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seems to get heavier every day.
    I bite my lip. ‘I just don’t see why we should have so much when the people in Malawi have so little!’ I blurt out. ‘It’s not fair!’
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ Miss Moon agrees. ‘You’re right. Life can be very unfair indeed.’
    ‘I think about it all the time,’ I admit. ‘It makes me sad. And angry.’
    ‘I can see that,’ Miss Moon nods. ‘But … there is a lot of poverty and hardship in the world. Why are you worrying about Malawi in particular?’
    I sigh. ‘My dad has gone to do some voluntary work there,’ I explain. ‘He is digging a well and helping to build a school for a village called Tatu Mtengo. He’s been gone for thirteen whole days, and we haven’t heard anything since last Tuesday! It’s very worrying! What if something has happened to him?’
    ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ Miss Moon says kindly. ‘It’s probably very difficult to communicate from somewhere like Malawi, but if anything were wrong, you’d know. But of course, I can see that the band is clearly helping you to express your mixed-up feelings about it all.’
    ‘It’s not just that, Miss,’ I confide. ‘We are entering the Battle of the Bands, and we are going to win. We have to, because the prize is five hundred pounds and that money could buy a herd of goats and build a new clinic and supply school books and medicine for a place like Tatu Mtengo!’
    Miss Moon looks doubtful. ‘I see,’ she says, but I’m not sure she can really see at all, and that makes me sad.
    ‘Daizy …’ Miss Moon says, as I turn to go. ‘Don’t be too disappointed if you don’t win the Battle of the Bands. I know you have been practising hard, and I know how much it means to you, but … well, some bands try for years and years before they manage to break through to the big time. I don’t want you to be disappointed, that’s all.’
    I won’t be disappointed, of course, because losing is not an option. The Honey Badgers are going to win … and my dad will come home safely and remember that he loves me, Becca, Pixie and Mum far too much to be separated from us ever again. He will not be tempted to run off with anybody from the chip shop, or get huffy because the shop has run out of milk and demand an instant divorce.
    No way.
      
    The forms have been filled in and sent away. The songs have been polished, the set has been practised until it is just about perfect. Mr Bleecher has taken to wearing earmuffs for the whole of the lunch hour, and muttering darkly whenever he sees us.
    Ted Tingley, my guitar guru, says I am a remarkable student. He says I am breaking down walls and barriers, taking thrash-metal-punk guitar to frightening new heights. Or maybe it was depths, I can’t remember.
    ‘I have never had a pupil quite like you, Daizy Star,’ he says. He says it every week, and he shakes his head sadly. I expect he is remembering his own youth and wishing he’d had the ability to turn ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ into a thrash-metal-punk classic.
    ‘Are you sure about this, Daizy?’ he asked, when I told him I’d posted off The Honey Badgers’ entry for the Battle of the Bands. ‘Are you sure the world is ready for your … um … unique guitar style?’
    I am not sure, but I hope the world is ready. They have to be, really, because I have something to say and let’s face it, the world needs to hear it. And if they don’t hear that message when Willow is yelling it out at 3,000 decibels over the sound of mangled guitar bass and drums, then they will never, ever hear it.
    We are going to turn our amps up to the max. We are going to put our hearts and souls into the performance, and also our blood, our sweat and our tears.
      
    We are going to win the Battle of the Bands, and the £500, and if we are lucky, one of Miss Moon’s Star of the Week awards each as well.
    Why not?
    After all, this week Andy Hines got a Star of the Week award for having his tonsils out. And he got ice cream