Abby Lovitt doesn't realize how unprepared she is when she takes her beloved horse, True Blue, to a clinic led by the most famous equestrian anyone knows. The biggest surprise, though, is that Sophia, the girl who never makes a mistake, suddenly makes so many that she stops riding. Who will ride her horse? Abby's dad seems to think it will be Abby. Pie in the Sky is the most expensive horse Abby has ever ridden. But he is proud and irritable, and he takes Abby's attention away from the continuing mystery that is True Blue. And then there's high school—Abby finds new friends, but also new challenges, and a larger world that sometimes seems strange and intimidating. She begins to wonder if there is another way to look at horses, people, and life itself. Accompanied by the beautiful imagery of 1960s Northern California, Abby's charming mix of innocence and wisdom guide us through Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley's latest middle-grade horse novel. JANE SMILEY is the author of many books for adults, including  Private Life,   Horse Heaven , and the Pulitzer Prize-winning  A Thousand Acres.  She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001.             Jane lives in Northern California, where she rides horses every chance she gets. She is also the author of four other novels for young readers in the Horses of Oak Valley Ranch series: The Georges and the Jewels,   A Good Horse,   True Blue,  and  Pie in the Sky. Chapter 1 All summer long, Mom and Dad talked about the temperature. I would have thought that since they'd been living in California now for nine years, they would have gotten used to the weather, but no. It wasn't that they complained; it was that they were always amazed. Now it was fifty, now it was seventy, now it was a hundred, and all in the space of one day. In Oklahoma in the summer, it was always a hundred. That's what they said. No matter how hot it was at our place (and yesterday it was a hundred), I knew to take a sweater when I went to the coast to teach Melinda Anniston and Ellen Leinsdorf, which I did every Saturday, even though my broken arm was healed and I had plenty of horses to ride. There were several reasons to go--Dad liked the income and experience for me, Mom liked the chance to do her shopping, and I liked both the girls and also their pony, Gallant Man, a pony that we had owned and sold to Melinda when her family had plenty of money, but that Ellen was now leasing half-time while the Annistons continued to fight about their divorce. This, Mom said, could take years. I also liked seeing Jane Slater, who always had something up her sleeve. Jane was neat and tidy every day, perfectly groomed and usually with a serious look on her face, but underneath that exterior was a person who liked to try things, and also liked me to try things, so when she came up to me after Ellen said good-bye and the groom, Rodney Lemon, took Gallant Man away to give him a bath, I knew she had a plan. She said, "Oh, Abby, time to put in our entry blanks for the show next week." "I thought we had to do that last week." "Well, it is our show, so I reserve for myself the privilege of being a little late. Anyway, I've put both Ellen and Melinda in two classes. Melinda is in the two-foot pony hunters, one over fences and one on the flat, which I think she can do in one day without fainting from anxiety, and Ellen is in two walk-trot equitation classes, one on the flat and one over fences, but the fences are just cavalletti poles, hardly nine inches off the ground, just to teach the kids how to steer around a course." "She could do more." "But her mother couldn't stand it, so I think if her mother sees her do this, she'll be reassured and we can move forward at a brisker pace." She meant let Ellen do what she wanted to do, which was jump jump jump. Jane looked me up and down. "Have you bought your boots yet?" I nodded. Mom had finally given me permission to use some of the money I'd earned to buy a pair of black show boots, all the way to my knees, beautiful, soft, and gleaming, but she had made me buy them a size too large, in case I was still growing. I said, "I've been breaking them in for ten days." "How do they feel?" "Better. I can get my heels down now. Before, they were too stiff." Jane nodded, then said, "I know you wanted them for a long time, and I always think they are the perfect example of a certain thing." "What's that?" "That getting what you want can be a little bit of a burden." "I've already soaped them four times." "There you go." "But they look great." She hugged me. As we walked toward the parking lot, she said, "There's another thing." "What's that?" "Well, I talked Peter Finneran, the judge for the show, into staying an extra four days and giving a clinic after the show is over, and I want you to ride in it." "What's a clinic?" "That's when a famous equestrian gives three days of costly group lessons to those who sign up. It's very intensive, and you can learn a lo