Read Beads, Boys and Bangles for Free Online Page B

She’s doing Further Maths A-level next year?
    ‘Paris is totally the most romantic city in the world. I have to come and live here one day.’
    I’m amazed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Edie use the word ‘romantic’ before, unless she’s discussing Jane Austen in an essay. She’s right though, of course.
    In the morning, Dad finds us both asleep with our heads on the kitchen counter, and won’t let us move until he’s done a quick sketch of us, and laughed his head off.
    Now I get what Mum meant about living with artists being a nightmare.

B ack in London, Crow gets straight to work on her new couture designs. She has loads of clients with parties and awards ceremonies coming up and she’s fizzing with ideas.
    Other nearly-fourteen-year-olds might spend time messaging their friends and checking out YouTube and watching TV. I’ll admit I did a tiny bit of that when I was fourteen. OK, I did mostly that. But Crow isn’t normal that way. She doesn’t own a computer. Never uses her phone, except for taking photos. Hates reading. Hates typing. Isn’t interested in TV.
    She loves movies and galleries and arty parties and anything that fires her imagination. Mostly, though, she just sits in her workroom after school, or wanders around the streets of London, designing things in her head, or working out new techniques for making them real on tailor’s dummies.
    Lots of girls have written to Edie’s website saying howjealous they are of Crow since she got famous, but I’m not sure if they’d love her life. She adores it, but like I say, she’s not totally normal. In a good way. Edie writes back and tells those girls they can have Crow’s life when they’ve done ten thousand fashion sketches for practice and can recreate a Dior dress from scratch, like Crow can. Edie’s tough that way.
    Right now, Edie’s in talks with her internet people about website security (at last), and I’m supposed to be finishing my Shakespeare essay. But instead, I really need to catch up with Jenny.
    It’s Saturday morning and time for our usual rendezvous at the Victoria and Albert Museum café. I’ve just been to Paris and been sort-of romanced by a ballet dancer. I can’t wait for her to ask me how it went.
    ‘It was amazing,’ she says.
    ‘What was?’
    ‘The meeting with Bill. I have to tell you EVERYTHING.’
    ‘Can I just—?’
    ‘Well, first, I didn’t think he was going to talk about acting at all, and I didn’t really want him to, because, you know, it wasn’t so great last time, but it turns out I may have to think again.’
    She looks at me expectantly. Like I’m supposed to have guessed something. I just want to tell her about Ballet Boy. I breathe in to say something and she takes that as a desperate need to know more.
    ‘It turns out, Bill’s written a play. Sort of about me. Sort of for me. One of the characters is this girl whose father has let her down and she has to rebuild the relationship with him and this stepmother character. She’s quiet at first, but she gradually becomes the soul of the piece. And he said he wrote it with me in mind. What my dad did, you know, selling that story about me, and imagining if I had to go and live with him afterwards. There was a girl who was going to play me. My role, I mean. But she’s just backed out. And they start rehearsals in January. And Bill thought of me. I might not get the part, obviously. Probably not, in fact, but . . . are you listening, Nonie?’
    ‘Yes. You said you might not get the part.’
    ‘Which part?’ She’s looking at me suspiciously.
    ‘The part he wrote for you.’
    Phew. I wasn’t actually listening, but luckily the words just sort of stuck in my brain and came out at the right moment.
    ‘Exactly.’
    She takes this as an excuse to go on and carries on chatting about it for another ten minutes. Something about the play being staged in a small theatre in Hammersmith that used to be a boathouse for rowing crews. Perfect