‘How would you describe me?’ Edie asks.

‘Hmmm?’

‘I’ve got to describe myself for this essay question for Harvard. What am I like?’

‘Grumpy? Stressed? Unnaturally intelligent?’

I’m lying on the floor of her bedroom, stroking the youngest of the kittens, who has finally been christened Starlight, after Starlight Express. Edie throws a scrumpled-up piece of paper at me, and misses. I roll it over towards Starlight.

‘Bad at ball sports?’

‘Look, Nonie! This is serious.’

‘Somewhat lacking in a sense of humour? What? What?’

I dodge the next flying ball of paper. How she ever made the netball team is a mystery to me. Persistence and sheer height, I assume.

‘Tall?’

She groans and turns to face me.

‘OK, I give up. I’ll do it later. What did you want to talk to me about?’

I sit up. This is more like it. I tell her all about Project Flying Pig and my disastrous discoveries. I’m not exactly expecting sympathy. Edie is Miss-I’ve-always-known-my-perfect-job. But at least she’s someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t Mum, or in New York, or Uganda.

‘Oh, poor you!’ she says, surprising me. ‘You’re like a fashion encyclopaedia, Nonie. There must be something you can do.’

‘Something that doesn’t involve spreadsheets?’ I ask hopefully.

‘Loads of people can’t use spreadsheets.’ As a girl who can, and regularly has to help people out who can’t, Edie would know this. ‘I always thought of you as a stylist or something.’

Hmm. Cool job. Working out what models should wear on shoots, or celebrities should wear on the red carpet. I could so do that. After I get my degree in fashion marketing or something – which is never going to happen, as Mum has so kindly pointed out. Stylist jobs are fought over like prize pieces in a sample sale, so you need a decent college degree to get a good one. This is one of the many things I know about the fashion industry. Unlike where I fit, of course.

Still, it’s a job I could almost see myself doing. Something I hadn’t really considered before.

‘Helpful,’ I say to Edie. ‘Insightful.’

‘What?’

‘Two other things you are. When you’re not being grumpy and stressed.’

‘Oh. Thanks.’

She turns back to her desk and pretends to doodle something in a margin, but I think she’s scribbling down ‘insightful’ before she forgets.

There’s a scrabbling noise in front of me and I look down to see Starlight pouncing like a tiger on one of the poor unsuspecting balls of paper. He gets it in a death grip and bites a piece out of it, before batting it in my direction. I bat it back. Starlight is adorable and I can quite see why Edie asked Jenny if she could adopt him. Jenny was thrilled. Now she knows she’s going to be out of the country for months, she’s been anxious to find different homes for all the kittens. Which would be easier if she hadn’t called the others Sondheim and Fosse. I mean, Fosse? It’s pronounced ‘Foss-ee’. I thought she said ‘Flossie’ at first, but no. Bob Fosse was a top choreographer, apparently. Beyoncé has used some of his moves for her videos. Even Bob would have been a better name.

Edie’s mother, who’s allergic to cats, is being very understanding about the whole thing and is dosed up to the eyeballs on antihistamines.

‘How’s Gloria, by the way?’ I ask, thinking of mothers and pills.

‘It’s hard to tell,’ she says. ‘She’s worried about climate change at the moment. She’s concerned that London will flood and the carpets in the flat will be ruined.’

‘But they’re on the fourth floor!’

‘I know.’

‘At least she’s talking to you, I guess,’ I add.

Edie nods. ‘It’s a good sign, isn’t it? That’s what Mum says. She says I shouldn’t be going round there so much, ’cause I’m so busy with all my other stuff. But Gloria won’t let anyone else into the flat, even Mum. So I just have to go.’

She shrugs and turns back to her essay.

‘How’s the writing going?’ I ask.

‘This? Ugh.’ She groans.

‘Is it really bad? How much do you have to do?’

She frowns at the thought of it. ‘Only a page or so. But it’s got to stand out. They get so many applications. People describing how amazing they are. They’ll be going through millions of these.’

‘Millions?’

‘Well, thousands, anyway. From all around the world. How can one English girl who plays the clarinet stand out? I mean, what have I been doing with my life?’

She holds her head in her hands. Anyone would think she’d spent the last seven years watching TV, or hibernating. I try to reassure her, but she’s beyond listening.

Even when you’re sure what you want to do and you’re a super-genius, it’s not that easy. Me? I haven’t got a chance.