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start thinking about packing. I’ve ironed all the washing you brought back from the Shetlands. Remember to take your anoraks with you as well, though,” she warned. “The storms that have been hitting the west coast seem to be on their way here. The weather forecast is awful.”
    Lewis made a face. “That’s all we need,” he said.

    “Things in the glen have changed a bit since you last stayed with us, Lewis,” Helen Ferguson remarked as they bowled westwards along the country road in considerable style. Clarissa might have been old and a bit temperamental at times, but she was a beautiful car and could still turn heads. Her red paintwork gleamed and her leather seats, although frayed in places, were soft and supple . She was well-known in the area, too, and many passing motorists waved and smiled as she purred comfortably along a road that showed tantalizing glimpses of the brown, swollen, flood-waters of the River Dee.
    “Things have changed
more
than a bit, Mum,” Shona said, somewhat indignantly as she sat up straight in her seat. “The glen’s not the same at all!” She was sitting between Neil and Clara in the back and now leant forwards to talk to Lewis. “Do you remember meeting my godfather, Uncle Jamie, when we took you to Morven Castle, Lewis?” she asked.
    Lewis turned and nodded.
    “Well,” she said, dramatically, “he’s left!”
    Neil and Clara looked at her curiously. Shona was a pretty girl with red hair and sparkling green eyes. They’d liked her at once and she, too, had immediately decided that Lewis’s friends looked like fun people to know.
    “Lord Robertson’s gone to Canada,” Mrs Ferguson interrupted. “He left at the end of last month to stay with his son and daughter-in-law.”
    “I suppose it’ll be nice for him to see his grandchildren ,” admitted Shona grudgingly, “but we really miss him. You can say what you like, Mum, but the glen’s not the same without him!”
    “I don’t think he would have gone at all if the Americans hadn’t offered him such a fantastic rent,” Mrs Ferguson conceded. “Apparently, they wanted to buy the estate outright but he refused point blank.”
    “It’s such a shame,” Shona added. “He’s quite old, you know, and he’s hoping that one day his son will come back and run it. For the shooting and the fishing,” she explained.
    “Do the Americans have any children?” Clara asked.
    Shona shook her head but it was her mother who answered. “No, it isn’t a family who’ve taken the estate. They’re a weird lot, actually. Hughie thinks they’re some kind of sect. They’re all men, you see.”
    “Hughie lives in the glen,” Shona grinned at Clara. “Clarissa is his car. Mum uses it while Dad’s at work.”
    “The trouble is that Hughie could well be right about the Americans,” her mother said thoughtfully ,following her own train of thought. “And if he is, then I find it quite worrying! After all, it’s normal to want to get to know your neighbours, isn’t it?”
    “Mum’s peeved,” Shona giggled, “because she hasn’t been able to show them any Highland hospitality .”
    “It’s not just that,” her mother said. “When Jamie Robertson’s there, the estate is always open to everyone in the glen and seeing the gates shut …” she frowned, “is unfriendly to say the least.”
    “Just face it, Mum. They’re not interested in us at all,” Shona said with a grin. “They’re all fitness freaks from what I’ve seen of them. If they’re not jogging round the glen, they’re climbing Morven.”
    “Morven?” asked Clara.
    “Morven,” Shona explained, “is our mountain. It’s the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up and the last thing I see at night. I
love
Morven.”
    “I think you’ll find it rather interesting,” Lewis said, turning in his seat to look at them, “I know I did.” Neil missed the knowing smile that crossed his face but Clara didn’t. What, she wondered