I’m on a roll now, and I don’t think I could stop – even if I wanted to.

I stride over to the basin in Great-gran’s room where, as always, there is a tub of Nivea skin cream. Removing the lid, I plunge my fingers in, smearing a glob over my face.

‘Boo? Ethel? I really think we should talk this through.’ Dad’s voice is not loud, but I can tell he’s super-anxious. ‘Think about your gran, eh?’

I’m ignoring him. I want to reply along the lines of ‘Why should I think about her? She’s turned me into someone I’m not,’ but I can’t because I’m vigorously rubbing off all the carefully applied make-up, leaving pinkish-brown smears all over Great-gran’s hand towel.

And then it’s done. Off come the wig, the hoodie, the jeans, the shoes, and I am standing in front of them all.

They stare, dumbstruck. For like five, ten seconds.

Just.

Completely.

Awed.

‘This is me!’ I say eventually. ‘Can you see? I’m nothing – nothing at all. And you know what? I think I prefer it this way. At least it’s the truth.’

I check in the mirror and remove the last traces of make-up while Dad is dithering around and saying stuff like ‘Boo. Think about what you are doing.’

Poor Great-gran looks terrified. Gram has sat down on a low chair and is looking straight ahead and blinking hard.

I am thinking about what I am doing. I’m thinking that if this invisibility is permanent I’m going to have to get used to it. And more lying won’t help.

Lady has retreated to the far corner of the room, scared off by the raised voices.

‘Come, Lady,’ I say, more gently, and even though she cannot see me, she’s used to me now, and she comes to where I am. I like it that there is at least one person in the room (if you count Lady as a person, and I kind of do) who doesn’t seem to care whether I am visible or invisible.

I’m halfway to the door, when I see Gram stand up and take a shaky breath. What she says is almost too quiet to hear, but there is more sadness in the next four words than I have ever heard.

‘I lost a daughter.’

And when I hear that, I so want to go and hug Gram and hear that everything will be all right. I’m standing in the doorway and about to step forward when a large nurse walks bang! right into me, and shrieks with surprise. I’m knocked sideways and the only way past her is into the corridor.

Lady’s with me. The nurse is really freaking out: her hands touched me and everything.

‘Aaiiee! I touch! I touch something, someone!’

There’s a proper commotion going on, and we run.

A minute later we’re on the seafront, looking out over an indigo sea, and I’m feeling really, really confused.

It’s not only that I have shouted at a one-hundred-year-old lady, and stormed out on my new-found dad like a petulant teenager from some TV show. It’s also that – in all of this – I have ignored the fact that my own gran has been grieving secretly for nearly ten years. Gram’s ‘I lost a daughter’ keeps repeating in my head.

You can add that I am terrified that my invisibility seems to be permanent.

Plus, I am weak and exhausted, and I remember that I haven’t eaten since last night. I haven’t even thought about it, what with the worry and the excitement and the fear and the anger and about several billion other emotions that I’ve been experiencing in the last half day or so.

But yeah. Now that I am thinking about it, I am one hundred per cent starving, and thirsty too.

I turn to look back at Priory View and see my dad’s hired Nissan Micra pull out of the driveway and speed away down the seafront with Gram in the passenger seat.

I know I have been too hasty, and without thinking, I raise my hand and wave.

Fat lot of good that does, what with me being invisible.

I see Dad’s car retreating up the coast road.

I know I won’t be able to do this – do anything – on my own. I look at the hand that I’ve lifted up. The nail varnish that I put on my nails is still there: on each hand, five little shiny discs that are almost – but not quite – invisible.

I turn back to the sea and plonk down on a wooden slatted bench.

I am going to be the Invisible Girl. You just cannot keep a secret like that. Gram’s lies and deceit to keep me from the world of fame will have been pointless.

Because, unless I live my life as a total recluse, never going out, never going back to school, I will be known … Headlines. Documentaries. High-profile experiments. Medical research. Books.

I can see the headlines:

Dead Star’s Long-lost Daughter Is Medical Mystery

The Invisible Girl – Incredible Legacy of Tragic Singer

Have You Seen Felina’s Girl?

Ethel Leatherhead or Tiger Pussycat ‘Boo’ Mackay? Beatrice Leatherhead or Belinda Mackay? Miranda or Felina? Who cares who anyone is anyway? I’m not sure I even know myself.

I feel like nobody – which is odd. Odd, because I used to think that I felt like nobody.

Now I know I am.