“Do you notice anything different about me?” I ask Dad, flicking the front of my hair a little to give him a clue. It’s Saturday afternoon, and we’ve brought my baby sister Gracie to the Dublin Zoo. A father-daughter trip, Dad called it, but I think it was just a ruse to get away from Pauline, Shelly’s ultra-painful mum. If I had to pick the one person I’d least like to be stuck on a desert island with, Pauline would be right up there, along with Annabelle Hamilton and Dad’s annoying new wife, Shelly.

Pauline and Shelly are very similar: they are both whippet thin, with huge white teeth, china-blue baby-doll eyes, and an entire wardrobe of tacky white and gold clothes.

Dad tears his eyes away from the tigers to look me up and down. “New jeans?” he tries with a shrug.

“Dad! I got my hair cut this morning. I’ve got a fringe.” I do jazz hands on either side of my forehead. “Ta-da!”

He smiles. “So you do. Makes you look older.”

I grin back. “Correct answer, Pops. Mum thinks so too.” I’m still a bit unsure whether I’ll keep it, though — unless I straighten the fringe every morning, I suspect it’ll look a mess. And unlike the D4s, I’m not interested in daily primping just for school.

We leave the tiger enclosure, and Dad pushes Gracie’s top-of-the-range Bugaboo toward the monkey island. I walk along beside him.

“Want to push your little sis?” he asks.

“Later maybe.” I’m getting a kick out of watching Dad try to negotiate the crowds. In his camel-colored cashmere coat and pointy-toe Prada boots, he looks a little out of place, like a male model playing “dad” in a Ralph Lauren photo shoot. Most of the other dads are wearing practical rain jackets, zipped over their potbellies.

We watch the monkeys gibbering and swinging from the ropes for a few minutes, and then I notice that two spider monkeys are holding hands and spinning around. “They look like they’re dancing,” I say, pointing at them.

Dad smiles. “So they do. That reminds me, my bank’s sponsoring a ballet this Christmas featuring Mills’s sister. Cool, huh?”

I look at him in surprise. “In Budapest?”

Claire Starr moved to Budapest when she was fifteen to train in their state ballet school, and now she’s a full-blown ballerina. Mills doesn’t talk about her very often — Claire isn’t very good at keeping in touch with her family, and I think it’s a bit of a sore point. She hasn’t been home for two years.

“No, Dublin. They’re doing Romeo and Juliet in the Grand Canal Theatre, and Claire’s headlining. They’re calling her the Irish Ballerina. Great marketing ploy, eh? It was all a bit hush-hush until the sponsorship deal was finalized last week.”

It’s strange Mills hasn’t mentioned it yet, but maybe Claire wasn’t allowed to tell anyone until the funding was sorted. Ballets cost an absolute fortune to stage apparently, and without a big sponsor they just don’t happen.

“As part of the deal, all the traders are getting a bunch of free tickets for the opening night,” Dad goes on. “Ballet puts me to sleep, though. Want my seats?”

“Abso-doodle-lutely! Can I bring Mills and Clover?” Mills will probably go with her mum and dad, anyway, but I’m sure she’d be happy to watch it twice, and maybe she could get us backstage to see all the dancers. Clover says male ballet dancers are hot up close and personal (she had a brief dalliance with one before she met Brains), and I want to see if she’s right.

“Sure. You can bring Sylvie along too.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Gracie wakes then and starts to make little mewing noises.

“Better get this little lady home,” Dad says. He checks his watch. “Hopefully Pauline will be at the gym by now. The sooner that woman flies back to Portugal on her broomstick the better. She’s doing my head in. She really stirred things up this morning over breakfast. Asked me why Shelly wasn’t invited to your mum’s bachelorette party! I don’t think it had even occurred to Shelly to be miffed — but she is now.”

“Is Pauline deranged? Shelly’s the last person Mum would want within a million miles of her party.”

“I know that and you know that. Anyway, don’t worry; I set Pauline straight. Told her it was just close friends and family. Shelly still had a puss on her, though, so I had to promise to take her shopping to make up for it.”

Phew! Mum’s bachelorette party is already getting far too complicated for my liking. Dave has invited his prissy sister, Prue, along, and her idea of outlandish is wearing a red velvet hairband instead of her usual navy blue one.

Gracie cries all the way to the exit, where Dad makes a big deal out of maneuvering her buggy out the gate. Honestly, you’d swear he was driving a bus. As we walk toward the car, Gracie finally goes quiet again, and I peer in at her. She’s snoozing peacefully, her nose wriggling like a rabbit’s, her mouth making little sucking motions, like she’s pulling on an imaginary bottle.

“How are the party plans coming along, anyway?” Dad asks. “Is there a theme?”

I worry my lip. I’m a little concerned about Clover’s ideas, to be honest. Mum said simple — but some of it is looking Brains-worthy eccentric.

“The theme is Sex and the City, Irish style,” I tell him. “Manhattan meets Dublin.”

Dad laughs. “Sounds brilliant. I’m sure Sylvie will love it.”

I hope he’s right.