What's the good in keeping secrets? Rafaella doesn't find it easy to make friends. She looks and feels different from the others at school. And Lucy is the first to tease, the first to call her "Earwig," until they get to know one another and Lucy sees that Rafaella is full of hopes and ideas, just like she is. Lucy loves keeping her own secret friend, until tragedy strikes and secrets can't be kept any longer. Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Children's Book Award and reissued with new illustrations, more than 20 years after first publication, Elizabeth Laird's moving and unflinching novella brings home the crucial importance of cultivating empathy in young people.