Hannah in the Spotlight by Natasha Mac a'Bháird Page A

to Laura’s.’
    ‘I was supposed to ring my mum,’ I remembered. ‘Could I use the phone, Sadie?’
    ‘Of course.’ Sadie tapped her password into her mobile and handed it to me.
    I tried phoning Mum, but there was no answer, so I sent her a text instead. ‘Going to Laura’s for rehearsal. Will get lift home with Meg. Hannah.’
    It would be so much easier if she would just let me have my own phone, I thought yet again.
    As I went to hand the phone back to Sadie, her screensaver popped up. It was a photo of Meg and her mum with a smiling, dark-haired man.
    Meg saw me looking, but all she said was, ‘Can you grab those costumes, Hannah? I’ll carry the book.’
    ‘Be careful with it,’ Sadie said. ‘That’s your grandad’s, and he still uses it for reference sometimes.’
    Meg looked a bit guilty and whispered to me, ‘Just as well he didn’t see me flinging it out of the attic then.’
    As we were leaving I paused to say goodbye to Sadie. ‘Thanks, Sadie. You’ve been a great help.’
    Sadie smiled at me. ‘Any time. I can’t wait to see how your show turns out.’

Chapter Eleven
    Laura’s house was across the road, just a few doors down. We rang the doorbell for ages before her sister Andrea came to answer it. ‘Hi girls, are you looking for Laura?’
    ‘Yes, she should be expecting us,’ I said.
    ‘Come on in,’ Andrea said. ‘Laura didn’t mention anything, but then I’ve hardly seen her the last few days. She’s writing a new story.’
    I groaned. ‘So that’s why she wasn’t answering the phone. She’s probably totally forgotten about our rehearsal.’ I turned to Meg. ‘When Laura starts a new story she gets completely absorbed in it and the rest of the world might as well not exist.’
    ‘You can go on up to her room,’ Andrea told us. ‘You might have better luck getting her attention than I’ve had. When I went to call her for lunch, she just grunted at me, so I left her to it. Her sandwich is still sitting on the kitchen counter.’
    I hung the pile of costumes over the banisters and ran up the stairs to Laura’s room, Meg following behind me. Iknocked on the door and poked my head around.
    Despite the brightness of the day the curtains were tightly shut, and the lamp at Laura’s desk was switched on, the only light in the room. She was hunched over it, surrounded by piles of paper, which seemed to be covered in her sprawling handwriting. More paper was scattered on the floor around her and on her unmade bed.
    ‘I told you, Andrea, I don’t want any breakfast,’ Laura said, not looking up from her desk.
    ‘It’s not Andrea, it’s us,’ I told her. ‘And it’s after lunchtime!’
    ‘Oh!’ Laura jumped to her feet, nearly knocking over a half-drunk cup of tea. She turned the paper she had been writing on face down.
    ‘What are you writing?’ Meg asked. She picked up one of the sheets of paper from the floor. Laura practically snatched it out of her hand.
    Meg looked a bit shocked, and even I was surprised. I know from experience that Laura NEVER lets anyone see what she’s writing until she’s finished, but it wasn’t like her to be quite so jumpy.
    ‘It’s just a story,’ Laura said. She ushered us towards the door. ‘Sorry, guys, I totally forgot we were supposed to be having a rehearsal. Come on, we can go down to the sitting room.’
    She closed the bedroom door firmly behind her and waited until we’d started going down the stairs beforecoming after us.
    ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ Laura asked when we got to the kitchen; she was suddenly smiley and normal again. ‘Actually, I think I might get some toast. I don’t seem to have had any breakfast.’
    ‘Or lunch,’ I reminded her. ‘Andrea said she left a sandwich for you. We had lunch in Meg’s granny’s house, but tea would be great.’
    Laura eyed the sandwich on the counter with distaste. The bread looked all dry and the edges had started to curl. ‘She should have told me she’d made