Will You, Won't You?

Mad Parker has just graduated from eighth grade, where she had nearly perfected the art of becoming invisible, unnoticed, gone-to teachers, to classmates, to her mother, almost to herself. Now she is spending the summer ( a summer of Three Rs: riding, reading, rotting) with her grandmother, the Powerful Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. The Powerful Chair thinks that dancing-Scottish country dancing, to be exact-will help Mad get over her shyness. Torture. That's what Mad thinks. Is she really any point in going to the Chair's weekly dance class?

In the meantime Mad has other things to worry about. Her horse has developed cow-phobia, e-mail indicates she may be losing her best friend, and being in her parents' hometown brings back thoughts of her father-L.G., he's called, for Long Gone, or G.R., for Good Riddance.

But when the Chair gets involved in a highly publicized environmental controversy, politics and, yes, Scottish dance show Mad the way courage grows. And the surprising places new-grown courage can take you.