Page 5

At four o’clock, I remember my promise to Mutti that I would be home before she and Mum go to the airport.

Hannah still has some stuff to buy, so Neon and I leave her and Caitlin at the shopping centre and hurry off to the bus station.

We almost miss the number seventeen because Neon keeps stopping to look at things: the front window of a health-food shop, a statue of a unicorn, a tiny chihuahua yapping outside a newsagent’s…

“This place must seem really boring compared to New York,” I say.

I’ve never left Europe, but I spent so long looking up photos and information about Neon’s neighbourhood that I feel like I’ve been there.

I picked it because I liked the name – Alphabet City.

I read reviews of local businesses to choose Neon’s favourite deli and ice-cream shop.

I looked up timetables to find which bus or subway lines he would take to get to different places, found photos from parks and beautiful brownstone buildings to post to his account, then edited them slightly so they couldn’t be easily reverse-searched.

I could write a guidebook about somewhere that I’ve never even been.

“You only think this place is boring because you’re so used to it.” Neon leans down to inspect some dandelions growing round the foot of a lamp post. “It doesn’t look like that to me. It’s really different than – hey, check that out!”

He spots a snail among the weeds and tries to pick it up, but I hurry him towards the station and join the queue of people waiting to get the bus back to our town. Before we reach the front of the line, Neon clears his throat.

“So, minor problem. I don’t have any money.”

“You don’t?” That explains why he didn’t buy anything at the café, even after saying he was hungry. “How did you get on the train without any money?”

“It’s, um, hard to explain… Do you have enough for the both of us?”

I count out the change in my pocket and fortunately have enough for another half single.

We go upstairs, which is quiet apart from a few older kids sprawled out on the back seats.

Neon wants to sit right at the front, and he actually does a little excited bounce as the bus pulls away from the kerb.

You’d think he’d never been on public transport before.

“So?” I say, once we’re moving. “Are you going to tell me now?”

“Look! That dog and its owner are wearing matching shoes!” He taps at the window so hard that the woman looks up, startled. Neon laughs and turns to face me. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

I glance round to make sure the kids at the back aren’t listening. They’re all watching something on a phone and aren’t paying us any attention. “You said you’d explain.”

“Explain what?”

“How you’re here!” I say, exasperated.

Even in our made-up conversations, Neon could be quite frustrating – he was forever getting distracted and changing the subject. But at least I could always tell him when he was being annoying, unlike my other friends.

“Do I have to?” He flings his arms out in a ta-da! motion. “I’m here now. Does it really matter how it happened?”

“Yes, it matters!” The words come out a little too loud. When I glance over my shoulder again, a few of the kids at the back are looking at us. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. This is impossible. I made you up .”

Neon sits back and crosses his arms, pouting slightly. His attitude is a bit like Joel’s whenever Mum or Mutti tries to explain something like a new bookkeeping system for the shop – that this is a very boring task that he has to suffer through before getting back to more interesting things.

“OK. So, yes, technically you made me up. Thank you for that, by the way.” Neon gives an exaggerated bow to show his gratitude.

I frown, trying to get him to be serious, and at last he drops the joking tone.

“When you created me, if that’s what you want to call it, I arrived in a place called…

Well, there are lots of names for it, in all different languages.

Some people call it the Land of Make-believe, but most of us think that sounds too childish.

Others are trying to make Fictionalia stick, but I’m not a fan of that. Let’s call it the Realm.”

It takes me a few seconds to digest his words. “The Realm. OK.” When he doesn’t continue, I ask, “And what is this realm?”

“It’s the place where fictional creations live. All of us.

Every single person or character that’s ever been made up is there.”

“All of them? Every single one?” I root around in my foggy brain for a story. The first that comes to mind is a film I was obsessed with at age six. “So, like … Elsa from Frozen ? She lives there too?”

“I’m sure she does, though I don’t know her personally,” Neon says with a laugh. “There are millions of us. Billions, probably.”

“Right.” My mouth has gone dry. I swallow and try to make sense of what he’s saying. There’s no way it can be true, but I decide to go along with it for now. “So, how are you here, then?”

“Sometimes, not often, we can cross over into your world.”

Neon looks through the window: at the blurry halos of drizzle round car headlights, the umbrellas gliding above pavements.

“Not everyone can do it. It’s only possible when someone in this world really, really believes in us. It usually happens to characters from little kids’ books or shows. There was a major issue with the Gruffalo turning up at a birthday party in Manchester last year, apparently.”

I stare at him, waiting for him to crack and admit this is all one big joke. It doesn’t happen. Neon is smiling but his tone is calm and straightforward, as if he’s describing a town down the road and not the ridiculous story he’s presented me with.

“But I knew you were fake,” I whisper. “I invented you.”

“You did. But you started to believe in me, right?” His dark eyes glimmer. “It was only for a few seconds, but it was there. I could feel it. You started to believe I was real.”

He’s right. There were moments when I’d get a notification for a new post from Neon’s account and forget that I was the one running it.

Sometimes I’d see something funny or interesting and think, I should send this to Neon , as if there was anyone other than me behind the account.

It’s sad to admit it but I’d often scroll through our old ‘conversations’ and laugh at the things ‘we’ had said.

The truth is I wanted someone like Neon.

I wanted a friendship group like the one I gave him with his band – people that I could trust completely instead of worrying whether today was going to be one of the Bad Days when they ganged up on me and made fun of me.

I wanted someone who I could tell my secrets to without worrying that they’d spill them or use them against me.

Someone who got me, who made me feel like the funniest and smartest and best version of myself.

Even if we argued sometimes, even if we didn’t always agree.

I used to have that. But Tilly doesn’t talk to me any more.

“Plus, I’d bet a lot of the people you added to my social accounts believe that I’m real – you did a really good job making those profiles seem authentic. So that, plus your belief and…” He does jazz hands. “Voila! I’m here.”

“I see.”

But I don’t. I don’t get how any of this is possible. Out of ideas, I slump in my seat and let his words whirl round my mind. There must be a logical explanation somewhere, but I can’t find it. My head is starting to hurt from trying.

The bus slips through the outskirts of the city and towards the villages dotted along the loch.

Neon gets excited by cows, a billboard for a distillery and the steam billowing from a factory.

I can’t help but smile when he shrieks at the sight of a seagull – his joy is pretty infectious.

But the closer we come to our town, the more nervous I feel.

“So, um, how long are you staying again?”

“Calm down, dude. I’m not planning on moving in.” Neon rolls his eyes. “Only a week. Any longer and people will notice that I’ve gone. I’ll leave next Saturday, before your moms get back from their trip.”

“What people? People in the Realm?” I ask. Neon nods, and there’s a little hint of worry in his expression. “Will you get in trouble? Aren’t you supposed to leave?”

“Um, no. There’ll be hell to pay if anyone realises I’m gone. I’m only staying a little while, though, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll be back before they even notice.”

He gestures grandly to the window, like he’s pointing out the Niagara Falls or Mount Everest and not some soggy field on the outskirts of Inverness.

“Besides, I’ve never been to the real world before, and this is probably my only chance. I want to make the most of every moment.”