Riding Lessons Read online

  ALSO BY JANE SMILEY

  The Georges and the Jewels

  A Good Horse

  True Blue

  Pie in the Sky

  Gee Whiz

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Jane Smiley

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by AG Ford

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781524718114 (trade) — ISBN 9781524718121 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9781524718138

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.2

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Jane Smiley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Tonight my mom said, “Ellen Leinsdorf, do you lie in bed and plan about how to be naughty?” So now I am lying in bed, and I am thinking about that, and I guess what I always plan is two things—how to get my own horse and how to be funny. The problem with my plans is that they never work out. I have tried wishes, too, but I gave up on that right after third grade. Here is what happened. Last summer, I was down the street at Paulie Miller’s birthday party. First, I got in trouble because when I counted the candles on his cake, there were only nine, so I said to Mrs. Miller, “Where’s the one to grow on?” but she didn’t hear me, so I said it a little louder, “Where’s the one to grow on? He can’t get to ten without it,” and she told me to hush, so I hushed. I really did hush. So Paulie closed his eyes and made a wish (you could see it in his face), and blew out the candles. He only blew out eight, and I saw his mom blow out the last one. But still I hushed because she gave me a look.

  Supposedly, your wish is a secret, but Paulie had no secrets. I knew he was going to wish for a Creepy Crawlers set, because that’s what he told me the day before when we were talking about the party. I told him that your wish had to be a secret and that you had to wish for something good, like people not going hungry or plenty of rain right when we need it, but his face got this look, and he said, “Well, I want Creepy Crawlers.”

  After we ate the cake and the ice cream (the cake was vanilla, with vanilla icing, and good; the ice cream was chocolate—yuck), everyone went outside to run around and play statues and then dodgeball, and I knew what I had to do. I went to the pile of presents and took the one that was the Creepy Crawlers set (big box, and anyway, I could see the words through the tissue paper) and I put it in the closet, under a lot of stuff. It didn’t take me very long, and then I closed the door of the closet and went out and played with the other kids. I am really good at statues.

  We came in and had some jelly beans and sat down to open the presents, and Paulie got an Erector set, a baseball bat, a ball, a Frisbee, two books, and some watercolors and a pad (from me—Mom always says to give as a present what you yourself like best; I told him I would teach him how to draw a horse). But then his mom began running around, looking behind stuff and under the couch and all, and at first I didn’t know what was going on, and then I realized that she was looking for the Creepy Crawlers, but I didn’t say anything. And they never found it until the rains started in the fall and they had to get out their boots and raincoats. I had hidden it really well. Whenever I do something, I make my best effort, just like Mom tells me.

  Even though I didn’t get in trouble, I did realize that if you keep your wish a secret, you probably won’t get it, so you have to say what you wish and then, probably, say it again and again, because that’s the only way it works, even if it takes a long time to work.

  Every weekend and sometimes more often than that, I go to the stables and have a riding lesson. My teacher is Abby Lovitt. She is in high school, and she is a really good rider. The horse I ride every weekend is one she trained whose name is True Blue. We call him Blue. Last year, I rode a pony, but he got sold. Blue is a lot bigger, and at first I was afraid of how tall he is, but then I got on him and he was so nice, much nicer than the pony, and now I like him very much. The pony wasn’t bad, but he was a lot like me. The pony was always saying, “I will do what I want, and you can come along for the ride,” and then he would toss his head, and lucky for me, mostly he wanted to do what I wanted him to, but not always. Blue says, “What do you want to do? That is what I want to do, too.”

  Grown-ups will tell you that horses can’t talk. It might be that Todd Kerrigan, who is in my class and who I eat lunch with every day, is the only person in the world who thinks that the horse on TV, Mr. Ed, is actually talking. I used to watch Mr. Ed, say, two years ago, but when I started taking riding lessons, I decided that I was not interested in a horse who just stands around in a stall, moving his mouth to a voice-over. Anyway, my dad says that Mr. Ed isn’t on TV anymore, so I guess that was why last month Todd finally stopped asking me if I had seen Mr. Ed the night before. Abby might say that horses don’t talk, too, but she talks to the horses all the time, and why would she do that if the horses don’t talk back to her? I mean, I’m not talking about what everyone knows—if someone is walking toward Blue’s stall and shouts, “Blue, Blue! How are you?” he will pop his head out and whinny. That makes everyone laugh, and then you are supposed to think that he is saying, “I am fine. How are you?” because he has very good manners. My mom talks to me about manners all the time. “Please” and “Thank you” and “How do you do? Nice to meet you,” and shake hands and look the person in the eye, and if she wants to give you a little kiss on the cheek, stand there quietly, and don’t wipe it off, if you must, until she has turned away. (This is my aunt Louise, and Mom swears that there isn’t a yellow cloud of perfume all around her head, but I see it and it makes me kind of dizzy. Every time I tell Mom this, she says that I am exaggerating again.) At school, of course, you are supposed to sit quietly in your seat, and raise your hand when you know the answer, and do not wave it back and forth just because you know the answer and no one else does, and no one has known the answer for the last three questions, so why does Miss Cranfield have to keep calling on them? It is a waste of time, but the more you know the answer, the less they call on you, and so how is that good manners?

  Anyway, if I can possibly be quiet (and sometimes I possibly can), I sit on the fence and listen to Abby talking to Blue or Gee Whiz or one of Jane’s horses, and she says, “Oh, that is very good! Nice square turn, now easy up into the canter, r
ight lead. Good boy. Four strides to the crossbar, ease back now, one two three four. Good jump. Let’s try that again.” I’m not saying that she talks to them all the time—you can’t in a horse show, for one thing, and for another, all conversations stop and start. But maybe they are saying to her, “Did you like that? What now? Which lead? Tell me the difference between right and left again…oh yes, I’ve got it. One two three four, two plus two is four, this crossbar is easy as pie, let’s try another one.”

  Blue and Gee Whiz are both grays, and both Thoroughbreds, but everything else about them is different. Blue is always looking around. He notices things, and he sometimes doesn’t like what he notices. I would say that he is a little shy, but Jane says “careful” is the word. When I am riding him, I am supposed to let him take his time. He may look and make up his mind, and if we don’t push him, he will go on and do what he is told. He is a very beautiful horse, dark mane, dark tail, and dapples along his underside and over his haunches. When he first came to the stables where I ride (he used to be Abby’s and he lived at her place, but since my ears are very big, I know from eavesdropping that Jane bought him, also for a lot of money, but my ears are not big enough to know how much), he was very spooky, but Jane says that Abby has performed a miracle with that horse, and now he is very reliable, which is a good thing, because my mom would make me stop riding him if he acted bad. Jane runs the stables, which are big and very expensive, and surrounded by a famous golf course. Lots of people board their horses there, and they have horse shows and golf tournaments.

  Gee Whiz is huge and very white. He used to be a racehorse and won a lot of money, but Abby didn’t get any of it because she didn’t own him in those days. He stares at things, and does not seem to be afraid of anything. He lives at Abby’s ranch (Oak Valley Ranch, it is called) and only comes to the stables to school over bigger fences. If he comes on a day when I am having a lesson, I try to stay after my lesson and watch. Abby and Jane always talk about whether to go slow with him, because they don’t want to overdo it, but I am here to tell you that the last thing on earth that Gee Whiz wants to do is to go slow. He wants to go fast and jump big jumps, and I admit that yes, he needs to learn to turn a little better. Blue is much more handy. “Handy” is a word that I really like. In every horse show, they have a class called Handy Hunters, where the horse has to do all kinds of things, some at the trot, some at the canter, some at the hand gallop, tight turns, halts, opening gates. When I get to jump higher than a foot and a half and go in hunter classes (maybe next year), that is what I want to do. My mom says she does not see how we will be able to afford much showing, because showing is really expensive.

  Abby has another horse, too, a racehorse. His name is Jack So Far, and he is down in Los Angeles. He was born on the Lovitts’ ranch, and his mom died when he was a foal. He is getting ready for his first race, which should happen in the next few weeks, according to Jane. He was training at Vista del Canada, which is a pretty nice place near here, but he went to LA after a few months, and I heard Jane ask Abby if she was going to go to the race, but even though I made my ears as big as I possibly could, I did not hear what Abby answered, so I do not know. And now I can see a shadow under the door of my room, and then there is a little creak, which means that Mom is peeking in to make sure I am asleep, and so I close my eyes and let my head sort of flop to one side, and I do those slow breaths so she will think I’m asleep and go to bed. It is ten o’clock; my bedtime is eight-thirty, and I have to get up at seven, so I guess I really should go to sleep.

  We live right down from my school. If I walk, it is four minutes (Mom gave me a watch for Christmas, and I have taken very good care of it). If I run, it is two, because I have to run uphill. But sometimes, like today, when the fog is out and the sky is clear, I walk backward. Today it took ten minutes. I was looking down the hill to where the street disappears, and then I saw a few roofs of houses, and beyond that, there was the line of the ocean shading into the mountains across the bay, ending halfway up the sky, darker blue against lighter blue. I know you can’t see dolphins or whales jumping from five blocks up, even if you are farsighted, but I looked for them anyway. I didn’t get to school until after the first bell, and then I ran to my room, number four, down the hall to the right on the first floor. I sat down at my desk and looked out the window at a few trees. I do wish that Miss Cranfield’s classroom were on the top floor, or even on the roof, because I would like to look over the trees and watch the ocean while the other kids are trying to figure out how to answer her questions. At least, it would be something to do. While she was taking the roll, I stared at the letters of the alphabet that run along the top of the blackboard. I can say the alphabet backward. It is easy. There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet. You tap a finger with each letter—thumb, Z; forefinger, Y; middle finger, X; ring finger, W; baby finger, V—all the way back to A. If you get there without forgetting a letter, the A is by itself. Generally, if I am going to forget a letter, it will be I. I don’t know why that is. Also, the middle letters of the alphabet are M and N. I think there should be another letter between them—the exact middle. It would be the ch sound so you wouldn’t have to write two letters to make one sound. These are the things I think about at school while the other kids are trying to get their work done. Sometimes my dad says that I am too smart for my own good. Also, I reminded myself that today is Friday, my favorite day of the week—tomorrow is my riding lesson, and if today is nice, tomorrow will probably be nice, too. We have had plenty of rain this spring, but I am hoping that is over.

  Dad sells vacuum cleaners. He’s gone from Monday to Thursday, because he has to go to people’s houses and demonstrate the vacuum cleaners on the floors and the carpets that the people actually have. On Fridays and Saturdays, Mom works the evening shift at the department store. I don’t have to say which one, because there is only one, and it is really big. Maybe Mom doesn’t have to work there, but she has been working there since she was in high school, and she gets a discount, and anyway, it is the most beautiful place in town, and it is only a short walk, so why not go there? I don’t know if she will keep working there after the baby is born, though.

  No one has told me about the baby, but whisper whisper whisper, and Mom in the attic rummaging around, and on Wednesday I found a book about baby names inside the drawer of the table beside her bed. However, I don’t say anything. Being about to have a baby is no big deal on our block, and anyway, if you are an only child, everyone thinks you are spoiled rotten and always get your way. You do not. If you are an only child, you cannot get away with anything, because someone is watching. The Murphys live down the street. They have seven kids, from thirteen down to four. The two oldest are girls, Mary and Jane, and the rest are boys. Mary and Jane do everything they are supposed to, including help cook dinner every night, and the boys do whatever they want, right on down to Brian, the four-year-old, whose favorite game is squatting on the curb and dropping leaves and sticks into the street. If it’s raining, he likes to see them float down the street. If it’s not raining, I don’t know what in the world he is doing, but not a single Murphy seems to realize that he could step off the curb anytime. Jimmy Murphy is in my class. If he has ever raised his hand, I can’t remember it, but he is great with spitballs. Just today, during arithmetic, Miss Cranfield turned to write a bunch of multiplication problems on the board, and he hit Lucy Morgan, Frankie Crandall, and Maria Rodriguez. He has hit me once or twice, but I think it is funny, so I don’t mind. At lunch, I traded him my egg salad sandwich for his peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich. He also talked Annie Parks out of her Milky Way. I could go home for lunch, we live so close, but if I go home, I have to eat things I don’t like, and if I stay here, I get to eat things I do like, like chocolate milk from a little carton and peanut butter and Juicy Fruit gum, something Lizzie Conrad always has, and will give you for a nickel—one stick for a nickel, even though at the drugstore, a whole package costs a nickel.
But if you don’t pay her her nickel, she says, “Fine, go to the drugstore.” She is in fifth grade. On the playground, she makes the nickels in her pocket rattle as she is walking around. I’ve thought about doing this as a way to get the money to buy a horse, but I don’t think Lizzie would let me.

  After lunch, we have reading. I’m in the highest reading group, and so we don’t have to read what the other kids are reading. There are three of us, and we are reading chapter ten of The Borrowers. My mom used to read this to me, so I know the story, but there are some big words in it, and it is way better than Dick and Jane, so it’s fine with me. I told Miss Cranfield that we should read The Black Stallion next, and she said that she would think about it. After that, National Velvet. I would like to write a book, but I am left-handed, and my writing isn’t very good. It would take me way too long to write everything that I think, so what I do is, I think my book. I tell my story to myself as I am walking to school, or sitting at my desk, or riding in the car, or lying in bed, and I tell it so many times to myself that I remember it perfectly.

  It used to be that Rodney would have my horse ready when I got to the stables. Rodney is funny, and he likes to tease me. He does things like take off his hat and bow to me. He says, “Yes, madam,” in a silly accent, which makes me laugh. The other great thing about Rodney is that he is short, and he told me that a long time ago he was a jockey. He says that soon we will see eye to eye. But Jane and Mom and Abby decided that I “need to learn a few things,” so when we got there Saturday (Dad drove me again—Mom didn’t even get up to make breakfast), I had to do brushing and hoof-picking and tacking up. Blue is very good about putting his head down to take the bit, so that part was easy. I guess Abby trained him by holding out a lump of sugar, then giving it to him after the bit was in his mouth. Rodney put on the saddle and tightened the girth, but I had to put my finger between the girth and Blue’s side and feel how tight it was. Then I had to mount him myself. I did it Rodney’s way—I led Blue over to the fence, told him to stand, and then climbed the fence and hoped for the best. When I looked down between me and Blue, it did seem like a long way to the ground. But he stood quietly, just gazing a little at Abby, who was in the middle of the arena. Yes, I was talking the whole time. I always talk the whole time, because I’m so happy to be there, to be getting on Blue, to know that since Dad brought me and not Mom, I will do some jumping and not in secret. I can talk and plan at the same time. It is easy.