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manor where I could avoid her. That would be bound to please Arabella as much as me. I couldn’t imagine that Arabella and I would ever be friends.
    I glanced back before we turned round the side of the house. A girl in maid’s uniform was opening the gate to the stables. I wondered what she was doing there. The girl must have felt my look because she turned round and stared back. I suddenly had the oddest feeling – that she knew who I was and she’d rather she didn’t. I told myself that I was being ridiculous. She was just curious to see what I was like. And why not? Everyone else was.
    I found it hard to get to sleep that night. The windows rattled, and the rich dinner lay on my stomach. If only I’d been able to ride… I pulled back one of the hangings round the bed and slid to the floor. I padded in my bare feet to the window and slipped behind the curtains. Outside the rain clouds had begun to clear and the moon was as round and ripe as a plum, riding the night sky. The stars seemed to go on for ever. As I stared at them, I imagined Father doing the same. It made me feel closer to him – almost as if he was in the next room rather than thousands of miles away. He used to tell me to look at the stars when he was away from home. The same stars shine over us, wherever we are , he had told me. It used to comfort me. I liked to think of him looking up at the stars, like me. But in India now it would almost be dawn. I turned away from the window and slipped back into bed, burrowing down under the bedclothes. As I lay there I thought about Starshine and the filly who was to be tamed and the boy who loved horses like me. Tomorrow I would see them again.

D OWNSTAIRS

    â€˜I saw her,’ Sarah said. Her voice, coming so unexpectedly in the dark, made me jump. I’d thought she was asleep, not lying awake, counting sheep, unable to sleep, like me.
    â€˜Who?’ I said sleepily. I didn’t want to talk. I was trying to get to sleep.
    â€˜Why, Miss Penelope, of course.’
    â€˜Oh, her,’ I said. I’d spent the afternoon altering Miss Arabella’s gowns to fit Miss Penelope. None of them suited her. The pink one was hideous. I’d found it hard to hide what I thought, as I’d crawled round her feet tacking up hems – the two girls weren’t at all the same shape – Miss Penelope went in where Miss Arabella went out – but I felt sorry for her. I wouldn’t want to be her, even if it did mean I’d never have to work again.
    â€˜Yes, she’d been to the stables. I saw her when I went to see Fred.’
    â€˜Oh?’ She hadn’t asked for her riding habit to be put out.
    â€˜What do you think of her now?’ Sarah said. She sounded if she had something on her mind.
    I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt as if I was feeling my way along a dark tunnel without a light to guide me. I had my own opinions, but now that I was attending on Miss Penelope I felt uneasy sharing them. I’d already said more than I’d meant to yesterday. Yet Sarah was my best friend. I didn’t want to have secrets from her.
    â€˜Don’t you have any opinion?’ Sarah sounded almost aggrieved.
    â€˜Well, I spent a lot of time today altering gowns to fit her, but we didn’t talk much. I don’t know that she’s happy here though.’
    Even saying that felt like a betrayal. I couldn’t understand myself. I hadn’t broken a confidence. But Miss Penelope had told me that her mother had died and it was that I think made her seem more like a real person to me, not just one of the family I had to wait on. But Sarah was my friend. My first loyalty should be to her. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t know where I belonged any more. I wasn’t an upper servant, nor was I strictly simply a lower servant now that I was waiting on Miss Penelope.
    Sarah was silent, as if she knew how I felt, and didn’t like it.
    I tried