Page 8

Neon wants to see more of our town, so after breakfast on Sunday I give him a tour.

To be honest, there’s not all that much to look at, especially now that half the high street has closed down.

It always feels quite depressing to walk past the spots where I used to spend ages picking out sweets or debating which toy to spend my pocket money on, and see only vacant plots in their place.

The town feels quieter than it did when I was little. Sadder somehow.

Neon, though, seems delighted by everything we pass, from the faded red letter box outside the post office to the sign about a missing cat in the chip-shop window.

We pass Every Book & Cranny again, but we can’t go in since Gio doesn’t open until eleven on Sundays.

Instead, we stop by the pet shop, Bohemian Catsody.

Tilly used to joke that the owner, Martha, and my parents were competing to find the high street’s worst pun.

Neon is so amazed by the tanks of tropical fish that it makes Martha laugh out loud.

“Do they not have fish where you come from?”

She’s a small woman, probably around thirty, with blue-rimmed glasses and pastel-pink hair. My mums love her – she’s a romcom addict and one of our best customers at Every Book & Cranny.

“Yeah, but not like this.” Neon’s eyes dart about as he follows a tiny flash of electric blue round the tank. “They’re so bright .”

“I’d give you one to take home, but I don’t think it’d like the plane much.” Martha points to a small silvery fish with streaks of vivid blue and orange along its body. “This one would be perfect for you. It’s called a neon tetra.”

“No way!” Neon grabs my arm. “Let’s get some! Look, you can get ten for eight pounds! Is that a lot?”

I don’t have a fish bowl, enough money to buy one or the nerve to discover how Joel would react if I came home with ten new pets, so I say goodbye to Martha and drag Neon from the shop.

Next, we take a walk round the park – the play area is full of little kids, which is lucky as I have a feeling Neon would want to spend hours on the swings otherwise – and then head to my favourite bakery.

When Robbie, the owner, hears Neon speak, his eyes light up.

“Wow, your accent – that’s more New York than a yellow taxi.” He sets down a tray of white rolls and brushes the flour from his tattooed hands. “I’ve got cousins over there, been to visit them five or six times. Which area are you from?”

My shoulders tense as Neon and Robbie start chatting about Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens.

If Neon is exactly like I created him, then everything he knows about New York City must be based on my research.

I’m nervous that he’ll say something completely wrong, and Robbie will realise Neon is no more of a New Yorker than I am.

Luckily they mostly talk about baseball games and pastrami sandwiches, then Robbie throws in a couple of misshapen doughnuts with our order of two Chelsea buns.

Neon digs into a doughnut the moment we’re out of the shop.

“Man, food is so much tastier here in the real world.” He takes a second bite, leaving a ring of powdered sugar round his mouth. “Weird that you have to pay for it, though. We take whatever we want in the Realm. It reappears a few moments later anyway.”

“So, how does it work exactly?” I ask, lowering my voice even though the street is nearly empty. “Since I decided you live in New York, is that what the Realm looks like for you?”

Neon shakes his head. “No, the life you gave me is more like a memory. Once we’ve been created, we enter the Realm with the personality and backstory that the person has made up for us.

That way we can interact with characters from all sorts of worlds, even ones totally different to this.

One of my best friends there is a centaur,” he says as casually as if he’d said they were Dutch or a Sagittarius.

“But what does the Realm actually look like, then?” I try to imagine a place where dragons and talking animals mingle with ordinary characters from literary novels like Mutti’s. It sounds totally chaotic.

“It changes all the time. Sometimes it’s like any other city, sometimes a dramatic fantasy landscape, sometimes futuristic.

There are always really amazing sunsets – the romance characters love those.

” Neon nudges a crumpled Coke can on the pavement with his toe.

“And I gotta say it’s a lot cleaner than the real world. ”

We keep wandering and a few minutes later arrive at the edge of Loch Ness.

Its legendary monster has probably made it one of the most famous lakes in the country, maybe in Europe, but our part of it isn’t so remarkable: a long, wide stretch of water with pine trees on the other side.

Even so, I really like coming here. Tilly and I used to walk Bella along the water’s edge all the time.

We carved our names under one of the benches when we were ten: Tilly & Laurie forever!

tucked inside an oddly shaped flower. It feels strange when Neon stops at the exact same spot.

“So this is home to the Loch Ness Monster.” Neon grabs a Chelsea bun from the paper bag and takes a large bite. “Ever spotted her?”

“Not yet.” I sit down on the bench, then spin round to look at him. “Wait, have you ? She must live in the Realm too, right?”

“I guess she must, but I’ve never seen her. Sounds like she’s the secretive type.” He raises his eyebrows. “A bit like you.”

“Me? I don’t think I’m secretive.” I push my hair behind my ears and shake my head. “Except for this whole story with you, but that’s different.”

Only that’s not entirely true. There are plenty of things that I haven’t told Caitlin and Hannah about myself, even after being friends with them for two years.

Sometimes it’s because I worry they’d make fun of me, like the fact I love the über-cheesy German pop music that Mutti plays in the car, but sometimes I don’t think they’d be interested, like in the novels I’ve tried to write.

I used to tell my parents almost everything, but lately I’ve been keeping lots of things from them too.

They don’t know quite how mean my friends can be.

They don’t know how sad I’ve felt a lot of the past two years.

Even in my made-up conversations with Neon, I wasn’t totally open about my life.

I didn’t tell him anything about Tilly, for one thing.

When I was talking to him, I could pretend that I was someone different, someone funny and bright and popular.

Not the girl whose best friend dumped her as soon as they started secondary school.

Not the girl whose new friends barely seem to like her some days.

“You didn’t even tell me you could sing,” Neon says.

My cheeks instantly heat up. “How do you know I like singing?”

“I heard you belting out Taylor Swift in the shower this morning. You’re really good!”

Part of me wants to die of embarrassment, but another part is happy to get the compliment. Caitlin and Hannah have no idea that I can sing. Hardly anyone has ever heard me before. Mum and Mutti always say I’m good, but they’re biased.

“Maybe you’re right,” I tell Neon, my eyes fixed on the shiny dark surface of the loch. “Maybe I’m more secretive than I realised.”

Neon takes another bite of bun, then lightly slaps my knee.

“That must be my purpose!” he shouts through a mouthful of half-chewed pastry.

“I’m a fictional character, right? So, if I’ve turned up in your life like this, it’s obviously for a reason.

Maybe I’m supposed to bring you out of your shell.

Make you see that it’s OK to be you, just the way you are, or something heart-warming like that. ”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works now you’re in the real world,” I say, laughing. “But sure, you can try. Maybe I’ll be a totally different person by Saturday.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to be totally different. More like … Laurie Plus. Laurie the Deluxe Edition! Featuring brand-new confidence and extra sparkle.”

I roll my eyes and bump my shoulder against his, but a smile tugs at my lips. Laurie the Deluxe Edition doesn’t sound bad at all.