There was nothing Dani could do except obey.
“Come on, Dani,” said Sadie.
But Dani did the opposite. She slowed her steps.
Dismayed and numb, she tore off the headband and threw it away. It was no longer needed.
Everything was ruined. All the surprises and the small presents. The whole trip!
And all the time the question buzzed in her head: Why hadn’t the welcoming committee turned up?
Sadie stopped and held her hand out impatiently. Dani hesitated a little before she went and took it.
They struggled through the snow, which swirled around them. They got on the train without a word.
Dani sank into her seat and stared out through the window without seeing anything. At least not until she saw the train which had come in on the other side of the platform.
When the doors opened and the first passengers got out, something like an electric shock went through her.
A girl who looked exactly like Ella jumped down onto the platform!
Suddenly her numbness vanished.
Ella, she thought. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at riding school?
After Ella came a girl who looked exactly like Miranda.
Why was she here too? Dani wondered.
She was supposed to be part of the welcoming committee!
Dani shot out of her seat and tried to open the window, but it was stuck.
“Ella!” she yelled, banging at the window.
But Ella didn’t hear. She walked with her little sister towards someone waiting for them.
Someone who looked like their mother!
Dani’s train started to move. There wasn’t a second to lose! She had to get off, and get off fast.
Before Sadie could stop her, Dani ran back along the aisle and over to the door. She pulled the handle in panic, but the door wouldn’t open. It was locked.
The train went faster. The platform slid away.
Dani fell to the floor and began to cry.
Sadie, who’d come after her, tried to calm her.
“Dani, listen to me,” she said. “There must be some kind of misunderstanding.”
But Dani didn’t hear her.
“I want to go to Ella!” she cried.
“Please, Dani,” said Sadie. “Crying won’t help.”
That was true. Nothing would help.
With a force that only a train possesses, Dani was being carried further and further away from the one person she wanted to be with all day, every day.
