After class, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole helped cool outClara, then checked on their own horses before getting ready to go home. They were hoping to walk together so that they could talk more about Veronica, but Carole’s father, Colonel Hanson, was waiting in the car when they came out of the barn.
“Hi, girls,” said Colonel Hanson.
“Hey, Colonel Hanson,” answered Lisa and Stevie in unison.
Carole said good-bye to Stevie and Lisa before settling into her dad’s car.
As the vehicle pulled down the drive, Lisa and Stevie followed at a leisurely walk. It took Stevie only a moment to get onto the hot topic of the day: Veronica.
“After all her talk about
not
wanting to stand on a horse’s back, I can’t believe she did so well,” said Stevie. “In fact, it’s sickening.”
“I can’t believe how much fun that was!” Lisa said, still thinking about her first experience with vaulting.
Stevie scowled at Lisa, who obviously didn’t understand the importance of the whole Veronica vaulting catastrophe. “Fun? Lisa, don’t you get it? If Veronica suddenly becomes interested in vaulting, she might actually do
well
at the competition at the end of the month.”
Lisa frowned. She hadn’t thought of that.
“We have to do better than she does,” Stevie stressed quite dramatically. “We can’t let her win. And you’re our only hope. You’re the only one who can beat Veronica.”
“I don’t know, Stevie,” Lisa responded skeptically. “Veronica did pretty well today.”
“So did you!” Stevie assured her. “Lisa, you’re a natural. All you have to do now is practice like crazy.”
Stevie had a point. Lisa did have the advantage of her ballet training. She just had to learn how to apply it to vaulting. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll beat Veronica,” declared Lisa.
Stevie smiled. “That’s the spirit. Now you go practice, while I check on my eggs.”
S TEVIE ARRIVED HOME , passing her mother as she came out of the kitchen.
“Stevie,” Mrs. Lake called out, “there are fresh brownies on the counter and milk in the—”
“Later, Mom,” Stevie said hurriedly as she turned the corner and took the stairs two at a time up to her bedroom. Never in her life had she passed on fresh brownies and milk, but she had more important things to do today.
Upstairs, Stevie burst into her room and ran straight to the incubator. True to her word, her mother had turned the eggs on schedule, as well as checked it off on Stevie’s “Egg-Turning Wall Chart”that Lisa had made to keep Stevie organized. The chart was incredibly detailed, listing the required incubator temperatures, turning times, and routine egg checks. According to the chart, Stevie could stop turning her eggs on Wednesday, which was the next day. The eggs wouldn’t need to be turned for the last few days of their incubation period.
Satisfied that everything was in order, Stevie plunked herself down at her desk and opened her algebra book. She had an assignment due the next day that she’d kept putting off because of her distraction with the eggs. Now seemed like a good time to get it out of the way.
Stevie grabbed a pencil and carefully wrote out an algebra equation, her eyes straying periodically to the incubator before returning to the page. As she attempted to solve the problem, she caught herself staring at the zero she’d jotted. She’d outlined it several times, causing it to take on an oval shape—like a goose egg. She gave the algebra equation several more attempts, but it was no use. Algebra reminded her too much of her eggs.
Stevie figured that perhaps it was the type of homework she was doing. Maybe if she worked on something without zeros, it would be easier to concentrate.And, unfortunately, she had plenty of other homework she could do. History, for instance. Their teacher had hinted at the possibility of a pop quiz on
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