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Eloise must have looked blank, because the girl added impatiently, ‘My secret friend. No one’s allowed to see you but me.’
    Eloise froze. She stepped back, so the girl’s hand fell from her arm. What would happen if she became trapped here, in the wrong time, if she could never get back? No one would ever know what had happened to her. No one could ever find her. What had seemed mysterious and exciting suddenly felt dangerous, threatening.
    Eloise flew to the doorway and hovered there like a trapped bird, staring out. What if she ran out of the garden? Where could she go? The house was full of people. Where was Dad? Probably he wasn’t born yet. Perhaps even Mo wasn’t born yet. And if Eloise couldn’t find her way out, she would never be born either. But if she was never born, she couldn’t be here in the first place, so . . . would she just snuff out, like a candle?
    Her head whirled; she felt giddy. She sank onto the bench and leaned her head against the wall.
    The summerhouse girl watched her. ‘Are you all right? You look sick. Do you want a drink of water?’
    Eloise had forgotten about her backpack. She tugged out her water bottle and gulped thankfully.
    ‘Don’t be sick,’ said the girl. ‘’Cause look . . . I got some more paint. You’re in charge of the painting, remember? Why didn’t you come yesterday? I cleaned the walls all by myself with a bucket, look.’ She pointed reproachfully to the walls, which were, indeed, much cleaner.
    So a whole day had passed for the summerhouse girl, but not for Eloise. Time clearly ran differently, at different speeds, in the two places – or should that be the two times , because the place was the same . . . Eloise’s head began to whirl again, and to stop it she jumped up and seized the tin of white paint and a wide brush. The summerhouse girl clapped her hands in delight.
    ‘It’s going to look splendufferous ! Let’s do the inside first and then the outside. Only I wish we could paint it all different colours, pink and blue and yellow, but Dad said I could only use white. I said could I put Anna’s House over the door, so people know it’s my place, but he said no to that too—’
    Anna.
    Eloise’s hand shook so violently that the paintbrush fell to the floor.
    ‘Ooh, careful! Lucky you didn’t put any paint on yet,’ cried the summerhouse girl. Eloise bent down and picked up the brush with trembling fingers.
    The girl’s name was Anna. Eloise’s mum was called Anna.
    Eloise forced the paint tin open and dipped in the brush. She swished a wide white streak over the planks, up and back, following the grain of the wood. Anna. Anna . She peeked over her shoulder at the other girl, at Anna, who was still chattering away as she swept dust out through the doorway, something about her dad, and how her mother had gone away for the summer.
    Eloise looked like her mother, everyone said so, except for her hair. Her name was Anna.
    The white paint slapped back and forth across the wall. Eloise hardly saw it. This was her mother, her mother as a little girl. She was alive: a live, talking, giggling little girl, warm and breathing, darting around. And she wanted to be Eloise’s friend, and Eloise had pushed her away . . .
    Eloise let the brush fall again. She rushed to Anna and grabbed her hand.
    Anna looked up, laughing. ‘What’s the matter?’
    Eloise, confused, let her hand drop. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t hug this strange girl or kiss her. This little girl wasn’t her lost mum. Not the mum who’d sung and swirled red and gold in the kitchen, not the mum who’d cradled her in her warm lap and whispered in her hair. But . . . she was. She just didn’t know it.
    Eloise felt her face go pink. She shook her head and flipped her hands in the air to say sorry, and then she felt tears rise in her eyes.
    ‘Do you feel sick again?’ Anna said. ‘Is it the paint smell making you nautilus ? Sometimes it makes my mumma feel sick. How can