I didn’t write anything on ‘day 1′. Still, never mind. I think this time last year I was on about 600 words. This year I’ve already got 1209. Awww Right!! It doesn’t have a title yet though, so any suggestions will be welcome. From now on, the latest ‘episode’ will be in the ‘Nano 2007′ page on the right. From there, just click on the link and you will be sent to a PDF file. I’ll also post a link to the latest file here. I hope its not awful, I really do. 
Prologue- Kareen.
Welcome to the worst day of the rest of my life. I’m walking the streets on the outskirts of town. I’m wearing blue tights that look like tattoos only legs all the way up and then down to my toes, a short green and blue dress, and there is henna like dried blood on my hands. I’m looking for the train station (or the bus station. anywhere, really, where I can make a quick getaway). I lean against a wall and rub the heel of my aching right foot. It feels as though a field of blisters has risen there since I left the place I can no longer call my home. During this pause, the tears that have lain dormant for two hours spring to my eyes. I realise, only partly, what I have done. Betrayed my parents, abandoned my family, become homeless, friendless and almost penniless. There is only one person I turn to, and he is so many miles away. How the hell am I going to get to Cambridge from Nottingham when I only have £2.38 in pennies and twenty p’s sloshing around in my purse? Oh help me god. The God I never believed in, ever since I was 12 and prayed to you to make my little kitten well and you never did, help me now, send me a miracle. Stands to reason they happen to some people, right? Why not me? Am I that bad? Am I really so far apart from you that you can’t help me when I really need help? Is this what my parents brought me into the world for? To serve you?
Chapter 1- Annie.
I’ve been holding on to this 10 pound note all day. I found it on the floor of the bus station this morning and I have been carrying it around in my trouser pocket, taking it out and looking at it occasionally, partly to make sure it was still there and partly to take a moment to wish upon it. For it isn’t a regular old ten pound note. On the back, on the right hand side, running down the paper sideways so you have to turn it to read it properly, reads ‘For those who need help. Here I am.’ Throughout the day as I photocopy letters and type up memos I wonder who could have written the words on that note, and why they wrote it, and if they were writing the truth when they lifted the dove grey pencil. And how would I ever know? Who left it? Did they leave it there deliberately? I imagined the person it could previously have belonged to – one of those flowing witch types, with long skirts and hair dyed in miraculous colours, large amount of exotic jewelery dribbling from their hands, necks, ears, and a quiet, perpetually calm way of speaking. Or a an elderly man with a staff and a long white beard. Maybe a messed up kid like me. I thought of my own problems, my ma’s drink problem the way my teeth ache when it’s cold, the boy who never called me back, the fact that I am completely broke four days after pay day and with Christmas only four weeks away. My cat that ran away across the streets and didn’t come back. All the regret and pain and bitterness that my life has gathered over a few short years.
It was then that I decided to find someone more deserving of ‘help’ than myself, and give the £10 note to them. My good deed for the day. Who knows, perhaps karma would smile on me and send me a reward. Something had to happen anyway. A deed like that couldn’t go unnoticed, even though it didn’t really matter as I had found the money, not earned it. What the hell, I would find someone who needed help, and not only would I give them my foundling, I would give them £10 of my own. Let’s face it, there are too many people who need help in this world, in this city.
I had a late lunch, my office manager suddenly sprang it on me that I had to cover the reception while Denise had her lunch. I sat there for an hour, seething and starving, and chewing on a fingernail. And in my spare moments, staring at my note and making up even more stories for it. When Denise came back I bolted, shot into the cafe across the road, ate, and then wandered off into town to get my bearings. I walked – I still had half an hour so I had no care where I walked or what shops I strolled into. I was looking for someone to help. The obese mother, pushing two shrieking babies in a pushchair, a maroon jumper stretched tight over her sagging stomach, lank brown grey hair like string. A kid my age, limping with a left leg shorter than the right. A blind man, walking in his very own space, the people around him clearing a sort of plaugue path so he could walk safely with his cane without whacking anyone’s ankles. Worried looking woman pushing her husband in a wheelchair through the centre. No. no. No. No. And no to the pregnant fourteen year old crouched outside greggs holding her hand for the cash I was not prepared to give. I wanted someone like me. A fool. Someone who had made their mistakes and didn’t regret them for what they were, only regretted the consequences.
I was on the way back to work when I saw her. A little girl in a blueish dress and blue tights. As I got closer I saw that the dress was green with blue flowers, and she was older then she looked. MAybe a couple of years older than me, but the same sort of soul. Someone who had dared to stand up for what she wanted and had suffered the backlash. As last I was running to meet her. She didn’t appear to be going anywhere though, standing against the wall of a shop, obviously lost. I hurled myself at her in case she ran and touched her arm. “Hey!” She recoiled in surprise and nervousness. Her brown eyes were huge, the face of a frightened bambi. I wanted to soothe her and say ‘Whoa there, girl. Easy’. She was like a spooked foal or something. “It’s ok. Whats wrong? I can see there’s something wrong…”
As I spoke, I felt the arm I held lightly relax a little. “I’m all right. I only want to find the train station. I need to get to Cambridge.”
“Bloody hell. You’re a long way from home!” I tried to make a joke of it, even though she had a simialr East Midlands accent to me, although not as sloppy.
She backed off again then. “I don’t have any money. I can’t go home.”
That was all I needed. I didn’t even want to know her story. I had enough of an imagination to imagine it. And it would keep me occupied for the rest of the day, as well as the bus journey home. It would save me thinking about Freddie anyway…. I said, “
No, that’s not a mistake, I deliberately left it in midsentence.
