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climb up to the window, open it, and shove at the boards. The boards fell aside.
    They had to stack all the old boxes up against the wall so that even Gordon, the shortest of them, could reach the window, but within a few minutes they were outside, propping the boards back up.
    “Okay then, how about eight o’clock tonight?” Regina proposed. “And bring flashlights!”
    “Right,” came an unenthusiastic response from Ann. Being locked in the basement and terrified of being discovered had not seemed to have whetted anybody’s appetite for a return visit, even to a cool place like the old house.
    “Come on, guys!” Regina said. “You’re not afraid of a few construction guys, are you?”
    “I am,” said Gordon. “What if they’d found us?”
    “Ah, but they didn’t!” Regina said triumphantly. “And besides, Stevie knows these wonderful ghost stories that she’s dying to tell us!”
    There was still hesitation.
    “And I’ll bring marshmallows.”
    That seemed to do it.
    “Eight o’clock it is!” they said.
    Stevie looked at her watch. Eight o’clock didn’t seem anywhere near long enough away.

“M AXI ! C OME HERE , Maxi! Come to Lisa!”
    It wasn’t working at all. Maxi clearly didn’t have the slightest interest in doing anything Lisa suggested. Instead she tried to run after the ponies and horses. The only good news about that was that there weren’t any around at the moment, for she surely would have ended up under the hooves of one of them.
    “I’m beginning to think that looking after Maxi is a big job,” Lisa admitted to Carole, who was trying to head the toddler off before she climbed over a jump that was set up for the afternoon adult jump class.
    “I always thought it was,” Carole said. “And I will always remember that this was your bright idea.”
    “Guilty,” Lisa admitted. “But as long as we’re looking after her, Max can get some work done.”
    “Even though it’s our vacation,
we
don’t seem to be getting much riding done,” Carole reminded her.
    “But we’re pitching in to help someone out,” Lisa said. “And that’s one of The Saddle Club rules.”
    “Sure,” Carole agreed. “But the people we’re supposed to help out first is The Saddle Club!”
    “And what about all the money we’re earning? You don’t think that’s helping out?”
    Carole didn’t answer. She was too busy shifting to the left as fast as she could to block Maxi’s access to the jump. She picked up the toddler and gave her a hug.
    Maxi didn’t hug back. In fact, she kicked and howled. Carole knew if she put her down, the little girl would just take off, heading into something even more dangerous than the jump she’d wanted to climb.
    “Maybe we should take her inside,” Carole suggested.
    “Oh, sure,” Lisa said. “Remember how much she wanted to climb the manure pile a half hour ago? That’s why we’re out here.”
    Carole did remember. She put Maxi down and took her hand. Lisa took the other one. Together the girlscould pick Maxi up and swing her. Maxi liked that. She liked it so much that both Lisa and Carole soon found themselves with sore backs from leaning over.
    “How about a nap?” Carole said to Maxi as cheerfully as she could, hoping to make it sound like as much fun for Maxi as it would be for the two of them to have a little rest from baby chasing.
    “No nap!” Maxi declared. The little girl didn’t talk much, but she obviously knew that word when she heard it.
    Lisa couldn’t help herself: She laughed. Carole sighed.
    “Hi, girls, how’s it going?” Mrs. Reg asked, emerging from the barn.
    “We’re exhausted and it’s only been a little over an hour so far today,” Carole said.
    “She reminds me of her father when he was a little boy,” said Mrs. Reg.
    Carole and Lisa exchanged looks. It was hard to imagine Max as a little boy, especially as a toddler.
    “He was this energetic?” Lisa asked.
    “Oh yes,” said Mrs. Reg. “I thought my back