SATURDAY 1 OCTOBER

‘This is even more urgent than we originally thought,’ I said while we were standing in the queue at Starbucks.

‘What? Why?’ said Amber.

‘Jess can’t make it today … Any guesses why?’

‘Ooh … I love games … My guess is that she is flying to Peru to take part in a table tennis tournament?’ said Poppy.

‘Maybe she’s getting a new pet snake?’ guessed Molly. ‘Or maybe she’s eaten a hundred doughnuts and can’t get out of bed!’

‘This isn’t a game, guys,’ I said. ‘This is REAL LIFE! She can’t make it because she and Isha are going over to Lola’s for a sleepover!’

‘Wow, those TSACG girls sure do move fast!’ said Amber.

I nodded. ‘Exactly, so we need a USP and we need it fast.’

When we had all collected our drinks, we headed over to a booth and I pulled out my notebook and pen. It was time for a brainstorm. This is what we came up with …

TQOEG’s USP: medium level of cleverness, Good taste in crisps, nice hair (sometimes), Good banter, A bit odd, Can’t think of anything else, funny (ish)

I personally thought our crisp game was our hottest USP, but I’ll admit that it did sound pretty pathetic when you said it out loud. We all decided that there was nothing else for it – we needed MERCH too.

We discussed the pros and cons of water bottles, notebooks, pens, keyrings, magnets and hoodies – there are so many options out there. We pooled all our pocket money/spare change and the total budget came to £19.72.

Poppy decided to be our head of branding and went home to research options/costs. Apparently her uncle’s friend runs a merchandising company, so they might be able to do us a deal – I’m looking forward to seeing what she comes back with.