Horse Games by Bonnie Bryant

Lisa, Carole, and Marie to hear what she was saying and it was clear Stevie had no idea that anybody was watching her. In fact, Carole suspected that if they’d stood right in front of Stevie and waved, Stevie wouldn’t have seen them. Stevie always had the ability to concentrate on a project when she set her mind to it, but Carole and Lisa had never seen her as driven as she was about polocrosse.
    Once again, Comanche started cantering toward the ball. Stevie used her polocrosse racquet as a whip and his canter switched to a gallop. Stevie leaned forward then and swung the racquet back for momentum. The horse raced across the field, closing the gap between himself and the ball at a dizzying rate. Now they were almost there.
    Stevie began her swing, but seemed to realize in the middle of it that Comanche was too far to the left. She tried to steer him to the right. He was going too fast to make it. Stevie had to make up the difference. Sheleaned and stretched. She couldn’t reach it! She shifted her weight in the saddle, struggling to gain another inch or two toward the right, toward the ball, angling the racquet to be able to scoop it up.
    Carole, Lisa, and Marie watched in horror as the scene played itself out. Stevie leaned to the right even more, putting all her weight on her right stirrup, straining and extending herself beyond the limits of her own balance. Then, as if in slow motion, Stevie’s friends saw Stevie’s left leg rise up over the far side of the horse, free of its stirrup, and Stevie herself flew out of Comanche’s saddle. She landed on top of the polocrosse ball. Comanche kept on going.
    It was almost comical. But Carole knew right away that it wasn’t comical. The shriek that came from Stevie wasn’t frustration and wasn’t anger. It was pain. She lay in the middle of the field, clutching her ankle.
    Stevie was in trouble; Carole and Lisa had to get to her!

“S TEVIE !” C AROLE AND Lisa called to her.
    “Ouch!” Stevie replied. “It’s my ankle—and it hurts!”
    Lisa got there first. When Carole reached her friends and squatted next to where Stevie lay, she knew exactly what had to be done.
    “Get her boot off if you can, before the ankle gets so big that the boot has to be cut off,” she advised Lisa. Lisa unbuckled Stevie’s jodhpur boot immediately and pulled it off gently.
    “Ouch!” Stevie said again. “But thanks.” Tears welled in her eyes. Carole knew her pain was real.
    “I’ll get help,” Carole said. She stood up to run to the stable and saw that she didn’t have to. For there, riding as fast as she could toward the stable, was Marie.
    “Mom! Come out here. There’s been an accident!”
    As soon as Max and some of the Horse Wise parent volunteers came out the door of the stable, Marie turned Nickel around and kicked him into a canter to take her into the field.
    She rode easily and surely, rocking with the horse’s motion. As she neared the place where Stevie lay, she drew Nickel to a halt. He stopped immediately.
    “Nice riding!” Stevie said, genuinely impressed. Carole was impressed, too, but at the moment, she was happy that Stevie had something to take her mind off her pain.
    Very soon after that, Max and Mrs. Dana reached Stevie. Max took one look at her ankle, now enormously swollen, and said, “Hospital.”
    For a few minutes, there was discussion about who should take her. In the end, Mrs. Dana won the privilege because her car was set up for use by an injured person. There were a lot of cushions, and a space to lie down.
    Colonel Hanson climbed into the front seat next to Mrs. Dana, telling Carole to have Mrs. Reg call Stevie’s parents, and they left.
    The last thing Carole saw as the car pulled out of the driveway was Stevie, sitting up in the backseat. She was trying hard to smile, but the tears were running down her cheeks. It really hurt.
    “Oh!” Carole said almost involuntarily, feeling the pain for her friend.
    “She’s going to be