Page 7

With Neon here, my room feels more cramped than usual.

Physically he’s not much bigger than me, but something about him takes up a lot of space.

Maybe it’s the fact that he moves so much.

He gets up and down from my bed a dozen times; he dances to the songs he likes and leaps across the room when he wants to look at something – and he wants to look at everything .

He goes through my books, the shoes shoved in the bottom of my cupboard, then stares at the photos of my family and friends pinned on the corkboard above my desk.

“You didn’t tell me you had a pet!” he says, pointing to a photo of nine-year-old me cuddling a beautiful cocker spaniel.

“We don’t,” I say sadly. “That’s Bella. She’s my friend Tilly’s dog. Well, my ex-friend.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He flops on to the bed beside me. I shuffle over to make room. “I wish I could have brought Cauliflower. She would have loved to meet you.”

I shift against my pillows. “Cauliflower actually lives in the Realm with you?”

He looks at me like I’ve asked if the Earth is round. “Of course she does. Where else would she live?”

“Does that mean all the characters I made up are there?” The amount of people I created to make sure Neon looked real was ridiculous. “What about the rest of the band? Kairo and Jennie and Yifei – are they all there too?”

“Yeah, of course they are. Like I said, anyone fictional. Even characters that people make up in their heads – lots of imaginary friends and monsters from under beds. They’re pretty cute, actually.”

I stare at Neon for a long moment. Part of me still expects him to burst out laughing and admit this is a huge joke, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, I feel myself starting to believe him. None of it makes sense … and yet it’s the only logical explanation as to how he could be in my room right now.

There are a million questions I want to ask but, before I can work out where to start, footsteps creak on the stairs.

Joel has an annoying habit of barging into my room without knocking, so I rush out on to the landing before he has the chance and slam the door behind me.

He pauses on the top step, one hand on the bannister.

“What are you hiding in there?”

“Nothing!” My voice comes out in a squeak. I’m not doing a good job of acting casual. “Did you want something?”

Joel and I are technically half-siblings.

Mutti gave birth to him, then Mum had me five years later.

They used the same donor, so we are biologically related, but you can’t tell by looking at us.

Mum has blond hair and blue eyes, like me, and Mutti is a very pale brunette, but Joel has dark brown hair and his eyes are almost black.

They linger on my door now, full of curiosity.

But then his expression clears. “I was going to order a takeaway. What do you feel like?”

I tell him to get whatever he wants, which is also suspicious – last year, our parents left us alone for three days while they went to a book festival, and we had a full-blown argument because we couldn’t decide between Indian and Chinese food.

After a moment, Joel shrugs. “Thai it is, then. Green curry, yeah?”

I mumble that curry sounds good and rush back into my bedroom. Barely half an hour of hiding Neon and my anxiety is already through the roof – I don’t know how I’m going to keep this up until Saturday.

Neon looks up at me as I come in. “Can I have some of your curry? I’m starving.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I whisper, sitting down on the bed. “But listen, we need to think of a plan. How about…”

“Ha!”

The door slams open and Joel jumps into my room. There’s an annoying, triumphant grin on his face, but it vanishes when he sees the boy sitting beside me. “Laurie, who…”

“This is really not what it looks like,” I say, which is true. Whatever Joel is thinking, it could not possibly be anything close to the reality of the situation.

“What’s going on here?” Joel asks, looking from me to Neon and back. “Who are you?”

“You must be Joel.” Neon stands up and offers his hand for Joel to shake. It’s so formal that I’d laugh if I wasn’t terrified about what he might say next. “I’m Neon. I’m a friend of Laurie’s. I’m visiting from New York City.”

“Neon?” Joel repeats. “Visiting as in staying here? In our house?”

“Yes,” Neon says, right as I say, “No!”

Joel asks which it is, so I reluctantly change my answer to a yes. He’s here now. It’s not like I can kick him out. Deep down, I don’t want to, either.

“It’s only for a few days,” I say. “Until Friday.”

“Let me get this straight. You invited your friend from New York to visit without checking with Mum and Mutti?” Joel asks. When I nod, he bursts out laughing. “Laurie, this is ridiculous. How did you two even meet?”

“In Brighton last summer. Mum and Mutti let me go to the arcades on the pier by myself for a bit, and we got talking there.”

Joel didn’t come with us on that trip, so I can stick to the story I told Caitlin and Hannah.

My parents would know it’s a lie – they and their friends were always around when we went to the pier, so there was no time for me to go making friends with other tourists – but Neon will be gone before they come home.

“Well, as long as you’re not inviting random people off the internet into our house. What about your parents? Are they OK with you coming all this way by yourself?” Joel asks Neon.

Neon nods quickly. “Yeah, my mom likes to give me a lot of freedom. She’s a bit alternative. I mean, she named me Neon ,” he adds with a laugh. It’s the exact same joke I wrote into my story about him months ago, and it makes my head spin to hear him repeat it now.

“All right, then.” Joel crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows at me. “You know, I’m quite impressed. I didn’t think you’d be into the whole teenage rebellion thing, but sneaking a long-distance boyfriend into the house while Mum and Mutti are away…”

My face heats up. “He’s not my boyfriend!”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” Joel grins. “Well, even so, he obviously can’t sleep in your room. You can set up the sofa bed downstairs for him.”

“I’ll do it.” Neon jumps to his feet. “Thanks a lot for letting me stay.”

“It’s not like I have much of a choice, do I? I can hardly kick you out on to the street.” Joel turns to leave, then pauses. “I’m guessing you’ll need feeding too. Are you all right with Thai food?”

He passes over his phone for Neon to select from the menu on the restaurant app. I watch his fingers paw at the screen and feel slightly dizzy at the sight: Neon, real and solid and here , discussing the difference between tom yum goong and tom kha gai with my brother.

“Are you going to tell Mum?” I ask Joel.

Mutti I’m not so worried about – she’d probably think this was hilarious. Mum is a different story. She would ground me for the next 3,000 years. And she’d definitely want to phone Neon’s mother, and what would we do then?

I expect Joel to make me pay for his silence, like the time I left the lid off the blender and soaked Mum’s brand-new coffee machine with strawberry smoothie.

I had to promise to cook him pancakes every day for a week before he’d help me tidy up.

At the very least, he’s going to dangle the threat of telling our parents about Neon over me until next Saturday.

But instead Joel shakes his head. “Nah. They’ve got a lot on. I don’t want them worrying about this too.” He raises his eyebrows before turning to the door. “Just try to stay out of trouble – and no more surprise visitors.”