Praise for Dear Dylan, also by Siobhan Curham

‘Tender, quirky and cool. Siobhan Curham is a name to watch’ Cathy Cassidy

‘An absorbing, moving novel . . . I’m still thinking about the characters so much that I want to check on them and see how things are going for them now!’ Luisa Plaja, Chicklish

‘A funny, moving, thought-provoking story about a very special friendship’ Tabitha Suzuma

‘Reminds us of the power of true friendships. A wonderful achievement’ Booktrust

‘A great, fast-paced read. All I can say is, “GO, GEORGIE!”’ Bookalicious Ramblings

‘I didn’t want to leave these characters behind. A wonderful read full of laughs, tears and heart’ Carrie’s YA Bookshelf

‘Truly a diamond of a novel. Touching, funny and full of heart; I just couldn’t get enough’ Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf

‘A story to lighten the soul. I laughed and cried and wanted more’ Tales of a Ravenous Reader

‘Fabulous . . . poignant . . . honest’ The Sweet Bonjour

‘Touching and emotional . . . really special’ So Many Books, So Little Time

‘Strong and realistic characters that people of all ages will relate to’ A Life Bound By Books

‘Keeps the reader captivated from start to finish. Intimate and honest . . . I loved it’ I Was a Teenage Book Geek

‘A very beautiful story. You’re going to love it’ Darlyn and Books

‘I really couldn’t put it down’ Sarah’s Book Reviews

‘A fab story’ The Overflowing Library

Hi there,

A couple of years ago, a writing magazine that I worked on published a letter from a teenage girl complaining about the lack of interesting, inspirational heroines in Young Adult books. At the time I’d just finished my first YA novel, Dear Dylan, and was wondering what and who to write about next, so I decided to use the girl’s letter as a challenge. For many years I’d wanted to write about bullying – I know several people who have been affected by bullying and it’s something I feel very passionately about – so the seed of an idea took root. What if I created a character who was a victim of bullying but was determined to fight back in her own original way? A character who used her love of books and writing to reinvent herself as a unique and memorable heroine. And so Cherokee Brown was born. I still have the magazine letter that sparked the novel pinned to my noticeboard and I hope I’ve met the challenge and created a character who’s both interesting and inspirational. I have no idea if the girl who wrote the letter will ever read this book, but I’m hoping the fact that I named Cherokee after her will bring it to her attention somehow.

I really hope you enjoy Finding Cherokee Brown, and that it inspires you to become the unique and inspirational hero of your own life story – whatever that may be . . .

Siobhan x

For more from Siobhan, please visit her blog:

http://www.dearwriterblog.blogspot.com/

You can also find her on Facebook, or visit www.electricmonkeybooks.co.uk

Finding Cherokee Brown Published 2013 by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 2013 Siobhan Curham

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 4052 6038 1

eISBN 978 1 7803 1265 1

www.electricmonkeybooks.co.uk www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

50042/1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Please Note: Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont cannot take responsibility for any third party content or advertising. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

EGMONT

Our story began over a century ago, when seventeen-year-old Egmont Harald Petersen found a coin in the street. He was on his way to buy a flyswatter, a small hand-operated printing machine that he then set up in his tiny apartment.

The coin brought him such good luck that today Egmont has offices in over 30 countries around the world. And that lucky coin is still kept at the company’s head offices in Denmark.

For Jack Phillips and Katie Bird

– may your souls forever be fearless

Contents

Cover

Praise

Siobhan Curham

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Character Questionnaire No. 1

Chapter One

Chapter Two

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Character Questionnaire No. 2

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Character Questionnaire No. 3

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Character Questionnaire No. 4

Epilogue

Finding Cherokee Brown Playlist

Acknowledgements

Prologue

I’ve decided to write a novel. If I don’t write a novel I will kill somebody. And then I will go to jail and, knowing my lousy luck, end up sharing a cell with a shaven-headed she-he called Jeff who smokes roll-ups and thinks it’s cool to keep a fifteen-year-old girl as a slave. But if I write a novel I can kill as many people as I like with my words and never have to be anyone’s slave.

It was Agatha Dashwood who first put the idea of writing a book into my head. Last Saturday afternoon I’d gone down to the Southbank – again – and I was browsing through the tables of second-hand books – again – and there it was, stuffed in between a biography of Princess Diana and A Complete History of Piston Engines:

So You Want to Write a Novel? by Agatha Dashwood.

There was a photo on the cover of this fierce old lady glaring over her glasses like some kind of psycho librarian. But that didn’t put me off, because the first thing I thought when I read the title was, Yes – I do. Which was a bit random because I’d never thought of writing a novel before. So I picked the book up and did my usual page 123 test. I do this whenever I’m deciding whether to buy a book. I don’t bother reading the blurb on the back, or the first page – the writer’s obviously going to be trying their hardest there, aren’t they? It’s how they’re getting on by page 123 that’s the real test. If they’re rubbish at writing or bored with their story then you can bet they won’t be making any effort at all by that point. So I flicked through the yellowing pages, trying not to be put off by the musty smell, and this is what it said at the top of page 123:

‘ The Authentic Novelist Writes About What They Know.

Aspiring novelist, if you want your writing to ring true – for your words to echo around your reader’s head with passion and clarity, like church bells calling worshippers to mass – then you have to write about what you know.’

I know the church bells and worshippers stuff sounds a bit nuts, but the rest of it made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I snapped the book shut and took it over to pay. With Agatha Dashwood’s help I was going to write a novel about my crappy life but, unlike my crappy life, it wouldn’t be dictated by my mum or Alan or the brain-deads at school or any of my stupid teachers. It would be my story. Told my way.

Notebook Extract

Character Questionnaire No. 1

‘When I started out in my writing career, many years ago, writing short stories and serials for The Respected Lady magazine, the Character Questionnaire became my most cherished friend. Use the template below before you start your story to get to know your own characters even better than you know yourself.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

OK, I’ve got a bit of a problem. I’ve been trying to do a Character Questionnaire on my main character – namely me. And that’s the problem: the ‘namely’ bit. I mean, who would choose to call their main character Claire Weeks? It’s hardly exciting, is it? Hardly the name of a kick-ass literary heroine. I’ll just have to invent myself a new name. A heroic name. A name that will sit proudly alongside Anne Frank and Laura Ingalls Wilder on bookshelves and not want to cower in embarrassment.

Possible Kick-Ass Literary Heroine Names:

Roxy Montana – too much like Hannah?

Ruby Fire – naff !

Laura Wild – too similar to one of my real literary heroines.

Anna Franklyn – ditto.

Jet Steele – sounds like a female wrestler!

Hmm, I guess I’ll come back to my name later or I’ll never get started on the book. I’ll just stay as Claire for now. And keep my surname as Weeks, even though it sounds like ‘weak’. Just another great thing to thank my stepdad Alan for, I guess. Along with a knowledge of Neil Diamond that borders on child abuse. Why can’t he listen to music from after 1980? And songs that don’t have titles like ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’! Is it any wonder I’ve been driven to seek refuge in the world of literature?

Anyway, back to the questionnaire:

Character’s name:

Claire Weeks (soon to be changed to something way more kick-ass).

Character’s age:

Fifteen (well, fifteen in one day’s time).

Briefly describe your character’s appearance:

She is short and thin, with dark brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She needs a radical makeover.

What kind of clothes do they wear?

Black.

How do they get on with their parents?

They don’t.

What physical objects do they associate with their parents?

An iPhone permanently attached to her stepdad’s hand like some kind of growth. And a collection of tracksuits in every colour of the rainbow for her mum.

Do they have any brothers or sisters?

No, but they have a couple of alien life forms from the Planet Obnoxious posing as seven-year-old twin brothers.

What was their childhood like?

Grim – and it still is.

Think of one positive and one negative event from their past and how it has shaped them:

Hmm, well, the first thing that springs to mind is the day Helen moved away to Bognor Regis. This was mortally negative on two counts: firstly, I lost my one true friend and secondly, who wants to live in a place that is named after a bog? Seriously! And just because some bright spark added the word Regis (which I think means royal), it doesn’t make it any less bog-sounding. Then there was the time last summer when I wanted to go to the Hyde Park Music Festival, but Alan said I couldn’t because Jay-Z was headlining and he felt that listening to too much rap music would be ‘bad for my personal development’. Like listening to Neil Diamond droning on about being ‘forever in blue jeans’ isn’t?!! Of course, my mum agreed with him. She always agrees with Alan because he is a life coach and therefore ‘an expert at life’. I’m not so sure about that. As far as I can tell, being a life coach basically means that you charge people a load of money to tell them how messed up their lives are and then charge them another load to tell them they need to fix it.

Alan’s company is called OH YES YOU CAN! and he likes to do those really annoying mimed speech mark things with his fingers whenever he’s talking and wants to emphasise a word. For example, when I told him that I don’t even like rap and I actually wanted to go to the music festival to see the rock band Screaming Death, he looked at me and sighed and said, ‘I don’t really think that subjecting yourself to a day of heavy metal would really be “helpful” for your personal development either, Claire.’ And he wiggled two fingers on each hand around the word helpful. Personally I think he is a “complete moron”.

Right, better try and think of a positive event for my character. There was the moment I made friends with Helen, on our first day at Rayners High. I’d been sitting in our classroom, faking smiles like I had a twitch while thinking, Oh, God, why couldn’t I have been born in 1867 to a pioneer family in the American Midwest and only have to worry about making it through the next winter rather than seven long years at high school? But then, when one of the boys started teasing this Asian girl and everyone else started laughing, I caught sight of Helen. I could see from the way she was frowning that she was thinking the exact same as me – this boy is a total loser. As soon as I managed to make eye contact with her I sort of raised one eyebrow, the way I’d seen this sarcastic cop character do on TV, and she did the same back and then we both started smiling – but proper, mean-it smiles rather than oh-my-god-my-jaw-is-going-to-break-if-I-have-to-prop-this-thing-up-any-longer kind of smiles.

That was a whole four years ago now. It’s been six months since Helen moved away. Her leaving is another reason for me writing a book. I don’t really have anyone to talk to any more – not anyone who gets me. And the great thing about having an imaginary reader is that you can write exactly what you want, how you want, and you can at least pretend that they’ll like and understand you. And won’t want to beat you up or call you names.

How does your character speak?

Too fast apparently, at least according to her mum and Miss Davis, her form tutor.

What is their favourite meal?

Fish and chips wrapped in paper, with loads of salt and vinegar, outside on a freezing cold day.

Do they believe in God?

No. Don’t know. Maybe. But not a God with a long white beard who sits on a cloud. I gave up on that one the year we went to Florida on holiday and I stared out of the window looking for God for the entire eight-hour flight. No one lives on clouds. At all.

What is their bedroom like?

Full of books. And full of mess according to my mum, but she doesn’t get it. I know where everything is and I like having everything close to hand, not shut away in cupboards or filed away on shelves like everything else in our house.

What is your character’s motto in life?

Tidying is for wimps. And cleaning is for people with way too much time on their hands, who should be made to move somewhere deadly dull – like Bognor Regis.

Does your character have any secrets?

Yes. Since Helen left I’ve skipped school three times to go up to the Southbank to people-watch for the day. And although everyone in my class – including my teacher – knows I’m being bullied, my parents don’t. What a great secret!

What makes them jealous?

People who are happy and don’t ever get picked on.

Do they have any pets?

No, because a stray dog hair or morsel of cat food might get on to the carpet and cause their parents to have a total freak-out.

Is their glass half full?

She’s currently drinking a can – of coke – and it’s nearly empty. Bit of a random question!

Have they ever lost anyone dear to them?

Helen when she moved away. And I guess there’s my real dad. Although he left when I was just a baby and moved to America, ‘because he had commitment issues and was incapable of growing up’ according to my mum, and I’ve never seen him since. Can you lose something if you can’t remember ever having it?

Who do they most admire?

Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne Frank.

Are they popular?

No. But I try not to let this get to me because I wouldn’t really want to be popular with most of the people I go to school with anyway. It’s kind of like asking Anne Frank if she’d want to be popular with the Nazis.

Do they love themselves?

No, of course not!

What is their motivating force in life?

To get through a day without being beaten up.

What is their core need in life?

To not feel like the wrong part in a jigsaw all of the time.

What is their mindset at the beginning of your story and what do they want?

She is totally fed up and she wants to change everything. Everything.

Chapter One

‘Dear writer, imagine if you will that your reader is a trout, swimming merrily downstream. The first paragraph of your novel should be like the maggot on the end of the fisherman’s line. Juicy and appealing to the point of irresistible. Hook them with that and then let the rest of your first chapter reel them in.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

If you could pick any date in the calendar to find out that you aren’t actually who you thought you were then I suppose your birthday is pretty much perfect. Today, on my fifteenth birthday, I found out that for my entire life I’ve been living a lie.

I actually got up before my parents this morning as they’d been to this cringey conference called ‘Unleash Your Inner Tiger’ last night and didn’t get home till late. Well, when I say late, I mean late for them. They got back at twelve-thirty. I know this because I was still up re-reading The Bell Jar at the time. Normally, my parents go to bed at nine so they can get up mega early and do an hour of Nordic Walking before work. Nordic Walking should be renamed How-to-Totally-Humiliate-Your-Kids Walking. It basically involves striding about in giant steps while holding a pole in each hand – the type of poles you use when you’re skiing. This wouldn’t look so weird if you were hiking your way through a snow drift, or up a mountain. But when you’re walking down a London street in the middle of summer it looks about twenty different kinds of wrong. Anyway, when I got up this morning at seven, there was no sign of them, their walking poles or the twins.

I poured myself a glass of icy water from the fridge and sat down at the breakfast bar, wondering if there was any chance Mum and Alan would let me have the day off as it’s my birthday. But getting Alan to agree to me bunking off is like getting the Pope to sell his soul to the Devil – it’s never going to happen. So I sat there sipping at my water, hoping it would dilute some of my usual morning sickness. I’m not expecting a baby or anything – just another crap day at school. To be honest, I haven’t even been kissed before, let alone anything else. Well, I’ve been parent-kissed, and too-much-perfume-Grandma-kissed, but not heart-trembling, knee-quivering, boy-kissed. So there’s probably more chance of the Pope getting pregnant, but anyway . . .

When the post plopped through the letter box I nearly didn’t bother going to see if there were any cards for me. I mean, all of my friends would be giving them to me in person in school, wouldn’t they – ha ha! But then I remembered the text I got from Helen last night about the card she’d sent me with a really sick joke on the front and how I wasn’t to open it in front of my parents. So I put down my water and trudged along the hall to the door. Fanned out across the doormat were a couple of the insane magazines Alan subscribes to – Get a Life! and Do It Now! – and some brown, bill-looking envelopes for my mum. Poking out from underneath them I could see two that were obviously cards. I picked them up but only one – the one in Helen’s handwriting – was addressed to me. The other one, in a bright blue envelope, was addressed to someone called Cherokee Brown. I double-checked the address, thinking that the postman had delivered it by mistake; there was no way someone with such a cool name could be living in Magnolia Crescent. The most exciting thing to happen around here is when the milkman leaves an extra pint by accident. But the address was definitely ours. I was still turning the envelope over in my hand when Mum came bounding down the stairs in her bright pink tracksuit.

‘Happy birthday, pumpkin,’ she called, coming over to give me a kiss. Then she saw what I was holding and said, ‘Ooh, a birthday card. Is it from Helen?’

I shook my head. ‘No. The other one is. This one’s for someone called Cherokee Brown.’

Mum stared at me as if I’d said, ‘This one’s for someone called Adolf Hitler,’ before snatching the card from my hand.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as she marched off down the hall and into the kitchen. By the time I got there she was stuffing the card into the bin.

‘Well, it’s not for you so we’d better get rid of it,’ she replied, her voice all weirdy high.

‘Yes, but aren’t we supposed to put it back into the mail or something? Return it to sender like that Elvis song Alan’s always singing.’

‘Dad,’ Mum muttered.

‘What?’

‘You should call him Dad, not Alan.’

‘All right, Dad’s always singing.’ Now was clearly not the time to get into the whole what-I-should-call-Alan debate. Deciding to play it cool, I sat back down at the breakfast bar and yawned loudly. ‘Haven’t I even got a card from my own mother then?’

Mum’s shoulders softened and she gave me a half smile. ‘Of course you have. I’ll go and get it. And the boys. Then I’ll make us all some breakfast and we can give you your pressies.’

I made my face grin. ‘Great.’

As soon as she left the kitchen I darted over to the bin and pulled out the card. The envelope was dotted with grease. I stuffed it inside my dressing gown and ran up the three flights of stairs to my room. Just like Mrs Rochester I live in the attic. (Actually it’s a loft conversion but that doesn’t sound quite as dramatic, does it?) Flinging the pile of books from my beanbag I sat down, pulled out the card and studied the writing. It was in slightly wonky capitals – like it was from someone who couldn’t write very neatly but was trying really hard. I took a deep breath and slid my finger under the seal. I ought to tell you now that if there was a question in Agatha Dashwood’s Character Questionnaire saying, ‘Do they make a habit of opening other people’s mail?’ the answer would be a definite no. But something had got my mum rattled and I wanted to know what it was.

I pulled the card from the envelope. The picture on the front was of a country landscape. It was the kind of card you’d buy for an elderly aunt. Or someone who likes cleaning and lives in Bognor. It wasn’t really the sort of thing I’d imagine someone called Cherokee going crazy for.

I opened it. There was no printed message or naff rhyme inside; instead the person who’d sent it had written HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY in large crooked capitals in the middle. At the top, in smaller writing, they had put To Cherokee and at the bottom from Steve. And at the very bottom, in tiny letters, as if they hadn’t been sure whether to say it at all, they had written: P.S. You can find me most lunchtimes performing in Spitalfields Market. By the record stalls. If you want to find me . . .

‘What are you doing?’

By the time I’d registered that my bedroom door had opened, Mum was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the card in my hand. Then her gaze dropped to the bright blue envelope on the floor.

‘I’m just –’ I broke off, and I could feel my face flushing. What was I doing, opening somebody else’s mail?

Mum marched over, holding out her hand. ‘I thought I told you to leave it,’ she hissed. ‘Give it to me.’

I tightened my grip on the card. ‘You didn’t tell me to leave it, you just threw it in the bin.’

‘Exactly. So why would you want to get it out and open it?’ Beneath the sheen of her morning moisturiser I could see that her face was flushed too.

‘Because –’

But before I could go on Mum made a sudden lurch for the card. I rolled over on the beanbag just out of reach.

‘I wanted to read it,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see what had got you so spooked.’

‘I’m not spooked,’ Mum spluttered, waving her hands about like an extremely spooked person. ‘But you can’t go reading other people’s mail. It’s not right.’

‘Oh, and binning it is?’ I stumbled to my feet, clutching the card to my chest. ‘It’s really weird, because this person, Cherokee Brown, is fifteen today too. Don’t you think that’s a bit of a coincidence? That we share the same birthday and someone thinks we share the same address.’ I didn’t have a clue what the coincidence meant, but it was obvious from her flushed face that Mum did.

‘What did he say?’ she asked, staring at me.

‘What did who say?’ I watched as her gaze dropped to the card.

‘What did he say?’ This time Mum almost screamed it. I looked at her in shock.

‘What’s going on, ladies?’ We both turned to see Alan poking his head round the door. He never actually sets foot in my room – I think he can sense the anti-life-coaching force field I’ve erected with my mental powers to keep him out. ‘Fiona? Claire? Is everything OK?’

‘Yes, yes, everything’s fine,’ Mum replied sharply over her shoulder. ‘Can you go and get the boys up for breakfast? We’ll be down in a minute.’

Alan smiled, his teeth all square and straight like the white keys on a piano. ‘Okey-dokey. Happy birthday, Claire-Bear.’

I gritted my teeth and smiled back. ‘Thanks.’

As soon as we heard his feet padding off down the stairs Mum and I turned back to look at each other.

‘What did who say, Mum? And how did you know it was from a man?’ I waved the card at her. ‘You know who sent this, don’t you? You recognised the writing and that’s why you threw it in the bin. Who is he? Who’s Steve? And who is Cherokee Brown? Why won’t you just tell me?’

Mum’s head slumped. She stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her tracksuit top and scuffed one of her bare feet on the floor. She looked like a little girl who’d just been told she couldn’t go out to play.

‘You are,’ she muttered.

‘What?’

‘You are Cherokee Brown.’

Chapter Two

‘It never ceases to amaze me how many writers seem to forget that they have five senses. When you are describing a scene don’t just tell the reader what your character is seeing, write about what they can hear, smell, touch and taste as well.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

When most people hear laughter they instantly look around to see where the joke is and whether they can join in. But when you know that you actually are the joke, even the slightest snigger makes you want to crawl behind the nearest rock and hide. Unfortunately there aren’t any rocks on the way to school. There isn’t anything much except house after boring house, all exactly the same with their paved front gardens and green wheelie bins standing guard like giant toads. I’ve tried loads of things to make the walk more interesting and less like a death-row march. Spying through gaps in net curtains, making up weird titles from the letters on car number plates, only treading on the cracks in the pavement. But today, for the first time in months, I didn’t have to do anything to take my mind off the laughter that I knew was coming. My head was rammed to the brim with my mum’s revelation. I was Cherokee Brown, or at least that was what I’d been called when I was first born, and the card was from my real dad whose name, apparently, is Steve Brown.

But why had he got in touch now – after fifteen years of nothing? Why had he come back from America? What had happened to his ‘commitment issues’? Question after question kept popping into my head, but I still didn’t have any answers. Mum had told me we’d have a proper talk about it after school, when Alan took the twins to Beavers, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it through the day without going crazy from the shock. Once upon a time I had been called Cherokee Brown.

‘Oi, hop-a-long!’

I didn’t need to turn round to know that the person shouting at me was David Marsh. And wherever David went, Tricia Donaldson was sure to be swaggering along beside him, pursing her glossy lips and flicking her straw-blonde hair. David and Tricia are the pretend-gangster king and queen of Rayners High, worshipped by their adoring, pretend-gangster followers. I carried on walking and tried to distract myself. What would someone with a name like Cherokee Brown look like, I wondered. She would probably have long dark hair in braids and wear –

‘I’m talking to you,’ David called out. A load of laughter rang out like machine-gun fire; there were obviously quite a lot of them today. I quickened my pace, still not turning round. Cherokee would wear beads and boots and be really good at horse riding. I felt something hit my back and heard more machine-gun laughter. In my mind I saw Cherokee Brown pull an arrow from a leather sheath on her belt and spin round to face them, her eyes glinting with rage. I took off my blazer. The shattered remains of an egg were sliding down the black nylon, slimy and glistening in the sun.

‘Ew, something round here stinks,’ I heard Tricia say from right behind me. ‘Like blocked drains. Or rotten eggs.’

More laughter; this time it was so high-pitched it seemed to drill right into my brain. The sunshine felt like it was getting brighter too, but no matter how hard I blinked I couldn’t stop my eyes from burning.

Someone shoved into me as they all jostled past.

‘Stupid cripple.’

‘Watch out, she might come after you.’

‘Nah, she ain’t got a leg to stand on.’

This last line got the most laughs, even though it’s complete crap. They just can’t seem to get over the fact that one of my legs happens to be a few centimetres shorter than the other. I walk with a limp; big deal. But the thing is, in our school you only need to have one freckle out of place and it’s enough to have you labelled a freak. When Helen was here it was fine. We didn’t really have many other friends but we didn’t need them. No one seemed to notice my limp back then; it was as if our friendship was like some kind of cloak of invisibility. But now it feels as if I walk around with a big spotlight on me all the time, under a banner saying CRIPPLE.

David and Tricia and the others walked off, still laughing. I stuffed my blazer into my bag. I’d clean it when I got into school. I looked down the road to where Rayners High loomed like a concrete monster, waiting to swallow me whole. And I thought of yet another crappy day spent drifting round the edges of the corridors, trying to make myself invisible. Don’t let them beat you, I told myself for about the millionth time. Anne Frank wouldn’t let them beat her. She didn’t even let the Nazis beat her. Not where it counted, in her head. I took a deep breath, pulled myself up straight so my limp wouldn’t be so noticeable, and carried on down the road.

After washing my blazer in the sink in the disabled loo – I didn’t want to run the risk of bumping into Tricia in the normal toilets – I headed straight for my form room. The bell for registration hadn’t gone yet but I like being the first one there; it makes me feel better prepared. When I got to the classroom I peered through the small pane of glass in the centre of the door. Miss Davis was sat behind her desk with her eyes closed and her chubby hands clasped in front of her. White iPod wires snaked down from her ears, over her huge chest and into her lap. I opened the door and stepped inside. As usual the classroom was baking hot and stank of stale sweat and Miss Davis’s floral perfume.

‘I am strong.’

I stopped dead and stared at Miss Davis in shock.

‘I am strong,’ Miss Davis murmured again, her eyes still closed. ‘I am strong as a mighty oak rooted in the ground.’

I stood, frozen in horror. She was obviously repeating something she was listening to on her iPod; something she thought she was listening to in private. I started tiptoeing backwards towards the door but just as I reached it the bell for registration rang, making us both jump. As soon as she saw me standing there Miss Davis ripped her iPod from her ears and flushed bright red.

‘I was just – it was – it’s registration,’ I stammered.

‘How long have you been here?’ Miss Davis asked, her voice all squeaky with embarrassment.

‘Oh, I just got here, just this second. Literally.’ I felt my own face begin to burn and looked down at the floor.

‘OK, well don’t just stand there, go and sit down.’

I hurried over to my desk and took my copy of Anne Frank’s diary from my bag. I had tucked the birthday card to Cherokee Brown inside it before leaving for school. I opened the book and started re-reading the card. I carried on reading it as my classmates began drifting through the door in giggling, chatting groups. For once I didn’t mind that no one wanted to talk and joke with me. I had more important things to think about.

‘OK, quieten down everyone,’ Miss Davis called out above the noise.

As usual, everyone carried on messing about.

‘Please!’ Miss Davis cried. ‘I need some quiet so I can take the register.’

I peered at her over the top of my book and watched as she took hold of the elastic band she always wears around her wrist and pinged it hard against her pale skin.

‘This is your final warning,’ Miss Davis yelled. ‘If you don’t quieten down I’ll have to –’

The whole class, including Miss Davis, fell silent as the door crashed open and Tricia and her best friend Clara sauntered in.

‘So I told him he couldn’t give me a love bite until he had a shave,’ Tricia said to Clara.

Jeremy and Gavin, two computer geeks who sit at the desk in front of me, started to giggle.

‘Got a problem, virginoids?’ Tricia snapped at them.

They immediately went quiet.

As Tricia walked past me, reeking of cigarette smoke, spearmint chewing gum and hairspray, every muscle in my body tensed.

‘OK, class, can we please take the register?’ Miss Davis called.

‘Are you going down the bus station tonight?’ Tricia said to Clara as they sat down at the desk behind me.

‘John Avery,’ Miss Davis called.

‘Here, Miss.’

‘Helen Buckland.’

‘Tony said he’s gonna bring some bubblegum-flavoured vodka,’ Tricia continued.

‘Cool!’ Clara replied.

‘Tricia Donaldson,’ Miss Davis said, looking up from her register.

‘And after that we’re gonna go round Alfie’s Uncle Gary’s house,’ Tricia went on, totally ignoring Miss Davis. ‘He’s just got out of prison and Alfie’s auntie’s throwing him a welcome-home party. She’s even had a new tattoo done for him on her boob. It says “Gaz’s Forever”. It’s well romantic.’

‘Tricia!’ Miss Davis shouted.

‘What?’

‘I’ve been calling your name.’

‘So?’

‘For the register.’

‘So?’

‘So, can you answer me please?’ Miss Davis gave her elastic band another ping and the skin on her wrist flushed red. ‘Tony Dunmore.’

‘Why?’ Tricia asked.

Miss Davis sighed and looked back at her. ‘Why what?’

‘Why do I have to answer you?’

Miss Davis’s face turned as red as her wrist. ‘So that I know you are here. Jenny Edwards?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ Jenny answered, but she, like everyone else in the class apart from me, was looking right at Tricia.

‘So, are you blind as well as fat then, Miss?’ Tricia asked.

Jeremy started laughing again and I wanted to lean over my desk and shake him.

‘James Evans,’ Miss Davis said, looking back at the register. I could see beads of sweat erupting on her face like dewdrops on a tomato. I looked down at the picture of Anne Frank on the cover of my book and wondered what she would have done if she’d been trapped inside this classroom instead of the annexe.

‘I said, are you blind as well as fat, Miss?’ Tricia said.

Miss Davis continued taking the register.

‘Ha, she’s obviously deaf an’ all,’ Tricia snorted.

‘Wow!’ The word burst from my mouth before my brain had time to censor it.

I smelt Tricia leaning in right behind me. ‘What did you just say, cripple?’

I carried on looking at Anne Frank. If she could deal with the Nazis then surely I could deal with Tricia. ‘I said, wow!’

‘What did you say that for?’

I took a deep breath and turned round. In my head I could almost hear Anne Frank yelling, Go on! ‘Because you managed to say a word with four whole syllables.’ Inside my ribcage my heart started freaking.

‘Theresa Smith,’ Miss Davis called in a ridiculously fake cheery voice, as if her class was one big, happy family and she was the greatest teacher ever.

‘What?’ Tricia growled at me. She was so close I could see the clumps of blue mascara at the ends of her eyelashes.

‘You said obviously. Ob – vi – ous – ly. Four syllables. Well done.’ I clenched my hands into tight fists.

‘No talking please, Claire,’ Miss Davis said sharply.

‘What?’ I turned back and stared at her in disbelief. Why was she telling me to be quiet and not Tricia?

‘No talking,’ she repeated.

‘Yeah, shut your mouth, cripple,’ Tricia said, loud enough for the whole class to hear.

Miss Davis looked back down at the register. ‘Claire Weeks.’

I stared at her.

‘Claire Weeks,’ she said again, but she wouldn’t look at me.

‘Here, Miss,’ I eventually replied. But in my head I was yelling, I’m not Claire Weeks, I’m Cherokee Brown, you pathetic coward.

NOTEBOOK EXTRACT

Agatha Dashwood says that ‘if one is to become a proper writer one must write at every available opportunity’. So I’ve decided to take her advice and do some writing on the train on the way up to Spitalfields. Well, hopefully I’m on the way up to Spitalfields. I’ve never been there before so I’m not exactly sure which station it’s nearest to, so I’m heading east and hoping for the best!! And at least I’m not in school. I couldn’t stay there a minute longer after what happened in registration.

It’s so weird to think that I used to love going to school, that I used to be one of those geeky kids who always got their homework done on time and actually enjoyed learning new stuff. I’ll never forget the day I discovered there were minus numbers – I was so excited there was something that came before zero! And the English lesson when I read Anne Frank’s diary for the first time and realised that books aren’t just there to entertain you, they can actually change your whole way of thinking about the world.

Now when the teachers are telling us stuff all I hear is a drone. Kind of like when a radio hasn’t been tuned in properly and you only catch the odd word here and there. The only people I hear loud and clear these days are Tricia and her idiot friends. I hate being scared of them (I’m not going to put this bit in my book – no one likes a heroine who’s a big old wuss), but it’s just that there are loads of them and only one of me. And I’m so short and skinny too. I’m not short and skinny in my daydreams though. In my daydreams I’m a ninja with all the moves. And when Tricia leans forwards and says something like, ‘How does it feel knowing you’re gonna be a virgin your whole life cos no one wants to sleep with a cripple?’ I do a backflip off my chair, land on top of her desk and kick her so hard in the face her head comes flying off.

Don’t think I’ll put that bit in my book either – I’ll sound like a psycho!

Oh no, some freak has just got on the train and sat down opposite me and started talking out loud. I hope he isn’t a terrorist bomber. He isn’t carrying a rucksack, just a tatty old carrier bag. How big are bombs? Can they fit inside a carrier bag? I saw a programme on Channel 4 once about terrorists in the Middle East and one of them blew up a bus with a suicide bomb clipped to his belt.

This person isn’t wearing a belt. I just checked and he saw me looking and now it looks as if I was perving at him. Oh, God – how embarrassing. I’m just going to write in this notebook from now on and not look in his direction at all. Well, maybe I’ll take a few sneaky glances, just to make sure he isn’t trying to set off his bomb.

I suppose I ought to write a description of him, just in case he does turn out to be a terrorist and I need to give evidence. I saw an episode of Crimewatch once where this policeman said that in ninety-nine per cent of crimes, witnesses can’t even remember the colour of a criminal’s hair. Well, I guess the one per cent who do remember must be writers. Agatha Dashwood says that writers have specially heightened observational skills. They have to, to make their stories ‘truly come alive’.

NOTES FOR POLICE INVESTIGATION

The potential suspect has greasy, dark brown hair. I’m not sure if it’s the grease making it so dark, so it could be a lighter shade of brown when he washes it. He looks pretty old. About thirty, I’d say. And he has a big belly, about the size of one of those green watermelons that are red on the inside, with loads of pips that you end up having to spit out all over your plate. The rest of him isn’t fat though, so it kind of looks like he’s pregnant. But obviously he isn’t pregnant cos he’s definitely a man. Unless he’s like one of those women on Jerry Springer who are ‘tragically trapped in the wrong body’. I don’t think he is though – he has too much stubble.

Oh, crap! He saw me looking at him again.

He has mad, staring eyes. And he likes to mutter a lot. I can’t understand what he’s saying though.

Oh no, he’s reaching into his bag. Should I pull the emergency cord? Do they even have emergency cords on the tube? It’s too late, he’s taking something out. What if it’s a gun, not a bomb? What if he shoots me?

False alarm. It’s a book. It’s called One Hundred Ways to Ice a Cake. He isn’t a crazed terrorist at all – he’s a crazed cake-maker!

He’s stopped muttering now and he’s started to read.

I can’t believe there are actually one hundred different ways to ice a cake.

I would have done something though – if he had pulled out a gun or a bomb. I wouldn’t have just sat here. Because I want to write a book. And I don’t want to have to make anything up to make my book exciting. I was thinking about it on the way to the station. The reason I love Anne Frank’s diary and the Little House on the Prairie so much is because they’re true stories. All the cool things the heroines did actually happened in real life. And that’s how I want my book to be. I’ll still use Agatha Dashwood’s book to help me, but I’m going to stick to the facts. And that way I’ll have to make my life interesting. And I’ll have to become the kind of heroine I like to read about. The kind of person who notices the hair colour of a potential criminal and stands up to bullies and isn’t afraid to fight back.

Chapter Three

‘For your main character your story has to be a journey. This journey can be physical, but it must always, without fail, be emotional. If your character hasn’t grown, learnt and changed by the end of your novel then I am afraid they are destined for the waste-paper bin.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

The minute registration ended I picked up my book and my bag and I started walking. I didn’t stop walking until I was on the London-bound platform at Rayners Lane station. I got the train to the very end of the line to a station called Aldgate. I’d never been there before but I knew it was in the East End and I hoped there’d be a map or a signpost for Spitalfields outside the station.

But there were no maps or signposts at all, just loads of cars and buses and taxies all whizzing by at about a million miles an hour. I stood on the pavement in front of the station trying to decide what to do next, and trying not to get trampled on by a herd of commuters with serious anger-management issues. It’s funny because for the past few months I’ve spent hours in lessons dreaming of the day I can leave school and go to work, but judging by the faces of the people who stormed past me today I don’t think work can be all that great either.

In the end I decided to go left. Because I’m left-handed. I know that sounds really dumb, and I bet an intrepid explorer like Christopher Columbus would never have done something so stupid. Or maybe he did, and maybe America would still be undiscovered if he’d been right-handed . . . but at least Christopher Columbus would have had charts and a compass to help him. I had nothing. So I turned left, and I walked and walked.

I reached a massive crossroads and waited for the green man to appear. Normally I just cross the road if I see a gap in the traffic, but in this part of London cars and bikes seemed to burst out of nowhere like rockets. The cyclists looked like something out of a horror movie, pedalling furiously and wearing those masks that surgeons wear when they’re about to cut somebody open. I clutched my school bag to me, leant against a lamp post and waited. My back was starting to ache from all the walking. I’m supposed to wear specially made shoes to even out the length of my legs, but they look even worse than the limp. The trouble is, when I wear normal shoes it puts loads of pressure on my spine. I think this is what is known as a lose–lose situation.

Once I’d managed to get across the road I saw a sign that told me I was now in Whitechapel. You know, the crappy brown square on the Monopoly board that only costs about 20p in rent even if you have ten hotels on it. Well, dear reader, I now know why it’s so cheap. It smells like a boiled toilet and there’s a horrible film of dirt covering everything, like cigarette ash. I would’ve stopped someone to ask for directions if I hadn’t been so worried about stranger danger. Not that I normally worry about that sort of thing, but the people I was passing looked stranger and more dangerous than anyone I’ve ever seen before. For example, there was a woman with long greasy hair and smeary make-up pushing a supermarket trolley with just an old rusty kettle in it. And a man with two carrier bags tied to his feet, hobbling along, shouting about God. And another man who was drinking beer and singing a Bob Marley song in the doorway of an ‘adult entertainment centre’ – which we all know is just another name for a sex shop. I wonder what goes on in a sex shop. Do people just walk in off the street and say, ‘I’d like to buy some sex, please.’?

I decided that I’d take the next left turn and if it looked just as bad I’d start making my way back to the station. But the next left turn was like finding a black hole in outer space and slipping into another dimension. Or in this case, slipping into India. As I started walking up the road I realised that nearly every shop was an Indian restaurant, and if it wasn’t an Indian restaurant it was an Indian supermarket, or a sari shop, or an Indian sweet shop with trays of rainbow-coloured sweets filling the windows. I got to a small crossroads and looked for a clue to where I was. Somebody had spray-painted PLEASE DON’T BOMB US on the wall and beneath that was a black and white street sign. It said BRICK LANE. I felt a little flutter in my stomach. Brick Lane was near Spitalfields Market. I’d seen a programme once on The History Channel about twentieth-century London migrants (I’d pretended to Alan it was for a history project to get out of going on a family badminton night) and the presenter had talked about Brick Lane being right next door to Spitalfields.

I started walking a bit faster. Up ahead of me two ladies in black burkhas bustled their little children over a tiny zebra crossing. They reminded me of mother penguins. The road was narrower now and cobbled, the complete opposite of Whitechapel High Street. As I walked I peered down each side road looking for any sign of Spitalfields. The names of the roads were really cool – Threadneedle Street, Fashion Street – there wasn’t a Magnolia Crescent in sight. And then, as I peered down a side road called Fournier Street, I saw a sign with an arrow saying SPITALFIELDS MARKET. I stopped, as still as a statue. Ever since I’d got on the tube I’d been worried I’d never find Spitalfields, but now I had found it I felt a bit sick. I fumbled around in my bag for my mobile to check the time. Nearly half past eleven. I pulled out the birthday card and opened it again, my fingers trembling.

You can find me most lunchtimes performing in Spitalfields Market. By the record stalls. If you want to find me . . .

I took a deep breath. It wasn’t lunchtime yet. I still had time to get to the market and decide what I was going to do. I started walking down Fournier Street. I wondered what my dad looked like. Back when I thought he was all American with commitment issues I pictured him being big and broad and wearing a cowboy hat and boots. And possibly a medallion. But now I knew he had wanted to call his daughter – wanted to call me – Cherokee, I wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe he was a Native American and Steve Brown was just his English name. Maybe he was really called Growling Bear or Big Stream Running Water. I wondered what he did when he ‘performed’. I thought of the men with the long dark plaits who played the pan pipes in Harrow every Saturday. Is that what Steve – my dad – would be doing in Spitalfields? I felt my cheeks start to flush. What would I say to him? How should I act?

‘And this is where Jack the Ripper’s first victim used to lodge . . .’

I glanced across the street and saw a group of people gathered in front of a really old house, gazing up at its grimy windows. A man with a clipboard was standing on the steps of the house, giving them some kind of talk. I started walking a little faster. Images of a madman massacring prostitutes were not really what I needed to calm my nerves. At the end of the street a thin white church pointed up into the clear blue sky like a witch’s finger. I drew level with it and stopped and stared. There, straight ahead of me on the other side of a busy main road, was a wrought iron gate and a sign that said WELCOME TO OLD SPITALFIELDS MARKET.

Chapter Four

‘When in doubt, place your character in an unusual setting. Then see your writing come alive!’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

For the first time ever I entered a church without being forced there in a nasty dress for somebody’s christening or wedding. That’s how scary the prospect of seeing my real dad was. I sat down on a shiny wooden pew about halfway along the church and took a deep breath. The air was cool and clean and smelt slightly of Christmas. I looked up at the huge wooden cross suspended over the altar and suddenly felt as if I was in a corny movie and this was the part where the heroine prays to God for guidance. Feeling slightly desperate, I whispered, ‘What should I do?’ and looked at the mosaic of coloured light streaming on to the cross through the stained-glass window. But nothing happened. There was no booming God-voice uttering words of wisdom. Not even a thunderbolt. Nothing but the hum of the traffic outside.

I sat there for ages in the end, with all kinds of images flashing through my mind. Rayners High, my mum and Alan, the twins, Magnolia Crescent. They all seemed so far away now. It was like I’d been whisked out of my old life into somebody else’s. Somebody called Cherokee. It was when I had that thought that I finally plucked up the courage to go. Claire Weeks might have stayed hiding in a church all day, but not Cherokee Brown.

Outside, the sunlight was brighter than ever. I squinted as I made my way to the nearest crossing and waited as a stream of buses, cars, bikes and lorries thundered by. Across the road, on either side of the wrought iron gate, was a row of quaint little shops, totally different to the kind on Brick Lane. These were much posher. The clothes shops had dummies reclining on sofas and eating golden grapes and the restaurants were advertising things that sounded more like medical conditions than food.

Finally the lights changed and I crossed over, trying to ignore my bass drum of a heart. I walked through the gates into the market and down a passageway that was lined with other little shops – one selling antique furniture and another selling twenty-seven different varieties of cheese.

The first thing I noticed about the market wasn’t the stalls, it was the people. I’d never seen so many interesting haircuts and amazing clothes. It was even better than the Southbank. I looked down at my school uniform. I’d already taken off my tie and blazer and stuffed them into my bag, but my blue polo shirt and black nylon trousers were hardly what you would call interesting or amazing. In a dreary place like Rayners High, they fit right in, but up in Spitalfields, they looked naff and dull. As I stood there wondering what to do, a girl stopped right in front of me and started texting on her phone. She looked so incredible I couldn’t even pretend not to stare. Her hair, which was dyed the colour of vanilla ice-cream, was shaved on one side and hung down like a curtain on the other. On the shaved side her ear had a row of tiny silver hoops running all the way along the edge. She was wearing a flowery sundress and big biker boots and her smooth, tanned skin was as golden as honey. As she texted, a cluster of silver bangles and charm bracelets jingled on her arm. She looked so cool and confident. So different to me.

My heart sank. All this time I’d been worrying about what to expect from my dad, I’d completely forgotten to think about what he might be expecting from me. He’d addressed the birthday card to Cherokee Brown. He didn’t know I’d actually ended up as Claire Weeks. Someone who had no friends and who couldn’t even walk properly. I was about to turn round and head straight back out when I heard a cheer ring out from the other side of the market. Then there was the strum of a guitar and a man started singing. His voice was deep and gravelly and he was singing the stompy old rock song, ‘London Calling’.

The girl with the ice-cream hair finished her text and moved off to look at some jewellery on a nearby stall.

I felt sick and scared and excited all at once. Was that my dad I could hear singing? Was that my dad everyone was cheering and clapping along with?

‘London calling,’ his voice rang out again. If it was my dad he was really good. His voice had a huskiness that made it stand out from other singers. It was gentle and rough all at once.

With my whole body buzzing like I’d downed ten of those doll-sized-but-deadly espresso coffees, I followed the girl and started looking at the trays of rings and pendants and brooches on the jewellery stall. Looking at them but not really seeing a thing.

What should I do? Maybe if I edged just a bit closer to the music . . .

I started weaving my way through the crowds of people between the stalls, stopping every now and then to pretend to have a browse of some clothes or books or – OMG! – stuffed animal heads, and gather my thoughts. The singing got louder and louder and finally I caught sight of a crowd gathered at the far end of the market. My first feeling was of relief. There were so many people there was no way whoever was singing would be able to see me. But then I wouldn’t be able to see him either. I flicked through a box of records on a nearby stall while I stared over at the crowd. What if it wasn’t even my dad? How would I get to find out? I swallowed hard and walked over to join the back of the crowd. Everyone was tapping their feet or nodding their heads in time to the song. When it finished they all started whooping and cheering.

‘Cheers. Thanks a lot,’ said the singer, slightly breathless.

My heart sank. His accent was from London. East London. He didn’t sound American at all. Or Native American. It had to be another performer. He had said in the card that he was at Spitalfields ‘most’ lunchtimes. Obviously this wasn’t one of them. I noticed some long tables over to my right and went and sat down at the end of one. I’d come all this way for nothing. Bunked off school, somehow made my way through Whitechapel without getting mugged or abducted or sold to a sex shop, and all for nothing.

‘Oi, Steve, do “Thunder Road”.’

I looked up as one of the record stallholders closest to me yelled over the crowd.

‘What’s that, Tel? “Thunder Road”?’ the singer replied over his microphone.

‘Yeah,’ the stallholder yelled back. ‘I could do with a bit of Springsteen.’

But I wasn’t listening to what he was saying any more. He’d called the singer Steve. How many Steves could there be performing in Spitalfields at lunchtime? A shaft of sunlight spilled through the glass roof of the market and fell hot on my face. From the centre of the crowd I heard the sound of a harmonica and then that husky voice again. This time he was singing a lot more softly, and strumming gently on an acoustic guitar. The whole crowd fell silent and stood motionless as they listened. It was a beautiful song all about a man trying to persuade a woman called Mary to come for a drive with him to this place called Thunder Road. He wanted her to just climb into the car and see where they ended up. It reminded me of the first time I bunked off school and ended up at the Southbank. On the day Tricia had changed the words to a Britney Spears song to be all about me and my limp, and Miss Davis had laughed along with the rest of the class. Just like today, I’d been so desperate to get out of school I’d walked out of the nearest fire exit and gone straight to the tube, not caring where I ended up, just as long as it was miles away from Rayners High.

I stood up, as if I was in a trance; as if the beautiful words of the song were drawing me forwards like a spell. I started edging through the crowd, past the men in their tight jeans and pointy boots and the girls in their summer dresses and flip-flops.

‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ I muttered as I went.

And then there was just one row of people in front of me. I stopped behind a couple of women wearing business suits and trainers and I tried to swallow but my mouth was too dry. Through a gap between the women I could just make out a pair of tanned hands playing a guitar. The singer was wearing a faded black T-shirt and torn jeans but I still couldn’t see his face. All I had to do was move slightly to my left and stand on tiptoe, but I was scared he would see me. Even though he didn’t know me and wouldn’t recognise me I was worried I’d do something to give myself away. My heart was thumping and the palms of my hands were sticky with sweat.

A massive cheer rang out as the man in the song begged Mary again to come with him so they could escape from their town full of losers and go somewhere they’d be able to win. I thought of Rayners High and Magnolia Crescent and my eyes went glassy with tears. Then suddenly the women in front of me turned to leave and one of them swung her huge shoulder bag right into me, catching me in the face. I stumbled sideways and on to the ground.

‘Are you all right, darlin’?’ I heard the singer ask over the mic as I scrambled to my feet.

I had to get out of there. I didn’t want him seeing me like this, like everyone else always saw me: clumsy and awkward and embarrassed. I grabbed my bag from the floor but then, just for a split second, I looked in his direction.

He was staring straight at me, holding his microphone in one hand and his guitar in the other. He was short and thin and had shoulder-length dark brown hair, held back by a red and white bandana. His face was tanned and his eyes dark brown. He looked like a rock star from the eighties. The kind who would have gone out with one of the original supermodels and thrown televisions and toasters and stuff from hotel room windows. And had the vanilla-ice-cream-haired girl for a daughter, instead of me. The tears that had been building in my eyes spilled on to my cheeks. I turned round and started pushing my way back through the crowd. It had all been a massive mistake. I should’ve stayed in school. I should’ve realised it would never work out. My life isn’t worthy of being a stupid novel – not unless they bring out a new genre called Disaster Lit. Nothing ever goes the way I want it to.

I finally made it through the crowd to the edge of the market. I took a deep breath and started marching towards the gate. I didn’t care that this made my limp look even worse – I had to get out of there. I had to get back to my boring, crappy life in Rayners Lane and forget any of this had ever happened.

But then there was a loud squeal of feedback over the speakers. I stood still for a second.

‘Cherokee!’ His voice rang out over the microphone, full of concern. ‘Cherokee, come back.’

Chapter Five

‘One of the crassest mistakes a new novelist can make is to waste acres of paper telling their reader all about their characters and their motivations. You must SHOW us this information, dear writer, through the character’s actions, rather than tediously tell.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

‘How did you know it was me?’

Steve – Dad – Steve looked at me. Then down at his pint. Then all around the beer garden.

After he’d called to me on the microphone I’d stood rooted to the spot. Then I’d heard footsteps running up behind me and felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned round and there he was. ‘Cherokee?’ he’d said, as if he was asking a question. I just nodded and stared. What happened next was all a bit of a blur. I followed him back to where he’d been performing, watched him pack up his things and apologise to everybody for finishing so soon. And then we’d come here. To a pub called the Water Poet at the back of the market.

‘Well, there’s the fact that you’re the spit of me,’ he finally replied, looking back at me with a nervous grin.

‘The what?’

‘The spit. You look just like me.’

‘Do I?’ I tried to study him without looking obvious. When he smiled crescents of small lines formed around his dark brown eyes like fans.

‘Yeah, course you do. And then there was the stake-out.’

‘The what?’

‘The stake-out. At your house. Last week.’

‘You staked out my house?’ I took a sip of my lemonade to try and stop myself from giggling. Nerves were bubbling up inside of me like gas.

He shook his head and sighed. ‘Yeah, man. They wouldn’t tell me where you lived so I had to follow your mum home. And then I waited outside, till I saw you.’ He took a cigarette paper from the packet on the table in front of him and a pinch of tobacco from a plastic pouch.

‘Are you serious?’ I was so shocked at what he was telling me that for a second I forgot to be nervous.

He placed the tobacco on the paper and began rolling it with his finger and thumb. ‘’Fraid so.’ He licked the edge of the paper. ‘I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. I wanted to see you.’ He looked away, obviously embarrassed.

I replayed what he’d just said in my mind. ‘Who wouldn’t tell you where I lived?’

‘Your nan and granddad.’

I looked at him blankly. He was staring at some fat men on the next table who were stuffing their sweaty faces with burgers.

‘Cheryl and Paul. Your mum’s folks. I went round to their house. Wasn’t even sure they’d still be living there to be honest but I thought I’d give it a go. I was made up when Cheryl answered the door. But as soon as she realised who I was she went all moody and told me to do one.’ He lit his roll-up and a wisp of smoke ribboned around his face. ‘So I left, but only as far as the end of their road. Then I waited for Fi – your mum – to turn up.’

‘But how did you know she would turn up?’

‘I didn’t. And she didn’t.’ He sighed and more smoke streamed from his mouth. ‘Not for days.’

‘Days?’

He nodded. ‘Yep. Well, nearly two days, stuck in deepest darkest Surrey with only my guitar for company. Good job I’ve got a camper van, eh?’

‘You waited for two days outside my grandparents’ house just to see if my mum would turn up?’

He nodded again. ‘Yep. Nearly didn’t recognise her at first, she looked so – well, anyway, once I’d worked out it was her I waited for her to leave and then I followed her back home. To your place.’

‘Oh my God.’

He frowned. ‘Sorry, I know it sounds a bit radio rental.’

‘A bit what?’

‘Radio rental – mental. It was just that I really wanted to see you and I didn’t want any more arguments. There’s been too much bad karma as it is. I thought tailing her would be the best option. The quietest option.’

I nodded, but not really understanding at all. ‘So when did you – ?’

‘When did I what?’

‘See me.’

‘Oh. Last Monday morning. On your way to school.’

My heart sank. ‘On my way to school?’

‘Yeah.’ He frowned and looked away.

‘Did you follow me?’

‘What?’

‘To school. Did you follow me to school?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah, course not. I just wanted to see you and then I thought I’d send you the card. See if you wanted to see me too.’ He began to smile. ‘I was made up when I saw you there in the market, on the floor.’

My face burned as the whole tragic falling-over scene very kindly replayed itself in slow motion in my mind.

‘I wasn’t made up that you was on the floor,’ he added quickly. ‘I was made up you’d come. I’d been crappin’ it all morning, wondering whether you’d show.’

I glanced across the table at this person, this stranger, who I was technically biologically half of. He looked down at his hands and began fiddling with a silver skull ring on one of his thin brown fingers.

‘I mean, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you never wanted to see me at all. I ain’t exactly been Dad of the Year, have I?’

‘No.’ My reply popped out before I could stop it. There were so many things I wanted to ask him but I felt way too shy.

‘I’ve always thought about you though,’ he went on, still looking down. ‘Always wondered what you were doing and what you were like.’

My face started to burn again. I wondered how different I was to what he had been expecting. ‘So why didn’t you . . .?’ I couldn’t finish the question.

He looked straight at me. ‘I was an idiot – when I was younger. I suppose your mum’s told you all about it?’

I didn’t say anything; I wanted to hear his version of things.

‘I suppose I just wasn’t ready,’ he shrugged slightly and tilted his head, ‘for the responsibility – of a family and that.’

Whenever my mum goes on one of her rants about my real dad and his commitment issues I always end up feeling angry and hurt, but now he was sat in front of me saying it to me himself I felt weirdly numb.

He took a drag on his cigarette. ‘I was a twat. My band had the chance to tour America – to take part in this music festival in Austin and –’ he took another drag, ‘your mum told me if I went that would be it for me and her. And us.’ He stopped again and shifted sideways on his seat. ‘Bloody hell, this is hard. When I practised last night on Harrison it came out all right, I sounded like Winston Churchill going on about fighting on the beaches, but now –’

‘Harrison?’ My heart sank. He had a son, another family. One he wanted to live with.

He nodded. ‘Yeah, my lodger. He’s not much older than you actually. Eighteen. He thinks I’m a twat too, for leaving you.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Do you have any kids? Any other kids?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. That’s why –’ he broke off, looked around, then back at me and I saw that his eyes were all shiny. ‘That’s why I want to get to know you. I mean, I know it’s too late for me to be your dad and all that.’ He picked up his lighter and began flicking it on and off. ‘I saw your stepdad during my – er – stake-out. He looks . . . nice.’ He put the lighter back down and stared at me. ‘He is, isn’t he? Nice? I mean, you like him, yeah? He treats you all right?’

I nodded numbly. Alan is the king of nice – that’s the problem, he uses his ‘niceness’ to get everything his own way the whole time.

‘Cool. Cos when I got back from America your mum told me she’d met him and that you were all settled and happy. She said it would only confuse things if . . .’

‘If what?’

‘If I tried to be a part of your life.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and looked away.

‘Oh.’

I started doing some calculations in my head. My mum had met Alan when I was one. She had last told me my real dad was in America last Christmas when I’d got all emotional after watching It’s a Wonderful Life and The Champ back to back. But if Steve had spoken to her since then why had he needed to stake out Gran and Granddad’s to find out where I lived?

‘When was that?’ I asked, for some reason suddenly finding it really hard to swallow.

‘When was what?’

‘The conversation you had with my mum. When did you get back from America?’

‘Oh – about thirteen years ago. Yeah, you would’ve been about two.’

‘Thirteen years?’ I whispered.

He nodded, obviously embarrassed. ‘I know. I’m sorry. She was right though. I probably would’ve been a crap dad.’

Yes, I wanted to yell at him, but couldn’t I have been allowed to decide that for myself ? I sat on my hands and stared down into my lap. For all this time Mum had been lying to me. All these years I’d been imagining my dad in his Stetson and medallion, having commitment issues along with his pancakes and syrup and he’d been – well, where had he been?

‘So where have you lived since you got back from America?’ I muttered, not daring to look up.

He coughed and I heard the clunk of his glass being put down on the table.

‘Here, mainly.’

‘Here, as in the UK?’

‘Here, as in east London.’

My world began to shrink in on itself. I’d been thinking there was an entire ocean between us and it had been a tiny little underground line.

‘But you could have –’ I broke off, suddenly remembering that really he was a total stranger and I probably shouldn’t shout at him.

‘I’m sorry.’ He coughed and shifted in his seat again.

We sat in silence for a while. Only it wasn’t silence for me because the voice in my head now seemed to have acquired a loudhailer. HOW COULD SHE HAVE LIED TO ME ALL THIS TIME? WHY DID SHE TELL HIM WE WERE BETTER OFF WITHOUT HIM? HOW COULD SHE THINK I WAS BETTER OFF WITH ALAN WHEN ALAN ISN’T MY REAL DAD? WHY DIDN’T I HAVE ANY SAY IN IT?

On the other side of the beer garden a girl started laughing. Her hair was short and spiky and dyed jet black with electric-blue tips. She looked so happy and relaxed – despite the metal bolt through her nose and her unbelievably tight leather trousers. I wanted to scream at my mum till I had no voice left.

‘Happy birthday, Cherokee,’ Steve said gruffly. I looked at him and he smiled and a dimple popped up in his right cheek. I smiled back, knowing that an identical dimple would have popped up in exactly the same place on my own face. I felt a weird tug inside of me, like there was some kind of invisible cord linking us.

‘So, what do you want?’ he asked.

‘Oh, er –’ I picked up my glass of lemonade. It was still half full. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got loads left thanks.’

He shook his head and laughed. ‘Nah, I don’t mean to drink. I mean for your birthday. What do you want for your birthday?’

‘Oh!’ In all the drama I’d completely forgotten what day it was. I gave an embarrassed laugh and some lemonade sloshed over the top of my glass. Across the beer garden the girl with the nose-bolt leant back on her seat and ran her hand through her electric-blue hair.

‘A haircut.’ Oh, God! Where had that come from? Now he was going to think I was crazy for sure.

‘A haircut?’ Steve looked at my stupid stringy hair and frowned.

‘Yes, but not just any old haircut . . .’ I stopped mid-sentence, mortified. It was like some idiot game-show host had seized control of my mouth!

‘Oh yeah?’ Steve’s dimple sprang into life again as he grinned across the table at me.

I nodded, figuring I had nothing left to lose. ‘I want a cool haircut. Like hers.’ I pointed to the girl with the blue hair who just at that moment let out a loud belch.

Steve started to laugh and I wanted to crawl under the table and dig myself deep into the dry ground. Now he’d be thinking I was some stupid wannabe kid. He probably wished he’d never sent me the card, that he’d been right to leave it for thirteen years. I may as well just tell him I wasn’t Cherokee Brown at all – that my name was Claire Weeks-as-in-weak and I had no friends and actually people preferred to call me names and throw eggs at me and –

‘Come on then.’ Steve got to his feet and picked up his guitar.

‘Where are we going?’ I felt sick. He’d had enough of me and wanted me to go. He was probably going to march me to the station and put me on the first train back home.

‘Your wish is my command, madam.’ He held out his hand to me, then stuffed it into his jeans pocket. ‘If a haircut’s what you want, then a haircut’s what you’re gonna get.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. But don’t worry – I ain’t gonna do it. Not unless you want a skinhead? I’m a dab hand with a set of clippers.’

‘No!’

He threw his head back and let out a raucous laugh. ‘I’m joking, man. Come on, I know just the place. And don’t worry, it’s so cool you’ll come out of there with frostbite.’

Chapter Six

‘The gifted writer won’t need pages and pages of description. Often they will be able to sum up what they need to say in just one word.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

I followed Steve out of the beer garden and along the side of the market back to the busy main road. As we waited for the traffic lights to change I saw two women on the other side of the road staring at him. I recognised the look they were giving him immediately – it was the kind Helen and I used to give the hot skater boys at the Southbank when we were checking them out. I glanced at Steve out of the corner of my eye. He was standing chewing gum, his head gently rocking to some silent beat, a small smile playing on his lips. His guitar case was hitched over one shoulder and both of his hands were stuffed into his jeans pockets. I was so used to being seen in public with Alan and people shooting him mocking stares as he talked really loudly on his phone, it was totally weird to be with my real dad and have women checking him out. Weird, but kind of nice. I felt my must-text-Helen reflex start to twinge – she was not going to believe the birthday I was having.

‘Right then,’ Steve said as the lights changed and he guided me across the road and past the drooling women. ‘Let’s get that barnet sorted.’

As I walked along beside him, trying my hardest to disguise my limp, I felt all of the following in one go: excited, terrified, sick, giggly, angry, tearful and in a state of shock. Steve, on the other hand, seemed totally laid-back – as if being reunited with your long-lost daughter and taking her for a haircut within an hour of meeting her was the most normal thing in the world.

‘We’ll try the Truman Brewery,’ he said, leading me down a side street.

‘Brewery?’

He let out a laugh. ‘Don’t worry, it ain’t a brewery any more.’

I followed him into a large courtyard. To our left, clusters of people sat around wooden tables, drinking wine and eating pizza in the sun. To our right, a group of Japanese tourists were traipsing into some kind of art gallery, huge black cameras dangling from their necks. And straight ahead of us, grey-brick, factory-style buildings loomed high into the sky, dwarfing the row of food stalls beneath them. Across from the stalls a queue of people snaked out from an old graffiti-covered trailer. The graffiti spelled out the words dancing chopsticks and it shone like a metallic rainbow in the sun. It seemed to be some kind of crazy Chinese takeaway on wheels. The courtyard buzzed with the same kind of people I’d seen in Spitalfields. People with wedged, spiked and dyed hair and every clothing combination you could possibly imagine. Suits and Converse high-tops. Prom dresses and cowboy boots. Jeans and pork-pie hats. It was like an industrial estate had mated with an art college and we were standing slap bang in the middle of their freakish offspring. I instantly fell in love with it.

‘The hairdressers is round here, by the Chill Bar,’ Steve said. He stopped and looked at me. ‘You sure you still want to do this?’

I nodded. I felt as if I was sleepwalking my way through some crazy, psychedelic dream, and I definitely didn’t want to wake up yet.

‘And you’re OK hanging out with me for a bit longer?’ He suddenly looked really nervous.

I nodded again. ‘Yes. Definitely.’

His face broke into a grin. ‘Sweet! OK, follow me.’ He led me past one of those old-fashioned double-decker buses with the open back – only this one had been converted into an organic wine bar. I wondered how much randomness a human brain could take before it actually exploded! We turned right at the end of the courtyard and into a section of the brewery where the ground floor had been converted into shops. This time the clothes store mannequins were skeletons on skateboards, playing guitars, and the coffee shop was also a record label. The text to Helen I’d been composing in my head started filling with OMGs and WTFs.

‘Here we go.’ Steve came to a halt and I gazed up at the shop in front of us. It was called PUNKED and it took me a moment to realise it was actually a hairdressers, not a nightclub. If I had to choose just one word to describe it then that word would be black. From the sign above the door, to the door itself and the walls and the floor. Walking in was like entering a cool, dark cave.

‘Can I help you?’ A woman emerged from the darkness to greet us. She was wearing so much black she looked as if she’d been drawn in charcoal.

‘Yeah, man. We’d like a haircut please. She’d like a haircut,’ Steve said, gesturing to me.

As I felt my face start to burn I was kind of grateful for the surrounding gloom.

‘Cool,’ the woman replied. ‘Take a seat.’ She waved me over to one of the black leather chairs facing jagged-edged mirrors on the wall. Steve sat down on a black leather sofa by the door, propping his guitar case next to him.

‘Hello.’ A male hairdresser appeared from the back of the shop. Like the woman he was dressed from head to toe in skin-tight black leather. He was also wearing some kind of cowboy holster slung across his narrow hips – but instead of a gun it held a pair of scissors and lots of different combs. He held out his thin, pale hand to shake Steve’s. ‘I’m Wayne. Can I help you?’

Steve shook his head. ‘No thanks, man, I’m just here to watch,’ and he nodded over in my direction.

‘I’m Raven,’ the woman said to my reflection in the mirror.

‘I’m Cl– Cherokee,’ I replied, and the thermostat in my face cranked up a couple more notches.

‘Wow, what a cool name,’ Raven said, starting to play with my hair the way hairdressers always do at the start of an appointment. ‘How come you’re called that?’

I felt a surge of panic. I didn’t have a clue.

‘Cos her great-grandmother was a Cherokee Indian,’ Steve called over. ‘From the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.’

‘Wow!’ Raven replied and I thought in unison. ‘That’s so cool!’ Raven looked back at my hair. ‘So what kind of style are you after, Cherokee?’

I looked back at her in the mirror and it felt as if my heart was singing. I could practically see little crotchets and quavers floating up my throat and out of my mouth. I had a great-grandmother who was a Cherokee Indian. From an awesome-sounding place called the Great Smoky Mountains. In North Carolina.

Suddenly anything seemed possible.

‘Could you cut it so that one side is long and kind of hangs down over my face and the other side is really short?’

Raven went and got a magazine from a rack over by Steve. Then she flicked through it until she got to a picture of a model with exactly the same hairstyle as the vanilla-ice-cream-hair girl from the market.

‘Like that?’ she asked.

I nodded and smiled. ‘Yes, please.’

While Raven washed my hair, Wayne started talking to Steve about music and by the time she’d finished Steve had got his guitar out and was strumming it absently.

‘Do you know any Rolling Stones?’ Wayne asked.

Steve let out a snort of laughter. ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’

I felt another tug inside of me. Could making puns about the Pope be another thing we had in common, like our dimples? Maybe my Cherokee great-grandmother had made them too, while sitting around the totem pole beneath the Great Smoky Mountains. I pictured an Indian chief in full headdress sitting cross-legged next to a beautiful squaw and asking her, ‘Would you like a tote on this peace pipe, Cherokee’s great-grandma?’ And the beautiful woman smiling back at him before grabbing the pipe and saying, ‘Is the Pope a Catholic, Big Chief White Bear?’

The glint of Raven’s scissors snapped me from my daydream and I felt a sudden wave of panic.

‘Would it be OK if –’ I broke off.

‘If what?’ Raven asked.

‘If I turned round, so I’m not facing the mirror.’ I could barely look at her I felt so embarrassed.

Raven stared at me blankly for a moment, then her face broke into a smile. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she exclaimed. ‘So it’ll be like one of those makeover shows on the telly and you’ll only see the before and after. Cool!’

I nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. As long as she didn’t realise I was too much of a chicken to watch what she was doing, it didn’t matter what she thought.

Over on the sofa Steve started singing softly.

‘Oh, I love this one!’ Wayne exclaimed.

‘Me too,’ Raven said, swivelling my chair round so I was facing into the shop.

As she started snipping away at my hair I decided to try and lose myself in the song to stop myself from panicking, which wasn’t difficult as it was really beautiful. I didn’t want to embarrass myself by asking what it was called, but I figured out from the chorus that it must have been ‘Wild Horses’. As I watched Steve playing, the voice in my head went all serious and newsreader-ish. He is your dad. That man is your dad. Your name is Cherokee. Your great-grandmother was a Cherokee Indian. That is why you look nothing like the rest of your family. But you do look like your dad. And you probably look like your great-grandmother too. And that is your dad. That man playing the guitar and singing so amazingly. Oh my fricking God!

The song came to an end and Wayne burst into applause. I couldn’t help clapping too and even Raven stopped snipping for a few seconds to join in. Then I looked down at the floor by my chair. It was covered in dark hair. My dark hair – and judging from the amount, pretty much all of it. Holy crap! Mum’s face popped into my head, the two lines between her eyebrows that always remind me of a claw-print, deep with rage. What was she going to say when I got back home? But then I remembered all the lies she’d been telling me all these years. She’d have no right to be angry at me. Not after what she had done.

‘You got any requests, Cherokee?’ Steve asked, tightening the strings on his guitar.

‘Oh – er –’ I wondered if he knew any Screaming Death. Everything he’d played so far had been pretty old-school.

‘No, wait up, I know.’ Steve strummed a few chords and then began to sing. ‘Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you –’

‘Oh my God! Is it your birthday?’ Raven exclaimed.

I nodded, trying really hard to stop a stupid grin splitting my face in two.

‘Wow! That’s so cool!’ She and Wayne joined in the singing and I felt like my heart might burst with embarrassed joy.

Afterwards Steve and Wayne started talking about Stevie Wonder and Raven bent forwards so close I could smell her minty breath. ‘Your dad is so cool!’ she whispered.

‘But how –’ I was going to ask how she knew Steve was my dad, but I stopped myself just in time. She had automatically assumed it, which meant that I must look as if I belonged with him. But before I had time for that fact to sink in Raven had turned on a set of clippers. I sat, frozen rigid as she worked away, the clippers buzzing at the side of my head like a swarm of angry wasps. After what seemed like ten years she turned them off and picked up a hairdryer. I felt a surge of relief – at least there was still some hair left to dry! And then it was done.

Raven put the hairdryer in its holder and stood back, looking at me as if I were an exhibit in an art gallery. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘Cool!’

Steve put his guitar down and he and Wayne walked over to join her.

‘Awesome!’ Wayne said.

‘Rock and roll!’ Steve murmured. ‘Rock. And. Roll.’

‘Are you ready?’ Raven asked.

‘Yes,’ I lied, my stomach attempting some kind of backflip.

She swivelled my chair round and I stared into the jagged-edged mirror. Only it wasn’t like looking into a mirror, it was like staring through a window at another girl. A girl with big brown eyes and hair that looked as if it had been carved into her neck on one side while it hung down in a silky dark curtain on the other. Even my face looked totally different – more heart-shaped, less long.

‘Oh my God!’ was all I could say.

‘Oh my God!’ the girl said back.

‘Good job, man,’ Steve said to Raven with a wink. Then he looked at me in the mirror and smiled. ‘Happy birthday, Cherokee.’

‘Thank you,’ Cherokee replied.

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