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Oh Cord Von Cord! What you have reduced me to!
    I can’t believe Mummy hasn’t sent a money order. She’s usually such a softy. She can never resist a sob story, least of all from me – her only child! I can only think that perhaps she didn’t get my last letter. Perhaps Papa intercepted the post and is trying to starve me into submission.
    Well, more fool him, because I can hold out against his tyranny for far longer than he imagines. I am resourceful. I have proved that to myself in bucketloads this afternoon. I’ve only gone and got myself a job!
     
    So perhaps it’s not the kind of job my parents would have wished for me but I have no doubt that it will be interesting. I heard about it when I was trying to sneak past the hotel reception desk at lunchtime.
    I owe nearly three weeks’ rent and I just don’t have it so I have been trying to avoid Enno, the hotel manager, as I go about my day. He has been very kind so far but I know he can’t keep extending my credit for ever and the last thing I want is to find myself too much in his debt. He’s completely cross-eyed and smells of sauerkraut. But today, he caught me. He saw me coming and hid behind the desk, knowing that if I didn’t see him there, I might risk taking a look at the pigeonholes to see if I had any post. As I leaned over the desk to do exactly that, he grabbed me by the wrist, like the troll beneath the bridge grabbing the Billy Goats Gruff.
    I screamed.
    ‘Got you,’ he said.
    I screamed again. It was horrible. He scared me half to death. Still, he found me a chair and made me sit down on it. He waited until I had finished hyperventilating before he made his case.
    ‘Fräulein Hazleton, you are a whole three weeks behind with your rent. The rules of this hotel are that bills are settled on a weekly basis. There are to be no exceptions.’
    I nodded along to his speech.
    ‘I cannot continue to extend you credit,’ he said. ‘My own job is now on the line.’
    I burst into tears and cried very prettily but I knew I could test his patience no more.
    ‘I’ll move out this afternoon,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I will be perfectly fine under the railway arches.’
    Poor Enno looked horrified. ‘Hey hey!’ he said. ‘There’s no need for that.’
    He handed me his rather dirty handkerchief with which to dry my eyes.
    ‘Look, a friend of mine is looking for waitresses in his bar,’ Enno told me. ‘I’m sure it is not the kind of work you’re looking for, but it is better than nothing. It’s a nice place. The staff are friendly. If you go over there this afternoon, I will wait until you have your first pay cheque before I ask you for money again.’
    ‘Oh thank you, Enno.’ It was such a kind offer, I had to say I’d take it up.
     
    Enno’s friend – a man named Jerry Schluter – owns a place called the Boom Boom Bar. I have passed it many times but never dared set foot inside. It doesn’t look like the kind of place a girl should frequent on her own. But Enno assured me that no harm would come to me. The man who owns the Boom Boom and the guys and girls who work there are all good people, he said.
    ‘They’re just a little different, that’s all.’
    How different, I had no idea.
    I arrived at the Boom Boom around three in the afternoon. The outside is very shabby. It also looked closed, but when I pressed my nose to the glass panel in the door, I saw there were people inside. I stepped into the lobby, with its worn-out carpet and velvet-flocked walls, and plastered on my most enthusiastic look. It was hard to hold that look for long. The floor was sticky and the air was redolent of spilled beer. I thought I might get drunk just from breathing.
    A couple of people passed through the lobby without even looking at me, so I took my enthusiastic face off and coughed to get someone’s attention.
    ‘A-hem,’ I said. ‘A-hem!’
    There was a woman on the counter. She had red hair piled high on her head in a number of tiny curls so