Synopsis
Melanie Webb was one of those girls who can't live without a horse. She wouldn't have minded if it had been a scrubby little pony, so long as she had one, but the horse she had was a winner, a white palomino stallion called Orbit. Orbit had been given to Melanie when she was ten and he was only three months old, and they had been growing up together ever since. Orbit was never out of her thoughts, and he waited all day for the moment she came home from school to ride him. Then Mom and Pop went away to San Francisco for a week, giving Melanie the perfect opportunity to put her cherished plan into action--her secret wish to bring Orbit inside the house. And any worries she had about the suspicious horse-dealer who had been haunting the neighbourhood were pushed to the back of her mind. Then one night Melanie went out to the barn to say good night to Orbit. But when she got there, there was no one to say it to. Orbit was gone, and the unoccupied stable was intolerably desolate and empty. Melanie felt useless, like a captain without a ship. Yet somewhere, somewhere in this nightmarish world, Orbit existed. And somewhere, she was sure of it, locked in her head was some little memory, a shred of a clue to the thief.
