The windows of the technology block at school and the ground between that and the music block kept covering with ice. On a Tuesday morning, Ibid, Soppygit and I found it was fun to spend our breaks, lunch times and hours after lessons scraping the ice and making a complete mess of it. (It was so cold that the ice would return fully between one session and the next.)

On Thursday afternoon, though, Ibid didn't turn up. Soppygit did, but soon remembered she had to go cross-country running and left. Instead, Anna The Goth and Darren (acquaintances from UKC) arrived and cleaned up the ice. I joined them, feeling like a traitor. When the ice was gone, they vanished and I was with a white-haired man of about sixty. I went into the technology block to collect some possessions, but had to get out quickly since it was going to be locked at 6pm. I said to the man, "I presume you're a mature student?" "Yes," he said. "The final year is hardest." (Which didn't make sense, as he was a first year like me.)

I returned to my place of residence, which was a sort of commune. At my place on the dinner table, there was a three-foot-by-four-foot packet of sweets. Three quarters of them were different sorts of Chewits, which I don't generally eat, and the other quarter were weird things, including Mars Bars shaped like battered Easter eggs. These were from my mother, since I was going away somewhere the next day. I wondered how I'd carry them all.

There was an episode of an old kids' TV programme showing. Ibid sat down on a sofa between a shortish plump guy with brown hair that needed cutting if he was trying to keep it short, who put his arm around her, and a teenage girl who was eight months pregnant. I tried to sit on the other side of the pregnant girl, but she moved so I could sit beside Ibid.

The programme was about some people going to southern France and spending a day riding "the Monobuss".

3 April 2001: Oh Heech. I Really Depend On My Mobile Phone.

I was to meet Marion in Carlisle at 7.30 so we could see a film that started at 8. My parents drove me there, since they too were going to the cinema. I started walking towards Marion's house. This involved crossing a huge gently sloping bridge, similar to the one that gets you from Canterbury's town centre to the station, only longer and wider.

On it, I encountered two girls in my Maths class. One who I know quite well, one who I've never spoken to, but when I said hello, they both greeted me. I talked to them for a while, until I realised they were busy with a theatrical project that was taking place on the bridge, run by another first year Mathematician, so I carried on.

About half way across the bridge, I checked my watch. The time was 7.37. I quickened my step, since we were going to be late for the film at this rate. Then it occurred to me that I'd arranged to meet Marion in central Carlisle, not at her house. I hunted in my bag for my mobile phone . . . but it wasn't there. I recalled that I'd been putting my possessions in there in a hurry just before I'd left home, and must have forgotten it.

(Another fact to bear in mind was that my wallet contained as much cash as it does in real life - four pence. Using pay phones and buses was out of the question. How I was planning to get into the cinema is anyone's guess.)

I carried on along the bridge, in the hope that Marion would be late too, but when I reached the road where she lived (which looked just like the one where Bryn lives during term time), she wasn't there.

I had keys to my parents' car, so I could have gone back to it, except I couldn't remember where they'd parked it. In any case, I'd have a long wait before the film they were seeing finished. So I decided to stay where I was. Chris lived on this road too, but I decided against visiting him. I was saved from my boredom when Roe and Will and a load of dodgy kids turned up, though.

I hung around with them until eleven. The evening mostly consisted of talking and walking around, but at one point, the kids set fire to a car which was buried in the road, and we watched a transvestite belly dancer (yeah, that makes sense) singing a song, and danced along to it. I asked Roe what he wanted to do for my birthday, but he said he'd have no money by that point, since the next installment of his student loan had a ten-week term to endure first. Nevertheless, he checked the cinema listings for August in a magazine, but there were no good films on around that time.

Slight shift of location: I was at school, which just across the main road from the street where Marion lived. (Where UKC would be, if it was Canterbury and not a mixed-up Carlisle.) My year had just had a party in the New Hall, since it was Tristan's birthday (Tristan being a boy who had arrived at school at the start of Upper 6th, but only in the dream). He had got off with someone, and I discussed this with Jo (my future housemate) as we walked down the path that connects the playground and the staff car park. Smill ran up behind us, and yelled, "It was me!" I remembered she'd told me this earlier.

I started walking down a road that would take me to a taxi rank. (I would miss the last bus, and my parents were presumably long gone and I couldn't contact them.) On it, I found a bank that was open all night (ok, what universe is this?) so I went inside. I knew that about twenty pounds would be paid into my bank account shortly (which is true), so I asked to withdraw ten. It took the clerk ages to get the money.

Then it occurred to me that ten pounds wouldn't necessarily be enough for a taxi. I asked for another ten, but the clerk ignored me. So I started hunting in my bag for my mismatched socks (which I had, in reality, been wearing the previous day), as I'd taken them off while waiting for the cashier.

As I searched, I found my phone! I almost cried in relief and called my parents.

4 April 2001: Apologetic Michelle And The Female Boarders

I went to bed, feeling a bit worried that the office and characters in the story I'd just put on the Internet, A Strange Moral Tale About A Man Named Archibald could be believed to be based on those of the company I worked for last year. In the dream, however, it also contained characters based on Chris, Michelle (his girlfriend) and Bryn. When I went online, my mailbox filled with livejournal comments, but before reading them, I checked my guestbook, where they'd all signed a number of times. Bryn's comments were short, Chris's were cryptic (no surprise on either count) and Michelle was very apologetic and wrote, "If you ever need to talk to someone, just call." Then it occurred to me that I'd written the story in the summer of 1999, before I even learned of Michelle's or Bryn's existence.

I read Laurie's livejournal, in which she said she couldn't deal with English and Psychology anymore, and had changed her degree to Biological Mathematics.

(Weird aside: when I woke up, I had a letter from Cumbria County Council regarding my change from Film Studies to Mathematics.)

Over the Christmas holidays, I was staying at school in what was a sixth form computer room last time I checked. Six other people were staying there. One of them had to do an assignment which involved answering some questions about Picasso. One of them asked about "Picaro". He couldn't find anything about Picaro in any books in the library, then realised "Picaro" was an alternative spelling for "Picasso".

After two days, I decided it was high time I had a shower. The others protested, but put on my dressing gown, picked up two towels, some soap and some shampoo and went up to the second storey, where I thought there were some showers.

I went into what I believed was a shower room, but it turned out to be a lounge, filled with kids reading magazines. There was also a man there who had set up a stall. He asked me a confusing question, to which I answered yes, which drove him into a fit of glee. "So you'll fill in this questionnaire?" he said, pressing one into my hands. I didn't have time for it, so I said, "No" and left the room.

I walked along the corridor a bit further, and encountered a girl with short bright red hair, who was wearing a skimpy top and a pair of tight knee-length red shorts. She was one of the female boarders and was therefore living on the third floor. "Can you tell me where the showers are?" I asked. She took me to them: they were on the fifth storey (which doesn't really exist). On the way there, we talked. She ran rock music nights every now and again, for which I saw posters.

"Neither of the showers give out hot water," she said. I turned on the taps, and held my hands under the barely warm water.

"Well, I'm not prepared to go without a shower in all the time I'm here," I said. I waited a bit longer, and the water warmed up to a reasonable temperature. She was taken aback.

Before I could have a shower though, I had to get my towels, which I had left in the lounge. I collected them, then noticed I'd misplaced the shampoo, but it was just down the corridor from the lounge. The bottle had cracked and shampoo was leaking out of the bottom, but I'd be able to use it; I'd just have to throw the bottle away after this shower.

I also noticed a door marked "shower" on this floor, so I went through it. It wasn't a shower, but a sitting room with a bath in it. A girl, who I'd never seen, but I knew was called Vicky, was in there with her back to me. "You know what's really annoying?" she said, at the sound of me entering. She started to complain about people always coming into this room to make sure she was all right. I pointed out that she didn't know me, but she didn't mind. We had a conversation. She said she'd got up at 7.30 this morning to go rollerblading.

"Vicky, you're mad," I said.

"Not really. I was planning to get up at five, but couldn't manage it."

"Does anyone else here rollerblade?" I asked. "I brought my blades to university, but couldn't find anyone to go blading with." She listed about eight names, all of them female boarders. I felt like I was missing out. It occurred to me that they were all a lot younger than me too, since the school must have phased in female boarders after I left - in September 1999 at the earliest. (In actual fact, when I left, they scrapped boarding altogether.)

The girl with red hair came in. The three of us conversed for a bit - it turned out the female boarders regularly played tennis too - then I set off for the showers on the fifth storey again. The red-haired girl accompanied me. "I'm really into rock," she said.

"Me too," I said. "To the extent that I go out with the president of the rock and metal society."

"Oh, Big B!" she cried.

"Bryn, yes," I said.

"So, you're . . . what?"

"Boyfriend and girlfriend."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

Thursday 5 April 2001: Bryn Succeeds In Fiiiiiinding Sommmmmething Poiiiiiiintierrrr!

A third Guy Ritchie film came out and I went to see it. It was rubbish compared to the first two. The characters from "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" stole money and small cardboard boxes that looked like they contained valuable jewellery from a town hall. In the last five minutes of the film, the bad guys (this was Vinnie Jones' first appearance) surrounded their car in a public car park. One of the heroes suddenly got out and started sprinting away, and another did likewise. The film ended with the protagonist jogging disconcertedly through city streets.

It was the last day of term. Soppygit came to my room and complained that I hadn't mentioned something she'd done in my most recent journal entry. I pointed out that it was a record of my life, and this event had very little impact on it.

It was a sunny day and I was walking along a very long path with my online friends Ang and Daine. We were each carrying a rose. Their thorns kept pricking at our bare legs, but they became easier to deal with as time went by. Daine started telling me about her troubles.

Bryn and I were in the computer game Angband, only instead of killing monsters, the aim was to find weapons and attack each other. (This is slightly ironic, considering the number of times he wished me sweet dreams before I went to bed.) We went down to the second level of the dungeon, where he found an axe. I was really annoyed: there were never usually weapons that good at such early levels. Then he locked me in a room. I thought my being trapped meant the game was over, but I found a way out. I walked down a corridor, and found that he was now wielding a two-metre-long sword.

Since I was still carrying the main gauche I'd started with, he grew tired of such easy victory and we tried to leave the game. On the first floor, we encountered one of his friends, who he gave the sword to. The friend started duelling with me, but not only did he have a far superior weapon, but he re-enacted too, and therefore knew how to fight, unlike me.

6 April 2001: I Don't Want To Have Sex On The Beach

I was walking down a flight of stone steps that led to a beach, with a woman with short dark hair who was in her late thirties. A bloke appeared and tried to rape us both at the same time. (Hmm.) The woman was prepared to give in to him, but I fought back and eventually got away.

Hours passed, until it was evening, and I was one the few people left on the beach. There was a boy standing by the water's edge, though, and I played table tennis with him. I played terribly, always hitting the ball too hard. No rally lasted more than three hits.

Saturday 7 April 2001: I Go To Lectures, But It's My Subconscious That Needs One

I was at a seminar that took place in a small, comfortable attic room. It was about the Romans settling in Britain. The seminar leader pointed out the importance of the lie of the land and the proximity of trees when establishing a settlement. Then he started complaining about new editions of textbooks coming out so frequently. He was about to tell us how Roman meals differed from meals today, but when he consulted all his textbooks, he found they were all old editions, and left the seminar early in a huff. On a scrap of paper, he had written down what homework we should do: come up with three relevant questions about the Romans. I wrote mine down.

I was leaving a lecture. As I exited the lecture theatre, I found myself in a cathedral. Bryn stood before me, looking very tall. I noticed he was wearing his New Rock boots, and I wasn't in mine. I stepped towards him, but he moved backwards. We kept doing this. It wasn't hard for him to keep away, since, to paraphrase Anne Robinson, something was seriously hindering my progress. Eventually, he stopped moving, and we started having sex. (Yeah, yeah, good choice of location.)

The dream shifted. I was walking through a non-existent part of Canterbury to get to a lecture. I was following someone and realised it Bryn's ex. I didn't think she'd noticed me, but when she turned off to go to a house, she said a few words to me.

After my lecture, I was walking across campus, when I encountered her again. She was smoking a cigarette. I greeted her. She said, "Hi" and the cigarette fell out of her mouth. She managed to retrieve it, but she looked furious. I decided to ask Bryn how long she'd been smoking for.

Bryn and I were in my room with two blokes, who were about our age and were identical twins. (It was my room at home, but it was located at UKC.) One of them left, to go to the campus supermarket (which doesn't exist, but in the dream was very grotty and where the Physics building is) to buy pornographic posters.

The other one took down my posters, saying he'd store them at his house over the holidays. It was a kind gesture, but I felt annoyed all the same. I wanted him to wear my black cardigan so I helped him put it on. He enjoyed this. Then he started propositioning me. Every time he did, Bryn said, "No" but I made no response. But eventually, I was sick of him, and said, "No, I'm not interested. I have a girlfriend. Er, I mean a boyfriend. Oh, s***." My confusion wasn't helped by the fact that Bryn had turned into my online friend Twi while I wasn't looking, and I couldn't remember who was wearing the figurative trousers in our pretend relationship. She started laughing at my expense.

Speaking of Twi, she had put a new story on her website. On the page was a picture of the two characters involved and one of her and her boyfriend Jeff. She complained that the characters had cooler hair than she did.

8 April 2001: Another Sweet Dream

I was spending a complete day in a house with the girls in my year at school. In the evening, the house partially transformed into a nightclub and loads of people were there. Downstairs, 80s music was playing. Ibid, Bryn and Twi were there with me, but when the music got too cheesy, Bryn and Twi disappeared. I ran into a number of girls in the year below mine and danced with them until a really slow song that I couldn't dance to started playing. I discovered it was the Bagpuss theme tune. (I can't remember how it really goes.) Ibid (a major fan) was thrilled to hear it, but I decided to look for Bryn and Twi.

I remembered they were supposed to be playing industrial music on the upper storey and ascended the stairs happily. But from outside the room, I could hear rubbish dance music emanating. So I waited there on the landing. Three boys who I thought I recognised stood with me. One started threatening the other two his a lighter, then turned to me. I told him to stop it, but he kept doing so, the other two egging him on. I tried to go into the supposedly industrial room, but they followed. I started downstairs, but they set off after me. So I screamed at them, and they recoiled. A girl in the hallway downstairs said, "I hope that stopped them."

Everyone went home except me and the girls in my year, who had what was supposed to be a midnight feast in the kitchen, but was a proper meal. They were all wearing matching nightshirts with the netball position they'd played on marked them, and what the initials stood for. Katie's was "CF" (even though that's a hockey position) and she had an alternative interpretation as well. "Centre fold", probably.

We watched videos of netball training sessions, filmed and edited by Helen Wi. One portion showed Helen G having to break free of some netting and climb onto a series of bars before a bloke destroyed three park benches. She was struggling, and Helen Wi apologised for leaving this bit in.

I had gone on a road-trip to Switzerland with my family. It was only lasting a day and I wondered how I was going to write about it in my journal. In one town, Dad decided to get some sweets, and got out of the car while it was still in motion. Mum had got out too, so, from the back seat, Noj reached forward and steered. I instructed him to find a car park, so he did and the car stopped. At this point, we discovered the car could shunt sideways. Through a fence, at that.

10 April 2001: Saving The World By The Power Of Gothicness

I was hanging around at UKC with two girls who are also first year mathematicians, and the mother of one of them. The three of us were in the same predicament: it was nearing the end of term, we were taking the course "The Tale" and we each had to hand in an essay about a story in a certain book. None of us had read any of the book, much less started our essays. I decided to read the shortest story, but as I turned to it, I noticed another that looked familiar, so decided to write about that instead.

I was supposed to go to Belgium to get some passport photos. I didn't know how long it would take to get there or when I'd find time to do so.

I was staying with Helen at her university for a weekend. On Saturday night, all her corridor mates and some of their friends congregated in Michelle's room, which was huge. At about 10.30, Helen disappeared. I didn't have anyone else to talk to, so I prepared to leave. I said goodbye to Michelle, who said, "Ok, see you at 8 tomorrow morning."

"8?" I asked, incredulously.

"Yes." She explained that everyone had to get up at eight to play certain games.

They sounded a bit naff. "Is this a religious institution's idea?" I asked, and she said yes. At that moment, some representatives from the institution came into the room, and asked everyone to write down a question that they thought the institution should ask the students. I was last to write mine down, and all the questions I could think of had already been written. Eventually, I put, "How have you changed since getting to university?"

I became aware of a legend about a girl in 1981 who had put letters in a mailbox, which couldn't be retrieved. As a result, the spoilt surrounding countryside was well again. I found myself in her situation and narrating the tale at the same time. It was set at Naworth Castle. I started to describe the warped monsters that inhabited the area and finished the list with, "And the girl's brother was so evil that-" I felt a sudden urge to vomit, and threw up in a dog's bowl.

In order to put things right, I had to put on my most gothic outfit, completed by "My Magic Jacket". So I collected my PVC dress (which was in the cupboard under the stairs, in my current home), and went to my bedroom. I put on "Wish" by The Cure and started to get ready.

Thursday 12 April 2001: Travelling Light

Noj, Dad and myself gathered minimal possessions and went to live in a warehouse on an industrial estate in the Ukraine, with a cruel old man.

My online friends Steve and Sofie stood in the corridor of a building that looked like a hotel. Steve went into an office and was given a job; Sofie went in and was told that she had got firsts and seconds in the modules of her degree course. (What degree course?)

I was in a bookshop on Canterbury, standing on the stairs near the cash desk, waiting to buy a book. The cashiers never told me to come forward, so I waited for half an hour. Eventually, I moved closer to the cash desk and was served at once. "Are you sure Mr Street won't have bought you this as a birthday present?" the cashier asked. "I doubt it," I said. "Besides, he knows when my birthday is." The transaction was completed, and I went upstairs, to tell Soppygit and Ibid, who'd been waiting for me, that I was ready to go.

Mum and I were in my room, preparing for my return to Canterbury for the final term. It was difficult to decide what possessions I needed, since I had a limited carrying capacity.

I arrived in Canterbury on a Saturday evening, and went to Improvisation. I returned to my room shortly before eleven. I hoped Soppygit and Ibid hadn't come round while I was out, then remembered that they wouldn't return to university until the next day. I planned to go to the computer room to write and send e-mail (I obviously hadn't managed to carry back my own computer), so I sent Bryn a text message warning him that e-mail was forthcoming. But I was tired, so I went to bed instead.

13 April 2001: Blame Canada!

I was sharing an apartment with Catherine and Charlie (my corridor mates) and Laura (although I also have a corridor mate named Laura too, this was my online friend Laurie's housemate Laura). Our bedrooms were in the same corridor we live in at the moment, but we had a communal living room that looked like that of that of the villa in Cyprus I once stayed in.

We all had to write essays about "Of Mice And Men". Parts of them were left all over the computer room, so I gathered them up, divided them between us, and hung them out, like washing, all around the living room.

At Christmas, Charlie left early, as she was going to a dramatic project somewhere, with a boy she knew. My parents didn't like the idea of me just staying there with the others.

I was in possession of some food I didn't like, including a chocolate flavoured egg: not an Easter egg (topical as this would have been), but an egg whose white was chocolate-tinged, both in colour and taste. I offered it to my parents, but it sounded as repulsive to them as it did to me.

I wanted to go to Ontario in the summer to visit Sarah Yoj (who hadn't moved to England). When I told my aunt about this, she looked up the temperature conditions in Northwest Territories on the Internet and reported that it was minus two degrees there, and that I shouldn't go. I felt annoyed - I didn't know when I'd next get a chance to make such a trip, and I didn't care about the weather. (Especially not in a completely different part of the country.)

14 April 2001: Out Of Sight, Out Of (My) Mind

A lot of school children had produced a CD. It had two tracks on it, the first of which was eight minutes long. Although it wasn't my favourite type of music, it sounded quite good.

Clarissa of "Clarissa Explains It All" was taught to swim by a black guy.

Every time I met up with Bryn after a long time apart, we wouldn't be speaking to each other, only to make up again later. This made me sad.

15 April 2001: A Fish Dream And Return Of The Non-existent Sitting Room

In the dream, I woke up at 4am one morning. It soon became clear that the rest of my household had too, so we got up, only to be exhausted by the evening.

I was at the office of my parents' shop. Noj was employed to do a certain job for three hours a week, but he told my parents that he didn't want to do it anymore. I was going to offer to do it, but Mum did instead.

When I arrived back at university after a holiday, I walked into the same sitting room as in I was in two dreams ago. This time, Catherine and my online acquaintance Sarah Zenk were there. I had intended to go straight to my room, but I stayed there, talking to them for a while.

There were three fish travelling around on a bus, floating in the air above the back seat. I decided to rescue them. But as I came close to them, the bus lurched and they were scattered. There were two people on the bus, who instructed me as to where the fish had gone, but they caught the first two, and when I captured the third, it turned to a squishy mess between my fingers. I got off the bus and went to wash my hands.

My online friend Meaghan sent me an e-mail. I tried to reply, but I kept getting distracted. Next year, she wanted to move into an apartment on campus at her university. A guy called Julian had offered her one, but her parents wouldn't let her take it. I asked her why not. She said she had been looking at other apartments, but all she'd found were yellow playground slides that cost $150. I told her slides were quite useful.

My parents were looking at a Harry Potter board game. You had to spin a dial, and see what colour it pointed to - red, orange, pink, purple or black. Mum said, "We've played this before." "Have we?" Dad asked.

I got a text message from Bryn. I didn't read it at first, but my mobile phone started beeping, so I thought I should. Before I could, I woke up. The last words I heard were, "The daffodils are the most fickle."

Monday 16 April 2001: Another Sweet Dream And A Stalker

I was staying with my friend Xye. She lived in a shop. She and I and various members of her family played a computer game. It was a text adventure, but if you typed "hang (player's name)" it produced an ASCII graphic of them with a noose around their neck, which I found amusing. If you succeeded in it, you won a chocolate-y fudge-y bar that tasted quite nice. But most of Xye's family members only unwrapped and didn't eat theirs. Later, Xye wrapped them back up again, ready for sale in the shop. As she did so, many people (including a boy in my school year) kept asking her to do things.

I encouraged her to buy something frivolous in the shop that cost £1.05. She put it on the cash desk, and asked if I could pay, as she didn't have any money. I gave the cashier a five pound note; as change, she gave me a ten pound note and Xye £3.95. We didn't complain.

Markone (an online acquaintance) visited me for one day. I was struck by the ease with which young people were able to cross the Atlantic.

It was a Friday afternoon, when I arrived back to UKC for a second year. A lot of things were strange. I was living in a college (in reality I'll be living in a house) that didn't look like any at UKC. When you went in, you went through a small hallway where notices were pinned up, then found yourself in a huge café.

My corridor was behind the café wall furthest from the entrance. I was in room five and put a label bearing my name on the door. On the desk, I found a few pieces of paper and birthday cards. I read them; in some I found tickets which gave me free entrance to nightclubs. The nights didn't look particularly interesting, but I was touched by the kindness of the people who'd sent them. There was one puzzling card without any contents and from someone I didn't know.

I went to sign in with my tutor, then busied myself with other tasks. At 9.30pm, while walking through the café, I encountered Will (who was presumably a student here). We greeted each other and he said, "I was at Ibid's earlier, you should have been there." I had heard about the gathering in Ibid's room and I wished I'd been present. I spotted Ibid across the room; she came over to talk to us. Then Smill joined the gathering.

But a man started dragging me across the room, by my arm. "You feel like someone at Slimelight," he said, complimenting the fabric of my leather jacket.

"You haven't seen me in my PVC dress yet," I said. We reached the wall of the café I lived behind. "I live through there," I said, pointing.

I realised he was dragging me into a corner. "Look," I said. "I'm not interested. I've got a boyfriend, in case you haven't noticed."

It was then that I realised who the man was: a guy who looked like one of the Maths lecturers (but wasn't) who had been stalking me for a while. I broke free from his grip, and ran through the café screaming. A lot of people ignored me, even those who I knew. A few people tried to help, but couldn't do anything. Luckily, the man's dog left the building, and he was compelled to follow it.

I returned to my room. I felt tremendously stupid for telling him where I lived, especially when I had my name on the door. Did he know my name though? I thought, "Well, I can lock my door, both while I'm in my room and out, and if anyone knocks, I'll look through the peep-hole to see who it is." But I was still scared by the prospect of him coming here, and me being trapped inside.

It occurred to me that I wasn't often alone in my room at this time of night, and I decided to phone Bryn a bit later, if I didn't hear from him.

I looked through my birthday cards again, to see if the mysterious one was from the stalker. It was a while before I found it; then I realised it was supposedly from Chris, but written in Helen's handwriting. (Actually, it was Helen Wi's handwriting, but I still knew Helen No-Initial was responsible for it.)

I decided to talk to my tutor about the stalker. The problem was, I couldn't even remember who he was, never mind where he lived (I knew it was the first floor of this building, but there was a labyrinth of rooms there) or what his office hours were. I looked through the papers that would tell me, but it was very hard to find my name. At first, I couldn't find second years on it at all, and when I came across us, we weren't listed in alphabetical order. We all had codes like MA408, as if we were modules. Eventually, I found my name, but I knew I wouldn't be able to see my tutor until at least Monday.

Tuesday 17 April 2001: A Foolish Arrangement

I was playing Monopoly with my family. I really wanted to stop and go to bed, but the game went on and on.

Smill, Chris and I went to Katie's house for the evening while her parents were out. (Smill, Chris and Katie all being friends from school.) Despite the fact that Katie doesn't fancy Chris, I certainly don't fancy Chris and I don't fancy Katie either, we had the beginnings of a threesome. He was on top of her, touching her, and I lay beside them, kissing her neck occasionally. However, he called it off, kissed us both, and apologised to me. "You're a married woman now," he said. (Well, I suppose it's true, technically . . .)

"Yeah," I said regretfully, despite feeling no regret in reality.

Just before midnight, Smill, Chris and I left. Katie's parents hadn't returned yet, but she insisted that she'd be ok on her own, and went to bed.

My brother Noj, Helen G (who was also in my year at school), some bloke and myself were walking up Cherry Dene (a track near the castle where I used to live). There was a big building to one side of it, where Noj was supposed to attend a Duke of Edinburgh meeting, but it turned out that he didn't have to go. When we got to the top, Helen G and the bloke were to drive into a different country, which began only a few miles away. I was concerned that they wouldn't have any money in this country's currency, but they assured me that they did.

(Weirdly enough, the next day I saw Helen G for the first time in over a year.)

I was in the basement at school. Bryn found me there and told me that my mother was outside, ready to give us a lift home. But when we left the building, she had gone.

There was something wrong with my ankh necklace. Noj admitted to borrowing it, which could have been the cause. Mum tried to fix it, but it kept getting worse. She stretched the chain over some pins in a board, but I insisted that she didn't. "If the ankh breaks, I'll lose Bryn," I said, half-hysterical. She stopped stretching it.

April 2001: I'll Make A Scally Yet!

In the Easter holidays, I'd spent two evenings hanging around with some kids at a building site in the town centre. I wondered how I was going to write about this in my online journal, since I couldn't remember what had compelled me to go there.

Wednesday 25 April 2001: Back In School Again

I was writing a story. It concerned a girl (who was me some of the time) whose younger brother was attacked by a witch while the family was climbing a mountain in Scotland. The girl proceeded to have a strange life, sleeping through several years of it. The story reached 8000 words in length and I thought I’d finished it. I was going to send it to a magazine. My mother argued with me over what to put on the cover sheet. She wanted me to enclose a neater version. Then I thought of an addition I could make to the story, where the family returned to the mountain and the boy was recovered. I thought about introducing the power of verbal voodoo, so I could include it in the “related work” section of my website, but it would have flawed the plot, as the power could have been used earlier on in the story. At 12000 words, I finished it.

Despite the fact that I’d passed my A Levels, I was at school and in my third year. I quite liked the idea, because I’d do phenomenally well in my work. The Babysitters Club were involved. At one point, I was sifting through a shoebox full of BSC books, many of them duplicates of books I already owned; at another, Claudia was in my class and complaining because she had to sit beside an annoying boy, Trevor.

My timetable was the same every day: four Maths modules. However, for one second lesson, I had English. I was having difficulty finding the classroom and ended up walking through a canteen and an open dormitory: beds in a hall, with girls in them. I spotted one of my former English teachers, who said something about the class, so I followed her. En route, I encountered her two daughters. (She only has one in reality). They were both boasting about their sexual prowess.

26 April 2001: Walter Spotting

Soppygit, Ibid, Bryn and myself were walking down the footpath beside Becket Court (where Soppygit lives). A few metres ahead of us were two people: a girl and a boy with red hair. Bryn asked Soppygit, "Is that him?" (She's obsessed with this red-headed guy that no one else had seen properly.) She said yes, and Bryn ran ahead to tell the guy that she fancied him. I thought, "Cool!" (since she is way too obsessed, but can't find an opportunity to even speak to him, which is starting to get annoying). Then I realised it was a dream and the consequences would be irrelevant, so I woke up.

April 2001: Running For Our Lives To Have No Life

I was in “The Oaken Throne” by Robin Jarvis. The book was nearing an end and I was in great danger. So my mother decided to whizz the family off to a place where I wouldn’t be found. We set off from Naworth Castle and travelled along unknown country roads. Every now and again, we’d reach a toll booth. Mum paid with a set of special tokens.

We reached a building in the middle of nowhere, went inside and decided to play Monopoly. It was at this point that I realised that Bryn’s brother and his girlfriend were also with us. She picked the iron.

Monday 30 April 2001: My Computer Misbehaves: Nothing New There

It was around Easter, and a war started very near to my house. Both sides were very cautious about making offensive moves. At the same time, a new female Prime Minister came to power. The press was very suspicious about what she'd do, so I wrote a ranty paragraph about how they shouldn't stereotype female leaders just because of Margaret Thatcher. I intended to put it on my website, but I never got round to it.

While I'd been away at university the previous term, my family had become very interested in a series of books. Our house had a section that was a bookshop, so I asked them about a few of them. I picked up one that had a dark green cover, was oval in shape, came in an open-sided box and cost twenty pounds. They told me it was a bit bungled and not very good.

They had also become interested in really long fancy colourful beaded necklaces. They gave me one, and put it on me. It went round my neck twice. Although it looked a bit out of place with my black clothes I liked it, but I took it off again.

The war was getting more violent and I was worried that the house would catch fire. I decided to back up my stories on disc, so I could get them out of the house quickly, just in case. I went to my room to do so. Before I turned the computer on, I tried to put on the necklace, but in order to do so, I needed to free a spherical blue bead that was in its centre. I couldn't be bothered removing all the other beads and trying to put them back on in the right order, so I turned on my computer. I remembered that I had left a CD in the drive, so as it initialised, I took it out and put it back in again. A cross between Windows and Riscos loaded. I tried to open the C drive anyway, but the icons were so strange, I decided to remove the CD altogether and restart the computer.

1 May: The Queerest Of The Queer

I saw a leaflet that said Garbage would be playing in Canterbury. I was going to ask Bryn if he wanted to go, but never got round to it.

I was at home for the Easter holidays. I went to the Card Centre with my mother. As I left, it occurred to me that I should send people postcards, to let them know what I was up to. So I went back, and bought five postcards. Smill, Soppygit and Will would be among the recipients. I also remembered that I should buy Smill a birthday present. (Disregard the fact that her birthday isn't until July.) I found some nice blue-y purple windchimes . . . but Liz, who I was at school with, was there, holding the same ones, intending to buy them for Smill as well. We decided to go halves, and also to co-write a postcard to Will. When Liz had finished her bit, I couldn't think of anything to put.

There was a circular picnic table in the shop, at which Soppygit and her parents were sitting. Sending her a postcard was going to seem a bit silly, I thought. I said hi to Soppygit, and I talked to her parents for a while. I was a bit apprehensive, since she'd warned me that they wouldn't like me, but they were pleasant enough.

I went to the school carrels with my mother. Will and one of my former English teachers were there. Will was about to go to a rehearsal for a play. Mum asked where it was, and he said Newcastle, so he could sell magazines on the streets, and be able to afford to go to Wales. When they left, Mum told me that if I ever got involved in a school play, she wouldn't be prepared to take me to rehearsals in Newcastle.

I went to the computer room. It was almost full of pupils. I asked one of the Chemistry teachers if my account would still work, given that I'd left the school two years earlier. He offered to set me up another one. He gave me username warnesc.12 and asked me to enter a password. Since it could only be two letters long, I wrote CZ.

3 May 2001: Zeddy’s On Train To Nowhere

I was trying to cross the country on a series of trains, none of which went very far. Along with a few other people, I stood on the platform at the end of a straight bit of railway track that didn’t seem to connect to any other, but I believed that the next train would take me somewhere useful.

It was a sunny Sunday morning and Bryn and I were having not-particularly-good sex in the bedroom my parents had when I was a child. There were three other people in the room. One of them was a naked and aroused bloke who was talking to us. He left the room, though, and Bryn said we should stop and leave too.

4 May 2001: Going Over To Suzie’s House

It was the first weekend of the Easter holidays and I travelled to London with the intention of taking my online friend Twi to Slimelight (a nightclub). I arrived there at 11pm, then realised that she didn’t know where it was. I thought it was necessary to phone Sofie to get AevilSteve’s phone number, but instead, I just went to find Twi.

AevilSteve (another online friend) was living in a house in London. He resided on the ground floor, while a woman in her twenties called Suzie lived upstairs. Twi was staying with him for the weekend. I was a bit unsure about the nature of our relationships. For a moment I thought I was going out with Steve, and at one point Twi told Steve that she loved him, but I was pretty sure she meant it in a platonic sense. Noj was also staying with Steve.

When I got to the house, I asked Twi to write down what music she wanted to have played at Slimelight. I started naming bands that were often played - “The Cure, Depeche Mode, VNV Nation . . .” I forgot to mention Covenant but remembered The Chemical Brothers. We were standing beside an empty three-shelf bookcase, and I started filling it with CDs by the appropriate bands. A slim teenage girl helped me. Twi wasn’t very impressed, though. “I don’t want to ask for anything I could hear at home,” she said.

I offered her an old-fashioned computer game, and she, Noj and Steve started playing it. The screen was split horizontally: each half showed a vehicle on the surface of the moon, which you had to control using joysticks. I watched them play: although it was late at night, I felt very awake. Twi claimed that she didn’t like it, but when the phone started ringing very quickly, all three were totally engrossed. A dog in the sitting room started barking noisily.

“Should I answer it?” I asked.

“No,” Noj said, getting up and heading for the sitting room, which was where the phone was, but it stopped ringing before he could answer. The dog left the room though: it was large and brown and white in colour. I glanced into the living room, where three middle-aged people were sitting.

Noj and I went upstairs to a bedroom. He said he was considering going to Slimelight. I didn’t think it was really his cup of tea, so I tried to dissuade him by telling him what music they played, but he remained interested. “How do they dance there?” he asked. “Bouncing up and down?”

“It’s more like shifting from one foot to the other,” I said. “Although some people dance more flamboyantly.”

“Like this?” he asked, twisting around and raising his legs. I noticed that he was wearing a short flimsy shirt, and I saw his underwear. It was white.

“More like flouncing,” I said.

“That’s ok, I can flounce,” he said. “Maybe Easter weekend, though.”

I spoke on the phone to my mother. She seemed a bit confused about where I was and it occurred to me to say as little as possible, as she probably wouldn’t approve.

It was 11.45 and I was losing Slime-time and in a hurry to leave. I told Twi to get ready and began to do so myself. I tried to put on my PVC dress, but felt distracted. “Yeah, that looks gothic,” someone lying on the floor commented. I realised I was wearing a white school blouse, a tie and dark green school trousers.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I said, and quickly took them off.

6 May 2001: More Slimelighting

I travelled to London with a girl, with the intention of going to Slimelight. Our aim was to work out who was the gender they appeared to be and who was a transvestite, of the people on the train and the clientele. (How we planned to do this, I don’t want to know.)

I had another corridor mate called Catherine, in addition to the one I already have. The two of them were planning to go to the room of a friend of theirs to watch a stupid action film. Real Catherine asked if I wanted to go with them. “No, but thanks for inviting me,” I said.

“It was Other Catherine’s idea,” she told me.

“Well, thank her for inviting me on my behalf, ok?”

I took my birth control pills out of my wallet. There were two left, for a Wednesday and a Friday. I assumed it was Tuesday and that Thursday’s must have gone astray, but I wasn’t too worried: I knew what to do.

I was standing outside the Gulbenkian Theatre (at UKC), trying to get people to do certain things, such as watching television programmes.

10 May 2001: I've Been Thinking About "The Good Toilet Guide" Too Much

I was on campus and needed the toilet. I went to some. All the cubicles I could see appeared to be occupied, but I remembered there were some behind them. I entered one vacant cubicle and shut the door. There was no lock on it. I was wearing a pair of lacy tights and had trouble getting them down as I didn’t want to damage them. I sat on the bowl and two girls outside started pounding at the door. I jammed it shut with my foot and told them to go away. Surprisingly, they did.

I was taking a very difficult but rewarding Statistics course. So was my corridor mate Matt. We were told to pick any formula from a thick text book and prove it. He chose Newton’s Law Of Graviation, I thought that was an easy option and chose the formula beneath it.

I wanted to get to the library and decided to use the path that goes near the Grimond building. But it was muddy and very steep so I decided to find another way.

It was 9.37pm and I decided to phone Bryn. I picked up my mobile phone and noticed I’d received a text message. I clicked through the options to read it and noticed my phone had some weird features, like a map of the world, and a graph showing the length of my calls.

May 2001: He Really Is Called Walter!

The guy Soppygit fancies, who Ibid and I refer to as Walter Winterbottom, was in my room momentarily, along with Soppygit and Ibid. He left me his mobile phone number. I was supposed to be teaching him and the others lessons, so a bit later on, I tried to call him. He didn't answer, but his answering machine said, "You have reached Walter Winterbottom." Thrilled that it was really his name, I told Ibid and Soppygit about it. The former was more amused than the latter.

Monday 14 May 2001: Betrayed By A Famous Author

Bryn and I were lying in bed. He kept reciting logic-based equations at me. I didn’t understand them at first, but suddenly they started making sense.

My mother was in my room at university. The author, Anne Fine, had sent us both letters. The one to me said very little, although it ran to two sides of paper, and she’d enclosed some coins. The one to my mother listed all my failings: my dyed hair, my boots, my offensive Nirvana Shirt (how does she know about that? I wondered), my lewd boyfriend . . . My mother looked at my food supply and accused me of eating too much. I looked at the pile of sandwiches I’d hidden on a plate balanced on the bin under my desk, planning to eat them later, and hoped she didn’t find them.

My old classmate Marion, my corridor mate Catherine and I went somewhere. When we arrived, I was surprised to find it was the Metro Centre, a shopping centre in Newcastle (which is a long way from Canterbury). We shopped a bit, then at about midday we had to walk outside to get to other shops. A man in his twenties said to me, “Have you ever had sex?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been having it for the last seven and a half months.” He seemed surprised.

The next thing I knew, I was back in my room at university. I checked my watch; it was 9pm. “What happened?” I asked Marion and Catherine, who were there. They told me that they’d been so upset by the man’s questions that they’d cried for hours before going home. I was surprised, since they hadn’t seemed upsetting to me.

There were a few other people in my room, sitting loosely around a table in the centre. A goth bloke of about my age came in. He talked to me for a minute. “Your hair’s like mine,” he said. I was quite upset, since his was dark brown and I’d dyed mine black the previous night (in reality). I hoped he meant in texture, since his was badly behaved too. He also said he had disapproving parents. But I couldn’t hear him too well, so I couldn’t really make conversation, so he left after that.

Tuesday 15 May 2001: NSYNC Caught Busking Outside Cinema

Before I went to sleep, I was thinking, “Why is ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ still in the top twenty after fourteen weeks? Who’s still buying it? Who did that song that goes ‘Got a one way ticket to a something destination’?” (I know now: it’s the Sugababes, I believe.) “And why do they have to play that evil Toploader song on indie night at The Venue? Surely everyone else is as fed up with it as I am.” (Yes, my thought process is weird.)

I was at my parents’ shop, sitting in a chair, facing a wall and listening to the radio. The song at number eight came on. They announced that it was “Holler” by The Spice Girls. Even though I hadn’t know how it went until then, I recognised the tune.

I was in my bedroom, although it looked nothing like my real one, sprawled on the bed. My mother came in. I asked her to pick something up off the floor. She did, but dropped it on another part of the floor. I hoped she didn’t find and confiscate the half-empty box of Jaffa Cakes I had.

(Are disagreements with my mother going to feature in every dream now I’ve dyed my hair for the second time?)

I went to a cinema with Soppygit and Ibid. We had to walk a long way before we handed over our tickets, and by the time we got there, I had forgotten where I’d put mine. I took two pieces of card out of my right pocket. I couldn’t see very well, so I handed the woman taking them one of them. She gave it back. I looked at the second one - I could see my old school’s crest printed on it, so I doubted that was the ticket - but she accepted it.

After the film, I headed out of the cinema with Bryn. In front of us were two girls in their late teens. “NSYNC!” one said to the other, excitedly.

There were posters concerning the group everywhere. But as I turned to go up a flight of stairs, I noticed three teenage boys at the bottom of it. They started playing “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, but stopped after a few seconds.

Could they be from NSYNC? I wondered. I looked back at them. I found them physically repulsive, and they all had idiotic expressions on their faces, so it seemed possible, but I wasn’t really sure what any of them except Justin looked like, so I couldn’t be certain. Besides, members of boy bands change their images fast. I made up my mind to memorise what they looked like, so I could check it out on the Internet when I got home. One of them looked about eighteen and had blonde hair in a style you could only get away with if you were in a boy band. Although, presuming this was Justin, it looked better than normal. One of them was short and had short dark hair. The other looked like Twi’s brother: he was tall and lanky, had long straight brown hair and wore glasses. I looked back about three times, and hoped I wasn’t being too obvious. I didn’t want Bryn to think I found them attractive.

I was lying in bed beside Bryn and he said something. I answered, and he said something else, unrelated. This continued, until I realised that he wasn't actually talking to me: during the Christmas holidays, he’d recorded himself talking, as if he was on a radio show, and now he was playing the tape.

The talking ended, and a jingle sounded. I was impressed by its quality, but it didn’t announce what radio station it was. A song started playing, and suddenly, we were sitting beside a TV where we could watch the appropriate video. It was some woman singing an upbeat pop song. I was about to complain, when I noticed that Bryn was headbanging. Ah, it must be Tori Amos or someone, I thought. I looked at the screen and saw the singer had dishevelled brown hair. (Shrug. And since when are her songs cheesy pop OR headbangable?)

The next song was sort of indie-jazz; the main tune was played by a saxophone, but there was a heavy drum beat in the background. Now my pseudo godfather was sitting with us. He adjusted his position so he was lying over Bryn’s lap. Then he balanced himself on mine too. Towards the end of the song, he started giggling hysterically. I was just glad it would end soon, since my arm was getting crushed. When it finished, he got up. I saw that Bryn had turned into some blonde-haired guy of about my age. “I wish I’d started singing along earlier on,” he said.

I woke up. My arm was sore and the tune was stuck in my head. Cool! I thought. Like Paul McCartney I have dreamed the tune of a v. catchy song. Sadly, I forgot it a few minutes later.

Thursday 17 May 2001: Vicky And Harvey Run A Chip Shop

Bryn and I were going to a party, but first we went to a café in Canterbury, where we met some other people who were going. There was a goth girl of about my age there, who said, “Don’t you feel that goth is the only genre of music that you can make friends through? It doesn’t work with indie kids.”

“Yes,” I said. “I was into indie for about two years, but during that time, I didn’t really meet anyone like-minded. But since I’ve turned goth, I’ve become friends with a lot of people like me.”

We all started walking towards the apartment where the party would be held. She and I carried on talking. At first I was a bit intimidated by her, but we started to get along better.

When we reached the apartment, very few other people were there, but there was a boy wearing what initially looked like a smiley Nirvana shirt. Since I suffer from The Curse Of The Smiley Nirvana Shirts (whenever I wear mine, I encounter someone else wearing one), I dashed over to him and started telling him about it. Then I noticed that his shirt didn’t really look like a Nirvana shirt at all. It had a few words scrawled at the top, which I couldn’t quite make out. “What sort of shirt is that?” I asked.

“A Sleater Kinney shirt,” he said.

No one else turned up at the apartment, so we all went to a chip shop which Bryn’s friends Vicky and Harvey ran. Outside it, I somehow got separated from the rest of the group - they’d all gone inside, and I was still on the street. I opened the door, and found myself in a large darkened room. About a hundred people were sitting at long desks, eating, in silence. Since I couldn’t see anyone’s face, I stayed where I was, but soon the others emerged from the darkness.

Friday 18 May 2001, Dream #1: Sometimes I Feel I’ve Got To Run Away

It was 19th May, and I decided to run away and stay with my online friend Twi. I had been considering doing so for some time, and although I was happy where I was, I decided to go through with it.

So I flew to Portland, and tried to find her mother’s house. I had surprisingly little difficulty finding the street it was on, but I knew that finding the house was going to be a problem: I remembered the number, but it was 10pm and very dark. I walked along the road, and noticed a house that was a fairly dark shade of blue. That must be it, I thought, and went inside.

Inside, it was 5am. Twi, her mother and her brother were all sprawled on couches. There were two police men there, who were interrogating them, but they were all so tired that they couldn’t be bothered to answer the questions. As soon as I walked in, however, they perked up. They continually asked me what I was doing here, and couldn’t understand how I could just have travelled here because I felt like it.

Twi was dressed in black vinyl, was wearing whiteface and her hair was a rich purple. I felt a bit silly, because although my hair was also purple, it was starting to go blonde.

Friday 18 May 2001, Dream #2: Walking And W**king And The Expected Exam Dream

It was lunchtime and Bryn and I were in my room. I started playing with him and he got excited, but it was two o’clock, and we both had to go to lectures. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll go to my lecture, you just take my body with you, and keep going.”

And so I went over to Keynes College, continuing with this dodginess. There were a lot of people around and I felt rather embarrassed for him. Suddenly I thought, “This is stupid: you can’t separate yourself from your body”, and I stopped. It turned out he had actually stayed in his body.

We went into Keynes JCR1 which was full of people. Gill, his ex-girlfriend, ran up to us. “I’m so glad to see you!” she said. “What are you doing on Friday evening?”

“We’re going to a concert,” Bryn said.

“Oh well,” she said, and she turned to talk to other people. It seemed that she was looking for someone to babysit while she was out. (Why?)

The dream shifted. It was 8.30am on a Friday, and I was outside an exam hall in central Carlisle. I was to take an exam in Computing that morning and I would be the only person doing it. I didn’t know when it started. A number of people who were in my year at school would be taking a Maths exam that started at ten, but I went into the exam hall anyway, to find out. When I entered, people in my brother’s school year were busily writing. My old Physics teacher, who was invigilating, came over to me and told me it started at 9.30.

I went outside, and talked to Alice and Rohan, who were waiting, for a bit. I suddenly remembered I’d left my stationery in the exam hall, so I went in to get it. I looked at the clock in there, and the time didn’t seem to make sense. I looked at my watch, and again I had trouble interpreting the hands, but eventually it became clear that it was eleven thirty.

It couldn’t be! I decided to go home and check my clock there. Fortunately, my house was in Carlisle (God knows why). I started sprinting through the deserted streets.

Friday 18 May 2001, Dream #3: I Don’t Know My Own Strength

It was 10am on a Saturday morning. Bryn was living in Becket Court (where Soppygit currently lives) and he, Ibid and myself were in his room, talking. It was a lot bigger than the typical Becket Court room, and the bed was in front of the window.

The conversation progressed in such a way that Bryn confessed to cheating on me while he was at Carmenden, the previous term. I assumed this was somewhere he’d spent a weekend, re-enacting. I asked for the details. He’d spent two nights with the girl in question. He gave me a half-baked excuse as to why it had happened the first night. I kept slapping him, but it didn’t look like it was hurting. Someone began knocking loudly on a door. Not his door, but he, Ibid and I went into the corridor anyway to speak to whoever was responsible.

It was a foreign-looking guy, wanting to find someone who wasn’t in. Bryn spoke to him in fluent Spanish. I was surprised he was capable of doing so. Ibid spoke in Spanish too. This surprised me even more. I tried to remember some Spanish, but all I could think of “Hasta La Vista”, so when he said farewell, I said, “Hasta.”

Bryn, Ibid and I went back into his room, and I asked him about the second night. “It just happened, ok?” he said, sounding tired. The honesty of the confession took me back, and my anger subsided a little.

We were in my kitchen at home, which was down to flights of steps from the corridor his room was on. I tried to express how I felt: “I’m not going to forget it, but . . . no, I’m not going to forgive you either, but I don’t want to lose you over it.” But every time I looked at him, I felt like hurting him. The slapping didn’t seem to have worked, so I punched him in the eye. He fell over backwards, and his face turned grey. I was surprised by the power of the blow.

He got up and returned to his room. It occurred to me that if he’d cheated before we’d officially got together, I wouldn’t mind so much, so I went upstairs to ask him. To get into his room, I now had to walk through that of some guy. “You know,” he said to me, as I passed. “I used to have a photo of Bryn’s Dad in my room, but now I’ll have to get rid of it, thanks to you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. (Yes, that was a complete non-sequitur. I apologise on my foolish subconscious's behalf.)

I progressed to Bryn’s room, where he was standing in a loose circle of people. He was holding a really large jumper, which he wanted to don, but couldn’t due to his eye injury. But a few people helped him put it on. It came down to his ankles, and was very wide. It was a comical sight.


“Did I do anything strange while I was asleep last night?” I asked Bryn, when he woke up the following morning, since I've recently started kicking, talking and snoring during slumber. Fortunately I’d just been holding his little finger.

Saturday 19 May 2001: ElphabaCon 2001

It was five in the evening, I was in my room at university, and I was talking to a woman in her twenties over the Internet. Bryn came in, and watched us type. She wrote, “I’m about to eat dinner; do you want to listen?”

“Why would we want to listen to her eating?” Bryn asked.

I knew; Elphaba had invited eight people - two older male journallers, two older female ones, two younger male ones and two younger female ones - to stay at her house for a few days, and I was talking to one of the older female ones. I had been invited as one of the younger female ones. I’d ignored the invitation, and now I felt guilty for it. Oh well, I wouldn’t have been able to go due to exams anyway, I thought.

(A week later, in reality, Elphaba really met some other journallers.)

Saturday 26 May 2001: Other People’s Gardens

It was late on a Friday night and I had to walk down a long, winding tunnel with Bryn’s housemates, Simon and Tasha. You know those cardboard cylindrical things designed for wrapping wires round? Well, we were each carrying one of them. However, Simon was really drunk and passed out, so Tasha and I had to try and carry his possessions. This meant leaving my roll of wire, my ankh and a mostly eaten box of Jaffa Cakes in the tunnel.

The tunnel led to the back garden of Naworth Castle. I lived there. The next day, at about noon, I watched my mother ironing, in an unrecognisable room. It was about twice as long as it was wide. I wanted to ask her if she could retrieve my stuff, but I was afraid I’d annoy her. I wasn’t even sure whether it was possible to get back into the tunnel or not, but Dad brought back the box of Jaffa Cakes, so I knew it was.

Then Dad and I went into a garden, but it was someone else’s. It looked like our current one, but its main feature was a small raised swimming pool. He expressed his jealousy towards people who could afford such luxury.

I had a very weird looking e-mail program and was trying to connect to the Internet through Demon to send and receive messages. But the number didn’t work. I planned to e-mail them (how?), but I knew there was no point in doing so on a Saturday when they wouldn’t be open.

Sunday 27 May 2001: Anthony Really Does Drive Fast

Bryn, some other bloke (possibly Anthony) and myself travelled from Roeun (a city in northern France) to Carlisle one morning. Then we had to go to Preston (a town about eighty miles away), to perform in a concert. It was happening in the morning and the afternoon; everyone played the recorder; there were four schools participating; and each school had to pick a Christmas carol and play it (even though it was summer). Two other schools played in the morning. Then we got a lunch break. Bryn and I wandered round Preston. I complained about the format of the concert: “Pupils shouldn’t have free choice over what carol they can play, as some are really difficult.” We sat down on a park bench, and started kissing, but I pulled away, feeling embarrassed.

Thursday 31 May 2001: Tubes Are Becoming A Recurring Theme

My online friend Sofie and I were in London. She suggested going to somewhere called “Alice’s Market” even though it was expensive to get in. We were outside a tube station that was only on the District Line; she insisted that we walked on to one that dealt with others. But Alice’s Market is on the District Line, I thought, before realising it was a different branch of it.

Then I was with my family, in our Rangerover, at the top of my old school’s drive, but the building was a warped version of Eliot College (my place of residence at university) and we were still in London and trying to travel around. In order to do so, we had to lend the car to other people. This happened a number of times, but when three business men got in, I was suddenly struck by how revolting having to do this was.

The three business men did something that damaged the car, and the school caught fire. Noj was really angry, although he tried to control his rage.

I got a phonecall from Ibid. She asked me whether I wanted to see “O Brother Where Art Thou?” at the cinema that night. I wasn’t too keen, but I said maybe. “Ok,” she said, “I’ll come round just before eight.”

“If Eliot College hasn’t burnt down by then,” I said.

3 June 2001: Yet Another Harry Potter Dream

I was in a building that contained three swimming pools. Swimming pool #2 was huge. I remembered it being in a dream I'd had a few months previously.

The fifth Harry Potter book was about to be released. It had silly title, which was something like "Harry Potter And The Cave Of Demons" (silly, bearing in mind there are no creatures with religious connections in the Harry Potter universe). I went to the upstairs of WH Smith in Carlisle, where the author Anne Fine was giving a talk about it. A lot of other people were there. When the talk was over, we paid fifteen pounds for a rough, unfinished copy of the book. The hardback was to be released a week later; we could collect that for free.

I looked at the book. It had a white paper cover. The final page numbers were in there thousands, but in the middle of the book, they were still in two digits. The numbering system must be warped, I thought.

At certain points in the book, there were hand-written letters from fans, asking why the characters bothered to earn money though magic, when they could give sexual favours instead. J. K. Rowling answered them all with, "Magic's more fun."

I walked onto the school drive, and encountered Charlie, Catherine and Leah (two of my corridor mates and their friend). "The new Harry Potter book's come out," I told them. "I can't wait until the next Magic Guitar book comes out," Catherine said. She started explaining what "Magic Guitar" was, until Leah told her to be quiet or she'd give the plot away. My parents' car came up the drive. My Dad and my half brother got out - there was something in the school building that they needed to collect.

Bryn was moving into a house the following academic year and searching for housemates. He had a list of the e-mail addresses of fifty seven people who were interested. I looked at it, and recognised a few of them. He was recording messages on cassettes, and sending them to the applicants, to help him to choose which ones.

I went to his house, which had a slightly different layout. You entered through the kitchen, then went through to the living room. I took my trousers off in the kitchen, then grew worried that one of his housemates would come in.

He and his housemates decided they needed to buy a ladder, so they all got in a car along with me, and drove through the streets of Ramsgate (which was where their house was, for some reason). Tasha drove, Nick (who was much slimmer than he is in real life) sat in the passenger seat, and Bryn, Simon and I sat in the back. I told them about the release of the Harry Potter book; we spoke about it for a few minutes. Tasha parked the car in a large car park, which was surrounded by bushes. Someone pointed towards them and said, "You can get to campus if you keep walking that way."

Monday 4 June 2001: "Well, that dream's not true!"

Bryn, David (his brother), his stepfather and I stood in their kitchen. Bryn said that he hadn’t cheated on me, but he had had “two pencils”. He explained that by this he meant he’d had oral sex with two of his male friends. David said, “You wicked boy, you’re going to hell” (or something to that effect) in a mock-evil voice.

Tuesday 5 June 2001: It's Always The Start Of Term

I was starting my second year at UKC. I kept encountering people who I’d been at school with, who had switched universities. I was pleasantly surprised, because until then, only Anna who was in the year below mine had been at UKC, although it seemed strange that some people were changing for their final year. In The Venue, I ran into Helen Wo.

Wednesday 6 June 2001: My Boots Are Too Big For Me, Not The Other Way Round

Bryn, Gill (his ex) and I were lying in the same single bed, trying to sleep. ["I like the sound of this dream," Bryn commented, when I told him about it.] Bryn was asleep; Gill kept moving around. She apologised to me. Then, a bit later, she insisted that she and I moved to a double bed in the same room. We sat on it, and she said something along the lines of, “Why do you put up with Bryn?” except it was phrased in an ambiguous fashion and I wasn’t sure what to answer. Before I could, Bryn’s mother came in and said, “Get up, Bryn. It’s eleven o’clock. I got a phone call and your contact lens appointment is at twelve thirty.” (He really did have a contact lens appointment the next day, at two pm.)

At that point I woke up, but quickly fell asleep again.

It was the first day of a term. Soppygit and I went to Rutherford Dining Hall, only it looked more like the McDonald’s in Carlisle, as far as the layout went. We sat next to the stairs. I noticed my friend Claire and her friend Jo nearby, and was about to talk to them, when two guys started talking to Soppygit. She left the room, feeling threatened, with me following. She complained that her favourite place had been ruined and next time I saw her, she was wearing her white hooded top. The hood was up (Ku Klux Klan style) and her face was entirely covered by bits of white toilet paper, except her eyes, which were edged in black. I thought it looked rather gothic and cool, but I didn’t think much of it as a policy for avoiding unwanted attention.

Soppygit, Ibid and I were trying to climb through a small square upstairs window of the building housing the sports halls and the changing rooms at school. I tried to get through, but realised my boots were too big. Instead, I entered the building through the door downstairs. I wasn’t supposed to do this, but no one noticed me. Inside, there was a stall selling cruddy plastic jewellery and other things I had no interest in. There were a number of girls standing around it.

I was involved in a sporting competition with fifteen other people. It took place in a hall. I had to play tennis against a Chinese boy on a very small court. The edges were rows of trees. I couldn’t get into the swing of the game, so I lost quickly. I wondered if we all had to switch activities, but instead, we entered a big grassy area, with a nearby huge lake. I walked alongside a bloke who physically resembled Bryn. I had known him for a week and I really fancied him (I was single in this part of the dream) but was too nervous to talk to him. There was some sort of fairground ride - it looked like an outdoors ghost train - floating on the lake. The bloke commented on it, but I didn’t understand what he said, so I didn’t reply.

Matt2, an acquaintance from UKC, fell into step with us. A song by Black Sabbath called “1969” started blasting from an unknown source. (Shrug.) Matt2 and the bloke started headbanging as they walked.

It wasn’t obvious how to get on the ride, but I went down a footpath that led into a forest. It came to a dead end, but four doors led off from it. I saw some of the door opened, and there were dense bushes behind them. People passed through them, but I knew the difficult of doing so. I also knew this was how to get onto the ride.

I was in London. I was going to go home to Cumbria, but needed to buy some provisions. I thought it might be easiest to fly to Hong Kong to get them, but decided I could just get them in London.

Bryn and I were travelling from Wembley to Victoria by tube. At one point, we needed to change line, and for this, there would be a six-minute wait. I decided to use it changing a five pound note into change. There was a table on the platform where this could be done; the Queen was assisting. When the transfer was done, I was sure I had more money than I should do, but Her Majesty insisted I should take what I had.

University was where my school is. On the first day of a term, I went to the laundry, which was along the road from it. A boy walked with me and talked to me, and we got along well. When we arrived, many people were standing in a circle, waiting to use the machines. At this point I realised I didn’t have any washing powder. However, there were displays of things for sale all around, so I imagined I could buy some washing powder there. It took me a long time to find any, and I eventually thought I was looking for shampoo instead, and found some right under my nose. Everyone assured me it was a good brand. It came in a wide red tub, and only cost 59p.

Tuesday 12 June 2001: Now Who’s The Unfaithful Geen?

It was Saturday 9 December, and I was to go to Slimelight with four other people: my mother and Helen Wo (who was in my year at school) were two of them. We were to travel from Carlisle, and I was to drive (which I was a bit worried about). In order to get there in time, we had to set off at about nine o’clock in the morning, but before we could leave, we had to get passed a certain stage in a point-and-click computer game. There were three puzzles left, and I could see how they all related to each other, but what we needed for the first one had to be bought from a supermarket which wasn’t open until nine.

In the event, Mum got distracted from the game, and we missed the opportunity to go to Slimelight. I thought about going on some other week day (for some reason, I thought it would be open), but it got to Thursday, and we still hadn’t managed it. I thought about the following Saturday, but I was pretty sure there was a Christmas Carol Service type thing happening at my old school that Helen Wo would want to go to.

Marion was going to school, but she only had to go there on Mondays and Fridays. She was having a Classics lesson and Father Murphy, who was teaching, asked her a question that she didn’t know the answer to. “Don’t you remember Monday’s lesson?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, but I fell asleep,” she said.

“Asleep?” he shouted. “You shouldn’t fall asleep in my lessons.”

“I fall asleep all the time,” she said. It occurred to me that she was suffering from depression.

It was an evening in mid June, I decided to phone her, to see if she was back from university. I dialled the number of her parents’ shop, and her Dad answered. I asked if Marion was there; he answered, “No, but you can contact her by e-mail,” he said. It occurred to me that she must be there (since she was going to school), but she was too depressed to talk to anyone. He gave me her e-mail address: it sounded like outermongolianaustralian@hotmail.com, but due to his accent, I wasn’t sure. I decided to send her a short message, to see if it worked.

I went to the campus shop, picked up a piece of paper and an orange crayon, and used them to begin my message, in big sprawling letters. Half way through, I realised that he’d said e-mail, not fax, and that I’d have to type my message.

My online friend Laurie and I were lying on the floor of a deserted school gym, kissing. We got up and went our separate ways, and I suddenly realised that we’d been having an affair for a few months. I had no feelings for her whatsoever; she was truly just a friend with benefits. I tried to remember how it had started: I could recall comforting her back in January, but I couldn’t see how that had turned dodgy. I wanted to tell someone about it, but decided I couldn’t, in case word got back to Bryn.

I was in Stafford House dining hall (part of my school). I’d eaten, and was waiting for Bryn to appear. Eventually he did, and declared he was going for a walk to have a Think, then going to the campus shop. I assumed he’d meet me where I was, but I got tired of waiting, and went to the campus shop. He was standing by the counter, holding a dog. He made some comment about it as I walked past. The dog resembled him: it shaggy unruly black fur. I wanted to make a comment about dogs looking like their owners, but I didn’t feel like turning back.

I noticed a circle of about seven people, sitting near the entrance. Two of them were Bryn’s friends, Joe and Anthony, and the others were of around the same age. There was only one girl, who was in charge of the group. They were discussing the likelihood of two other members turning up: one, another girl, had gone to get something in Boots in town. The girl in charge asked me if I wanted to take her place, telling me I didn't have to do much. I agreed, and sat down. Then I noticed three blue sachets containing blood samples which the girl was holding, which would be discussed. I felt queasy.

When the meeting began, though, we each had to paste seven CDs into a scrap book beside the appropriate review. The first review was of a Bon Jovi album. It was poor, although it was awarded 400/500 points. “It’s all relative,” the girl explained. I covered the underside of the CD with Pritt Stick (worried whether it would work after that) then stuck it in. Then I realised I’d stuck in the wrong CD - one by some unknown male singer - and began removing it, while the rest of the group moved on to the next CD. The review of the next CD ran onto the following page of the scrap book, so one had to cut the CD into two pieces. There were pencil marks showing exactly where the bits should go, so one had to cut carefully.

14 June 2001: Moral: Don't Read Meaghan's Journal Just Before Sleeping

I was living with my online friend Meaghan and her mother in my (former) room at university. Meaghan’s mother was being annoying, so I left them, to live with Meaghan’s father instead (who had left his wife). He lived in a little shack with a garden, in Canterbury.

It was a Tuesday towards the end of the summer term. I went to my estate agent’s and found they had a student house near Sainsbury’s up for grabs the next academic year. The rent was only £57 a week, so I applied for a room in it.

Later, I remembered I was supposed to be living with Soppygit, Ibid and Jo the following year. I considered living in the house I’d just acquired, but I saw no benefits. I couldn’t be bothered to go through the procedure of finding other people to live there, so the next day, I returned to the estate agent’s (with Soppygit and Ibid). The woman there advised me to look at the new house at either 12.30 or 2 that day. I told her that I didn’t really want it at all. She cancelled my application with surprising ease.

Soppygit, Ibid and I went to a post office. There were quite a lot of people sitting there, and music was playing on the stereo. I suddenly wondered if they’d play “Not An Addict”. We were about to leave, when a new song started. I didn’t think it was “Not An Addict”, but it turned out to be. Everyone else was thrilled to hear it too, although they knew different versions of the song.

On the way home, we stopped at a supermarket, but only Soppygit wanted to buy anything there.

I decided to move back in with Meaghan’s mother. I went to talk to her father about it. He was playing a simplistic golf-like game with a five-year-old boy who had dark brown hair in the garden, which was full of holes. The boy was beating him.

He was quite happy to let me move, so I returned to the corridor. There, I found that Meaghan had been thrown out of my room. However, she was quite content: the teenage boy (who looked much like an older version of the little boy) who lived with his father in room 4 had suffered a similar fate and they shared an interest in serial killers, so they were sitting on the floor, talking animatedly.

I stood with them for a while, then Meaghan’s mother emerged from my room. “Get ready, we’re going shopping,” she told Meaghan and myself. She told me I could leave my belongings in my room, so I carried my bag and boots into it, and put them on the floor. I hoped Meaghan’s mother wouldn’t accuse me of being messy.

I wondered whether to wear the boots on or not: if I was going to being trying on trousers, I’d better not. But I knew we were only shopping for coats, so I started to put on the boots.

16 June 2001: The North Pole

I was on a trip to France with my brother and five other people. We got lost and ended up in a shack at the north pole. Four people wanted to go looking for civilisation, but since I thought the north pole was in central Greenland, I couldn’t be bothered heading for the coast. My brother was of similar opinion. Then I realised it was in Lapland, and on just a sheet of ice that would turn to sea at some point. That idea made me worried for those who’d left.

Near the shack was a dining hall. Two other parties of young people were eating there.

I was at a hybrid of Bryn’s house and my uncle’s house. My Dad was in my uncle’s living room, listening to an Ash CD. He instructed me to go and get some different CDs and things to do. I went to Bryn’s room and started looking around. I quickly found some videos I wanted to watch, but had a hard time deciding what CDs I wanted to hear, since I’d been enjoying Ash. Eventually, I picked three, and grabbed a computer game that Dad had been playing, but he’d gone stuck when the characters ended up at the north pole. I wasn’t sure if he’d want to play it anymore, but he agreed.

18 June 2001: How Old Do I Have To Be Before I Stop Dreaming Of School?

It was the first day of lower 6th. Various members of my year were supposed to be in the carrels, but six of us went to the chapel, and messed around. However, a priest caught us there. We stood around the altar and he asked us what we were doing there and whether we’d been bad children and stuff. Whenever one of us gave a correct answer, some bloke popped out from behind a door, blowing a streamer. When one of us gave the wrong answer, a different bloke popped out from behind another door, making an even less pleasant sound. Before any of us gave an answer to a question, a drum roll sounded. It was rather amusing. The final question, which was addressed to me (after someone answered wrongly), was, “How are you going to make this up to the school?” Alice had whispered, “Putting on a really good assembly” so I said that, but felt really bad, because I knew that none of us could be bothered to write one.

I was having an English lesson with a German teacher. I didn’t want to sit at my desk, as I didn’t like the person at the next one, so I sat on a table in the corner of the room. Three foreign girls wearing hippie-ish clothes were standing up; when the teacher noticed them, she instructed one to sit at my desk, and the others to sit elsewhere. I suddenly noticed that everyone else was taking notes, but I had nothing to write with. I hoped nothing important would be said this lesson.

I was in a corridor with various old class mates, where I opened a large cardboard box I’d received. Inside were the marks, papers and certificates for a Maths challenge. I had received a gold certificate, but I didn’t care what mark I’d got. Helen Wo had also got a gold one. “Is this your sixth?” I asked. “No,” she said, “I got two silvers.”

An online acquaintance of mine, Colleen, (who looked nothing like she did in reality) and I made plans to go shopping one afternoon. I was scared of what my online friend Ang would think when she found out, as she had indirectly introduced us.

Half awake, half asleep, I rolled over and fell out of bed. This was the first time that had ever happened. It’s minorly embarrassing that after months of sharing a single bed, this should occur while sleeping alone.

19 June 2001: How Are The Werebears? They've Started Multiplying!

I was trying to get to sleep, but there were riots going on in the street outside. Suddenly, I noticed small Gums werebears appearing all over my floor. I got out of bed, saying, “What the beep?”

“Yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it?” Dad said, coming out of his room and speaking in relation to the riots.

I checked my floor again. There only appeared to be two small Gumses - and on second thoughts, one of them was a big Gums.

I was walking through some rugged terrain in the middle of a town. I was trying to keep up with some other people who were doing this, but struggling. We were instructed by a bloke. He led the group down a slope, for which shoe removal was necessary, then turned to go back up. He said, “If you’ve got your shoes off, you’re going to need them back on.” I hadn’t got round to removing my shoes in the first place, and wondered whether I should bother going down the slope or not.

Katrina (my friend who moved to New Zealand five years ago) and I were hanging out in the shops Brampton / Canterbury one afternoon. She wanted to take a photo of something, and she gave me her camera to hold afterwards. When we left that place, it started to rain, and it was getting late in the day. When she asked me where I wanted to go, I said home, if she didn’t mind. So we set off that way. As we tried to cross a road hastily, I dropped the camera. “Oh no!” I said, but Katrina paid me no heed. I retrieved it. Luckily, it had been in a protective case, so I hoped it was all right.

When we approached the post office, I said that I needed to go there. So I went in. My grandparents were waiting the queue. I realised that I didn’t actually need to buy a stamp, as I had some in my wallet. So I sat down, and addressed and stuck a stamp on the letter I wanted to post. As I left the building, my cousin’s car was parked directly outside, and she instructed me to get in, so she could give me a lift.

(The freaky thing? The next day, I saw my cousin for the first time in six months, and I hadn't expected to at all!)

20 June 2001: Travelling Again

My family was staying in a house in south Germany than looked like Sarah Yoj’s old home in some regards. For a while, Bryn’s family lived there, but then it was occupied by a German family.

On the day we had to leave, I wanted to wear a striped t-shirt, but Mum advised against it. I had trouble finding it, then remembered it was inside my orange jumper. I also had a shirt I’d made: a plain black t-shirt with black PVC long sleeves sewed on.

We were going to Austria for a day before returning home. For some reason, in the dream, Sofie lived in Innsbruck (rather than Sae). I wasn’t going to meet her, as she was in New York, but I wanted to go to livejournal to ask her what the weather was like in Austria. But I’d already packed up my computer, and when I asked the German boy if I could use his, he said nein, it was too expensive to go online in the morning.

21 June 2001: Girls With Permed Hair and Strange Fashion Statements

After a year at UKC, I had started again at a Cambridge college, except I wasn’t a resident there: I lived with my family in a house not too far away. It occurred to me how much I was going to miss my friends at UKC. On the first day, there were all sorts of activities going on. The Who were to play at nine. To kill time before that, I wandered around. Everywhere I went, people were laughing at me. Some stuck up for me, but nevertheless, it wasn’t nice. I went to see a film; by the time I’d left, I’d given up on hope on seeing The Who, and looked around for my parents’ car, which would pick me up. There were Rangerovers everywhere, but not theirs. It occurred to me that I had left my wallet in the cinema, but wanted to see them first before retrieving it.

Two girls with permed hair started hanging around with me. They weren’t friendly, but they weren’t hostile either. I felt uncomfortable with them, though. A middle-aged-man walked past, and one of them said, “Hello, Computer Science Teacher who completely ignored me.” The man stopped and looked at us. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognise any of you,” he said. I thought he might have recognised me from two years ago, then remembered that I wasn’t at the college I used to attend.

My parents arrived, and I told them I was going back to the cinema to get my wallet. I did so. A film was still showing, and all the people watching were annoyed by my scrabbling about. My wallet wasn’t there anyway. I returned to the Rangerover and found it on the back seat.

I was living in a strange house with my family, Bryn’s family, some of Smill’s family, and a few acquaintances. Bryn, David (his brother), Noj and myself shared a room. This was the first day of this arrangement. When I woke up, Bryn and I were the only people present. He got into my bed, and started kissing my feet, and working his way up my left leg. Before anything else could happen, there was a knock on the door. He got out of bed, and opened it. It was Reanne, David’s new girlfriend.

I wondered what had happened to Lynsey. Perhaps David couldn’t handle the thought of going out with her while he was at UKC? Or maybe he’d just been going out with her because she had rabbits which he needed for his photography project, which he’d now finished?

Bryn and I were supposed to be going to a disco that night. However, beforehand, we had time to kill, so he suggested going to the gym. I needed to find suitable clothes to wear, which took a while. The process involved:

1) Talking to some people who entered my room while I was topless.

2) Trying to wear a plug on a chain, giving up, and returning it to the sink in my room. While I was there, Reanne and her older sister (who looked remarkably like the girls at the college) also started using the sink. “Did you live in Park Wood?” Reanne’s sister asked. “No, Eliot College,” I said. “Ah, all the plugs are like this in Park Wood,” she said.

3) Unpacking the bag my brother had brought with him to this place, and removing a sleeping bag, a pillow and a foam thing to put the sleeping bag on.

4) Realising my clothes were in the wash and currently being hung out to dry, by various adults. This was done in a huge garden: garments were draped over the bushes at its edges. I checked all the bushes for my clothes, but couldn’t find them. Then Dad told me he was holding them. I put them on, and asked my parents if I could use the car to get to the gym.

Then I realised that if I was going to the disco afterwards, I’d need to bring some other clothes with me. A cross between Ibid and my corridor mate Catherine, who was going with me, realised the same thing. So, together with Bryn, we walked into a very warped version of Eliot College to get to our corridor.

On the way, I accidentally said something that compelled Ibid-Catherine and Bryn to race off in different directions to see who could get to my room first. Bryn instantly vanished. “You geen!” Ibid-Catherine told me, racing up some stairs. I followed her. They took us to a really weird looking corridor, with some more stairs at the end of it. Ibid-Catherine got increasingly more annoyed, and ended up falling down some stairs, caught up in a blue mesh body-bag. I tried to help her out of it, but she resisted.

22 June 2001: Plugs And Rugs

I was in the kitchen at about midnight with Dad. I noticed that smoke was streaming from one of the plug sockets. I switched it off, but the smoke continued to come. I asked Dad’s assistance: he inserted a small metal cylinder into the plug as a temporary measure, then went out to buy something that would solve the problem permanently.

In order to get me to a party in Ramsgate that happened three months ago, Dad came to UKC’s campus which looked a lot more like school. However, I already had a lift, so he gave a lift to seven other people. “How did you fit them all in the car?” I asked. Dad said, “two in the front, three in the back, two in the boot”, but I didn’t see how this was possible, if he was driving. I thought he’d be more annoyed with this situation than he was.

I’d bought some Persian rugs for various friends. Noj asked me if I could buy one for him. A friend of Bryn’s who lived in London who had a husband and three kids asked if I could buy several. I was a bit apprehensive, as I didn’t know if she’d be able to reimburse me.

23 June 2001: I’ve Been Playing Too Much Angband

I kept turning into a giant ant - one about the size of a car. Consequently, Bryn wasn’t going out with me, but he was apologetic.

I bought thirty five episodes of “Dragon Ball Z” on CDs. I stored them in a cupboard in a room where Marion was trying to solve problems, point-and-click computer game style. She asked for my advice, but I couldn’t think of anything she could do. One thing you could do in this room was play a Tetris like game with real blocks, where numbers fell from the sky and you had to fit them together. The angle you looked at them from (a plan view) made it a bit difficult, but I managed to shift it to a side view. I thought I’d got the hang of it, but Marion revealed that the game was 3D and I kept leaving gaps.

In my giant ant state, I was on a rampage round a supermarket-sized toy shop, determined to smash all the constructions in it. Security were after me. There were a load of kids present, a few of whom I conversed with. Then I kept finding Lego structures that were too pretty to smash. “Impressive,” I said of one, made entirely of red technical Lego, and turned away, leaving it undamaged.

I suddenly came across a bed, where Bryn’s friend John was lying. He was acting as a king and his partner Anne was his maid servant. I said hello to them and told them about the “Dragon Ball Z” CDs. Then it occurred to me that they were probably DVDs and I didn’t have a DVD player.

24 June 2001: I Will Follow

I was writing a story about my online friend Sae, who, in order to celebrate the days around her birthday, travelled around in a hot air balloon.

***

I was lying in bed, when my mobile phone (which was right beside it) rang. I answered. It was Mum, who had driven to Lanercost (a nearby village), but the (non-existent) gates at the inn had closed behind her so she couldn’t get out. Could I drive to Lanercost and opened them? I agreed, but she started to nag at me. I accidentally pressed the “NO” button which terminated the call. I thought about trying to call her back, but if I was just going to be criticised, and she was in a hurry to escape, there seemed no point.

***

It was nearly the end of the summer term, and I went to a lecture about something odd, although it was given by my Sadistics lecturer. I followed people I recognised to it, but wasn’t sure whether to sit with them or not. In the lecture theatre, as well as row of seats, there were beds. I got on one, and reclined, fiddling around with a green and white bracelet I was wearing.

Herman, who was at my school, was in my class. He argued with the lecturer for a while about his bad mark in the exam. The lecturer reassured him that Sadistics was a very difficult subject. Then he noticed my bracelet, and told me to put it aside. I did so.

Then, the lecture was taking place in my bedroom (at home), which had to be cleared out by the end of term. The lecturer emptied my shelves one by one, leaving perfect stacks of books on the floor. However, in the end, the floor was entirely covered in bumph, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of bed.

***

It was the last day of first year. I was in my room at home which was now tidy again. Bryn came in. I was listening to a rubbishy “Best of 1993” compilation, and I expected him to comment on the music. “That’s a lot of old adverts,” he said. I assumed the songs had been used on adverts at some point in the past.

“It’s a 1993 compilation album,” I told him.

“Why are you listening to that?”

“Because I’m writing a story about Sae which is set in 1993. I needed to get myself into the frame of mind.”

“Why do you own Robbie Williams albums then?”

“Well, they came out in 1996 and 1997.”

“1996, 1997.” He thought about it. “That’s about right.” (Although the second one wasn’t released until 1998.)

“And I still liked him at that point. He wasn’t like the rest of Take That.”

We started cuddling and fooling around (as American teenybopper books would call it) and I performed a Dodgy Act. He opened one of my desk drawers, and asked if I wanted to have sex there. “Your desk, my wardrobe.” I wasn’t keen on the idea, so he suggested having sex outside. “It’s the end of term, you’ve just done really well in all your exams.” He made other points in favour of that idea, and I agreed to it. I put my leather jacket on (he was, to my surprise, wearing his black leather jacket too), and we went outside.

We set off, holding hands, along a path I’d never trodden at a warped version of UKC. I noticed that the grass was damp; it would have to be against a wall or a tree or something. I noticed people carrying sports equipment walking towards us, which helped me get my bearings a bit. Then, on the path, we kept coming across groups of people playing tennis and fencing. To get round them with minimal injury, we stopped holding hands.

One group whacked their tennis ball into the next people’s game. I offered to run and get it for them. I set off at a jog, but just before I got there, the next people had picked it up.

Bryn and I reached a gate. I held it open for a foreign-looking girl, coming the wrong way. She thanked me, introduced herself, and held out her hand. I shook it, but she was holding out the other hand too. I clasped that, crossing my arms as I did so, and introduced myself as Zed.

We stood and talked, while Bryn walked on ahead. She said how wonderful it was that people enjoyed playing tennis and listening to music. The strains of “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” by U2 could be heard. However, she didn’t like the fact that people fenced.

Bryn was well ahead of us by now, so we started walking in the same direction. The girl said that she didn’t like the way people worshipped food. “Why not?” I asked. “It seems as good a thing to worship as any.”

“The people of Okiari worshipped food!” she hissed.

I didn’t know who the people of Okiari were, so I said, “I’m sure all religious sects did, though.”

She waved in the direction of a field, on our right hand side, where a barbecue was going on and laughter and screaming could be heard. “Now do you see why I don’t like people to worship food?” she asked.

“Some girls scream all the time, food or otherwise,” I said.

We reached a door, where the music was louder. To either side of it, there were rooms, and a staircase led upwards. All were buzzing with activity. I didn’t know if Bryn had advanced, or gone into one of the rooms, or up the stairs. I couldn’t instantly see him, but I decided to wait until he emerged. I had no success. A woman told a girl that the next song would be something to do with a garden (either a Savage Garden song or “This Garden” by The Levellers or something). The girl immediately sat down on a squidgy chair, in reverence of it.

I went to talk to a woman, to ask for a bloke. “He has to be at least eighteen, or seventeen-going-on-eighteen. But I really just want my boyfriend back,” I said.

I woke up, with “Stuck In A Moment” very stuck in my head.

25 June 2001: Boating For Beginners

I was reading a Jane Green novel, but I could see all the events happening. It was sentimental bumph. I stopped paying close attention towards the end, and suddenly it was the last page and I didn’t understand it.

***

Bryn and his brother painted nursery-school-style pictures of their mother every day, and showed them to her. She pinned the best ones to the kitchen wall. Their garden had a fairly small circular swimming pool in it. Within that, there was another circular area, divided from the rest by a rope

***

I was with someone female and about my age who I know, but I can’t think who. We were spending time on three boats, which were close together. We were talking about wars, and how islands like Malta and Cyprus were still fighting for more territory, either to gain resources or recover lost land. Whoever It Was said, “This boat’s a bit boring.” I agreed, but when she started rocking it back and forth dangerously, I told her to stop.

I went to a small piece of land near the boats. I had an egg, which I was supposed to hatch. I cracked it open and scraped out some of the gunk. I found a little chicken. I gave it some food flakes and it gobbled them all up. I wondered if I’d given it too much.

***

I was going to school, but I hadn’t been there for months on end due to illness. One Tuesday afternoon, when I’d recovered, I was supposed to go back. However, I had so much stuff at home to carry there, that it took me a long time to decide what to take. Also, there was a German man was staying in our house. He was working on a computer with Windows ’90, and showed it to me. I started falling asleep, but I thought his intentions towards me were not entirely honourable (in my dreams, most unfamiliar men can't be trusted), so I got up. However, by that stage, it was 2.25, and the only remaining lessons of the day were Double Games. Since I still wasn’t in perfect health, I phoned Mum and asked her if I could go back to school the next day instead.

(Interpretation: The previous day, I’d been reading the first Discworld novel, which accounts for the circle of rope. I’d also been reading a book called “The Anglo Saxons” which accounts for the war theory. And I’d been to see “Bridget Jones’ Diary” which accounts for the bumphy novel and the dangerous boating.)

27 June 2001: Laziness And Forgetfulness

It was the Easter term. After a long time off due to illness, I returned to school. It was a Thursday afternoon, and I had French, in Room 4, which was also my form room. Half way through, the teacher made us participate in the first ever critiquing session. She would ask people what they thought of certain things that had been done in French lessons that term, including videos we’d seen. I couldn’t even remember what we’d watched before I was ill. Luckily she didn’t ask me anything. My friend Will volunteered an opinion on a TV series no one else wanted to comment on. His answer implied that he’d seen more than one episode, when only one had been shown.

The lesson came to an end five minutes early and I set about gathering my books for the next two, Maths and Religion. For some reason, this took a really long time. Everyone left the classroom long before I did, except someone who was ready to go and appeared to be waiting for me.

Eventually, I went to my Maths lesson, where I was given back my paper for the previous term’s exam. I’d got 89%, which I’d known about before, but the teacher (who teaches English in real life) went through all the questions I’d got wrong. They were mostly Mechanics ones, one of which referred to bodies travelling in circles. “I’m really not good at Mechanics,” I said. Then there were some questions of the form “Which chemical has this property?” which I hadn’t a clue about. Although I’d guessed at the answers, each one was worth a large number of marks, so I’d lost a lot. And then there were the last two pages of the exam paper, which I hadn’t had time for. I wondered how I’d even managed to score 89.

The day passed. After the lessons finished, I had to stay at school until 10.30 as there was a concert band rehearsal in the lecture theatre at 9 o’clock, although I couldn’t be bothered to go to it. I was supposed to be in a play in the not-too-distant future and I didn’t know most of my lines, but I couldn’t be bothered learning them.

I checked the friends page of my Livejournal. I clicked “Previous page” once. The entry at the bottom at that was unfamiliar, so I tried to click “Previous page” again, but I couldn’t: the side panel only presented me with links to each of my friends’ journals. I couldn’t be bothered to check them all out, so I read the two pages’ worth I had. When scrolling, I had noticed that Flink had posted twice. One of her entries began, “If you’re wondering how Chantelle is” and the other said she’d written stories concerning me, Twi and four other online acquaintances, which we wouldn’t like. I forgot to read both entries. I also noticed that Bryn had written an entry, but I forgot to read that too.

I read one by Sae, though. It was very long, and it had a blue background and two columns of text. It said that she’d spoken to Bryn on the Internet and she wasn’t sure whether she liked him or not. She went on to write about Chris - she didn’t like him now, but at one point she had been infatuated as had C (me?), much to the annoyance of K (Key?)

It was 9 o’clock, I was bored, and I still didn’t feel like going to concert band. I sent Bryn, who was away, re-enacting for the weekend, a text message, regarding Sae’s journal entry.

***

I noticed that on my bedroom wall there were some large letters made of yellow moving cardboard pieces that spelled “Maegan”. I’d made them in a Religion lesson when we’d had make our names out of them - I’d made mine say “Maegan” as I had already made some spelling my name. I thought about taking them down and sending them to Rosie (the online friend once known as “Maegan”.)

28 June 2001: Bisexual Zed And The Holy Grail

I participated in an epic story (most of which I've forgotten) set in a land filled with gypsies and pirates. My online friend Meaghan was there, and eventually found happiness on a boat. I was travelling around with my family. Noj had had a dodgy dream and kept talking about sex. Mum kept making disparaging comments about it. We went to an outdoor restaurant, where the waitress asked what I wanted. I answered, “Nothing, but the others want food.”

***

I wanted to go to a big church, but the nearest one was in a village beginning with C which was apparently thirty miles away from my home town, although it looked closer on a map. However, Dad took me to one in amongst the houses of Brampton in the Rangerover. We weren’t sure how to get away from it; in order to do so, Dad had to reverse down a long grassy slope before reaching a familiar road.

***

I was sitting on my bed with my online friends Helen and Mikey. Helen started kissing me passionately. I broke away and said, “Whoa! Calm down!”

***

I was at the house of Bryn's friends, Anne and John, with Bryn, his brother Dave and his friend Anthony. Their sofa was on the opposite side of the living room to where it normally is, and Anne and John were about fifteen years older than they actually are. In the kitchen, there were loads of miniature packets of sweets, which everyone was eating. I didn’t like any of them - most of them were Maltesers, which came in three different flavours. Then Dave found miniature bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. I took one, and felt guilty.

I hugged Anthony. He looked bemused.

***

It was a Sunday and Bryn was travelling to Brampton to visit me. (What a surprise!) However, I was at Victoria Station in London and also had to get to Brampton. I got the tube, and remembered that I’d agreed to meet my online friend Laurie at King’s Cross Station; she, too, would be staying with me for that week. I wondered how good an idea it was.

***

I was on a platform in the London Underground with Ibid. We were carrying a number of objects, one of which was The Holy Grail. We were trying to take it to a temple, which was only one station away, but we couldn’t work out what platform we needed to be on. So we kept walking from one platform to another, trying to work out which was northbound and which was southbound. As we moved, we kept losing the things we were carrying. A pad of file paper disappeared, as did the grail.

Eventually, I spotted a sign which mentioned some unfamiliar stations, so we went to the other platform, and went to the temple.

Inside, we came across Elaine who I used to work with. She asked if I was someone who I wasn’t; I said no. I asked if she was Elaine, she said yes. We started to explain to her about finding the grail. She was pleased.

Friday 29 June 2001: Why Eating A Rinstead Mouth Pastille Just Before Going To Sleep Is A Bad Idea

I was working in a warped version of the office at my parents’ shop, and I had far too much stuff to do. Noj was there: he’d done a photography project, which he showed me. He’d taken the index page of my website and twisted and removed bits of the text so that it sounded evil. There were also photos of me and pictures I’d drawn, which he’d cut bits out of. Some attempts were rather more successful than others.

***

Mum and I found a passion for frequenting a bookshop in London. We decided to celebrate my birthday in late June, and so that day, I assumed I’d be bought presents at the shop.

To get there, we took the tube to Oxford Street. Behind us, on the elevator that took us from platform to ticket barrier, an old woman kept muttering something that sounded like “Hurry! Hurry!” But when we got to the top and let her walk past us, she continued to say this, to no one in particular.

Mum told me that she’d already bought be a book, but that she would take it back if I didn’t like it. The fifth Harry Potter book had supposedly been released the previous day, so I assumed it was that, although I hadn’t seen it in the bookshop. I asked what it was, and eventually Mum confessed that it was Harry Potter 5. I wished I could go home and read it.

One of my teeth started hurting, so I told Mum about it. To my dismay, she took me to a dentist. He gave me a toothbrush, some toothpaste and some sort of cream and told me to brush my teeth. I was a bit embarrassed, as two young men were decorating his office and watching me.

I squeezed the toothpaste and the cream onto the brush and spent the next five minutes wandering around, cleaning my teeth. By the end of the operation, the bristles of the brush had gone from new to completely splayed. It felt as though I had no teeth left and there was an acrid taste in my mouth. I spat into a basin several times, but couldn’t get rid of it.

30 June 2001: Being A Goth Goes Wrong

I was at Slimelight, dancing on the old goth floor. In fact, since it was the Easter holidays, this was appropriate. Anna The Goth was dancing near me and asked what the little bits of green sparkle on my left hand were. I replied that I’d drawn on it with nail polish and now it wasn’t coming off. She laughed at my expense.

It occurred to me that months earlier, I’d drawn on my upper right arm, and attached badges to it. I checked it out; the decoration and the badges were gone, except for their pins, which I removed, and I had three bruises there.