Laura Griffin is 11 years old. She lives in Loughrea, Co Galway, with her parents, James and Sally, her older brother and sister David and Kate, and her baby sister Molly. She has long blonde, brownish hair which she has no clue what to do with, so she ties it in a ponytail most of the time.

She has blue eyes and wears thick-rimmed, bronze-coloured glasses which she feels make her look like her Granny. Apart from having no fashion sense, Laura is painfully shy.

She regularly suffers from minor panic attacks where she holds her breath in stressful situations and finds it hard to start breathing again. Her sister Kate, who is 11 months older than Laura, seems to have inherited all the confidence, popularity and fashionista genes so Laura plods along in Kate’s shadow, hoping nobody notices her.

Laura is in 5th class in St Ita’s National School, Loughrea. She doesn’t mind schoolwork and she has a nice teacher but she finds it very lonely.

Her one best friend, Hannah, recently joined a group of cool girls who all have mobile phones. Laura doesn’t have a phone. Her mom won’t allow her to have one until her 12th birthday.so Laura has to wait 10 months until she and Hannah can be friends again.

Laura adores her animals. She has 2 cats, Lily and Sheila, a Bernese Mountain dog, Betty, 2 horses, 2 donkeys, 2 rabbits and 18 hens. She hopes to be a Vet when she grows up.