Cloud Magic

went riding with, but ever since they’d found out they were going to a different secondary school from her in September they had been going off together and whispering behind her back.
    She tried not to think about them as she ran to join Jo at the cottage door. Jo’s great-aunt opened it. She was slightly stooped with short grey hair.
    ‘Hello, dear,’ Aunt Alice said, moving forward stiffly to kiss Jo on the cheek. ‘And Erin too,’ she said, her cloudy blue eyes lighting up. ‘How lovely to see you. Come in, both of you. Come in.’
    As Erin and Jo went inside, Aunt Alice’s two cats, Sooty and Muffin, padded over and started winding round Erin’s legs. Erin crouched down and tickled their heads. ‘Hi, boys.’ They both purred and pressed their heads against her fingers. She picked Sooty up and gave him a cuddle.
    ‘Now let me guess,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘It’s not raining at the moment, Erin, so I imagine you’ll be wanting to go to the beach.’

    Erin smiled and nodded. Aunt Alice knew how much she loved going to the beach on her own.
    ‘Off you run then, dear. We can catch up later.’ Kissing Sooty’s head, Erin put him down.
    ‘Come back if it starts looking like it’s going to rain again,’ Jo said. She turned to Aunt Alice. ‘I can hardly believe the weather we’ve had recently. It’s so changeable. Storms one minute, bright sunshine the next. I’ve never known anything like it.’
    ‘There was weather like this once years ago when I was about four,’ said Aunt Alice. ‘We had days of wild storms followed by days of burning sun. It ended in the great storm of 1923. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I, Erin?’
    Erin nodded and shivered as she remembered Aunt Alice’s story of the enormous storm. The sea had flooded the villages on the coast, the rivers had burst their banks, houses had been wrecked and lots of people and animals had died.
    ‘I remember learning about the Great Storm when I was at school,’ Jo commented. ‘Can you imagine how dreadful it would be if something like that happened again?’
    Leaving the grown-ups to discuss the weather, Erin slipped back outside.
    The weather had changed again already, the wind dying down to just a gentle breeze. Patches of blue sky, the same colour as Erin’s eyes, were showing through the clouds overhead. It was weird what the weather was doing at the moment. Maybe it’s something to do with global warming , Erin thought, remembering what they had been learning about the term before.
    She ran down the lane and took the footpath at the end that led between high hedges towards the sea. Happiness bubbled through her as she let her mind fill with thoughts of horses. What horse would she have if she could have any in the world? A black stallion with a white star? A chestnut show-jumping pony? A dapple-grey Arab pony? Yes. That’s what she would choose.
    Imagining she was riding him, Erin held her hands as if she was holding reins, clicked her tongue and cantered forward, changing legs every few strides. ‘There’s a good boy,’ she said. She shied, pretending he had seen something in the hedge that had spooked him, and cantered on round the corner to where the footpath opened out on to the cliff top.
    Erin stopped, her cheeks flushing as she saw a woman and two girls about her age walking towards her on the cliff path. The woman, who had long wavy blonde hair, smiled at her. ‘Hello.’
    The girls also grinned in a friendly way. One looked as if she might be the woman’s daughter. She had blonde corkscrew curls and a mischievous face. The other girl had lively hazel eyes and skin the colour of milk chocolate. Her hair was a thick mass of dark brown ringlets that reached her shoulders.
    Erin groaned inside. How embarrassing! They must have seen her pretending to ride a horse. ‘Hi,’ she muttered, her cheeks burning. She hurried on past them.
    ‘Come on, Allegra!’ she heard the dark-haired girl call as the three of them passed her, turning down the footpath. ‘Race you back to the village!’
    Erin ran on along the cliff top, glad to leave them behind and be on her own again. The sea was on her left, the waves dragging on the pebbles of the strip of stony beach. On her right there was a patchwork of green and yellow fields divided by grey stone walls and hedges bursting with the white hawthorn flowers that always bloomed in May. In several of the fields were horses and ponies.
    Erin stopped to stroke one pony who