Team Play by Bonnie Bryant Page A

always knew who was sick and who wasn’t. He always took the time to do something nice when people were laid up—you know, call on them with a bunch of flowers, a covered dish. Whatever he thought they needed, he’d just do it. Then, a lot of people sort of thought he was a doctor and they’d come to him when they were sick. Often, he’d end updelivering medicine to them, even did it himself when his delivery boy was off. He sang in the church choir. He was a tenor, and never missed a Sunday. People trusted him. Eventually, because everybody knew him, he ended up being elected mayor. If somebody had a problem, Mayor Dunellen would go there and solve it on the spot.”
    “Boy, I bet you and Max ended up exercising his horses for him all the time, didn’t you?” Lisa asked.
    Mrs. Reg looked at her with a puzzled expression on her face. “Oh, no, not at all,” Mrs. Reg said. Then, without any further explanation, she stood up, hung up the now clean bridle, and returned to her office. One of the other things about Mrs. Reg’s stories was that she often ended them just when they were beginning to get very interesting. Lisa thought it was a bad habit.
    For a moment no one spoke. Then Lisa turned to her friends. “So what was that all about?”
    “Beats me.” Carole shrugged. “I mean, it sounds like the man had this incredible schedule and there was no way he could take the time to ride.”
    “You two!” Stevie said, beaming. “Don’t you get it?”
    “Get what?” Lisa asked. She was a little annoyed. She didn’t like it when somebody else understood something that was a mystery to her.
    “How he rode, of course,” Stevie said.
    “I guess he hired somebody else to exercise the horses,” Carole suggested.
    Stevie grimaced. “No, he didn’t. Didn’t you hear what Mrs. Reg just said? That’s not what that story is about. He rode all the time. He used his horses to make his visits to sick people, to deliver medicines, and to be on the spot when he was mayor. He probably even used the horses to ride to church on Sundays when he had to sing in the choir.”
    “Oh,” Carole said. “I get it now.”
    “I guess he was pretty smart,” Lisa said. “He figured out a way to combine two things he wanted to do so they only took up the time of one.”
    “You know, it’s a little bit like my mother once said to me,” Carole said. “She told me that if something was important to me, I’d find a way to do it.”
    “My thought exactly!” Stevie said, a gleam in her eye.
    “I know that look,” Lisa said, recognizing it from the many times when Stevie had come up with some kind of impossible scheme—and had pulled it off successfully!
    “So, what’s the most important thing you’ve got to do?” Carole asked.
    “Beat Veronica,” Stevie said. “And I know just how we’re going to do it!”
    “We?” Carole asked dubiously.
    “I’m in,” Lisa said.
    Carole sighed. “Me too,” she said.

S TEVIE LEANED BACK in Max’s eight-passenger van and sighed. It felt like the first time she had relaxed in almost three weeks. As she thought about the days that had just flown by, she was sure that was the case.
    Since her terrible discovery of Veronica’s plot, Stevie and her friends had been working at nonstop, breakneck speed. So far, everything was looking good.
    A lot of Stevie’s work had been done on the telephone. She’d had to talk to the hospital administrators, who were thrilled with her ideas. She’d also had to talk to Miss Fenton, who was less enthusiastic, and to Max, who was downright dubious. Finally, she’d had to talk to her opponent in the presidential race. He had given her his total cooperation. There were a few people she hadn’ttalked to. For instance, she hadn’t talked to Kate and Christine and told them what parts she wanted them to play in her plans. And she hadn’t talked to the Italian boys. She wasn’t even sure if she would be able to talk to them, if they didn’t know