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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mia Castle does a lot of writing, for children, young adults and even old adults, and has many other books published under pseudonyms.

  If she hadn’t been an author, she would have liked to have been an actress or a singer in a band or a brilliant musician. As she doesn’t actually have much talent in any of these areas, she just has to write about actresses and singers in bands and brilliant musicians. And put playlists on Youtube. She lives in leafy England and does some globe-trotting, when not writing, writing about writing and talking about writing.

  FANMAIL is the first in Mia’s YA collection. Look out for more coming very soon, and visit Mia on her website for updates and chats: www.miacastlebooks.com

  COMING SOON in the Mia Castle collection!

  PINEAPPLE

  BREATHE

  PHOENIX

  FANMAIL

  By

  MIA CASTLE

  Published 2014 by Mia Castle for MCB

  Copyright © Mia Castle 2014

  The right of Mia Castle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Ay person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This book is available in from www.miacastlebooks.com or all good book e-tailers.

  For the boy bands who kept me entertained and created many incidents similar to those in Fanmail (or even just bands with guys in them who wouldn’t class themselves as boy bands), especially Haircut One Hundred and Take That, thanks for being you.

  For the original and greatest Double Vision – kudos and heartfelt gratitude.

  And for Nick Heyward, the guy whose singing, song-writing and expert towel-throwing many years ago inspired this book, thank you and let the music play on …

  Prologue: I Want To Hold Your Hand (The Beatles)

  The professor flung open the door for his visitors. One by one they nodded smartly, and by-passed him to stare in awe at the prism of swirling gases in the centre of the room.

  ‘We haven’t quite perfected it yet,’ said the professor, ‘as we still suspect there’s something we’re missing – some essence – that will enable us to reap the V’s full potential.’ He smiled graciously at the men surrounding him in a little semi-circle. ‘Hence the need for further investment. However, we have successfully re-created phalanges, tarsels and meta-tarsels. Along with the recent organ reproduction, we believe this has moved us forward significantly.’

  To the professor’s consternation, one of the Japanese entourage had remained by the door. Now he was nodding gently to himself. He seemed far away, not engaged like the other investors. As the man was the chief executive and holder of the purse strings, the professor ramped up his efforts.

  ‘The team and I are relatively sure that we could manage a whole limb within a year.’

  The gaggle of investors cooed appreciatively, apart from the lone director in the doorway, who simply nodded again. Softly. Rhythmically.

  The professor coughed, and pointed towards the tube. ‘Could I interest you in a closer look, Mr Kobayashi?’

  He was still nodding, gazing off into the distance. And … humming. Now he was actually singing, and the professor wasn’t alone in gazing at him.

  Realising he was being stared at, Kobayashi suddenly grinned.

  ‘I love this song,’ he said, jerking his head back along the corridor to the strains of music emanating from Janice’s iPod. ‘Show Me Tomorrow, where the grass is green and I …’ he crooned enthusiastically.

  Quickly rearranging his face to avoid smiling, and reminding himself to tell Janice once more about using the company equipment for her personal entertainment, the professor politely but firmly closed the door behind his visitor.

  ‘I will show you tomorrow,’ he said, leading Kobayashi across the room. ‘It’s right here, at our fingertips. Or should I say – our digit tips.’

  His visitor laughed. ‘Very good, Professor. Very good. How you say – very punny?’

  At that, the professor heaved a silent sigh of relief. It was all going well. Very well indeed. With the Japanese on board, the business development funding was more or less assured.

  If only the rest of his life could be this straightforward. Tying up his personal future could be complicated, especially with another teenage girl to contend with …

  It was going to be much easier, he reckoned, to grow a new arm or two.

  Chapter 1: ABC (Jackson 5)

  It’s sad but true. Just how Dolores and I became bosom buddies is a mystery, and not just to everyone else. Well, the ‘bosom’ bit people understand, because Dolores is very, very blessed in that area of the shirt front. Meanwhile, I’m breasticularly challenged but blessed in the brains arena, and that is the reason other people can’t see how we fit.

  Sometimes though, despite my exceptional fondness for the girl, even I can’t believe the stuff Dolores comes out with. Seriously. My biffle is all smiles and no smarts.

  For example, take lunch-time while we were discussing my … erm, family, for want of a better word. I actually paused with my sandwich halfway to my mouth when some spectacular drivel came out of her glossy rosebud mouth (mine: matte finish aubergine slices for lips. I know. Sounding more gorge by the second, aren’t I?).

  Anyhoo. ‘Say that again,’ I said, a gooooooood minute after the ridiculous comment, during which I’d tried to work out what she was going on about with my mouth hanging open. Dolores came out with some stupid things … incredibly dim, dotty things … but this one just about topped them all.

  ‘You mean your mum’s new “boyfriend” does like what Hitler did,’ repeated Dolores, flicking a long strand of pink hair over her shoulder in a blouse-rippling manoeuvre that caused several Year 9 boys to drop their plates. Or at least their jaws. ‘Genitals.’

  ‘Tics. Genetics. I said my mum’s new … eugh, not boyfriend, he’s about a thousand years old … friend, no, companion; no, associate … does genetics. Not genitals.’ I pushed my glasses up my nose, smearing Marmite across the right lens. ‘Doing genitals would make him a gynaecologist or something utterly pervy and disgusting, not a geneticist. And eww, imagine meeting your mother’s gynaecologist? Rank, vomit-worthy and utterly unacceptable. Anyway, what’s that got to do with Hitler?’

  Dolores fixed me with her pale blue stare that said clearly I know you think I’m thick, but I do listen sometimes, you know. ‘That’s what he did to all those people in the camps. Genetics.’

  Well. That was surprising. Actually, that was true. ‘Um, yeah, amazing,’ I said, trying to hide my astonishment. Dolores really does listen in History, I thought, and not just to her secret iPod playing the latest from newest songsational boy-band, Double Vision, and dreamy lead singer Jazzy Divine. Snore … Oh, am I still awake? Gaad, so boring I can hardly bring myself to say their name …

  ‘Correct,’ I continued while I had Dolores’ attention. ‘Hitler did carry out genetic engineering. Those experiments Mengele did and so on.’

  ‘Experiments men?’ Dolores licked her lips to get the sugar from her doughnut off them, causing more crockery to crash to the floor at the table behind. Year 8s this time. Shouldn’t they be into steam trains or dinosaurs or something? Wow. The Dolores Redwood Fan Club is getting younger and younger.

  I sighed, propping my head up on my hand. Sometimes talking to Dolores makes the noggin feel extra heavy. ‘Not experiments men. The experiment
s – pause – that Mengele – all one word - did. You know, Josef Mengele and Hitler’s genetic experimentation with the …’

  I stopped short. I could see I was wasting my breath. Dolores obviously had no idea what either of us was talking about and had stopped listening, returning instead to some serious studying of her reflection in the water jug on the cafeteria table. The sight of her leaning across the table with a cleavage-enhancing grasp on the jug handle as she turned it towards her was proving too much for the male population of the cafeteria, and I swear I heard someone faint. Quick glance over my shoulder ... Yep. Just behind me on the terracotta tiles was a Year 9, who’d obviously been approaching Dolores with a napkin for her sugary lips and been hit with the full visual blast of the breast-squeezing episode, all majestically magnified through the water jug.

  ‘Poor little dude,’ I said, stirring him gently with my foot. ‘You killed a tiny teenager, but at least he died happy.’

  ‘God, did I do that?’ Dolores leapt out of her seat and bustled around the table, still clutching the water jug.

  At the sight of this I had to let out a giggle. ‘Dolores, if he comes to his senses with the school’s curviest, prettiest Year 11 looming over him, he’ll have a heart attack. Then he really will die. Then you’d have to give him mouth-to-mouth and he’d come back to life and then really, really die all over again.’

  Slowing down on my side of the table to adjust her grip on the carafe of water, Dolores blinked, puzzled. ‘I’m not going to loom or mouth-to-mouth him, Cat. I’m going to do this.’ And she up-ended the entire jug over the prone thirteen year old.

  I slid out of the way of the cascade of liquid, shaking my head. Why was it always like this with Dolores? Why did van drivers toot their horns, and people on scaffolding drop bricks from great heights when she was around? Actually I knew the answer to that. Like I’d just told my bestie (prettiest, curviest Year 11 at Trevellyan School), Dolores is pretty, pink-haired, petite and pert about the bosoms. All the Ps.

  And, of course, Dolores is everything I am not. Me, Cat Andrews, I’m all the Ns: nerdy, non-descript, nervous especially around boys, and the worst N of all - Nice. Just too darned nice. Far, far too nice, which was how I ended up being besties with Dolores when all the other girls were much too threatened by her appearance to see how sweet she is underneath all the gorgeousness. Sweet enough to sit in Chemistry with the flat-fronted science freak … to persuade me to change my name from Catherine to Cat … to laugh at my jokes even when she doesn’t get them …

  Maybe a geneticist step-dad could be useful, I thought as Dolores tried to wipe the poor boy’s sopping forehead with a corner of her blouse, exposing her trim midriff and half a lacy bra to thunderous applause and whoops of approval from the boys’ tables. Somehow, perhaps, Geneticist Step-Dad could get some of Dolores’ DNA and inject it into me. Then I could shrink myself in all directions apart from in the breasticular department, and finally be able to have long silky hair that swished, instead of tight curly brown hair that just, well, curled. Curled out and up and never got longer, just wider. If it kept on growing in its current state, I’d actually grow wings out of my head to rival a fighter plane. With Dolores DNA, it would change completely and be lustrous and long and Rapunzelous. Maybe then I could be the kind of sixteen year old who would have boys rushing round the canteen, chucking jugs of water over themselves just so that I’d dab their brow with a bit of blouse.

  Finishing my Marmite sarnie as chaos ensued around Dolores– the rugby team had now ripped off their shirts and were laying them out, Raleigh-like, across the puddles of water Dolores and her adorers had created – I piled both our plates onto the tray and wondered what we’d end up having for dinner at home.

  I really, truly hoped Mum’s new geneticist boyf could cook as well as doing DNA splicing – or at least that he earned enough money to take us out. There was no way my mother would be up to the task of providing dinner for four people: me, Mum (a really great translator but hopeless cook), The Geneticist (or Dean, as he likes to be called, apparently) and The Geneticist’s Daughter (or the dreaded disgustingly ideal daughter, as I like to think of her). And with the amount of homework we’d had piled on us for the upcoming exams, I wouldn’t be able to step in as I usually do to avoid Mother Dearest poisoning everyone. Mass murder on the first occasion everyone met each other. That wouldn’t be good. Mass murder on any occasion wouldn’t be good, of course, but especially when trying to impress the new man in our life ...

  So then I went off into dreamland, as I often do. Dolores might sneakily listen to the Divine Jazzy D of Double Vision, but I’m worse. I day-dream about university, for crying out loud. And grades. And which course I’ll do before my one or two year post-graduate forensic science specialism. And whether Oxbridge will offer first or if I’d be better to go to a more local uni and save money. And yes, the shame! This is all before I’m even in Year 12.

  Head in the clouds, I wandered off to the tray trolleys with something niggling at the edges of my mind. Mass murder. Hmm. What was it about mass murder? Plus, what was wrong with me, anyway? Why on earth was I thinking about mass murder during the lunch break?

  Ah yes, that was it.

  I turned back to Dolores, whose shirt was now clinging wetly to her torso, to the great disgust of all females witnessing the scene (owing to outrageous amounts of envy) and the huge delight of anyone and everyone in the canteen with testosterone, including some of the staff.

  ‘Genocide,’ I shouted to my friend.

  ‘Hmm?’ said Dolores, scrambling to her feet and swaying alarmingly.

  ‘Genocide was what Hitler did. Not genitals.’

  Dolores batted away the helpful hoard of pubescent teenage youths trying to hold her up as she skittered on the wet floor – or knock her down again; I couldn’t genuinely swear which. My sudden and unintentionally loud mention of genitalia seemed to have made matters reach fever pitch.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ puffed Dolores. ‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, honey, it isn’t,’ I said kindly. I slid the tray into its slot and forced my way back through the melee to extract Dolores from it. ‘First you thought he did genitals, and then you said it was genetics. Which might have been right if you’d said so on purpose, but I’m guessing you didn’t. Don’t worry; you can have my notes on Hitler,’ I said automatically as Dolores’ brow began to furrow. I nudged my buddy in the ribs. ‘So tell me again. Just how did you get into this very exclusive, very academic school for the finest young brains in the area?’

  Dolores beamed happily, smoothing her uniform back down again, completely oblivious to several guys craning their heads around me in order to get a better view – as I am actually rather too large to be see-through at the same time as seemingly being invisible, which is quite a trick. ‘I’ve no idea,’ Dolores admitted with a shrug.

  And she genuinely doesn’t, which makes her all the more adorable.

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, linking my arm through Dolores’ wet sleeve, ‘I wish I could stop being so pathetically nice and just properly hate you like I really, really should. It’s not good for my rep as Chief Nerdess to have Chief Cheerleader as my best friend.’

  ‘Only friend,’ she reminded me kindly.

  I took my arm away. ‘That’s it. You’re out.’

  ‘But then who would save you from your wicked step-sister?’ said Dolores with a grin.

  ‘Stop that right now. We’re meeting them for the very first time. They’re not married yet.’

  ‘Bet they will be, though. Your mum’s never brought anyone home before, has she? It must be lerrrrrrve.’

  ‘Don’t remind me.’ I shuddered. ‘But do remind me to pick up a deli pizza from the supermarket on the way home.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Dolores, practically skipping with joy at being given a responsibility.

  She wouldn’t remember, of course, but I would, so it didn’t really matter. Dolores would be happy just knowing that someo
ne took her the tiniest bit seriously and would expect her to recall something so important. And at least it would give me an excuse for spinning around at the front door and going straight out again if The Geneticist or The Wicked Step-Sister – (no! Not married yet, not married yet …) - if Dean and/or Aggie turned out to be my worst nightmare.

  Which meant, of course, if they turned out to be just about perfect.

  Chapter 2: The Girl That I Knew Somewhere

  (The Monkees)

  They were my worst nightmare.

  Need I say more? Oh, reeeeeeally? Do I have to go through it again?

  Well, there was nothing wrong with either of them, I’m sorry to say. Dean was smiley and tall and more-or-less handsome (which surprised me for some reason, as I thought he’d be all Weirdy Beardy Scientist. Maybe he’d pilfered some handsomeness genes from a patient and plunged them into a vein … and one day his supply would run out and he’d go back to looking like a brown-trousered, bow-backed super-nerd instead of someone who might run a Ted Baker shop … and maybe I’d stop thinking weird stuff about perfectly normal people and figure out why I had this image of scientists when I actually want to BE one, for the love of Newton …).

  As for Aggie – what is there to say? There was nothing wrong with her AT ALL. How unfair and utterly annoying is that? Seriously, I stared at her for a good few minutes, doing a scientific assessment while she gave my mother chocolates and a half-handshake that turned into a giggle and a bit of a hug. Pretty but no Dolores. Smart but no me. Not fat or thin or breasticularly challenged or poke-you-in-the-eye bosomy, and dressed in the kind of outfit I could see myself in if it wouldn’t make me look even more like an ironing board – a chintzy, faded, empire line dress over silvery leggings and finished off with a simple pair of trainers.