Lucky and the Cousin Caper

**"Lucky and the Cousin Caper"** is the thirty-eighth episode of *Spirit Riding Free* and the fifth episode of the sixth season.

## Plot synopsis

When Julian gets too far in scheming, the PAL must help him get out of one with "shrunken heads."

## Plot

A photographer snaps pictures of Jim and Kate outside the Prescott House in Miradero to use for a newspaper wedding announcement. Lucky and Spirit join in, and Kate gives her future stepdaughter the locket necklace that Lucky brought back from the orphanage. Lucky is surprised as this necklace belonged to Kate's mother and it's all Kate had left of her. But since they're all going to be a family, Kate wants Lucky to have it. Lucky fears losing the necklace while she's riding, so she decides to only wear it on special occasions and keeps it safe in her room amongst her other personal treasures.

Snips annoys the PAL in the barn when he goes looking for a rotten apple in a barrel to carve into a shrunken head to complete a necklace of three such heads he intends to wear to repel Bianca. No sooner does Snips ride away on Señor Carrots than do Bianca and Mary Pat show up with telegrams for Lucky from her Cousin Julian, sent from the Dusty Rose Hotel in the nearby frontier town of Silverlode, begging Lucky's help.

The PAL ride to Silverlode where Julian explains to Lucky that to join a secret club known as the Scoundrels, he and another pledge named Pete will have to complete a set of initiation rituals by stealing a map from the house of his school headmaster. Concerned this will get him kicked out of school, Julian pitches an alternate plan to Lucky, one in which he will "rob" her of some planted item. Lucky realizes that Julian's plan resembles the plot of a Boxcar Bonnie novel and agrees to help Julian. The pledge master, Calvin, and the other pledge Pete show up and Lucky, posing as improvised alter ego Fortuna "Sticky Fingers" Navarro, convinces Calvin to stage a theft of shrunken heads from Julian's cousin Lucky Prescott's house during a party as a substitute for stealing the headmaster's map. Calvin envisions the shrunken heads hanging from the Scoundrels' clubhouse mascot, a moose head they call Bartleby.

Back in Miradero, the PAL prepare for the caper. They enlist Maricela to play Lucky Prescott, and Abigail steals the string of shrunken heads from around the neck of Snips as he snoozes by the fountain in the Town Square, and gives them some hair taken from Boomerang. The PAL put the heads in a safe in the dining room that Lucky will pretend to crack. Then they hustle Jim and Kate off to their dance lesson to get the house all to themselves.

Julian and the Scoundrels arrive by train and Lucky picks them up from the depot. Turo welcomes the guests as a butler, his several simple lines written on his arms. Maricela pretends to be Lucky, and, to Maricela's annoyance, Pru portrays a countrified version of Maricela. Abigail tries to be both Mary Pat and Bianca, awkwardly exiting and re-entering the room to switch roles.

The group enjoys chocolate croissants, tea cakes, and lemonade and Maricela recites poetry. Meanwhile, Lucky tries to open the safe for Calvin and Julian, but only succeeds in breaking off the handle. To keep Calvin from reverting to the plan involving theft from the headmaster's house, Julian proposes to steal something from Lucky's bedroom as a trophy. Calvin and Pete rifle through Lucky's belongings, and consider stealing Lucky's quartz and snow globe before Julian persuades them to take the locket necklace instead. Tipped off to the theft by Abigail, Lucky explains the significance of the necklace to Julian, who agrees to get it back. Putting on a record, Pru calls a square dance and inserts instructions to Maricela and the PAL to pick the pockets of Calvin and Pete as they dance with the Scoundrels. The plan does not succeed, and at the end of the dance, the Scoundrels leave the party.

Julian stops them outside the house, confesses his scheme, and asks for return of the locket. Calvin considers Julian's setup and, thinking it a "true Scoundrel move" to scam the Scoundrels, admits Julian to the club. He returns the locket. Jim and Kate arrive home with an advance copy of the newspaper with the family photo printed in it.

Somewhere out on the frontier, Butch LePray robs a stagecoach and catches a glimpse of the newspaper with the photograph of Lucky and her new family. "Got ya", Butch proclaims, before knocking her robbery victim out with a punch to the face.