Hello, all! I thought I'd have a stab at writing a fanfic for War Horse. This story is based on the film as I've never read the book, something I hope to do one day.

Summary: Rosie Monaghan despairs at the fact that courtesy and good manners seem to be very much a thing of the past. However, when she moves into her new house in Devon, little did she expect to discover a secret door which leads her into the world of the dashing Captain James Nicholls.

Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with War Horse and as much I'd love to, I don't own Hiddles *cries at the unfairness of this fact* The story's title is inspired by the song 'When You Taught Me How To Dance' by Katie Melua.

When He Taught Me How To Dance :: Chapter One

"Almost there, Rosie!" trilled my mother cheerfully from the car seat next to me, removing her sunglasses and placing them on her head, as we drove along a seemingly endless country lane.

Thank god for that, I thought, letting out yet another jaw-popping yawn. Long car journeys always made me feel tired, even though the window was wide open to let the summer breeze hit my face and make my already unruly hair fly in all directions.

I gazed drowsily out of the window, watching field after rolling field slide by. My mother, Clare Monaghan, was driving and humming along to the Barry Manilow CD she had brought along for the tediously long drive to Devon from our old house. Right at this moment, we had left the busy motorway behind and were making our way along a narrow lane which seemed to go on for eternity.

"Mm," was all I grunted in reply.

"Oh, come on!" urged Mum. "You could sound a little more enthusiastic."

"Yeah...great, Mum," I forced out of my mouth, a bit more irate than I had meant it to be. Normally, I'm much more of a cheerful and upbeat disposition. Unfortunately, PMS had decided to rear its ugly head and was causing me to be grumpy and irritable. Hello, pimples and bloated stomach.

I saw my mother glance over at me and shake her head at my crabbiness. As we continued down the lane, I immediately felt bad for snapping at her. After all, it wasn't Mum's fault that my dad had left her for some thirty-something blonde bimbo. Although I had never told her so, I was actually very proud of how my mother had handled the whole situation.

When my parents got divorced, I was well aware of what other people said about my mum: "Isn't she wonderful?", they would say, like she was a simple soul who had just learned to tie her shoelaces. What they really meant was: "Isn't it wonderful that she isn't riddled with bitterness and with a long-term Prozac habit since her husband left her?" Usually I prided myself on my knack of tapping into what other people really thought but sometimes I hated it. I knew that our friends all expected Mum to slide into a decline when she and Dad broke up.

But she had proved them all wrong. Instead of burying her head in the sand and moping, my mother happily announced to me one day that she was a new woman and that she felt completely free and liberated. She reckoned we needed a brand new start. And how had she celebrated this new-found freedom? By fulfilling a life-long dream and buying a property down in Devon, hoping to start her own cupcake baking business.

We turned down another even narrower road – if that was possible – which twisted in every direction you could think of. Mum's battered old Ford bumped its way over the gravelly surface, which was doing nothing for my already throbbing belly. Just when I was wondering when this vibrating torture was ever going to end, Mum slowed the car and pulled into a lay-by.

"We're here!" she announced happily.

I looked out of the window. But I only saw an overgrown hedge, what looked like an old shed and a rusty gate which looked like it hadn't been used for centuries. But I didn't see a house.

"Where's the house?" I felt the need to ask anyway. It had to be here!

"There's a footpath on the other side of the gate which will take us to the house," Mum explained, hopping out of the car. "Come on, then. Give us a hand unloading..."

We had brought the bare essentials with us in the car; a cool-box full of food, several duffel bags of clothes and other personal items and sleeping bags. I lifted the heavy cool-box with all the strength I could muster out, whilst Mum grabbed two duffel bags.

"Leave the cool-box for now, we'll come back for it," she said. "Pop it back in the car before some wild animals bigger than you get to it..." Laughing at the alarmed expression on my face, she added, "Oh, Rosie, you goose, it was a joke! This is Devon, not the Australian Outback... "

She nudged me playfully and headed for the footpath. I heaved the cooler back into the car and grabbed the sleeping bags instead. I broke into a jog to catch up with my mother, who was already way ahead of me. Clare Monaghan was a bit of a fitness fanatic; she was a regular swimmer, runner, cyclist and attended aerobics and yoga classes. It seemed rather ironic to me that someone who was as health-conscious as my mother would run a business which produced something decidedly so unhealthy. All in all, she was in much better shape than I was; this walk to the house felt more like a strenuous hike to me.

I berated myself to be much more positive about the new house. Perhaps it would be one of those quaint chocolate-box cottages with a thatched roof and roses around the door. Maybe it was one of those gorgeously unusual houses with large, airy rooms and intriguing nooks and crannies; a rambling garden with an armless statue of a Greek goddess hiding shyly behind a gown of ivy... With these mental images, I began to feel quite excited.

However, when Mum and I rounded some trees and reached an open clearing to reveal our new house, my heart sank. It was anything but new. It wasn't quaint. It wasn't chocolate-boxy. No thatched roof... No roses... It was in actual fact, a dump.

It was a Victorian property, the exterior a reddish-brown colour but the entire place looked tired, shabby and looked as if it had definitely seen better days. Even from where I stood, I could see missing windowpanes; a couple of gaping holes in the roof where tiles had fallen down and paint was peeling off the front door in great chunks. It was pretty obvious that nobody had lived in this house for years. Why on earth had my mother bought this place? Because it was cheap? Knowing Mum, that was more than likely.

My excitement over the house gone as quickly as it had arrived, I followed Mum inside. My eyes were immediately drawn to a wide, dark staircase slap-bang in the middle of the hallway.

"Soooo... what d'you think, love? Isn't it fabulous?" Mum gushed enthusiastically, her voice echoing slightly in the almost-empty room.

Fabulous? Definitely not the word I would have chosen.

My eyes travelled the length of the living area which was now chock-a-block with boxes and our wrapped up furniture which had been brought down the day before. Old-fashioned wallpaper covered the walls and the whole place smelt musty and damp. And it was strangely dark, even though it was bright and sunny outside. I wouldn't have been surprised if the place was haunted.

But I saw my mother waiting for my reaction on tenterhooks, her face aglow with a happy excitement. I hadn't seen her so happy in ages. So I decided to bite back what I truly thought. Who was I to stomp on my mum's dream of living in the country? I gave her a big smile.

"I'm sure this place will be perfect, Mum," I said.

Mum grinned back at me and gave me an affectionate squeeze.

"Leave the sleeping bags there, and come give me a hand with the cool-box," she called to me, already making her way back outside. I tore my eyes away from the living area and followed her.

Five minutes later, the cool-box was put in the kitchen which, I realised with horror, had no appliances whatsoever.

"The new fridge-freezer, oven and microwave are being delivered tomorrow," Mum said, as though reading my mind, "We can eat what we brought... Cheese sandwiches sound good to you?"

"Yeah...sounds great," I answered with absolutely no conviction in my voice at all, watching Mum bustle about, shifting cardboard boxes, her tawny-coloured ponytail bouncing as she moved.

I looked nothing like my mother. While she was curvy and petite, I was tall and lanky like Dad, with a head of wild raven curls. Mum and I do have the same green eyes though. 'Laser-Eyes' I call them, especially if we get angry about anything.

Mum immediately picked up on my sullen tone and looked at me, obviously sensing no enthusiastic vibes about the house despite what I had said earlier.

"Why don't you go choose yourself a bedroom, eh?" she suggested brightly.

This sounded a good a plan as any so I headed for the stairs, ignoring the odd look Mum was giving me. I couldn't blame her really. I was usually much chipper than this. I suppose today wasn't my day.

I winced as the stairs creaked ominously loud at every step I took, half thinking that the whole lot was going to disintegrate beneath me and I would be pitched headlong into dark, dusty oblivion. As soon as I thought this, I sped up a little in panic and was relieved when I had made it the top of the stairs still in one piece.

I checked out the first bedroom and immediately wrinkled my nose at the sight of the walls which were black with damp and the beamed ceiling which, if the cobweb content was anything to go by, was home to an entire colony of spiders. I promptly abandoned this room to explore the others. Another much larger bedroom with a window overlooking the field behind the house which Mum would probably favour; a dingy bathroom and a third bedroom, which I now entered.

This room was just as dusty as the rest of the house but at least the walls weren't damp here. The late afternoon sun was struggling to shine through the large window at the far end, it was so caked in grime. Next to the window was a long red curtain pulled across to hide part of the wall. I walked across the room, dust bunnies dancing away from my feet as I padded my way over the floor.

I pulled back the curtain, coughing slightly from the clouds of yet more dust which floated off the moth-eaten material. To my surprise, however, there wasn't another window. Behind the curtain was a door.

I blinked. Why is there a door here? I wondered, cocking an eyebrow. This was the end of the house and this was the upper storey. It wouldn't go anywhere.

I reached out and turned the handle to see if it would open but it didn't budge.

My eyes swept over the door. Like everything else in the house, it was dilapidated-looking and completely unremarkable to look at. What caught my attention, however, was the handle and keyhole. Both appeared to be made of brass. It was the elaborate carvings around the handle and keyhole which got me interested, though. A couple of identical brass horse's heads on either side. The keyhole was massive – about the length of my thumb, I would say – and I thought it had to be one hell of a big key to fit into it.

I briefly wondered where the key to this door was until I spotted something else; there was some kind of inscription carved around the handle. Squinting slightly, I could just make out the swirly writing.

Humanitatem est ut multo notam a generosum animi.

I could only assume this was Latin but as my knowledge of the language was extremely poor, I had no idea what the words meant. I made a mental note to Google it once we had internet connection.

I dug into my jeans pocket and brought out a hair grip and tried to see if I could pick the lock.

"Rosie!" my mother's voice echoed through the house from downstairs. "Dinner's ready, love!"

Letting out a faint sigh of disappointment, I abandoned my attempts of unlocking the door for now and left the room.