"I won!" the girl in front of the T.V. squealed. "I won I won I won I won I won!" She started jumping up and down as if the excitement could no longer be contained within her body, spinning on the spot to face the party-goers closest to her. I won!!" she shouted out again.

"Well, that's nice for her" Hannah remarked from the other side of the room. Shelly gave Hannah a reproachful look. "Well, come on!" Hannah said. "She doesn't need to make such a big deal out of it."

Hannah and Shelly hadn't made up, exactly; but they'd both been invited to a Melbourne Cup party at the home of one of Shelly's friends, and they'd both said they would come because a month and a half ago when the invitation had been extended it'd seemed like a great idea. Hannah and Shelly hadn't really talked about their argument yet, hadn't talked to each other much at all since the argument and had only seen each other a couple of times.

Shelly had said that there was no need for them to meet up beforehand and travel to the party together, that instead they could just meet up at the party. She'd said it rather coolly, it'd seemed to Hannah, and because Hannah didn't really feel like she knew Shelly's friend well enough to just go by herself she arrived only a few minutes before three o'clock, when the race was due to start, in the hope that Shelly would already be there. When she'd arrived at the house she'd been nervous, an unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling.

Now it was five minutes later and she'd hardly had a chance to say hello to Shelly since arriving, and here was Shelly already throwing her looks just because some drunk girl was getting over-excited about winning twenty dollars in a sweep on a horse race.

"Okay," Hannah said in exasperation, "I'm very happy for her. All right? It's nice that she won. Okay?"

"You don't have to say it like that" Shelly said.

"Oh seriously though Shelly, look at her" Hannah pleaded, waving her hand towards the girl, who was almost starting to cry.

"Maybe she has a good reason" Shelly said, but the conviction was fading from her voice.

"Yeah," Hannah retorted, "it's called Champagne."

Shelly laughed despite herself. She tried hard to suppress it, trying to snort it back inside her and holding her hand up to her nose and mouth as if it was a sneeze. But Hannah had heard it.

"You agree with me, don't you?" Hannah smiled, triumphant but trying not to gloat. "Go on, say it! Say it!" She started poking Shelly in the ribs, just like she always did when she was teasing Shelly. She didn't even think about it: if she had she probably would've thought it was inappropriate, at the moment. But it was instinctive.

"All right!" Shelly gasped. "I agree, she's going too far with it. I agree!"