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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers

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Copyright © Jenny Colgan 2000

Jenny Colgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006531777

EBook Edition © APRIL 2013 ISBN: 9780007393923

Version: 2016-01-19

This book is dedicated with love

to my truly fantastic and long-suffering

parents – Mum, sorry I didn’t take

my accountancy exams, Dad, sorry about all the swearing.

Contents

A famous arctic explorer once said that polar expeditions were the most successful form of having a bad time humans had ever devised.

Thirty-six hours after I moved in to 12a Wendle Close, Harlesden, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. Tiptoeing around someone else’s home is weird enough, particularly if it’s just after a late night and you can’t remember their name or where they keep the Sugar Puffs or, say, you’re a cat burglar. Tiptoeing around your own is discomfiting to say the least. But here I was, creeping into my own house and closing my bedroom door extremely quietly, heart pounding, after my very first quick jaunt to the shops, to make friends with my newsagent and see what flavours of Skips he had.