Page 15

Neon and I spend the whole of the next evening practising our song for the showcase with the guitar Neon borrowed from Mr Ross.

I’ve never sung with someone like this before, and I’m surprised by how good it feels: there’s something so satisfying about our voices rising and falling in perfect unison, like birds twirling round each other in a cloudless sky.

When it’s the two of us in my living room, I don’t think about tomorrow’s audience or what they might think of me.

It’s just me and Neon, in our own little world.

“You sound amazing,” he says. “I don’t get how you don’t hear it.”

“It’s not the singing part that worries me.” I flop on to the sofa with a sigh. “It’s having to do it with dozens of people watching.”

“Imagine we’re playing with my band. Pretend you’re Yifei or Jennie! They’ve got tons of confidence. I bet you could feel like that too.”

The way I wrote them, Yifei looks like a model and Jennie has enough stage presence to fill a dozen stadiums all by herself. I laugh at the idea that I could be anything like them, but Neon’s face stays serious.

“I’m not kidding, Laurie! You created us. It must be in you somewhere.”

I start to tell him that I don’t think it works like that, but then Joel comes into the living room. He has his laptop under one arm, a huge textbook under the other and a giant cup of tea in his hands.

“You two sound really good.” Joel sets his mug down on the coffee table and drops into the armchair. “If you’re looking for more male-female duets, there’s this great jungle-pop duo I like. They sing in Portuguese, though, so that might be a bit tricky.”

I try really hard to suppress an eyeroll but fail. Neon smiles.

“Thanks. It’s probably time we took a break. We want to be in peak condition for tomorrow.” He leans his guitar against the wall, sits down beside me and props his feet up on the table. “What’s your essay about?”

“ The Death of the Author . It’s this essay by a critic called Roland Barthes.

” Joel pulls the textbook on to his lap, flicking the corners of the pages with one finger.

“It basically says that when you’re reading, you shouldn’t focus on what the writer was trying to say or who they were.

It should be all about the story itself, however the reader interprets it.

What the author meant to do doesn’t really matter. ”

The idea gets me thinking about Neon. He’s exactly the way I wrote him, but maybe that will change the more people he interacts with. I like the idea. I want him to be his own person, not a character that I created.

Neon clearly finds the theory interesting too. He points out that an author’s background influences a story in major ways – someone who has had a certain experience or come from a certain place or culture is going to write about it differently to someone who hasn’t, and usually more accurately.

But Joel looks bored talking about it, so I change the subject. “How was the shop today? Still quiet?”

“Way too quiet. We only had about four people in all afternoon.” His eyebrows knit as he takes a long sip from his tea. “Gio seemed pretty down. I think he’s worried about sales.”

My heart sinks. “Maybe Mum will come back from London with some ideas. You know she’s going to visit every bookshop she comes across.”

As if our parents heard us, my phone begins to ring and Mutti’s name appears on the screen.

Neon shoots me a panicked glance, then leaps over the back of the sofa to hide.

I press the green button, and, after a moment, Mutti’s face appears in front of a plain white wall with a grainy print of a London bus.

“Hi, ducky!” Mutti grins and waves at me. “So sorry we haven’t called sooner – we’ve been really busy.”

“That’s OK. How’s it all going?”

Mutti fills me in on the events that she’s done – including one where a very famous author annoyed everyone by eating an entire tray of mini quiches – then passes the phone to Mum, who shows me the books she picked up at her favourite London shops.

They ask about school, how Joel’s uni work is going and how things have been in the shop.

Joel gives vague answers, not wanting to spoil their trip by telling them how quiet it’s been, and they don’t push him for details.

While Joel’s talking, Neon sticks his head out from behind the sofa like a whale surfacing for air.

I widen my eyes to tell him to stay hidden.

The camera on my phone is facing away from him, but even having him in my sight feels risky.

I’m sure Joel will tell them that I’ve made a new friend, just to make me sweat, but he’s talking to Mum about his essay and doesn’t mention it.

When he hands the phone back to me, I give a nervous smile and tell my parents I need to go and do my French homework.

“OK, love. Good plan.” Mum blows me a kiss then tilts the phone towards Mutti, who looks up from the coffee machine to wave goodbye. “See you on Saturday.”

After the call, Joel goes upstairs to continue working on his essay, and Neon and I run through ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ again.

Halfway through the second chorus, he suddenly breaks off.

His face freezes, his eyes fixed on something outside the window.

I turn round: the street is deserted apart from a woman walking with a little girl of around three years old.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing…” He blinks rapidly. “I thought I saw something out there.”

“That’s what you said in the bookshop the other day! What’s going on?”

Neon insists it’s nothing, but I keep pushing until he eventually gives in.

He walks into the hallway and pulls open the front door, flooding the house with cool air.

When I open my mouth to ask what he’s doing, he shushes me and points across the street.

The woman has stopped to retie the kid’s shoelaces outside number eight.

“There,” Neon says, pointing to the wheelie bins to their left. “Do you see that?”

The woman takes the little girl in her arms and carries on walking.

A moment later, something appears from behind the bins: a baby-pink bunny wearing a white woolly hat.

It looks around shiftily, then darts up the street and hides behind a parked car.

The rabbit takes another nervous glance around, then hurries on to catch up with the woman and child.

The little girl waves over her grown-up’s shoulder, beaming.

When the woman turns into a house on the corner, the bunny hops over the hedge and leaps into the garden.

It’s another thirty seconds or so before I can find my voice again. “What … was that?”

“I think it’s an imaginary friend.” Neon scratches his eyebrow. “I saw it on Tuesday too. I don’t understand how it got here.”

“Probably the same way you did, right?” I say, keeping my voice to a whisper so Carrie doesn’t hear. “If the wee girl believes in it that strongly, then…”

“Yeah, but there are loads of kids who believe in their imaginary friends. It’s really, really uncommon for anyone to cross over into the real world, so it’s strange there are two of us in exactly the same place.”

Neon is quiet for a moment, a rare frown on his face. I almost don’t recognise him when he looks like that. In the photos that I made of him, he was always smiling. Always happy.

“Are you OK?” I put my hand on his arm. “Is it a bad sign that something else from the Realm has ended up here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Neon shrugs and replaces the frown with a too-bright smile. “It’s probably a coincidence. The bunny will find its way back soon enough. Come on – let’s go through the song one more time.”