The first sign that anything new was going on was the sound of gravel crunching in the driveway. Half the riding class at Pine Hollow Stables looked toward the entrance, several of them managing to catch a glimpse of a black Honda Civic. The car was so shiny it looked extremely out-of-place.

Max Regnery cleared his throat loudly. "Pay attention!" he ordered, although he'd been looking toward the car as well. The riders nodded and refocused on the situation at hand; most of them did, anyway. Veronica diAngelo could be heard whispering loudly to whoever would listen.

"That girl's outfit is so out of style," she hissed. Max shot Veronica a frosty look, and Veronica smiled brightly back. Stevie Lake, Carole Hanson, and Lisa Atwood exchanged glances that clearly said they dealt with Veronica for much longer than any of them liked, and the other girls in the class, Polly Giacomin, Betsy Cavanaugh, and Meg Durham, simply ignored Veronica.

But Carole was rather curious about the car, and the next time she passed the door out to the parking lot she craned her neck to take a quick peek. There was an older girl standing beside the car; she looked to be in her late teens, but not quite twenty. Carole saw nothing wrong with the girl's outfit, though she wasn't quite a fan of the dark colors, as she preferred sunny yellow and light shades of blue to brown and black. Then Max called out for Carole's attention, and Carole's thoughts left the girl in the dark colors.

The girl closed the car door gently, luckily for the riders in the lesson; if she hadn't, most of the horses would have spooked at the sound. This realization made Lisa think that the girl had been around horses before, and the girl's outfit made Lisa think that, too. She was wearing knee-high Dublin boots, distressed skinny jeans, and a black T-shirt, more appropriate for the barn than even Veronica's outfits. The girl walked into the barn, out of view of the lesson, and the thirteen-year-olds in the lesson went back to paying attention.

The barn was empty, for the most part. Max's mother, Mrs. Regnery, fondly known as Mrs. Reg, was in the office, and the stable hand Red O'Malley was busy cleaning out a stall at the end of the hall. The girl knocked on the door of the office, and Mrs. Reg called, "Come in!"

The girl entered. "Hey," she said, without a smile. "I'm Joey Redwood."

Mrs. Reg looked mildly surprised. "Oh!" she said, chuckling. "You spoke to Max on the phone, correct?"

"Yeah, a couple of weeks ago."

"Then you're the new stable hand," Mrs. Reg mused. "I'm sorry, but I was quite sure that Max was looking for another college boy to hire." Mrs. Reg appeared almost apologetic; she added, "Those men! They want to stick together, you know."

Joey folded her arms. Mrs. Reg thought uncomfortably that either Joey was oblivious or she was too stubborn to take the hint. "I had a cold when I spoke to him, so my voice was deeper. My full name's Joanna. Anyway, is it still all right if I work here? I've worked with horses before and I'm just as capable as the hand cleaning out stalls right now."

"It's a lot of work," Mrs. Reg warned.

"I can handle it."

"We just have to convince Max of that now," Mrs. Reg muttered. She looked back up at Joey with a smile. "Well, I'm sure you don't need any help finding Red, you've already mentioned him! You can ask him for a job, I'm sure there's something you can do."

Joey nodded. "Thanks," she said before exiting the office. Mrs. Reg watched Joey go, wondering about her. She'd seemed rather distant and cold, even angry. Or perhaps she was snobby. But the comparison of a snob to a stable hand made no sense, and Mrs. Reg dismissed the subject, going back to sorting through the piles of paperwork on her son's desk.

At the end of the hall Joey stopped outside the stall the hand, apparently Red, was in. "Hi," Joey said. "I'm supposed to ask you what to do."

Red looked up and grinned. "Are you the new hand?" Joey nodded wordlessly. Red straightened up, still grinning, and walked over to stand in the doorway of the stall, leaning against the side. "I'm Red O'Malley, currently the lonely stable hand of Pine Hollow Stables. Max's been looking for another hand for a while."

"Yeah, there was an ad in the paper," Joey said. "I'm Joey Redwood. The lady in the office said Max wanted a guy and he ended up with me."

"How did he think you were a dude?"

"I had a cold, and I only talked to him on the phone, and I go by Joey. But seriously, what's there for me to do? Looks like you could use some help cleaning these stalls."

Red shrugged. "Guess you're right. You can start in on the next stall over, but we won't be able to finish the rest of them until the lesson finishes. After they untack their horses, we can take the horses out, and then we'll clean the stalls. After that we've got to feed the horses out in their pastures, and after that we'll have to -"

"I get it!" Joey said, holding up her hands as if Red had taken a swipe at her. "I get it, I get it – there's a lot of work to be done." She sighed. "I'm assuming the pitchforks are somewhere at the end of the hall."

"Got that right."

Well, Joey thought as she headed to the back of the barn, at least I only have to do one stall. She wandered around, feeling lost and a little stupid, until she found the pitchforks hanging on the back wall. She snatched up the red one, grabbed the nearest bucket, and headed back to start on the cleaning task.

It was quiet while Joey worked, and after working for a good five minutes in silence she found herself humming. Embarrassed, Joey quickly stopped, hoping Red hadn't heard her. The last thing she needed was another guy to tease her about something. She already had her brother for that.

But Red poked his head into the stall with a smirk. "Don't want to bother you or anything, but I could've sworn I heard some humming."

Joey said the first thing that came to her. "No, it was…" she trailed off, and swung her finger around, trying to find something alive in the stall other than herself to put the blame on. The only thing she saw was a rather nastily large spider, and when she saw it, she stopped. Red snickered, and Joey blinked, realizing that she had just blamed humming on a spider.

"Wow," Red said slowly, raising his eyebrows. "I was going to tell you I liked the song, too, but I'll have to go and learn Spider-ese before being able to tell the hummer themselves."

"Oh, you know the song?" Joey said, dismissing Red's Spider-ese remark.

"Yeah, Linkin Park."

Joey was impressed. When she'd heard that there was another stable hand, she'd immediately pictured a farm boy with overalls, a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth, and freckles, not to mention a major Rascal Flatts fan. She raised one of her eyebrows, thinking that Red was, if at all possible, the opposite. He was wearing regular jeans, had nothing sticking out of his mouth, and was tan instead of freckled – and apparently, he was a Linkin Park fan. Maybe working here wouldn't be so bad after all. "Name the song," Joey demanded, as she finished ridding the stall of manure, dumping the last load into the bucket.

"A Place for My Head," Red said. "You've got to try harder to trick me with such a simple one like that. Now, if you really want to try and catch me, you'll have to go with a less known one, like Cure for the Itch or Wake."

"Well," Joey said, starting to admire Red, "looks like I can't catch you anyway." She smiled faintly at him and walked out of the stall. "Where do we put these lovely gifts?"

Red explained, and soon enough they were heading out to spread the manure around the nearest field. It took more time than Joey would've liked, considering this was her favorite pair of shoes, the smell of manure wasn't exactly her favorite smell, and she had to help Red with the manure he'd removed from other stalls earlier.

When it was finally finished, cars were pulling into the driveway and out of it. Joey looked up, wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. She must have looked quizzical, because Red explained: "The lesson's over, they must've finished untacking the horses. Parents, you know."

Joey wasn't about to admit that no, she did not know, so she quickly changed the topic after letting that one relax for a few minutes. "Folks, we have a very special guest for you tonight."

Red laughed, and both of them walked back to the barn together, carrying three or four emptied buckets each. "I'd like to introduce…Mr. Hahn!"

Joey smirked. They reentered the barn, and Red handed Joey the buckets he'd been carrying. "You can get on turning the horses out, I have to finish up out there. Spread the stuff around with the tractor."

"How do I know where to put them?"

"Ask Max or a couple of the girls from the lesson that just ended, I'm sure they'd help, and you have to meet Max sometime." Red grinned at Joey before turning around and heading back out. Joey looked around, wondering what to do. She decided that she ought to put the buckets away first, and once that task was finished, she found herself loitering awkwardly by the office.

She didn't want to interrupt whatever was going on there, the door was closed, and the voices inside sounded very official; so when Joey saw a group of young girls passing by, she stopped the one closest to her. "Um, hey," Joey said, trying to pass off the idea that she was eighteen and had to ask little girls what to do, "I'm supposed to turn out the horses, but I don't know which ones go to which pasture."

The girl Joey had asked, an African-American girl, smiled. Joey noted that everybody here had a habit of smiling. "Oh, I'll help! I'm Carole, and these are my best friends Stevie and Lisa. Are you the new hand?"

No, I'm only trying to get you to tell me where the horses go so I can tell my friend who steals horses, Joey thought irritably. Joey, stop it, she's only trying to be nice. Besides, she's like, ten. "Yes, I've heard that Max thought I was a boy and that's why he hired me."

"You? A boy?" asked the blonde girl, apparently Stevie. Joey decided to take Stevie's surprised remark as a compliment.

"Yeah," Joey said, and proceeded to explain what she'd already had to explain twice that day. "I had a cold when I talked to him on the phone so my voice was hoarse and deeper, and I go by Joey. I've never seen him in person. In fact, I still haven't yet, I've been taking orders from Red."

The curly-haired girl, Lisa, let out a sudden loud and unnecessary giggle. Stevie looked at Lisa inquiringly, and it seemed they were on some alien brainwave together, because abruptly Stevie was chuckling, too. Joey shifted her weight from one foot to another, unable to shake the feeling that they were laughing at her.

Carole rolled her eyes good-naturedly at her friends. "You can talk to Max first, we can start taking the horses out."

"Are you sure?" Joey didn't know if that counted as shirking her duties or not. Carole nodded encouragingly and walked off, Stevie and Lisa trailing behind her. Joey watched them go for a few seconds before heading to the office.

A well-dressed woman was just exiting, another young girl following her. "But Mum!" wailed the girl. Her mother cut her off and started to shout at her, and the arguing duo yelled at each other all the way out.

Joey tried not to stare and entered the office. "Hello," she said, forcing on a smile to try and look more friendly. She needed this job, and she was going to have it, even if she had to fake her way through it. "I'm Joey Redwood, your new stable hand." She stuck out her arm.

The man with curly blonde hair stared at her hand dumbly for a few seconds before tentatively reaching out and shaking it. "No offense, but I thought you were a boy."

"It's fine, I had a cold when I talked to you."

"And you didn't bother trying to clarify…?"

"No. Shouldn't matter."

The man nodded slightly as if conceding to that point, and he said, "Well, as you obviously already know, I'm Max Regnery. It's nice to meet you. I assume you've been taking orders from Red."

"Yep."

"Good, he'll have you doing some real work." Max winked, and Joey snorted, thinking that he was trying a little too hard to be friendly here. She wouldn't even resort to winking as an attempt to be friendly; she'd always thought of winkers as creepy. "Does he have you on a job right now?"

"Yes, I'm supposed to be taking out the horses. I didn't know where they went and I hadn't met you yet, so Carole, Lisa, and Stevie are helping me out."

Max laughed. "They have a way of doing that. Helping out, I mean. But they can be just as much trouble as help from time to time, remember that. Now get back to work before Red thinks you've abandoned him."

Well, Joey thought as she left the office, that went better than expected.

Greetings, fellow Saddle Club readers! I used to read these books all the time when I was younger. We just recently got new carpet upstairs, meaning we had to move everything out of upstairs, and in all the madness I found my old books again. I've gotten back into them, obviously. (; I'm a fan of Red, which is also another obvious point, and you may think this story is a little off kilter because I've never seen the show. But that is, of course, why this is categorized in books! ;D Now, I love all constructive criticism, and please do warn me if Joey starts sounding like a serious case of Mary Sue. I hate them. Mary Sues, I mean.

And I hope I have no real need to mention that I don't own this.