11 O'Clock Chocolate Cake

Emma Peek - M to her friends - tells the story of one summer at school. On the bus with her friends, Lizzie and Star, she contemplates the horrible week of exams ahead. But the bus has a cast of characters of its own - the Unspeakable Jono Watkins, the glossy Boss Woman (who the Ring Fairy has visited with a finger-full of blue flashers), and Tuba Boy (who flushes Szechuan red sauce colour, struggling with a tuba bigger than he has). And of course, at the Most Important Bus Stop at the Very Centre of the Universe, the Beautiful Stranger. Lizzie has to cope with broken heart when her dreamboat, Steve the bus driver, turns up married, while Star (coping with the prejudices of her dad's very white second family towards her mixed-race skin) endures being called a blue-stocking by their form teacher, Dodo Dollop. Weekends are spent in the Good Looking Cafe, gazing at the family of smouldery Good Lookings who run it, singing arias while they scoop ice cream and froth cappuccinos. And in the park there's Pram Gran, with her pram full of dog, daintily licking an ice-cream - not like M's dog Basil who gobbles garlic. Everything happens this summer - Jono Watkins holds a party (banishing his parents to the utility room with sleeping bags and a video of The Sound of Music), M gets breathless after an e-mail from the Beautiful Stranger, Pram Gran gets together with Great Uncle Good Looking. But Star's so unhappy she tries to fly away to Greece, until M and Lizzie find her in the airport bookshop. Star's mum flies in to be with her, and, after the tears and lots of 11 O'clock Chocolate Cake, it looks as though after the summer, life might finally be about to start...