It was a dull, chilly October afternoon when Mum drove me back to Seacove. The beach was deserted except for a man walking his dog. The sea was grey and choppy.

Outside the shop, the brightly-coloured buckets and shovels that usually hung there had been replaced by stacks of logs and bags of coal.

‘It’s all different,’ I wailed to Mum. ‘And I’m not sure I like it.’

Then I saw the notice-board on the wall outside the shop. It was a bit tattered and faded, but the picture of Cathy and Andrea was still there.

I giggled. ‘OK. So maybe some things are still the same.’

Mum rolled her eyes and continued to drive.

Kate came racing out of her house when she heard our car.

‘You’re here, you’re here!’ she repeated over and over, like a crazy girl.

‘Who cares about me?’ I said. ‘What about Daisy? Is she here yet?’

‘She had an unexpected stop in Dublin,’ said Kate. ‘So she won’t be here for another few hours.’

I couldn’t help feeling a small bit relieved. This was all kind of weird for me. Reading Daisy’s diary and proving that her dad was innocent was fine, but the thought of actually meeting her was making me nervous. In my mind, she was still a young girl like me, even though I knew she was old enough to be my granny.

What were we going to talk about?

Knitting?

Arthritis?

The best place to buy big beige knickers?

Would she even know what a mobile phone or a computer was?

Kate brought me inside to her place. Her dad and Zoe and Martha hugged me, and Simon gave me a sloppy baby kiss. When no one was looking, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my jumper – baby drool on my face so isn’t my idea of a cool look.

‘We met Georgina Eades last week,’ said Kate.

‘How come?’ I asked.

‘She paid for the restoration of the chalice,’ said Zoe. ‘And there was a ceremony in the church, in honour of its return to its rightful home.’

‘After a few decades in a hen-house,’ said Kate, trying not to laugh.

We sat around the kitchen table. For the first time, I noticed that Zoe and Kate were all bright-eyed and edgy. They kept looking at each other and grinning like they had a big secret they were bursting to share.

‘What?’ I said in the end.

‘There’s something I haven’t told you,’ said Kate. ‘Zoe and I only found out last week, so we decided to wait until you got here to surprise you.’

‘What is it?’ I asked.

Zoe and Kate looked at each other and smiled again, but neither of them answered my question.

‘Have you got Daisy’s diary with you?’ asked Kate instead.

‘Of course I have,’ I said, pulling it out of my bag. ‘I’m going to give it back to her when I see her. But why do you need that now? You’ve seen it heaps of times already.’

Kate didn’t say a word as she took the diary from my hand.

‘I don’t know how we never noticed it before,’ she said, as she began to flip through the pages. ‘It was staring us right in the eye, and yet none of us ever copped on.’

‘Copped on to what?’ I asked. I was getting fed up of the way everyone was being so secretive. Secrets are only fun when you’re the one who knows what’s going on.

‘Patience, Eva,’ said Mum, which was a bit mean, because I could see that she was dying to know too.

At last Kate found the page she wanted. ‘Listen to this,’ she said, as she began to read.

‘I read that months ago,’ I said, as I put the diary back into my bag. ‘And I still don’t know where this is going.’

Then, when I saw Mum smiling knowingly, I began to get angry.

‘Just get on with it and tell me, Kate,’ I said. ‘I totally hate guessing games.’

Kate just smiled, and if I was a violent person, that’s when I would have thumped her.

‘Daisy’s mum’s trim figure is gone, and she’s getting fat,’ said Mum to Zoe, ignoring me. ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’

Zoe nodded and at last I understood.

‘OMG,’ I said. ‘Daisy’s mum was expecting a baby?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘She was born a few months after Daisy left for America.’

‘That’s amazing,’ I said. ‘How did you find out? And how come no one around here seemed to know anything about it? What happened?’

‘After you left Seacove at the end of the summer,’ said Zoe. ‘I wanted to know more about the Lavelle family. There were still a few unanswered questions, and they were really annoying me.’

‘You wouldn’t like Zoe when she’s annoyed,’ said Kate, and ducked as Zoe pretended to hit her.

‘Anyway,’ said Zoe. ‘Before I was rudely interrupted, I was going to say that I managed to track down the records about Daisy’s mum’s time in hospital. They made very sad reading, I’m afraid. A hospital like that was not a fun place to be in 1947.’

‘But the baby?’ I said impatiently.

‘It was a little girl,’ said Zoe. ‘Despite everything that had happened, she was strong and healthy.’

‘The baby sister that Daisy had always dreamed of,’ I sighed. ‘She must have been so happy when she heard.’

‘I’m sure she would have been,’ said Zoe. ‘Only trouble was, no one told her.’

‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Daisy had a right to know.’

Zoe sighed. ‘Of course she did. But things were handled differently in those days. We don’t think Jean-Marc was ever even told about his second little daughter.’

‘And what happened to her?’ I asked. ‘Where did the baby go?’

‘Daisy’s mum was too sick to take care of her,’ said Zoe.

‘So when she was only a day old, the hospital people took her away from her mother,’ said Kate.

‘That’s awful,’ I said. ‘Where did they take her to?’

‘She was brought to Dublin, and placed with a foster family,’ said Zoe.

‘And is she …?’ I was afraid to finish the question. Suddenly the health of this person, who I’d only just heard of, was very important to me.

‘She’s alive and well,’ said Kate. ‘Zoe tracked her down. Her name is Nell.’

‘And did she know …?’

‘She hardly knew anything at all,’ said Zoe. ‘The records of that time were sketchy, to say the least. When Nell went searching some years ago, she discovered that her birth parents were dead. But until last week, she believed that she was an only child.’

‘That’s so amazing,’ I gasped. ‘What a lovely surprise she must have got when she heard about Daisy. Have they met yet?’

‘Daisy flew into Dublin last night and they were re-united,’ said Zoe. ‘After all those years, the two sisters finally met.’

‘OMG,’ was all I could say, so I repeated it over and over. ‘OMG. OMG. OMG.’

Half an hour later, I was so impatient I couldn’t sit still.

‘You’re making me nervous, Eva,’ said Zoe. ‘Why don’t you and Kate go for a walk or something?’

So Kate and I went to hang out with Jeremy for a while, and when we came back, Zoe had made mushroom soup for everyone.

‘It’s delicious,’ said Mum.

‘Dad and I picked the wild mushrooms,’ said Kate proudly. ‘We know all the best places to look.’

‘I made up the recipe,’ said Zoe. ‘And I’ve been practising it for a dinner Roma and I are doing next week.’

Then she told us all about the plans she and Roma had for the business, and Simon sat on my knee, and I tried to stop him feeding me half-chewed soggy pieces of bread, and Kate’s dad told pathetic jokes, and Kate grinned at me like a crazy thing, she was so happy with everything.

And then we heard the sound of a car outside.

‘Daisy’s here,’ said Kate. ‘She’s really and truly here at last.’