Miss Watkins loved our fundraising suggestions. She gave us the go-ahead for just about everything but the sponsored sky diving and plans went straight into top gear.

‘I knew you girls would breathe some fresh air into it all,’ she said with a smile after we’d read our list out our list in the afternoon break. ‘Now. No time to lose. Nesta, you can start by making an appeal for volunteers tomorrow and the rest of you, organise who’s doing what and when and report back to me regularly. We have five weeks, three of which are in the Easter holidays so let’s see if we can get some things organised to happen then.’

At assembly the next morning, I felt nervous when Mrs Allen, our headmistress, introduced me after she had made the usual announcements. Usually I don’t mind performing in public, like if I’m in a play or something because then I’m not being me. I’m in disguise as some character. But this time I was going to speak as Nesta Williams and part of me was dreading it. I looked out at the sea of faces and took a deep breath.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ I started.

‘Good morning,’ everyone said back and I almost got the giggles as they all looked so serious. I had to resist the urge to do something stupid like tap dance or do my gangster rapper impersonation.

I took another breath, told myself to get it together, then continued. ‘Imagine one of your family was dying or ill or homeless or lonely,’ I read from the speech I had prepared last night. ‘How would you feel? Yeah. Rotten. Most of us don’t even think about such things. It’s not happening to us so who cares? We’re OK. Most of our families are OK. We have homes. We have food to eat, clothes to wear. Our health is good. But loads of people on the planet don’t have our advantages.

‘All I’m asking for is a bit of your time. Maybe an hour or two a week for the next few weeks in the holidays and you can make a difference. We’re aiming to raise fifty thousand pounds to donate to a local hospice. It’s a place where terminally ill teenagers go to spend their last weeks and the aim of the people who run the hospice is to make the place as much like home for them as possible. We’re the lucky ones. Hopefully we all have years ahead of us to pursue careers, to travel, to fall in love, er . . . particularly to fall in love. The people who end up in hospices like the one we want to help won’t have those chances. Please don’t turn away this chance to do something . . .’

I was about to wind up as Mum had advised me that the most important rule of public speaking is KISS (keep it short, stupid) but when I looked out at the faces in the hall looking back at me, I wanted to be sure that they understood what I was saying.

‘Just look around you,’ I continued. ‘Who knows where illness is going to strike. It could be one of the people standing in the hall with us today. It could be you. It is someone I met recently and only last year, she was standing in assembly like we are today and she was healthy and happy with a great future. Now she knows she hasn’t got long to live. The people who run the hospice want to make those last weeks as comfortable as possible. A place where their friends and family can be with them. That’s all anyone can do.

‘I’m not going to go on and on at you as I think those of you who want to hear and do something don’t need it repeated. We’ve got some fab activities planned to make money over the Easter holidays. We need volunteers for everything from selling raffle tickets to walking dogs. So, if you want to be involved, don’t walk away, sign up at the back after assembly. And anyone who wants to buy tickets for the Diamond Destiny Dance on May 7th, then please get them from the back. It’s going to be the event of the decade. Please help. Make your destiny a diamond one. Um. Yeah. Rock on.’

The response was phenomenal and we got loads of people signing up from all years and even Doreen and her pals looked pleased with the way things were going.

We didn’t have long to get everything sorted before we broke up so Izzie, TJ, Lucy and I spent every spare moment getting contact details from volunteers, so that we could give them all something to do in the holidays. It wasn’t too difficult to coordinate a timetable of events, allocate people to each one and we were off fundraising. Even Tony and Lucy’s brothers, Lal and Steve, and their mates wanted to be involved in some way.

‘This is going to be the best time ever,’ I said as I walked out of school with TJ on the last day of term. At last it was the Easter holidays and I had a date with William in a couple of hours’ time. It felt good to know that I’d be able to tell him that we were going to do something positive to help. I was confident that we’d reach the target and more.

I got home and went to have a bath before changing into my seduction outfit for the evening. I’d arranged to meet William in Crouch End and go for a cappuccino and then a walk. His mum wanted him back at a reasonable hour because they were taking an early morning flight. I heard the phone go when I was in the bath but thought nothing of it.

A few moments later, Mum knocked on the door. ‘Nesta,’ she said. ‘That was William Lewis. He said he’s sorry but he can’t make it tonight.’

I was about to get out of the bath. ‘Does he want to speak to me?’

‘No, love,’ said Mum. ‘He’s gone. I asked if he wanted a word with you and he asked if I’d pass the message on.’

‘Does he want me to call him?’

Mum was quiet. I got the answer without her having to say anything. I lay back in the bath and submerged my head in the water. I sooooo wished I hadn’t agreed to go out with him.

When I got out of the bath, I went to see if he’d tried to e-mail me. But nothing. I felt cold inside. Dumped before we’d even had a date. Well stuff you, William Lewis, I thought. I’m not going to even let this minor blip affect me in the slightest. I am going to throw myself into all the fundraising activities we have planned and not give you another thought. We’re going to raise a million and when you come back from Spain, you can forget any chance you thought you were in with. This girl is moving on.

My first job was going to be a breeze. Mum had told all the neighbours about the fundraising scheme and one of them, Mrs Matthews, had asked if I’d check in on her house while she was away visiting her daughter for a couple of days. Easy peasy money. Twenty quid to look after her budgies and water a few plants.

‘Now you make sure you talk to Charlie in particular,’ said Mrs Matthews after she’d gone over the instructions for the fiftieth time. ‘He’s the one at the back, see?’ She pointed to a bright blue budgie at the back of the cage.

‘Oh, I will,’ I assured her.

Mrs Matthews’ eyes filled with tears. ‘He’s special, is Charlie. He was a gift from my late husband and – you make sure you look after him well. He likes it if you talk to him.’

No problem, I thought as I waved her off. Bit of water, bit of bird seed, bit of a chat. What could possibly go wrong?

All went well on the Saturday and Sunday and then Lucy and I turned up on Monday afternoon to find that Charlie was lying at the bottom of his cage with his little legs in the air.

‘Ohmigod,’ I said when I saw him.

Lucy gave the bird a gentle poke. It didn’t move. ‘This parrot is dead,’ she declared.

‘It’s not a parrot. It’s a budgie.’

‘Whatever. It’s dead.’

‘Nooooooo, it can’t be,’ I cried. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Lucy. ‘You did everything you were asked.’

‘Should I try mouth to mouth?’ I asked. ‘Take it to the vets?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘It’s dead, Nesta. Not breathing. Look, just explain what happened. There was nothing you could do. It was just Charlie’s time, that’s all.’

‘Maybe but I know she’ll blame me. She’s bound to. And Charlie is her favourite. Oh God.’ I felt completely freaked out as I imagined Mrs Matthews coming back and finding her dead bird.

‘Look,’ said Lucy, ‘we have to stay calm. Don’t panic. Here’s what we do. We’ll buy another one. I bet I know exactly where they got it from as there’s only one place that sells them round here. The pet shop in Muswell Hill. Mum gets squirrel nuts for Lal in there.’

‘Squirrel nuts for Lal? Now I know your family is mad.’

‘No. He doesn’t eat them. He likes to feed the squirrels in the garden. You know what he’s like about animals. He feeds the fox, the squirrels, the birds. It’s a regular wildlife park in our back garden. So come on . . . let’s go. Last time I was in the shop, they had a whole wall of birds. What time will Mrs Matthews be back?’

I checked my watch. ‘Nine this evening.’

‘And it’s almost five now,’ said Lucy. ‘We just have time.’

We raced down to the pet shop as fast as we could. The shop keeper was just locking up and shook his head when I knocked on the door.

‘Please,’ I mouthed through the door but he just carried on locking up. I got down on my knees on the pavement and prayed to him and this time, he did take notice. He laughed and opened the door.

‘All right then. So what is it you need so desperately?’

‘A budgie.’

‘And that can’t wait until morning?’

I shook my head. ‘Absolutely one hundred percent urgent.’

The shop keeper sighed. ‘Always the same with you kids. Want it now and then three weeks later, you’ve lost interest.’

‘No. No, I promise,’ I said. ‘It’s not like that.’

The shop keeper relented. ‘Come on in then. They’re round the back. Let me know which one you want and be quick about it.’

Lucy and I ran through and quickly scanned the cages.

There were cages of finches and budgies all tweeting sweetly away.

‘Perfect,’ cried Lucy as she spied the last cage. In there was a budgie the exact same colour as Charlie. It was so perfect in fact, it looked like his twin.

‘How much are they?’ I asked.

‘Twenty quid,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Made your minds up have you?’

We nodded and soon were paying for the bird and hotfooting it back to Mrs Matthews where we replaced the dead bird with the live one. Lucy wrapped the real Charlie up in tissue and took him away with her to give him a proper burial in their back garden.

For the next couple of days, I was on tenterhooks waiting for Mrs Matthews’ to notice the difference and call to complain, but she didn’t. It was on the Friday night that she called me over when she saw me passing her house.

‘Er, how’s Charlie?’ I asked as casually as I could.

‘Extraordinary,’ said Mrs Matthews, smiling. ‘All this time I thought Charlie was a boy but I must have been wrong?’

‘Oh. Why’s that?’ I asked.

‘He laid an egg yesterday,’ she said. ‘I think my Charlie is a Charlotte.’

For a moment, I thought she might have rumbled me but no, she seemed to genuinely think that she’d mistaken Charlie’s sex when he was first given to her. Ah well, I thought. Although I hadn’t made a penny at least I still had a happy customer.

Lal and his mates were confident that they would make some fast money by offering to hand wash cars and set off on the Saturday in the sunshine with buckets and cloths in hand. In the meantime, TJ and I set off to do a stint of dog walking. Six dogs that belonged to various neighbours – I took three, TJ took three. At five quid for each dog, I thought, it should be no problem and we’d make our first bit of profit.

At twelve o’clock, Lal called us to say that they still hadn’t got one job.

‘We’re in Shakespeare Gardens and have checked the whole area. Cleanest cars in the country,’ he said. ‘This calls for new tactics.’

TJ and I were doing the circuit at Cherry Tree Woods and were barely keeping up with the dogs who insisted on dragging us along for all they were worth. ‘Tactics? And they are?’ I asked as I pulled on the leads.

‘We’re going to dirty the cars up,’ said Lal. ‘Then they’ll have to employ us.’

‘No, Lal. That’s a mad idea. No, please don’t . . .’ I pleaded into the phone but it was no use, he’d hung up.

‘What’s up?’ asked TJ when she saw my face.

‘We have to find the boys,’ I said. ‘Lal and his mates can’t get any customers for the car wash. They’re going to try dirtying them up.’

‘Oh nooooooo,’ cried TJ. ‘We have to stop them. Really bad idea. There’s been a spate of kids vandalising cars round where they’ve gone. I read about it in the local rag. People might think it’s Lal and his mates. Do you know exactly what road he’s on?’

I nodded. ‘Shakespeare Gardens.’

I tried calling Lal’s phone but the little rat wasn’t answering. We both looked at the dogs who were almost chewing off their leads in their eagerness to finish their walk.

‘You go. I’ll stay here with the dogs,’ she said.

‘You sure you can handle six?’

She looked at the dogs and nodded. ‘Just get back here fast.’

I legged it as fast as I could out of the park, up the alleyway and ten minutes later, I spotted the boys running down Springcroft Avenue. They were being chased by a very irate bald man. I quickly ducked down into the nearest garden and hid behind a rhododendron bush. It looked like they could outrun the man and I didn’t want him to spot me and think I was with them. Unluckily, the owner of the house whose garden I was in saw me through her front window. A moment later, she had opened her door and was coming at me with a broom.

‘Out, out,’ she said. ‘I’ll have the police on you.’

‘No. I’m sorry. I was – I’m not dangerous. I’m not a burglar or a vandal anything!’

‘That’s what they all say,’ she said as she brandished her broom in my face. ‘Get out of my garden.’

I decided to give up on the boys and ran back to Cherry Tree Woods. Poor TJ was almost having a heart attack by the time I got back there. She’d tied five of the dogs to a park bench from where they were all barking their objections at being kept on their leads and doing their best to drag the bench along behind them. TJ was chasing after Bonzo, a border collie, who had escaped his lead. He was causing havoc running after all the other dogs and their owners like it was a game. The dog walkers weren’t at all pleased at their dogs being harassed and one of them told us in no uncertain terms to control our animal.

We tried everything but no matter what we did, he wouldn’t come back. We called him. I tried throwing sticks and he ran for them but wouldn’t bring them back.

‘I know what will work,’ said TJ after what felt like an eternity of us running around like lunatics. ‘Food. Go and buy a hamburger or hot dog, anything with meat in it and he’ll soon come back.’

I raced to the nearest café on the High Street, back to the park and sure enough, it worked a treat. Bonzo was soon back on his lead. The others however were howling louder than ever having seen that one of their group got food and they didn’t.

TJ looked at me and I nodded. Back I went to the café, returning with a big bag of burgers. The dogs wolfed them gratefully in seconds but at least they were quiet after that.

‘Remember what I said about dog walking being a great way of meeting boys? A good pulling tactic?’ I asked.

TJ laughed. ‘Only people that got pulled were us. In every direction by the dogs!’

We returned the dogs to their owners but once again, our profit had been eaten into. Literally.

In the evening after the dog walking disaster, I turned on my computer and checked my e-mails for the first time that week. There was one from William, sent from an Internet café a couple of days ago.

Dear Nesta,

I am so sorry for last Friday. It’s been a hellish time. Eleanor’s consultant wanted to check her over before we flew to Spain which is why I couldn’t make our date as she wanted me to go with her. He wasn’t too happy about the results of her blood tests and she really freaked as she’d been looking forward to this trip for months. Dad insisted that Olivia and I went out to Spain as planned and Mum stayed with Eleanor who was allowed to join us on Monday. It’s been a roller coaster since then. She seemed fine when she arrived and then went under and at first we thought we’d have to fly her back and well, I don’t want to go on. She’s OK now but as I said, it’s an up and down ride. It makes her so unhappy when she can’t do the things that she had planned. Anyway, that was the reason I couldn’t make it on Friday. Sorry and I hope to meet up sometime when I’m back. I haven’t got my computer out here and am using an Internet café but you could text me back if you’re still speaking to me. William.

I read the e-mail about ten times. That will teach me, I thought. I’d totally assumed that he’d let me down for all the wrong reasons. Assume. Dad always says: the first three letters of the word assume are ass. And I’d been an almighty one. I texted him back.

STL SPEKNG 2 U. DONG TONS OF FUNDRAYSG. GONG GUD. GONNA RAISE ££££££££££££ 4 HOSPICE.

I hoped that would cheer him up.

And in the meantime, there were all those £££££ to raise. Izzie and her friend Ben (from the band she sings with) signed up to do gardening in the second week but they only lasted an hour as Ben had got a bit over enthusiastic with the shears and cut back someone’s prize rose thinking that it was dead. Both of them were banned from the area and the man whose garden it was threatened to let all the neighbours know if Ben didn’t pay for a replacement. Cost a fortune as it was a rare type of rose.

Once again, out went any profits.

For a while it looked as though Lucy was on a winner in the first week as she managed to get a load of people to donate bottles of spirits and she talked others (including Izzie) into giving away their Easter eggs. Whisky, vodka, gin, brandy and chocolate. She sold a load of raffle tickets and at last, it seemed that we might be in profit. Sadly, she had stored the bottles of donated spirits at her house and Lal and his mates decided to try them all out and replace what they drank with water. A trick that he’d managed to get away with before but when the raffle was drawn and the bottles were given away as prizes, the winners complained. They could tell that the bottles had been watered down and demanded compensation. Lucy tried pleading that it was for charity but was told in no uncertain terms that in that case she should be more professional about it. Lucy got her dad to replace the watered down bottles with the real stuff which meant that once again, the profit kitty was emptied but this time not for long. Lucy’s mum found out what the boys had done and insisted that they pay up for what they had done out of their pocket money.

And the Easter eggs? The daft muffin left them in a bag by a radiator and they all melted. (Lucy daren’t tell Izzie.)

In other parts of North London, other activities were taking place, and Mrs Owen was delighted with that fact that we’d managed to set up a rota of volunteers to help at the charity shop at weekends for the rest of the year.

Sadly, the candle-making sessions, led by Izzie, were a complete and utter disaster as the end results looked more like misshapen potatoes than candles. And her team had invested their pocket money to buy everything needed like wax and moulds and when they didn’t sell, Izzie had to fork out to replenish their funds.

Candice Carter had volunteered to organise a sponsored fast and reported back to us that it was very popular. Apparently about twenty girls signed up for it but Candice finally admitted that most of them didn’t actually have sponsors. They thought that it was an ace way to lose weight quickly. One of the girls fainted one lunchtime and confessed all to her mum who let the other parents know what was going on and they put a stop to it. So that was the end of that. Profit nil.

The swim-a-thon on the last Saturday of the holidays was going great, until Steve got cramp and had to be rescued by the life guard. And I got my period and got a different kind of cramp. Poor Steve could hardly walk when he got out the baths so called a cab to take him home and he dropped me off on the way. He paid for the cab with the small amount of sponsorship money he’d raised and offered to pay it back but it was only a couple of pounds.

‘Hardly going to make much difference,’ said TJ sadly as she did the accounts. ‘But we’ve still got almost two weeks . . .’

TJ, Izzie and I nodded back at her and tried to look hopeful but I knew that inside they were feeling like I did. Desperate.

Things didn’t improve.

Last on our list of fundraising activities to try was face painting and we held a session for kids in the car park outside the local supermarket. Once again, it was a fine clear day for April and a couple of girls from Year Eleven at school, Izzie and I set ourselves up and charged a pound for each face that we painted. It was going great with happy toddlers running about looking like bunnies and lions and clowns. And then one little girl had an allergic reaction to the paint and her face swelled up. Although we cleaned her up as fast as we could and it looked like no lasting damage had been done, her mother went crazy and threatened to sue the school. We did the grown-up, responsible thing and packed up our stuff and ran for it.

At least one idea was a success. TJ and Lucy had got the local nursery to donate some fabulous plants to sell at the jumble sale on the last Sunday of the holidays and they sold out before lunchtime. Phew.

Also at the jumble sale, we raised a small sum of money by asking people to guess how many coins there were in a jar. It was all going well until an old lady guessed correctly and we had to hand the lot over to her. TJ tried to persuade her to donate her winnings to charity but she was having none of it and told TJ to get lost in a rather colourful manner.

Next was the ‘guess Miss Watkins’s age’ competition. TJ took a Polaroid of her and it was great fun going round the hall with sheets of paper where people could put down their guesses. No one got it right and most had added on about ten years to her real age. We were in profit at the end of the competition but Miss Watkins was well miffed at the age that people estimated her as and said she’s going to go on one of those make-over programmes where they lift everything!

At the end of the sale, we added up everything that had come in over the past weeks from all the various activities. It came to just under a thousand pounds. I couldn’t believe it.

‘I thought we’d make so much more.’ I sighed as I looked at the figures. ‘After three weeks of pretty much solid fundraising, we have ended up with enough to buy the hospice a few plants, but forget the new wing.’

‘And I even donated my Easter eggs,’ said Izzie.

Lucy looked at the floor sheepishly. ‘Yeah, there were so many things going on,’ she said as she scanned the accounts. ‘But hey listen, there’s almost a grand here. It’s better than nothing.’

I nodded. But I was fast beginning to realise that the dopey Doreen’s were right. Raising serious amounts money wasn’t that easy after all.