My mouth dropped open.

"But as I say"-he swung his bag over his shoulder with a mischievous grin-"I definitely didn't see anything. See you tomorrow, Spidey."

He strolled off down the road and left me standing on my own, my mouth still hanging open.

Note to self: stop writing lists.

From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Come on Are you home yet? I'm bored.

How was detention? I can't believe you did something as selfish as set someone on fire. Now you have detention so I have no one to distract me from this French vocab.

Danny is so annoying. He purposefully doesn't reply to my e-mails so that I'm forced to do my homework.

J x From: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk To: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Re: Come on Hey, I'm home!

Get this-Dad took Dog to the vet today for his annual checkup. Do you know what this so-called vet had to say? That Dog was "healthy."

Can you believe that?! I am tempted to march right up to that vet and give him a piece of my mind!

Have you had dinner, by the way?

Love, me xxx From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Re: Come on I'm confused. Isn't being healthy a good thing for a dog?

I did have dinner, yes. You are full of interesting questions. We had spaghetti.

Do what you will with this information.

J x From: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk To: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Poor Dog It is fine for a dog to be healthy, Jess, but it is not fine for a stranger to call Dog "healthy." Do you get it now?

I was actually going to ask if you wanted to come over here for dinner so you could jump in and save me if Dad tried to lecture me about the importance of bumblebees or something.

So there.

Love, me xxx From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Re: Poor Dog No, I do not get it now. Nobody would get it now. You're not making any sense.

Very kind of you, want me to come over anyway? I could distract your dad with questions about military arms.

J x From: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk To: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Re: Poor Dog He was clearly referring to Dog's size.

Love, me xxx From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: You're crazy Again. That is a GOOD thing. That he is HEALTHY.

Am I coming over?

J x From: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk To: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Re: You're crazy Hang on. Better not come over yet.

Dad wants me to log off. He wants to "have a talk" about something "very important." He's been acting so weird the past few days.

Anyway I'll be back on in about half an hour and will let you know.

Love, me xxx From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: Leave me why don't you Hope everything is okay. Let me know?

J x From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: You there?

Hey, Anna-just wondering what your dad had to say? It's been a couple of hours so checking everything is okay.

Plus, I'm really bored. Why is there so much vocab in the French language? Surely we don't need to know this much if we ever go over there, right? We'd only need to know "croissant" and "non" to get by, I'm pretty sure of it.

So why am I learning the French translation of "antler"?

When am I going to be in France talking about antlers? Our school is so strange.

J x From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: (no subject) Me again! It's been a while now-what's going on? Is everything all right with your dad?

I'm worried.

J x From: jess.delby@zingmail.co.uk To: anna_huntley@zingmail.co.uk Subject: (no subject) I haven't heard from you all night.

Something's happened, hasn't it?

WHAT IN THE WORLD HAS HAPPENED?.

MY DAD HAS COMPLETELY LOST his mind.

I knew something was wrong earlier this evening because he was acting all shifty. I couldn't think of anything that might be bugging him, so I asked him whether Mrs. Trott had got into our trash can again.

Mrs. Trott is our next-door neighbor who, when we first moved in, clearly had a bit of a thing for Dad. Unfortunately, she has quite a mean scary face, and Dad didn't reciprocate Mrs. Trott's amorous advances. After this, she has become very intently focused on our recycling in what appears to me to be an admirable attempt at crossing Dad's path more regularly.

One day I came home to find Dad a nervous wreck. It turned out that in a fit of passion over Dad's refusal to comply with her previous instruction, she had got into our trash can. So when Dad took the trash out of the house and opened the lid to the outside can, there was Mrs. Trott's scary face staring right up at him.

According to witnesses, Dad had "screamed at an impressive pitch" and then fallen backward over his pile of trash bags. Mrs. Trott, I was told, calmly climbed out of the can and simply said, "Recycle, you fool," then threw a last lingering look over her shoulder.

Dad has recycled meticulously since.

"No, Mrs. Trott wasn't in our trash can. Why?" Dad replied, looking up in a panic. "I've been so careful!"

"Calm down, Dad," I said in my most reassuring voice. "Mrs. Trott has been extremely pleased with your recycling recently." He looked visibly calmer. "But why are you acting so weird? You're creeping me out."

Then he said, all defensive, "I'm not acting weird," and started tidying the phone table. I watched him for a minute and then got bored, shrugged, and left him to be abnormal on his own.

So when he came into the living room and made me turn off my laptop, I was kind of relieved because I could finally find out what had been going on.

He sat down next to me and took a deep breath. "I have asked my . . . um . . . girlfriend to come over to meet you this evening. I hope that's all right?"

"Oh right! Uh, yeah, of course that's fine."

"There is something I just want to explain to you first."

He gave me a funny look.

"This girlfriend is . . . unique." He stopped and clamped his hands together in front of him, leaning forward. "She is special."

"Okay, Dad, I get it. This one's different. Don't worry, I'll be on my best behavior. I promise I won't tell her that story about when you angered that ostrich."

"That's very kind of you, but that's actually not what I meant."

"Okay," I said, rolling my eyes. Now I got it. "It's because she's really young, isn't it? If that is the case, you definitely don't need to worry. You have really good hair for your age. Unless she's early twenties or something, in which case I'm sorry, but you both need to re-evaluate your lives."

"No, look, she's my age, she's fine. It's just . . ." He took a deep breath. "Anna, my girlfriend is Helena Montaine."

I blinked at him.

"Helena Montaine," I repeated slowly.

"As in . . . the actress," he confirmed, looking at me intently.

"As in the really famous actress."

"Yes."

"As in the really famous two-time Oscar-winning actress."

"Yes."

"You're dating Helena Montaine, the actress?"

"Yes."

"Helena Montaine, the famous actress, is dating my dad?"

"Yes."

"Is this a weird joke?"

"No."

"You're not in cahoots with Jess?"

"No. I am being serious."

"Because this is the sort of thing she would do."

"No, I'm not in cahoots with Jessica."

"You're dating Helena Montaine, the actress who's always in the newspapers."

"Yes."

"The famous one."

"Yes."

I sat in silence. I wasn't sure how to process this information. I mean, it's not like Dad hasn't dated famous people before. He dated a fairly high-profile politician for a bit and even once went on a few dates with a model he'd interviewed.

Not that any of them had ever taken any notice of me of course. I'm the least glamorous being they probably ever had contact with, apart from Dog maybe. But even he can look like a big shot after a good groom.

Helena Montaine is big though. As in famous. Really famous. She is always on the front covers of all those glossy magazines that my dad won't let me read because they "encourage things like more eyeliner requests." (Seriously, he needs to get out more.) She's even advertised skin products on television. You know the ones, where she's running along a beach in a white floaty dress and touching her face because it's so soft and wrinkle-free.

"Are you all right, Anna?" My dad looked extremely worried and even reached out for my hand.

"Um," I said, trying to get past the images of Helena stroking her face and saying "so silky, so you" flashing through my mind.

"Look, it's important that you know how normal she is. I was nervous when I first interviewed her because I assumed she would be a diva. But she's extremely approachable and down to earth."

"Right," I said numbly.

"You have to think of it as just meeting your dad's girlfriend rather than meeting Helena Montaine. I promise, once you've met her, you'll forget all that famous nonsense right away. She has a way of putting you perfectly at ease."

"You interviewed her. That's how you met?"

"Yes. I had to interview her a couple of times because she had such a hectic schedule. We couldn't do the interview all in one go. But every time I saw her after that first interview it was like we were old friends. We clicked right away. After I wrote the piece, I asked her if she'd like to go for a drink some time, and well . . ." He paused and gave a shrug. "It all started from there."

"And now you're her . . . boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"She knows about the tanks book?"

"Yes."

"And she still wants to date you? Helena Montaine, the famous actress, is dating my dad, the author of a tanks book."

"I have done more with my life than just write a book about tanks. Not that that's the point here."

"I'm about to meet Helena Montaine."

"Yes. It's difficult to digest, but she'll be here any minute, and you can see how wonderful she is. I also invited Marianne-you know Helena has a daughter?-as I've met her a few times now. She's very nice, Anna, a really lovely girl. We thought it would be good for you guys to get to know each other. Marianne is only seventeen, so there's not much of an age difference between you. I know you'll get along wonderfully. She's a little high maintenance but it's mostly for show-I think."

Dad may have all his hair, but he seems to have lost several of his brain cells along the way. Marianne Montaine and me get along? IS HE NUTS?! She is a movie star's daughter who doesn't have an actual job but is so beautiful and glamorous that she gets invited to every red carpet event anyway. Whereas I can recite Lord of the Rings passages and spend weekends re-enacting the climbing of Mount Doom scene with my Labrador.

She has a Wikipedia page for goodness' sake! I once got left off the school registery at the start of the new year. MY OWN SCHOOL DIDN'T REMEMBER ME.