Authors For Nepal

Ebay help-line for earthquake victims...

It has just been announced that a second earthquake has hit Kathmandu, killing dozens and injuring more than a thousand.

Many authors are offering a whole host of services, from critiques to retreats to naming a character in their next book - all in aid of the recent earthquake disaster victims in Nepal. To quote Kathy Evans in her blog:

"They are amazing and resilient  people but they are living in devastation. They need water and sanitation. They need to clear up. They need our help. They need your money.

You can give to the charity that my daughter worked for last year, HVP Nepal.

You can give to the Disasters Emergency Committee"

So please help by bidding here:

Wish I'd Written... Only Ever Yours by Louise O' Neill

Only Ever Yours is the most unsettling book I’ve read for a long time. So I had to immediately gift it to my friends. I needed someone to talk to about it.

Set in the disturbing world of an all-girls’ school where the pupils are trained to become the perfect Companions for men, this seems at first to be yet another dystopian set-up.

It is not.

It. Is. Not.

This is pure scathing satire, ripping into our society of relentless adverts and media pressure to look, feel and act a certain way. Girls should be thin. Girls should be hairless. Girls should be pretty. Girls should find a hot guy. Girls should aspire to be on telly.

The awful thing is, I found myself buying into the petty competitiveness of frieda, isabel and megan’s world (lower case intentional – no female’s name is capitalised). All the details of their outfits (chosen and futuristically fitted onto them every morning) are described straight from Elle magazine. Oh to have a messy side-plait!

The clever thing is: not only does it tear girls’ worlds into shreds “with a scalpel” to quote Jeanette Winterson, it also reads as a scathing commentary on many YA books.

Yes, there’s a dystopian setting, but it’s subverted and feels far too real.

Yes, there’s a hot guy, brilliantly named Darwin Goldsmith, but any romance set up is twisted and revealed to be shallow and hopeless.

Yes, there’s a beautiful female protagonist, but is she feisty and rebellious? Is she heck. frieda is passive, helpless, bitchy, and broken. And her ending is one of the most shocking I’ve read.

Brilliant. Brutal. Unrelenting to the final page, this book is as pitiless as 1984; bleaker than The Handmaid’s Tale.

And any Companion over forty?

Oh, they get sent to the pyre.

Ranks with Caitlin Moran's How to Be a Woman as a must-buy for anyone who has daughters or nieces, and for anyone who thinks that Feminism is a dirty word.

Louise O' Neill

School Visit with Beth Reekles

Meet Beth Reekles: one of the world's sixteen most influential teenagers, according to Time Magazine.
As part of World Book Day celebrations, Write For Real invited her to The Chase School to share her writing journey.
First, Beth was interviewed by three students in the school library. After a very nice lunch provided by the school canteen (in a basket no less), Beth had a double workshop session in the lecture theatre, each with around fifty year ten students.

 Mrs Levez and Beth Reekles

Beth told the students (and some very envious teachers!) about her rise to author success at the tender age of fifteen, where she used to tap out romances on her second-hand lap-top in revision breaks.The Welsh high school student was looking for something to read other than stories about vampires and werewolves when she decided to write her own teen fiction book. Wattpad provided the platform for real readers to give her feedback for her growing story, The Kissing Booth, set in America. To her astonishment, over a few months her readers grew from a couple into 19 million views!
She started getting over 500 e mails a day from fans across the globe, desperate to read the next episode of her book. Her success caught the attention of Random House Children’s Publishers U.K. and Beth, now 19, scored a three-book deal with U.S. Random House and has since appeared on the Today show.

Beth Reekles is interviewed by students

Beth shares her writing journey

The Interview

Was it difficult to get noticed on Wattpad?
It was slow at first, but I made sure that each episode ended on a horrid cliff-hanger. After a few months I woke up and found 500 e mails in my inbox!
Tell us more about Wattpad.
At first I had zero confidence as a writer, but Wattpad is great for getting feedback on your writing. I posted anonymously and was surprised and happy to find that people seemed to like what they read. It gave me so much confidence, I started telling people about my writing.
What are your favourite YA books?
I love Solitaire by Alice Oseman and I also love On The Fence by Kasie West. The characters in them are so cute.
If you were a piece of furniture, what would you be?
A foot-stool (definitely not a chair!)
What was the process after your publisher contract?
After I got an e mail from Random House inviting me to London, I had to pinch myself to stop freaking out! My Dad and I went to their offices and I was offered a three book deal there and then. It usually takes about eighteen months for a book from signing the contract to publication, but in my case it took only eight weeks to get the e book of The Kissing Booth out by Boxing Day.
How much chopping and changing did you have to do with the edits?
Well, I had already edited the book myself, but the "fluffy cute" chapters got taken out.
Did you let your family and friends read your book?
No! Not until it was published. My family used to see me tapping away on the lap-top and say "what are you doing?" They all thought it was just a weird little hobby.
Are you a dog or a cat person?
Dogs. I dog-sit for my auntie.
Your passion has now become a business. How do you keep that initial enjoyment?
I try not to think of it as work - unless there's a stressy dead-line. Also, there's enough stress from uni work (Beth is currently reading Physics at Exeter University) so writing for me is down-time.
Was it a big step uploading your first story onto Wattpad?
Yes, it was absolutely terrifying! It was just a matter of copy-paste-click, but how did I know if someone would like it? I remember pressing screen refresh loads of times and being really pleased when I saw I had three followers!
Should more people use Wattpad?
Yes, definitely. 99.9% of the writing community is incredibly positive - really encouraging and supportive.
Has negative feedback ever upset you?
Whenever there's a "troll", other readers jump in and stop. It's easy to ignore, because there's so much positive feedback.
How do you manage to keep your characters interesting?
I try to give them little quirks and characteristics, but I never base them directly on people I know. I advise you to look at online character profile question-aids, for example: is my character superstitious?
Was it daunting when you met your editor?
Not at all. They were lovely and sweet and very welcoming. I knew I was in the right place when I saw a giant Tardis cut-out in the entrance to the Random House offices. There were also piles of YA books, and they said I could take as many as I wanted, so I was happy!
What age-group are your books aimed at?
Twelve to thirteen plus.
Is there any of yourself in any of your characters?
I think there's a bit of me in all of them. A good example is in Rolling Dice, my second book, which features a physics nerd!
Finally, do you have any advice that you can give to aspiring young writers?
My advice is always this: "Write what you read."
Our huge thanks to Beth Reekles, for a very inspiring school visit.

NYCMidnight Short Story Challenge, Second Round

So the second round challenge was:

Write a story in 3 days.

Word count: 2000

Genre: historical

Character: 7 year old boy

Subject: an unveiling.

Here's my effort. (Very cross with myself because I submitted before I'd edited it properly.)

                                All Our Little Ones

Billy-boy sits in the Box with his apple, his bell and his ball.

He must do as he and Ma and Gentleman have rehearsed or there’ll be no meat pie tonight. 

Today I am seven. I have my apple, my bell, my ball.

Ma says to keep tight hold of the string, not like last time. Last time I let the apple bump too early and nobody was half as Amazed and Flabbergasted as they should have been.

So I hold the string in my hand and listen hard just like Ma taught me.

Gentleman helped me into the Box when the lights went out. He has on his silk kerchief and his pocket-watch tonight and says he will let me have a nip of his fire water if I am a good boy. Since it is my birthday he has even promised me a wiper of my very own.

The string is hot and sticky in my fingers. I wind it round and listen hard to what’s going on outside in the parlour cause if I miss my cue it will mean no meat pie for me. Worse still, we might get nibbed.

I have excellent ears, Gentleman says. Ma says he spoils me; I will get all rotten like a bad apple, she says. But I like it when Gentleman tweaks my ear and gives me sixpences and Fox’s mints.

Though I can’t see her I can picture Ma at the head of the tipping table. She’s all dressed up to the nines in her fine muslin and good silk stockings, taking her place with the ladies. Her pocket-purse will be fat with coins, all of them sovereigns and all of them good.

“We’ll be swells too one day, Billy-boy,” she said, before smothering me with kisses that smelled of cinder toffee and snuff.

Apple. Bell. Ball.

I scratch my scabs and listen hard. Ma’ll be going under soon; I can hear the catch in her throat.

If I hold my breath I can hear:

The ladies whispering and rustling.

Ma’s breath going deepdeepdeep.

The ticking of Gentleman’s pocket-watch.

My heart small and quick.

The tiniest sound of me scratching at my leg.

My ankles are scabbed with  flea bites. Back in our kitchen, Mr Gladstone the blind old terrier has been scratching and worrying at his hind leg like he would tear strips from it. I twist the string and try not to think of the itching like hot little needles jumping and wriggling  over my skin.

My left leg is twisted from where a cab-wheel caught it. It means I am smaller than I ought to be and that is good for prigging. Ma is not my real Ma. She found me curled up tight as you like when my real mother died, so she says, never a word did I speak, not for all the cinder toffee she could tempt me with.

Her being such a kind soul, heart as soft as lambs wool, she scooped me up and declared she would have me for her own, there and then. That first night, after she pulled me way from my poor cold mother, she took me to her room and we lay, spooned together in the narrow bed, her rubbing at my feet to warm them, stroking flat my fine baby hair. Where my real mother had been string-thin like me, Ma is fat as butter.

She fed me up, but not too much. She had plans for me and my being a shrimp fit in just fine.  After all, Ma is the boldest handsomest betty on Cleet Street.

I can feel the cold hard edge of the bell against my foot, which is greasy with blacking. Ma rubbed my feet and hands and face hard with soot before we left for our Most Spectacular and Genuine Unveiling.

Ma’s voice calls out, only a bit muffled on account of all the chiffon she has stuffed in there. She and Gentleman have rubbed it with goosefat so it will slide out nice and smooth when the time comes.

“John Quinn, John Quinn, John Quinn, are you coming?”

She has tried muslin and cheese-cloth and even chewed paper but says her chiffon wedding veil works best and Ma knows cause she is the Most Remarkable and Prodigious spiritualist in London.

Besides me, Gentleman coughs.

I am ready.

Taking the string, I raise it high and quiet and drop it so the apple bounces.

Bump.

There is a cry from one of the ladies.

“John Quinn, are you here to see your dear Mamma?”

Bump

“Can you tell us how old you were when you passed to the spirit world?

Three is harder cause you have to time the bounces just right.

Bump bump bump

A sigh, heavy and sweet from the sitters.

“Do not break the circle,” reminds Ma.

It was on the day I was five she announced it was time to earn my keep. No-one knew when my birthday was so Ma made me take it on Jubilee Day seeing as that was the day she found me.

“All right my dear,” she said, spitting snuff juice into a little jug she keeps, looped over her  finger. “You are ready for work. You and me and Gentleman are going to be Most Astounding and Spectacular, and don’t you ever forget it.”

Then she coaxed me into the Box with a piece of hot meat pie,  and sang to me in the dark till I forgot my tears and ate it all up quick as you like. I have an appetite you wouldn’t believe even though I’m small. Skinny-diddles, Ma calls me.

There is an oooh from the sitters and I know that Gentleman has done his table-tipping. That means it is only the bell and the ball left. I need to be careful not to touch the ball cause it is all full of water for the poor drowned little ones.

Ma specialises in children that have gone to Heaven early.

I reach the bell with my toes and lift it, careful now, and just have room to shake it.

It is loud and clear as cut glass. It is the sound of angels.

There is a little moan from the room outside and I know that one of the ladies has fainted.

“Keep your hands together. Do not break the circle,” drones Ma. Her voice is going all husky cause she’s sucking up the spirit now. She’s being transfigurated and this is her favourite part.

When she and Gentleman have had a pitcher of wine, he pinches her and says she should be on the stage, that she should. I like it when Ma goes all girlish cause that’s when she hugs me most, squeezing and pinching like she can’t get enough of me.

Soon, real soon, Gentleman is going to let me out the back of the Box and that is when I am to perform my real business.

“The veil is thinnest at this hour,” Ma intones, voice all growly and deep. “It is a time when the Oneness and Earthliness join together. All our little ones cross over on their tiny spirit feet.”

Gentleman undoes a secret catch on the Box and it splits open like a crackerjack.

I untwist my poor numb feet and there’s no time to rub life into them. Gentleman lifts me out of the Box and I crouch on the floor, nearest the tipping table as I can. After being in the Box this room is bright as daylight to me or near enough, though all the swells can’t see me.

There are six pale ladies with their eyes shut tight as fists, pale arms stretched forward over the table. Each pale hand is clasped it the neighbour’s wrist but of course Ma has fixed it so she has a free hand. There she is at the head of the table, with her cheeks all swollen cause of her veil, and there’s Gentleman, posed with his fishing-rod.

One of the ladies sways and moans. She has light shining hair like an angel, and has narrow wrists, like they’d snap like sugar if she’s not careful.

Silent as a sigh, I pad my sooted foot on the floor and then another, quick and light as anything. I go to the swaying lady first; tip-toe over and crouch down, stroke her cheek with my small hand.

“Aaah,” she says, and smiles like all her wishes have come at once; someone’s released a bird in a cage and set her free. She leans her head against my hand and I let her, but only for a moment cause Gentleman is fixing me hard. He’s wanting me to go round and give each of them a turn before Ma’s Grand Spectacular Finale.

 “Aieeeeeaieeeeeeeaieeeeee,” intones Ma. She’s building up now, she’s been practising in the kitchen.

I move close as you like to a large lady in swags and feathers, and pluck a feather out of her hair.

“My Johnny, my Johnny,” she moans.

Next, the water.

I breathe, moth-soft, on her softly folded neck. Then I squeeze the ball till it drips.

Ma opens one eye. I see it gleam bold in the gloom.

“Your poor spirit son, was it a drowning?” she breathes.

“Yes, yes,” gasps the lady. Her head is jerking up and down like the madwoman we once saw bundled out of her house on Cleet Street.

The water trickles down the frill of her dress as Gentleman takes the fishing-rod. Jiggles it so that the tambourine on its hook shivers and shakes.

“He’s calling,” bawls Ma. “Hark at his little voice like bells.”

“Oh my boy, my boy,” Swagged Lady says.

I duck and dive, touching and tapping and poking till the ladies gasp and buck and stream with tears.

The air is damp with scent and ladies’ sweat.

 “My boy came to me. I felt him.” An old lady’s voice, racked with sobs.

“He touched me too,” breathes another. It is Angel Hair; her mouth is a wide O. “A hand, small and soft upon my cheek.”

“Taken by the fever,” another whispers.

All is going well. This may be the Most Astounding Breath-taking Sitting Ever. I think of the meat pies we’re going to have, hot and steaming and dripping with gravy.

But then.

I see an old lady dressed in widow’s weeds gazing at Gentleman still crouched with his fishing-rod. Her eyes are bright with staring. Has she seen? Quick as thinking I reach with the feather and tickle her cheek.

It is a close one. She closes her eyes and gasps like one who has just woken up after years and years of sleep-walking. Gentleman presses the rod back into itself, over and over till it’s small as a poker and slips it under his good twill trousers. Slides into his seat without breaking contact. He’s a marvel, is Gentleman.

Ma is almost done.

“Whaooowhaooowhaooo,” she says and the parlour is hushed cause this is the part where the lady’s poor dead spirit boy comes out of Ma’s mouth.

Ma lets out a howl and everyone falls silent as ectoplasm, yards and yards of it, uncoils from her mouth and falls wriggling to the floor.

When the ladies leave the parlour, they are laughing and murmuring about their spirit children. Swagged Lady has looped her arm in Angel Hair and they are giving each other special smiles and squeezes. The old Black Widow has unwrinkled a line ot two of skin like paper that’s uncrumpling. She too has seen her poor dead spirit child, has felt the pats on her ancient cheek.

Gentleman joins them of course. He bows his head and nods, very serious. He offers two pale ladies an arm each and glides with them out of the room. There is soot upon their faces.

Ma looks after them and smiles all tender-like.

“Poor dear ones with their hearts mended now their sweet little angels have come visiting.”

She pats her pockets and sighs with satisfaction.

Soft as butter Ma is, and no mistake.

NYCMidnight Short Story Challenge

Whoop whoop.
Delighted to have got through to second round! http://nycmidnight.com/Competitions/SSC/Challenge.htm
My Round 1 challenge:
Write a story in 8 days.
Length: 2500 words.
Genre: mystery
Character: butler
Object: bank account
So.
Here it is...

A Man For All Seasons

Flathers is horrified to find someone has been withdrawing funds from her ladyship's account.

How ever can he continue to keep her in the manner to which she has become accustomed?

Hi I’m Shelly! chatters away as she swipes. She’s a fast swiper and for that I am grateful. It is almost four o’ clock and I need to be ready for Lady Josephine’s tea in the garden.

I straighten the plastic divide between my neatly stacked tins of Cream of Chicken soup and the family-size packs of crisps belonging to the woman behind me.

This is a mother with three small children who is letting them open chocolate milk. The one near me – a boy – has a chocolate moustache and I take care to not let him near my good flannel trousers.

“Do you want your Club Points, love?” the swiper asks.

I shake my head. Her Ladyship will want her Darjeeling and rosewater biscuits before I take her to admire the azaleas. But before that, the ha ha needs mowing. I hope I remembered to mend the broken window in the ice house.

“I said, are you collecting stickers for your knife-set?”

Hi I’m Shelly! is waving a sheet of what looks like little coloured stamps at me.

“Oh no, thank you.”

If there’s one thing we don’t need it’s more knives. That’s another job that needs doing, polishing all the silver. I place the last sachet of Angel Delight into my shopping bags and turn to pay.

A tap on my arm.

“Are you wanting those? It’s just that we’re saving for the knife Royale.”

“I’m sorry?” The big clock by Costa Coffee says ten past four. My trolley is bulging with carrier bags. I have twenty minutes to pack all this in the Bentley and assume my next role.

It’s the mother, the one with the chocolatey children.

“Like what Gino del Campo has,” she says.

I have no idea what she is talking about, but nod curtly.

Eighteen minutes.

I slot Lady Josephine’s Goldcard into the paying machine.

“Enter your pin please,” sings Hi I’m Shelly!

Chocolate Moustache rubs himself against my leg and I move myself hastily to the other side of the trolley. It’s packed now with bags filled with the cans, boxes and sachets that constitute our weekly shop.

Then the thunder-bolt.

“I’m sorry love, it’s saying do you have any alternative means of payment?” Hi I’m Shelly says brightly.

My hand freezes over a bag of luncheon meat.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not letting me use it to pay, love. Have you got another card I could try?”

We both stare at my bank card.

“I have one hundred and eighty three pounds seventy-seven in that bank account,” I splutter. “There must be some mistake.”

Hi I’m Shelly! shakes her head. “No mistake love.”

Of course I don’t have any funds. Not after I’ve paid off the rates and the gas bill and the man who mended the roof of the East Wing where the squirrels have been getting in and doing all sorts of untold damage.

Until the money comes through from the cottage rentals at the end of the month, that one hundred and eighty three pounds seventy-seven is all we have.

The store manager has materialised now. Behind him, the knife-collecting mother and her sticky-faced children are gaping at me in fascination.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to leave your items at Customer Services Sir. Until you come back and pay for them. If you’d like to leave your name and contact number, Sir.”

“I must have my Darjeeling. Lady Josephine must have her Darjeeling!” I am almost shrieking and the little cluster around Till 9 stares.

With trembling hands I reach into my pocket and pull out a handful of coins and other detritus: Lady Josephine’s smelling salts, a hair-pin to open the sticking lock on the side-gate, a couple of biscuits for Pipkin, the ancient labrador. I count the coins, holding my breath.

Two pounds ninety-three.

Hi I’m Sally! sighs and we begin the long process of unpacking every bag in order to find Lady Josephine’s tea.

The time is seventeen minutes past four.

#

I have barely enough time to pull on my Nearly Nude tights and tidy my hair when the bell jangles in the pantry.

Lady Josephine.

I arrange the rosewater shortbreads neatly in a fan on her favourite Royal Worcester tea plate and place the tea-pot onto the silver tray. Lady Josephine is already sitting by the ha ha and I pray she doesn’t see the unpruned hedging, the sprouting lawn.

Picking up the tray I hurry over the lawn.

“Ah there you are, Sylvia. What a beautiful day. Don’t you think it is a beautiful day?”

Her voice is light as larks and the late afternoon sun gleams in her hair.

“Indeed it is Madam,” I say.

As always at first, my voice comes out far too deep.

Lady Josephine laughs. “Oh Sylvia, you sound as though you have a frog in your throat! Come, pour the tea, do.”

I flush and am glad I put on an extra layer of  Crème Matte Foundation. Next time I speak, I concentrate and am relieved when my voice comes out a notch higher.

“Shortbread, Madam? Fresh baked this morning.”

“Ooh, delish, thank you, Sylvia.” She waves her arm at the lawns, the ha ha, the willow maze.

“Isn’t all of this lovely? Don’t you think it’s lovely, Sylvia?”

“Indeed, Madam. It’s very nice.”

All I’m seeing is the nineteen acres of lawns to be mown and the stables to be swept and the horses and hens fed and the kitchen garden needs weeding, the vine weevils have got into the pots again, and while I’m at it I might as well take a broom and sweep the sky.

#

I stare at the computer screen and tremble.

Over drawn by three pounds forty-three.

The screen doesn’t lie.

But I know, I know there were sufficient funds in this morning. In my role as Financial Advisor, I make it my business to check her Ladyship’s affairs most meticulously.

Someone has stolen one hundred and eighty-seven pounds twenty from Lady Josephine’s bank account.

The only two occupants of Wittington Hall are her Ladyship and me.

Her Ladyship doesn’t know how to turn on a computer and has never used a bank card or held money in her life. Like all her venerable family, sadly now all deceased, she has never needed to. Not when she has me to look after her needs. And my father before me, and his father before that.

It is what we Flathers do and what I will never stop doing so long as I live and breathe.

I blink at the computer screen and the figures blink back.

£3.43 DR.

There is only one person who could have withdrawn those fundings.

The Scullery Skulker.

That man last week who was crouching down by the scullery when I was laundering her Ladyship’s panty girdles; I distinctly remember his furtive manner, and the way he slunk away when I waved my soapsudded fist at him.

What if he is the mysterious thief?

He could have got valuable information from the log of receipts I keep in the study, or picked up a bank letter from the table in the hall. Have I received any suspicious telephone calls recently? Attempting to whittle out information such as account numbers and passwords? I know such things exist.

In which case the person at fault is me.

To calm myself, I pull on my Head Groom’s outfit, thinking to check on Millie and Sugardrop. Their quiet champing will allow me to clear my head.

It is as I am putting on my chaps that the pantry bell jangles.

“Yes Ma’am.” I use my Cook’s voice this time, with its soft Somerset burr.

“Ah, it’s you Jane. Just who I was after. I’m having a few friends round for dinner this evening and I wondered if you’d pull out all the stops tonight. You know, some of your wonderful Foie Gras, your fabulous Panacotta, that sort of thing.”

“I’ll do my best, Ma’am.”

My burr falters.

#

“Wouldn’t you just die without Prosecco?”

“Literally, darling, I would literally die.”

Lady Josephine seems to be enjoying herself and for that I am grateful.

No-one raised a comment about the ‘homemade’ Cream of Chicken Soup I rustled up with the last of the cans from the pantry.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the Game pie I made with a brace of hastily shot pheasants. Lucky for me they shot out of the bushes just as I was taking Sugardrop out to test her lame leg.

They have got through the last of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape Cuvee Speciale 2002 from the cellar and haven’t noticed that the Prosecco is Lidl’s own. I hope and pray they will be too squiffy to notice that instead of the Vanilla Panacotta Lady Josephine requested, they’re getting butterscotch Angel Delight with chocolate sprinkles.

“More wine,” drawls a man in a flashy tie.

I am topping up his glass when Lady Josephine’s best girlfriend lets out a shriek. Lady Lavinia is in her seventies but is bedecked with her finest party jewels, her long earlobes pendulous with emeralds.

“The cook. We must thank the cook,” she shrieks.

I slop Prosecco over the table-cloth.

“Flathers. Dear, dear Flathers. Would you be so kind as to bring in Jane.” Lady Josephine is leaning forward, her eyes still bright as stars in her softly lined face. She too is sparkling with jewels tonight. She doesn’t know that hers are all paste, that I’ve sold them over the years to the Pawn shop in Englefield Green, all to protect her from her withering finances and to keep her in the manner to which she is accustomed.

I swallow.

“Indeed, Madam.” I bow my head.

#

Jane requires extra padding.

There is no time to get the size 40 EE brassiere I found on a sales rack in the supermarket and into which I’ve carefully stitched wadding to construct Jane’s ample bosom.

There is no time to get the size 12 lady’s court shoes which she favours because they’re wide enough for her bunions. I located those in a charity shop off Portabello Road.

There is, however, the wig.

Jane’s wig is a splendid affair which I acquired from a friend in the acting profession, along with all the makeup. It is rich and red and plump with curls. Best still, those bouncy waves hide most of my face. Luckily for me, it now resides in the bread crock in the scullery, which is where I placed it when I was once caught short halfway between being Jane and Old Mills, the Gardener.

Lady Josephine didn’t seem to notice though; her flowery hat was shading her eyes as she stepped out of the sunlight that day, and besides, I fear her eye-sight is dimming, just like mine.

I have a large floral pinafore which hangs off the hook for emergencies such as this.

I dress myself, panting, and hurry through to the dining room, folding my arms over my sadly deficient bosom.

“Oh Jane, dear,” says Lady Josephine, and her smile is radiant, her eyes full of sparkle. “My guests want to say something to you. Don’t be shy, dear. Come right in.”

Jane is extremely bashful by nature. At her Ladyship’s request I shuffle forward.

“We wanted to congratulate you on your food,” smirks a voice. “Wonderful dessert, Jane. Light as air.” The voice pauses. “Almost as if it were made by…angels.”

I flush, then raise my eyes.

It is the fellow in the gawdy tie. The penguins on it wave their wings at me as he leans forward. But then I look at his face and feel ice slip into my stomach.

It is the skulker. The man in the grounds.

“Thank you for your kind comments, sir,” I manage at last.

Jane’s voice comes out a little louder than I intended and they all stare.

I can no longer keep this to myself.

#

It is as Flathers that I tell her.

Lady Josephine listens without interrupting and then looks very serious.

“Stolen almost two hundred pounds, you say? And you think that my bank account details were somehow intercepted by my guest who could be the mysterious man in the garden? Why Flathers, that’s terrible.”

She frowns in thought, then her face clears.

“You must arrange for me to interview each member of staff at once.”

#

I am eighty-three years old.

There comes a time when even a Flathers must admit defeat. This is that time.

I am sitting on the steps overlooking the rose garden when Lady Josephine comes to find me.

“Oh Flathers, Flathers, you darling man.”

She sits down beside me and places a gloved hand over mine.

“Please don’t be upset. It will all be all right, I promise.”

I look at her. “Indeed it won’t Madam. I have failed you. I have allowed your money to slip out of your account without noticing. There is worse, Madam-”

I swallow. It is time to confess to her Ladyship how I have lied and deceived her all these years, all to no avail. “You have no more money, Madam. I fear you may be forced to give up your ancestral home, I-”

“Oh I know all that,” she says breezily.

I freeze.

“I beg your pardon, Madam?”

“That we’re poor as church mice. Skint. Broke. Thoroughly in Queer Street.”

I struggle to form the words.

“You knew, Madam?”

“But of course. That’s why I invited that ghastly man to dinner. He’s a property developer who’s going to turn Wittington into darling little flats. Lavinia’s idea. Everyone’s doing it.”

Her Ladyship turns to face me and her blue eyes are bright as stars.

“It means we never have to leave here, Flathers. We’ll have the best apartment, overlooking the ha ha, and you’ll be able to look after me just as you’ve always done.”

I am speechless.

“Flathers?”

“Madam.”

“Do you want to know what happened to that money?”

I swallow. “Indeed I would, Madam.”

“Well I know how much you like,” she gives a little cough, “dressing up.”

I stiffen.

“Madam?”

“All your different guises. They’re simply marvellous. So I decided to arrange a little treat for you, as a way of saying thank you.” Her Ladyship squeezes my hand. “I dragged Lavinia over to the bank on the high street, Flathers, and a rather lovely young clerk helped show me how to transfer the last of the funds to pay for something rather special.”

She drops something onto my lap.

“Theatre tickets, Flathers. We have the best seats at the London Palladium.We are going to see The Mousetrap, Flathers, just you and me, and there’ll be enough left over for a pot of tea at Claridges.”

Once again I find myself unable to speak.

Lady Josephine pats my hand. “Dear, dear Flathers,” she says. And we sit together, watching the lengthening shadows sweep gently over the lawns.

35 authors. 1 upstairs room. 1 bookshop.

2 pm onwards, and the very top floor of Birmingham High Street Waterstones is buzzing with writers, readers and bloggers.
Tables are crammed with all the latest YA reads and writers stand around with sticky white labels on, signing books and waiting their turn for their 2 minute elevator pitch.
It's the long awaited UKYA Extravaganza...

Clutching my copies of Murder Most Unladylike and its sequel Arsenic For Tea, I ask the author, Robin Stevens, how she came up with the idea for her Agatha Christie/Malory Towers mash-up.
"Well, I went to Cheltenham Ladies College as a boarder and really wanted to use the setting where I'd spent such fun times and add a darker twist - I've always loved Agatha Christie mysteries," she tells me.
And why did she use a Chinese girl as her protagonist?
"That's easy. There were lots of Chinese girls in my boarding school and as an outsider myself - I'm American - I really wanted to write from that point of view."

Robin Stevens

We are interrupted by the next panel, and this time it's the turn of Sarah Naughton to pitch her two books, The Hanged Man Rises and The Blood List - a Medieval tale about a Changeling boy left in the woods. Sarah talks about her research for the story, inspired by watching a Tony Robinson documentary and reading about the disturbing things they used to do to so-called fairy babies.

Rhian Ivory reads the very tense and creepy prologue of her new book, The Boy Who Drew the Future - the ending of which came to her in a dream - and then it is the turn of Caroline Green to pitch her YA horror, Cracks.

"I basically put my character through hell," she says, after describing how she got the idea after gazing at a crack in her bathroom tiles, and wondered what would happen if it just kept on going...

Rhian Ivory

Next, CJ Daugherty tells us about her Night School series- "based on Eton if it were cooler, scarier and more murderous" and says she was inspired by a photo in a paper of the notorious Bullingdon Club - the elite secret society where most of our leaders wreaked terribly posh havoc.

Kendra Leighton was inspired by teaching Alfred Noyes famous poem The Highwayman in the classroom for her debut novel, Glimpse, a ghost story set in the present day.

 Kendra Leighton

Pitching books is a daunting experience, with co-organiser Kerry Drewery shouting "ten seconds" each time a writer wavers near the end of their strict time, however it means that the event runs like clockwork as we are plunged from one story-world into another.

Alan Gibbons stands up and manages to squeeze in a passionate argument against the closure of libraries into his pitch. Inspired by the tragic true-life story of Sophie Lancaster, murdered because she was a goth, he talks about his latest book, Hate.

Pitch 'n' panel

After a break, the panel includes Rachel Ward, author of the YA Book I Have Wanted To Read From The Moment I Heard About It And Still Haven't Read Yet. That's not actually its name though - it is Numbers, the story of a girl with the disturbing gift of looking into people's eyes and being able to see their death dates. Talking about her contemporary novel, The Drowning - about a ghost who haunts through the medium of water she says, "it scared me so much that I haven't been swimming since I started writing it." The sequel Water Born is out now.

Rachel Ward

As a grand finale (and after lots of fab authors I haven't got space to mention) wonderful organisers Kerry Drewery and Emma Pass finally get a chance to pitch their own books! Kerry's book A Dream of Lights tells the harrowing tale of a girl in a North Korean prisoner camp. "I was inspired by the strength of the people," she says. "Although I haven't been to North Korea as visitors are under permanent escort and not given a glimpse into the realities of life there, to me it doesn't matter. As a writer, whether it's science fiction or historical, these are all uncharted territories that we can research and empathise with without actually visiting."

Emma's dystopian police thriller Acid  was written, she says, in 1000 words a day in her pyjamas.

Kerry Drewery and Emma Pass, Organisers Extraordinaire

So, what it at all stressful, organising such a big event with so many authors?

"It started with only four or five people," Emma and Kerry tell us. "Then it became thirty-five! It totally snow-balled, but in a good way."

How do you squeeze 35 YA authors into one photo?

A wonderful afternoon, with a great bookish buzz.

As a teacher, it's lovely to see so many teens giving up their time to grab the latest reads and autograph-hunt.

Here's to the next UKYA Extravaganza!

My stash of goodies. Which to read first..?

Just For Fun: Rhian Ivory

As part of the countdown to UKYA Extravaganza, Birmingham, we at Write For Real asked our Blog Tour author Rhian Ivory to share her answers to some fairly random questions...

Tea or coffee?

Always tea. I like to drink at least six cups of Earl Grey a day! Never coffee unless I'm really tired...

Cats or dogs?

Definitely dogs. I have two: a black lab called Betty and a Springer Spaniel called Badger. Both are nuts.

Pause as thinks "aaahhh, those eyes" and "did you know you have the same sofa as me?"

Cake or chocolate?

Chocolate - but I'm incredibly fussy so it has to have something in it like nuts or fruit.

Camping or luxury hotel?

Luxury hotel because I've never really stayed in one apart from The Balmoral in Edinburgh once which was pretty special.

The Balmoral - with doormen and everything

Paper books or e books?

Paper - but I do have a Kindle.

Heels or wellies?

Wellies. With having two dogs and living next to a farmer's field, heels won't get me very far!

The farmer's field where Betty and Badger get their daily run (no heels in sight)

Which Hogwarts House?

I've done the test and I'm Ravenclaw.

Luna Lovegood - a fellow Ravenclaw

Write or type?

Type. I need Spell-check!

Summer or Winter?

Summer. This Winter has gone on far too long and I need Spring and some sunshine.

Minimalist or hoarder?

Minimalist apart from my book collection, which is verging on an obsession!

Rhian's book collection - maybe

Red or brown sauce?

Red. I can't stand brown. And I only use red on bacon sandwiches.

Meticulous planner or "straight in with the first draft"?

Straight in and sort out the mess later!

Hmmm. Let's look again at Rhian's author pic. We at Write For Real are thinking "what about all those post-it notes? Looks pretty planned to us."

Finally- and most importantly: Marmite. Do you love it or hate it?

Love it!

You will find Rhian Ivory talking about her books at UKYA Birmingham on Saturday 28th February.

See you there if you've been lucky enough to get your hands on a ticket!