Fanmail by Mia Castle

on the spot, obviously deciding that Dolores’ resemblance to an attractive pink-haired mushroom mattered more than her ability to, say, add up. ‘We need girls like you to bring in the teen demographic. You’re hired,’ she’d cried.
    When she said “girls”, I admit to getting a little excited for a moment as I was also looking for a Saturday job, and was standing right next to Dolores at the moment of hiring.
    ‘Great!’ I’d said, as Dolores was already holding up lingerie and doing amazed and aghast faces at the prices. ‘When do we start?’
    Well, somehow Dolores had already started; she’d made a sale in two seconds flat, just by showing the frilly orange bra to the middle-aged woman next to her and mouthing ‘Wow.’ Only I knew that she meant ‘I could get ten bras for that amount of money!’ The other customer must have thought it meant “Wear this and you too could look like me,” as she snatched it out of Dolores’ hand and ran for the till in an instant.
    ‘I only need one weekend assistant,’ said the manageress , watching the whole episode like a proud mother. ‘Sorry, dear.’
    Then she’d looked me up and down in a way that let me know I would never be able to work there as I was s o breasticularly challenged and would block the doors with my hair wings, and I went back to doing extra homework all weekend just for fun, while Dolores earned money and got huge staff discounts on stuff that made her look even more perky in the chest department than she already did.
    For once, though, I was quite relieved she’d got this job. It saved me having to explain that Jason Jazzy Divine Devaney was currently doing press-ups on the back lawn, and appeared once more to have forgotten that normal people wear clothes.
    ‘You’ll have to tell me on Mondayyyyy,’ moaned Dolores. ‘I’ve got to go to Dad’s tonight and you know what he’s like about texting and so on, and then work again tomorrow. It’s so totally unfair!’
    ‘ Never mind. On Monday, my busty biffle, I will make it all up to you,’ I said.
    Oh, and how.
     
    The r est of the weekend passed uneventfully, though I did have to go to the supermarket and buy cheap clothes for Jazzy (just so he’d wear some), and then had to endure an hour of him doing a fashion show on the patio, trying out all the different ways he could model a black t-shirt, a white t-shirt, and a pair of five-pound-special jeans from Asda. I’ll admit it – he did manage to make even those look good, especially the white top with Dean’s 501’s. Anyway, I’d also bought him bags of junk food and a pair of pyjamas with my meagre savings, so I reckoned he could survive the weekend, and if he’d just wear some pants, so could I.
    Without mishap, the next school week arrived. Hallelujah. Time to instantly become THE most popular girl in Trevellyan, and make Dolores delirious with joy, AND persuade Freddie that he was wastin g his time with Double D and he’d be much better off with her cool, sciency and surprisingly-well-connected-in-the-pop-world friend.
    I was actually in quite a good mood, which I’m usually not on a Monday owing to the general awfulness of being a social misfit and having a whole week of hideousness ahead … This week was going to be exceptional. This day was going to be fantastic. I could feel it in my bones (mostly the tibia, patella and femur, though somewhat in the cranium too). 
    I heard the voice at the kitchen window. Mum, fortunately, had already left to get the early train up t o the city for her meeting. I wanted to be sure he still had clothes on so I ran to the window first, before tentatively opening the door. He was basically wearing the sleeping bag; I didn’t want to know if there was anything else underneath.
    ‘Morning,’ I said.
    ‘Morning, Cat,’ he said as he stumbled over the step. Then the singing began. ‘It’s morning in my eyes, but twilight in your soul, and if you don’t bring me your sunshine I