Grab the bull by the horns.

For some reason, it had always suck me as an odd phrase, although it Is far more coherent than many of the the other phrases floating around.

And it is what I was doing now, I was sure of it.

Sneaking out to Erroll’s house at three a.m., to tell him what he meant to me the night before he left.

Surely I was grabbing the bull by it’s horns.

I reached his front garden in record time and threw some of the carefully raked gravel that thrived there at his lighted window.

There was only a suggestion of movement from my position, the possibility that someone twitched aside the curtain and peeked outside.

And then he was at the door, still in the check shirt and jeans he had been wearing earlier, looking at me.

There was something about the way Errol looked at people that made them feel small and insignificant. No matter how he felt when he turned his eyes on you, you always felt wanting.

This look was mild in comparison. There were minimal amounts of confusion in it, overridden by curiousity.

And he said: “Julia, why are you here? It’s three twenty six a.m.” And there was another thing. He always got to the heart of things immediately. He didn’t make small talk, he didn’t beat around the bush. The only time he would allow any deviation from the plot was during a debate.

“Why am I here?” I asked, trying to buy myself time. The thing with grabbing the bull by it’s horns is that there is no rational thought involved. Now I was on this- highly metaphorical, of course- enraged bull going full speed ahead, I really began to question the wisdom of my actions.

But it was too late now.

I cleared my throat. “Well. I’m here because like you said, it’s gone three in the morning and I spent the last four and a half hours unable to sleep because you keep cropping up in my head and I’ve tried everything else. And this is something I have to tell you in person.”

It says something about Errol that his expression didn’t change a bit. He had no clue, not even a slight idea, of what I was talking about.

I knew then that I definitely had no chance, no chance at all. But I held onto hope. Maybe the right words could change the way he saw things.

“I love you Errol, and I wanted to tell you before you left. I wanted you to- I needed you to know.

There was a silence, then Errol said “Oh.”

The moment stretched on for eternities.

“Please say something else,” I said finally, quietly.

“Right now there is nothing to say. I need to think about it – it doesn’t make sense-”

“It doesn’t have to make sense!” I cried.

“It has to make sense!”

The anger in his voice struck me back.

Errol had been brought up differently. It wasn’t bad, or wrong, as such, just different.

He had been brought up with wire in his blood, and he thought in straight lines. He was harsh, because he didn’t know how else to be.

But he was learning.

“Perhaps, though, you can explain to me.”

That was his apology.

And so I explained. I argued my point, and my love till every word, every metaphor, every angle had been exhausted and abused.

The light, by then, had begun to seep into the sky and the birds began to cheep.

And he, by then, had a new glow in his face and I soared. My words had shown him a different way.

“That is…” he said, his voice slipping for a second into thought before resurfacing quickly. “That is astounding. That is truly astonishing,” he pondered some more, not seeming to notice the heart that I had just poured out to him lying on the floor. “It’s amazing, and so ridiculous.That the mind creates such an extraordinary ‘feeling’ just to give an extra push to the natural need for pro-reation.

If it was possible, I sunk down lower than I had been before.

“So you think you are in love with me?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. I nodded, mute. “And in return for your feelings what do you want??”

I couldn’t answer.

“Perhaps a kiss would be appropriate?” he said, making his way to me. “You’ll have to help, I’ve not done this before,” he said, leaning in and pecking me gently on the lips. I’ve not had much experience myself, but that was not in any way a good kiss. But I wanted time to practise, to do it again, with him.

I reached in the second time, and took control.

Now, he had picked up my heart, and he held it in his hands.

“Extraordinary,” he murmured to himself, before taking a few steps back. “Well, I should probably go. I still have to finish packing. Maybe I’ll see you later, but I doubt it: we leave early.”

And he went inside, still clutching my heart so tightly.

I didn’t see him later, of course, and he left, moving far out of my reach, and taking my heart with him.

Lua

What I mostly remember about Lua before was that she was a nerd. Not a major nerd, but a nerd. That is what everyone remembers about Lua before.

Of course, Catherine says that she was more than that, but Catherine was a nerd too.

What did I know about Lua now?

Mostly what everyone else knows.

She parties hard, but she drinks harder.

She’ll let anyone fuck her if they tell her they love her.

That’s important. You have to tell her you love her. You don’t have to mean it, you just have to say it.

You don’t mention the bruises.

-

The first time I remember really noticing her was when Stewie Phillips told everyone about the blow-job she’d given him. And then Adam Kitt telling us that he’d fucked her, that same weekend.

That’s when the girls started bitching about what a slut she was. I’d say they were rumours, but rumours imply that what they said wasn’t true.

So I tried my hardest to stay away from her.

It’s a little bit offputting to wonder, when you’re about to fuck a girl, how may other guys have had their dicks stuck in her before you. I mean, what if she’d fucked Chris Medoza? That would be disgusting. No one wants to fuck Chris Mendoza.

Besides, in my experience, easy girls were generally needy.

So I was trying to stay away.

But with a girl like Lua, it’s difficult to stay away.

You find a girl crying at a party, crying and shaking, and rocking back and forward like she’s insane, you find this girl and you leave her, you’re a dickhead.

Besides, Lua isn’t just easy, she’s hot.

So I asked her if she was okay, even though I could see she wasn’t.

“Do you think I’m pretty? (she asks.)

Yeah, you’re pretty.

But only pretty enough to fuck, right? (she asks,) not pretty enough to love.

Not true (I say, because I have to, because I can’t say that she’s the kind of girl that no one would want to love,) you’re pretty enough to love.

(She cries some more, then suddenly stops, as if she’s only just gotten what was going on.) Shit! Fuck, I’m sorry (she’s says.) You won’t tell anyone, will you?

Tell anyone what?

I don’t know. Just don’t tell them anything, okay?”

Okay, (I’d said.)”

She wiped her cheeks, getting makeup all over her hands.

“Merde (she says,) now I have to do it again.

Just take it off, (I reply, not sparing a thought to her many insecurities,) no one will notice anyway.”

She laughed at me like I was crazy, but I ended up accompanying her to the bathroom, watching her use on of the host’s mother’s wipes to take the crap off her face.

Some girls are only pretty because of the make up they put on. Not to say that they are ugly underneath, but the makeup is what makes you give them the time of day.

Lua was pretty because of the makeup she took off. Lua was pretty, and she was hot, and she was gorgeous and stunning and any other adjective you care to use. She was amazing.

But I knew instantly why she always wore makeup.

The purpling bruise on her cheek didn’t stop her from being beautiful, but it made her seem fragile, and a girl like Lua isn’t a girl who wants to be seen as fragile by anyone.

And she didn’t think anything of herself anymore.

She didn’t have to say it, I could see it in the way she shrunk back into someone I’d never notice.

But I was standing right in front of her; there was no way I’d miss her.

-

I took her home that night, of course.

I didn’t ask about the bruises, and I didn’t question it when she asked me to tell her I loved her.

That night, I did love her, and I told her so, again and again, throughout the weekend that we spent in my bed.

“Guillaume l’a fait, (she said, when I touched the bruise on her cheek, because I’d touched and kissed them at all. I didn’t tell her I didn’t speak French, just kissed a bruise on her back.) Les ecchymoses, il toutes les ont fait. Chaque fois il me voir, il me frappe.

Was that French? (I asked her.)

(She nodded.) Ouais,

You speak French at home? (I asked her.

She nodded,) Ouais.

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? (I aked. She laughed, she nodded, and I went down on her.)”

-

I went back to avoiding her, afterwards. And she begun avoiding me.

I was because I meant it when I told her I loved her. Because other guys would lie to get into her pants, and then fuck off without a care in the world.

But every time I was near her, I would love her, and everytime she left, every time the morning would creep in, and I would see her dressing, the love just went away.

She didn’t want that, and I couldn’t stand it.

We made each other weak, and we did not want to be weak in front of each other.

But I always saw her.

Something always happened, just when I’d think I’d made it without getting caught up in her, something would happen, and I’d love her all over again.

-

It ends abruptly, like this.

One morning, I wake up and she’s gone.

She’s never done that before, not to me.

I’m relieved.

A month, a month and a half, two months later, you bump into Catherine in the halls of the school.

You say hi, you haven’t seen her in a while, or Lua.

She spits in her your face.

You wonder what you’ve done wrong.

I wondered wha I did wrong.

“It’s all your fault (she says,) you and every other dickhead in this school.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. I tell her so.

“Lua tried to kill herself, and the person she left with that night was you.”

And that’s why I haven’t seen her. A year of fucking and avoidance, and it all came down to that.

And suddenly, for the first time ever, I wanted to see her.

So I ask where she is.

Because I love her again, and I’m not even near her.

She’s at home, Catherine tells me, but I can’t see her.

“Why not? (I ask.)

Why do you even care?

Becaue the first time I met her she as crying. And you say she tried to kill herself because of me, so the least I can do is apologise.

(Catherine is silent for a long time.)

She… she might not remember you, (she says finally.) She forced a lot of stuff down. She forgot a lot.

I don’t care, (I say.) I want to see her.”

And I think that’s when she broke. When she heard that I wanted to see Lua.

“(She sighed.) Fine. But Guillaume won’t like it.”

Guillaume. I’d heard that name before.

“Who’s Guillame?

(She scoffed.) You want to see her, but you don’t know anything about her. He’s her- (she faltered,) he’s her step-brother.”

Something stirs in the back of your mind, but when you look for the source of it, you see nothing.

So you push it down, you arrange to meet with Catherine, you follow her to Lua, just like I did.

-

The first thing I felt was not love for Lua, but hatred for the boy who answered the door.

I felt a dislike for him when Catherine had first said his name, but when I saw him the feeling magnified.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I glared at him, ignored his question, followed Catherine into the house and to where Lua was.

The second thing I felt was love for Lua.

She sat there, all curled up in herself, looking beautiful.

No makeup, no bruises.

She remembered me.

Well she remembered something of me.

“Salut, (she said, with a faraway smile.)

Salut, (I replied.)”

When we were in love, those nights, she’d teach me French.

Then Guillaume sat beside her, slipped his arm around her in a way that was not brotherly at all, not even step-brotherly.

And like a tape playing, I heard the words that Lua said that first time, when I kissed each bruise.

-

So you know. Or you think you know, and you sit and watch as Lua clings to Guillaume, and the words play back in your head again and again, exactly as you heard them the first time.

So you find the creepy French kid in the year below and you repeat the words, and he translates for you.

And you want to be sick.

'Have you noticed there is never any third act of a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there. They are the work of poor dramatists.'

- Max Beerbohm, 1872-1956

I was running. I was running harder than I've ever run before, my chest felt like it was about burst into flames, and my throat was so raw it felt like it was bleeding. My arms and legs were pumping hard, although there was barely any breath to fuel them with: anaerobic respiration. I was going to pay for this in the morning. If I reached the morning. But, just incase I didn't I was already paying for it now. My muscles felt like they had been pounded at with a meat tenderiser, there was so much blood rushing round my body that it was showing through the brown of my skin. I knew, without trying, that if I stopped, I'd collapse and be sick, that my heart and head would explode simultaneously, so I carried on. Not that I'd have stopped anyway: the nightmare creature pounding behind me was enough to ensure that all on it's own. But still, there was no escaping the fact that, for all that running, and all that pain, I wasn't going anywhere. I was just doomed to stay running on that same spot, running, for the rest of forever.

I jolted awake, sweat dripping down my arms, legs and back. The breath was coming out of me hard fast and ragged, and the sheets were tangled around me. Didn't take a rocket scientist to realise that I had been acting out my dream, again. It was becoming a habit, and I was becoming sick of it.

I disentangled myself from the sheets and got out new nightclothes. As I changed, I checked the time on the clock. five: thirty. No point going back to bed, the sheets were all wet and disgusting, by the time I got them changed it would be six, and on the off chance that I could get to sleep then, it would mean I'd only feel like complete crap when I woke up. Not that I didn't feel like complete crap already, I just didn't need the feeling exacerbated.

I sighed, and chose a book from the shelf, something that would calm my rapidly-beating heart right down. 'What Katy Did Next', that's a good one. Another sigh escaped my lips, as I opened the book. Today was going to be a killer, I could just tell.

For one thing, I had double science, and I felt like the walking dead, except worse.

I sigh, again, and try to focus on the book in my hands.

Stray -1

It had been raining the day she died.

It was a romantic sort of death, a gradual fading away. A pallor that settle over her skin, a loss of interest in what was around her, a loss of her mind.

By the end she was an animated statue of cold pearly grey. And then she died.

It had been raining on the day of her interment.

Her parents had chosen the word, put it on the top of the notice tat was posted on the Parish church's noticeboard, and the village newspaper and the front of the little booklets with the order of service:
Interment of Jessica Ann Lewis
Saturday, January 1^st 20—

They’d asked him to speak, too.

He’d declined.

It had been raining the day he left.

The perpetual rain, the pain of the last half a year of watching the girl he loved die had shown on the car he drove.

It was not a bad car, nor was it a particularly old one.

But he had forgotten it as he took her out for walks, trying to get he to see the beauty of the village that she had once shown him.

Trying to get her to admire the living green that crawled over the grey stone that made up almost every building in their little village.

She wouldn’t, couldn’t.

His car had been left to sink into the soggy, mossy ground; the pain to chip; the body to rust around the edges, becoming a sunset orange that she once would have loved.

He’d gone to the wake, for the briefest time, to say goodbye to all the people she had known.

They were people who had never liked him. Who had mistrusted, despised and shunned him, but they appreciated that he had loved her as just as keenly as and more desperately than they had done, and so they let their bad feelings and ill feeling get buried when Jessica was, and they said goodbye to him with real warmth and a desire to see him again.

He had left in his sunset car that night.

He drove through the dark, through the rain, drove till he was clear through the other side of both.

Daybreak brought a sunrise that begged to be committed to a canvas.

It was one of the many thousands of things she would once have loved.

It was a Sunday.

He found a church.

It was a Catholic church, with a noticeboard advertising the times of Mass.

He parked his car under the board and went in, two full hours before the first Mass started.

It was beautiful inside. An opulent and decadent gift of adoration to the Lord Jesus they all loved.

He had only been inside one church before; the stone and moss church of Jessica’s hometown, and that only to please her. Only because she was by his side.

He had never been a Godly man, but he had admired God when he had seen Him in inside of Jessica. He loved the capacity for love God gave her, the boundless joy, the constant wonder at the beauty of the green and grey and town she had known all her life.

He had not believed it when she had said God had given those qualities her. He had scoffed.

He believed it now.



He stayed for all four masses.

He sat at the front, with his head down, listening to everything that passed with a heavy sort of emptiness in his heart.

He left at sundown, carried on driving east.

London For Lovers

There is heat.

It seems that as soon as the sun comes out the clothes go in. Already Auriana has seen three casually shirtless men strolling down the road, bright red beer bellies proudly on display like some animalistic attraction technique, turn on it’s head. In the park earlier, there had been a girl who had clearly decided that the heat was too much, who had simply taken off her top.

There had been an old lady in a bikini.

Was everywhere like this or was it just London?

Either way, Aurianna strongly disapproved, and she did not disapprove of much.

She trudged through the heat- herself dressed in a silk maxi skirt and cotton shirt- chic, conservative and it kept her just as cool as shorts and a vest top.

The conservatism was for the benefit of her boyfriend’s parents, who she was meeting for the first time.

They were rich- lived in Maida Vale, sent their boy to UCS- and they had Views. Riley had not been specific on how severe these views were but Aurianna wasn’t willing to take any chances.

Aurianna had met Riley when walking home from a party. She had gotten drunker than she had intended, danced with more strangers than she had wanted and stayed out later than she had planned.

At the best of times, South Tottenham is not exactly the place to be. At three thirty seven, when it’s raining and the buzz from the (quite frankly disgusting) amount of alcohol you had consumed is wearing off and leaving a distinctly nauseous feeling in its place well… it’s not very nice at all.

She met him as she was stumbling her way up towards West Green Road. At first she figured he was one of those crazy junkies who always stood round the entrance to Tesco’s asking for money.

It took a while for her to figure out that he was asking if she was okay- clearly not. He offered to walk her to the bus stop and she’d assented although, on reflection, that had been a stupid thing to do.

Luckily, he had turned out not to be a crazy junkie, or a stray gang member or anything more awful than an almost terminal optimist and celibate.

He’d asked for her number but, with a thought to self-preservation, she’d given him her e-mail instead.

She’d pretty much forgotten about him by the time she received his e-mail the next evening, a testament to just how drunk she had been because Riley was nothing if not breathtakingly beautiful. Since, he’d managed to burn his visage into her mind for good. The darkness behind her eyelids had been replace by the image of him.

She was, at present, seventy-nine per cent sure that she was in love with him.

He met her at Maida Vale tube, and they walked down the wide, leafy roads with their beautiful redbrick houses to his parent’s house.

It was jaw-droppingly large. Auriana thought that she had seen large before, but Riley’s parent’s house was something else entirely. The atrium alone looked to be the size of her living room.

They sat in the living room a little awkwardly after introductions had been made.

“So, Auriana,” Mrs Julietta Clifton-Riley said, after a pause of the aching variety. “That’s an interesting name. What does it mean?”

“I’m not sure. I think my mum made it up,” Auriana admitted.

“Julietta’s something of an etymologist,” Mr Harold Riley said with a chuckle.

Auriana nodded and smiled.

“Auriana dabbles a bit too,” Riley returned, the pride in his voice unmistakable.

“Oh, do you dear?” Julietta asked.

“Yeah,” Auriana nodded, incomprehensibly shy all of a sudden. “Names, mostly. So it’s a bit of a sore spot for me, not knowing what my own name means.”

Light chuckles ensued, and very slowly the awkward atmosphere melted into something rather more relaxed.

Dinner was delicious, if not a little bland for Auriana’s tastes.

*

“They loved you,” Riley assured her later on. They’d decided to take a walk through the Heath.

Their walk was hampered by the fact that Riley had to keep pulling her into these lovely, bone-crushing, breath-stealing hugs.

“I liked them too,” Auriana replied, and was promptly hugged once again.

This hug resulted in the two of them taking a painful but happy fall to the ground.

“I’m so happy. This is great,” Riley sighed, rolling onto his back in the grass so as to better enjoy the splendour of the evening.

“How should we celebrate then?” Auriana asked, only half seriously, stretching out of her front so as to better watch the strollers, the dog-walkers and the joggers. A pretty Asian girl jogged past, talking animatedly to a ginger male who must have been taller than her by half.

Auriana smiled at the cute couple, and moved closer to Riley.

“Cheese and wine,” he said. “My treat.”

“Damn well better be your treat otherwise it’s gonna be Lambrini and Tesco’s value cheddar for us,” she giggled. Her comparative poverty was a subject of amusement to her.

“Exactly. It’s gotta be the best for you my darling.”

“Chocolates?” Auriana teased. The sun began to sink below the horizon very, very slowly. Neither Auriana nor Riley noticed, although it was incredibly picturesque, incredibly romantic.

“Yeah. Flowers too. And strawberries, before you ask.”

“You know me too well, my love. What about oysters?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oysters?”

“Oh, yes,” Auriana nodded. “I hear they’re very nutritious. Provide vitamins, give you stamina. Very helpful.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his eyebrow arching further up his brow.

Auriana nodded and giggled. This was the cue for Riley to pounce on her, tickling and kissing until breathing became difficult.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” Riley whispered a little later, when three thirds of the sun had dipped into the netherworld.

“Even more beautiful than that Asian girl who jogged by earlier?” Auriana asked jokingly.

“You always ask the difficult questions,” Riley complained after pausing for thought, but the corners of his mouth were turned up, and Auriana could only slap him playfully and kiss his beautiful smile.

*

They walked back through the village-y beauty of Highgate, admiring the greenery, and down through Crouch End, past all the boutiques and artisan bakeries to Auriana’s road of mix’n’match houses.

Just down the road are estates where the kids sat on the front steps all day long, blasting music and pissing off motorists. It wasn’t awful, as estates go, but it wasn’t exactly great either.

Round the corner were and through an alleyway are three-storey giants, wide, deep and with large gardens to boot.

The ladder of roads on which Auriana’s house sits occupies a sort of tentative, awkward middle ground between the two.

Auriana’s house itself reaches into the lower scales, thanks to myriad unfinished DIY projects.

It is always either very noisy or very quiet. That evening was the latter kind, and Auriana and Riley were glad for it.

They enscombed themselves in her room and had an intimate moment on her bed with the curtains wide open and the streetlamp outside of her window illuminating them.

Afterwards, they cuddled up and watched Despicable Me with wine pilfered from Auriana’s parents drinks cabinet, and they drank to themselves and to each other and to Riley’s parents and fickle little London town with it’s hordes of naked people; and in Auriana’s head she was eighty per cent sure that she loved him; and in Riley’s head he was making up his mind to marry her.

Serenity

Saturdays were for watching Come Dine With Me omnibuses and Doctor Who at Serenity's flat.

Serenity had chosen her name, and was quite proud of it, which says all you really need to know, but we put up with her, mainly because she was the only one of us with both a TV and a TV License.

Marie

Marie was an insomniac.

Most of the time, this was good. It meant she didn't have to spend half as much on drugs as she was tripping balls near constantly anyway.

But other times it was horrible. I'd catch her shuddering when no one else was there to see, her whole body rippling and spasming with pain when she didn't think any one would notice. Tears spilling over the lids of her eyes only to be scrubbed away fiercely before they could even start their pilgrimage down her cheeks.

From what I figured, the only rest she ever got was when she passed out on those nights when she hit the bottle hard enough that it decided to hit her back.

Adam

Adam was group property. It was an unspoken agreement. We were none of us exclusive anyway, but Adam, as the irresistibly hot group member, was the person who we knew in our hearts could not be tied down.

Myfanwy, apparently, did not.

Myfanwy Lewis

It was Myfanwy Lewis' first night out with us, ever. She was sitting opposite me, with her perfectly made up face and pristine shirt and jeans.

I wanted to mess her up. I think we all did.

She knew she had something to prove to us, you could see it in her eyes. So she gulped down six shots without even smudging that pillarbox lipstick of hers.

Brigitte

Brigitte was a perfect being.

Not the same kind of perfect as Myfanwy, not by a long shot.

Brigitte's perfection was harder to find, and even when you found it you couldn't name it.

It was something about the way she held her tiny figure. Something about the way you felt when you held her tiny figure. It was a little how she bit her plump lips. The fact that no matter what you did she seemed innocent.

How she fit in the world so perfectly.

Whatever it was, it had me well and truly hooked.

Sam, Alex, Jordan and all the others, well they were good. They had their strengths and they were sweet, but Brigitte made me feel as though I was a world away.

Apearances Can Be Decptive

I live in squalor. In splendid, unclean solitude. In a small room at the top of a very tall house. This is where I live.

In my very small room, at the top of my very tall house, there is a box.

It is not in any way distinguished- I have neither labled it, or given it a tidy corner to live in. It looks like all the other boxes: cardboard, fragile and expendable.

But in this box are cherished things, which I have collected and, although they are hidden, knowing they are there makes my small room, full of squalor and gloom, seem less forsaken.

In this box are special moments. I keep them, in my box, where they are safe and untouched by monsters.

There are photographs, of a beautiful day, a heart-stopping storm, a tragic accident, a lovely view, a handsome couple of two ugly people, special photographs, good or bad.

In this box, there are scraps of paper, letters describing events, or invitations, even to myself, for vent. There are poems and short stories, memories captured with someones pen, or the perfect phrasing, on paper. There are drawings of moments so fragile and fleeting that words alone are not enough: these are not beautiful drawings, I am no artist. But they evoke beautiful memories.

In this box, there are objects. A piece of string, a sharp rock, and a shiny one, a small plastic toy, a bit of material, an old burnt pen, the spent lighterm and a useless, broken fan.

I collect thoughts, in a small box, in a small room, at the top of a tall house.

The box is not important.

The contents are.

There were a set of steps you walked down to get into the club, but Mariel didn’t see them as an entrance so much as a warning. They were filthy, narrow, treacherous and they stunk of piss.

She didn’t mind though. She was a regular. She and Mikey, the doorman, went way back. Long enough that they didn’t bother embarass themselves with the whole fake ID charade, just a nod and a smile.

He’d look after her, too, if she got into any trouble she couldn’t handle. He was more of an older brother to her than her older brother.

She made her way down the steps and then looked back at the one friend she’d left cowering at the top.

When Eva had arrived on her doorstep Mariel almost had a fit. She’d specifically said not to dress too cute. Eva had come out in a strapless sweetheart dress- white, with white wedge sandals, pink lips, nails and eyelids. It had taken all of Mariel’s strength not to stop breathing there and then.

She’d done what she could, but that wasn’t much. Eva was much smaller than Mariel- practically a midget, she always said.

“Eva, if you’re not sure about this we can go somewhere else,” Mariel begun, but Eva cut her off by beginning to make her way down the stairs.

“No, I’m sure. I want to see where you hang out,” her clear, high voice was lost amidst the fear fear, but she made it to where Mariel was standing without any major palpitations.

“Well okay. But stick close by me, okay?” Mariel said, taking Eva’s hand and pushing open the first door.

Mikey was standing inside under a fluorescent strip. Like always, he smiled at Mariel. Then he caught sight of Eva.

“Who’s this?” he asked, not hostily, but it was a question all the same.

“This is my friend Eva,” Mariel said, raising their hands as if that was solid proof of whatever it was Mikey was looking for.

“I’m going to need ID,” was what Mike said in reply.

“No you dont!” Mariel said, sharply. “She’s with me, why the hell do you need ID?”

Mikey looked agonized. “Look, Mary-” he persisted in calling her that although she hated it- “it’s okay for you because- well, it’s you. I know you, Roba and Jack know you, Management knows yous. But if anything happens to… your friend it’s my neck. Besides, she looks about twelve.”

“Mikey, that’s ridiculous-” Mariel begun, and she would have gotten into an argument that could have blown her welcome at The Firehouse forever had Eva not produced a passport.

“Here. I’m eighteen,” she said, quietly. Mikey took the passport, scrutinized it, found no fault with it and handed it back.

“Oh,” he said. And then to Mariel, “why the hell did you kick up such a fuss when she’s older than you?” His words were heavy, but he said them with a laugh.

“Because,” Mariel replied, still a little indignant but prepared to let it go, “it’s the principle of the thing.” She sniffed a little, and tossed her nose up into the air.

Mikey just laughed, and opened the second door into the darkness of the club.

“Welcome to The Firehouse ladies. I hope you enjoy your night…”

I remember my first love exquisitely.

He had been a labourer, a woodcutter, and aside from my brothers and my father, he was the first man I had known.

He had hair that seemed to be made of spun gold and sapphires for eyes, just like the mother I never knew. His skin was a rich tan colour, from being so often exposed to the sun. Across his cheeks and his nose, and the breadth of his back were freckles, small dark-brown patches. He looked very much like the cinnamon whirls the cook would make me before I fell out of favour, and I often wondered if he would taste like they did, too.

His family lived on the edge of the Great Forest, at one of the furthest reaches of my father’s kingdom.

My favourite book had always been the book of fairytales my father bought me. In monetary terms, well it could easily have bought half a kingdom. That’s what my nurse always told me. When I asked how big the kingdom was, however, she had no answer.

But that never truly mattered to me, because that book was one of my most treasured possessions: it was richly and intricately illustrated, and I would sit, lost in the stories for hours.

Each story held a simple veracity at its core, and thus it became the guide by which I lived my life. Up until that year, it had not failed me.

And so I believed with all my heart that woodcutters were humble, caring people. I believed with all my heart that the working boy would fall for the princess, that we would marry, ascend to the throne and live happily ever after.

I think that’s what broke my heart more then anything else: the fact that my beloved book of tales was wrong. And that is why I’m writing this.

To make it right.

The woodcutter thing did not work out. The family kept me with them for two weeks, during which time they put me to all sorts of work. I proved useless at everything, of course.

The last night of my stay there, we had gone for a midnight walk through the forest, my first love and I. We had talked about everything under the stars, and we danced to no music in a glade.

He wove me a ring of grass, and asked me to marry him. He said that if I gave him the bag of gold I’d been sent with, he would arrange a ceremony fit for me, fit for a princess.

I gladly agreed, and so we floated back home. I led him up to the wood loft, where I had tried and failed to sleep, and showed him where the money was hidden.

He asked me that night if I would not rather share the comfort of his bed, but I declined.

The next day I was given a pocketknife and a stale loaf, led to a part of the forest I have never seen before, and left there.

Roses

“You have to do it. You have to,” the man hissed. His face was smeared with dirt and his eyes sparkled in it like shards of ice; light blue, so light they were almost white, and right now they were cold. There was no remorse in them, no sorrow, no pity, no way out for the girl he was talking to.

“But what if I hurt them? What if I do something wrong and… and God, what if one of them dies?”

The man’s hand at this point, blacker than his face, reached up quickly and slapped her, hard.

“They won’t die. If you do it right, there is a chance that none of you will die. But if you do it wrong, or if you just don’t do it at all, then there is no hope of your survival.”

The girl- and she was a pretty girl, under all that muck, nodded earnestly, doubt in her own green eyes.

“You can’t let them have you, because if they have you they’ll win,” he said, and his eyes had melted a little bit and he was the man she fell in love with once more.

He spun her round quickly and twisted her blonde locks into a bun. They always seemed to shine, as if illuminated from within, like her skin.

All three girls were like that. Undisguisable.

Even with dirt inches thick caked on them and every last strand of long hair tucked away, one would know them at a glance.

Until this day, it had always worked out to their advantage.

When he was finished, the man’s hands rested at the base of her neck for a second, before she spun around again and wrapped him in a hug.

He caught her lips up in a last kiss, so he could remember the taste of them.

“Can’t you come with us?” she begged, breaking away.

“No, I can’t.”

She did a very bad job of suppressing a sob.

“I love you,” she choked out.

“I love you too, Luciana,” he murmured.

She tried one more time: “Are you sure you can’t-”

“I can’t. Now go, quickly. And stay aware, or they will kill you.”

And, as if to prove his point, a rebel arrow shot out from nowhere and went right through his neck.

He died so quickly his face didn’t have time to register the pain.

The girl had only time to cast a hazy image of a rose over him before she ran. She had to find her sisters.

The story could have been so different.

It should have been so different.

It should have been the story of the Princess who fell in love with the Stable Boy, and all would have gone well for them.

But something had changed and before she knew it, it was the story of the brave princess fighting to save her sisters and herself from the bloodthirsty rebels and the boy she loved had died and nothing would ever be right again.

...

She found her sisters stumbling around in an inner chamber.

They had been drugged; there was no time to wonder by whom. It made her job easier anyway.

“Sit,” Princess Luciana commanded, and they sat.

“Sleep,” she said, and her voice was a little shaky, and they slept.

She began to sleep too, letting her mind drift away and her mouth take control.

And after a while, she no longer felt herself, and then after that, she did not know that there was a self for her to feel with.

...

Their lives were safe.

They would be okay.

***

Here is a town with a gate.

It leads to a field, in which houses are often to be seen grazing.

There is nothing special about the field, unless of course you know that actually it’s a walled city surrounded by beautiful, dense and dangerous forest.

There’s nothing special about the gate either.

Excitable types would call it a portal, but it’s nothing of the sort. The most you can say about it is that it’s a portcullis, which is really just another type of gate.

In fact, the gate, the field and the walled city are classic examples of a place where there is not enough universe for everyone. It’s the cosmic equivalent of a tower block.

People never realize this because they never think, upon seeing a field with horses in it that they are going to walk through the gate and find themselves in an enclosed city. And it works the same from the other side, too.

Most people are –somehow- completely ignorant of this fact.

But the Princesses, when they walked through their city’s gates in a haze of sleep so thick that no-one outside of it could see them, they were knowing that they would end up in a small English town because that’s what Princess Luciana’s Voice had told them.

That was the last thing they ever knew, and when they woke up, as they were due to do in about three minutes time, they would not remember that they knew.

But the knowledge is there.

...

They were found slumped against the fence by a couple of boys in blue and black school uniform.

They both stopped at the same time, and shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to make looking after these girls their business, but knowing they couldn’t just leave them there.

After a minute of dithering, one of them- the one with black curly hair and brown eyes- nudged the closest girl with his foot and the reaction was instantaneous, as if the kid had touched them all.

They jolted awake as one, rising like puppets.

“Umm,” the other boy, the one with brown hair and blue eyes, said after a long pause. The girls stared up at him blankly. “Are you okay?”

He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth. They were lying in a heap by a fence, covered in dirt, blood and burns. They were not okay.

“Umm…” he said again, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the road nervously. “Would you like us to call you an ambulance?”

There was no reply, and so he pulled out his phone and dialed 999.

The operator thought it was a prank, and hung up in disgust when he tried to explain the situation.

“I’ll call my mum,” the other boy said finally. “She can give us a lift home, too.”

....

And that’s how the three girls ended up in the back of an old Ford Picnic.

The oldest sat in the front, and the others two sat in the middle.

All attempts to find out who they were had been foiled by an insurmountable language barrier, and so they sat in silence, save for the youngest girl who talked non-stop, not caring that no one else was listening.

They were taken to a large house just five minutes from the town center.

They were cleaned up by ‘mum’; a fine-boned lady with masses of curly dark hair and olive skin, and then sat in borrowed clothes in the kitchen, their own clothes and belongings stashed away to be hand washed and dry cleaned.

“What is your name?” she asked, slowly and clearly to the oldest, Luciana.

All she got was a blank stare. She sighed, and pointed to herself.

“Caroline,” she said.

“Caroline,” the youngest repeated happily and perfectly.

Caroline smiled as well, and pointed to the youngest.

The youngest girl- possessed of black locks and eyes and a deep tan- pointed to herself and said: “Carolin…a?”

Caroline sighed. Names were clearly too vague a concept to begin with. She’d have to start elsewhere.

...

When Caroline’s eldest son, Robert, came home, he found his mother sitting in the kitchen with three beautiful complete strangers, having a deep and earnest conversation about hands.

“Middle finger- no, no, that’s rude- oh, hello Robert!”

Robert frowned. “Mum. Hi. Umm, who are these girls?”

Caroline smiled. “Well I’m not sure but as far as I can tell, this-” she pointed to Luciana, “is Anae. This-” the middle Princess- “is Juillietta and this-” the youngest- “is Aurora. Will found them.”

“William found them? What do you mean, ‘William found them’? They’re not stray cats, they’re human girls!”

“Girls,” Aurora echoed proudly, pointing and herself, then her sisters and Caroline. She pointed at Robert. “Boy.”

The middle princess- Juilietta- whispered something to the eldest, who shook her head at her giggles.

“They were sleeping- or unconscious by Topps field. They were filthy, and quite badly burnt in places, and they don’t speak a word of English. Didn’t.”

Robert was silent for a second while this information sunk in, and then he said: “Oh. Umm… do you need any help, or anything?”

“No thanks,” his mother dismissed him with a wave of her hand and the changed her mind. “Actually Robbie, can you go and set up the spare room for these girls and… oh, God, there are only two beds, we can’t let them sleep on the floor! Shit! Robbie, darling, would you mind letting one of the girls take your bed?”

“Why my bed?” He complained, frowning. “Why not William’s? He was the one who brought them here,” he grumbled, but he knew he would relent, and his mother knew he would too.

Madeline Simmonses Day

Shit.

Late, late, late.

I am so fucking late.

Nothing for it. I jump into the shower and am breaking records with my ten minute wash. I'm back in my room again, completely bypassing the outfit I laid out meticulously last night; something about it was suddenly giving me shivers to the back of my soul. I pull things out by sheer intuition instead, not even looking in the mirror as I throw them on. My bag is packed and by my door. I haul it onto my shoulder, ignoring the weight.

It's a pretty hefty thing.

I'm out of the door moments later, patting myself on the back. It only took me half an hour to get ready. That's got to be some kind of record.

I have to do my mascara on the bus. I don't wear much makeup, but some cruel twist of fate left me with skimpy eyelashes.

I have become a master at putting on mascara on the bus. In three years, I have not poked myself in the eye or scribbled black all over my face once.



I'm ten minutes late. I have Buzzard first lesson: I don't even bother trying to get let in.

Instead I find myself in the Social Area with all the other miscreants who got locked out of their first lessons.

I spot Brynmor sitting by a window and settle myself next to him, dropping my bag to the floor with a relieved sigh.

"What, no hug?" He asks dryly.

"I was getting to that," I reply, almost admonishing. I turn to give him a smile, and am engulfed in a hug.

My smile broadens into his chest- even sitting down he is a head and a bit taller than me.

I discover a headphone once he releases me, and slide into my ear to see what he's listening to.

It's as I'm nodding along that Alistair comes up to us.

"Hey guys," he says sitting down. I've never once heard him use my name and I'm beginning to suspect that's because he doesn't know it. Which is strange, not only because he sits next to me in Psychology but also because he is the only person who has figured out my little secret.

"Hey Alice," I say in return to him; Bryn simply nods.

It doesn't take long for the two of them to become absorbed into a conversation that I have no place in, and so I steal Bryn's other headphone, choosing the soothing melancholy tones of Radiohead to names and terms I've never heard before.

Bryn's arm slung casually across my shoulder is a good consolation however, and I shift so I am leaning against him completely.

Alistair would be raising his eyebrows at me if I could see him. But it was okay. I knew he wouldn't tell on me.



The hour ended all too quickly and I had to remove the earphones and hug Bryn and Alistair goodbye before trudging to my form room.

Susan and Karl had moved seats to sit next to each other.

It was meant to be subtle but everyone had noticed, and had suspicions although the two vehemently denied any claim that they were going out. Amy, who Susan used to sit next to, looked distinctly lonely.

Thankfully, Crystal and I remained unseparated, and we spent registration talking about the most inane shit.

Break was a hurried stint in the bathroom, fixing our hair, and then to the canteen for curly fries. I realised with horror that my next lesson was my worst: Psychology with my worryingly bipolar teacher.

I had to leave the canteen a whole five minutes before everyone else to avoid being locked out: I was behind enough as it was.

I made it in time, and slid into my seat next to Alistair.

"Yo," he said, saluting me.

"Hey Alice," I replied absently, taking out my folder and my textbook and beginning to take down notes.

Or trying to begin at any rate. Alistair is unfortunately able to take notes and distract me beyond belief at the same time.

"I heard you and Bryn got pretty intimate at Lou's on Friday" he says in a low, chatty tone. I thank God for my dark skin, my blush would have been beacon bright on my cheeks otherwise.

"I'd had a lot to drink," I murmured, trying to focus on the words Ms. Hewitt had written on the board.

"You know as well as I do that that changes nothing," he whispered. I did. Everyone did. Bryn had a girlfriend, it was common knowledge. Her name was Claudia and her parents had carted her off to America almost as soon as she'd done her GCSE's. That left Bryn a lonely. A little company, a kiss here and there, a little something more... it wouldn't hurt.

I said as much to Alistair, told him he needed to lighten up.

"You know, Bryn's my best friend," he replied, "and yes, it does kill me to see him moping around about Claudia. But I can see that he's playing you thoroughly, my girl. If you were just some random chick it'd all be alright but you're not. You're actually quite decent. And my admirable best friend is taking advantage of you. He is, as they say, having his cake and eating it too." And although his tone was jokey, I knew he was being serious. I turned away from his concern.

"I'll be alright, stop worrying," I said, mindlessly copying from the whiteboard. Alistair humphed. but he couldn't say anything more because Teach was sending death glares our way.



Alistair's little talk had turned my mildly pad mood into a miniature pit of depression, and by lunch I was too confused to communicate.

I had to escape, fifteen minutes before enrichment, to Smokers.

I knew I shouldn't, I was meant to be quitting. But sometimes, you have to treat yourself.

I bummed a cigarette and light off a friendly boy in the upper sixth and allowed the nicotine to flow through me, drawing the experience out for as long as I could.

My lungs complained one I was done, the unmovable hacking cough telling me how displeased they were with my actions but it was well worth it, I decided. It was even worth the blood I coughed up into a tissue. I had been expecting it. I didn't care anymore.

I got to enrichment just as the teacher in charge read out my name. I alerted the room to my presence by choking into another coughing fit halfway through replying 'present'.

Alistair glared at me.

We both took film club for enrichment, but it wasn't done with the intention of spending another couple of hours together on a Wednesday afternoon. It had been a mistake, and one I often regretted: I don't like spending so much time in the company of someone who knows everything about me.

After a little confusion, a small group of us traipsed out of the room to finish watching Pan's Labyrinth.

I sat alone, but I couldn't escape. Alistair ditched his friends to sit next to me.

"Hey Alice," I croaked in a pathetic attempt to put off the lecture I knew I was going to receive. The cough had finally subsided but my throat and my lungs felt raw, like they were bleeding. I guess they were.

I tuned out while he whisper-shouted at me. I wanted to say 'Calm down for God's sake; it's only a cigarette', I wanted to say 'It doesn't matter about that at all', I wanted to say 'It won't make Bryn love me', I wanted to say 'Shut up, Alistair'.

But I knew any of those would just bring a barrage of wrath down on my head, so I refrained.



It was a bit strange, I reflected on the bus journey home. How one boy- who possibly didn't even know my name- had figured out something my own father didn't know about me.

A propensity to Bronchitis during my lifetime, coupled with a steady smoking habit from the age of thirteen had shredded my lungs. So effectively that they just kept on shredding.

Emphysema, it's called. For the most part, it's incurable.

I found out just under a year ago. With treatment, and a strict regime of pulmonary rehab and no cigarettes they could slow down the rate at which my poor little bronchi are dying, or doing whatever it is they do.

But if I carry on smoking and burning the candle at both ends, the doctor said I'd have less than five years to live.

God knows how Alistair found that out.

But it's okay.

I knew he wouldn't tell on me.

Cassandra Howell's Day

With a name like Cassandra Howell, I don't deserve the life that I got.
Someone called Cassandra Howell should know people who'd nickname her 'Cassy', and should always be laughing. She should always have something to say, and when she says it -which she will- everyone will laugh. 'Cassy' should have people flock around her. She would never be alone.
At the very least, I should deserve to be a 'Sandra/Sandy', who has a small yet tight-knit group of friends. Because of them, she will never be alone, and once you get through the initial layer of shyness, 'Sandra' will be seen to have a sparkling personality, which is why she is the one her friends want to be around most.

I am, rarely, Cassandra, and that's usually at home. Otherwise I'm just not there.
Sometimes I wonder if I am just an angsty teenager, but I realise that I have been like this ever since I was a child.
My day invariably starts at six a.m., whether it's on school-days, holidays or weekends. I quit setting an alarm when I was ten, as for two years, I had woken up a full thirty minutes before my alarm went off. At six o five, I get out of bed, and shower, then brush my teeth. It's been like this ever since my cousin told me that people who ate before they washed were weird. I don't why I believed him, I think it's due to the fact that I was six, and he was three years older then me.
Of course I dress next. As everything in my wardrobe is pretty much the same, and my mother irons everything before putting them away, all I have to do is pull out one item from the six neatly arranged compartments and wear with care.
I then eat, a meagre breakfast because I am sick otherwise.

Yesterday was a weekend day, and I met the postman as I walked out of the door. There was little mail, as usual. But there is a package for me. I haven't ever gotten a package before, so it provided interesting diversion. I hand the rest of the letters back to the post-man, and carried on. I wasn't really headed anywhere, but my mother believes I am sick-at-heart, and prescribed a daily constitutional, which is really rather dull. I opened up the package as I proceeded along the road, conscientiously folding the boring brown wrapping. I can't stand ripped wrapping paper. Inside is a boring brown box, which I opened. Inside the boring brown box is a ribbon. A red ribbon. Not a small one, lengths and lengths of red ribbon, filling the box almost to the point of overflow. The colour, blossoming on a grey day, in the boring box made me think: maybe tomorrow, I'll try harder.

Today I woke up at six, and washed and dressed, my usual routine. Then I Did My Hair. An activity that deserves every capital letter it gets, because usually I brush'n'go. But today, I had a roll of ribbon. My mother had rolled it up when she found it draped over my bedstead, and placed it in a makeshift drawer labelled 'ribbons'. Upon inspection, there was a piece of card on which something had very clearly been written and then rubbed out again. I had used a pencil to define the words on the card. They read 'To My Neighbour, welcome to the road'... which, of course leaves the question: how do they know my name?
Once I had finished doing my hair, I took a glance in the communal mirror, as I don't own one myself. I am so bedecked, I could be mistaken for a cake. I undo the disaster that my hair became, and instead snipped some ribbon away, and used it to hold my hair back. I feel that a description of me could now rightfully contain the words 'fresh-faced' but I carry on in my morning routine, and leave for school at eight a.m.
At school, I made a conscientious effort to smile nicely at people in my class. It's not that I glare at people, but instead that my facial expression is more morose than most. Probably out of habit. My smiles feel so empty and false, but I persevere, in the hopes that I will be able smile naturally. A mirror in the bathroom showed me that my smile hinted at a sparkling personality. Maybe, at this, my fifth school, I will be a 'Sandra'?
At some point during the day, a bubbling person definately worthy of the name 'Cassy' approaches me.
"Cass... right? You're my new neighbour. Is this the ribbon? I saw you when you moved in on Saterday, and just thought you'd be a red ribbon person. I'm Jess."
Jess was deserving of her name. When Jess spoke, I smiled, and it felt like a smile with something behind it.
I walked home with Jess, and we parted at her doorway. I got a glimpse of her house. It was warm and cosy, and cluttered.
I opened the door to my own depressingly clean house.
Some things will never change.

Eleanor Whittaker's Day

The first thing I did when I woke up (at nine:thirty, first time in about eight years that I've gotten up this early, without any apparent cause) was check my e-mails. I read in the guardian weekend magazine that I shouldn't, that I should give my self an hour to relax, and not let technology take over my day, and dictate my actions, but the allure was too great.
Yes, the night before, I had exchanged e-mail addresses with some one I'd just met. We clicked, just like that! Well, I gave him my e-mail address, and he said he'd send me some of his writing (he does a column in one of those magazines that I always pick up, to look intellectual, but never actually read).

There wasn't a message from him (his name is Gareth, by the way, Gareth Jones), which I suppose is what I should've expected. However, I was imbued by spam, and messages from Melissa. I've been ignoring her, and I really should answer them. Don't get me wrong, I do like her, but she just overwhelms me, you know? She's always so perky, and cheerful, and reading a message from her, listening to her speak is like being stabbed to death with an exclamation mark.
It's always : 'Oh! Ellie, how are you!' or, 'You'll never guess what I did today!!' or 'So how have you been?!!!' It really depresses me, how disgustingly cheerful she is all the time.
But I opened the latest message. I have to throw her a bone every now and then, or she'll be all:
'Ellie, have you been ignoring me!!! I've been trying to get through to you in ages!!!!! I have soooo much to tell you!!!' or, in a particularly bad case 'That's it, I'm coming round on Saturday, to see if you're still alive!!!'.
The message goes:
Hi Ellie!
I have a job!!! It's only small, but it pays my bills!!! Morris said Hi!!!...' It only gets worse.

I finally get around to doing some actual work around midday. I actually managed to write something, which Jessica (my agent) will be ecstatic about. I haven't written anything all week, partially because I have writers block, but mainly because I can't be bothered. It's just so tiring sometimes. OK, so I'm lazy. That's why I haven't ever been able to hold down a 'proper job'. To quote my mother. She read one of my books, and she vowed never to do it again. She said it was like being tortured with burning irons, the words 'cynical twit' being branded into her.
I write a paragraph, then go to the cafe on the corner of my road to get something to eat, and for inspiration. For a small cafe, there's always a lot going on.
Today, there are two lovers. The girl is sitting across from the man, crying bitter tears of disappointment. It appears he is breaking up with her, and she appears to be heartbroken, although he must be about ten years older than her, at the very least. She looks beautiful, even with her face tomato red, and her eyes swollen from too many tears. I resist the urge to go and ask the man what could be better than her, and instead sip my coffee in the corner, staring at the other patrons like a demented mad woman. I like breaking down people till all you have are raw emotions, like blobs of colours on a palette. Maybe that's how artists feel, thinking: that orange is a perfect mix of three parts burnt umber to two parts scarlet. How pretty. Maybe not that precise, Artists aren't that practical.
That's one reason why I enjoyed Gareth's company, I was staring at a woman with a huge smile plastered onto her face, clutching a cocktail (it was her fifth, I believe) and talking in an over-loud voice to a man who was aching to get away. I was thinking what's made her so upset? When Gareth came over and said
"Manic depressive. She doesn't need a reason." It was like something out of a romantic novel.

I get home, and write a bit more (after checking my mail, still no Gareth, but more Melissa, which I diligently ignore). Then, I call my mother, so she can't accuse me of being ashamed of her.
"Hello, Ellie darling, how are you? Have you gotten a job yet?" She croons down the phone.
"Mother, I told you, I don't want another job, I find writing hard enough." I say. She ignores me.
"Oh, such a shame, dear. You need a job, how else will you live?"
"Mother, who are you with?" I ask.
"Oh, yes, I've been fine thank you... no, dear, I haven't missed your company, although I think you should come home. I have lots of fun, though, I'm just with auntie Maysie. She sends all her love, and wants to see you." I realise why she's been making up a phone conversation.
"Well, I best go then. I'm sure I shouldn't keep you from 'Aunt' Maysie." I say.
"Bye dear-" I hear her begin (my mother is awful at goodbyes) but I put down the phone.
I write in a new character called Mrs. Feathingill (she bumped into my protagonist on one of those things that immobile elderly people use to get about in, knocking her flat, and then ploughing on, in a typically regardless fashion), and looking back on her, she is remarkably like 'Aunt' Maysie. Mrs. Feathingill is a sadistic, evil minded little old lady, and I think she may have something to do with my protagonists fate- which is undecided as yet. It's a toss up between suicide or murder, at the moment.

At ten p.m., I finally get an e-mail from Gareth. The actual message is brief, it consists only of three sentences (fifteen words, including his name):
Sorry, I have been busy all day. Here are the articles I promised you.
Gareth.
However, there are what would be a sheaf of attachments. I open the first, expecting to find it mind-numbingly boring, and to have died of ennui before it was done. I was pleasantly surprised by the article, which was funnier and more entertaining than I dared hoped... which, I suppose, couldn't be hard.
But then I felt guilty for underestimating Gareth's writing abilities.
After all, wasn't he the man who delighted and excited me with his anecdotes for a large part of last night?
I message him back, just a quick thank you, and then go on to read all fifteen articles before collapsing into my bed, exhausted at three. It's true, we do live in a fast age. Already, I think I'm in love with Gareth.

Clara Shane's day

Clara Shane's day... did not start well.
She woke up, half an hour after her alarm went off, groggy because she'd gone to bed too late last night. Not for an interesting reason, but because she'd had a mountain of dishes to wash.
She stumbled out of bed, and hit her head. On what, she never found out. She thought it was the wall.
Her journey to the bathroom was better, being completely uneventful. She failed to trip on a leftover toy, or pile of clothes, and made it into her shower without incident.
The water was cold. They were 'fixing' a water main outside, and it had affected the water supply to the whole house. Getting hot water was a praiseworthy task, but one that was nigh on impossible.
It was not a good day for clothes either, but Clara managed to find something that would pass muster.

Clara finally left her house, ten minutes late, and walked up her road, her art folder banging against her leg, and her hair- untamed- getting absolutely everywhere.
Her bag was heavy too. Clara wondered if random yet unfortunate events were just in abundance that day, or if they were conspiring against her. No one answered, which is not strange, because, even if she had said it aloud, no one was around to hear her.

No one was at school. Well, no, there were people at school, but no one worth considering. During registration, Clara sat alone, trying unsuccessfully to do something with her hair.
Her day looked up, as one of her friends turned up halfway through maths. About time, Clara thought.

That was as good as Clara's day got. A little bit of delayed-reaction dis-orientation from her bump on the head that morning hit her just as she was leaving her art classroom for lunch, and she walked- quite catastrophically- into a boy she had liked for about two years.
The result of this was that his first words to her ever were: 'What the hell? Walking with your eyes open helps!', a smothered giggle from her one present friend, and her lunch escaping somehow into her bag.
She wondered if she would ever be destined to have a reasonable life.
She doubted it.

Clara went home, after her post-art incident. She cried, for about fifteen minutes, and decided against going back to school.
She thought she might as well forgot today-it had been doomed from the start- and focus on making tommorow better.

Clara's awful day ended with her shutting the heavy drapes of her bedroom, thus creating a false twillight, and getting into her comfiest pyjamas. Which was just as well, really, because she hit her head again- this time on the post of her bed- and didn't wake up for two weeks.