Today we realised we have actually started calling Small Paula ‘Small Paula’, like it’s her actual name. A bunch of us were sitting around having lunch after our excellent morning’s workshop with Kitty when Alice opened a packet of sweets and offered them to everyone. Paula was sitting at the far end of the table, and Alice waved the packet in her direction.

‘Do you want one, Small Paula?’ she said, in a friendly way. Then she looked horrified when she realised what she’d said.

Small Paula looked a bit surprised, then she said, ‘Yes please’, and took one.

‘Alice!’ said Cass. ‘You can’t call Paula Small Paula!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Alice miserably. ‘Sorry, Paula.’

‘But it’s not meant in a mean way. It’s a nice name,’ I said. ‘And it’s just to distinguish Sma… that Paula from the other Paula. Um, Tall Paula, from Exquisite Corpse.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Cass, sounding like a wise old lady, ‘but it’s not up to us to decide whether what we call other people is nice or not. It’s up to them. I might think calling you … I dunno, Small-ish Rebecca is nice, but you still might find it really annoying.’

‘That’s true, I suppose,’ I admitted. ‘You don’t ever call me that, do you?’

‘No,’ said Cass. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

‘Do you mind being called Small Paula, Paula?’ said Alice. ‘I’m very sorry.’

‘No,’ said Small Paula from beneath her fringe. ‘I like it.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Cass.

‘It’s quite a good stage name, actually,’ I said. ‘What do you think, Paula?’

But Small Paula clearly felt she’d talked enough for one day, so she just nodded her fringe at us in a friendly fashion (it was like a small pony shaking its mane) and scuttled off carrying her giant box of leads.

‘Bye, Small Paula,’ said Cass.

‘I wonder what sort of music she’s making?’ I said. ‘I bet it’s all ethereal and mysterious.’

‘I bet it’s sort of folky,’ said Cass. ‘Maybe with some electronic beats.’

‘I wonder will we ever get to find out?’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s not like doing a gig is compulsory.’

‘I think Small Paula might be just making music for herself,’ said Alice. ‘Which adds to her mystery.’

And we all thought for a minute about what an enigma Small Paula is. I wish I was a bit more enigmatic. I asked Cass and Alice if I was mysterious at all, and they laughed and laughed. When they’d recovered, Alice said, ‘Maybe if someone didn’t know you they might think you were mysterious.’

‘That doesn’t count!’ I said. ‘Everyone’s mysterious if you don’t know them. I want people who do know me to wonder what I’m thinking.’

‘You generally show what you’re thinking,’ said Cass. ‘It’s usually pretty obvious.’

‘No it isn’t!’ I said.

‘Yes it is,’ said Cass. ‘I mean, you’re feeling quite cross right now, aren’t you?’

Gah, she was right. I am going to try and be more mysterious. After all, most of the people here don’t know me very well. I bet I can cultivate an air of mystery if I try.

I am not sure my plan to cultivate an air of mystery is going very well. I ended up chatting to Sam for a while at lunch today, and at first I thought it was a good opportunity to try being all enigmatic.

‘So,’ said Sam, ‘how is it going with your mentor? Richard was saying his guy is great.’

‘Ah yes,’ I said. ‘Ian Cliff.’ Then I paused in what I hoped was an enigmatic sort of way. Sam looked at me in an expectant fashion.

‘What about him?’ he said.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Um, just that he’s Richard’s mentor. Ours is … well, she’s beyond words, really. I mean, you can’t describe her.’ And I looked into the distance, mysteriously.

‘Yes, that’s usually what beyond words means,’ said Sam, which could have sounded like a dig but didn’t. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said. And then I couldn’t think of anything mysterious to say. It seems that there is a very fine line between being mysterious and being, well, a bit rude and unfriendly. And it turns out I am more worried about being rude than about being mysterious, so I said, ‘So, how are the comics going?’ in a normal voice.

‘Really good,’ said Sam. ‘The facilitator is great. Yesterday she told us to bring in a book we’ve always loved, and today we had to, like, adapt a page or a scene from it in comic form.’

‘Wow, that’s a cool idea!’ I said. ‘What book did you bring in?’

Sam looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Um, you probably haven’t read it,’ he said. ‘It’s called My Family and Other Animals, it’s a true story about a boy who moves to a Greek island and has loads of animals …’

‘By Gerald Durrell! I love that book!’ I said.

Sam looked surprised. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, of course!’ I said. ‘It’s really funny, and I like the animal stuff. Also, I share the hero’s pain because he has very annoying siblings, and I have a very annoying big sister.’

‘Heh, so do I,’ said Sam. ‘She’s even worse than Gerald’s brother Larry. I love the bit when …’ And we talked about our favourite bits of the book for a while. It wasn’t like talking about books with John Kowalski. John was very good at talking passionately about something he loved, and it was sometimes very exciting, but now I have to admit that it was more like being at a lecture than, like, having a conversation. Talking to Sam was much more ordinary − we kept interrupting each other and laughing. It wasn’t intense and exciting, like with John. It was fun though.

‘So what other authors do you really like?’ said Sam.

‘Oh God, too many to list,’ I said. But I mentioned a few of my favourites, like Nancy Mitford and Rachel Caine’s vampire books. I have very broad tastes, if I say so myself.

‘Have you ever read Sandman?’ said Sam. ‘It’s a graphic novel series, and it’s really great. A bit scary, but brilliant.’

‘How scary?’ I said. ‘I like fantasy stuff, but nothing too, like, gross or disturbing. And I don’t like stuff where all the characters are, you know, elves and stuff. I like books where magic stuff happens to realistic people.’

‘Um, it’s medium scary,’ said Sam. ‘And it’s set in our world, mostly. The guy who wrote it also wrote Coraline, the kids’ book. Have you read that?’

‘Ooh, yes!’ I said. ‘I loved it. It was creepy though. But in a good way.’

‘He did a book with Terry Pratchett called Good Omens which is brilliant too,’ said Sam. ‘Kind of scary, but mostly funny. I can lend it to you if you like.’

‘Yes, please,’ I said. And then the bell rang for the afternoon workshops.

‘See you later,’ said Sam. ‘And I’ll bring in Good Omens tomorrow!’

‘Cool, thanks!’ I said, and then I realised I was on the other side of the building to the Orchestra Room, so I had to run off. It wasn’t until I was sitting there in a big circle with all the other bands listening to Eli Gavroche, Positive Trigger’s mentor, talk to us about mixing tracks that I realised I had ended up not being very mysterious at all. I have a horrible feeling you’re either enigmatic or you’re not. And I’m probably not.

It was nice talking to Sam, though. He has very good taste in books. I sort of wish I fancied him, but I don’t really think I do. It’s not that he’s ugly, it’s just that … I dunno. There is no magic spark there like there was with Paperboy. Or even John Kowalski. Actually, with John it was basically all spark and nothing else. But just a bit of spark with someone would be good.

Oh no, my parents are back from their Oliver! rehearsal. I can hear them singing ‘Who Will Buy This Wonderful Morning?’ I certainly won’t. Why is this house always so noisy? There’s no peace around here! I will practise my drumming to drown out their caterwauling. Good thing I brought my snare drum home from our last band practice.

Everyone is better at being mysterious than me! Cass was acting a bit oddly this afternoon. She said she wouldn’t be walking home with us because she had to go into town, but when I asked why, she got all cagey.

‘It’s no big deal,’ she said. ‘I just have something to do.’ And she sounded so awkward I just left it. But what can it be? Surely if it was something to do with her family she’d tell us. And she didn’t seem really upset or anything. It can’t be anything romantic because she certainly hasn’t forgotten about Liz. Unless she has decided to run away to visit Liz in Connemara. Although I can’t imagine how she’d get down there. She only has about five euro until Saturday, and that wouldn’t get her very far by public transport. And how else could she get there? I know she really likes Liz and everything, but I can’t imagine she’d actually walk all the way across the country to see her.

Anyway, Small Paula is definitely more mysterious than all of us. We still have no idea what her music sounds like. Today we had a recording workshop led by Dave, Paula’s mentor, who was very good. We are all going to get some studio time over the next week or so to try and record a few tracks, which is cool. Paula was in the workshop too, but she didn’t really need to be there because, as Dave mentioned, she has already recorded quite a bit of stuff on her computer at home. She is a technical master.

‘Can we hear some of your stuff, Paula?’ asked Cass.

‘Sorry, but no,’ said Small Paula, shaking her fringe firmly. ‘It’s all top secret.’

‘Just one song?’ said Alice hopefully.

‘All will be revealed,’ said Paula, and then she scuttled off. So now we are even more intrigued.

Speaking of secret songwriting, I think I have completed my lyrics for the song about John. I told the others I was working on some words and I’d show them when I was ready, so I will reveal all tomorrow. I wonder if anyone will be able to tell that I got lots of words from my rhyming dictionary? I really think it has enhanced my writing, because I’d never have thought of using lots of these words if I hadn’t seen them in the book. Anyway, here are the lyrics:

I am pretty pleased with it, though there were a few problems even with the rhyming dictionary. Not many words rhyme with ‘avenue’, for example. In fact, I’m not totally sure that ‘retinue’ does rhyme with it, even though it was on the list in the dictionary. And it was particularly tricky finding a match for ‘corner’ because the dictionary is British and assumes you have the sort of English accent that makes ‘corner’ rhyme with ‘sauna’ and ‘fauna’. In fact, ‘mourner’ was the only word on that list that would work for Dublin people. But I think it goes in the song quite well.

Anyway, I will show it to the others tomorrow. I bet they’ll be impressed at how my songwriting has developed. Unless, of course, Cass really has run away (literally, considering her financial situation) to Connemara. But she probably hasn’t.

The mystery of Cass’s behaviour has been revealed! When I met her this morning, there was definitely something different about her.

‘Why are you staring at me?’ said Cass nervously.

‘No reason,’ I said. Then it struck me. ‘Aha!’ I said.

‘What?’ said Cass.

‘You got your hair cut!’ I said. ‘Was that where you were going yesterday?’

‘Um, yeah,’ said Cass, guiltily. ‘I needed to get my fringe cut. But I didn’t want to mention that I was going in to see Cliona in case it brought back terrible memories of your fringe experience.’

Cass can be surprisingly thoughtful sometimes. Of course I told her she didn’t have to feel bad about going back to Cliona.

‘I mean, she does a very good job on your fringe,’ I said. ‘I think it’s more my hair’s fault than hers. And I think I’ve mastered the whole pinning it back thing.’

‘It looks pretty good,’ said Cass. ‘You can’t even see all the pins from the front.’

Cass is truly a noble friend. And she is rocking her newly shorn look. Ever since she has embraced the fringe her hair has looked great (unlike me. But I don’t want to think about my fringe today).

And we are not the only people on the course to embrace different styles. Niall from Puce seems to have taken Shane O’Driscoll’s advice to heart. He appeared at today’s songwriting workshop wearing a big leather biker jacket and some biker boots. It was quite a contrast to his usual cardigan and desert boots. It’s not my sort of look, but he definitely looked a bit tougher than usual when he wearing it, like a bad boy from an American soap opera.

Of course, Charlie and his gang thought Niall looked hilarious because if anyone does anything new or different they think it’s stupid. They were sitting in front of us, and when Niall came in, Charlie said, ‘God, look at Puke boy!’ That is his hilarious name for Niall. (Because of his band being called Puce. Yes, that’s how sophisticated Charlie’s sense of humour is.) ‘I didn’t think he could look any more gay until I saw him in that leather,’ Charlie went on. Finn, the band’s drummer, was sitting next to him, and he laughed so much he choked on the Coke he was drinking.

Luckily, Niall was on the other side of the room for the workshop so I don’t think he heard them. In fact, I have noticed that Charlie tends not to say anything to other boys’ faces. Maybe he’s afraid one of them will hit him. Obviously I don’t approve of violence, but I sort of wish someone would, male or female. Actually, preferably female. He’d think that was worse.

But there are plenty of nice boys around too, even if some of them are going a bit mad. Richard is becoming more and more Ian Cliff-esque. His hair has gradually been moving upwards until today he had what can only be described as a quiff. And I bet he’d be wearing that posh suit of his brother’s every day if he could manage to steal it (apparently his brother started hiding it after he discovered Richard had stolen it for the Battle of the Bands last year). As he has no suit, he has just started wearing very fitted, quite formal shirts and alarmingly tight trousers in an effort to look taller. He is actually quite tall already, but Ian Cliff is practically a giant. I don’t think there’s anything else Richard can do to copy that unless he starts wearing platform shoes. But despite his Ian Cliff worship, he really is sound. I’m glad Alice is going out with someone I actually get on with.

And, of course, Richard isn’t the only decent boy around here. Jane has become friendly with a boy called Jamie who is doing the drama class. He is a bit older than us but he’s very nice. He wants to do drama when he goes to college next year, which immediately reminded me of John Kowalski, but he talked about it in a much less dramatic way than John did. Though of course that wouldn’t be hard. Jamie talks about studying drama the same way someone might talk about doing English or computer science or any other subject, whereas John talked about it like he was on a mission from God.

And Sam brought in that Good Omens book for me today (he forgot it yesterday).

‘If you like funny fantasy stuff you’ll definitely like this,’ he said. ‘I hope. Let me know what you think, anyway.’

He is so nice, like the Anti-Charlie. I’m still not sure about Lucy, though. I passed her in the foyer today, and she just looked past me like I didn’t exist. Could it actually be because she thinks I’m after Sam, what with all the book-lending stuff, and she’s jealous? Not that I’ve got the impression there’s anything going on between them. Maybe she just doesn’t like me?

Speaking of not liking people, I had managed to forget all about the Mrs-Harrington-being-in-Mum’s-book thing, but I was reminded of it this evening. Mum was in an unusually good mood, marching around the house singing songs from Oliver!. It turns out she’d sent the first few chapters of her book to her editor, and her editor really liked it.

‘And her favourite character is Patricia Alexandra!’ she said. ‘She said she’s my greatest villain yet.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to … I dunno, give her a softer side?’ I said. ‘I mean, maybe she could see the light at the end and become good and save the heroine’s bakery.’

I genuinely thought this was pretty clever of me. I mean, surely this would make Patricia Alexandra Harrington more complex and interesting? But Mum just laughed at my brilliant idea.

‘Sorry, Rebecca,’ she said. ‘But the character is working the way she is. And she’s going to get her comeuppance at the end!’

Oh dear. I don’t know what to do. If I keep going on about this, she’s going to get suspicious that something’s up. After all, I don’t usually show so much interest in her books.

But I should be able to come up with something. Shouldn’t I? I mean, my mother is not the only creative person in the family. I shared my lyrics with Cass and Alice today, and they went down pretty well, even if they did question some of my innovative word choices.

‘It’s a really good idea for a song,’ said Cass. ‘And I particularly like the chorus. But what is a tercel?’

‘It’s a male falcon or hawk,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ said Cass. She looked thoughtful. ‘Hmmm. I suppose John does look a bit like one.’

‘Exactly!’ I said.

So we are sticking with my lyrics. They really do go well with the song, if I say so myself. In fact, I can’t wait to get out my trusty rhyming dictionary and write some more words to the song we started working on this morning with Kitty. She is great at offering suggestions without, like, imposing her own ideas on us.

I love working with her so much. We’ve written a few songs over the last week and a half (even though most of them don’t have words yet), and we’d never have done all that without her encouragement. She is really nice, and her band are very good. They’re actually playing a gig tomorrow night. I wish we could go, but it’s in a pub so our parents would never let us. And, to be honest, we wouldn’t get in even if they did. Even when we’re all dressed up and wearing make-up I don’t think we could pass for older than sixteen at the very, very most. And that would be pushing it. Rachel says we all look about twelve, though of course she is exaggerating (and it’s not like she even looks her age either). My mum always says we’ll be glad of our youthful looks when we’re thirty, but that’s not much comfort now.

I really don’t know how Jane is managing to put up with Vanessa. I know she says Vanessa is different when they’re actually working on their play, but unless she has a complete personality transplant every time she enters the rehearsal room, I can’t understand how anyone can bear her. And Karen’s almost as bad. Today a gang of us were having some Cokes during the morning break, and Vanessa, Karen and Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince sat down at the other end of the table. Which is how we couldn’t help overhearing Vanessa talking about her new insane plans.

‘I’m going to invite some agents to see our showcase,’ she was saying.

‘You mean the play?’ said Bernard. ‘Oh Vanessa, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’

‘Of course it’s a good idea!’ said Karen.

‘I can’t believe this camp isn’t inviting agents anyway,’ sniffed Vanessa. ‘They’re so unprofessional here.’

‘Well, it is meant to be a camp for amateurs,’ said Bernard. But this didn’t go down well.

‘Bernard, I’m surprised at you!’ said Karen. ‘We can’t think of ourselves as mere amateurs.’

‘Karen’s so right,’ said Vanessa. ‘We need to think of ourselves as stars! I, of course, already do.’

Good grief. I am starting to feel very sorry for Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince. He seems relatively sane in comparison to his awful girlfriend and Vanessa.

Then Vanessa noticed us at the end of the table.

‘You must agree with me, Bert,’ she said to Richard.

‘It’s Richard,’ said Richard. ‘And I can’t say I do. We’re not pros yet. We’re here to, like, gain experience and learn stuff from the experts.’

Vanessa just tossed her hair crossly and turned away.

‘God,’ she said. ‘Karen, we really are the only professionals in this place.’

If by ‘professionals’ she means ‘deluded fools’, then I suppose she’s right. But at least she’s not as bad as that horrible Charlie. Alice and I had another run-in with him and his goons. It was actually really disgusting. The two of us were on our way back from the loo at lunch. We going down a corridor in the arts building when we passed the Crack Parrots, looking at something on Finn the drummer’s mobile and laughing. As soon as we got near to them, Charlie went, ‘Hey, girls, what do you think of this?’ And when he held up the phone there was a porn video playing on it. I looked away quickly so I didn’t see any details, but it was obvious what it was. It made me feel a bit sick and sort of upset. I couldn’t even think of anything to say. But Alice just glared at him and said, ‘Oh, you’re into sexual harassment now?’ and marched me along the corridor. She is always very good in a crisis. She never loses her head. Evan looked a bit uncomfortable, but the others just laughed more. They’re such revolting pigs. And Evan didn’t say anything to them so he can’t have minded that much.

Anyway, when we got back to the canteen, we told Cass, Jane and her drama mate Gemma what had happened. Gemma said she’d seen the Crack Parrots looking at porn a few days ago.

‘They don’t even care who sees them,’ she said. ‘They have no shame.’

Luckily we had a workshop with Kitty in the afternoon so we didn’t have to see the Crack Parrots again today. It was a really good workshop too, all about performing on stage, and it was actually more useful than Shane O’Driscoll’s more dramatic workshop last week. Kitty isn’t into big gestures and prowling. She says that her key to looking confident is to just put your head back and chin up and kind of stare down at the audience. I will definitely give this a try when we play next week. Practising my haughty stare was a lot of fun and made me forget about the Crack Parrots for a while. But now I almost wish I’d said something to Kitty about what they did. I mean, surely they can’t be allowed to go around showing random girls stuff like that?

Ugh. I don’t want to think about them now. I will go and read that book Sam lent me instead. It is very good. Actually, it features a boy who is the spawn of Satan. So maybe it will not be much of a distraction from Charlie after all.

More sweet-making practice today! This time we were back in my house, which meant that we had to put up with the sound of my parents singing songs from Oliver! all afternoon. Clearly all those years of yelling at her long-suffering daughters have taught Mum how to project her voice because you could hear her bellowing all over the house.

‘Sorry about this,’ I said, as the strains of ‘Pick a Pocket or Two’ echoed around the kitchen. ‘I thought they were going on one of their boring trips to the garden centre today. But they’ve gone musical mad.’

‘I actually quite like it,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, they can actually sing.’

‘What?!’ I said. ‘Alice, are you sure all the loud music of the last few weeks hasn’t damaged your ears?’ But she insisted she found the sound of my mum crooning ‘Who Will Buy This Wonderful Morning?’ at top volume delightful. I don’t know what’s come over her. At least Cass had an excuse for tolerating my parental warbling (though she wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about it as Alice). She’s in a very good mood because Liz is coming home on Monday.

‘We only got together about five minutes before she went off to Connemara!’ she said. ‘It’s so unfair. Well, you know what that’s like,’ she added to me.

‘I do,’ I said. Though I didn’t add that when Paperboy left I knew he wasn’t coming back and Cass knew Liz would be back in three weeks. That would have been a bit churlish.

Anyway, the fudge turned out pretty well (possibly because we put on loud music to drown out my parents, and then danced around to it as we stirred, which kept us full of enthusiasm). In fact, it was our best yet.

‘You know,’ I said. ‘We could actually start selling this soon.’

‘I dunno,’ said Alice. ‘Didn’t your mum say we needed, like, a food licence or something to sell things to the general public? And I think if you sell food someone has to come and inspect your kitchen.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Hmmm.’ I looked around our kitchen. On the counter, next to the mixing bowl, was a big pile of magazines, a cup half full of cold tea left over from this morning and a bag of Bumpers’ cat food. I don’t think it would pass any official inspections.

‘Well, we’ve got to start somewhere,’ I said. ‘Newspapers always have articles about people who start businesses in their kitchens. It can’t be that hard.’

‘We could always try building up a potential customer base,’ said Cass.

‘You sound very business-like, Cass,’ I said. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘I thought you would be,’ said Cass. ‘Anyway, I was thinking we could give some away next week. When we do our gig at the end of the camp.’

‘Wow, that’s actually a good idea,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could even make the little boxes! With that logo you designed.’

‘Yes!’ said Alice. ‘Though we’d have to find lots of boxes.’

We decided we could sort those details out later. After all, it’s almost two weeks until the final gigs. Well, a week and a half. Then we sat around in my room and ate the fudge and talked about the camp.

‘Sam’s really nice, isn’t he?’ said Cass.

‘So’s Lucy,’ said Alice. ‘Though she’s very quiet.’

‘I don’t think she likes me,’ I said.

‘Why on earth do you think that?’ said Alice.

‘I dunno,’ I said. And I didn’t really. Mostly because she doesn’t say anything. Then I thought of something. ‘The other day she just stared straight past me when I saw her in the foyer. And whenever I talk to her and Sam she doesn’t say anything, she just looks like she’s looking down on me.’

‘She is looking down on you,’ said Cass. ‘Because she’s, like, four inches taller than you. That’s not her fault.’

‘I think you might have a bit of a complex about tall people,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t think you like them.’

‘What?!’ I said. ‘That’s ridiculous. Look at my family! They’re all fairly tall apart from me. I take after my granny on my dad’s side, but my whole family are, like, giants.’

Cass and Alice looked at each other in what I’m sure they thought was a very wise way but which was just really irritating instead.

‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘That’s why.’

I hate it when they think they’re psychologists.

Anyway, as I told them, I don’t dislike Lucy. I just think she doesn’t like me. Which isn’t the same thing at all.

It is Rachel’s birthday on Thursday. She is going to be seventeen. I suppose I should get her something though I am not sure she deserves it. Her oh-so-perfect boyfriend Tom is back from his holidays, and he called over to our house this afternoon when our parents were out at the garden centre buying pots and compost and other boring things (if only they’d actually gone out yesterday when my friends were here). Rachel basically forced me out of the sitting room so she and Tom could have it to themselves. I shudder to think what they were up to, although when I said that to her she got really annoyed and said that I had a filthy mind and they just wanted some ‘alone time’ without me ‘hovering around and annoying us’.

As if I would. I’d rather not be anywhere near them. Anyway, whatever they were up to, I can’t see why they didn’t just go up to her room rather than forcing me out into the back garden like some sort of dog. The only good thing was that for once I had some credit on my phone so I could ring Alice. As ever, Alice was the voice of reason and pointed out that it was a lovely day and actually it was nicer out in the garden. She is very soothing sometimes. Though she did go too far when she said she’s always wished she had a sister and that I should count my blessings. Alice has always been into counting blessings, though I don’t think Rachel is one. A blessing, I mean. She is more like a curse. I said this to Alice, and she reminded me that, actually, Rachel has been okay to me a few times over the last year.

‘She gave you pretty good advice about Paperboy and John, didn’t she?’ she said. ‘And she was great about helping you defeat your fringe. And she even did your make-up for the Battle of the Bands.’

This is all true. I suppose she isn’t a curse all the time. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call her a blessing, though. Anyway, maybe I will get her a present after all. Not that I have much money to splash out on lavish gifts. Maybe I will write Rachel a song instead? I know I won’t have the band to play the music, but I can just sing it to her. And surely a personalised song is a gift more precious than anything you could buy in a shop. It is also much cheaper.

It is surprisingly difficult to write a song for Rachel. I mean, I’m pretty sure nothing rhymes with Rachel – there are no actual names in my dictionary, so I can’t even look it up. Not that many useful words rhyme with ‘sister’, either. Can I compare her to a fillister? Apparently, that is a word for an ‘adjustable plane’, whatever that is. Or a lister, which is a sort of plough? Probably not. Anyway, this is what I have so far:

I’m not sure it’s one of my best. It doesn’t actually have a chorus. And it sort of makes it look like the only good things about Rachel are her ability to give boy advice and the fact that she has nice clothes which I can steal. Which makes her look a bit shallow and me a bit selfish. But seriously, it just took me ages to write, and I don’t think I can manage any more. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts. And surely just having a song written just for you is a lovely present?

Rachel went out to her friend Jenny’s house so I thought I’d sing my song to Mum. She looked very thoughtful as I was singing, and when I was finished she cleared her throat and said, ‘That’s really good, love. And it’s a really good present. But if you want to get her anything else, I’ll give you some money. Not too much money,’ she added, in case I thought she was going to hand over a hundred-euro note. Which I didn’t. Anyway, I thought that was very nice of her, and it shows she appreciates my musical talents.