Before I came to Dother Hall I hadn’t had much to do with boys and now I knew a little group of them. It was really exciting to be part of everything.

Like Cousin Georgia. She had her Ace Gang and I have my Tree Sisters. The only difference is that out of all of them, I’m the only one who hasn’t got a boyfriend. I know Flossie hasn’t officially got a boyfriend, but she could have Seth or Ben. Or both probably.

I do want to be friends with Charlie, and I accept he has a girlfriend, but he still gives me a shaky, excited feeling in my knees.

And tummy.

And heart.

Also my hands feel a bit shaky when he’s around.

And my mouth.

That’s a lot of shaking. And I don’t think shakiness is really a friendy thing.

And then there’s Cain. Lurking about, being absent.

It’s very tense-making, waiting for him to pop up from somewhere. And he’s always popping up when you least want a person to pop up. Like when you’re adjusting your corker holder. Or doing a bit of corker-measuring. Or rubbing your corkers with hiking socks to make them grow. That’s when he pops up.

And the most popping up of all the popping things he’s done was on the night when he popped up on the back path. And snogged me.

But that is something that will remain locked in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary forever. That is how much I have put away the dark secret thing. And I am not thinking about him ever again. He can do what he likes as far as I’m concerned. In fact, I’m going to throw away the poem he gave me when I get in.

I reached the bridge. The famous (not) drowning bridge. Where Beverley Bottomly jumped off to drown herself. Because Cain was supposed to be going out with her and she turned up at a gig to meet him and he was snogging another girl. Then, just when she’d got over that, he went out with Beverley again and then re-dumped her. She was double-dumped. So now she’s starving herself to death.

She must really like him.

But why?

He’s so horrible to her.

He’s horrible to me.

Mind you, I don’t really take it personally because he’s horrible to everyone.

He’s always sort of mocking me because I don’t know about stuff. Saying I’m just a kid. But after all that, he goes and kisses me. And writes a poem to me. Even though it looked like it had been written by someone with hoofs instead of hands.

Perhaps he has got hoofs and not hands?

Have I actually seen his hands?

Maybe he’s the Devil. Oh Holy Mother of God.

That’s why he’s got hoofs instead of hands!

I’m being silly now—how could he play the guitar with hoofs?

Hang on.

He doesn’t play the guitar.

The Blind Pig was all lit up as I walked across the bridge and Ruby and Matilda came skipping along to meet me. Ooooh, it was so nice to see them.