has mad, staring eyes. And he likes to mutter a lot. I can’t understand what he’s saying though.
Oh no, he’s reaching into his bag. Should I pull the emergency cord? Do they even have emergency cords on the tube? It’s too late, he’s taking something out. What if it’s a gun, not a bomb? What if he shoots me?
False alarm. It’s a book. It’s called One Hundred Ways to Ice a Cake. He isn’t a crazed terrorist at all – he’s a crazed cake-maker!
He’s stopped muttering now and he’s started to read.
I can’t believe there are actually one hundred different ways to ice a cake.
I would have done something though – if he had pulled out a gun or a bomb. I wouldn’t have just sat here. Because I want to write a book. And I don’t want to have to make anything up to make my book exciting. I was thinking about it on the way to the station. The reason I love Anne Frank’s diary and the Little House on the Prairie so much is because they’re true stories. All the cool things the heroines did actually happened in real life. And that’s how I want my book to be. I’ll still use Agatha Dashwood’s book to help me, but I’m going to stick to the facts. And that way I’ll have to make my life interesting. And I’ll have to become the kind of heroine I like to read about. The kind of person who notices the hair colour of a potential criminal and stands up to bullies and isn’t afraid to fight back.
Chapter Three
‘For your main character your story has to be a journey. This journey can be physical, but it must always, without fail, be emotional. If your character hasn’t grown, learnt and changed by the end of your novel then I am afraid they are destined for the waste-paper bin.’
Agatha Dashwood,
So You Want to Write a Novel?
The minute registration ended I picked up my book and my bag and I started walking. I didn’t stop walking until I was on the London-bound platform at Rayners Lane station. I got the train to the very end of the line to a station called Aldgate. I’d never been there before but I knew it was in the East End and I hoped there’d be a map or a signpost for Spitalfields outside the station.
But there were no maps or signposts at all, just loads of cars and buses and taxies all whizzing by at about a million miles an hour. I stood on the pavement in front of the station trying to decide what to do next, and trying not to get trampled on by a herd of commuters with serious anger-management issues. It’s funny because for the past few months I’ve spent hours in lessons dreaming of the day I can leave school and go to work, but judging by the faces of the people who stormed past me today I don’t think work can be all that great either.
In the end I decided to go left. Because I’m left-handed. I know that sounds really dumb, and I bet an intrepid explorer like Christopher Columbus would never have done something so stupid. Or maybe he did, and maybe America would still be undiscovered if he’d been right-handed . . . but at least Christopher Columbus would have had charts and a compass to help him. I had nothing. So I turned left, and I walked and walked.
I reached a massive crossroads and waited for the green man to appear. Normally I just cross the road if I see a gap in the traffic, but in this part of London cars and bikes seemed to burst out of nowhere like rockets. The cyclists looked like something out of a horror movie, pedalling furiously and wearing those masks that surgeons wear when they’re about to cut somebody open. I clutched my school bag to me, leant against a lamp post and waited. My back was starting to ache from all the walking. I’m supposed to wear specially made shoes to even out the length of my legs, but they look even worse than the limp. The trouble is, when I wear normal shoes it puts loads of pressure on my spine. I think this is what is known as a lose–lose situation.
Once I’d managed to get across the road I saw a sign that told me I was now in Whitechapel. You know, the crappy brown square on the Monopoly board that only costs about 20p in rent even if you have ten hotels on it. Well, dear reader, I now know why it’s so cheap. It smells like a boiled toilet and there’s a horrible film of dirt covering everything, like cigarette ash. I would’ve stopped someone to ask for directions if I hadn’t been so worried about stranger danger. Not that I normally worry about that sort of thing, but the people I was passing looked stranger and more dangerous than anyone I’ve ever seen before. For example, there was a woman with long greasy hair and smeary make-up pushing a supermarket trolley with just an old rusty kettle in it. And a man with two carrier bags tied to his feet, hobbling along, shouting about God. And another man who was drinking beer and singing a Bob Marley song in the doorway of an ‘adult entertainment centre’ – which we all know is just another name for a sex shop. I wonder what goes on in a sex shop. Do people just walk in off the street and say, ‘I’d like to buy some sex, please.’?
I decided that I’d take the next left turn and if it looked just as bad I’d start making my way back to the station. But the next left turn was like finding a black hole in outer space and slipping into another dimension. Or in this case, slipping into India. As I started walking up the road I realised that nearly every shop was an Indian restaurant, and if it wasn’t an Indian restaurant it was an Indian supermarket, or a sari shop, or an Indian sweet shop with trays of rainbow-coloured sweets filling the windows. I got to a small crossroads and looked for a clue to where I was. Somebody had spray-painted PLEASE DON’T BOMB US on the wall and beneath that was a black and white street sign. It said BRICK LANE. I felt a little flutter in my stomach. Brick Lane was near Spitalfields Market. I’d seen a programme once on The History Channel about twentieth-century London migrants (I’d pretended to Alan it was for a history project to get out of going on a family badminton night) and the presenter had talked about Brick Lane being right next door to Spitalfields.
I started walking a bit faster. Up ahead of me two ladies in black burkhas bustled their little children over a tiny zebra crossing. They reminded me of mother penguins. The road was narrower now and cobbled, the complete opposite of Whitechapel High Street. As I walked I peered down each side road looking for any sign of Spitalfields. The names of the roads were really cool – Threadneedle Street, Fashion Street – there wasn’t a Magnolia Crescent in sight. And then, as I peered down a side road called Fournier Street, I saw a sign with an arrow saying SPITALFIELDS MARKET. I stopped, as still as a statue. Ever since I’d got on the tube I’d been worried I’d never find Spitalfields, but now I had found it I felt a bit sick. I fumbled around in my bag for my mobile to check the time. Nearly half past eleven. I pulled out the birthday card and opened it again, my fingers trembling.
You can find me most lunchtimes performing in Spitalfields Market. By the record stalls. If you want to find me . . .
I took a deep breath. It wasn’t lunchtime yet. I still had time to get to the market and decide what I was going to do. I started walking down Fournier Street. I wondered what my dad looked like. Back when I thought he was all American with commitment issues I pictured him being big and broad and wearing a cowboy hat and boots. And possibly a medallion. But now I knew he had wanted to call his daughter – wanted to call me – Cherokee, I wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe he was a Native American and Steve Brown was just his English name. Maybe he was really called Growling Bear or Big Stream Running Water. I wondered what he did when he ‘performed’. I thought of the men with the long dark plaits who played the pan pipes in Harrow every Saturday. Is that what Steve – my dad – would be doing in Spitalfields? I felt my cheeks start to flush. What would I say to him? How should I act?
‘And this is where Jack the Ripper’s first victim used to lodge . . .’
I glanced
