By the next afternoon, Honey was positive that time had flown by in a way that she was certain was mathematically impossible. Suddenly she was sitting in the principal's office waiting for her appointment. This time she would be talking to Mr. Stratton all by herself without the rest of the Bob-Whites!

While outwardly calm looking, on the inside Honey was a quagmire of doubt. Oh, this can't be that hard. Trixie does this all the time. I didn't have any problems talking to Mr. Stratton when we were trying to save the Bob-Whites. And he really is so understanding. Oh woe, I hope I can make sense when I'm talking to him. If I get too nervous, I'll just ramble and jumble everything up. Please, don't let me mess up. Please don't let me--

Honey's anguished thoughts came to a halt as the door to Mr. Stratton's office opened and he stepped out the doorway. "Ms. Wheeler, you wanted to talk to me? Won't you please come in?"

Honey gracefully rose from her seat and smoothed her skirt. Walking toward Mr. Stratton she offered a slim hand. "Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Stratton. I'll try not to take up too much of your time."

"Oh, not to worry, please have a seat. Now, how can I help you?"

Honey sat up straight in her seat and neatly crossed her legs at her ankles. "Well, sir, the Bob-Whites have a project we're interested in developing and we really could use some advice."

Mr. Stratton brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Well, now, this is certainly out of the ordinary for your group. As I recall, Ms. Belden is usually quite capable of dreaming up ideas and, uh, shall we say - getting the ball rolling on her own."

Smiling faintly, Honey could only nod in agreement. "Normally, you'd be correct. But the project we're considering is a little bit out of our league."

Mr. Stratton steepled his fingers. "Hmm, this is definitely piquing my curiosity. Considering the activities you've already taken on, I find it hard to believe that anything would be out of your league.

Honey blushed a rosy pink. "Gosh, thank you Mr. Stratton! But when you hear what our proposal is, you'll understand our dilemma."

"Then perhaps you should enlighten me."

Honey blushed again. "I'm not sure where to begin. I guess I can start with telling what we're trying to do and go from there. The Bob-Whites are interested in inviting students from school to come out and ride the horses at my stable. But we don't want everyone to come all at once because there are only five horses. And we can't have everyone come all the time because it wouldn't be fair to Regan and my parents to have a bunch of strange people on the property."

"Whoa! Time out!" Mr. Stratton held up his hand to impede the rush of words. "First of all, why do you want students to come and ride horses? Second of all, why come to me about this?"

"Oh dear!" moaned Honey. "I knew I would mess this up. Maybe I should start from the beginning and explain what brought this all about."

"Yes, that would be for the best," agreed Mr. Stratton weakly.

"You see, Trixie had this idea about giving people our own age the opportunity to ride horses. Kind of like the programs that are being offered to inner city kids. We want other kids to have the same kind of opportunities we have, so they won't end up getting in trouble because they didn't have those opportunities. So, we thought we'd start small, like once a month. But that's when we realized how difficult it would be to let a whole bunch of people come out like I mentioned. How would we determine who can come. That's when we had the idea of becoming, um, affiliated, with the school. That is if you're interested, as a reward maybe, and if it isn't an, um, a liability issue for the school." Honey finally stopped to take a deep breath. "It doesn't have to be school sponsored, even though it would be okay if you wanted it to be. What we'd really like is your input, that is, if you have any suggestions."

Mr. Stratton waited several seconds to see if Honey was going to continue. "Let me see if I understand you correctly. The Bob-Whites are interested in having other students come out and ride the horses at your stables. And you would like to know if the school wants to become involved in some manner."

He stared patiently at Honey while waiting for her response. Honey immediately felt mortified after realizing how she must have rambled at the principal.

"Yes," she whispered in a small voice.

Mr. Stratton's lips started to twitch at the corners as if he were trying to hold back a smile while struggling to maintain a stern demeanor. "I'm glad that you all have realized the seriousness of your project. As you're aware, the school does indeed have to worry about liability issues. If a student should happen to become injured on a school excursion, any kind of school outing, the school district could get sued."

Honey continued to shrink farther into her seat.

"And I'm sure you'll agree that riding horses does pose a great deal of risk. A student could easily fall off a horse or in a worst case scenario, get thrown and suffer a grave injury."

"But our horses would never do that!" Honey protested. "They're very gentle. Well, at least the ones we'd use."

"I'm sure that they are, Ms. Wheeler. The fact remains, however, that accidents can happen, and the district has to plan for all eventualities."

Seeing the woebegone expression on Honey's face, Mr. Stratton took pity on her. "Having said that, I must admit that your idea is not without merit."

"You mean you might be interested?" Honey straightened in her chair as some of her confidence surged back.

"Certainly! I just wanted to impress upon you the seriousness of what you are trying to undertake. And of course I'll need to know that your father is completely on-board with this project before I can even consider bringing this proposal to the school board."

At the mention of her father, Honey couldn't help but wince. "Well, you see Mr. Stratton, we haven't actually asked my father about this yet."

"I beg your pardon?" An extremely distressed principal instantly replaced the congenial one. "Then why are we even having this conversation?"

Honey's newborn confidence immediately vanished. What is wrong with me today? I can't believe this! I'm a disaster. Come on, pull it together or this is never going to work. She struggled to regain what little shreds of dignity she could.

"I'm sorry Mr. Stratton, I must seem horribly unorganized to you. I'm not normally this bad."

"No, you're not. Are you sure you and Ms. Belden haven't switched bodies for the day?"

A small giggle escaped from Honey and a genuine smile appeared on her face. "Goodness no! But it would explain my lack of speaking skills today. My parents would be horrified!" She became somber again. "Speaking of my parents, the reason why we haven't told my father yet is because we are trying to have all the details organized before hand. That way we'll be able to answer any questions he'll have."

"Ah, I see." Mr. Stratton leaned back in his chair. "In that case I commend you for doing your footwork first. So, let me see if I can recall your questions from the beginning of our discussion. I believe you mentioned a reward?"

"Yes sir. We weren't sure how to organize a trip from school or even how often. At first we were thinking of doing this completely on our own, like once a week until we realized that might be biting off more than we can chew. Even if it was just once a month." Honey offered a self-deprecating smile. "We're pretty good at organizing events, but those are one time deals. I'm not so sure how we'd do at something that we'd have to keep up on a regular basis. That's why I-we decided to ask if you had any suggestions or if anything at school needed some kind of incentive like riding."

"That's a very mature outlook. Now, as far as suggestions, incentives..." he stroked his chin thoughtfully and stared out the windows for several minutes. Honey sat patiently, not wanting to disturb his concentration. Suddenly he snapped his fingers.

"I've got it! Perfect attendance!" Sensing Honey's confusion he explained. "Attendance has become an issue of late. And as I told you last year, we pride ourselves on having the finest schools in Westchester County. This sudden abundance of absences and tardies has been very disheartening. The administration has been racking their brains trying to find a way to turn it around. This just might be the ticket."

Mr. Stratton got up abruptly and started pacing back and forth behind his desk. "Now the issue is how do we reconcile the number of horses with the potential number of students. Do we offer it to all students with perfect attendance?" He stopped pacing and rapidly fired off a question to Honey. "How many horses did you say you had?"

"Five, I mean four really. Jupiter isn't going to be a horse many people could ride."

"Hmm, four horses." Mr. Stratton began pacing again. "Right now only about half of one percent of our students maintain perfect attendance. Other schools have at least two to five percent. We need to raise our percentage." Sitting at his desk again, Mr. Stratton began scribbling some numbers on paper all the while mumbling to himself. "Let's see, our population is at 1,266 and if I take half a percent of that I'd get... 6. Hmm, that's not so bad. At least for right now. And one percent would give me 13. Two percent is 25. Well, that's starting to push the limit."

Mr. Stratton stopped his mumbling and looked up at Honey who had been sitting patiently. "I'm so sorry! You're here to see me. But now that I have the numbers figured out, all that's left is to figure out the most feasible way to use four..." he looked at Honey for confirmation who merely nodded, "horses."

"Wait!" Honey suddenly cried out. "I just realized something. It won't actually be four horses because, well, somebody is going to have lead the other students when they go riding. They can't go riding by themselves or they might get lost. The trails in the woods are very confusing," she offered with a rueful grin. "I used to get lost all the time when I first moved here."

"How many of your group would need to go out with the other students? Would it have to be two or could you manage with one?"

"I don't really want to speak for the rest of the group, but I think we could by with just one. It's just that it might be more fun if there were two of us."

"I understand. And this is really just a rough estimate at this point anyway. I need to have some numbers to present to the school board for their approval."

Honey gasped. "This has to be approved by the school board?"

"Why yes. Any activity that involves students off campus has to be board approved."

"Oh," murmured Honey. "My goodness, I had no idea so much was involved. I'm certainly glad I came to see you before we got much farther. We would have done a bunch of work for nothing!"

"I doubt you would have done this for nothing. I've seen how the Bob-Whites operate. But for now I'll take your numbers into consideration. Using the schools current numbers I estimate that the first time we offer this as a reward, we might have as many as six to ten who would be eligible. And out of that number, not all will be interested.

"Now, since you asked for my advice, there are a couple of possibilities. Not every student will want to ride horses, as exciting as that may seem. If the number of students with perfect attendance stays on the low side, I'd recommend making an event out of this. We might arrange to have a picnic lunch on your property if your parents wouldn't mind. The school district would provide the lunch, of course. And the students could ride in two sessions with lunch in between. However, if the number increases, I would suggest placing names into a drawing. You might want to check with the rest to see how or if you could handle that many riders. I'll need to know as soon as possible."

Honey stood up. "Thank you Mr. Stratton, that's a very good idea. I'll tell the rest of the Bob-Whites and let them know that you need to know our plans right away. You've been so helpful!"

Smiling at her exuberance, Mr. Stratton shook Honey's hand as he escorted her out of his office. "Thank you! This could turn into a real benefit for the school. I'll be looking forward to hearing back from you and the rest of the Bob-Whites."

Honey left the office and headed to the parking lot; Jim had promised to give her a ride home after school. I hope Jim is still waiting for me, I didn't think the meeting would take so long! A sigh of relief escaped when she saw the Bob-White car in the student parking lot.

Jim looked up from his homework as Honey opened the passenger door. "So, you were a long time. How did the meeting go?"

"It went well, but I never thought it would take so long. Mr. Stratton kind of got caught up in the idea and was pacing the floor and mumbling to himself!"

"Mr. Stratton was pacing and mumbling?" Jim looked shocked at the idea.

"Yes! But like I said, he got caught up in the idea and was very excited because he said it could help improve attendance, you know if riding the horses was offered as a reward. His biggest concern was the fact that we don't have many horses, but he had some good ideas. I wrote them all down so I wouldn't forget anything."

Honey spent the next several minutes of the drive home recapping the meeting for Jim.