I went to a supermarket in the nearby town of Carlisle. There were only a few checkouts, but I went to one where the only person in front of me just wanted one item. The boy serving them was taking forever though. All I wanted was a Yorkie Bar, which I was so desperate to consume that I'd already broken three pieces off, although I hadn't eaten them yet. But I got so fed up that I left to look for a less busy check out. However, I failed in this mission, only to find someone with a trolley had taken my place.

I was at a big all-girls boarding school. There was a lesson where the class stood in a swimming pool. A few girls were asked to travel round the pool jumping over everyone, then it was my turn. I hadn't done it before, and I wasn't sure where to jump, but with a little assistance, I made it round the pool in fifty six seconds. Although it had taken the others between fifteen and thirty seconds, I thought I'd done rather well, but the teacher paid no more attention to me after that.

2 June 2000: Noj Is A Pantsfiend

It was June and I was in WH Smith with my mother, when we noticed that "Harry Potter Book 4" had been published prematurely. It didn't look like a Harry Potter book. It was hard backed, but square in shape and roughly made.

I was in a lesson, and we each had to read out a bit of the book, me doing the first page. I was annoyed, because I can read much faster than speak, and I stumbled over all my words. Then I was in the story. It was set in some "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom"-style dark caves.

I was a London tube station with my former history class, and a tube arrived. We ran towards the door, but although I was one of the first to reach it, I didn't managed to get on, and when I looked behind me, no one else was there. I hoped they'd notice my absence and disembark at the next station.

While I waited for the next tube, I went to a talk. The lecturer announced that I'd won two prizes for creative writing, and I was glad I'd missed the train.

My brother Noj asked to borrow my some of my underwear. I talked him out of it (in the cleanest possible sense of the phrase), but when I woke up the following morning and opened my drawer, the underwear in the dream was the first that I found.

3 June 2000: Andy's Blue Crutches And Noj's Cure Weblog

My house vaguely resembled its real-life self, but the bathroom was in a building down an alley behind the house. Aevil Graham who used to be in my school year had been staying in the study for a week, but I hadn't seen him at all (not that I minded) and my friend Chris was staying there for a Thursday and Friday night (not that I minded). Thursday evening was slightly dodgy, but I spent most of it playing Lunatix Online.

On Friday, the first thing I heard was Rachel From Work telling the office what had happened to her the previous night: she'd slept with a bloke other than her fiancé.

Then I heard a long story on the radio about my online friend Andy being propositioned by a forty-year-old woman. Although I missed the conclusion of the story, due to going into the kitchen for breakfast, I thought, "Right, as soon as I get to work, I'm signing his guestbook. And he'd better have written a journal entry about this."

At the kitchen table, I read the same story in the Radio Times. Someone brought a pair of crutches out of the utility room that had once belonged to Andy. They were made of light blue plastic and they had what looked like skis attached to the ends, only they were twice and long and wide. "The bit you put round your wrist wouldn't have hurt," Noj said. I tried them out and they were very painful.

Another pants coincidence occurred: in the dream, I was wearing two pairs, but the following morning I had to hunt for ages before I could any.

I was travelling with a load of other kids to school. In order to get there, we needed to walk through the grounds of a college for 11-16 year olds, then cross a very busy road. We didn't like having to do the first bit, but when we arrived at the road, there was a traffic war going on. It was the police force's fault: they were all struggling to find parking spaces by whatever means necessary. I rushed out of the paths of the oncoming cars and eventually sat down somewhere in darkness. Helen G, who was in my year at school, sat beside me.

The place turned into a train. Helen started reading a book and I looked at my brother's website. "Enough of this," he'd said. "From now on it's a Cure weblog."

I hadn't finished looking at it, but I said to Helen, "Whenever I'm on trains, I forget to bring anything to read." She offered me her book, but I didn't think I'd be able to concentrate on it. Then the thirteen-year-old ginger boy on her other side handed me a book that was falling to pieces. It had six hundred pages (although it started at page 24) and was the book version of "Bedknobs And Broomsticks" (only it was called something like, "The Lion, The Witch And The Bedknob"). I'd seen the film once, so I was eager to read it, but it didn't make much sense.

10 June 2000: Have You Got Any Lip Balm?

I was on the way to Manchester airport in an enormous bus. It was July and I was flying to America to visit my online friend Krysten. I needed to talk to Mum, but people were continually distracting me. When we got to the airport, I went into a large bathroom, where I adjusted the blackball baseball cap I was wearing. A girl asked if I had any lip balm. I asked if Blisteze was any good and she said yes, but then, "I've never used it before." "It stings," I warned.

I left and pushed through the crowds to find my mother. "I've forgotten my discman," I told her. "And my digital camera. And you must tell me what all this flight information means."

She started filling my coat pocket with bread crumbs and telling me I could eat them whenever I liked. "Hurry up and explain!" I instructed her. Then I suddenly realised, with a feeling of dread, that Krysten wasn't going to be at home for all of July.

I woke up, relieved when I realised I was actually going to stay with Sarah Yoj instead.

26 June 2000: The Cure's Pants Taste In Support Bands

My friend Katrina (who moved to New Zealand in 1996) came to Carlisle. We went out in the town centre, got along well and were able to read each other's minds. We discussed the past, and it was only after she'd gone that I realised I hadn't asked about New Zealand at all.

The residents of swansongs.net met in London for a Cure Concert, and after finishing work for the day, I joined them.

I went to a country mansion. The first people I noticed were a group of unfamiliar men; then I noticed a group of swansongs.net residents, but I didn't recognise them all. The guys turned out to be a pants rap group who were on as a support act; I went into another room and started dancing. A couple of swans laughed at me, but I explained that song had been popular in the late 80s and was the only rap music that I liked.

I looked at the swanboards, to see that in the "Swansongs is falling apart" thread, Liz (who wasn't with us) had posted that she hated me for getting into an online relationship (which I hadn't). As evidence of this, she cited the URL http://underworld.verbalvoodoo.co.uk/l7.html. I went there, but only found the lyrics to "Perfect Day". Indignant, I called her on a cordless phone.

"Is this about sex?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "Sorry," she said.

We kept talking, but the others kept distracting me and borrowing the phone. It transpired that the house was burning down, but we weren't in any danger and the fire brigade had been called.

Someone started making a documentary about us and all the furniture in the house. The the neighbours came round to complain. Twi, Ven and I faced them. "Are you eighteen? Are you at college?" they asked.

"I'm eighteen. I'm not at college, but I work," Twi said.

"I'm not at college, but I'm eighteen all right," Ven said.

"I've been to college," I said, grinning, realising this implied that I was at least twenty one. "The others [who had since turned into members of the school year below mine] aren't eighteen yet though. The phone bill's all their fault too."

2 July 2000: The Jon Club

I was playing a space invaders game on an Acorn computer, but some of the keys wouldn't function. When Noj saw this, he promised to go to our local computer shop and buy a working keyboard.

But he didn't. Instead he started "The Jon Club" and invited me to join. I accepted and he gave me a membership card to fill in. Where it asked for my age I thought about writing "Old enough to know better than to enter such details" but instead put "19", before realising I was still eighteen.

Carlisle Youth Concert Band was to play in central Carlisle, but members kept running away. Chris appeared and said, "Shall we go back to your place?"

"My absence will be noticed," I said, but went anyway.

It didn't get dodgy because the narrator tried to describe what happened entirely in U2 references. He (?) included three, one being "The Unforgettable Fire", but was struggling to get in "Under a blood red sky" when I woke up.

3 July 2000: Gay Shocker In Boarding Community!

My parents and I were in Newcastle looking for houses, with the intention of moving there, but they were all in bad areas. In order to get back home we had to travel along a narrow forty-mile moving walkway.

I was living in Naworth Castle, my old home, and it was 7pm on the night of the Alice Cooper concert. Chris arrived and I realised I hadn't phoned him beforehand and was glad he'd turned up, if slightly late. The only problem was I didn't know how to find the hall where it would be held. By flicking through the Yellow Pages, I found some information which gave us an area of Newcastle where it might be, but that would have to do. After a bit of dodginess (I don't recall what, honest!), we set off, me driving. But after about thirty miles, Mum called me on my mobile phone and told me I was needed at home, so back I went.

The following day, which was also a Saturday, Noj sent Mum into Carlisle to get him the new Jamiroquai album. "I didn't really want it, but I had have it, you know?" he said to me. Mum returned with a rather nice black coat for him instead.

Noj had decided to go to Manchester University and received some bumph about it. I tried to read it, but it wasn't very interesting. "Hey," I said, "if you're anywhere near staircase forty four, you'll be near Roe."

"Why staircase 44?" he asked.

"Because he lives there. Duh."

He turned into Herman (who was in my school year) and we were in the technology block at school. We discussed Will and Roe; then, as usual, he slagged off Alice and teased me about Chris. Then he claimed our classmate John fancied our classmate Martin (?!?) and cited evidence.

Herman turned into Andrew (who was also in my year) and we started discussing A Level Geography. I said it was weird, since the mock was at the start of Upper 6th, when they hadn't even learned the material on the second paper, but he told me it was stuff they should know anyway. "Oh, like population pyramids," I said, but he told me a sample question was, "How do you mix green paint?" Apparently his class had struggled with this. "Cascading paint pots!" our classmate Richard had yelled, a Great Revelation.

4 July 2000: Tennis Balls, Origami And Horoscopes

I was outside Naworth Castle with a load of people from primary and secondary schools in a variety of age groups. We were supposed to be playing tennis, but only I could be bothered. Everyone else randomly whacked balls about. I tried to pick them up, as did my old friend Nicola, but they turned into ants and as soon as you'd collected four, three disappeared. I complained to Nicola about this. She told me she was looking for various songs. I had a few of them on CD, so I invited her up to my bedroom. "It's on the second storey," I said, but she started to climb the stairs of a different building.

It was the end of school and everyone was in a hurry to escape. Mrs G, who was in charge of the lesson, was sceptical. "It can't be the summer holidays already," she said. I wanted to give her a present - bits of a Bounty bar wrapper ripped to shreds - but I hadn't finished this work of art and she became impatient to leave too. Realising it was no good anyway, I gave up.

Alice and I walked together to the library to collect our belongings for the final time. We talked about origami. "I can still make the 3D thing out of triangles," I said, just as she confessed, "I can't make the eight-sided thing of triangles - I can make the 12-sided thing though." I was going to show her how to make the eight-sided thing when we reached the library, but when she arrived, she was too busy packing her bags to do anything else, like everyone else.

Except Chris. He was sitting reading a book called "Stupid is stupid, dumb fool". "What's that?" I asked.

He said, "It tells you what you're like if your birthday is 27 November, according to the date you were conceived."

"Cool," I said. "Is there a book for August?"

"No," he said.

Then I realised I wasn't conceived in August. "What about October?"

"Yes."

"No, November?"

"Yes."

I looked at the November book and cleverly remembered I was born ten days late, so I consulted 1 November. Some of the horoscope was almost true: these bits I read out. "You will go to Oxfort or DDL." Whatever DDL was, Cambridge was the same standard as Oxford. Other bits were totally inaccurate, however: "Tall and thin - I don't think so!"

"What?" Chris said suddenly.

"What?" I said.

"It says, 'A horse turns into a cow.'"

I looked out of a (non-existent) window. I saw a horse galloping around, when its back straightened and raised and it became a cow.

5 July 2000: Zed The Wanted Criminal

Sarah Yoj's mother had sent me an old television set and a retro computer, but I couldn't get either to work, so she came to England to fix them.

While she was doing so Noj burst into the room. He was on a television show and needed someone's pants so he took mine. [This is getting really disturbing.]

I was at work and looking at my online friend Krysten's website. It was hard to read since it was in many frames and text overshot the right edges of each frame. Then I went to swansongs.net, which said it was designed by a bloke I'd never heard of. I went to the "about" page and found out more about him, but still had a few questions, which I asked by e-mail. He sent lengthy replies, so I wrote, "Will write later, since I'm at work and I'm a good girl."

At lunchtime I retrieved my pants and went into a rearranged version of Carlisle. I went to the railway station and approached the ticket machine. In order to reach it, I needed to pass through a gate, which cost me £10.70 since I was a wanted criminal.

Chris was at the station interviewing all people wearing clothes with band names on. I listened to him talking to a girl who, like me, was wearing a Stranglers shirt. He asked her six questions about her liking for the band. Then, as I'd hoped, he approached me, but the questions were difficult, the second being "What do you regret most?" and I couldn't think of any succinct answers. I left after three questions, without buying a ticket.

He followed me and we got into a fight with some unfamiliar lads. The police broke it up, but after beating me up a bit (they had no qualms about doing this, since I looked male), they said they wanted to see us in Carlisle that evening.

After work, I was jogging home. There were loads of people on bikes, going in the same direction, trying to overtake each other. One girl and I stopped at a garage where we talked. I told her about my dilemma: I needed to get back to Carlisle that evening, but could only walk or take the bus, both of which would take a while, and I had a lot of homework to do.

7 July 2000: The Death Of Sharon

I was in central Carlisle. "Good," remarked my mother, "You'll need to get Sharon a candle." (Sharon being a girl in my year at primary school.) I was vaguely aware that my primary school had asked me to do this, but I wasn't sure why. "Someone attacked her group with a red hot knitting needle," Mum explained.

"Is she dead?" I asked and Mum answered in the affirmative. I was really upset.

I needed to get a present for Marion, but she wasn't sure what she wanted. She quite liked the picture frames available in Boots. "How about a gift voucher?" I suggested and (uncharacteristically) she agreed. I was going to get her a ten pound one, but they didn't have any, so Mum suggested a £15 one instead.

8 July 2000: Flink And Chantelle's Argument and The Death Of Leigh

I read in the Radio Times that James and Nicholas, who were in my brother's year at Primary School, had their own television show at 10pm on Saturday nights. It was 9pm and I was in the study, when I realised I hadn't checked my e-mail since getting back from holiday, so I did. But while it was still coming through, my online friend Flink entered.

We talked for a while - it turned out she had a boyfriend - then we had sex. [She turned into a bloke for the duration of the act, but still: !?!?!?] Afterwards, she started to leave the room, but there were still twenty minutes before the programme began so I said, "Stay! Let's talk!" I had a few questions to ask her, the main one being, "I know it probably says so in your journal-" (She had a new journal - it was in frames with a black background and blue text - but I hadn't had a chance to read it since getting back from Austria) "-but what's going on between you and Chantelle?"

"It does say, but I don't know," she said. "See, she never ever washes the netball bibs."

There was a play I was taking part in. There had been one rehearsal, but I wasn't sure when the next one was so I drove to Lanercost Priory which was where they were held. On the way, I came across my next door neighbour, standing by his car, who said he had accidentally run over and killed his brother.

Nothing was happening at Lanercost Priory, but at the Abbey Bridge Hotel, a middle-aged couple were taking part in "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" They had been on twice before, but they hadn't done very well. The woman got a question right and they were to win a pair of watches worth £20000 each. "We've never won anything like this before," the woman breathed.

But for the next question the choice of answers were four identical grey panels. "We'll have to use a lifeline," she said, and one panel was revealed as the right one. But she dropped back to £50 and the game was over. They didn't mind too much, though.

9 July 2000: Beep Off, Melanie!

My online friend Sae came to visit me. I wanted to show her Naworth Castle, where I used to live, but she insisted on driving even though I had my doubts about her capabilities.

I was following four kids home from the local school. The three boys were talking. Suddenly the girl made a remark that was supposed to be funny but wasn't. "Beep off, Melanie," one of the boys said. "You don't talk to us all journey and when you do you say something totally stupid!" At the end of the journey, Melanie and I had a few seconds alone. I tried to comfort her, but she said, "See you tomorrow" or something to that effect, and left.

10 July 2000: Smill Gets Off With Mog and My Old Science Teacher Is A Lecturer At Cambridge!

I was at school and my year were having a party. Suddenly I heard that Smill had got off with Mog (one of the least likely couples imaginable). This caused the expected hysteria.

I checked my guestbook: hardly anyone had signed.

I was back at Cambridge University, starting again, and went to two supervisions and a two hour science practical, taught my old science teacher. It all more-or-less made sense, so that evening I went to the dining hall, where I didn't recognise anyone but him and my old tutor. I told her how much better things were than last year, but I began to wish I hadn't said anything because she started telling me I should socialise more. Still, I was only there as a temporary measure, before the Kent University term started.

I went to my room, on the second floor, where I saw Terry and John, who were in my year at school. "Awright," I said. Then people I met at Cambridge started coming out of rooms and started talking to me, and I panicked: how was I going to explain that I wasn't at Cambridge to stay?

The following day, my school year gathered in Room 12 at school. It turned out Smill was actually going out with Mog. "Apparently she gets off with her two best friends' boyfriends too, when she has the chance," someone said. [Meaning friends from her old school, not me.]

"Yes," said someone else, "she could at least commit to one person."

"One person?" Chris asked. "That doesn't sound like much fun." I started arguing with him, but he didn't listen.

One of my old form techers came in and gave us questionnaires to fill in, for the first two lessons of the day. I answered a few questions, then came to number six which asked me what I thought of the various parts of Bunty, a comic I used to read. I started answering, rating the stories 4 out of 4, when someone said, "Why are you answering the question about Bunty?"

"I read it when I was about twelve," I said, "so I'm going on what I remember."

"How old?"

"Twelve." And they started to laugh.

"Well, I started reading it when I was ten, and just had to find out what happened next in the stories," I protested, which caused further hilarity. "Hey, I never watch TV!" I protested, intending to point out that they were all hooked on rubbish too, but they just said, "Well, we all do."

Marion had acquired some large After Eight Mints, but claimed they were horrible. Some were twelve inches long and stick-shape, and they looked like they'd break your teeth.

I suddenly panicked: was I stuck at Cambridge for another year? I had thought it was only a temporary measure, but the Cambridge term commenced later than Kent's - shouldn't I be at Kent now? Would I even have the chance to go next year? I woke up, scared, and resolved to pay close attention to the calendar in September so I didn't miss my chance.

12 July 2000: Twi's New Coat And Speed Racer

I was standing on a beach with Mum, who wasn't wearing anything, and my online friend Twi, who, over her normal black attire, wore a bright blue plastic floor-length coat that spread out behind her like a train on a wedding dress.

I was in the corridor at Naworth Castle, my old home, trying to teach Dad how to play a platform game on a BBC Master. He refused to use half the keys, but he managed to get to the end-of-level baddy, although without getting any points. At that point he let me take over.

I found myself in the game. The end-of-level baddy were two cute-looking dogs, but after a half-hearted kick at them, I realised how robust and vicious they were. I ran away from the computer down the corridor, but they sang offensive songs at me and followed. I pressed "break" on the computer but still they chased me, and I had to get Noj to sort them out.

Then I was playing "The Speed Racer Game" which, in reality, doesn't exist, and in dream world, had never worked before. I had to control a long thin spaceship and with difficulty, faced enemies and the prospect of crash-landing. [I never visited Freud's house in Vienna, but he'd have liked that.]