Horse Feathers Read Online Free Page A

riding her beloved mare, Belle, should have caused an explosion beyond measure. Instead, Stevie was still calmly drawing lines on her eggs. This was serious.
    “There,” said Stevie as she replaced the last egg in the incubator. She crawled back into bed and reached for her alarm clock. She set the alarm for the next turning. It hardly seemed worth going to sleep. On the other hand, she
was
pretty tired. Stevie took one last look at the eggs lying peacefully in the incubator, then lay back in the bed, fluffing a pillow under her head. “You know,” she said, staring up at the ceiling, “this could be a great opportunity to learn something new.”
    “I’m sure that’s exactly what Max has in mind,” said Lisa.
    “And when it come to horses,” Carole added happily, “I’m always up to learning something new.”
    Stevie stared at her friends, wondering how they could possibly get so off the topic so quickly. “I was talking about the eggs,” she said slowly. “You know, the ones we’ve been talking about all evening?”
    Lisa looked over at Stevie—checking to make sure that it really was Stevie. It certainly looked like Stevie. And it even sounded like Stevie, except for the non-horse-related words that kept coming out of her mouth. “Goodnight, Stevie,” said Lisa.
    Carole burrowed further into her sleeping bag.
Not to worry
, she thought.
Stevie will be back to her old self the moment her head hits the pillow
. She took a quick peek at Stevie and realized that her head was already on the pillow.
Okay, first thing in the morning
, Carole corrected herself.
    It wasn’t that Stevie didn’t get obsessed about things—it would be un-Stevie-like
not
to get obsessed. But one thing that Carole knew for sure was that nothing—
nothing
—distracted Stevie for long from thinking about horses. Certainly not a bunch of eggs in a box. And certainly not when there was a mystery horse arriving at Pine Hollow in less than ten hours.
    Stevie clicked off the lamp beside her bed, leaving the room in darkness except for the light shining in the incubator. There was a moment of silence, followed by Stevie’s anxious question: “Do you think there’s any chance they might hatch early?”
    Lisa pulled her sleeping bag over her head and gave a muffled “Brrumpf!” in response.

T HE ALARM WENT off at exactly 6:00 the next morning. Carole’s hand slipped out from under her sleeping bag to shut it off.
Four hours since the last time it went off
, Carole thought groggily, although it felt more like only four minutes. She rolled onto her side to go back to sleep when she suddenly remembered what day it was—Sunday! Max’s mystery horse was arriving that morning! Carole bolted upright, intending to wake Lisa and Stevie, only to find that Stevie’s bed was already empty.
    “Tell me it’s not morning already,” Lisa mumbled.
    Stevie was sitting cross-legged on the floor by the incubator, staring at the eggs. She glanced over. “It’s about time you two sleepyheads woke up.”
    Lisa peeked out from her sleeping bag at the sound of Stevie’s perky voice. Stevie was usually the last of the girls to wake up. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Stevie Lake?” Lisa asked.
    Carole rubbed her eyes to make sure she was really seeing what she was seeing. “Stevie, what are you doing?”
    Stevie grinned. “Watching.”
    “Why? Have they changed shape?” Lisa teased as she sat up and stretched.
    “I thought they weren’t supposed to hatch for nearly another week,” said Carole.
    “Well, what if they decide to come early and I’m not watching?” Stevie asked in a logical tone that almost sounded like Lisa—except that it was Stevie and it wasn’t logical at all that she should sound like Lisa. “The instructions said I could expect some hatching within the next week, so I’ll just sit here until it does.”
    Lisa sighed and climbed out of her sleeping bag. Now
that
sounded like the Stevie she knew and