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Jacqueline Wilson is an extremely well-known and hugely popular author who served as Children’s Laureate from 2005–7. She has been awarded a number of prestigious awards, including the British Children’s Book of the Year and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award (for The Illustrated Mum), the Smarties Prize and the Children’s Book Award (for Double Act, for which she was also highly commended for the Carnegie Medal). In 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools and in 2008 she was appointed a Dame. She has sold over thirty-five million books and was the author most borrowed from British libraries in the last decade.

About the Book

‘That’s me, the only one not smiling, while Dad is giving the press his famous lopsided grin’

Sunset’s dad is the ageing rock star, Danny Kilman. But despite the glitz and glamour, she’d swap the popping flashbulbs and her warring parents for peace, privacy and a happy family.

Destiny, named after a Danny Kilman song, lives with her mum on the edge of a rundown estate. Money is very tight and Destiny’s often left alone while her mum works.

When the two meet in unlikely circumstances, they form a friendship that might just change both their lives.

Mum takes hold of the duvet, trying to work the two big bears’ mouths like puppets, doing growly bear ‘happy birthdays’. She’s played this game with me ever since I can remember. I suppose I’m way too old for it now I’m eleven, but never mind, it’s only Mum and me.

I know they’re not very exciting names, but I christened them when I was only two or three. ‘And thank you, Mum.’

I put my arms round her and hug her close. She feels so skinny I’m scared of snapping her in half. She doesn’t diet, she just doesn’t find time to eat very much. Now we’ve moved to Bilefield she’s got three jobs: she has her cleaning job at the university early in the morning, then she does her home-helping all day, and then Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights she’s started working the evening shift at the Dog and Fox, only that’s our secret, because she has to leave me on my own when she’s down the pub.

I don’t mind one little bit. She leaves me pizzas and oven chips, and any fool can heat them up, I can watch whatever telly I want or play all my secret games, and when I go to bed Mum’s always left me a little scribbled note. Sometimes it’s a Danny Kilman quiz – complete the last line of the chorus, silly stuff like that. Sometimes it’s a message: Night-night, my best girl. Sleep tight and hope the bugs don’t bite.

We really did have bed bugs once, when we lived on the Latchford Estate. Mum let this friend of hers and her two kids from the balcony above live at our flat for a couple of weeks after the friend left her husband, and they must have brought them with them. They moved on, but their bugs stayed – awful little black wriggly things. Mum used to catch them with a bar of carbolic soap and she’d scrub and scrub the mattress, but they kept on wriggling. So eventually we gave up on the mattress altogether and hauled it in and out of the lift and lumbered it to the waste ground behind the dustbins where everyone dumps their rubbish.

Mum went down to the Social and begged for a new mattress. It was, like, well, you live on the Latchford Estate so you’re the pits. We can’t help it if you’re dirty, we can’t go providing you with new mattresses every five minutes. So Mum said stuff them and we made do without a mattress for months, huddled up together on the sofa cushions with Mum’s duvet underneath us and my teddy duvet on top. I quite liked cuddling up together but it hurt Mum’s back.

I think that was the main reason she took up with Steve. We went and lived in his posh house and he bought us all sorts of stuff. He didn’t just buy us both a mattress, he bought us brand-new beds. Their bed was a really fancy four-poster bed just like in a fairy story. My bed was just ordinary. Mum wanted to get me a pretty new pillowcase-and-duvet set. She had one all picked out with white lace and embroidered pink rosebuds. I’d have loved it, but I didn’t want to have to fawn all over Steve, so I said I wanted to stick to my old teddy duvet. And I was glad I did. When Mum and Steve were in their fancy bed, I could curl up in mine with Pinky one side of me, Bluey the other, and we’d go into the woods and have picnics, just like that silly old song.

I often don’t sleep very well, and while Steve was around I couldn’t climb in beside Mum, so I had a lot of picnics with Pinky and Bluey. Sometimes on really bad nights we’d scoot off on holiday together, flying off to different foreign lands, sightseeing and swimming and sunbathing. I don’t play all that silly kid stuff now, of course. Well, not often. And Steve’s history, and his fancy house and his four-poster bed.

He started slapping Mum about and she put up with it for a bit, but then he started on me, and she wasn’t having that. So we did a runner, Mum and me, with two suitcases stuffed with our clothes and my duvet and Mum’s make-up and our little CD player and all Mum’s Danny Kilman albums and her big Danny scrapbook. We couldn’t literally run with those cases – we could barely drag them along.

We ended up in a refuge where all the little kids kept crying and the big kids were fighting and one of the women tried to nick all our Danny stuff. Mum didn’t half clobber her when she caught her – my little mum against this huge hippo of a woman, a good twenty stone – but no one messes with Mum’s Danny Kilman collection. Then we got rehoused on another rubbish estate not much better than Latchford, but Mum said she’d learned her lesson, she wasn’t getting mixed up with any other bloke now, not even if he lived in Buckingham Palace.

She tried to make our new flat into a proper home, painting all the walls different bright colours and making proper flowery-patterned curtains for our windows – though it was so damp the ceiling went black with mould no matter how many times she painted it and the curtains were wringing wet with condensation every morning.

But then we got our lucky break! One of Mum’s special regulars, Harry Benson, a dear old gent she cleaned for on Thursday mornings, got pneumonia and went into hospital and died. Mum was sad because she’d loved old Harry. She’d nip out to the shops for him several times a week, buying his Sun and his Players and a pint of milk and a packet of his favourite Jammy Dodgers, and sometimes she’d put a bet on for him down the bookies. He must have been grateful because he left her all his savings in his will.

He’d often told Mum he was going to do this as he didn’t have any proper family to remember. She was very touched, but she didn’t get too excited because Harry lived in a council flat like ours and all his ornaments looked like stuff left over from a jumble: an Alsatian dog with his ears broken off, little jugs with cracks saying A present from Margate, a faded picture of a lady with a green face, that kind of thing. But it turned out he had nearly twenty-five thousand pounds tucked away in the post office!

Maybe some of his bets paid off big-time, maybe he’d just scrimped and saved all his life, I don’t know. Mum cried and cried when she found out. She took me to the crematorium with her. She knew they’d scattered his ashes in the rose garden so she went and crouched there, whispering to Harry that she was ever so grateful, and she made me say it too, though it felt a bit weird talking out loud to a lot of red and yellow roses. I kept looking worriedly at the petals in case they had little flakes of dead people on them.

I hoped Mum would take us on a fantastic holiday, a real-life version of my night-time fantasies, but she made do with a day trip to Blackpool. (I did get to paddle in the sea, though it was freezing cold and my toes turned blue, and I had fish and chips and two ice creams and won a toy gorilla on the pier, so it was a great day out.) She used all the money as a big down payment on our very own house.

It’s only a very little house, an ex-council maisonette on the Bilefield Estate. It’s meant to be the best of all the council estates – hardly any druggies, a lot of the flats privately owned, and Bilefield Primary is supposed to be a good school. Mum’s dead keen on me getting a good education. So we’ve made this brand-new start – but I can’t help thinking it’s a bit rubbish. I hate the school because I’m in Year Six and everyone’s got their own little set of mates and I’m the new girl stuck without anyone. Not that I’d want to be friends with any of that lot.

Mum says we’re much better off now, but she can’t mean financially because the mortgage uses up all her money. She hasn’t ever got anything left over for treats. I can’t have new clothes or a computer or an iPod, or even my own mobile like nearly all the other kids in my class. Mum says it’s worth it to have our very own house. I’m not so sure, to be truthful. I particularly think this at times like Christmas. And birthdays. Like today.

‘Now you sit up nicely in the bed, Birthday Girl, and I’ll bring you your special birthday breakfast,’ Mum says, eyes shining.

She’s still in her tattered pink silky dressing gown. I look at my alarm clock.

Mum grins and taps me on the nose. ‘No, I won’t. I’ve got Michelle and Lana to cover for me at the uni, and Louella’s going to do my first old lady. Today’s special – it’s my best girl’s birthday. Hang on!’

She dashes to the door and bends over a tray on the floor. I hear the flare of a match. Then she picks up the tray, chuckling to herself, and carries it carefully over to the bed.

She’s spread a slice of bread with butter and golden syrup, one of my favourite treats, and stuck eleven pink candles all over it.

‘Blow them out then, Destiny, quick! Blow them out all in one go and then you’ll get a wish!’

I blow hard and expertly, and get every candle. Then I close my eyes, wondering what to wish for. I wish I had a best friend? I wish Mum didn’t have to work so hard? I wish I had a proper dad?

Then I pick out my candles, sucking the syrup off the holders, and eat my birthday bread. Mum goes to make coffee, and when she comes back with it she’s also got a tray of parcels: one medium size, one a bit smaller, one tiny, plus two envelopes, one large, one small, with my name on the front in Mum’s swirly back-sloping writing: Destiny.

So I open the bigger card and it’s one Mum’s made herself. She’s cut all sorts of pictures out of magazines – dogs and cats and rabbits and ponies and sandy beaches and flowers and flash cars and great big boxes of chocolates and giant ice creams – and stuck them on a piece of paper to make a crazy picture.

I turn over the picture. Mum has inked a message in fancy lettering, pink and purple: To my dearest darling dorter Destiny on her eleventh birthday. With lots and lots of love from Mum.

I am ace at spelling but Mum isn’t. I wouldn’t point out her mistakes in a million years. I give her a great big hug.

I’m not expecting proper presents either. Mum often tries to make me stuff, or she gets things from boot fairs and cleans them up – but I’m in for a surprise. The biggest parcel is a pair of black jeans, brand new from Primark, still with the ticket on, and there’s a new black T-shirt in the second parcel, really deep black and pristine under the arms, plainly never been worn or put in the wash. The only slightly weird present is the last one: a pair of little black net gloves.

‘Do you like them? I found them on a market stall. I got me a pair too. They’re a bit like the ones Danny wears in his early photos.’

‘Oh yeah. They’re cool, Mum. I love them,’ I say, trying them on and turning my hands into little spiders scuttling up and down the bed.

‘So, we’ll have to find somewhere for you to go when you’re all dressed up in your black jeans and T-shirt and your fancy gloves,’ says Mum. She’s fidgeting like she wants to jump up and down like a little kid. ‘Open the other envelope, Destiny, go on!’

I’ve only ever been to London once. That was on a weekend with Steve. At first he was in a very good mood and he showed us Buckingham Palace, where the Queen lives, and Trafalgar Square with the great big lions, and then we went to this huge great posh shop called Harrods and he bought Mum a dress, and Steve and Mum went out clubbing that evening – but the next morning Steve was in a very bad mood and didn’t want to do anything at all.

‘Where will we go, Mum?’ I say. ‘Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square?’

‘Oh great, so we can go to that shop, Harrods? Not to buy stuff, just to have a look round. We could play we’re two rich Wags out on a shopping spree.’

‘Yeah, well, we could do that when we get there in the afternoon, but we’re going somewhere else in the evening. We’re going to a film premiere,’ says Mum.

‘Yes, we are! Well, we’re not going to see the film itself – that’s for the stars, naturally – but we’ll be there looking at everyone arriving, standing on the red carpet. I’ve seen stuff like that on the telly. You can get really close up to the stars, even speak to them, and Destiny, guess who’s going to be there – oh, guess!’

I look at Mum, shaking my head. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, and I truly haven’t a clue.

I don’t know much about film stars. Mum’s the one who hangs about for ages in WHSmith reading all the celebrity mags, not me. I can’t quite get why she’s so worked up, biting her lips, her fists clenched.

‘I read about it in the fan club mag. It’s a film about a new band – it’s called Milky Star—’

‘No, no – oh, I wish! How wonderful to be able to see him play! No, according to this piece I read, Danny plays a major rock star, kind of similar to himself – but anyway, the film premiere’s on Saturday and Danny will be there, it said. And I’ve been saving up for something special for your birthday for ages, so I thought I’d get us tickets, and buy you a new outfit – because it’s time you met him, Destiny. It’s time you met . . . your father.’

She whispers the last two words reverently. It’s such a very private secret we hardly ever talk about it. Mum’s never told anyone but me, and I wouldn’t ever tell anyone else, even if I had a best friend in all the world, because this is such a sacred secret.

My dad is Danny Kilman. I suppose there wouldn’t be any point telling people even if it wasn’t a secret, because who would believe me? Mum met Danny when she was eighteen. She’d loved him ever since she was my age. She bought all his albums and had posters of him all over her bedroom walls. She’d had a few boyfriends, but Danny was the only man she ever loved. She was thrilled when Danny and his boys were playing at the Apollo and she managed to get a ticket. She went with her friend Julie and they screamed themselves hoarse, and then they went to the Midland Hotel and hung around in the hope of seeing the band there – and they were invited in for drinks.

Mum said it was the most amazing night of her life – she simply couldn’t believe it. She was actually talking to Danny Kilman! She was sitting on his lap! She was kissing him!

She said he wasn’t a bit the way she’d imagined. He was quiet, even a little bit shy, and very gentlemanly, taking such care of her.

Mum says they only had a brief relationship but it was a truly passionate love affair – my little mum and rock god Danny.

‘I should have left home and given up my job and followed him to London there and then,’ Mum’s often said sadly. ‘I should have realized you can’t really have a valid long-distance relationship, not with someone like Danny. I don’t really blame him for starting to go out with Suzy. I don’t want to sound catty, but she practically threw herself at him, everyone knows that – it was in all the gossip columns. I decided I didn’t mind him having a little fling with her. I mean, his first marriage was already over, so he was free to do what he wanted, and Suzy was already quite a famous glamour model herself then and very pretty – though I’ve always thought she looks a little hard. But then, just around the time I realized I was going to have a baby, my Dan’s baby, there’s this devastating headline – DANNY KILMAN MARRIES SUZY SWINGER IN WHIRLWIND VEGAS WEDDING – and I realized it was too late. What could I do? I couldn’t tell him and risk wrecking his brand-new marriage. It would be so unfair.’

I suppose Mum thought she would bide her time and wait. She never thought his marriage would last. But they’d only been married a few months when Suzy stopped partying with Danny half the night and started wearing loose tops and it became obvious she was going to have a baby. Danny’s baby.

She’s kept a separate scrapbook of the baby from the very first photos three days after she was born – ‘Because she’s family.’

We have way more photos of Sunset than we have of me. I always liked the one of baby Sunset in her little white hooded playsuit with bunny ears. Mum tried to make me one, stitching ears on my tiny hoodie, only she got the shape wrong so the ears were too small and round and I ended up looking like a little white rat. Once Sunset was toddling around, Mum gave up trying to make me matching outfits because Sunset had such amazing designer clothes. When I was old enough, Mum and I would pore over them for ages, repeating the French and Italian designer names reverently.

The photo I like best in the whole scrapbook is one of Sunset and Danny on a white beach in Barbados. Suzy is there too, in the shade in the background, her tummy swollen over her bikini bottom because she’s six months pregnant with Sweetie, my next little half-sister. Danny is lying stretched out on the sand, looking really brown and fit, wearing funny long bathing trunks down to his knees, and Sunset is sitting beside him, busy burying his feet in the sand. She’s got her hair in a topknot and she’s wearing huge sunglasses – maybe she’s borrowed them from Suzy – and a red-and-white striped swimming costume. She’s grinning mischievously at her dad, so happy. I’d stare at that picture until I could feel the sun on my skin, hear the lap of the waves, feel the powdery grit of the sand as I smiled at my dad.

That’s me. I’m the only one not smiling. Dad is giving the press his famous lopsided grin, flicking his long tousled hair, striking a cool pose in his black gothic clothes and his silver-sequin baseball boots. He’s not Dad any more, he’s Big Danny, every inch of him, right down to the huge skull ring studded with diamonds distorting his little finger.

Mum’s smiling too, showing off her new pink hairdo, exactly the same colour as her flowery ruffled dress, cinched in with a wide black studded belt, her long legs in black fishnets and then crazily high red-soled Louboutins. She doesn’t model any more, but she still knows how to show herself off.

My sister Sweetie’s like a mini model already. Her fair hair has been specially straightened for today. It swishes past her shoulders in a shiny waterfall. Mum’s let her have a dab of purple shadow on her eyelids to match her purple ballet frock. She’s wearing a little black velvet jacket over the top, studded with all her badges and brooches, black and purple striped tights and little black pointy boots. She coordinated her outfit herself, even though she’s only five. Sweetie has known how to be a celebrity child ever since she could toddle.

Ace is still at the toddling stage and doesn’t give a fig about celebrity. He was supposed to wear a miniature version of Dad’s outfit, but he screamed and kicked and said he didn’t want to wear those silly clothes. He would only wear his Tigerman outfit or he would bite. So he’s in his Tigerman costume – black and gold stripes with a long tail, and Mum has painted tiger stripes and whiskers on his face.

Everyone goes ‘Ahhh’, and coos at him. Ace roars and they pretend to be scared. It’s the simplest of routines, but Ace is happy to play Tigerman all day long and well into the night.

He’s not so sure about all the flashing lights of the photographers. He blinks and ducks his head and grabs Mum’s hand. She lifts him up and gives him a cuddle as he nuzzles into her neck, and he manages a little grin.

‘Remember, you mustn’t show your teeth – you’ll spoil the photo,’ Mum hissed as the Mercedes drew up at the start of the red carpet.

I have a gap in the front and snaggle teeth at the sides. Mum says I have to have extractions and braces but I am scared of the pain – and anyway, the orthodontist says we should wait several years. I’d like to wait a century or two. And anyway, I know I’ll spoil every family photo even when my teeth are fixed. I’m not little and blonde and cute like Sweetie and Ace. They take after Mum. I take after Dad. I am dark and I have a wild mane of hair and big nose. They look fine on him but they look awful on me.

My clothes don’t look right either. Mum picked everything out for me as she doesn’t trust me to choose my outfit myself. I can’t tell which top goes with which bottom (and I don’t care anyway), and the only kind of shoes I like are comfy ones. I wouldn’t mind a pair of sparkly baseball boots just like Dad’s, but Mum says I’d look too much of a tomboy. I’ve got these dinky scarlet boots with really high heels. Sweetie adores them and can’t wait to be big enough to wear them herself – but even Mum says five is too young to wear high heels.

I am wearing weird itchy black leatherette leggings that stick to me all over, and a blue velvet smock top. I hate the feel of velvet, especially because I bite my nails. Every time the little raw edges of my fingers touch the velvet it makes me shiver.

So no, I can’t smile, please. Mum won’t let me – and to be honest I don’t feel like smiling. I hate red carpet stuff. This is the film premiere of Milky Star, a funny film about a young boy band, and my dad has a cameo role as a wild rock star. Well, he is a wild rock star, though he hasn’t had a hit for a long time, and he hasn’t done a proper show for years. I mustn’t ever ever ever mention this, though.

However, Dad’s still mega-popular – the crowd on either side of the red carpet are yelling his name.

Always and For Ever is the title of Dad’s number-one hit. It’s the song that everyone knows. It was in the charts for weeks, and it’s a Golden Oldie request on all the radio shows, and last year it was the theme tune of a romantic comedy series on television. It’s the song that people always scream for at concerts. Some of the crowd are singing it now, arms in the air and swaying. They’re nearly all women, mostly older than Mum. Some of them could even be grannies, but they’re singing and screaming like teenagers.

Dad starts singing too, clowning around, going up to the iron barriers, signing autographs, smiling because the cameras are still flashing. Mum carries Ace and holds hands with Sweetie, close by Dad’s side. I stumble awkwardly after them, my bad teeth clenched.

I see a girl in the crowd about my age, tall and thin and dark, her hair scraped back in a ponytail. There’s a woman with her, maybe her mother or a big sister, because she’s thin and dark too, with the same ponytail, and they’re both dressed in black with little black mesh gloves – Dad used to wear them long ago, they were his special trademark.

‘Hey, Danny, look! Here she is – your destiny!’ the woman shouts, and she points to her daughter, poking her in the chest. She doesn’t seem to mind her mum’s shouting and prodding. She sticks out her flat chest proudly, and yells herself.

Destiny is another one of Dad’s songs, though it’s tucked away on an early album and only true fans have heard of it.

Destiny, you are my Destiny,

All the world to me.

Even though we’re apart

You’re always in my heart,

That’s where you’ll stay

For ever and a day.

When the wind blows,

When the grass grows,

Till the moon glows blue

I’ll love you true.

It’s not very good, is it? And Destiny isn’t a proper name. I think there should be a law preventing parents giving their kids awful names. My own name gets ten out of ten in the terrible stakes. I’m Sunset. Yeah. I’m sure you’re sniggering. Everyone does.

The photographers are all pointing their cameras down the carpet, where a blonde actress is squealing and clutching the front of her dress because one of her boobs has popped out.

‘She’s doing it deliberately, any fool can see that,’ says Mum. ‘Come on, Sunset, move.’

‘Danny, oh, Danny, please don’t go! Over here! Come over here!’ Destiny’s mum cries, sounding desperate.

She sighs, eyebrows raised. The photographers are all flashing further down, recording the actress’s wardrobe malfunction.

‘There’s no point,’ Mum says. ‘They’ve finished taking Dad’s photo. Now, move it.’

I move, but slowly, looking over my shoulder. Destiny’s mum is still shouting. Her eyes are popping, her mouth is wide open, she looks scarily demented. I look at Destiny – and she looks back at me. She’s got such a strange, weird, yearning look on her face. She can’t seriously be in love with my dad too. Surely he’s way too old. She stares and I stare. It’s almost as if we know each other.

I shiver and turn towards Dad. He waves to the crowd one more time, kissing his hand and pretending to waft the kiss through the air – and then he’s inside the cinema, Sweetie hanging onto his hand. Mum’s at his side, Ace on her hip. They’re swallowed up inside too.

I’m all by myself on the red carpet, dithering. A huge security guy strides over to me.

I look back at Destiny and her mum one last time. I think the mum’s crying. I feel so bad, but there’s nothing I can do. I walk uncertainly into the cinema, turning my ankle in my high heels, lost in a crowd of chattering people. I turn round and round, not knowing where to go or who to ask – and then Mum’s hand clamps on my shoulder.

‘For God’s sake, Sunset, what are you playing at?’ she whispers. ‘Oh hell, you’ve made me break a nail!’

‘Come on, come in the ladies’ room,’ Mum says, tugging me. ‘You need to pull up your leggings – they’re all saggy and wrinkly and look ridiculous.’

The ladies’ room is crowded out with beautiful young women in short black dresses. They clasp each other and kiss powdery cheeks and totter backwards and forwards in immensely high heels. They mostly take no notice of us, though a couple start cooing over Sweetie, admiring her ballet dress, peering at all her badges. She smiles at them happily, flicking her long glossy locks and telling them the significance of each and every one of her badges. She lisps a little, knowing it makes her sound cuter than ever.

‘Be with you in just a tick, Sweetie,’ says Mum, and then she shoves me into a lavatory cubicle and squashes in after me.

‘Come here,’ she hisses, pulling at my horrible leggings. ‘Let’s sort you out.’

I blush, terrified that the beautiful women outside will think she’s having to help me go to the toilet. I go hot all over. My leggings stick to my damp skin and make embarrassing squeaking sounds as Mum yanks at them. Then, when she’s got them hitched up and smoothed out, I find that standing beside the toilet has made me suddenly bursting to use it. I have to go through the whole performance once more, wriggling the leggings down to my knees and then back again.

‘Honestly!’ Mum hisses, red in the face too from bending and tugging. ‘You’re the oldest, Sunset, and yet you’re more trouble than Sweetie and Ace put together.’

‘Don’t start blubbing!’ says Mum, giving my shoulders a little shake. ‘What’s the matter with you? This is meant to be a special treat.’

When we emerge from the toilet at last there’s a crowd of women waiting – but no sign of Sweetie.

‘Oh my God,’ says Mum, hand over her mouth – but then we hear Sweetie laughing.

She’s in a room round the corner with more mirrors, and she’s borrowed a pair of high heels from someone and is flouncing across the carpet, flicking her hair and fluffing out her net skirt, and everyone is laughing, Sweetie most of all.

‘Hey, Mum, look at me!’ she cries, twirling round, her tiny ankles wobbling. ‘My heels are much higher than Sunset’s! They’re much higher than yours! Don’t I look grown up?’

‘Oh yes, very grown up, at least twenty-two,’ Mum says dryly, but her whole face is softened with love. ‘Come on, sweetheart, give the kind lady back her beautiful shoes and stuff your tootsies back into your boots. We don’t want to keep Daddy waiting.’ There’s an ominous edge to this last sentence. Sweetie picks up on it and kicks off her high heels quickly.

‘Oh wow!’ says the girl, and everyone in the room gathers round, looking impressed.

‘I’d sooner have him as my partner!’ someone else says, and now they’re all looking at Mum.

Mum looks at them all, smoothing her skirt. ‘Yes I am,’ she says. She holds out her hands. ‘Come on, girls.’

Sweetie takes one hand and I’m forced to take the other, though it seems idiotic, a great girl of ten hanging onto Mummy’s hand. We walk out and hear them muttering behind us enviously.

There are even more people jam-packed in the foyer now and a great buzz down one end, where the boy band Milky Star have just arrived.

‘No, no, they’re just silly boys. We must go and find Dad,’ Mum says quickly. ‘And don’t go on about Milky Star to Dad, Sweetie, OK?’

Mum might dismiss the silly boys but we find Dad surrounded by silly girls, younger than the ones in the ladies’ room, with even shorter skirts and higher heels. One of them is holding Ace, joggling him in her arms while he wriggles and squirms to be put down.

‘I’ll take my little boy, thank you very much,’ says Mum, and she practically snatches him from the girl’s arms. Ace is startled and starts whimpering.

‘Oh dear,’ says the girl. She’s not especially pretty, her hair a little straggly, her mouth too big for her face, but there’s something about her that makes you look at her.

‘Really?’ says the girl. She raises her eyebrows at Dad. ‘Most guys do.’

There’s a ripple of laughter amongst all the girls. Dad laughs too. Mum looks furious, clutching Ace so tightly that he cries harder.

‘Shh now, you promised to be a big boy so you can see Daddy’s film,’ says Mum. ‘Let’s take our seats.’

She starts to push her way through the crowd, Sweetie and me on either side of her – but Dad stays where he is, beside the girl with the big mouth. Mum turns and looks at him. Sweetie prattles on about Milky Star. Ace grizzles and whines. They haven’t got a clue. Mum mouths something at Dad, looking pleading. Dad pauses – then turns his back on her. He leans towards the girl with the big mouth and whispers something in her ear. She laughs.

I feel so sick I think I’m going to have to rush back to the ladies’ and throw up. Mum’s looking greeny-white too, clutching Ace, her eyes swivelling in case anyone is watching.

Dad’s saying something else, his head very close to the girl’s, so that her big mouth is nearly smearing his cheek with her shiny lipstick. People are pushing past them, ready to take their places in the cinema auditorium, but they’re chatting and laughing together, totally relaxed, as if they’re in a room by themselves. It’s as if Mum and Sweetie and Ace and me have suddenly stopped existing.

Mum bites her lip, swaying a little. Sweetie tugs at her impatiently. Mum clearly doesn’t know what to do. Should we go into the auditorium without Dad? What if he never comes to join us? Everyone will see the empty seat. And what about after the film when we go out? The photographers will still be there. ‘Where’s Danny?’ they’ll shout. ‘Hey, what have you done with Danny? Why aren’t any of you smiling? Little munchkin with the red boots, smile.’

I can feel my eyes filling with tears. Dad still has his back to us. Dad, I yell inside my head. Dad, Dad, Dad!

He turns as if he’s heard me. He says one more thing to Big Mouth, and touches her arm, his hand cupping her elbow, then he casually strolls over to us as if nothing has happened. He gives me a wink, he blows Sweetie a little kiss, and gently tweaks Ace’s snub nose.

‘Come on, then, kids, let’s see the film,’ he says, as if we’re the ones who’ve been keeping him waiting.

Mum gives him a dazzling smile and hustles us along beside him. ‘Cheer up, Sunset,’ she hisses in my ear. ‘For heaven’s sake, this is meant to be a treat.’

I’m so muddled I try to smile to please her – and see her wince in irritation.

I feel like biting her with my ugly teeth. I hold it together until we’re sitting all in a row and the lights go down, and then I let my tears spill. I wipe my cheeks quickly with the cuff of my smock. Ace is still grizzling too, thrashing about on Mum’s lap.

‘Can’t you shut him up?’ Dad hisses. ‘I told you he was too little.’

‘He wants to see his daddy in the movie, don’t you, Ace, darling?’ says Mum. ‘He’ll hush in a minute.’

She tries giving him his dummy in the dark, but he keeps fidgeting with it, making silly slurpy noises.

I take hold of him firmly by the arms, not his tummy – he can’t stand that. ‘I’m Mummy Tigerman and we’re all cosy in our lair and we have to stay still as still or the bad men will come and get us,’ I whisper in his ear.

I put my chin on his silky head and rub it backwards and forwards, and after a minute or so I feel him go floppy. He wriggles his bony little bottom further up my lap and lolls his head, silently suck-suck-sucking his dummy.

Sweetie is secretly sucking her thumb too, cuddling up to Mum, stroking the soft satin material of her skirt. Mum nestles close to Dad, while he sits wide-legged, slightly slumped, his arms over the backs of the seats on either side.

I wonder if the girl with the big mouth is sitting nearby. It feels as if she’s squeezed up right next to me, whispering in my ear. Watch out, she’s saying. You sit there playing Happy Families, but I can get you.

But slowly slowly I start to get involved in the film. I like Milky Star too, especially little Davie the drummer, the goofy youngest one. The other three are all ultra-cool, but little Davie always oversleeps, he’s always the last to get a joke – he is the joke half the time as we watch him falling down the stairs and slipping on a banana skin. The other boys are pursued by girls – in fact one of the girls is Big Mouth, blowing kisses all over the place – but no one ever blows a kiss to little Davie.

Another film starts spooling in my head simultaneously, a film where I’m six or seven years older and Davie bumps into me in the street and we both laugh and apologize and then we go for a cup of coffee, and by the end of the evening we’re girlfriend and boyfriend and Davie lets me play on his drums and I’m so good at it I get to be part of the band too, and Davie and I drum away together for the rest of our lives . . .

Then the audience laughs and I blink at the real Davie on the screen – and then see Dad. There he is, strutting down a Soho street, his hair tousled under his bandanna, his long black leather coat flapping, and round the corner all four Milky Star boys see him, then gasp and gibber and clutch each other. They get right down on their knees, crying, ‘Oh, Danny, we’re not worthy,’ while Dad puts his boot up on their backs and stands proudly, arms raised, as if he is a lion tamer and they are four unruly cubs.

There’s a great whoop of laughter in the cinema, and Dad throws his head back and laughs too. He sits up straight now, suddenly bigger, and his laugh is the fattest, funniest laugh of all. Mum laughs along with him, and Sweetie giggles, jumping up and down in her seat. Even Ace wakes up a little and speaks through his dummy.

Well, I’m looking. I watch the film-Dad carefully as he struts down the street, waving one careless hand to the four Milky Stars. I see little old ladies in the street shriek at him and totter along behind, dragging their shopping trolleys, stumbling in their Dr Scholl’s. They’re playing Always and For Ever in the background, but it’s slightly distorted and off-key – and when they get to the line at the end of the chorus, When the wind blows, there’s a sudden blast of wind that nearly blows Dad’s bandanna away and tangles his hair, making him totter too, like an old man.

Everyone in the cinema is rocking with laughter, but maybe it’s not so funny. Maybe they’re laughing at Dad the wrong way. Maybe they’re laughing because Dad isn’t young and cool and fresh like the Milky Star boys any more.

Dad’s still laughing but not so loudly now. He’s leaning forward, staring at the screen intently. His own enormous face stares back at him, every line and pore magnified. Then he’s gone and we’re back looking at Milky Star and the audience settles down again. Ace falls asleep but Sweetie starts fidgeting.

‘Soon,’ says Mum, though she sounds uncertain. ‘Watch Milky Star – you like them.’

The people in the row in front and the row behind all hear and go ‘Ahhh!’ Dad’s heard her too, and his arm snakes out. He gets hold of her and pulls her onto his lap. There’s another ‘Ahhh’ at Danny Kilman and his exquisitely pretty little daughter Sweetie.

That’s what they called her in Hi! Magazine: Danny Kilman with his exquisitely pretty little daughter Sweetie, enjoying very special family fun. Dad was riding on a carousel at some charity fête last summer, sitting on a white painted horse with Sweetie in front of him, clutching the gold twisty pole. Dad’s hair was all tousled then too, but he didn’t look lined at all, maybe because he was laughing. Sweetie was laughing as well, wearing a little frilly white top and tiny pink shorts, showing off her flat golden tummy. It’s so unfair. Why can’t I be little and shiny with long fair hair and a totally flat stomach?

I stare at the screen and watch Davie, but this time he takes no notice of me whatsoever. Dad isn’t in the film again, but when the four Milky Star boys get their very first gig, they all tie bandannas over wild dark wigs and wear weird black clothes and huge rings, just like Dad. The whole audience creases up with laughter because they don’t look cool, they look ridiculous. Everyone in their film audience laughs too, and boos them off the stage. Then they get a new manager and he whips off their wigs and throws away their stage clothes and jewellery and has them sing wearing ordinary T-shirts and jeans – and they suddenly look great. Their career takes off and they all get rich and famous and pull gorgeous girls, even Davie.

When the credits go up there are little cartoon versions of all the main people – and there’s one of Dad too, strutting across the screen and then being blown right up in the air, arms whirling, legs dangling. His bandanna unravels and falls off, together with half his hair.

I hear Dad muttering something to Mum. When the lights go up they’re both frowning. But then people start talking to Dad, calling along the row: ‘Hey, Danny, you were fantastic!’ ‘Danny, you’re such a good sport!’ ‘I think you totally stole the show!’

Ace is still asleep, clinging to me like a little monkey, so I lumber along the row with him towards the exit. Sweetie is tired out too. She’s very pale and she’s rubbed her eyes so her shadow has smudged, but when she hears the people in front talking about the after-premiere party at Falling Rain, a nearby nightclub, she claps her hands.

‘Oh, a party! Let’s go to the party, and Milky Star will be there!’ she cries.

‘You’re not going to any party,’ says Dad. ‘You’re going home. It’s way past your bedtime, missy.’

Mum looks anxious. ‘I could get John to take the kids home and Claudia will put them to bed so we can party, Dan,’ she says quickly.

About the Author

About the Book