“HI, CAROLE!” BETSY Cavanaugh greeted her as she tried to dash down the aisle to Diablo’s stall. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Carole asked suspiciously. She didn’t think Max had shared the news about Delilah yet, otherwise she was certain Lisa or Stevie would have called to tell her.

“About Max—the First. He was captured by pirates!”

“Give me a break,” Carole said, making her way to her horse.

“No, it’s true! I think it is, anyway,” Betsy said.

Carole didn’t have time to listen to any more. She stepped into Diablo’s stall and began putting the saddle on him.

“Max the First was a horse thief,” a voice told her, coming over the door to the stall. It was Meg Durham speaking. “It seems that he rode with Billy the Kid and they were rustling horses out west. Then—”

“Meg! I’m late for class and I have to get this done in a hurry. Tell me about it after class, maybe?”

“Sure, Carole,” Meg said. “Nice to see you back.”

By the time Carole had the saddle and bridle on Diablo and was walking him toward the ring—and toward the good-luck horseshoe—two other people had told her two other stories about Max the First. Carole had never heard such zany stories in her whole life—and every single person who told her a tale swore it was true.

“Carole! You’re back!” Stevie shrieked. She had just mounted Comanche and was walking around the ring until class started.

Lisa came up behind her on Pepper. “Oh, Carole, I knew you’d come back. I’m so glad to see you. We missed you!”

“Really?” Carole brushed the good-luck horseshoe with her right hand and then mounted Diablo. “And I think I got back just in time to see this place go crazy. What’s all this stuff I hear about Max the First?”

Lisa and Stevie exchanged glances and then slapped their hands over their mouths. Carole had the distinct impression they were trying to stifle giggles.

“Are you going to tell me that Max was actually the first human being to reach the south pole—on horseback? A little-known expedition that took place at the turn of the century?”

“Hey, that’s a great idea!” Stevie said, her eyes popping open.

“What is going on around here?” Carole asked.

But before either Lisa or Stevie could answer, Max entered the ring.

“Now, class begins!” he said sternly. From that moment on, talking was strictly forbidden.

“Saddle Club meeting at TD’s after class!” Stevie hissed.

Carole nodded happily. Did she have news for them!

“SO YOU GUYS found this old guy at the library who actually knew Max?” Carole asked in surprise.

The three girls were seated at their favorite table in TD’s, the ice cream store at the shopping center. They were each working their way through a sundae, the first Stevie had been able to afford since buying Mr. Thompson the soda!

“Oh, yeah!” Stevie said. “And Max was nothing like anyone had guessed! He was a good rider and a strict teacher—just like our Max—but apparently he was this boring old guy who could put people practically to sleep just by talking. He never left Willow Creek his whole life. He never even did anything interesting, so forget about exciting.”

“So, why’s everybody telling me about pirates and expeditions and everything?”

“See, now that we know the truth, we don’t have to worry about anybody believing it!” Lisa said. “So, we tell people we’ve done research—and that part’s true—and this is what we found. Only we tell everybody something different and we tell them not to tell anybody else!”

“Somehow this sounds like an idea of Stevie’s,” Carole said, laughing. “You’re really something, you know?”

“I never could have done it without Lisa,” Stevie said. “She had a lot of great research ideas. But if you ever get curious about a certain Mrs. Rappaport, or the town sewer system, just ask me, okay?”

“You’ll be the first person I’ll ask,” Carole assured her. “What I really want to ask, though, is what’s going on with Veronica?” Carole told them about the conversation Veronica had with her father. Stevie and Lisa told her about Veronica’s jumping class—in the library. “Is she changing—or what?” Carole asked.

“I think she is,” Lisa said solemnly. “She really learned something when Cobalt got hurt. You have to respect that, don’t you?”

“I respect it,” Stevie said. “But it doesn’t make me like her much better. She’s still a pain. Now, if she stops being a pain, that’ll be news!” The Saddle Club members laughed together.

“Now, let me tell you my news.” Stevie and Lisa listened eagerly, almost as thrilled as Carole when she told them about Snowball and then, best of all, about Delilah’s foal.

“I can’t wait!” Stevie exclaimed. “The newborns are so cute! Do you think it’ll be black like Cobalt—or a pretty palomino like Delilah?”

They talked animatedly about the foal for a while as they finished their sundaes. Then the talk turned to Carole. She’d known it would come, and she knew that her friends deserved an answer.

“What made you decide to come back?” Lisa asked.

“There were a lot of things. I think that you were right in a way when you said I was horse shy. But not just about any horse—it was Cobalt. It hurt so much when he died that I was afraid I might get hurt again if something like that happened to another horse. But when I saw what Veronica had learned—well, I thought if there’s hope for her, then there’s hope for me. Anyway, the only thing worse than losing something you care about is not having something you care about at all. I learned that when Mom died.”

Stevie and Lisa sat quietly. “There was something else,” Carole continued. “I finally realized that no matter how much I cared about him, Cobalt wasn’t mine. He belonged to somebody else.”

“But you rode him more than Veronica did!” Lisa reminded her.

“I did, that’s right. And I rode him better. But Mrs. Reg had the final lesson for me, though she didn’t say it in so many words. There are lots of horses, some good, some bad, most mixes of good and bad. And I want to ride them all!”

“Uh-oh,” Stevie said. Carole and Lisa turned to her. “With that kind of determination, Carole won’t be horse shy anymore, that’s for sure. But the poor horses—they’ll become Carole shy!”

The three girls laughed together and it felt very, very good. The Saddle Club was now back in full operation.