#54: Mallory and the Dream Horse
I am very firmly Not a Horse Girl, but I’m trying to be open-minded and kind about Mallory’s life choices, so let’s dive in. Mallory and Jessi are totally obsessed with horses and dream of having their own and of being able to take riding lessons. So how fortuitous when Mallory gets a brochure in the mail from Kendallwood Farm, which is on the outskirts of Stoneybrook and offers riding lessons. She and Jessi are super excited and each begs their parents to let them take lessons. Jessi’s parents say no, but Mal’s parents say yes - after she offers to pay for half, get up an hour early to do chores on Saturdays, and stick to the eight-lesson beginners’ course. #HorseCourse
At her first lesson, Mal quickly realizes that she’s a newbie in more ways than one. For starters, she did not arrive dressed in an English riding habit because - hello - where would the Pike family get an English riding habit? There’s a snooty snooterton, Kelsey, in the riding class who snidely comments on it, but Mallory can’t hear her over the sound of her own heavy breathing from spotting her dream horse, Pax, a white Arabian that belongs to Kendallwood. When she gets home, Mallory calls Jessi and breathlessly tells her every detail, but Jessi sounds like she couldn’t care less and hangs up to go do the splits or something. Poor Mallory is very confused.
In baby-sitting land, the Pike kids are putting on a neighborhood-wide Stars of Tomorrow circusy talent show, and Nina Marshall is getting teased at pre-school because she brings her huge gray blankie - named Blankie - everywhere. Vanessa Pike takes control of the whole talent show, which would be like Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future being a dictator, but I can’t judge Vanessa because organizing a neighborhood-wide talent show is not only something I would do at nine years old, it’s something I did do at nine years old. Anyway, at least Claudia and Stacey are still iconic:
Back at Kendallwood, Mallory is realizing just how out of her league she is. (I mean, you’d honestly think she’d be used to it by now.) Another snobby girl named Allison Anders makes fun of her riding outfit, and nobody seems to want to talk to Mal. One girl named Megan tells Mallory about the eight horses that her family owns on their stable - meanwhile, Mallory is one of eight wackjob children who live on the Pike homestead. Megan keeps calling the horse she’s riding a dumb idiot, which Mal doesn’t love, but since Megan literally responded when Mal talked to her, Mal now thinks Megan is her new best friend. She also talks to a girl named Kyle who seems like the only class member who isn’t a fembot superbitch, so that’s a win. She even gives her phone number to a dude rider named David! (He didn’t ask for it.)
“I’d made two new friends and I was riding Pax. It was a perfect day!” - Mallory, page 64
(or, also, Devi from Never Have I Ever?)
Turns out, though, none of Mallory’s “new friends” actually want to hang out with her. And now neither does Jessi, because Mallory keeps calling to tell her about the riding lessons in gory detail as well as all the new friends she’s making and it’s like HEY MALLORY. JESSI IS PROBABLY BUMMED AND JEALOUS BECAUSE SHE CAN’T DO RIDING LESSONS SO MAYBE DON’T RUB IT ALL IN HER FACE? Mallory, like the police in an episode of Scooby-Doo, remains clueless. Maybe there is a such thing as karma because at her next riding lesson Mallory gets paired with a horse named Gremlin who immediately throws her to the ground. She’s all right, but now she’s scared to ride so her lessons are unpleasant - and it doesn’t help that the rest of the class is a bunch of jerks who ignore her or make fun of her. She’s scared to tell her parents, though, that her dream is now a nightmare, because of the money they spent on the lessons. She finally gets excited about getting invited to her classmate Amber’s birthday party, but then she goes and doesn’t fit in and has a terrible time. She’s also super nervous about the horse show that’s scheduled after the last day of her riding lessons (but at least she gets to ride Pax). Her family and the BSC are coming. TURMOIL IN MALLORY-LAND!
Of course, in the Baby-sitters Club, you know that your friends are always there (doo doo doo da doo) so Mallory tells the club the truth about her misery and she and Jessi make up. Lauren, the riding instructor, lends Mal an English riding habit to wear for show day. Mallory ends up coming in sixth place for her class, and her parents offer to pay the full cost of her next eight weeks of lessons but Mal is like NO THANK YOU. HORSES ARE CHILL BUT I NO LONGER WANT TO RIDE THEM. Phew. Catharsis complete.
