Page 11

Joel makes spaghetti carbonara for tea tonight.

It always surprises me when I remember Joel is pretty much an adult now and no longer the Pot Noodle-obsessed teenage boy that I grew up with.

He shares a flat with three friends down in St Andrews, and he claims he’s the one who does most of the cooking and cleaning.

The way Neon goes on about his spaghetti, you’d think we’d invited some Michelin-starred chef over to make dinner for us – the boy is like a personal hype brigade.

Joel grins and bats away the compliments, but he’s obviously pleased.

Afterwards, Neon offers to take care of dessert, so I wash up while he makes something with eggs and sugar. Joel peers at the bowl as he carries our empty plates to the sink.

“Are you making meringues?”

“A pavlova!” Neon beams. “My grandma’s from New Zealand. It comes from there. Not Australia,” he adds hotly.

I grin – two of Mutti’s friends had this argument when they came to visit, and somehow it ended up being part of Neon’s story.

Joel sets the plates down on the worktop. “We really don’t take dessert that seriously in this house, pal. You don’t need to make a whole pavlova,” he says. “Doesn’t meringue take ages to cook anyway? I’ve got to get back to my essay.”

“No problem. We’ll save you some.” Neon whisks the eggs and sugar so hard, a bit flies up and lands on his nose. “What are you studying?”

“English Lit.”

Joel pulls the tiniest bit of a face. It still seems strange to me that he ended up doing English Literature. He loves reading but at school his favourite subjects were always Drama and Art.

“I’m in my second year. Another two and three-quarters to go.”

“What do you want to do afterwards?” Neon asks. “Do you think you’ll be a writer like your mom and Laurie?”

“Nah, I don’t have their way with words. I really don’t know what I’ll do, to be honest.” Joel nudges me out of the way so he can rinse a cloth under the tap. “Honestly I’m just trying to get my coursework and exams out of the way. I’ll think about what comes next when I get to it.”

“But what would you do if you could do anything?” Neon puts down the bowl and shakes a cramp out of his right arm. “It doesn’t have to be anything to do with your degree. Your dream job.”

Joel shrugs. “I always wanted to be an actor, but it’s really difficult to get into drama school. Even harder to actually find work.”

“He did say dream job,” I point out, glancing over him as I put the salt and pepper shakers away.

“Exactly. Besides, acting works out for some people,” Neon says. “Why don’t you go for it?”

Joel falls quiet as he wipes the table. I really think he would make a good actor.

He played Tybalt in our school’s musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in his last year, and he stole the show – he was hilarious in the fight scenes.

I’m sure our parents would have supported Joel if he’d wanted to go to drama school.

Mum used to have a really boring finance job, but she gave it up to buy the bookshop.

Mutti doesn’t make that much money as an author, but she’s never tried to discourage me from becoming a writer like her.

“Nah. It’s not for me any more.” Joel gives a tight smile. “It’s OK to change your mind. You might decide you don’t want to be a musician in a few years.”

“That’s true. I’ve got a long list of things I want to try out.” Neon counts them out on his fingers. “I want to illustrate picture books, and go to culinary school in Paris, and become an international diplomat, and maybe get into social work too.”

Joel laughs. “I like your ambition, kid.”

“Well –” Neon grins at me as he picks up his bowl of meringue again – “imagination is limitless.”

I stay downstairs to hang out with Neon before bed. We watch a couple of episodes of his favourite TV show (also my favourite TV show, unsurprisingly) then play Xbox for a while.

Joel comes downstairs for another cup of coffee after we start. I’m sure he’ll want to join in when he sees us playing Samurai Shodown – we used to spend hours battling each other on it – but he just tells us not to stay up too late and heads back to his room.

Now that I’m used to the weirdness of Neon being here, I really love having him around.

It’s been ages since I felt so comfortable with a friend, that I can say what I’m thinking without being judged or laughed at for it.

It’s like climbing into your favourite pyjamas after a long day in school uniform.

“Can I ask you something?” Neon says. We’ve paused the game to have a third helping of his (excellent) peach pavlova. “What’s the deal with Caitlin and Hannah?”

I take a bite of meringue. “What do you mean?”

“Like, they’re pretty funny, and they’ve been nice to me, but if they really thought I didn’t exist, why did they bother coming to the train station on Saturday?

It seems like they were trying to embarrass you.

” Neon pauses, weighing up whether or not to say something.

“And at school today so many people said they thought I was made up – that Caitlin told them that you made me up. It sounds like she was laughing at you behind your back.”

I’m quiet for a long moment, trying to work out how to answer.

I think about the time I came home from school in first year and burst into tears because Caitlin had made some snarky comments about my spots.

Mutti was ready to march down to her house and give her a piece of her mind, but Mum, who is always more understanding, calmed us both down and reminded me that sometimes people put others down to make themselves feel better about their own insecurities.

Whenever Caitlin takes digs at me now, I remind myself that it says more about her than it does about me.

But honestly it doesn’t make me feel much better.

It’s not nice to have to hear those negative things from someone who’s supposed to be a friend.

And it’s confusing because Caitlin can be so great at other times.

I’m never sure where I stand with her. Maybe that’s why I liked my made-up conversations with Neon – I always knew where they were going.

If we got into a disagreement, I could quickly steer us out of it.

“I think it’s just what some people are like,” I tell him eventually. “Especially if there are three of you. I see it with other groups in our year too.”

I wonder if it’s the same with Tilly, Jamie and Elsie.

Somehow I don’t think so. Whenever I see them in the corridors, they’re always laughing, smiling, hugging each other.

When there was a Valentine’s Day message board set up in the corridor back in February, they all left anonymous messages for each other saying how amazing and gorgeous and brilliant they were – it was easy to tell who they were from because all three of them had drawn Doctor Who characters on the notes.

“You deserve friends who are good to you.” Neon knocks his knee against mine. “Like the ones you gave me.”

The Pyramid Club is made up of four people including Neon.

There’s Kairo, an unbelievably brilliant drummer who also loves to dance.

Yifei, the bassist, possibly the funniest and most sarcastic person in the whole of New York City.

And finally Jennie, lead guitarist and backing vocalist, who speaks four languages and makes all her own clothes from scratch.

It was fun coming up with people so much more confident than me, who have the talents that I wish I had.

But the best part was creating a group of friends who really love each other.

My eyes suddenly feel hot. “Well, I have you now, don’t I?”

“Yeah, of course.” Neon links his arms round my shoulders and squeezes me tight. “But I’m only here until Saturday. You need other people too.”

“Well, Caitlin’s been a lot nicer since you got here. Maybe things will be different now.”

“I hope so.” He scrapes the last of the meringue from his plate and grins at me. “If not, I’ll send someone over from the Realm to sort her out. How about the Hulk?”

I laugh and bite into a slice of peach. “You’ve never seen Caitlin when she’s angry. Bruce Banner would be no match for her.”

My eyes are still prickly, but there’s a warm feeling in my chest too. It’s good to know that Neon sees what I see. That someone, even if he may not be fully real, has my back.