One evening, Spongebob went to the stables. Squidward went home to practice his clarinet. Spongebob was surprised to see Patrick at the stables. A very patient fish was trying to teach him how to get on the seahorse, but the rather dense starfish was clueless. He grabbed a coin and kept jabbing the seahorse with it, trying to find the coin slot.

"Where's the slot? I want to ride the PONY!" Patrick almost screamed.
"No, boy! It's the real thing!" said the fish, who was a gar. "Put your…uh…left stump in the stirrup and I'll help you swing up!"

"But the ride's not moving!"

"It's not a ride! Look!"

And the very disgusted gar gritted the big teeth typical to his species and walked the animal in a circle.

"Ahh! It's possessed!" Patrick wailed, running back and forth with his arms in the air.

"You insane echinoderm!" the toothy fish yelled. "It's a live seahorse!"

"Ohhh!" the starfish breathed, finally getting it. "Why didn't you say that before?"

The gar smacked his head. "Okay, let's go." he grumbled, helping Patrick mount the horse, the one named Profit. "My name's Sean. I'll be helping you ride today."

During all this, Spongebob was watching in amusement. He wasn't blind to the fact that his friend had a certain lack of intelligence, but he never teased or insulted Patrick. Still, the scene amused him. He bit his spongy lower lip with his silly buck teeth and tried to swallow his giggles.

As Sean and Patrick went riding, the starfish had a hard time staying in the stirrups with his stump legs. Finally, he just plain fell off. When that happened, he ran off in tears, but Sean caught him and made him pay his money. Patrick dug into his pockets, but then stopped.

"How much is it?" he asked.

"Forty dollars," Sean answered

"I only have fifty!" Patrick cried, bringing out a wad of five ten-dollar bills.

"You just need to give us four of those."

Patrick began to count, leafing through the money. "Zero, one, two, three, four!" he exclaimed, extending his hand and giving the fifty dollars to Sean. Spongebob sighed and walked to his friend. He tried to explain that zero was when you had no money, but Patrick still didn't understand. Sean looked like he wanted to strange somebody (mainly, the starfish).

"Just take it!" Patrick howled. "I know how to count money, so just take me word for it!"

Sean sighed and took the money. "Fiiine!" he relented. "At least we have extra money," he mumbled to himself under his breath.

A bunch of teenagers came by, ready to ride seahorses. Most of them were fish, but one was—can you believe it? A girl starfish. Patrick may have been stupid, but he knew a pretty, young girl starfish. The girl starfish bumped into Patrick, who was staring at her with an open mouth. The girl waved her right arm.

"Hello?" she called to the guy starfish in a musical voice. "Do you work here?"

Patrick jumped. "Twenty-four!" he shouted.

"No, Pat!" Spongebob cried. "She wants to know if you work here!"

"I don't work here! I work at the mall food court! I clean tables."

"Oh," the girl starfish said. "Anyway," she added, "I'm Shelly Regenerator,"

She extended a hand and the two managed to shake hands by sticking their suction cups together. When their hands parted, Patrick gave a dumb smile, but who could blame him? He was a simple starfish and Shelly amazed him. Heck, she even managed to amaze smart starfish, but since Patrick wasn't used to girls, he was even more amazed. Shelly was a light peach color, and she had silky, curly golden hair. Her eyes were a pretty green, and she was a slender starfish. She wore a pretty yellow dress with red stripes.

"Come on, Shell!" grumbled a boy flounder, twirling around so he could see her, as his eyes were both on one side of him. "The horses are ready."

The group, which consisted of seven people in all, got on their horses. Patrick gazed, his eyes glazed with happiness, at the girl star. Spongebob, not much of a romantic, shook his friend. "Wake up, Pat! It's just a girl!"

"So!" Pat demanded, puffing out his chest and trying to make his voice sound manly. "She's purty! And she's a starfish!"

"Well, I'm going to go feed the horses for Sean, he's going on a date." Spongebob answered. "And the other worker, Poisson L'Fish, is sick."

And so Spongebob busied himself feeding the three remaining horses, and he also put food in the empty stalls. Pretty soon, the teenagers came back. Patrick was sitting on a fence, and in the sunset light, he gazed at Shelly in wonder. Shelly didn't like being stared at. She glowered at Patrick, who shrank back, and started dismounting. She and her friends headed into town.

Just then, three fish came up. They wore soft blue shirts that said, 'FINNY TOTAL FITNESS' on them in red letters, along with blue shorts. They went up to the office, where Spongebob was locking up the money box.

"We want to rent horses!" they said, just as Mr. Krabs was arriving to check on the stables. He was coming toward the office as Spongebob said, "Sorry, the horses are eating their dinner. We're closing."

"Spongebob!" Mr. Krabs shouted, coming into view. "That's crazy talk! They can ride. The horses can afford to wait a little."

"That's not what…" Spongebob began.

"Me boy, you've got to think sense! We'll be getting one hundred twenty dollars!"

"But, Mr. Krabs! The seahorses don't like…"

"I can't hear ye, boy! Come help me saddle up the seahorses!"

"Yay!" the three ladies cheered at once. "We're going riding!"

Spongebob saddled up three seahorses, feeling very apprehensive. The seahorses snorted and bucked, disgusted at leaving their meals. He almost had to drag them from their stalls, but they stood quietly as the lady fish mounted and got on. Spongebob got on Profit, who snorted and strained his neck towards his stall. Spongebob yanked the reins and squeezed his thighs to get Profit to move forward. He told the other fish how to steer the horses, and they moved off.

The foursome soon entered a kelp forest. They rode along easily for a while, and then Spongebob said it was getting dark, they'd have to go back. As they rode back to the stables, a whiff of baked coral came from a nearby home. The horses, reminded of their favorite meal, coral mash, got excited and began to 'gallop' (swim really fast). The ladies, who'd never ridden once before, got terrified. They started to screech, haul at the reins, and scream, "Whoa, whoa!" –that is, they did all the wrong things. They terrified the horses, who bucked them off. They went crashing into some kelp trees. Spongebob, a good rider, had stayed on. He leapt off of Profit and let him go back to the stables. He went to help the ladies, who were groaning. He heard various cries. "My legs!" "Owza!" "It hurrrts!"

Each one of the riders was on the ground, wiggling. They were stunned, banged up, and sore, but nothing life-threatening happened. Still, Spongebob called an ambulance, which picked up the three fish.

"Boy, I hope you had these ladies sign release forms!" a paramedic growled to Spongebob.

"Sign what?" Spongebob enquired. "Our riders never sign anything!"

"Wow!" the paramedic said as he climbed into the ambulance. "Boy, are you in trouble."

When Squidward heard the news at the Krusty Krab the next day and was told by a worried Spongebob about his (Spongebob's) conversation with the paramedic, he groaned, but a smirk tugged at his mouth under his disgusted expression.

"I told them something would happen!" he muttered to himself. He finally allowed himself a prideful grin. "I was right. Again. A ha! Ha! Ha!" he laughed, his nose expanding and contracting with each laugh.

--

Well, here it is. Sorry, but there won't be any more for a while, maybe not 'til April! I've got homework and other stories to write! Besides, I'm out of ideas. I mean, I know the plot, but I'm out of supporting ideas. :-)