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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF Copyright © Jean Ure 2015 Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015 Illustrations © Shutterstock.com Jean Ure asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007553952 Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007554003 Version: 2014-10-24
For Ellie-May Lambourne
Contents If Mum and Dad hadn’t won the lottery, I would never have gone to boarding school. If Gran hadn’t given me her collection of Enid Blyton books, I would never even have thought of going to boarding school. And if I hadn’t caught the chicken pox from my dear little sister, I wouldn’t have started a week late; and if I hadn’t started a week late I might not have got tied up with Rachel and her problems. Not that I realised straight away that Rachel had any problems. That came later. When we first met she just seemed a bit … well, different, I suppose. But I was different too! Nobody else’s mum and dad had suddenly won the lottery and come into lots of money. We were both keeping secrets, I guess. When Mum asked me and Natalie to sit down, saying she had something to tell us, we knew at once it had to be something exciting cos Mum’s face was all scrunched and eager. But when she said that she and Dad had won the lottery we were, like, WOW! Well, I was like wow. Nat was more like punching the air and screaming. “Now, just calm down,” begged Mum. “I know it’s cause for celebration but we don’t want to go mad.” Too late! Nat was already going mad. Round and round the room, springing and leaping, and shouting out. “We’ve won the lott’ry, we’ve won the lott’ry!” I turned, wonderingly, to Mum. “Are we rich?” “Well, it’s not a rollover,” said Mum. “Hardly a drop in the ocean it’d be, to some folks. The Queen, for instance. But for me and your dad –” a big happy beam stretched across her face – “for me and your dad it’ll make all the difference in the world. Well, for the whole family, obviously! I just meant that me and your dad won’t have to struggle any more. And maybe – no promises! – we might be able to indulge you both just a little bit!” “Does that mean I can have a dog?” cried Nat. “Oh, please, Mum, please! Say that I can!” Nat had wanted a dog for as long as anyone could remember. Mum had always said it wasn’t possible, living in a small flat. But now we didn’t have to. Now we could move! We could move anywhere we wanted. Even to one of the big expensive houses in the posh part of town. The ones Mum was always sighing over. “What it must be like,” she used to say, as we drove past in Dad’s little old rattling van. “All that space!” Oh, and I would be able to have my own room at long last. I was thirteen! I needed my privacy. It is no fun having to share with your little sister, especially one as messy as Nat. I’m sure by the time I was eleven I’d learnt to be a bit more considerate. “Know what?” Nat suddenly flung out her arms, sending one of Mum’s precious ornaments flying to the floor. “If we lived near a park we could have two dogs! Two’s always better than one, cos one on its own gets lonely. And if you’ve got two it means you don’t feel so bad going out and leaving them for a bit. It’s actually quite unkind, just having one. I mean, if you stop to think about it—” “Yes, yes, yes,” said Mum, picking up her ornament. “I hear you! But before we get too carried away, let’s just simmer down a bit. I told you, we’re not going to go mad. Your dad and I have talked
