bought her as a birthday present and groaned inwardly. Twilight seemed to sense her dismay and stepped forward to nuzzle her.

‘I’m going to take Hannah inside and show her where her room is,’ Mrs Foster called.

‘Maybe Jess and I should go back to my house for a while,’ Mel said to Lauren.

‘Yeah, that’s a good idea,’ said Jess. ‘You and Hannah must have loads of catching up to do. We’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘OK,’ said Lauren. She had a feeling her friends were a bit disappointed at Hannah’s lack of excitement over the pony welcome party. She was too. She’d imagined them all spending the rest of the morning together, riding Twilight and Shadow and Sandy in the field. ‘See you.’

Leaving Mel and Jessica to tack up Shadow and Sandy, she went after her mum and Hannah. What was Hannah going to say when she saw all the pony things in the bedroom she was staying in?

Hannah was looking round the room with Mrs Foster when Lauren joined them. She didn’t even mention the pony books and ornament but she did open the present.

‘Hey, a book on showing!’ Hannah said as she pulled it out of the paper. She tried to sound pleased. ‘Thanks, Auntie Alice. Thanks, Lauren.’

Lauren felt a blush warm her cheeks. ‘I didn’t realize you’d gone off ponies,’ she said awkwardly.

‘We can always change it,’ Mrs Foster said.

‘No, it’s fine,’ Hannah said politely.

Mrs Foster headed to the door. ‘I’ll go and put lunch on. You two stay and chat. I’ll call you when it’s ready.’

Hannah began to unpack her case. There were some magazines at the top of it.

‘Do you like Leeza Lemarq?’ Hannah said to Lauren, pointing to a singer on the front of one of the magazines. ‘She’s got such a cool voice. I love her stuff. I’m into loads of different music at the moment – Catz ’n’ Dogz, Gina Natina, The Basement Belles. They’re all great.’ She smiled enthusiastically. ‘I’ve got loads of CDs with me. We can listen to them.’

Lauren nodded but she wasn’t really into sitting round and listening to music. She liked having it on as she did other stuff but she didn’t know much about different bands or singers.

‘I’ve brought my make-up and hair straighteners with me,’ Hannah went on. ‘And my set of nail varnishes.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll do a make-over on you if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ Lauren said slowly. She could hardly believe this was Hannah. The Hannah she remembered always had messy hair and dirt under her bitten nails.

‘And maybe we could go shopping together and see a movie,’ Hannah went on.

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Lauren’s heart sank. So much for them doing loads of pony things together. Suddenly she remembered about Grace bringing Magpie round that afternoon. ‘Um, I’ve just got to go and speak to Mum,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘OK,’ Hannah said easily. ‘I’ll get on with unpacking.’