Candy Pop
Candy and the Broken Biscuits
Lavren Laverne

To Graeme, Fergus and Dot, who put the song in my heart

I’m on the Pyramid Stage at the festival. In eight bars (thirteen and-a-bit seconds) my band is going to smash into our biggest, loudest, most stupidly catchy single yet. The crowd will jump so high, so fast, the field below us will shake. Lights will flash like the sky is on fire. People will spring out of the throng – sea spray crashing against rocks in a storm. I turn to Hol, she’s on bass and coming in first. She starts playing…the wrong notes. DUN DUN DUN DUGGA DUN-DUN! What the hell is that?

ICE, ICE BABY…

Vanilla Ice. Mum singing along. The dribble-dribble of the shower. Experimentally, I raise one eyelid. Pale, cold sunshine pours in like vinegar eye drops. As I suspected: I’m alive. It’s today. Unfortunately I’m still me.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

1 Their Bloody Valentine (the Morning After)

2 Gladly

3 Operation Awesome

4 The Beast and the Godbrother

5 Squashed Bananas and Stew

6 The Magic Bus (Stop)

7 Bravery, Cunning and Feats of Daring Do

8 Operation Who’s the Daddy?

9 Bus Girl, the Dream Boat and Pants Stain

10 5-4-3-2-1…Blast Off!

11 Wrecked

12 Queen Candy and the Court of the Insane

13 The Broken Biscuits Come Together

14 This Just In

15 Finding the Wow

16 G-Day

17 Inge Rhabarbermarmalade

18 Like No Business I Know

19 R41N N8N

20 Jugs and Melons

21 Found, Still Lost

22 The Wierdest Family Reunion Ever

23 Living Your Dreams, Enjoying Your Nightmares and L-O-V-E

Copyright

About the Publisher

1 Their Bloody Valentine (the Morning After)

Hello. I’m Candy Caine (I know. I know. Didn’t name myself, did I?) Bit of an odd moment to meet, but since my life isn’t about to get any awesomer (and it isn’t, It’s Monday) I suppose it’s as good as any.

Here I am in bed, seven-eighths obscured by my ancient Forever Friends duvet cover, hair exploding from the top of my head like a firework. A brown firework. My eyes are screwed up, as if I can somehow stop the day from starting by not being able to see it. The duvet cover of shame matches the too-short curtains on the window above my bed. One of Mum’s exes put them up when I was seven. That’s nearly half my life ago, people. Dave I think he was called. Or maybe Clive? There was a -VE somewhere in there. Anyway he’s long gone, but his rubbish DIY is still here, in my bedroom, although his teddy-bear curtains are now framed by hundreds of pictures of my favourite bands. I also have a clear view through the gap, out of the window and up into the freezing blue sky. Gulls scream and circle overhead, delighted by the prospect of another day scavenging old chips and bits of kebab off the seafront.

I’m not slagging my home town off. Bishopspool is pretty much your average seaside settlement: small, cold and (I think) beautiful, tucked in beside the unfathomable depths of the sea. We only really ended up here because Mum “stuck a pin in a map” when she left London. So here we are. And it’s…fine.

Reluctantly, I roll myself up to a sitting position before staggering over to the wardrobe, pins still wobbly and sleep-drunk. My extremely un-fetching maroon school uniform is hanging up, all scratchy and angry-looking. The thought of putting it on is about as inviting as swapping clothes with my maths teacher (and I’m including underwear in that).

It’s not just the uniform, though. For me, school is like being forced to play a really complicated contact sport where nobody’s told you the rules and everybody else is on the other team. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t get totally jazzed about it. All the same, I am basically a Good Girl (check my report, it says “bright, tends to daydream”) so after drizzling myself clean under our no-power shower, I slip into my uniform’s polyester embrace, ready for another six-point-five-hours of academic excellence and hearty banter with my classmates. Can’t wait.

If it weren’t for my best mate Holly (and Mum I suppose) I’d probably have stopped going to school by now. She’s the only other sane person in Bishopspool. Holly, I mean, not Mum. Mum’s as mad as a frog in a sock.

Speaking of which, I’m leaving my attic room at the top of our rickety seafront-house, the bottom floor of which is Mum’s business – a beauty salon called The Cutie Parlour (you see what she’s done there?) – when I hear her giggling and, is that…singing?

“Ice ice BABY! Ice ice BABY!!!” Insane laughter (told you). A man’s voice joins in.

Oh no – Ray. That’s put me off my cornflakes already. He must have stayed over last night (after their special Valentine’s Day dinner. Ick).

Ray Hoppings is Mum’s latest boyfriend. Ray is a life coach. What this involves, I couldn’t tell you, although I have a mental image of him following people around the supermarket while they do their weekly shop yelling, “GO FOR IT! WAY TO SELECT CARROTS!” like a football coach at the side of the pitch.

I have actually heard him refer to himself as (DIRECT quote) “Bishopspool’s answer to Paul McKenna”. Paul McKenna! Ray can’t even hypnotise people! I asked him about it once and he said, “I can hypnotise myself” like that was in any way remotely cool. Maybe he’s hypnotised himself not to realise what a total dofus he is.

Opening the kitchen door, I am greeted – even by Our House standards – by an unusual scene. Mum, resplendent in her pink fifties-style salon coat-dress and heels (she’s a dresser-up) is dancing around the kitchen with Ray. In her free hand she’s holding a spatula, on the hob there’s a frying pan, eggs and bacon sizzling away. They’re both still singing Ice Ice Baby. Suddenly Mum shimmies back a few feet and then actually RUNS towards him. Ray holds his arms out. She leaps! And in one Dirty Dancing move, he hoists her into the air before spinning them both round, placing her gently down in front of the oven and kissing her on the cheek.

“Ahem.” Seriously. I can’t think of anything else to say.

“Candy! Morning darling!” says Mum, flustered. “We were just…celebrating! Sit down. I’m making us a proper breakfast.”

Then I notice our big old kitchen table. The usual mess of glossy mags and science-lab salon stuff have been replaced by a smart checked tablecloth, a teapot, knives, forks and actual alive flowers in a vase. Something is clearly up.

“Celebrating what?” I ask, pulling out a chair and easing myself into it.

“It’s a beautiful day!” Ray chirps, setting down a plate of toast. “On a day like this, anything could happen! Dreams could come true! Maybe they already have…” He looks over to Mum, who gazes back gooily. Ick.

“Celebrating what?”

Still humming that appalling Vanilla Ice song, Mum is dishing up slightly burned eggs and bacon with her back to me. She picks up two plates and plonks them down with a flourish on the table. As she lifts her hand away I notice a flash. There – gleaming and glistening on her fourth finger. Left hand. Ice Ice Baby. Oh no.

I feel the shock register on my face before it hits my chest. My eyes widen, my jaw drops open. Mum swoops down into the chair next to me and leans over to give me a huge squeeze of a hug. Beaming her beautiful, perfect-lipstick smile she clasps my hand in hers. Ray is saying something.

“…have decided to take our relationship to the next level…”

They’re getting married.

“…truly make a lifetime commitment…be a family…create something non-traditional but special…”

Oh. My. God.

Ray is still talking but I’m not taking in the words. I pull my hand from Mum’s grasp and drop it into my lap where it lies uselessly by the other one. For a moment I imagine them growing, superhero-style, to ten times their size, lifting Ray up and throwing him out of the kitchen window.

“Candy? Isn’t it wonderful news?”

It’s Mum.

“We’re so excited, darling! I know this will be a big change for you, for all of us, but it’s going to be wonderful! Like Ray says. We can be a family.” She’s holding my hand again, and Ray hers. For a second we look exactly as she wants us to.

“Mum, I’m fifteen! What’s he going to do – adopt me? Walk me to school? Dress up as Santa at Christmas?”

Mum’s smile falters. “I don’t mean that, Candy.” She looks at Ray. “Ray loves me. And you. He wants to be…part of your life. Maybe like a dad, maybe more like a friend. Is that so terrible?”

I can’t believe this. There were always Rays. Rays, Daves, Larrys, lans, Johns, Toms, Harrys and (total) Dicks. They might have stayed for a while but they were always THEM. We were US. And this is Our House. Suddenly I feel like a visitor.

Ray clears his throat.

“Candy, science has demonstrated that human beings only use twenty per cent of their brains. Did you know that?”

I sulk harder, wishing he’d only use twenty per cent of his mouth.

“Before I met your mother, I was using only a fraction of my emotional capacity. But Maggie makes me the best me I can be. In terms of happiness, I am at saturation levels.”

He pauses, allowing us to absorb the full impact of his wisdom. I look straight at my mum. She can’t seriously want to marry this guy.

“I don’t…I don’t know what to say, Mum.”

“Candy darling, Ray loves me and I love him! Don’t you want me to be happy? Don’t you think I deserve that?” She starts breathing a bit hard and I know she is trying to stop herself crying. I look at the clock – eight fifty. Clients in ten minutes. She doesn’t have time to re-do her makeup, so we can’t have an argument now.

“It’s all right, Maggie.” Ray puts his arm around her and leans in, touching his head to hers. Puke. “Candy’s entitled to her feelings.” He turns back to me, every inch the reasonable dad at the family meeting, dealing with the inexplicably moody child. I obviously must have missed the meeting where anybody asked whether I actually wanted to be in this family.

“Well we’d better get going. Start of a new day. Come on love.”

He gestures to Mum, who is still too busy concentrating on not getting upset to actually say anything.

Mum has this thing called “poise”. She developed it years ago, working as a model. It’s the knack of walking into any room as if it’s her surprise birthday party, no matter what kind of day she’s having. Another gift of hers I have not inherited, along with unbreakable nails and consistently obedient hair.

Shaking her shoulders out slightly, Mum adopts her delighted-you-could-make-it expression. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it. She places her twinkling left hand on my shoulder and leans in close.

“Candy. Darling, I love you. Both. Please, please try to be happy for us. If you can’t just yet then give it some time to sink in? It’s a big change, I know.” She stands up and they leave together. Be happy for us. The new us. One without me.

2 Gladly

I don’t remember much about the next ten minutes. All I know is, by nine o’clock that morning I am sitting on the step of the East Bishopspool Pensioners’ Day Centre under an empty blue sky. Believe it or not an OAP club down at the old docks is the only place I can think of going this morning. Yes, I’m that cool. There’s nobody around but I turn the collars of my school blazer up anyway to make it look less like I’m wearing my uniform, in case anyone spots me. Do people still call the police about truanting? They might call the taste police, in which case I’m stuffed. Guilty of possession of aubergine polyester.

Hurry up, Glad.

I’ve never skived off school before. The world looks weird, like it’s the wrong colour or something. I’m freezing and starving. Why couldn’t we have had all this upset after breakfast?

Where is Glad, anyway? She’s always here first. You know what old people are like for timekeeping – fifteen minutes early for everything. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep I look out of my bedroom window at the seafront about 6am and there are old guys out there. Why are they up so early? It’s not like they’ve got work or a train to catch.

The sudden crunch of enormous wheels approaching accompanied by a rapid crescendo of ear-bleedingly loud hip hop pulls me back into the present. Hurtling down the deserted road towards me is a tank-sized 4X4. Its windows are completely blacked out, indistinguishable from its gleaming inky frame. The music inside pulses louder, the throbbing track turned up just loud enough to make it indecipherable.

It’s pulling up. Someone inside kills the music. The black door zzziipps open with that exhalation sound spaceships make in films. I scramble upright. Have I stumbled into the middle of the weirdest drug deal ever? (I’ll meet you at the OAP club at 9.) Somebody is getting out of the car.

The tinted windows and glossy black door make it impossible to see anything apart from their feet.

Plop!

A little sausagey leg with a white plimsoll squashed on to the end lands on the ground, quickly joined by another one – apparently their owner is short enough to have to actually jump out of the car.

Scccrrriick! A familiar walking stick joins the sausage-legs. Little metal coats of arms are screwed into its length, indicating that whoever it is might need a bit of help, but still gets out and about on her travels, thanks very much.

Glad.

“Thanks for the lift, Calum!” she trills, sounding (as always) like a little Scottish cockatiel. The door swings open and a large square white plastic handbag appears, attached to an elderly lady of similar dimensions. “Candy! What on earth are you doing here, lassie? In the name o’ God! You’re freezing! Aren’t you supposed to be at school? Something’s happened – what is it now? An argument with your mother again? You’re as bad as each other, that’s the trouble. That’s it, Calum, just down there, I’ll get the door open…”

Without pausing for or expecting any kind of response, Glad reaches into the cavernous depths of her white bag and produces a huge prison-warden-style bunch of keys. As she immediately selects the right one from the bunch I recognise the driver of the car for the first time. Calum Stainforth. I sort of remember him from school. We all do. I mean, he was one of the wildest pupils in his year. Legend has it that he was eventually expelled for releasing not one but two dogs slap bang into the middle of his English Lit GCSE exam. Nobody knows how he got them in there, but the resultant chaos was so intense that Miss Aitken who was invigilating, had to have a fortnight off and some tablets from the doctor for her nerves. Since then Calum has been trying to make a name for himself as the baddest bad boy MC in Bishopspool. It is somewhat at odds with this precise moment. Calum has removed a fully-stocked tea trolley replete with cups, saucers, teaspoons and two urns from the back of the 4X4. He pushes it along in as manly a fashion as possible, towards the Day Centre. Two saucery-eyes peer out from deep within his hoodie. They meet mine and he stops dead.

“Hey,” I say.

“All right?” he mumbles, not waiting long enough for an answer, then presses on towards the door, with his head bowed even lower than it already was.

“Descaling,” Glad tells me, as if this explains everything, then she turns back to Calum. “Good boy, Calum. I’ll tell your granda what a help you are, he’s so proud of you!” She gives his arm a small pat of approval. Somewhere deep inside his fluorescent hoodie, Calum smiles wonkily at her and nods at me, before hopping into the car, reigniting the music and screaming off into the distance.

“Do you remember Calum from school?” Glad asks.

I squint and nod in a non-committal kind of way that tries to avoid saying, “Yeah, I heard he was a headcase!”

Glad smiles, apparently oblivious. “He used to be a bit of a wildcat but he’s a good boy these days.”

Glad fixes me with a beady glare, which makes her look not unlike Yoda from Star Wars. She taps one of the urns with the top of her walking stick. “Right you. Let’s fire this lot up and you can tell me all about it.”

So this is Glad. We go inside and she settles into her favourite chair in the corner of the optimistically named ‘Sun Room’ in East Bishopspool Pensioners’ Day Centre, clutching a proper cup of tea with saucer (very important).

“Well?” She Yoda-glares at me again over the faint steam and hiss of her cup.

“Mum’s marrying Ray.”

A pause. “I see.”

“What do you mean, you see? It’s a disaster! I feel like I’m in a badly updated fairytale. It’s Cinderella, but instead of a wicked stepmother I get David Brent as a stepdad. And she barely knows the guy! It’ll never work Glad, you know what Mum’s like as well as I do! She’s not…She’s never going to…to settle down. She’s not that kind of person!”

“Well, l would have thought not. But…people change. Maybe she knows herself better than we do, lassie.”

“She’s doesn’t! That’s just it. She’s not herself at all! She’s gone temporarily insane, or he’s hypnotised her, or…or…I can’t do it, Glad. I can’t! It’s only ever been the two of us. I don’t want her bringing a stranger in. A nuclear family! With a dad who pronounces nuclear ‘nuc-u-lur’ and thinks he understands me because he likes Coldplay!”

Glad sips her tea, does a whisky-grimace and chews over my news. She’s fond of a mull, is Glad. So while she’s thinking, let me fill you in on how a Little Old Lady ended up being the only person in the world (apart from Hol) who actually understands me.

You might not have noticed this about my mum, so let me spell it out. She is unusual. By which I mean NOT NORMAL. I mean, I love her and everything, but she’s unreliable. Take my name. Depending on what mood she’s in when you ask her, Mum either claims I’m named after Candy Darling from the Velvet Underground song Walk on the Wild Side or the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Some Candy Talking. Which means I’m either named after a vulnerable transvestite or a song that everybody thinks is about drugs. Brilliant. She forgets things (I don’t think I have ever got a permission slip to school on time). She doesn’t really know how to work our oven, even though we’ve had it since I was two. She makes bad choices (from shoes to boyfriends – neither ever fits – she walks home barefoot a lot to cry about being single). If the job of Me had been left entirely to Mum I would be a mess. OK, more of a mess.

Luckily, for the last thirteen years we have lived next door to Glad, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a nan. (The real Granny Caine lives on the Costa Brava. All we get from her is a card at Christmas with a new photo of her and my grandad and their shiny mahogany tans).

Glad is the opposite to Mum in every way. A piano teacher by trade, she has been as steady as the metronome on her upright ever since I can remember. Always next door. Most days after school she would pick me up and, back at hers, I’d plonk-plink-plonk my way through Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before being rewarded with a strawberry milkshake. That was how I first found music.

Playing gave me a sort of filled-up feeling, heavy and satisfied. And no matter how all-over-the-place things were at home, Glad was there in her front room, sheet music open at something I could dive into. Over the years my fingers got quicker and lighter until I felt they could almost play anything and then, eventually, I could just sort of think the music out of my head and into the keys and it wasn’t anything to do with my body at all.

So I live in the world, but I also live somewhere Glad calls Candyland – a place I slip in and out of all the time. I’m very susceptible to the power of a tune. A song floats by out of a car window and suddenly I’m lost in my imaginings. And my biggest imaginings of all are that I will one day make music of my own. The songs in my head will be out in the world.

How could Glad not be my mate, when she introduced me to all that? Anyway she’s finished thinking and is about to deliver her verdict. “Sabotage is out I suppose?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard me, lassie. If you’re THAT unhappy maybe you could sabotage the wedding?”

“What, in the ‘if any persons here present can think of any lawful impediment blah blah speak now or forever hold your peace’ bit I get up and say something? Like what? ‘He’s an idiot, Your Holiness! He calls having a chat dialoguing! His favourite film is Ghost.’ Glad. Seriously, what do you mean by these dark mutterings? I know you’re part-witch but can you let a mere mortal in on the secret?”

She cracks a smile – I can always get one out of her, even when she’s trying to be a grown-up. “I’m saying, Candy, I think your mother deserves some happiness. If it’s with Ray then so be it. He’s not of her usual stamp, I’ll grant you, but do what you’ve always done…And?”

“…and you’ll get what you’ve always got. I know.” Glad has been drumming this particular pearl of wisdom into me since I was as tall as her piano stool.

“I don’t believe you when you say Ray is wrong for your mum, Candy. He’s been a good influence on her, admit it.” She sips her tea, observing me over the top of the cup.

I try to think about the last time Mum did anything preposterous. “She made me miss our school trip, to go on the road with a Kiss tribute band!” I huff, remembering the mortifying week I spent touring the seaside resorts of Britain with Smooch.

Glad makes a face. “That was down to that awful Brian laddie.”

Oh yeah. Brian. Mum’s boyfriend before Ray. He was Smooch’s drummer. Mum was desperate for me to sample “the magic of life on the road”. The reality of watching her boyfriend dress up as a cat and play metal every night almost put me off music for life. Almost. “What about the Guinea Pig thing?” I ask, in the style of a lawyer making a spirited case for the prosecution.

A few weeks ago Mum bought twenty-five of the things from a pet-shop because “they looked sad”.

Glad smiles, casting a glance at the cage in the corner where her own two dozy furballs (Winston and Adolf) are snoozing contentedly. “He was away that weekend – remember?”

She’s right, dammit! He was on a course called Becoming Your Own Biggest Fan.

Glad smiles kindly. “I think what you’re finding hardest about all this is what it means about who you are. You’re just starting to work out who you want to be and now you’re going to belong to somebody you never asked for. It’s tough, but can I let you in on a secret?”

Like I have a choice. I do an if-you-must eyebrow at her.

“None of us get to pick. That’s how family works. And there are much, much worse fathers to have than Ray.”

“He’s not my father!”

“He’s the closest thing you’ve got. And he wants the job. He’s not what you’d call ‘cool’ but so what? Dads aren’t cool. If he’s not so terrible a choice that you’d sabotage the wedding maybe you just need to accept him.”

A silence descends as Glad allows this newsflash time to percolate. I hover glumly over my tea. She’s right – this is my life. A man so uncool he makes my geography teacher look like Jay-Z has been cast in the role of The Dad. I’m skiving off school for the first time ever and I’m in the East Bishopspool Pensioners’ Day Centre. I look round and my eyes come to rest on a poster on the noticeboard.

RESTRICTED MOVEMENT? CHAIR-OBICS COULD BE FOR YOU! TUESDAY 3PM.

Oh God. This cannot be it. I love Glad. I love my mum. But this cannot be my life…

Can it?

3 Operation Awesome

Instead of going to school, I head home. Not ideal as Mum’s salon is a mere creaky floorboard below but that’s where I go. Partly because I’m not sure what else to do and partly because I’ve got to get out of this uniform before I can think straight. I feel anchorless and a bit floaty. It’s beginning to sink in that Mum is going to go through with this. Her life is separate from mine. I suppose that looks obvious written down, but I’ve never really thought about it before. It’s a horrible thought but the other side of it is…a bizarre kind of freedom. Why should I go to school anyway? I can make my own decisions too.

I walk home via the quiet streets, so that I’m not spotted. The floatiness turns to giddiness and then something approaching hysteria. The world is spinning out of control and nothing is the way I thought it was when I first opened my eyes today. I’m out of school on a Monday morning! I feel, in a surreal way, daring. Spy-like.

I flip my MP3 player to a David Holmes’ film soundtrack. As it thrums into action, pacy and tap-tap-tappity everything suddenly looks monochrome. I cling to the sides of cars Jason Bourne-style as I pass, subtly checking over my shoulder for double agents and imagining myself seen through the sights of a weapon. When I place my hand on an imaginary gun, I have a word with myself. Luckily I’m back. I pop out my headphones and, quiet as a mouse, sneak into our yard, through the back door and up to my room.

My bedroom is as much like the inside of my head as anywhere could be. Pictures line the walls. Mainly they’re of musicians but there are some of places, too. Each one takes me somewhere or pushes my thoughts further out. Towards? Just away, I suppose. I have a bit of a thing for stars and my collection decorates the ceiling. Every time I find a picture of one I have to cut it out, otherwise it’s unlucky. Cartoons, scientific diagrams, wierdy mathematical line-drawings of ones by an old Dutch dude called MC Escher (not actually a rapper as it turns out!) and a 3D model I stole from the school science block that I still feel bad about.

My bed is tucked under the window, with its sea view and embarrassing curtains. Mum is obsessed with old stuff. Clothes, records, furniture: anything, really. So obviously our house is full of it. She calls it “vintage” but we sensible people know it as second-hand junk that’s often broken. Like the people in it, our house’s furniture is charming but doesn’t really do what it’s supposed to. I have an old 1950s bedroom set, made of white melamine with a sort of grey tiger-stripe pattern going on. There are a couple of handles missing and one of the dressing table drawers won’t open (Holly, has speculated that it may contain the ashes of a murder victim). At first I thought it looked uber lame but I must admit, now that it’s got all my stuff on it, it’s pretty cool. A rainbow selection of clothes peek out of the wardrobe, lounge on the bed and curl up on my dressing-table like old friends.

My phone beeps. Text: PIRATE. It’s Holly. Her surname is Rodgers. Holly Rodgers. Jolly Roger? Pirate. Don’t blame me. I didn’t invent the rules about nicknames. Why do they always have to be something insulting? When people try to start their own nickname it’s always so obvious. They give it away every time by trying to make it sound cool like ‘Laser’ or ‘Hawkeye’. It never sticks. Fart in PE once, though, and you’re ‘Napalm’ for the next hundred years.

Anyway Holly has decided to “own” Pirate. It actually really suits her. She’s the most genuinely rebellious, take-no-prisoners, close-to-the-wind-sailing girl I know. Definitely the funniest. She got detention for titling her homework ‘A pain in the Pythagoras’ last week. Which shows you how much she hates authority. And maths, which is where she is now.

“Whr ru? M in hell pls snd hlp. X”

I picture her texting from her pocket without looking at the screen.

I message back. “@ home but going 2 the blue. Can u get out? X”

I know, I know, inciting her to truant. Well trust me – today may be a first for me, but for Holly it definitely isn’t. How Mr and Mrs Rodgers produced her I’ll never know. She’s from a family of nine and they’re very religious – they go to one of those churches with singing, clapping and lots and LOTS of smiling but NO ACTUAL SENSE OF HUMOUR. Our pirate friend is very much the cuckoo in the crow’s nest. She actually keeps a change of clothes at school for sneaking out.

“Cu in 20. X”

I’d better get changed myself. It’s funny – the things I wear make me even more of a freak to people round here but dressing up makes me feel better about it. I’ve tried toning it down but it’s like holding your breath. You can only last so long.

Ten minutes later, I am wearing a tea dress that in my head belonged to Drew Barrymore in around 1993, long woollen socks that come up past my knees, battered Nike hi-tops and a 1980s knitted hat made of sparkly lurex wool. Like all the best outfits it’s wrong on paper and right on the person.

By the time I get there, Hol is already standing outside The Bluebird Café dressed head to toe in black except for an enormous fuschia scarf which, being wrapped around her neck numerous times, makes her look like a gothic cupcake. She is jiggling up and down against the cold and…is she playing a kazoo?

“What the flip is that, you loon?”

“I believe the standard greeting is HELLO. Nicotine inhaler.”

“Hello. Why have you got a nicotine inhaler? You don’t smoke.”

“No smell. Mum and Dad.” She grimaces. “And I don”t smoke” but I was feeling so stressed out I started to, like, feel addicted to the idea of smoking? Except I don’t want to end up with a raisin face. So I half-inched this.”

She flicks imaginary ash from the end of the slim, white tube before going in for another drag, the cold air puppeting her blonde bob around her pixie-face. There’s a flash of blue as she looks up at me through her fringe. Blowing out non-existent smoke, nature plays along and freezes her breath which floats away in little clouds. She is an angel in eyeliner. Not that you can say stuff like that to her. She’s enough of a handful as it is.

“You look like you’re smoking a tampon. Get a hold of yourself, woman.”

I lead the way inside and pretend not to notice as she mimes putting out the ridiculous prop before tucking it behind her ear. The glass door slips shut behind us and we are suddenly in 1982 which is approximately when ‘The Blue’ was last redecorated.

Brown and red plastic predominates – booths, laminated menus, those tomatoes with ketchup inside and then the brown ones with brown sauce, their non-tomato status serving only to highlight the mysterious nature of their contents. At the back of the café is the reason we (and everybody else in town with a clue) come here. Racks of records and CDs frame a large hole in the wall behind which, illuminated by strings of fairy lights and an angle-poise lamp, is a small room stuffed from floor to ceiling with singles, albums, CDs and merchandise from bands-gone-by. MGMT are playing on crackly vinyl on the stereo. The Blue Room, at the back of The Bluebird Café, is the only non-chain record shop in town and apparently evolved from the days when The Blue was a 1950s ice-cream parlour with a jukebox at the back. But that’s not the reason we come here. The reason is perched on a high stool behind a book. The Dice Man.

“That Dan Ashton. So unbelievably hot. Hot!” Hol stage whispers behind her menu.

The book is readjusted momentarily revealing a black eyebrow, a mop of hair to match and one chocolate-brown eye.

She doesn’t notice. “So what gives? I take it you’re not ill. Ill people never wear hats.” I give her a quizzical look. “They haven’t got the energy to accessorise.” Hol tips a dose of sugar out of the dispenser on to the table and starts drawing in it with her fingers.

“Mum and Ray are getting married.”

“Shut up!”

“They are.”

“SHUT UP!” This time she reaches across the booth and punches me in the shoulder, sprinkling grains of Tate and Lyle down my chest in the process. I brush them away.

“No. Seriously. A wedding – cake, singing, a really embarrassing horse and cart. Me probably being forced to wear a lilac dress. Them dancing together.” I shudder, recollecting the scene I walked in on earlier. “It’s a nightmare.”

Holly pouts her bottom lip. “Oh, Can. That’s terrible. That’s…Ooh! I forgot! I brought THESE for us!” She reaches into her enormous yellow pleather bag and produces two pairs of sunglasses. Hers are electric blue with glittery frames in the shape of two butterflies, mine are white with red stripes like a candy cane. The frame contorts into a letter L on one side of the lenses and K on the other.

“And these are?”

She throws her hands up, universal sign language for “Duh!”

“They’re a disguise? So that we can, like, do stuff today without attracting too much attention? I got them from the arcade on the way over.” She slips hers on and turns butterfly-eyed to the surly waitress who has just appeared beside our booth. “A pair of cokes and one chips, please, garçon.”

The waitress, who is about nineteen but looks way older, purses her lips, shakes her head and stalks off in disapproving silence.

To be honest I didn’t expect much sympathy from Pirate. Holly is not great at bad news, operating a blanket policy of “tuning out negativity”. I think of it as just ignoring stuff. She must read my thoughts because she reaches across the booth, gives my forearm a rub, then a pat before finishing off with a few more firm slaps on my shoulder. I feel like a sofa having its cushions plumped.

“Chin up, soldier. It sucks, you know? But parents…they’re nuts. Well, ours are. Come and live at my house! I’m sure Mum and Dad wouldn’t notice one more!” I smile in spite of myself. “Why don’t you, like channel your feelings into our art?” Hol waves her arms around in what she obviously imagines is an arty fashion.

Hol is one half of said art project – our (as yet unnamed) band. She doesn’t write songs. She claims her role is “more of an actualisation deal. Like, you provide the raw materials – I bring the magic.” What this actually means is that I spend every night wigging out on my own in my room like a loser (singing along to my knackered old keyboard in apparent silence via my gigantic orange headphones) writing songs for which Hol then has to create a four-note bass part. Like she says – magic.

“What was that one you wrote last week?” she asks, sucking a few grains of sugar off her index finger.

I cast my mind back to last Wednesday, when I stayed up late writing about this really annoying girl in our class who has a secret tattoo. The chorus was particularly satisfying (“You’ve got your boyfriend’s name in ink on your bum/ And if you don’t shut up/ I’m telling your mum”).

“Er…Inkspots?”

“No! The one about Ray!”

“Oh! Chairman of the Bored.”

“Yeah – you could adapt that and make it about this. You know what John Lydon says, ‘Anger is an energy’. Use it to your advantage, Caine. Now put on your regulation issue disguise and let’s discuss Operation Awesome.”

She may not do sympathy very well, but if you want cheering up, Pirate is the girl for you. “Sir, yes sir!” I slip on my extremely 70s Elton John eyewear, my head now inviting the empty café to LOOK.

Operation Awesome is our plan for world domination by our band, using the weapon of amazingly brilliant music. Holly and I spend most of our time together discussing logistics, tactics, album titles, who we’ll tour with, which cities we’ll play in and what we’ll wear onstage. The fact that we are the only members, own one battered old Casio and a borrowed bass does not figure in any of this. We have a Facebook page called Operation Awesome inviting the public to help us on our road to superstardom. So far we have three friends, two of whom are us. The other one is Glad.

Removing a tattered notebook and pen from her skip of a handbag, Holly flicks through the pages until she reaches the list of potential names we were working on yesterday lunchtime.

“So…where did we get to? The Neon Girls, Play, The Twister Sisters…”

“I hate that one. And there’s already a metal band called Twisted Sister.”

“…Daydreamer, Ice Scream…”

“And that one. Cross it out – people will think we’re a screamo band. Totally wrong.”

“Totally!” agrees Holly, who refuses to acknowledge her enormous emo phase which finished three months ago (her wardrobe has yet to catch up with her music taste). She puts a decisive strike through the offending moniker. “But we do need something. It needs to say who we are and what we’re about – it needs to show that we mean business and – CHIPS! WOO HOO!”

Surly Girl plonks the plate down between us. Hol turns beaming towards her. Surly Girl is wearing a badge that says, ‘My name is Nicola. Ask me about our FREE REFILLS!’

“Danke, Camarero! Could we possibly have another fork, sil vous plait? And what’s the deal with these free refills I’ve been hearing about?”

Surly leans in close enough for us to catch the surprisingly pleasant scent of perfume and cigarettes.

“One fork per order only and the free refills is only for a family party who get the lunchtime special. Not timewasters and broken biscuits who haven’t got nothing better to do with themselves than hang around here making one order last all day.”

A crescent-moon smile spreads across Holly’s impish face.

“Ooh, you’re good! Nicola, is it? You’re GOOD!” She starts scribbling in the book.

Taken aback by Holly’s apparent delight, Surly straightens up, gives a derisory snort and stalks off.

“Thank you!” Holly calls after her with a wave. She turns to me, still beaming, before doing her best Professor Higgins, “By George, I think she’s got it!” She turns the notebook round. The entire list of band names has been scratched out and underneath in letters as big as her grin she has written THE BROKEN BISCUITS.

Before long we’re laughing and the world almost feels the right way round again. Pirate can do that to a person.

We stumble out of the café and take the bus up the coast. As we bump along, Hol gives a particularly animated account of her escape from double maths and a life in which she might have grown up understanding long division.

We end up in a little village a couple of miles out of town. Its selection of shops is pretty odd – a tearoom, a fancy dress shop and a newsagent that also sells reproduction antiques. Somehow Holly convinces the owner of the fancy dress place that we are fashion students looking for kitsch accessories for our end of term show. We spend an hour trying things on. Wigs, feather boas, clown noses, witches’ hats…In the end we buy a pair of cat ears (me) and rabbit ones (her). We add them to our disguises, Holly promising to return to buy more “when we’re closer to curtain up.” There’s nowhere else to go and no more money. So we walk down to find a bench on the freezing beach and split a packet of bubblegum.

Glad once told me there is actually no definitive line where the sea ends and the sky begins. They are made of the same thing. I didn’t understand at the time but today I know just what she means. I can feel the sea in the air, like silk. We watch the waves throw themselves one by one on to the sand, each trying to escape the sea. Failing. That’s how the tide comes in, I suppose.

Still in our comedy ears and sunnies, we sit huddled together blowing orange bubbles that look like plastic Halloween pumpkins. We hunch together in the cold for a long time, looking out to sea as if we’re waiting for a ship of loons to come and rescue us, to take us to a place where people wear rabbit ears and sunglasses every day and love music as much as we do. I think about Operation Awesome – Pirate’s the kind of person who’s just about mad enough to manage to make that happen. I need her help with something else. I take a deep breath, the damp February air is cold enough to sting my teeth.

“I think I need to find my dad.”

Hol’s bubble freezes mid blow, then she sucks it back in thoughtfully, bursting it with a smacking sound.

“Is this cos of the wedding?”

“Yeah, kind of. I mean, I’ve always wanted to know who he is. But in a way, not knowing was cool before. Like, he could be anyone. He could be Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt or something. Stupid.”

She smiles and resumes chewing. “It’s not stupid. I used to wish I was adopted for the same reason. Then I realised that it was unlikely my mam would have wanted to adopt, like, her fifth baby when the others were still little. Unless my dad actually had been Brad Pitt. He loves that kind of thing.”

I roll my eyes at her. “Ha ha. The thing is, now that Ray’s going to be my stepdad, I care. He’s taking my dad’s place. Whoever he is. But I can’t do this on my own. I’m going to need help. From you.”

“Of course! Mi casa su casa!”

“Thanks, Hol. I don’t think ‘mi casa su casa’ actually means—”

She cuts me off, pointedly blowing a bubble in my direction. “Does when I say it. What about your mum?”

“Useless. Everything she says about when she was young contradicts everything else. All I know is, she lived in London, she was going to be the next Kate Moss and then…”

POP.

“Have you ever just, like asked? WHO IS MY FATHER?”

“I can’t.”

“Pourquoi pas?”

“I just kind of…can’t. She doesn’t want me to.”

“How do you know?”

“Just do.”

“OK, dude. I’m on board. We now have two projects. Operation Awesome and Operation Who’s-the-Daddy?” She grins. I frown at her.

“Do we have to call it that?”

“Yes,” she says finally, before unfurling a bubble the size of a space-hopper between us. We get my MP3 player out of my bag and take a headphone each. I scroll through to a really old album I just discovered. Marquee Moon by Television. Apparently they are the band who invented punk, which is funny because they totally look like teachers. My favourite track comes on, Friction. Tom Verlaine starts screaming, “I don’t wanna grow up/There’s too much contradiction!” and looking up at the sky I feel like gravity could just switch off and I could step out into it. In my other ear the sea keeps breathing. Wave. Wave. Wave. Keep trying.

On the bus back, I think about Mum crying sometimes when I was little. Wet eyes and a big smile on my birthday. Hiding it but not very well. I heard her at night sometimes, through the bedroom wall. The day after something bad had happened, when she wouldn’t get up. She always said it was a headache but I stopped believing that ages ago. The answer I need is underneath those tears. I have always known not to ask. About any of it. Suddenly it strikes me that I haven’t heard her cry for a while. Definitely not since…I push the thought back down. He’s an idiot. And he’s not my dad.

The bus drops us back at the stop outside The Blue. It’s quarter past three and already it’s beginning to get dark. Navy spreads through the empty sky like ink in water. Hol fluffs her hair with the back of her hand and stares into the dimly lit café window, half at her own reflection, half through it trying to catch a glimpse of Dan Ashton. “Want to come to mine?”

“Nah. I’d better go home.”

My stomach gives a little lurch at the thought. Holly notices and gives me another conciliatory pat.

“OK soldier. Listen, tomorrow we begin a new phase. We have a name. We are the Broken Biscuits. I think it’s time Operation Awesome went overground.”

“Meaning?”

“We start recruiting. This isn’t a two-woman operation. We need band members. At least two more.”

I salute. “Yes sir.”

I hug Hol and watch her stride away purposefully. I suppose I’d better get home before anyone notices I’m gone.

I arrive back to an empty house. Mum is still down in the salon and Ray…he’s probably teaching some business-dude to pretend he’s a tiger so he can go in and ‘kill it’ at his presentation tomorrow. Lame-a-rama. I try to imagine him actually living here, bursting through the door with a “Honey, I’m home!” every evening, like a character from a bad sitcom. It’s the end. No more TV nights, lounging around in our pyjamas watching films. No more Pizza Wednesdays. No more Mum practising salon treatments on the pair of us, candles and wine glass balanced on the side of the bath; The Pixies on the stereo. The bathroom will probably stink now. Man-stink. In fact that’s the best way to describe Ray’s arrival – a bad smell emanating through the house. Everything looks the same, but the whole place reeks. The flowers sit on the table from breakfast, smiling out at the kitchen with the stupid optimism of things that don’t even know they’ve been hacked down and will soon be dead. Stupid flowers. Stupid tablecloth.

I stagger up into my room, overcome by a weary mix of misery and powerlessness. I kick off my trainers and flop down on to the bed. The clock-radio blinks 15:55. I blink back. Once, twice and then fall headfirst into a black-hole sleep, the deepest I have ever known.

When I wake again it is almost midnight and the house is enveloped in velvety darkness. A glass of juice and a sandwich sit outside my bedroom door. I pick them up and tiptoe down from my little attic room to the floor below. The door is ajar. I call Mum’s room ‘The Museum’ because everything in it is about a hundred years old. It being hers, none of it in any way goes together. Ancient floral quilts clash with old leopard-print lampshades. Twinkling Indian saris frame the window and a costume shop array of frocks are slung willy-nilly over a battered Chinese screen. In the middle of it all is Mum asleep on her bed in a pool of lamplight. Dark hair framing her beautiful face, long eyelashes flickering mid-dream, the gentle rise and fall of Brides magazine on her chest. If she hadn’t been snoring it would have been just like an advert.

I sit on the third stair and eat my sandwich, drink my OJ and watch her sleeping. I can feel the fact of her engagement (sounds so weird – she’s thirty-five!) sitting in my chest like a stone, heavy and cold – a boulder thrown into a lake, the surface of which has now become calm. I think about her almost-crying this morning “Don’t I deserve some happiness?” Like she’d never had any until now. Was life really so unbearable when all we had was each other?

After eating, I walk into the room to turn off her light. She doesn’t look too much like me. Her eyes are brown and mine are green. I suppose our cheekbones are the same. Sticky-outy – but hers make her look like a film star, whereas mine make me look like an alien. Her hair is smooth and unfurls itself like a shampoo ad when she takes it down. Mine seems to defy gravity and if it has been in a ponytail it stays there when you take the elastic out. Wondering if anything about me will ever make sense, I flick off the bedside lamp and sneak out, leaving Mum snuffling away contentedly in the darkness.

4 The Beast and the Godbrother

A feeling of numb calm stays with me for the next few days, punctuated by sickening moments when I remember that the world as I know it is about to end. In science I draw Ray’s face on the textbook illustration of the meteor that caused the Big Bang hurtling towards earth. The dinosaurs were lucky – they didn’t know what was coming to take them out. Then I start daydreaming about my real father (who Hol and I have christened BioDad). Maybe he’s a film star! Mum’s always telling stories about the flash company she was in down in London. “He could be Johnny Depp or Clive Owen,” I suggest to Hol at lunchtime, “maybe even Daniel Craig! James Bond could be my dad!”

“Dude, BioDad is so not James Bond. Judging by the way you’re turning out, he’s more likely to be some freaky brainiac who’s in the jungle looking for a cure for cancer or locked in a laboratory building robots that can, like, think for themselves and do wees and stuff.”

“Why would anybody invent a robot that can do wees?” I ask incredulously.

“I’m just saying…who knows why these scientists do what they do. Anyway, don’t blame me. He’s your dad,” she huffs, taking a cross bite of her chicken wrap. We settle into a glum silence but I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe he won’t be amazing, maybe he’ll be even more of a loser than Ray. Impossible, I tell myself. Then I think maybe he’ll think I’m a loser! That thought’s much harder to shake.

Bizarrely, the very moment I am paralysed by misery, Holly has been gripped by a renewed sense of purpose, like an anti-authority Girl Guide. Within an hour of stealing Sarah Andrews’ librarian’s pass, she has photocopied a hundred of our flier advertising for band members proclaiming “WANTED FOR GLOBAL TAKEOVER BY THE AMAZING BROKEN BISCUITS: WORLD’S ACEST DRUMMER/BEATBOXER. ALSO, ANY GUITAURIST WITH OWN INSTRIMENT. WORLD DOMINASION GARUNTEED. CALL OR TEXT NOW 07977…”

She proudly unfurls a copy on top of my uneaten lunch in the canteen, seasoning my inedible curry, rice and chips with her atrocious spelling. Holly’s convinced advertising like this will find us some bandmates but I’m too miserable to work out whether I agree.

“Dude, chillax,” Hol says, placing a conciliatory arm around my shoulders, “Operation Awesome is totally the key to Operation Who’s-the-Daddy! Think about it – we get rich, famous and wildly successful, then we get the press to do the hard work for us! Put out an appeal? Or hire a private investigator or something…” she tails off and I rub my eyes, managing a weak smile.

“Sure Hol. Whatever you say.” Even though I’m shattered, I haven’t slept in days. It’s like I’ve exchanged the traditional states of awake and asleep for one, long stretch somewhere in between. At home I say as little as possible while Mum fizzes away like an asprin, chattering about her wedding plans. At night I lie awake, staring at the fake stars on my ceiling.

Mum and Ray have decided on a June wedding. Three days into their engagement, the whole house is already overrun with catalogues, magazines and books called things like Wedding Planning for Dummies. Still in my pyjamas and barely awake, I sit at the kitchen table and plonk my cereal down on the top magazine in the stack before me. Milk sloshes on to the satsuma-tanned face on Celebrity Brides Revealed! I’m not sure I’d be as chuffed if I looked that much like an Oompa-Loompa on The Happiest Day of My Life™. Mum breezes into the room with all the upbeat industriousness of Snow White mid Whistle While You Work.

“Morning, Can!” she trills, unloading the dishwasher with the clatter of a one-man-band. “There’s so much to do! Nineteen weeks is such a short lead-time these days. I’ve got some fabric swatches coming over today and I was thinking maybe I could make the favours? Something crafty and cool?”

What is she on about? This has been Mum’s tactic the whole week. Keep asking questions, don’t wait for any answers and pretend everything is hunky-dory. I stop listening to the actual words and get lost in the music of her voice until I realise she is saying my name repeatedly. “Is it, Can? Candy? Candy! You haven’t forgotten. Have you?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s Glad’s birthday! The party? This afternoon at the Day Centre. You’re playing something?”

“Mmm hmm.” I had totally forgotten but am too tired to even feel bad.

“So you’ve got it sorted, yes? What are you going to play?”

“Debussy.” I think I say it because I’m halfway through a yawn that already sounds like his name.

“Right, then. Have a lovely day. I’ll see you at Glad’s. And so will Ray.”

I smile weakly. “Bye, Mum.”. She pulls on her old fur coat and click-clacks out the door into the weekend. Four inch heels and snow outside. If she’s not careful she’ll be going up the aisle on crutches.

I look at the clock: it’s almost nine. Hol is out of the picture today – her parents make her play in the church band on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so she’ll probably be mid-Kumbaya. I flip through my mental address book of social engagements, fabulous friends and must-dos. Blank. Blank. Blank. Debussy it is. I pad through to the front room and go to the shelf with my sheet music on it, although I could play Glad’s favourite piece in my sleep. It’s an easy choice, Clair de Lune.

I trudge upstairs, back to my room. It’s dark: the curtains are still half-drawn but the pale winter sun can barely make it through the clouds this morning anyway. Thick flurries of snow billow pointlessly towards the ground. It never lies round here – there’s far too much salt in the air. I switch on the lamp on my dressing-table and that’s when I see it. Lying on the bed is a large black oblong decorated by an enormous shining scarlet ribbon. A guitar case. A guitar. Like an idiot I look around, as if somebody is going to leap out of the corner shouting “SURPRISE!” while Party Poppers explode all over the room. I catch Iggy Pop’s eye in a poster and feel sheepish. Cautiously, I step forwards like I’m creeping up on a sleeping bear. There’s a small black envelope tucked neatly under the bow. I tear it open already knowing who it’s from.

Darling Girl,

Here is something from us to help make your dreams come true like ours have, M and R xxx

The heavy bow slides apart smoothly. I spread my fingers out and brush my hand across the word indented into the pitted plastic of the pristine case. Gibson. Reaching down I find four cool metal clasps. They flip up one by one like locks on an enchanted treasure chest. I notice that I seem to have stopped breathing. The lid weighs a ton. I lift it up a fraction, slowly pulling apart the weighty body of the case, forcing myself to breathe in, out, in, out…silently praying, Please let it be beautiful. Please let it be beautiful.

My first glimpse is of the retina-scorching electric-blue fur lining, which is – pretty unnecessarily – also leopard print. It’s so bright it’s practically neon. The room fills with a heady scent – musty wet-dog with an undertone of stale tobacco. I cough. Nestling in the bed of blue fuzz is the shabbiest, oldest, most scraped, scratched and beaten up, ugliest guitar you have ever seen.

Oh crap.

The guitar, or what’s left of it, is an old Gibson SG. Three strings stretch up its warped neck (there should be six) and the figure-of-eight body appears to have been in a war. Most of the glossy cherry-red paint that once covered it long ago has gone. Patches of bare wood stare up at me, bone through wounds. A series of deep gouges run diagonally below the bridge and indecipherable marker-pen scrawl, stickers and peeling glitter glue are everywhere, giving the overall impression of a psychotic five-year-old’s art project. Its elegant curves have been chipped and dented beyond recognition and two of the four volume and tone knobs have been replaced. One with a huge leather-covered button and the other with a badge that may long ago have borne a witty slogan but is now so utterly ruined that only three letters are visible. “G US”. As in “disGUSting”.

Ick.

Gingerly, I reach down and pick it up as you might a run-over cat at the roadside. I’ve been desperate for a guitar forever and now I’ve got one. Only it’s this one. Typical. I place the beast of a thing on my lap and – awkwardly – curl my fingers into one of the chord positions I managed to learn one afternoon on Hol’s dad’s church group guitar. Being very religious, Alan would only teach me hymns. I decide to start with Victory in Jesus. I hit the first chord, an atonal G that sounds like the wail of a depressed cat. Sticking my tongue out in childish concentration, I make a B chord with my left hand and strum with my right.

KAKAKAKAKBBBLLLOOOOWWWBBBAAAABBBOOOOOMMM MMM!!!!

There is a huge explosion – a deafening blast, accompanied by a blinding flash of light that throws me back against the wall. Everything is plunged into bright white silence. I start to hear ringing in my ears. And then…a voice. So high I think it’s a noise at first – the kind of noise the neck of a balloon makes when you stretch it and let the air escape. But it’s somebody shouting – shrieking in fact. With delight.

“WOOOOAHHH! FREEEDOMMM! HALLELUJAH! I’M OUT AND PROUD, MOTHER! WINGS DON’T FAIL ME NOW!!!”

As my eyes recover from the blast of light or…whatever it was that just happened, they start to make out a figure. Zipping through the air at speed, bouncing off the walls like a rubber ball and emitting a light so brilliant it doesn’t so much shine as sing. He is a small (sort of handspan-sized), apparently flying…man. And he’s shouting at me.

“I’m out! You let me out! At last! Candy Caine! Let me have a look at you…Do you know how to take your time or…WOW. Nice outfit. You are obviously in the middle of an, um, emotional situation? Never fear, I am here now. Speaking of which, where am I?” Four tracing-paper wings crinkle and buzz as the shining creature flies over to the window. “Urgh! Snow! The worst weather for dressing well. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too hard on you, then.”

I try to speak but nothing comes out. Shakily, I push myself up to stand. I’m trying to work out whether anything hurts but if it does I’m too shocked to feel it yet. I’m in the middle of the room, goldfish-mouthed and speechless in my pyjamas, my beaten up old beast of a guitar hanging limply around my neck. The creature hovers in the window, snow swirling behind him.

“I…I…” I manage to lift my finger and point. Quite what I am hoping to indicate I don’t know.

“Don’t point, Candy Caine. Terribly rude. I can see my entrance has caused quite a stir. Can’t say I’m surprised. But can still say more than you, it appears. In which case allow me to do the introductions. Before you and about you and in fact especially for you, I am Clarence B Major at your SERVICE!”

He throws both arms open in a highly dramatic fashion. Apparently his name should be enough to elicit a reaction.

I manage a weak nod. Personally, I’m still caught up on the fact that he’s a…is he a…?

Clarence B Major flies down to the windowsill and paces up and down as if onstage. His wings bristle and hiss behind him like an old record. Although his entire person is a shimmering mass of glistening almost light, I can now see that he is in fact, wearing clothes. An elaborate outfit consisting of a tattered skin-tight jumpsuit, a headband, wrist cuffs, three belts and pixie boots. Each item is as luminous as the moon. His shining hair is immaculately tousled beneath his headband and although he’s definitely a he, he has a face that could only ever be described accurately as beautiful. He also appears to be wearing makeup in the shape of a lightning strike over one eye.

“Naturally, my dear girl, your little head will be stuffed full of questions. STUFFED! Time aplenty for each and every one of them. For now I will give you the bare bones. The facts as they are on a need-to-know basis.”

I feel as if my entire head has been dipped in glue. I shake it, trying in vain to get the cogs in my brain going again. I’m still pointing, mainly because I’m so shocked I’ve forgotten to stop. With a great effort I manage to slur, “You’re a…You’re a f…You’re a f…f…fai—”

“Hush, hush my dear. I’ll do the talking for now. And in future do try to avoid speaking with your mouth open. Most unattractive on you. As you may have noticed, I am a creature imbued with both human and superhuman traits—”

My brain and mouth simultaneously come unstuck. “A fairy! You’re a fairy!”

In a bristling flash, Clarence B Major zooms from his place on the windowsill and delivers a sharp kick to the end of my nose, then hovers at eye-level to shout. “I am not and never have been a fairy. How DARE you!”

“OW! Sorry.” I squeak through my hand. Clarence B Major looks at me as if he’s the wounded one.

“So…” I ask, checking for blood. “What are you then?”

Clarence taps his finger on his chin, thoughtfully and says, more to himself than me, “Ah. A poser. How to explain my nuanced state to one so febrile as you. Let me see…” He clears his throat and addresses me once more, “In terms you might be able to grasp, Candy Caine, I was once alive, but now I am not. I am caught between two worlds, the visible and the invisible—” “So you’re a…ghost?”

Clarence makes a face. “Oh my dear, no! The stuff of Victorian melodrama and nothing more. And they can’t do half of what I can. Look!” There’s a little flash of light and for a moment he is a dragonfly, then a further flash and he is himself again. Clarence B Major smiles a twinkling smile. “Magic, you see! I had a lot of it when I was alive and now that I am dead it has made me into something else. Let’s just say that I am an echo of a person who once was, without really being that person. I am now partly Clarence and partly…magic. But most importantly of all, I am totally and entirely here for you.”

I try and fail to think of something to say to this. Luckily, it seems that Clarence B Major is on a roll and requires no further prompting. He places his hands on his hips.

“I have been assigned and apportioned the role of your mentor, protector and guide. You have summoned me by playing the chord named in my honour.” I look at him blankly, he rolls his eyes. “B Major? It is my duty to help you fulfil your destiny. Do you wish me to provide this service?”

Clearly the sane answer is no.

“Er…yes?”

Mollified as quickly as he became enraged, Clarence taps my tender snout with his finger. It goes ting! like a bell. I cringe but the pain instantly disappears. Clarence flutters back to the windowsill, resuming his position centre-stage, hands clasped behind his back, chest puffed out like a small army general. With wings.

“But what are you doing here? What destiny?”

“As I was saying, you and I are bound together, Candy Caine. I have been charged with the task of getting you out of this…”

He looks about him, clutching for a word that will accurately encapsulate the hopeless grimitude of my freezing box room on a friendless Saturday morning.

“…this poky little life of yours and getting you one that fits.”

“A life that fits?” I ask, sarcastically. Who does this…person think he is?

Clarence B Major meets my glare, returning a look as cool and clear as iced water.

“Well? Haven’t you ever felt that your life was too small?”

“I…” I leap into speech, ready to tell him how wrong he is. Only he’s not. Every single day I have dreamed of something bigger, more, brighter, louder, faster. My life is a sleeping machine plugged in and waiting to go, switch firmly flicked to OFF. Clarence flutters closer, his light warming my face like a spotlight. It feels wonderful.

“This is not your destiny, Candy Caine. There is too much music in you.”

“Music?”

“Yes, music.” Clarence flies over to the guitar around my neck. It shimmers under the light he casts – the remaining paint on its body coming alive: an intense scarlet glow. In a weird way it sort of feels alive too, but not quite. Asleep maybe. He indicates that I should play something. This time, my hands find their place instinctively, my right across the bridge, my left lightly holding the neck. There’s a rightness to the feeling, like putting your arm around someone you love.

“My dear girl. If I told you I was the possessor of an invisible power which could change your day, your mind, your life, the world—”

“I’d believe you. You’re a flipping f—You’re…made of magic, apparently.”

“Not just I. Music, Candy. Music is magic. It is in me as it is in you. You possess this power. You have summoned me with it. The chord of B Major to be precise. And your music, your magic, is going to get us out of here and into your wildest dreams. You do have dreams you wish to come true, don’t you?”

An image leaps into my head, a scene from the dream I always have: me and Hol up onstage in front of a crowd we can’t even see the end of.

“Yes,” I say. “My band. I want to make music.” Then I think of Mum and Ray and the missing puzzle-piece that is BioDad. “And there’s…there’s someone I want to find.”

Clarence B Major leans in close, smiling. “Your father.”

I actually gasp. Then nod. Although why the fact that the magical fairy made of moonbeams that is flying round my bedroom knows I haven’t got a dad is such a shocker, I’m not sure.

“Don’t look so surprised, Candypop! I’ve never really been one for homework but I did do some research before I got here…I sense that he is intrinsic to your destiny. Whoever he is, he gave you your music. This guitar will help you find him and it will help you fulfil your wildest imaginings.”

I look down at the car-crash of metal and wood in my lap. Accidentally, a little snort of derision jumps from between my lips. Clarence is not amused. His expression clouds with anger. He brings his shining hands together and starts to rub his palms.

A luminous not-quite-liquid begins to bubble between them. A shimmering mess of every-colour light, it’s accompanied by the gelatinous hum a fat drunk bee might make. Clarence opens his palms into a circle and blows. The goop separates into six bubbles, which hover in the air for a split second before shooting towards me.

POP OP POP OP POPPOPPOPPOP!

Smashing into the guitar the bubbles explode, releasing a crackling cloud of sparks, smoking colour and noise against the bridge. It’s somewhere between a mini fireworks display and an electrical storm in a snowglobe. The instrument seems to respond, shuddering in my grasp.

Alive with the cloud’s strange energy, the guitar’s three old strings start to glow, pulling tighter and tighter against the neck which pushes out in the opposite direction until…

DONK! DAANG! DUNNNN!

The old strings snap tunelessly and flashing out of the cloud like lightening six perfectly luminous threads appear across the length of the neck. With a triumphant flourish, Clarence strums his little hand across them. They resonate with the most beautiful ear-trembling sound I have ever heard.

“This guitar is your Excalibur, Candypop. It will lead you to your destiny.”

“You wouldn’t think that noise could have come out of such a…beast of a thing,” I say, somewhat in awe.

“Not a beast,” Clarence corrects, “The Beast. Now – get those pyjamas off and let’s get started.”

5 Squashed Bananas and Stew

It transpires that Clarence B Major is a rock star. Or was. Or should have been, if he wasn’t dead. Which he is. Sort of.

“Very cross-making, you know, dying. Especially if you’re in the middle of something. Now this finger pulls back a fret and there you are…a C chord.”

Four hours after our initial meeting, I’m sitting on the bed, dressed in an outfit he handpicked (I look like Amy Winehouse in her darkest hours) being taught the guitar. Clarence is flitting back and forth checking the position of my hands as we work through chords, all the while filling me in on what it’s like to die and transmogrify into a fairy. Actually, it seems that Clarence can transmogrify into anything he likes – he gives me a demo which involves him turning himself into a kettle, a frog, a ridiculous hat and finally a tiny planet with rings that looks like Saturn. Each change is accompanied by a blinding flash of light which leaves me feeling like a welder who’s forgotten to put his goggles on. I search through the whiteout in front of me and can more or less make out Clarence, who has gone back to his original fairy-shape. “My favourite form,” he says, “is a scaled-down version of the one I inhabited on earth. With a couple of useful additions!” He buzzes his wings, momentarily lifting himself a foot or two into the air.

So my flying friend has thrown himself into the role of mentor and I have found my tongue and then some. I’m still sort of trying to figure out (a) whether this is actually happening and (b) if it is – what the heck is going on. So far, via the medium of relentless badgering, here’s what I’ve figured out:

According to Clarence, since he met his untimely end twenty-three years ago, he has been in a kind of limbo, not-quite-on, not-quite-off earth, waiting for the person to come along whose ‘music’ chimed with his. This person would become his charge and anchor him back to the land of the living. A twin soul who he could watch over, guide and protect. Someone whose successful union with all that is meant for them will override Clarence’s unfinished business and allow him to move on. “But to move on where?” I ask. “To, like, heaven?”

“My dear girl, there is no such place. Or if there is, it is strictly metaphorical. There are only two states. The visible and the invisible. I have, by dint of misfortune and truncation of life, one foot in each realm. When my work here is done I may graduate to the invisible. I spend some of my time there, but you can call me back here by playing my chord – B Major – on this fine instrument.” He pats the guitar on my lap fondly.

What’s weird is how un-weird all this feels. Maybe it’s his natural skills as a conversationalist, but it feels a bit like I’m chatting to my hairdresser. I’m also amazed by how quickly my fingers fall into place against the sparkling strings Clarence created. I barely have to think about it and they find chord after chord as Clarence shouts them out. It’s as if a bigger force than me is in control. I’ve been building up to my next question for a good half an hour. I wince in anticipation but ask it anyway.

“How did you die, Clarence?”

He sighs, but whether from real emotion or to create a bit of dramatic tension, I can’t tell. “There I was, amid the razzle-dazzle and stardust of London (well, my bedsit in Barnet to be precise) about to hit the big-time. It was Sunday night and I was all set to sign my record deal the next morning. I saw it, you know, on the way up.”

He gives me a meaningful look.

“The contract, I mean. Sitting on my A&R man’s desk, open at the page I was due to go in and make my mark on. I was due to start a new life, I just didn’t know it would be this one.” He flexes some mysterious muscle, spreading his wings even wider so that he can examine them which he does, glumly.

“Gentle pressure on the strings, my dear. Don’t grip the neck. You’re playing the guitar, not strangling it. Where was I? Oh yes, dying. So anyway that night I was, quite naturally, celebrating. 150 or so of my closest friends and I were having a costume party in the heart of Soho. Things were about to change so the theme was REVOLUTION! Naturally I had decided to go as Marie Antoinette.”

Now it’s my turn to give him a meaningful look. He ignores me.

“So there I was, face full of makeup, pearls, enormous gown fashioned from an old peach satin bedspread.” He giggles at the memory. “Anyway, I was perfecting my coiffure (that’s French for hairdo) when I fell foul of an appliance. My accommodation in those days being somewhat insalubrious, my measures for bathing were somewhat…primitive.”

He falters. I catch his eye and he looks away shyly. I stop playing for a moment. “What do you mean, primitive? Don’t be embarrassed, Clarence. In case you hadn’t noticed, I hardly live in Buckingham Palace myself.”

“I most certainly am not embarrassed, Candypop, I wouldn’t know the meaning of the word! F minor! Move those ape-like digits of yours down a string. There…Anyway Marie Antionette’s hair was terribly high and I was crafting a spectacular bouffant with the use of my hairdryer. As I mentioned, my conveniences were most inconvenient at the time. Unfortunately, I had to bathe in an…um…well…” A look of disgust clouds his pristine features, “A bucket. In any case my bucket was still sitting there and I had quite forgotten about it. I was doing the tricky part at the crown when I lost my grip and the hairdryer tumbled out of my grasp. I instinctively went to catch it. I succeeded. The very moment it hit the water, that was it,” he sighs, adding in a whisper, “Poof!”

I stop playing. Clarence is sitting on the windowsill now, hugging his knees, wings tucked in behind him, looking defeated like crumpled sellotape.

“I’m sorry.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then shivers throwing off his gloom like a cloak. “Thank you, my dear. In any event it led me here, to this…” he looks about him, aiming for a smile that lands more in the region of grimace,“…delightful seaside hamlet. And to you.”

“So we’re destined to be together, and you were sent here to look after me from a magical invisible world. Does that mean you’re my…” I leave a pause where the word fairy should go “…Godfather?”

“Godfather? I should say not, darling. I was a mere handful of birthdays above you when I met my end. But Godbrother? Perhaps. Now. From a party that never got started to one that is about to begin; I believe you have a soirée to attend?”

“Glad’s birthday! I completely forgot!”

“Luckily, I did not.” He raises an eyebrow and flutters over to my dressing-table, where he extracts from the bric-a-brac a toy tiara Holly bought for me last Christmas and plonks it on top of the already-enormous hairstyle he has created. “The finishing touch to your outfit and, if I do say so myself…fabulous.”

It’s not until our front door bangs shut behind me and the freezing air hits me in the face like a bucket of cold water that I realise Clarence is actually, like, coming with me. He swoops into the air in a reverse swan dive with a “WHO—HOO-HOOO!” shooting so high into the snowy sky he could almost be mistaken for a particularly shiny flake.

I do an immediate 180, simultaneously hissing over my shoulder in a shouty whisper, “Clarence! What do you think you’re—Get back here NOW!”

My Fairy Godbrother, meanwhile, is soaring high above like a demented shooting star. “Clarence! Come down here NOW!”

Nothing.

“CLARENCE!”

A faint giggle.

“CLAREENCE!!”

With a whoosh, he drops like a stone from the sky, a streak of light in his wake. I brace myself for a crash-landing on the roof of next-door’s car but somehow he brakes, stopping a fraction above it, then lowering himself delicately on to the frosty bonnet. He spreads his arms as wide as his Cheshire-cat smile. “Sweet freedom, Candypop! Has there ever been a better day to be practically alive?”

I sigh. “Look, Clarence, I know you’re happy to be out, I mean, back in the world and everything but…”

His grin shrinks a little.

“…but you can’t come to Glad’s party! You can’t just go flying about everywhere! People will see you! This is Bishopspool – there are no fa…I mean…we don’t do magic around here!”

Clarence smiles mischievously. “If we are going to agree on anything, my little Candypop, let us begin with this: we are not ‘around here’, here is ‘around us’ and we do precisely as we please!” And with that he zips off down the street, leaving me to run to catch up.

I wince as we enter the Day Centre. Clarence flits through the door ahead of me and off into the bowels of the building which is pulsating to the sounds of cheesy 70s disco and friendly chatter. I brace myself for a scream but none comes. Unsure of what else to do, I take my coat off and hang it up, then place Glad’s gift atop the growing present pyramid on a nearby table.

Clarence zips out of view momentarily, then returns asking loudly, “What kind of soirée is this exactly? Where are the cocktails?” before settling on my shoulder. I hear a gasp, then turn to come face to face with the gaspee – Calum Stainforth, who dropped Glad off the other day. He is staring at me with his mouth hanging open. Oh God! He can see Clarence!

“Candy!” Calum breathes, “Is that…? Is that a…” it seems like a phenomenal effort for him to get the words out. There’s a second’s silence that feels like an eternity. Clarence’s wings bristle beside my ear. Calum swallows hard. Just then, Glad appears by his side looking similarly shocked.

“Is that a new dress?” Calum manages to ask before Glad bursts into a peal of laughter and I remember that I have accidentally turned up dressed as a Guns ‘n’ Roses groupie from 1987.

“By God, lassie!” she chuckles. “It’s not that kind of party! You look like you’re dressed up for a night out there on the docks! Come inside and defrost!” She leads the way and I’m left with Calum who smiles awkwardly.

“Just trying a new look!” I laugh nervously, tugging down my mini-dress.

“I like it,” he says, almost in a whisper.

At this point, Clarence takes off and performs an elaborate loop-de-loop around Calum’s baseball-capped head, shouting (somewhat unnecessarily, because I’m already starting to figure this out), “Don’t worry about him seeing me, Candypop! In my present state I am quite invisible to anybody other than you. It is only when I make myself into a physical object – a thing – that lumps like this one can spot me. Or hear me.” He zooms round and round Calum’s head, who obviously senses something as he shivers. Clarence laughs wildly. “I am incognito! Imperceptible! Undetectable!”

So, happily, Clarence goes unnoticed. Unhappily this makes me look as nuts as my outfit – try as I might, I just can’t keep my eyes off him. He whizzes around like a gust of wind through the busy Day Centre, delighted to be at an actual live party with real human people (even if the birthday girl is eighty-four). Clarence might be out of sight but he isn’t out of trouble. My gaze flits around the room in search of him. People can’t see him but they flinch as he whooshes by, wondering what just happened (especially Glad’s friend Alf, whose toupee is left spinning round like a record after one of Clarence’s fly-pasts).

I’m keeping one eye out for Clarence among the dancing crowd (who are getting stuck into YMCA) when Mum and Ray arrive.

“Superb event!” Ray says to Glad, shaking her hand.

A dose of dullness is exactly what this party needs. So – strangely – as he and Mum cross the room, I find I’m almost glad to see him. “Where have you two been?”

“Hello darling!” trills Mum a little bit more loudly than necessary. Is she a little bit tipsy? “We’ve been celebrating!” She’s tipsy. “You’ll never guess. Ray has bought me an engagement present. A holiday in the Lake District! Very romantic.”

“Skiddaw,” says Ray, evidently very pleased with himself.

“Come again?”

“Skiddaw, Candy!” choruses Mum. “It’s the fourth highest mountain in England and our hotel is just below it. Did you know some of the greatest literature our country ever produced was inspired by those views?”

Ray nods, “And the bass player from Jethro Tull.”

“Anyway, darling,” Mum continues, breezily, “I told Ray that I couldn’t possibly consider leaving you on your own for seven whole days.”

As she’s already quite clearly had a celebratory glass of something-or-other and has therefore decided she is going, I leave a pause for her to fill.

“Unless…”

Bingo. “Unless what, Mum?”

“I mean I couldn’t. Unless you were happy on your own? I mean, Glad’s right next door and your little friend can come over and keep you company. What’s her name again?”

“Holly, Mum.”

“That’s it! Holly. Such a sweet girl.”

And my only friend in the world for, like, four whole years. Would it kill you to remember her name? I think to myself.

“So it’s decided then? We’re going?” Mum squeaks in excitement, putting her arms round Ray and giving him a squeeze.

“Apparently so,” I shrug. “Have a great time. When are you going?”

“T minus fourteen days!” beams Ray. “We’d better get our crampons ready!”

“Excuse me?”

“I said we’d better get our crampons ready. And other climbing equipment. Your mother and I are going to scale Skiddaw.”

“You. And Mum. You mean my mum? You’re going to climb…” I turn to Mum confused. This is a woman who last wore flat shoes to her first Holy Communion. The most practical item in her wardrobe is made of PVC. I try to picture Mum dressed for a freezing March hike up one of England’s tallest peaks. Can’t. I take a swig of punch (which Glad claims is non-alcoholic, although on a day as mad as this, frankly, how would you know?) Mum’s eyes begin to mist.

“We’re going up the mountain, Candy! So romantic, don’t you think? A metaphor for our new life together! I’ve always loved the great outdoors as you know…”

“HA!” It’s a goose-like honk of a laugh, and it escapes before I can stop it. She looks hurt. “Sorry, Mum.” I put my hand on her arm, fighting to submerge a particularly buoyant smile and not quite managing. “I’m sorry, but when have you always loved the great outdoors?”

“I’ve always loved getting out and about, up and down the coast, breathing the fresh sea air…”

“Yeah. Through the window of a car!”

“That’s as may be. But now I’m ready to get out among it all, and Ray is quite the rambler.”

“He does go on a bit, I’d noticed,” I mutter under my breath. Ray doesn’t hear but she does. There’s a pause, during which Hot Chocolate’s You Sexy Thing starts up. Ray slinks off to dance. I make a conscious effort not to look.

“That’s not what I meant, young lady. You’re impossible! Can’t you just be happy for me about this one thing?”

“I am happy, Mum. You and Scott of the Antarctic go off and enjoy yourselves. Just make sure you take the number of the local Mountain Rescue with you when you go.”

A few hours, eighty-four candles, lots more cups of punch, a very loud chorus of Happy Birthday and one tearful (on the part of Glad) rendition of Clair de Lune later, it’s time to leave. Ray escorted Mum home a while ago. “She’s a bit tired and emotional,” he explained, pulling her arm over his shoulders in a bid to keep her vertical. “It’s been quite a week for both of us. Do you want me to come back for you with the car?”

Awkward – him doing Dad-stuff. I suppose he thinks that’s his job now. For a second I imagined BioDad coming to pick me up and take me home instead. I pictured him driving a monster truck with massive wheels that rolled straight over Ray’s Mondeo until it looked like a tea tray. I twisted my mouth to one side and shrugged. “Nah, I’m walking home with…um, with a friend.” I extricate Clarence from the mobile DJ’s CD collection which he is flipping through making comments of the “Ugh!”, “Pah!” and “Bo-ring!” variety. I wish Glad one last ‘Happy Birthday’ and head out into the night.

6 The Magic Bus (Stop)

A few moments later we’re outside in the darkness, wending our way up from the old docks to the coast road. The snow has stopped, but there’s a thick, white blanket over everything but the sand. The place is soundless except for my footsteps and the slurp-slurp of the sucking black waves. I pull my collar up and (for the millionth time) regret that I am wearing so few clothes underneath my coat. Whatever Clarence turns out to be, I think we can rule out personal stylist. He’s hovering ahead looking out to sea, outshining the pale winter moon above him.

“Quite surprising. And quite, quite beautiful.”

I look around, picking up my pace to keep warm. “I s’pose you’re right. The snow and stuff. It’s pretty.”

“Not this! Ha! Beautiful. Well, I suppose you’ve never really been anywhere, so how could you know? No, I mean life, Candy. Your life. Too small. But it has…the makings of something.”

We’ve reached a deserted bus shelter – my stop to get home, across the road from The Blue (currently slumbering like the rest of the street: lights off, shutters down). I check the bench for grossness – negative – and perch on the edge, joined by Clarence. We’re both staring out to sea. That is, I presume we are. The view is so dark we could be looking over the edge of the world.

“So you’re really real, then? And you’re staying? I won’t wake up tomorrow and this will have all been a dream?”

Clarence stretches a small sparkling hand forward and places it on top of mine. “Quite the reverse, my dear. You will wake up tomorrow and that will become your dreams. Your music is going to cure your ills and answer your questions. And best of all, it’s going to make you a star.”

“Clarence, you might be, like, magical, but I hope you realise what a big job this is. I’ve got no idea who or where BioDad is. My band have got one messed-up guitar, there are only two members and all our songs are about school. Glad’s more likely to become an internet sensation than us.”

Clarence contemplates this. He makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger and through it, blows three hovering bubbles into the air in front of us. There’s a swirl of sparkling colour inside each: one blue, one red, one yellow; and each emits a harmonic little hum that together makes a chord.

The glittering colours whirl and eddy inside, like marbles come to life. Clarence pushes a gentle breath through pursed lips. The bubbles react like pool balls breaking – ricocheting off each other they burst as they hit, releasing what’s inside – colour, light and sound. Alive and delighted to be free, the music mixes and mingles, eventually coming to rest in the most incredible cloud. A glowing rainbow of every note and shade you could ever imagine (and a hundred more) is suspended in front of us, shimmering and swirling in the streetlight. I look over at him and he smiles. “My magic is made of music, Candy. It has the same possibilities and restrictions as a song. Entirely subjective, it can change the world for one person but it might leave another cold. That’s why I’ve waited such a long time to meet you.” He raises his hand, palm up. International sign language for, “Have a go, then.”

I take a breath, close my eyes and push my head inside the cloud. Instantly, it fills with music – major and minor all at once, happy, heartbreaking, quiet and ear-splittingly loud. Suddenly I’m not at the bus stop: I’m in the middle of every moment that ever meant anything to me. I’m out in space as big as a planet. And tiny: lost deep inside my own imagination. I hear Clarence speaking in the distance. “Think of it this way – you have the numbers, I know the combination. Together, we’ll make your life a work of art!”

As I take in Clarence’s words, the cloud around me starts to move. Little smoky plumes of colour pull themselves into shapes, scenes, faces. The people I love, the things I want. I see a door and know BioDad is on the other side of it, waiting for me. Then suddenly I’m back on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, like in the dream I always have. Only this time it feels less like a dream and more like…

“Ahem!” A loud cough behind me. A very un-Clarencelike cough. The cloud evaporates along with my Fairy Godbrother. I plonk back down on to the bench and spin round.

“Evening…Didn’t mean to interrupt you. I thought you were on your phone there but, um…”

Oh. My. Freaking. GOD! Dan Ashton. Dan Ashton scratching his head.

“Who were you talking to?”

My heart is beating like a kick drum but he can’t hear that. Can he? Scratching the nape of his neck, brows knitted in confusion, Dan steps into the shelter and sits down next to me, placing a battered leather bag between us. I’m too nervous to look directly at him so I look at it instead. It isn’t properly closed; I see the spine of a book, the title begins Psychotic Reactions and Car…white headphone wires and a plastic bag.

“Hey – I know you! You come into the café sometimes. With that emo girl!”

Emo? Sometimes? I practically LIVE THERE!

“Uh huh. Holly you mean. She’s not an emo. Not now anyway.” With the concerted effort of ripping off a plaster, I flick my eyes up for a second, taking a snapshot of his face I will always remember. Brown eyes made as deep and black as the sea by the streetlights; that dark mess of hair falling into them; an expression something like a question mark; half-a-smile and frozen breath. A shadow under his cheekbone so perfect it looks drawn on. I get a sudden urge to reach out and touch it. I sit on my hands. The half-smile gains a quarter.

“And you?”

Oh God, questions. I’m so nervous. Note to self: BE COOL. DO NOT TALK TOO MUCH. I REPEAT, BE COOL.

“Emo? No way! I mean I like all kinds of stuff. Some of it’s all right, I suppose. Apparently it all started with The Smiths and I like them. My mum used to play Girlfriend in a Coma a lot, which I always thought was really freaky, though…”

What are you going on about? Stop talking now.

“…She had a boyfriend once who used to sing it to her, which was just wrong. He had a quiff. Before, like, before it was OK again…”

STOPTALKINGSTOPTALKINGSTOPTALKING!

“No, I meant your name. What’s your name?”

Oh. God.

“Oh God. I mean…Oh no. No…it’s Candy. Candy Caine.”

“Candy Caine.” My name on his lips: half as good as a kiss.

“I’m Dan. Ashton. Pleased to meet you.” He extends a hand towards me, I pull mine out from under my leg as gracefully as possible (which is not very, it squeaks on the plastic bench) and slip it into his. We shake, palm against palm and it feels like we really are on the edge of the world and have just jumped off. “Been somewhere cool?”

“A party. Birthday party.”

“Where are you heading now?”

“Home.”

“Yeah? I thought a girl like you would have more options than that on a Saturday night.”

What does that mean? I give a non-committal laugh and hope it’s something good. We sit in silence for three seconds. My chest feels like an overstuffed birdcage. If this goes on much longer I might cough up a feather. I’m trying to think of something to say next when Dan speaks.

“Ah…bus!”

It is indeed a bus. With impeccable timing, the 160 thunders towards us and into our stop. A hen party are piled into the back few rows, big girls in small clothes and pink cowboy hats giggling over half-hidden bottles. Dan stands, shoulders his bag and gestures for me to go ahead.

“After you.”

I’m one step on to the bus home with the boy of my dreams when I remember: Clarence. I can’t leave without Clarence. I turn around just as Dan starts to step up and smack straight into him. His nose whacks into my cheek and even through my coat I feel the mortifying squish of his hand against my boob. The contents of his bag go flying and he follows them down, attempting to retrieve them from the snow. I crouch beside him but I’m not sure whether he’d mind me touching his stuff so I just make ‘helpy’ arm movements without actually doing anything useful.

“Oh God! Oh no! Sorry! I’m sorry. Is anything broken? Listen, I can’t…I mean I just remembered. I’ve got to…”

“You’ve got to what?” Dan brushes snow off his iPhone then presses the button to check it still works. It lights up.

Thank God.

“I’ve got to…to get the next bus!”

“What?”

“Yep. The one after this. I’m going with a friend. He doesn’t really know his way around here so I’ve got to meet him and…”

I look out at the empty seafront, snow and blackness and nothing else. I sound completely mental.

The bus driver, who looks like a potato and is evidently just as romantic cuts in. “Are you two getting on or getting off?”

We straighten up. “Getting off,” I say. Just as Dan says, “Getting on…Shame. Hope you and your ‘friend’ have a great night, Candy. It was nice meeting you.”

Oh no! ‘FRIEND’? He’s annoyed. His eyes wander to the back of the bus. One of the younger prettier hens notices and starts to giggle in his direction, chugging on a bottle of something fluorescent.

“No! No, he’s not that kind of…he’s a friend. You know, like, just friends. I don’t have a – I mean, I’m…single.” His eyes find me again and there’s a flutter in my chest. I try to sound casual. “Single at the moment.”

By which I mean FOREVER.

“Oh, right. Well…I guess maybe I’ll see you in The Blue sometime?”

“Sure, yeah. Definitely. See you there. You will see me too! Unless there’s a freak accident and you go blind. Or I go invisible. Or both. Hopefully not, obviously. Do we have a nuclear power plant around here I don’t know about? Ha…”

Stop. Talking. Now.

I bite my lip. As the bus doors swing closed, Dan says, “Great dress, by the way.”

“What?”

What?

The doors hiss closed and I look down to discover that in the commotion my coat has come undone, revealing…well, revealing pretty much everything. As the bus pulls away I fingers-and-thumbs my coat up, frantically scanning the moonlit street for Clarence at the same time. Suddenly he appears, hanging upside down from the top of the bus stop.

“Clarence! It’s a miracle! I spoke to Dan Ashton!”

He smoothes his right eyebrow with his finger. “And what’s more unlikely it appears you can almost flirt!”

“Flirt?” I attempt a casual dismissal of the accusation with an accompanying hand gesture; but I’m so flustered it comes out as a fit of spluttering, choking and arm-flapping. Like an angry ostrich trying to start a really old car.

“Well,” says Clarence, when I have eventually come to an embarrassed stop, “I don’t know if I’d really call it flirting, either, that being a delicate and balletic art. Whatever it was, that young man was lapping it up. He likes you!”

The words light a little candle somewhere inside my chest. The sensation is so strange – a quiet ache as sweet as it is strong – that I hardly hear Clarence say, “And that is going to be very useful indeed…”

7 Bravery, Cunning and Feats of Daring Do

“What is going on with you today, Can?”

Monday. I’m at Holly’s, in her room. We’re supposedly doing homework but actually listening to last.fm and laughing so hard we almost wet ourselves. Still in our school uniforms, Holly has fashioned a ‘Ramboesque’ headband from her tie and I am wearing my jumper as a turban. And people say kids have nothing to do these days. We lie side by side on the bed. Pirate being somewhat funsize and me lanky, her feet just about reach my knees.

“Nothing! What? I’m fine! Finer than swine drinking wine!” I dissolve into another fit of hysterics.

“That’s just it, though. You had the biggest mope ever on all last week and now you’re…”

“I’m ridiculous!” I squeak, before being swept away in a tide of convulsive giggles. Holly is absolutely right, of course. Since actually speaking, and I mean actual words to D. Ashton, the world has been made of marshmallows and someone appears to have switched off gravity. But as is so often with Holly, it is unwise, nay, impossible to give her the full facts. If I told Pirate that Dan and I had spoken and specifically mentioned seeing each other at The Blue, she would march me down there instantly and force me to talk to him, probably insisting I start with a ridiculously implausible lie.

“Hello Daniel Ashton! Our car has broken down – is it all right if we shelter here in your special music-shop, cubby-hole thing until the AA arrive to tow us to safety? What’s that you say? Aren’t we fifteen and unable either to drive or indeed buy a car?”

No. No. Nonononono.

Previously, I would have caved and told her everything, but having Clarence to talk to has got enough Dan out of my system to stop that happening. Clarence has a fantastic ear for music as well as listening and put both to full use yesterday. I am now able to play pretty much any chord on guitar (although getting from one to the next sometimes takes a while). Late last night, I wrote a song. This time I actually think it might be a quite good song. Later last night Clarence also extracted and digested the entire story of my Dan obsession, chewing over each titbit of information like an olive from the bottom of a cocktail. I don’t know how, but Clarence B Major knows exactly how it feels to be a teenage girl. He has also managed to bring together my improved musical and romantic talents to hatch a genius plan – a plan that will light a fire under Operation Awesome and take the whole deal stratospheric.

This is where Pirate comes in. I am marginally terrified about almost all of it but I’m 100 per cent convinced that it will work. Since Clarence put my head in that cloud on Saturday, anything seems possible. I feel like I’ve been given a preview of my future and I’m giddy at the thought.

Stomping over to the computer, Hol turns up Battle Royale by Does It Offend You, Yeah? Her bedroom is bigger than mine, but mostly pink and covered in pictures of princesses and ballerinas as she shares it with her two little sisters. On her way back to the bed she steps on a pointy, plastic doll.

“Bloody Norah!” she screams, face gripped by cartoon agony. I start laughing again, only just ducking out of Barbie’s way as Hol flings her at my head. I retrieve the doll and putting on my best Miss World voice.

“Pirate, don’t be mean to your friend Candy. She has news happier than dancing kittens and smiling unicorns!”

Hol ignores Barbie and levels her question at me. “What news is this, then?”

I jettison the thing into the toy landfill on the floor and scootch down to Hol’s end of the bed, removing my jumper-turban so as not to compromise either the gravity or brilliance of Clarence’s idea. Sensing something significant is about to happen, Hol removes her Rambo band.

“News of an unbelievably excellent plan. For The Biscuits. We need other members, right?”

Holly pushes her tongue under her bottom lip, crosses her eyes and screws her face up into a village-idiot expression, “NNnnuuh!!”

“A simple ‘yes’ will suffice, Rodgers. We need members, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And our efforts to get Operation Awesome off the ground have so far proved…well, useless really.”

She scowls.

“Although the OA concept has been fantastically executed and possessed of huge artistic charm.”

Placated, Holly gives a queenly nod. “Proceed.”

“Anyway I was thinking – you’ve got the right idea but maybe the wrong medium!”

“Medium?”

“Yeah – we need to reach out to people but in a way they’re going to, like, get excited by?” I take a little breath and feel a pang of guilt for passing off the ideas Clarence and I had talked about yesterday – Clarence’s ideas – as my own. “Hol, listen. What are the biggest music shows on TV?”

She gives me her trademark bored stare, one that you and I might throw at a wall of drying paint but that Hol reserves for teachers, siblings and other inferior life-forms. “There are no music shows on TV.”

I clear my throat. “Talent contests. Britain’s Got Talent. X Factor…”

“Are we counting those noises as music now?”

“OK the music’s terrible, but people love it. Millions of people! And the bit they love best is…?”

The Stare again.

“It’s the auditions, Holly. People love an audition – the chance to show off, the chance of success, the risk of rejection. Something about it captures their imagination. And even more than auditioning, people love to watch auditions.”

Half The Stare, half a frown of genuine confusion.

“Look. In two weeks, Mum and Ray are going away, right? On holiday to some mountain or other.”

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