Sarah’s thoughts scattered as she saw the distant plume of dust behind an approaching car. Excitement burgeoned into whooping happiness, as the vehicle came into view, moving like a comet before its attendant dust tail. Yes! A grey Mercedes, slowing down now, turning in at the bottom of the drive. Her face was alight, eyes shining, arms outstretched in greeting as she ran to meet her mother. She had counted the hours it would take to drive up from Nairobi, where Betty Mackay would have spent last night. The school was halfway between their home at the coast and the capital of Uganda where her father, Raphael, was at a medical conference. Sarah had been given permission to stay at the Country Club with her mother for two nights, and to come in to school in the morning, like a day pupil. Just like Hannah van der Beer.

‘Mummy! Mummy!’ She was shouting out her welcome. The car had stopped. The door opened, and a figure stepped out. Sarah halted, confused. This was not her mother.

‘Mummy?’ The sun was in her eyes. She couldn’t make out who this person was. The reply came in a voice tinged with the broad vowels of South Africa.

‘I’m afraid I’m the wrong person for you, my dear. I’m Hannah van der Beer’s mother. Do you know if she’s around? I’m late collecting her.’

Sarah saw with embarrassment that Hannah was already approaching the car. A car exactly like the Mackays’, only this one had a different number plate, and a dent on the front wing. Had the Boer girl been there while she was singing those mindless tunes, and making childish animal noises? Sarah’s colour turned to scarlet. How would she ever live this down? She began to mumble, trying to prevent distress from turning to tears.

‘I’m sorry. My mother’s coming today. From the coast. From home. She has the same sort of car. I thought she was you. I mean, I thought you were her . . .’

Humiliation made her unable to look up at either Mrs van der Beer or her daughter. Sarah hurried up the drive towards the school buildings. In the quadrangle, she leaned against the wall, a study in misery. Hannah would tell everyone what had happened and the whole class would laugh at her. She knew it for sure. But Rule One of survival was never to let anyone know they could hurt you. Someone was standing beside her, speaking.

‘Did you hear me? I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ Camilla Broughton-Smith said again. ‘Where have you been?’

‘I was waiting on the drive.’ Sarah tried to swim out of her suffocating gloom.

‘Well, your mother rang. The car windscreen was cracked by a stone. She’s having it fixed in Nakuru, and she’ll be here by lunchtime tomorrow. Oh, come on – it’s not the end of the world, for heaven’s sake!’