I’ve got to admit, this has become a bit of a hard slog for me.  Coming back every week to analyse my youthful pretensions in great detail…  It takes a lot out of me.  But I’ll soldier on, because there’s only six chapters after this one, and after that I’m free.  Free, I say.

Oddly enough, this is around the point where fifteen-year-old me started getting fed up of this story, too.  It took me three or four months to write the first thirteen chapters, but a whole year to write the last seven.  I can’t remember exactly why- I think I just got fed up of fannying around with no plot in sight.  So I started writing a story in which most of the world’s population suddenly disintegrated instead, which was much more fun.

This chapter is called “Shrinking Violet.”  That’s probably not the worst pun in this story, but it comes close.

I could hear the cries of “Mummy!  Santa’s been!” from Cherry’s room.  Apparently Ben had decided it was time for us to wake up.

Cute Ben moment number 167.

Gary was still asleep, as usual.  As I looked at him, I wondered how a person could get away with looking as gorgeous as he did. 

He doesn’t get away with it.  He pays for it in sheer woobiedom, as well you know.

If you ignored his daft haircut and the worried look he always seemed to have, you noticed.  The first things I noticed were that his eyes were the size of saucers and bluer than any ocean I’d ever seen (mind you, since I live in Britain that isn’t much of an achievement), and aside from a few faded scars I wasn’t allowed to ask about, his skin was just, well, pink. 

“On closer inspection, Gary was made entirely out of candyfloss.  He was delicious.”

You might think that’s normal, but there aren’t many people in the world whose skin is pink (or brown for that matter) all over.  I know mine is covered by moles, pressure marks, spots, and the BCG scar that just won’t go away.  But Gary was lucky as far as his looks went.  Well, he had to be lucky somewhere. 

Shut up, Anja.  Remember what Gary said.  You’re not allowed to feel sorry for him.  Even now, years later, after so much has happened, I’m still not allowed.

Fifteen-year-old me was protesting a bit too much with this whole “Anja isn’t allowed to feel sorry for Gary” thing.  I think I realised that I hadn’t really written Gary to inspire any emotion but pity.  And, while fifteen-year-old me most definitely thought that pity was enough to sustain a relationship, I decided it was probably best not to be too blatant about it.

I stuck my hand on his shoulder.  “Hey, Gary,” I whispered, “Ben the Destroyer reckons it’s time to get up.”

Gary looked up at me with a lazy smile.  “We’d better do what he says.  It sounds like Cherry’s suffering enough already.”

He was right.  Cherry had clearly refused to move from her bed, and in response Ben was jumping on it.  Such is the desperation of a two-year-old boy to get down to some serious present opening.   

Cute Ben Moment number 1020.

Joe was the last to get up.  I couldn’t believe his nerve when he gave me a creepy grin, which I was almost certain was directed at my chest.  It probably was, now I come to think of it.  Even though I was wearing a turtleneck jumper.  That probably shows something about his character, but I can’t think what right now.

Oh, come on.  You were coming up with creative insults for Joe all last chapter- no need to be shy now.

“Merry Christmas, Ginger,” he sniggered.  My dye job was beginning to look slightly less glaring red by now, admittedly, but I still wasn’t having any of it.

“Name’s Anja, Joe,” I mumbled, “Having to call myself Honour half the time is bad enough without you adding ‘Ginger’ to the mix.”

Joe seemed to take this as a joke.  Well, he might have.  It was hard to tell with someone who spent a lot of time making fun of everyone.   

…When was the last time we saw Joe making fun of anyone who wasn’t Mr Daly?

In any case, he didn’t seem to acknowledge my wariness around him.

This is how Anja confronts all her enemies.  By thinking evil thoughts at them until they can take no more.  It’s not very effective.
By the time we got downstairs, the living room already looked like a bombsite.  In the dim, colourful light of the Christmas lights, Ben was enthusiastically ripping the paper off all the presents under the tree.  Apparently he’d never heard of labels, especially since he looked so shocked when Cherry told him that maybe, just maybe, not all of the 50 to 100 presents under the tree were for him.   

Cute Ben Moment number 1,000,003.

Viewing the carnage, I suggested that everyone opened three of their own presents (not half of Joe’s like Ben had done) before having breakfast.

When we eventually managed to eat something (Ben was very choosy about which gifts he opened), poor old Cherry only managed to take a bite or two out of her toast before the doorbell rang.

“Who do you think that is?” I asked.  In my family, the tradition was to deny the existence of the outside world on 25^th December. 

Well, in this story, your tradition has been to deny the existence of your family and any grief and suffering they may have experienced due to your actions.  So I don’t think you get to complain about somebody disrupting your Christmas.
Cherry shook her head in confusion, and opened the door to a nervous dark-haired boy who seemed creepily familiar.

“Um… Hi, Cherry,” he said in a strangled way.  Apparently, Joe wasn’t the only one who had feelings for my cousin. 

“Hi, Vick.  What’s up?”

Vick…  Where had I heard that name before?   

Well, there are fewer than twenty named characters in this thing, so it shouldn’t take you too long to guess

Before my memory could answer, this Vick person was talking again.  “Well, we’re going out to this restaurant at around seven tonight, and my dad said it would be good if you and Ben could come.  He also said to bring your sister and her boyfriend, too.”  He smiled awkwardly.  “It could be fun.  I haven’t met your sister before, see, and neither has Robbie.  So, can you come?” 

Gosh, they’re going to the This Restaurant!  The most exclusive place in town!

Cherry looked worried for a moment, but she managed to hide it with a jokey reply.  “Well, there was this Christmas special I wanted to watch on telly, but I guess I could tape it.  OK, V, pick us up at seven.”

By the time Vick closed the door, I’d worked out who he was… 

…two or three paragraphs after the readers did.

…and why it was a very, very good thing that he couldn’t see Joe in the kitchen. 

These people fail at being in hiding, don’t they?

“Hey, Joe,” Cherry shouted, “Your brother just came round.  I said we’d go out with him and your parents at seven.  Is that OK?” 

At seven-thirty, I was sitting at a restaurant table with Gary, Cherry, Ben, James Foster, Melissa Foster, Jack, Robbie, Vick and Leah Foster, and, surprisingly enough, Ditsy Emily from Blaze.  I’d known her for nearly two months and she’d never mentioned that she was Jack’s fiancée.

Maybe she mentioned it but you didn’t listen.  After all, you’ve managed to memorise exactly two of your co-workers’ names- you don’t seem like the sort of person who’d take an interest in their love lives.

“I proposed to her in September,” Jack was explaining, “But we’ve known each other for ages.  She got the job in Blaze so I could see her more, didn’t you, honey?” 

This is how people in a long-term relationship talk.

As he looked at Emily, my heart jolted.  Jack’s smile had turned into a smirk that reminded me that he and Joe were identical twins.  For a minute, I thought that Joe had turned up to surprise us.  That would quite possibly have ruined the whole night. 

“Yeah!  We’re having a lovely time, eating dinner with a murderer.  We don’t want Joe to turn up and ruin it!”

“It’s such a shame,” Melissa trilled…

 How do you “trill” the words, “It’s such a shame”?  Is Melissa a budgie?

…”I thought your wedding would be the thing that brought the family back together, but there’s so many people whose seats are going to be empty.  Joe’s, Jean’s, Vi’s…”

That got my attention.  First I was just vaguely wondering who Vi was, then I remembered about Violet…  Maybe Vi was Melissa’s name for her?  Maybe they were friends?  Maybe…  Why was Violet’s seat going to be empty? 

 Anja’s been pretty slow on the uptake for the last few chapters, hasn’t she?

James’ face dropped, Jack went red, and Cherry whispered, “Now she’s done it.”

“It might all have been different if Violet was still alive,” James sighed, “Violet might have persuaded Joe to stay with his family, and then he’d never have gone near the wretched bus.  Underneath it all, Joe was like the rest of us, always was.  He’d do anything she said…”

“So why do you never do anything I say?” Leah snapped.  Apparently all this Violet business was really getting her goat.

“He liked Vi better,” Robbie sniggered, prompting Leah to hit him on the head with her mat.  I wasn’t planning on telling anyone, but I made a mental note to buy Leah some sweets later as a reward.  Robbie had been a horrible little brat all evening, and he was finally getting what he deserved.  Also, I saw that Leah wasn’t the perfect goody-two-shoes Joe had made her out to be.  I should have known that I couldn’t trust Joe as far as I could throw him.

 “Joe has a slightly rose-tinted view of his sister’s behaviour!  Therefore, he is eeevil!”

Still, how come Leah and Robbie knew about Violet?  I don’t have first-hand experience of this, but usually if your dad’s cheating on your mum, he tries to keep it a secret from everyone. 

 Like I said- slow on the uptake.

And apparently, Melissa knew as well.  She looked as sad as James did, but she could still see the malign effects on her younger children.  “James, can you please stop talking about her?” she hissed, “You know Leah doesn’t like it.  She gets the impression that you’re comparing her to Vi.”

Now I was really confused.  Why would someone compare their daughter to an ex-girlfriend? 

OH, FOR CLIFF’S SAKE.

I couldn’t find out about anything, because Jack and Vick were giving me strong “Don’t ask” signals with their eyebrows.  Fortunately, someone had enough sense to change the subject.

“I fell over outside!” Ben announced to all and sundry.  Leah wasn’t the only one I’d be buying sweets for.

“Poor Ben!” Melissa squealed, more out of relief than concern really, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Ben replied, “Gary picked me up.”  Gary was rapidly becoming Ben’s favourite person (not least because he did everything Ben said), and one of the advantages of that position was that Ben talked about him all the time.  “Gary draws all the time, Auntie Melissa.  And he likes Auntie Annie a lot.  And he…”

 Cute Ben Mo…  Oh, forget it, we’ll be here all day.  It is nice to see somebody appreciating Gary without harping on about his tragic, tormented soul, though.

Cherry told me later that she was worried that any minute Ben would mention Joe, which would require an elaborate cover story…

Again- these people fail at hiding out.  And why would you put a two-year-old in a story and then not have him do the things that a two-year-old would do in real life?  Like, for instance, blab the big secret to everyone he meets?  That could have been a useful source of tension, there.

…(we’d already had to make something up about why he called me “Annie” instead of “Honour”). 

We will not actually hear this elaborate cover story, but trust Anja when she says it was a good ‘un.

But at the time, I had no idea why she suddenly turned round and said, “Robbie, do you want to take Leah and Ben to get some ice-cream?  They’re 20p each, I think.”  She ferreted around in her purse for three 20p pieces, then handed them to Robbie.  This, in my opinion, was a bad move.  Robbie would probably try to use all three 20ps to buy something big for himself.  (He did, but fortunately his plan was thwarted when Leah twisted his arm behind his back and took the money.  Definitely not a goody-two-shoes.  I know all this because Ben delightedly told me in the car on the way home.)

Ben’s very articulate for a two-year-old, have you noticed?

Emily looked from side to side.  “It was funny, you talking about Vi earlier,” she said, changing the subject back and therefore ruining all of Ben’s good work, “‘Cause I can still remember what she was like.  She and Leah definitely look and sound a bit like each other.  Did Leah ever know her?”

“Not really,” Vick replied, “Leah was only… um… five or so months old when Vi died.”

Apparently, this wasn’t as important a piece of news to Emily as it was to me.  “Oh, right,” she replied, staring into her pizza, “Only I thought Leah might have copied the way Vi spoke or something.  You know, so you wouldn’t miss her as much…?”

James nodded, still looking miserable.  “In a way, Violet’s spirit lives on through her little sister.  But nothing can stop us missing her.  You never get over losing a child.”

Suddenly, everything made sense.

THANK YOU.  You know, when the murderer you’re trying to catch has to spell out a vital piece of information before you get it, you’re really not that great a detective.

Violet hadn’t been James’ girlfriend at all.  No wonder he felt free to talk about her in front of Melissa and his children.  No wonder Leah thought her dad was comparing her to Violet.  Violet had been her older sister, someone she was expected to take the place of.  Expected by James, anyway.

And the “unforgivable” thing that Joe had done to his sister wasn’t necessarily something he’d done to Leah.  It could have been something he’d done to Violet.

And considering that Violet was dead, one guess seemed glaringly obvious.

 Join us again for chapter 15, in which Anja reads Melissa’s mind, and I wonder why Melissa wasn’t the protagonist.  I think she’s the third character I’ve said that about.

I started a new job last September, and, in the mornings, I had to walk through a cemetery to get to the station.  One thing I noticed was how idiosyncratic a lot of the gravestones were.  You had heart-shaped stones, pink and gold lettering, poems by members of the family, photos of the deceased embedded in the stone, kites, windmills, and balloons.  Loads of balloons.  All of which, in my opinion, beats the hell out of just leaving a cactus on the grave.

“Christmas tree!” Ben yelled, “Christmas tree!  Come on, Auntie Annie!”

I followed Ben into the living room, where Cherry was struggling to put up something large, bendy and green.  The plastic tree was hard to get in position, so I could see why she needed Joe to help her.

I still felt a sense of impending disaster when I thought about Joe.  His slimy act had been shaken by Jean’s death, but it had rallied well. 

This is the closest Anja will come to expressing her condolences to Joe.

Joe was once again the person who acted like everyone was about to walk into his traps.  I’d noticed, though, that he refused to go anywhere near the balconies in Wild Cherry House. 

Geez, I wonder why?

I knew that if he ever did anything he’d regret (though I doubted he’d regret anything), that was where I could hide.  If only I’d known that I wasn’t the one he’d go after.

See, Anja, there’s foreshadowing, and then there’s just spoiling the rest of the story.  The readers certainly aren’t going to stick around for your sparkling personality, I can tell you that.

It was a huge relief to get shot of Mr Daly, even if it had happened in such a terrifying way.  Joe had thanked me personally for getting rid of him, which I’d thought was bad taste. 

Said the girl who referred to one of the mourners at her funeral as “Super-Blob.”

Then again, I thought that practically everything Joe said around that time was bad taste.

I want to give fifteen-year-old me some credit for recognising that Anja’s sudden grudge against Joe is completely illogical, but that’s kind of tainted by the fact that I know Anja’s grudge is going to be spectacularly vindicated near the end.

He did, however, seem to be genuinely worried about Gary.

“Between you and me, Anja,” he’d said that morning, “Gary’s been looking all edgy since Mr Daly attacked you.  He looked as if he was going to throw up when you told him.  There’s something wrong with that kid, I can just tell.”

You mean besides the Oedipus Complex and the constant weeping?

I’d just put it down to Gary caring about me a lot.  I knew I’d want to throw up if someone attacked someone I loved.  But still, Joe was right about Gary being edgy.  He was acting as if something horrible had actually, rather than nearly, happened. 

“Bloody hell, Gary, I was only nearly strangled to death!  Why don’t you relax?”

In fact, he looked as if his life had turned sour right before his eyes.  And, considering all that business with Jordan, it had turned sour at least twice before.

“I should warn you, mate,” Cherry told me after she’d finally wrestled the tree into submission, “We aren’t going to get a white Christmas this year.  Not with the weather so far.  You’ll probably be able to get a suntan on Christmas Day.”

“Ah well,” I replied, “That’s global warming for you.”

Cherry laughed.  “Yep.  Rudolph and his pals might have to wear jet skis if the ice caps melt, and they don’t look good on hooves, believe me.”

Fifteen-year-old me practices her stand-up routine.

This reminded Ben of something.  “Carrot for Rudolph,” he said firmly.

Cherry nodded.  “OK, we’ll leave out a carrot for Rudolph.  Just as long as he doesn’t leave wet hoof-prints on the carpet, what with the jet-skiing and all,” she said before bursting into peals of laughter along with me.  Ben clearly didn’t approve.  “Gary,” he whinged, “Mummy and Auntie Annie are laughing at Rudolph!”

Cute Ben Moment number forty-five.

Gary smiled, closing his pad.  He was a bit awkward with little kids, but Ben liked him anyway.  He liked anyone who was prepared to give him chocolate.  “They aren’t laughing at Rudolph, Ben.  They’re just being silly.  They like Rudolph really.” 

This didn’t seem to satisfy Ben, since he turned back and glared at us.  “Santa won’t come if you laugh at Rudolph!” he warned.

“OK, OK,” Cherry spluttered, “We’ve stopped laughing now. 

They’re still laughing after that long?  I guess they have to make their own entertainment in these parts.

Come on, Anja, let’s get the tinsel on.”

I was saved from being attacked by the amazing tinsel worm when the phone rang.

I’d just like to point out that, at the same time as these heartwarming Christmassy antics are going on, Anja’s parents are contemplating their first Christmas without their beloved daughter.  How much do you think they’re enjoying the decorating?

“Hey, Anja!” the voice on the other end shrieked, “It’s Estelle.”

“Hi!  Haven’t heard from you in a while!”  Since October, in fact.  I was beginning to think she and Mark had abandoned us.

Actually, they just snuck out of the story while nobody was looking.  And good luck to them, that’s what I say.

“Well, Joe’s been phoning me every week or so, so I know all the news.  I heard about Cherry inheriting Jean’s old place, for instance.”

“I didn’t bother to come down for my mother’s best friend’s funeral, though.  That would have been far too much effort.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been too polite of her to move without telling you.  But… um… listen…”

I love how that’s the big news that Joe needed to tell Estelle.  Not about Jean’s mysterious death, or anything.  That’s incidental.  What Estelle really cares about is that Cherry got to move to a bigger house.

“Yeah?”

“About Joe… Did you ever hear about something bad happening between him and Leah?”

“No,” Estelle replied, sounding confused, “Joe always told me he liked Leah.  Why, what’s been going on?”

“Nothing…  But did Joe ever mention someone called Violet?”

“Oh, Violet!” Estelle whined, “No, Joe didn’t, but James sure did.  I kept telling him it wasn’t polite to go on about old girlfriends in front of his wife, but did he ever listen? No way!  Every time I told him he said I was too young to understand!”

“She was an old girlfriend?”

“Why else would he go on about her like that? 

SPOILERS- Violet is actually Joe’s other, long-deceased sister, and Estelle is a conclusion-jumping numpty.

It was so embarrassing for Joe, having to listen to stories about how great Violet was.  It was always awkward, just after my mother left for America.  Obviously I was staying with Jean…

“Obviously.  You can tell how close we were from my tearful speech at her funeral.  OH WAIT.”

…but James seemed to think that I needed a dad as well, which I didn’t.  I never even thought much of the dad I had, before he left.  Anyway, there’s James acting as though I’m some poor little waif he has to take care of, so I get exposed to their family arguments, which was embarrassing.

I love how even James’ nicer actions get spun into symptoms of pure eeevil.  “He felt protective towards an abandoned child?  HOW EMBARRASSING!  He gave the eulogy at his own aunt’s funeral?  STRING HIM UP!”

Me and Joe were the heirs to Blaze, because if you remember this was a couple of years ago and Cherry wasn’t on the scene yet…

And, once again, this story would be much more interesting if it turned out that Joe and Estelle were trying to bump Cherry off for the inheritance.  But it won’t.

…so we had to work together, kind of against his family, and of course when I met Mark…”

“So,” I asked, “Do you know what ended up happening to Violet?”

“That’s enough character development for you, missy.”

“No, but I’ll tell you this- James was crazy about her.  I swear, every time his dad mentioned her name Joe would cringe.  James was just so damn tactless.  Don’t tell Joe I said this, but the Fosters are one mixed-up family.”

“You’re telling me,” I snarled, watching Joe flirt with Cherry, “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something wrong with all of them.”

I can see her point.  Flirting with any relative of Anja’s is a sure sign of a sick mind.

Unfortunately for me, Estelle worked out what I was implying.  “Anja!” she retorted, “I don’t know what you’ve got against Joe all of a sudden, but despite being the son of a psycho, he’s turned out fine!”

Fifteen-year-old me didn’t know what Anja had against Joe all of a sudden, either.  But she needed conflict, and for some reason she didn’t want to get it from the serial killer.

I was caught off-balance.  Estelle had never been angry at me before, but I could tell from experience that I’d better change her mood quickly, or I wouldn’t like the consequences.  “Sorry!  It’s just something James said about Leah…”

“Oh, him,” Estelle replied, pronouncing the second word as if it was some evil curse, “Come on, Anja, you know about James!  He’ll say anything to turn people against Joe!”

Hee.  I’m sorry I called you a numpty, Estelle.  You speak words of wisdom.

“I know,” I replied, “OK, sorry.  But it does make you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“Why would someone just turn against one of their kids like that, especially when they treat their other kids normally?  It doesn’t make sense.”

Anja Cleary, champion of abused children everywhere.

Also, please note that Gary’s stepbrother turned against him, and he seemed to treat the rest of his family normally.  But, of course, Gary is the love interest, so he can’t be evil.

Estelle was clearly fed up with me. 

SO AM I.

“Anja, it might seem strange, but it happens all the time.  Trust me.  You don’t have to worry about Joe.”

Estelle was wrong.  Something had happened, I was sure.  Joe might have been able to charm Cherry and Estelle with his slimy act, but he wasn’t fooling me. 

Anja is much smarter than people who’ve known Joe for years!

I knew I was right.  Joe was just as mixed-up as James was.

Never mind what he’d done to Leah.  Every time Cherry made a teasing remark to Gary, I saw a look on Joe’s face that could have curdled milk.

*

“I seriously don’t see your problem with Joe,” Gary told me as he sat on a shelf in the wardrobe, drawing.  Yes, I really do mean a shelf.  I looked at him.  “I just don’t like him, OK?” I replied.

“Why?”

“Well, there’s the whole Leah thing, and I think he’s a bit jealous of you.” 

“Well, that’s me convinced!” said Gary, getting out a pitchfork, “Let’s have a good old-fashioned witch-burning!”

“Jealous?”  Gary smirked.  “Why would he be jealous?”

“Because…” I wasn’t sure how to put this.  I couldn’t exactly say, “Because he’s got a crush on Cherry the size of Mount Everest, and she has a thing for you, much to my annoyance I might well add,” so I changed the subject. 

…Why?  Why can’t you say that?  It’s the only part of your anti-Joe campaign that makes any sense!

“Actually, is there room for two people on that shelf?  It looks more comfortable than this chair.”  Said chair looked as if it had been dragged through a hedge backwards twenty years ago, and hadn’t been upholstered since.

Gary moved up, and I sat down beside him.  “I’ve always liked enclosed spaces,” he told me, “I’d always hide in my wardrobe when I felt upset.  Childish or what?”

(to the tune of “The Lollipop Song”)  Oedipus, Oedipus, oh, Oedi-Oedipus…

“Yeah, but I’ve felt like that.  Like when I was being picked on at school, or when my dog died, or when…  Oh, Gary!”  I pulled him towards me with such force that our heads nearly collided.  Gary, needless to say, looked very frightened.  “What?” he squeaked.

Anja will now hug him and squeeze him and call him George.

“Well, I feel like such a cry-baby next to you.  Here I am, whinging about my dog, when you’ve been through things that…”

“Anja!” he said sharply, “You’re not allowed to feel sorry for me, remember?”  

“I’ve developed a new character trait now!  I can be impressively meta!”

“Oh.  Sorry, I forgot.”  We’d agreed that whatever had happened to Gary before was in the past, and his life was, according to him, perfect now, so there was no point in dwelling on the time when it hadn’t been. 

I’m sure every psychiatrist in the country would agree.

Personally, I wasn’t a hundred per cent happy with this arrangement, but it kept Gary from going off into bouts of misery and fear, so it was OK.  Well, that’s what I thought.

The idea was, if we brought up the Things Of Which We Didn’t Speak, we had to change the subject as soon as we realised our mistake.  After looking out of the window for a second, I thought of something.  “We haven’t done anything about James Foster for a while, have you noticed?”

“Anyone would think we were incompetent protagonists.”

“What’s the point?” Gary asked, “We haven’t seen him since Jean’s funeral.  He hasn’t been bothering us.  The only reason for tracking him down would be revenge, and what would that achieve?”

…Putting a known murderer behind bars?

For some reason, that was a real weight off my shoulders. 

Once again, everyone’s encouraging Anja’s baser instincts.  Imagine if she got bitten by a radioactive spider- every time she tried to go out and fight a supervillain, her friends would tell her that she’d do much more good by staying on the sofa and watching Eastenders.

In the past month, underneath everything had been a tiny worry that one day I would have to confront James and probably get myself killed. 

“Tiny.”  “Tiny.”

And now, Gary had explained that worry away in about five seconds.  And I wasn’t about to dismiss it as part of his great desire not to cause trouble. 

“You know what?” I said, “You’re right.  And it’s not like he can still get anything he wants.  Estelle’s still with Mark and Cherry’s got Jean’s cash.”

“Now that he’s unsatisfied and frustrated, I’m sure his urge to kill will just go away!”

Gary laughed as he kissed me on the forehead.  “Stop worrying, Anja.  He isn’t coming back.”

Part of me wishes that the story just stopped there, and that was the happy ending.  Not only would it be hilariously terrible and completely in character, but it would also mean that I didn’t have to put up with these characters for another seven chapters.  Ah well.

Christmas is supposed to be the one day of the year when you can focus on all the nice bits of the world without being called short-sighted, isn’t it? 

Well, that’s what Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo says.  And if he’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Well, that’s the theory.  And the Christmas of that year was going so well, too.  But I would soon find out that, calm, peaceful and reasonable though my Gary was, he could still be horribly, horribly wrong.

Join us again for Chapter Fourteen, in which we finally get a full-length scene with our villain.  I know, I was surprised too.

The slimy one sighed as he closed Cherry’s front door.  “Is it me, or is Cherry Hughes the most amazing girl on the face of the planet?”

Joe is now “the slimy one.”  And yes, this is exactly how teenage boys talk about the girls they fancy.  On Saved By The Bell, that is.

I rolled my eyes. I’d been suspicious of Joe for nearly 24 hours now.  He didn’t seem to notice, and that was annoying me. 

Those three sentences do a neat job of summing up exactly how much impact Anja has on the world around her.  You can imagine her spending an entire day glaring at the back of Joe’s head and trying to communicate her distrust through sheer telepathy. 

“Knock it off, Joe,” I snapped, “If you really like her, what’s wrong with asking her out?”  Maybe then she’d stop flirting with Gary, I thought. 

Joe shook his head.  “Do women as beautiful as Cherry usually give guys like me a second glance?  No they don’t, so why should they start now?” 

Everything we’ve heard so far indicates that Joe is quite attractive and Cherry likes him already, so, really, this is just angst for the sake of angst.

“Women!” Mr Daly snarled, “Trust me, you’re better off without them, Mr Foster.  All they do is blind you with their beauty, then throw you away when they’ve no further use for you.  We don’t need them.”

This will be the last chapter in which Mr Daly will appear, so we’ll never find out whether the “all women are evil seductresses” philosophy he’s expressed in the last couple of chapters is based on any real-life bitterness and heartbreak, or if it’s just another aspect of Straw Daily Mail Readerhood.  Personally, I think we could easily have skipped some of Gary’s backstory to allow room for Mr Daly’s.  As it is, his first name has only been mentioned twice.

I was about to go into a colossal rant about Mr Daly’s misogyny, but Gary beat me to it.  “For your information,” he snapped as those icy blue eyes flashed with fury, “If it hadn’t been for one specific woman giving up her life, my stepbrother would have killed me.  So I need women.”

“Oh, and my dad says that one of them gave birth to me, but that might just be an urban legend.”

“We all know what you need,” Mr Daly replied bitterly.  I would probably have hit him if Cherry hadn’t rushed out of her door and chased us. 

“How dare you have heavy-handed conversations about sexism where my neighbours can hear you!  You’re for it now!”

Her shocked, tearful face made my heart jump.  Something absolutely terrible had happened, and I only had ten more seconds of safety left before I found out what it was.

“Joe!” she sobbed, “Your mum just phoned.  Your aunt’s had an accident- they don’t reckon she’ll pull through.  I’m really, really sorry.”

It’s probably for the best.  She was far too intelligent to be in this story.

Joe wasn’t the only one who was horrified by this news.  Even though I’d only met Jean the day before, the sharp, doubting woman’s image stuck in my head.  She could probably have brought James to justice in half an hour if we’d told her all we knew. 

…I’m pretty sure they did.  In fact, Jean seemed to know everything they told her in advance.  Why wasn’t she the protagonist, again?

And now, we’d never get to tell her anything.  She had only confirmed my suspicions, and added something about someone called Violet, who I was too wary to ask Joe about. 

Despite Jean specifically telling you to do so.

Worst of all, James had finally succeeded in killing someone.  Not Mark or Joe, who had been his main targets, but someone who’d known too much.  The only person clever enough to work out exactly what was going on.   If Jean could get killed, we didn’t stand a chance.

“What happened?” Joe choked.

“She fell off a balcony,” Cherry replied. 

Pfft.  Yes, James truly is a criminal mastermind to be reckoned with.  Only a true genius could work out how to shove people off balconies!

“Well, I say fell, but Mel said she might have jumped…” She knew as well as I did that none of this was true.  Jean hadn’t fallen or even jumped.  She’d been pushed, and we all had a good idea of who’d done the pushing.

At that point, Gary put his arm around me, reassuring me that we weren’t doomed.   

Joe might have lost the only person in his family who truly cared about him, but it’s Anja who needs to be comforted!

As I looked at him, I saw the hidden pain that always seemed to be on his face…

“Hidden,” she says.  That’s a laugh.

…and I remembered what had happened to the last girl he’d loved.  I started to panic.  Maybe I’d end up as dead as Topaz.   

“We will all end up sacrificed to serve his tragic backstory!  Nooo!”

Fragility was an important part of him, but maybe Gary was too fragile to stop something happening to me. 

Girls are completely incapable of defending themselves, you see.

Or maybe he was too fragile to stop something happening to himself.

SPOILERS- Yup!

(Paragraph break.)

“This is the last will and testament,” the lawyer had read, “Of Eugenia Beatrice Foster.”

I hadn’t been there…

“…but I know what the lawyer said, on account of the fact that the author started to write this scene with me present, but then rapidly became aware that she didn’t actually know anything about will-reading.”

…but for some reason Cherry had been invited, along with Joe’s family.  I could guess why.  The lawyers had invited the people who had been mentioned in the will. 

Understandably, I started to vaguely wonder what Cherry had inherited as I sat in the hotel restaurant. 

“If I’d been in the swimming pool, of course, I’d have wondered about something else.  Maybe about why sharks don’t go to the dentist.”

With me were two people I didn’t trust as far as I could throw them, and one person I loved.  Guess what?  I was talking to Gary.  Not that Joe would have talked much anyway.  He’d been very quiet since Jean’s death, and all his sliminess seemed to have worn off.  But I still couldn’t forget that he’d done something unforgivable to Leah.

Anja could comfort him in his obvious shock and grief, but she vaguely heard that he’d done something wrong in the past, so that’s out.

(Rereading this, I’m pretty sure I initially planned for Anja, Joe and Gary to end up being a love triangle, but then got over-invested in Anja and Gary’s EPIC LOVE.  This may explain Cherry’s existence.)

“I hate waiting,” I moaned.  Gary looked up from his pad and smiled at me.  “You also hate November, tulips, people who make assumptions about your love life, Mr Daly, and apparently Joe.  What do you like?”

Heh.  Even Gary’s starting to get fed up.

“Apart from you, you mean?”  Gary smiled.  “I’m serious,” I sighed, “Without you, the last three weeks would have been dire.  They just seem to have been custom-made to antagonise me.

Yes, Anja is clearly the person who’s suffered most over the last three weeks.  Never mind her parents’ grief, Gary’s guilt, Mr Daly’s ostracisation, Cherry and Shell’s mind-numbing terror, and Jean’s death.  All of this happened solely to get on Anja’s nerves!

For a start, I had to sleep on someone else’s floor, in the same building as an old git and a complete slimeball…

…Aren’t Joe and Mr Daly sitting right next to you?  RUDE.

…while the whole nation made me out to be a cute little girl.   

Which you previously said you enjoyed.

Then Mr Daly kept accusing me of being a slapper, and now, to top it off, I’m living in a hotel, shortly after someone’s died.”  I folded my arms in annoyance, while Gary looked up at the ceiling with a philosophical expression.   

Yep, that’s her reaction to Jean’s death.  Annoyance.

“Do you miss your family?” he asked.

I hadn’t expected him to ask me anything like this.   

Me neither.  Gary’s being impressively meta in this scene, isn’t he?

“Well…  The thing is, I hadn’t seen them much in the months before the bus thing.  My brother was always hanging around with his mates, not that he liked me much anyway.  And my parents were always at work or going out for the night.  But for some reason, I wish I still lived at home.”   

We could have used this backstory eleven chapters ago.  It’s too late to make your family look like the bad guys now.

I’d managed to sum up my feelings exactly.  Whenever I had time to stop and think about it, there was a tight, uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that came from my unfamiliar surroundings.   

And it’s also too late to try and convince us that you have actual human emotions.

“I’m guessing you don’t feel like that?”

Gary shrugged.  “Well…  I miss Helen a lot.”

“Your stepsister?”

“Yeah.  I think she liked me really, but she would have liked me a lot more if she hadn’t thought I was going to die if she wasn’t careful with me.  I think she’d have talked to me more if I hadn’t had that heart attack…”

“Phone call for Honour Cleary!”

It took me a while to recognise my fake name and turn around.  

Right!  That’s enough half-hearted character development- on with the half-hearted plot!

The shout had come from the receptionist’s desk, and I had to doubt whatsoever that the phone call was from Cherry.

“Anja!” she squealed on the other end, “You’ll never guess, it’s brilliant!”  Her tone had changed dramatically from the miserable one that had announced Jean’s death.

All in all, Jean is forgotten fairly quickly.

“Why?  What happened?”

“Well…  First the lawyer went, ‘This is the last will and testament of Eugenia Beatrice Foster,’ and I thought, This is great.  We’ll sit through a whole load of legal jargon and then it’ll turn out she’s left me an ornamental tea set or whatever.  And I was wondering what the point was in coming along, you know, especially after the funeral had been so miserable- ‘Born into sin and dying in sin,’ what a load of cobblers…”

Fifteen-year-old me had never been to a funeral, which is why this bit is ripped off from Adrian Mole.

“Yeah, I know.”  The eulogy had clearly been written by someone who hadn’t known Jean and had assumed that she was a stereotypical old woman.  James had read it, which in my opinion was just typical. 

A few things:

1. A woman in her fifties isn’t old enough to be a “stereotypical old woman.”
2. Murderer or not, James presumably knew Jean a lot better than a girl who only met her once.
3. We never find out how the eulogy made her out to be a stereotypical old woman (“born into sin and dying in sin” doesn’t really qualify.)
4. Nor do we find out what made Anja feel it was inaccurate, since she, as I said, only met Jean once.
5. James is (as far as anyone knows) Jean’s closest living relative.  Of course he’s going to read the eulogy.
6. Why was Anja at the funeral in the first place?

But I needed to know how the reading had gone.  “So, what happened?”

“Well, James and Mel looked pretty confident that they’d inherit Wild Cherry House and Blaze.  The lawyer went through all the things everyone had been left- a few hundred quid each for Jack, Leah, Robbie and Vick, with pretty strict instructions that their parents couldn’t tell them what to do with it.”  Cherry cackled.  “But then, it said ‘If anything should happen to my nephew Joseph before I die, I leave my home, my business, and my entire estate to’- drum roll please…” She paused to do a drum roll effect.  “Svetlana Irene Hughes, baby!”

We’re now completely in the “dancing on Jean’s grave” stage of proceedings.  And no, we don’t get any reaction from Joe over Cherry stealing his inheritance.

(Irene is a Greek name.  This family really is from everywhere.) 

“Oh my God!” I squeaked, “So you’ve inherited everything?”

“You bet I have!  And I’ll be moving into Will Cherry House ASAP; you can count on that! 

“Some people would have waited until they’d scrubbed the bloodstains out of the patio, but not me!”

I’ll be in there at six, so you can check out of the hotel and I’ll pick you up at seven.  Bring Gary and Joe, too.”

Uh-oh.  I could see a potential problem here.  “Just Gary and Joe?”

“Yep.”

“Not Mr Daly?”

Cherry snorted.  “Get real, Anja.  I don’t want to live in the same house as that creep.  I could just about stomach him being in my living room for a few hours a day, but living in my house?  No way.”

“So what should I tell him?”

“Tell him exactly what I said.  You don’t have to be polite to him or owt!  You hate him, remember?”

I love how everyone in this story constantly tells Anja to give in to her baser instincts.  It’s not like she needs the encouragement. 

Putting the phone down, I thought, Svetlana doesn’t understand how hard it is to get rid of him.  

Neither do the readers, since this hasn’t been demonstrated at any point in the story.

I knew that telling Mr Daly would be hard, and that he might react violently.  But I never guessed that his resentment of women, and especially me, could lead to something potentially horrific.

At five to seven, I was pulling on my top.  Knowing that Mr Daly wouldn’t be there to disapprove, and that Joe would be too depressed to look at my chest, I’d picked the most attractive top from my wardrobe.  

Priorities!

Most of my clothes were either borrowed from Estelle or bought when I’d got to Southend, and this top fell into the second category.  For some reason, Estelle’s stuff looked terrible on me.  There was no denying that she had a better figure than I did, even if she was pregnant.  But my thoughts about what I was wearing faded out when someone rammed their fist into the door.

“Let me in this instant!”  Mr Daly’s sour voice echoed through the hotel room. 

Couldn’t he just have knocked?  She’s more likely to let him in if she doesn’t suspect anything.

I sat down on the stool, determined not to let him in.  “Why should I?”

“You have to leave the room at some point!  Isn’t your sister expecting you?”  The word “sister” was dripping with sarcasm.  “I know what’s happening!” he continued, “You think you’re heading off with your lover to a glamorous lifestyle!  You’ve done nothing to deserve a life of luxury, you ugly little slut!  Nothing!”  At this point, he managed to get the door open.  I must have forgotten to lock it properly.  He took one look at my clothes, and he was off again.  “Here we are in a complete mess, intruding on a family’s grief already, and you and your cousin abuse our situation!  

Mr Daly makes one last attempt at sanity before the story turns him into a homicidal maniac.  It was a good effort, Mr D. 

I’ve seen the look you both get when you talk to that pale-looking lad!  Fluttering your eyelashes, wearing provocative clothes…  You’re disgusting!  Trying to seduce a sick boy for cheap thrills! 

“Trying”?  I’m pretty sure that Mr Daly already knows Anja and Gary have slept together.

Well, your cousin seems determined to keep me at arm’s length, but I can still teach you not to play with people’s emotions!  Someone’s going to teach you eventually, and it might as well be sooner rather than later!”

As soon as his fingers came within a centimetre of my neck, I grabbed his hands and started twisting his wrists round.  As soon as I heard that sickening snapping noise, I knew I was safe.  For once, something horrible was a sign of something fortunate.

“For once.”  This from a girl who reacted to a near-fatal explosion with “This is so cool!” 

The next thing I remember is picking up my bags and running out of the hotel while Mr Daly stayed in the room, screaming so loud that people in Kent could probably have heard him.  

None of the hotel staff bother to investigate, though.  Why should they?  They just give the customers their keys and never bother with them again.

As I rushed to get into Cherry’s car, I shivered.  I knew how close I’d come to something hideous, and it was much closer than Mark and Joe had come to being crushed to death.

Anja always suffers the most.  Are you noticing a theme here?

By the time we got to Wild Cherry House, Gary was crying.  He was trying to hide it from Cherry, Ben, Joe and me, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“Gary’s sad,” Ben said forlornly.  I nodded.  “He’ll be OK.  Go and talk to your mum.”

Ben did as I said, and I put a hand on Gary’s shoulder.  Everyone else had gone inside, so we could talk properly.  “Why are you so upset?” I asked, “Mr Daly didn’t attack you.”

“Don’t tell me you’re feeling empathy for another human being.  We don’t do that in this story.”

He turned to hug me, his voice quavering.  “I’m sorry, Anja.  I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from that bastard.  Why can’t I do anything right?”

“Gary!” I snapped, pushing him away so I could look at him properly, “You can do things right.  You couldn’t have known he’d attack me just because you left the hotel a few seconds before me.   And all that stuff about protecting me…  I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, Gary.  

“In complete contrast to what I said after Jean died!  I think I’ve really matured in the last week or so!” 

He’s probably in an A&E department right now, getting his broken wrists seen to. 

Or still weeping on the hotel carpet, being callously ignored by the chambermaids.

And he doesn’t know my fake name, so when he tells everyone it was Anja Cleary who’d done it…  Well, everyone will think he’s a nutter!  Trust me, Gary, everything is fine.”  It wasn’t, though.  My fear was still hanging in the air around me.

He sniffed.  “When I think of him trying to hurt you, I feel sick.  Please don’t ever do anything dangerous.  I know this is kind of morbid, but if anything happened to you I don’t know what I’d do.”  He was telling the truth.  When I looked into his face, I could see more pain and terror than I’d experienced in my entire life.  I realised in surprise that what Mr Daly had done had scared him even more than it had scared me.

“Trust me,” I smiled, “I won’t get myself killed.”   As I said this, we stepped over the threshold and slammed the coloured glass-plated door behind us. 

Our life at Wild Cherry House had begun.

Join us again for Chapter Thirteen, in which there are Cute Ben Moments, nonsensical red herrings, and constant discussions of Anja and Gary’s Epic Love.  The plot?  Oh, there’s no room for that.

Welcome to chapter eleven, where we finally meet our villain!  Only halfway through the book, too!

Bloody hell.

I’d seen the inside of a few nightclubs, and they’d all been dimly-lit, crowded places with a bunch of people trying to dance to a record the DJ was scratching into oblivion. I hadn’t expected Blaze to be any different, though I had thought it was slightly strange that a woman in her 50s would want to run one. 

Again with the insistence that people in their fifties are impossibly old.  And anyway, how old would you expect the owner of a nightclub to be?  I mean, Peter Stringfellow wasn’t exactly youthful even in 2002, right?

But as soon as I got into the main hall of Blaze, I could see exactly why Svetlana had left Ben in the crèche.  If a kid Ben’s age saw the inside, they would have had nightmares for the rest of their life and ended up in a mental hospital by the time they were twenty.  Well, that or a rock group.

“That or a rock group.”  Honestly, I didn’t mean for my story to sound like a Chick Tract.

Before I get to the special Halloween decorations…

SPOILERS- We will not, in fact, get to the special Halloween decorations.  All we will be told about them is that they exist.

…I’ll just say that I’ve never seen so many mirrors in my entire life.  The walls, the dancefloor, the tablecloths (and, just for the record, I didn’t think tables had any place in a nightclub either.  Especially not ones with anorexic chairs attached). 

I’m trying to imagine what “anorexic chairs” would look like, and failing.  Maybe they just suffer from bad chair role models.

That might have been OK in the room Gary had drawn, but not here.  Basically, my face was reflected at every angle you can think of, and when you consider that I’m not all that pretty to start with this was a frightening experience. 

Because Anja is STUNNINGLY GORGEOUS but MODEST.  This is an interesting and original character trait that certainly hasn’t been used for every young female protagonist in the history of time.

And quite apart from the mirrors, there was a stage at one end of the room.  I don’t mean a huge stage, like one you get at the theatre.  This was platform-size, but it still had red net curtains drawn across it, as well as a door slightly to the side of it for exiting.  You could see the costumes hung up on the clotheshorse, and they were even worse than the walls.   

As I said, we won’t actually find out much about the walls.  So the costumes are worse than some unknown quantity (Costumes = >x).

I think Svetlana or Jean had chosen a Halloween theme, because the dresses that weren’t mirrored all had black stripes, with orange or red underneath.  I didn’t dare to think what they’d look like when someone was actually wearing one. 

And we won’t be finding out, because that would be far too interesting.

Especially the orange ones.

Nor will we be finding out why the orange costumes were so alarming that they deserved their own micro-sentence.  Never has so much description conveyed so little information!

And I’m not even going to describe the hideous creatures someone had painted on the walls.  

SEE?!?

But I will say that one of them turned out to be human and started walking towards us.

Oh good, a zombie revenant come to gobble them up.  I love a happy ending.

“Cherry, hi!” she squealed, “Is Jean not in today?”  She didn’t seem to notice me, but that was probably because her platinum blonde hair was blinding her.  There were enough mirrors in the room without her hair reflecting the lights.  Her teeth were as well.  Teeth might have been designed to be white, but not glowing white.

This girl is a “hideous creature,” you see.  Because she has blonde hair and shiny white teeth.  It’s a wonder she left the house without a bag on her head.

Svetlana looked at the blonde girl as directly as she could without burning her corneas.  “No.  Good thing my sister showed up, eh?”  Svetlana looked at my confused expression, and mouthed, “You.”

Svetlana Hughes, mistress of deception.  Why didn’t they work out their story about who Anja was before they left the house?

“Hi, I’m Honour,” I smiled, hoping I didn’t sound too surprised. 

“Wow, nice name!  Mine’s Emily, boring or what?” she gushed, before saying something I hadn’t thought of.  “Funny how two sisters could have such different names, isn’t it? 

You mean funnier than how two cousins with last names like Cleary and Hughes could end up with first names like Anja and Svetlana?

I mean, Chez, they gave you a name that no-one can pronounce…

YES.  THEY.  CAN.

…and then they call your sister Honour!”  She giggled, apparently not seeing the evil look on Svetlana’s face.  “I can see who’s your mum’s favourite!”

Wait, why is Svetlana giving Emily an evil look?  She isn’t shown to be sensitive about her name at any point before or after this moment.  OK, it’s a bit insulting to have somebody infer that you’re not your mum’s favourite, but a) they don’t actually have the same mother, and b) “Honour” isn’t really Anja’s name!  So it doesn’t matter!

It would have been interesting to see how Svetlana was going to kill Emily, but at that point a group of other people started pouring into Blaze.  Unlike Emily, they seemed to notice me immediately and wonder who I was. 

Oh yeah, now that I think about it, why aren’t Cherry/Svetlana’s friends more suspicious?  I mean, presumably they know that Cherry/Svetlana’s cousin has been killed in an accident, especially since it’s been all over the papers, and now they’re being introduced to an alleged “sister” who looks exactly like the deceased cousin only with red hair.  There’s only so much they’re going to put down to family resemblance.

Svetlana stood on the stage.  “Hey, listen everyone!  My sister Honour’s going to help me with the managerial duties until Miss Foster comes back. Treat her with the same respect you would me, only without all the jokes, OK?  It wouldn’t work, anyway- she doesn’t have anything you can make jokes about.

“Except for the smug drunk sociopath tendencies, of course.”

(And sure, give a fifteen-year-old an assistant managerial position.  I’m sure she’s the most qualified candidate.)

Or at least I don’t think she does, but some of the lads round here could get innuendo out of anything.” 

What?  Don’t encourage them!

Some men at the back cheered in agreement.  “So, in summing up, everyone be nice to my sister, OK?  If you don’t, you’ll have me to deal with.”  She smiled as she stepped down.

As everyone went into the changing rooms, I wondered if I’d ever get used to being called Honour. 

I’m still wondering why you feel you have to!

(Paragraph break goes here, because Heaven knows watching Anja actually settle into her new job wouldn’t make for interesting reading.)

Ben was jumping up and down in front of a kid’s programme.  Mr Daly was looking sulky (again).  Some bizarre looks were going from Joe to Cherry (she insisted that I call her that, since everyone else did)…

The actual reason was that fifteen-year-old me got tired of typing out “Svetlana.”

…from Cherry to Gary and between Gary and me (putting Gary off the picture he was drawing, I think).  All in all, the house was chaotic. 

If by “chaotic” you mean “slightly passive-aggressive.”

It was a good thing Cherry and me had a day off.

From my first day, Emily and the others had made it clear I fitted in.   

“The others” will not be getting any names, descriptions, or dialogue, but it’s good to know that they’ve accepted the Mary Sue as their new god.

“It’s great to have someone new around,” Emily had told me shortly after Cherry’s speech, “Especially after losing Jean and Joe.”  At this point, she’d lowered her voice.  “No offence, Honour, but from what everyone’s been telling me, Jean might not be coming back.  From the sounds of it, she’s gone a bit… off the wall since Joe died. 

SPOILERS-  We won’t be seeing any evidence of this “off the wall”- ness when we actually meet Jean.

Don’t tell Cherry I said that.  She’d hate me.”

She already hates you.  You implied that her mother liked her nonexistent sister better.  Them’s fighting words.

I hadn’t told Cherry what Emily had said, but by the looks of it she was right.  I’d been working at Blaze for nearly a week and I hadn’t seen Jean yet.

And everybody knows it’s not normal to take a couple of weeks off work following the sudden, violent death of your nephew.

But judging from what Cherry said that morning, I was just about to.

“Hey, Anja,” she asked, “I know you’re not supposed to be at work or anything, but could you come with me to drop this tape off?”  She held up a video labelled Firework Night Performance.

It takes two people to drop a video tape off, you know.

“Only Jean was worried in case last night’s show wouldn’t go well, and I want to show her that it did.  Don’t worry,” she added, “she hasn’t gone bonkers or anything, no matter what the morons at Blaze are saying.   

The morons who have assured Anja that she fits in perfectly with them.

She’s just depressed.  She’ll act pretty normal in front of strangers.  That’s partly why I wanted you to come.”  She blinked, making sure to flutter her eyelashes and smile cutely.  “Gary, do you want to come?”

Pass the sick bag.  And wasn’t she asking Anja if Joe liked her a few chapters ago?  Now she’s going to flirt unsubtly with Gary right in front of both him and Gary’s girlfriend?  Nobody’s motivation makes sense!

Gary looked up.  His face still made me jump.  “No, I might be hard to explain.  You can just tell her Anja’s your sister.”

I had to go, if only to see this woman I’d heard so much about.   

“So much” amounts to “She owns a nightclub, and she’s rich.”  Hey, it would get me interested.

I wanted to see if she knew anything about the bus disaster that we didn’t.  Maybe she could bring some facts about James and Joe’s relationship into the light.

“Anja?” Cherry asked in the car.

“Hmm?”

“You and Gary…  Would you, you know, say that you two were an item?”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.  “Well…  yes.”

“Ah.”  She paused, then smiled at me.  “Anja, you have brilliant taste in men.” 

SPOILERS- This will not stop her from flirting shamelessly with Gary in front of Anja.

As soon as we got to the gate of Wild Cherry House, Cherry groaned.  “Take a look at that…”

She pointed at two cars in the driveway.  One was the limousine I’d seen before, but another looked far more normal.  I have no idea what type of car it was, but I could tell that it was the large, plain kind a family would use. 

Wow, I can just picture it!

(And I didn’t pick up on this before, but Jean owns a limo?  Why?  The only people who’d drive around in it on a regular basis would be Jean and Joe, and presumably one of them would be doing the driving.  It strikes me as a waste of seats.)

“That,” Cherry announced, “is James Foster’s car.  He probably turned up to” she indicated speech marks with her fingers, “‘Look after her.'”

…Two weeks after Joe’s “death”?  Why now?

I decided to take matters into my own hands.  “Let’s give her the tape anyway,” I told her.

…Was there any indication that they weren’t going to do exactly that?  This doesn’t count as being pragmatic, Anja.

“Maybe while we’re in there James will say something that’ll help us.  And even if…”

Cherry interrupted.  “It’s not just him, Anja, it’s…  Well, you’ll see.”

And I did see.  For a start, when I rang the doorbell I saw that the person who answered was an exact clone of Joe. 

“Oh my, this really does change things!  I already knew Joe had a twin brother, but I never imagined they’d look alike!”

(Aaand paragraph break.)

“It was very hard on Jack, losing his twin like that,” Joe’s mum informed me.

SPOILERS- Jack will seem perfectly cheerful and well-adjusted in every scene he’s in.

She had explained why she and her family had turned up, and it was exactly what Cherry had thought.  Something told me, though, that Melissa (as she’d told us to call her) had no idea of what her husband was up to. 

The psychic powers again!  It’s a good thing they’re there, or Anja might actually have to think about who she can and can’t trust, and we can’t have that!

Her face had the same eager-to-please look that Emily’s had, although it was clear that Joe’s “death” had hit her hard.

“It was bad enough when Joe moved out of the house,” Melissa continued, “Identical twins have a really hard time if they’re split up. 

It’s worth noting that fifteen-year-old me had never met a set of identical twins.

And Joe and Jack had barely been separated a day in their lives.”  She sighed, then realised what she’d just said.  “Not that I blame Aunt Jean for anything.  Joe just wasn’t happy living with us, and she was right to adopt him.  I’ve got to tell you, girls,” she whispered, “my husband never really… got on with Joe.”

Cherry nodded.  “Yeah, he told me.”

At this point, someone else came into the room.  She looked as if she was in her late fifties, and definitely, despite what Emily had told me, completely sane. 

You can tell that just by looking!

Her hair was dyed blonde and brushed to within an inch of its life.  She looked at all three of us in turn, with different reactions on her face.  I saw her view Melissa with a scowl, Cherry with an approving smile and me with raised (pencilled) eyebrows.  I would find out why in a few minutes.

Aunt Jean is a silent film star.  Who knew?

“Hello, Aunt Jean!” Melissa said with the fake happiness people usually reserve for lunatics, toddlers or idiots.  Jean was not impressed, but her niece kept it up.  “Cherry’s brought her sister along.  That is OK…  Isn’t it?”  I could tell from her tone that she was scared of Jean.  And I could see why from the glare of revulsion on Jean’s stark face.

Jean cleared her throat.  “Melissa, could I speak to Miss Hughes and her sister alone, please?”  Joe’s mum got up from her chair and left so quickly she could have given a cheetah a run for its money.  Yep.  Definitely scared.

Just as Joe is SMARMY and Gary is VULNERABLE, Melissa is TIMID.  Got that?

“Thanks Heavens she’s gone,” Jean sneered, “Sometimes I think she’s just as bad as James.”

Cherry shrugged.  “She’s always seemed nice to me.  Sure, maybe she’s a bit stupid, but…”

“Well, quite,” Jean interrupted.  She looked straight at me.  “I might as well tell you now.  I know who you are, Anja.”   

Woo!  Another sane character!  I’ve really been missing those!

My heart jumped.  How much did she know, exactly?  Did James know as well?  Had Cherry told her?

Apparently not.  Cherry was open-mouthed in shock.  “But the papers said…”

“I know full well what the papers said.  In fact, until I saw you I believed them myself, though I did think it suspicious that no bodies were found.  But I have no doubt that this young lady is Anja Cleary.  She has changed her hair, that is true, and I imagine that has been enough to fool most people.   

“Most people in a badly-written story, anyway.”

But I have a talent for seeing through people’s disguises.  That’s why I have never trusted James.”

I love how Jean is trying to make herself out to be Sherlock Holmes for working out that the girl who looks exactly like Cherry’s deceased cousin might just be the same person.  And for working out that the obvious villain is an obvious villain.

I began to wish I wasn’t in the same room as someone who could see through people. 

Oh, come on, Anja!  She may have her powerful deductive skills, but you’ve still got your psychic powers.  I’d say you two were evenly matched.

“You’re right,” I stammered, “I survived the accident.  Joe and Mark did too.”

Jean nodded.  Apparently, she’d already made that conclusion.  I would still have felt a lot better if she’d at least pretended to be surprised. 

You’re lucky she’s not strangling you.  “Oh yeah, by the way, that nephew you’ve been mourning for a fortnight?  Totally still alive.”

“Now, I must ask you something.  Am I right in thinking that what happened on the bus that day was no accident?”

“I think so,” I replied, “And I think the person who did it must have wanted to get rid of Mark so he could be with Estelle.  Also, it must have been someone who hated Joe…”

Jean nodded.  “James fits all your criteria. 

By this point in the story, everyone just takes it for granted that James is the villain.  He won’t even appear on-page until the end of this chapter, by the way.

In fact, as I recall, he disapproved of Mark and Estelle’s marriage so much, he was seeing bad omens everywhere.”  She raised her eyebrows.  “And your own presence on that bus wasn’t a coincedence.  Your death would have been a warning to your cousin.”  Jean nodded to Cherry.  “Tell her about the snail, Miss Hughes.”

Jean’s main job here will be exposition.  Did I mention that this is her only scene?  Good to know it’s used well, eh?

Cherry’s eyes flicked around to check that no one was listening.  “Well…  I was round Ms Foster’s house one day, right?  We were sort of planning Mark and Estelle’s wedding- with James saying stuff like ‘Don’t lose your ring, Estelle, that’s bad luck,” and “You can’t wear red to your own wedding!  Brides are supposed to wear white.’  But…”

“Which is ridiculous for two reasons,” Jean sneered, “For one thing, brides are only supposed to wear white if they’re virgins, or at least pretending to be, and for another, red has always suited Estelle perfectly.”

“Exactly.  But Mark and Joe had sort of been dragged away by Ben- he wanted to play on Sa…  the snail.”  I could see that Jean didn’t think of her snail as “Sammy.”  She nodded, and Cherry resumed her story.  “But I was staring at the garden, and I suddenly noticed that the snail was at a funny angle.  So I started worrying, thinking it might be dangerous for Ben, and I had to go outside and look at it.”  She paused for dramatic effect, but Jean decided to tell the end herself.

“What do you think she found, but that the snail was practically hanging off the ledge!  If Joseph and Mark had put little Ben on it, his weight would have thrown the snail right onto them!  It’s a heavy statue, Miss Cleary.  I’m sure it’s more than heavy enough to crush two grown men to death.  I hope that James’ plan was for Benjamin to simply fall onto the grass, but fortunately your cousin made sure that we’d never know.  Miss Hughes moved the snail back into its proper place, thinking its positioning an accident, and came back into the house.”

“I told everyone what had happened,” Cherry added, “You know, just to make sure they knew not to move the snail again.  When I saw James’ face, he just looked… annoyed.  As if I’d done something to upset him.  I started being a bit suspicious of him then, but I didn’t really put two and two together until the bus thing…”

So his first attempted murder involved a snail statue, and his second involved exploding light fixtures.  Whatever happened to just poisoning someone’s coffee?

Just then, a small squeaky voice shouted, “Are you talking about my dad?”

I looked round.  An angry-looking girl was standing at the door, with that look of indignant rage that was slightly more mature than Ben’s.  Her black hair and small freckled nose told me she was probably Joe’s sister, and she certainly lived up to her reputation. 

What reputation?  She’s been mentioned once!

She was wearing the kind of clean, sensible clothes that were specifically designed for avoiding getting on your parents’ nerves.  You couldn’t climb trees in that skirt if your life depended on it.

Said parents came in after her.  That’s right, her parents.  Not just Melissa.  For the first time, I was looking at James Foster. 

And finally, eleven chapters into the book, we actually meet the villain!  Not that he’ll make much of an impression in the nine chapters he’s got left.  He’ll mainly wander about grinning creepily.

Personally, I couldn’t see why Melissa had married him.  She wasn’t a supermodel or anything, but she could have done better that him.  He looked like he was used to stress, and that’s putting it politely.

Tsk, so shallow.  Maybe she’s attracted to his quirky, murderous charm.

But the most important thing I noticed was the same expression of shocked recognition that Jean had shown when she’d seen me.   He knew who I was.  But judging by the beaming and unusually white smile he put on two seconds later, he wasn’t going to admit it.

“Sorry about this, Aunt Jean!” Melissa trilled in abject terror, “Leah was just curious.  Honestly, you take your eyes off children for five minutes, and look what happens…” She tried to pick her daughter up, but Leah wasn’t having any of it.  “Mum!  They were saying things about Dad!  That’s rude, that is!”

Jean winked at me and whispered, “Ask Joseph about Violet.”  As I wondered who Violet was, Melissa and James herded us out of the room. 

SPOILERS- Anja won’t ask Joe about Violet for another few chapters, even though asking him would have cleared up any number of misunderstandings in the meantime.

“Sorry girls,” James sighed, “I think maybe you should leave for now.  Aunt Jean hasn’t been the same since Joe died.  She’s got it into her head that it’s our fault.”  He shook his head.  “He could do no wrong in her eyes.  Wearing rose-colour glasses all the time, Aunt Jean.”

Something in Melissa seemed to snap.  “James!” she hissed, “Joe’s dead!  Don’t you think you can suspend a silly grudge against him now?”

As we left, James was replying.  “Silly grudge?  Mel, what Joe did to his sister was unforgivable!”

“It wasn’t all his fault!”

We didn’t say anything until we’d parked outside Cherry’s home.  “What do you think Joe did?” I asked, still amazed at how close Mark and Joe had come to a horrible death.

“A different horrible death to the one I already knew about, that is.”

Cherry shrugged.  “No idea.  I’m worried about Jean, myself.  If he knows she’s worked out what he’s up to…  Well, things could get pretty nasty.”

That should have been on my mind, too.  I realised that later.  But all I could think about was the fact that Joe had done something “unforgivable” to Leah.  I forgot how well we’d been getting on recently.  I forgot how helpful he’d been.  I forgot the way he always defended me and Gary against Mr Daly.  From that moment on, he became the slimy, untrustworthy person I’d always thought him to be.  I never trusted him again.

Now I know the whole story, I wish I’d trusted him a little more.  Maybe then he might have told me how he felt before it all came to a violent climax. 

Yep, from this point, Anja decides she doesn’t like Joe.  No real reason, just a few words from the obvious villain, who is clearly a trustworthy source of information.

Next time, we bid a tearful goodbye to the only two sane characters, and to anything resembling a plot.