‘We’ve never had a festival in Millford before,’ she announces. ‘Thank you all so much for coming along to support the libraries and to see my good friend Ked Wilder play his first live gig in over a decade. Ked spent a lot of time here back in the sixties, and he loved reading. A lot of his musical inspiration came from books, and a lot of his books came from libraries!
‘This festival was Ked Wilder’s idea, and shortly we’ll be hearing him play, but right now I want you to listen to a group of young people who care so passionately about the library cuts that they have been at the very heart of this protest. These young people are not just campaigners; they are musicians too. Please give a warm Millford welcome to brand-new teen talents … the Lost & Found!’
There’s a roar of applause as we walk on stage, but I’m shaking so hard the tambourine rattles in my hands and Happi has to take my elbow and march me over to our shared mic. I look round at the others. George is biting his lip, Jake winks at me, and Romy looks as if she might cry; Sami just nods in my direction, his eyes storm-dark, still wearing his threadbare coat in spite of the warm day, in spite of the promise he made to Marley. I can’t help smiling, and he smiles back.
Then Marley steps forward to his mic, and the last of my fears fall away.
‘Hello, Millford!’ he yells. ‘It is a privilege to be here today to share our music with you! We’d like to say a huge thank you to the wonderful Louisa Winter and the legendary Ked Wilder, as well as all the everyday heroes who run our brilliant libraries and work so hard to keep them open. Without them, this festival would not be happening … and we wouldn’t be here!
‘We are the Lost & Found, and we’re a new band, barely two months old. All our songs are original and this is the very first time we’ve played in front of an audience, so be kind! Our first song is called ‘Back Then’. Take it away!’
Lee’s trumpet blasts out the intro and the others come in one by one, and by the time Sasha starts to sing I’m not shaking any more – I’m dancing, leaning into the mic with Romy to sing the harmonies. When the last chords die away the applause begins, and that’s when I know that all the hard work was worth it, that Marley was right all along when he said we had something special, something different.
It flies by way too fast. People do not walk away – they keep coming, leaving the sideshows and stalls and tents to come and listen. I can’t help wondering if somewhere out there, my mum might be watching, listening, but the thought lifts away just as quickly when I catch sight of Mandy and Jon down at the front, crammed right next to the stage, arms waving, faces shining with pride.
When we come to the end of our last track, ‘Library Song’, everyone goes crazy. Cameras flash and people shout for more. We could do a dozen encores if we wanted to, but we only have five songs.
‘Thank you, Millford!’ Marley yells into the mic. ‘You have been the best audience ever. I hope you liked our songs – and I hope you like our message for Millford Council. Save our libraries!’
The crowd roar their approval and start chanting for an encore again.
‘Always leave them wanting more,’ Marley says as we run offstage, and I think by then we all want more. We all see Marley’s vision of what we have, what we might achieve. We hug each other, laughing and crying, standing in the wings as Ked Wilder stalks onstage and the crowd go crazy.
We are so high it feels like the world is at our feet, like anything is possible.
32
Afterwards
Afterwards, I remember the moment when Marley took my hand and tugged me away from the wings, down the steps to the front of the stage, the others following. We wriggled our way into the crowd, found Mandy and Jon and the others, and Sasha’s parents, and Lee’s, and a whole lot of other people too. We laughed and danced and sang along with the words of Ked Wilder songs we didn’t even know we knew. I remember how brilliant it was, how the air crackled with hope and our hearts filled up with the joyful music of a lost generation.
I danced with my friends, with Bex and Happi and Marley and all the kids from the Lost & Found, and I loved every moment.
Later on, a snippet of Ked Wilder’s first scheduled performance in a decade makes it on to the six o’clock news.
‘I don’t perform much in public these days,’ he tells the camera. ‘But Millford’s libraries matter – they’re the reason I’m doing this.’
‘Wow,’ Mandy says. ‘I think your library campaign just got its best plug yet! And if he’s still doing that documentary interview with the BBC, that’ll help too!’
On Sunday, four or five different newspapers mention the story – one with a big colour picture of Marley and me with Ked Wilder and Louisa Winter, and a huge headline: ‘Sixties Star Mentors Talented Teen Band in Bid to Save Libraries’. The report claims that Ked Wilder was really impressed with our set and hopes to see us soar to success.
‘How about that?’ Marley crows. ‘Fame and fortune at last!
Two days later, the council announce that they’ve changed their mind about the libraries. We watch the U-turn on Reporting Midlands: one of the Men in Suits stands in front of the Library Love Letters display in Bridge Street Library and tells the camera that their decision is nothing to do with the letters, or the festival, or the rallies and petitions and outpourings of support. Nothing at all to do with any of that.
‘Libraries have always been an essential part of Millford society,’ the council spokesman says. ‘Closing them was a last resort. That’s what the general public don’t seem to understand. While all this nonsense was going on, we’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to create a plan that will allow us to go forward into the twenty-first century with a modern, comprehensive and cutting-edge service …’
‘What does that even mean?’ I wonder out loud.
‘I don’t know,’ Bex says. ‘But how dare he call our campaign nonsense? There’s no way they’d have budged on those closures if we hadn’t kicked up a fuss!’
‘We won,’ I remind her. ‘Even if the council are sore losers, we still won!’
‘We did,’ Bex agrees. ‘Shouldn’t we be celebrating?’
‘Let’s go to the library!’ I say, and so we do, all of us – me, Bex, the rest of the band, even Mandy and Jon. When we get there we discover we weren’t the only ones with the idea – Bridge Street Library is packed with people, and Miss Walker is jubilant, swishing about in a new dress printed with pages from Alice in Wonderland, her face shining. She hugs us all, wiping her eyes, and I know that whatever happens with the band, we have achieved something special, something important here. It all turns into an impromptu party, with the Lost & Found playing our second ever gig between the bookshelves. Someone raids the CD shelves and plays Ked Wilder on Miss Walker’s tinny little CD player, and we party on until midnight because we saved the libraries and we’re proud of it, no matter what the council may say.
Not all the fallout from the festival is good, alas.
Soumia’s parents have found out that she’s been lying to them about the band, and they’re furious. They’d told her to drop it weeks ago; she’d only managed to keep coming by pretending she was at a GCSE study group on practice nights. ‘There’s no reasoning with them,’ she tells us. ‘I’m grounded, forever most likely … no more band. I’m sorry.’
Looks like we’ll be needing a new keyboard player.
It all feels a bit sad, a bit weird, and when my social worker Josie calls to arrange a meeting in a coffee shop in town things get weirder still. It’s not the Leaping Llama – Josie’s not the hipster type – just a quiet department store cafe, but it feels strange because I don’t see Josie much these days, and when I do she usually just calls over to the house.
‘What’s it about?’ I ask Mandy and Jon as they drop me in town. ‘Nothing I should be worried about?’
‘Of course not,’ Mandy says, but she looks anxious all the same.
‘Can’t you come with me?’
‘Not this time,’ J
on tells me. ‘But we’ll be waiting. If you need us, just call, OK? We’re here for you, Lexie. Always.’
When I walk into the cafe, I spot Josie straight away – she’s sitting at a table with Louisa Winter, sipping tea. A glass of orange juice, my drink of choice back when I was nine, sits waiting for me, but I frown because the picture doesn’t quite add up. Josie and Louisa Winter do not belong together. They stand up to greet me, and Louisa puts her arms round me and hugs me, telling me that Ked Wilder hasn’t stopped talking about us since the festival.
‘He says that if there’s anything he can do to help you, or help the band, you just have to say the word.’
‘Wow!’ I say. ‘Tell him thank you!’
‘Is that what this is all about?’ I ask, sitting down awkwardly. ‘The festival? Ked Wilder?’
Josie frowns. ‘In a roundabout way, perhaps it is,’ she says. ‘You’ve been making quite a stir lately, Lexie Lawlor. And a few days ago Miss Winter here called me with some information that could make even more of a stir …’
Louisa puts her teacup down, clasps her hands together. I can see faint traces of blue paint around her fingernails.
‘Do you remember the very first time we met, Lexie?’ she asks me. ‘You were with Jake, and I asked you if we’d met before because you reminded me of somebody?’
‘Vaguely,’ I say.
‘I remembered who it was, eventually,’ she tells me. ‘It was a young girl called Janine Howard, the daughter of a very dear friend. She was the image of you – right down to the haircut – when she was your age. I knew Janine well; she had quite a stormy time of it later on – met a boy her parents disapproved of, dabbled in drugs … I think there were some mental health issues too, but they didn’t realize that until later. At one point, her father threw her out and the two of them stayed in the old railway carriage for a week or so …’
I feel very still, very scared. My heart is beating hard and I can’t quite seem to find my breath. My eyes close and I remember the first time I saw the railway-carriage bedroom, the smashed glass of the dressing table, the heavy, sad feeling that filled the air.
‘The two of them ran away eventually, and my friend has never quite recovered from it,’ Louisa Winter goes on. ‘She lost her only daughter … never heard from her again. Can you imagine?’
The question hangs in the air. I can imagine, of course. I can imagine very well what it feels like to lose someone you love … I’ve lived it, after all.
‘I now know that you’ve been through something very similar,’ Louisa says. ‘The thing is, Lexie – on Monday, my good friend Alexandra Howard called me. She’d seen the photograph of you and me with Marley and Ked, in the Sunday Report, and she wanted to know who you were. You looked so like Janine, you see! And I told her that your name was Lexie Lawlor, that you were thirteen years old … and in foster care, according to young Jake. Alexandra called the social services right away.’
I can’t think straight, can’t understand. My mouth is too dry for words, but when I reach for the orange juice my hand shakes so much I knock the glass over and Louisa grabs napkins from a nearby table to mop up the spill.
‘Are – are you saying you’ve found my mum?’ I whisper.
Louisa takes my hand. ‘No, Lexie, not your mum,’ she says, calm and steady as always. ‘Your grandparents, Alexandra and Tom Howard. And they really want to meet you!’
I shake my head. ‘But … I don’t get it!’ I argue. ‘My mum was called Nina Lawlor, and she told me her parents were dead!’
‘Nina was a nickname from when she was little,’ Josie tells me. ‘And Lawlor was your dad’s surname – she must have adopted it. Her parents weren’t dead and they never stopped missing her. Nina came back to Millford in the end; perhaps she had it in her mind to make contact with her parents, let you meet them? We don’t know, because, for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. Alexandra and Tom had no idea they had a granddaughter!’
‘I don’t … what happens now?’ I ask.
‘Nothing too dramatic,’ Josie reassures me. ‘We have a lot of sorting out to do, a lot of planning. You’re settled with Mandy and Jon, so we won’t be moving you for the moment – or at all, unless you want us to – but we thought you would want to meet your grandparents. They lost their daughter and you lost your mum, and nothing has changed that, but now you have each other!’
Josie taps away at her mobile phone, and then looks across the cafe expectantly. I follow her gaze to where a middle-aged couple have just walked in. The woman is like an older, more conventional version of Mum; the man is gruff, smartly dressed, wary.
I stand up, shakily, wiping hot tears from my eyes, and the couple walk towards me.
Marley and me are sitting on the steps outside the old railway carriage a few days later.
‘I can’t believe it!’ he says, laughing out loud. ‘Ked Wilder has the music world in the palm of his hand, and he’s offering to be our mentor!’
‘Um … mentor?’ I echo. ‘That’s not quite what he said! Don’t believe everything you read in the papers!’
‘Near enough,’ Marley crows. ‘He likes our stuff and he wants to help us in any way he can. How cool is that? A bright future for the Lost & Found, saved libraries, unexpected grandparents … things are looking up!’
‘It’s the end of us two, though,’ I point out sadly. ‘Just friends from now on.’
‘Best friends, though,’ he tells me. ‘And, Lexie, trust me – this isn’t the end, not really. It’s just the beginning …’
Thanks …
Thanks to Liam, Cal, Cait and all of my fab family. Hugs to Helen, Fiona, Lal, Mel, Sheena, Jessie and all my lovely friends. Cheers to Ruth, my PA; Annie, who arranges my tours; Martyn, who sorts out the number stuff; and my fab agent Darley and his team. Thank you to Erin for the gorgeous artwork; to my lovely editors, Amanda and Carmen; and to Wendy, Mary-Jane, Tania, Roz, Ellen and all of the Puffin team for their help and support.
A special thank-you to the libraries I have loved so much and tried to save, especially Tile Hill and Earlsdon in Coventry and Sefton Park in Liverpool … and to many inspiring librarian friends who prove every day that the magic of libraries is alive and well and very much worth fighting for. Thanks to Cal and Jen for advice on the muso bits, and to Cait for letting me borrow the lyrics of her song ‘Train of Thought’. Thank you to Mary Shelley the tortoise, for lending her name.
Most of all, thanks to YOU, my lovely readers, for making all the hard work worthwhile.
If you would like to …
Turn the page for an extract from this gorgeous new story by Cathy!
Andie, Eden, Ryan, Tasha and Hasmita love being part of the Heart Club. They’ve promised to stay best friends forever and nothing can tear them apart. But sometimes things happen that you couldn’t ever have expected and forever might not be as long as you think …
Cathy Cassidy
BROKEN HEART CLUB
Prologue
It’s a Friday afternoon in late July, the summer after Year Six, and Andie and I are scrabbling about in the drizzle, wrestling with the canvas of the big old bell tent and giggling too much to actually get anywhere. Ryan from next door comes over to put up his little pop-up one-man tent and we drag him in to help, but that makes things worse because Andie is too busy flirting to take much notice of ropes and canvas. In the end Ryan goes home and Andie’s dad has to untangle the mess and help us put the tent up properly.
It’s Andie’s eleventh birthday, and we’ve planned a sleepover party, a garden camp-out for the Heart Club. It’s also a bit of a farewell thing, because Tasha and her family are moving to France in ten days time and Hasmita will be going to a different secondary school after the holidays. Tomorrow Andie and her family are going to Scotland for a week’s holiday, so even if Tasha’s family are still here by the time she gets back, it could be the last time we all get together properly. I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach at the idea of us being par
ted.
We all know that things are changing, and none of us like it.
‘It’s got to be a sleepover to remember, Eden!’ Andie says, peering out at me from under her anorak hood. ‘It’s got to be special!’
‘It will be.’ I promise, because our sleepovers always are and who cares if the TV says this is the wettest summer we’ve had in forty years? A bit of rain can’t stop the Heart Club from having fun. We spread bright rugs, pillows and blankets inside the bell tent, hang battery-powered fairy lights around the inside, make raggedy bunting to liven up the inside of the tent by tying endless strips of bright fabric scraps on to the strings of fairy light. They look beautiful, in a frayed and slightly frantic way.
‘OK,’ Andie declares at last. ‘It’s my birthday, and I reckon we’ve earned cake. C’mon, Eden, let’s go get ready – the others will be here soon!’
We head for Andie’s bedroom, a tiny boxroom painted sunshine yellow and papered with boy-band posters and bright, manga-style paintings she’s done herself. Andie’s mum is saving the birthday cake for later when Hasmita, Tasha and Ryan arrive for the sleepover, but she’s given us jam tarts and cheese on toast, and Andie ramps the music up to full volume to get us in the mood.
‘I think I’m in love,’ Andie says, throwing her arms wide. ‘Ryan Kelly. Who knew?’
‘Isn’t it a bit awkward falling in love with one of your best friends?’ I ask.
‘It’s awesome, because we’ve known each other forever,’ she says. ‘We already love each other in a friend-ish way, I just have get Ryan to see I’m not just the girl-next-door. Imagine … all this time and I’ve only just noticed how cute he is!’
Love from Lexie Page 16
