Ranch Hands by Bonnie Bryant Page A

you,” Stevie said. She would have read the letter right away herself.
    Carole unfolded the several sheets, held them to the dim light in the cabin, and began reading.
    Dear Carole, Kate, and Stevie, and Eli, and Jeannie, too
,
    I’m getting to like traveling in Europe. In fact, it seems that the more I get to like it, the less my parents get to like it. That’s pretty strange. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I were with you guys. I do. I really do! Especially since you guys already know what you’re doing. I’m learning something new every day.
    “Shows how much she knows!” Stevie joked.
    “Even more, it shows how
little
we know,” said Kate.
    Carole continued reading.
    I’m writing to you from Italy now.
    Today we drove through the area known as Tuscany. It’s just beautiful here. Very hilly (though nothing compared to the Rockies, but you know what I mean). There are little towns tucked
in the hillsides with old old houses that have orange tile roofs. It’s something.
    We stopped in a small town to get some lunch and fill up our tank with gas. It’s a good thing we don’t do that much—gas is over $6 a gallon, if I’ve done my math correctly. Mom and Dad kept looking at the menu and couldn’t make any sense of it. Naturally, I had my phrase book handy. They told me what they wanted and I ordered it for them. They seemed pretty grateful. The waiter was really impressed. Honestly, so was I. I’m actually getting good at it—thumbing through the phrase book, I mean, not speaking Italian!
    That’s not what I really wanted to tell you about though. The really fantastic thing happened later.
    After lunch Dad went and found a telephone. He wanted to call the hotel to make sure our reservation was okay. Mom went with him. They took the phrase book with them. While they were away from the table, I got into a conversation with a woman at the table next to us. I was wearing my Saddle Club pin and she noticed it. She spoke a little English; I spoke a little Italian. We made out okay.
    What I realized as we started talking was that she was actually wearing riding clothes! It took
two or three times around the vocabulary list for me to realize that she was asking me if my parents and I were attending the horse show in the next town. Can you believe it? There was actually a horse show going on and I didn’t know it until she told me.
    Well, of course, I just had to go. Mom had been talking about some ancient ruin, but what’s an ancient ruin compared to a horse show? I didn’t think I’d have too much trouble convincing Dad, because he’d had it up to here with ancient ruins. I was all ready to do my convincing talk when the looks on their faces told me there was trouble.
    It turned out that the hotel at which we had a reservation was totally booked because of the horse show. My parents had gone all through the phrase book, looking for a way to threaten to sue. The best they could do was to get a promise from the hotel that, if we showed up there, they’d see what they could do to find us a place to stay.
    Since it was my idea to get to the horse show anyway, I thought that was fine. We paid our bill and drove on over to the hotel. My parents were very upset. I guess I can’t blame them, but I was pretty sure something would work out. It’s always seemed to me that when there were horses around, everything else worked out. Know what I mean?
    Kate grunted. Stevie laughed. Carole went on reading.
    So, while they went to try to sweet talk the hotel into finding a place for us to stay, I walked on over to the horse show. It was practically across the street.
    I bought a ticket, got a program that I hardly understood, and just walked around. Everything was outdoors. There were about four rings with events going on all at the same time. I watched a dressage exhibition in the main ring and watched a preliminary jumping event in a smaller ring. It was really fun. I missed you guys, though, because there