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place. My homework is stacked tidily on my desk and my clothes drawers are all neatly closed – not half open with underwear and T-shirts flowing out. I’m not weird or anything – I just like everything to be tidy. I like knowing where everything is; it makes me feel calm inside. Alex teases me about it, but Mum says there’s nothing wrong with needing to be ordered and that everybody likes to feel in control of something.
    I sit down on my bed and twist my mood ring round and round on my finger. I love my mood
ring and I wear it all the time. Alex gave it to me for my tenth birthday. She got it from one of the funny little shops that she likes: shops that sell candles and incense and weird statues. I know that it’s just supposed to be a bit of fun, but I realized pretty quickly that my mood ring is actually quite accurate. I wouldn’t ever tell anybody, but sometimes it feels like it REALLY can tell what’s going on in my house, even before I can.
    It started one day when I noticed that it had gone an amazing silver colour and when I checked with my mood-ring guide it said that could mean loneliness. And then, the very next day, Betty, my cat who I’d had for eight years, got run over and died, and I felt lonelier than I’ve ever felt in my whole entire life. It just seemed too much of a coincidence.
    Anyway, it’s a murky colour at the moment, which means that I must be feeling anxious or scared. I suppose Alex’s grumpy mood has made me feel a bit worried so maybe that’s it. Then again, we’ve got that horrible maths test at school tomorrow and I just know that I’m going to fail – I didn’t understand a word that Mrs Hardman said when she was teaching us about simple equations.
There was definitely nothing simple about them though, I know that for sure.
    Something’s making me feel nervous and I don’t like it. It’s like that feeling you get when there’s about to be a big storm: things start to feel wrong. I think I’ll distract myself until Mum gets back from work by finishing my homework. Then I might make sure my pencil case has got everything I’ll need for tomorrow’s test. Best to be prepared, just in case a miracle happens and I actually understand one of the questions. It’d be a shame if that happened and my pen had run out of ink.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold
    Some nights I have the same dream. A recurring dream – a dream that you just can’t stop, even if you really want to. I dream that I’m sitting in a seat in a theatre. The seat is covered in red velvet and I can tell it’s old because of the way that there’s a rip on the side and the armrests are worn through and shiny, from the hundreds and thousands of arms that have rested on them over the years. There are rows of seats stretching out in front of me and rows of seats reaching into the distance behind me, but they’re all empty. I’m all alone in the theatre, except for one other person.
    Alex is on the stage, standing in a single spotlight. She starts to dance, slowly at first, but then faster and faster, until she’s whirling and twirling so fast that I forget to breathe – I’m so sure that she’ll fall. There’s never any music, but
it doesn’t matter because Alex
is
the music. The way she moves is so beautiful, so everything, that music couldn’t compete with her. Definitely not me on my violin.
    And then, suddenly, she stops. I clap as loudly as I can – I clap until my hands hurt. I stand up and cheer and call her name.
    ‘Alex! Alex! I’m over here!’
    She stands on the stage, eyes sparkling, with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. She’s breathing deeply, out of breath, and I can feel her excitement and pride; it’s radiating out from her in purple waves.
    I want to run to her, to hug her and tell her how amazing she is, to tell whoever will listen that this is my big sister. I feel like I’ll burst, I’m so proud.
    And then something catches Alex’s attention and she turns slightly,