Six Geese a-Laying

the raffle. I love Clare to bits, but she’s always been a tad feeble. She didn’t stand up and yell, ‘Me! Woo-hoo!’ at top volume, she just raised her hand a few inches. Even those of us
on her table
didn’t realize she’d won.
    Just as it dawned on me that Clare was holding a raffle ticket in the air, the presenter on the platform said, ‘I think we’ll draw again, if there’s no winner …’
    ‘Shout!’ I poked Clare and waved my own hand wildly. ‘Here! The winner’s over here!’
    ‘And the new number is … 4-4-0-3.’
    To my disbelief, some dark-haired girl on the other side of the room started whooping and brandishing a ticket.
    ‘She didn’t win!’ I exclaimed indignantly. ‘
You
won.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Clare was shrinking back.
    ‘Of
course
it matters!’ I cried out before I could stop myself, and everyone at the table started laughing.
    ‘Go, Poppy!’ called out Natasha. ‘Go, White Knightess! Sort it out!’
    ‘Go, Knightie!’
    This is an old joke. Just because there was this
one
incident at school, where I started a petition to save the hamsters , everyone started calling me the White Knightess. Or Knightie, for short. My so-called catchphrase is apparently ‘Of
course
it matters!’ 2
    Anyway. Suffice it to say that within two minutes I was up on the stage with the dark-haired girl, arguing with the presenter about how my friend’s ticket was more valid than hers.
    I know now that I should never have left the table. I should never have left the ring, even for a second. I can see how stupid that was. But in my defence, I didn’t
know
the fire alarm was going to go off, did I?
    It was so surreal. One minute, everyone was sitting down at a jolly champagne tea. The next minute, a siren was blaring through the air and there was pandemonium with everyone on their feet, heading for the exits. I could see Annalise, Ruby and all the others grabbing their bags and making their way to the back. A man in a suit came on to the stage and started ushering me, the dark-haired girl and the presenter towards a side door, and wouldn’t let us go the other way. ‘Your safety is our priority,’ he kept saying. 3
    Even then, it’s not as if I was
worried
. I didn’t think the ring would have
gone
. I assumed one of my friends had it safe and I’d meet up with everyone outside and get it back.
    Outside, of course, it was mayhem. There was some big business conference happening at the hotel as well as our tea, and all the delegates were spilling out of different doors into the road, and hotel staff were trying to make announcements with loud-hailers, and cars were beeping, and it took me ages just to find Natasha and Clare in the mêlée.
    ‘Have you got my ring?’ I demanded at once, trying not to sound accusatory. ‘Who’s got it?’
    Both of them looked blank.
    ‘Dunno.’ Natasha shrugged. ‘Didn’t Annalise have it?’
    So then I plunged back into the throng to find Annalise, but she didn’t have it; she thought Clare had it. And Clare thought Clemency had it. And Clemency thought Ruby might have had it, but hadn’t she gone already?
    The thing about panic is, it creeps up on you. One minute you’re still quite calm, still telling yourself, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it can’t be lost.’ The next, the Marie Curie staff are announcing that the event will be curtailed early due to unforeseen circumstances, and handing out goody bags. And all your friends have disappeared to catch the tube. And your finger is still bare. And a voice inside your head is screeching, ‘Oh my God! I knew this would happen! Nobody should ever have entrusted me with an antique ring! Big mistake! Big mistake!’
    And that’s how you find yourself under a table an hour later, groping around a grotty hotel carpet, praying desperately for a miracle. (Even though your fiancé’s father has written a whole bestselling book on how miracles don’t exist and it’s all superstition and even saying ‘OMG’ is the sign of a weak mind.) 4
    Suddenly I realize my phone is flashing, and grab it with trembling fingers. Three messages have come through, and I scroll through them in hope.
    Found it yet? Annalise xx
    Sorry babe, haven’t seen it. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word to Magnus. C xxx
    Hi Pops! God, how awful, to lose your ring! Actually I thought I saw it…(incoming text)
    I stare at my phone, galvanized. Clare thought she saw it? Where?
    I crawl out from under the table