"No, I think that's it and quite enough too." I saw her smile at that. "It's almost as if someone made that Chinese curse on me. You know the one about living in interesting times?"

Angelo finds friendship and acceptance at high school, in spite of his girlish nature. His joy is short-lived as he finds Child Welfare Services has come to remove him from his foster mother's home, a prospect that horrifies him. He works out his own solution to this frightening event and finds a whole new world.

"I don't know how parents survive!" she exclaimed. "You've been with me for what — five or six weeks now, and I feel like I'm either going to have gray hair or a heart attack or both! And the thing is, you're just skipping along, tra la la, and — oh! I'm a girl! oh! I have a boyfriend! oh! I climbed the school building! oh! I have breasts!"

The plot thickens...or is that the gravy???

I drove over to the cottage, now less than worried about the press. It was a mess, it had been searched, thankfully, they weren't vandals, so whilst they ripped out the back of wardobes and things, they didn't rip up the clothing. I took several more items down to the car. I didn't think I'd be coming back for a while.

I tidied up Stella and Simon's clothes, but left everything else. The young copper on the door was bored stiff, but he had his job to do, so after making him a cuppa and some sandwiches, I left.

“Neither do I sweetheart, but we must eat. If you don’t, you’ll lose even more of your bust and the pills won’t do their magic, will they?”

“I suppose not.” I allowed her to cajole me out of bed. My skirt was all creased and the belt had rubbed red marks around my small waist. She got me to strip off and put on my jammies and a dressing gown, and to wash my face and hands. When I’d done so, I padded down the stairs in my slippers, to the kitchen. My mother was standing with her back to me doing something at one of the work tops. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her and said, “I love you and I’m sorry I made you cry.”

She turned around and hugged me, “You didn’t, I’m just sad all the time at the moment.”