Finding Cherokee Brown

Notebook Extract

Character Questionnaire No. 1

‘When I started out in my writing career, many years ago, writing short stories and serials for The Respected Lady magazine, the Character Questionnaire became my most cherished friend. Use the template below before you start your story to get to know your own characters even better than you know yourself.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

OK, I’ve got a bit of a problem. I’ve been trying to do a Character Questionnaire on my main character – namely me. And that’s the problem: the ‘namely’ bit. I mean, who would choose to call their main character Claire Weeks? It’s hardly exciting, is it? Hardly the name of a kick-ass literary heroine. I’ll just have to invent myself a new name. A heroic name. A name that will sit proudly alongside Anne Frank and Laura Ingalls Wilder on bookshelves and not want to cower in embarrassment.

Possible Kick-Ass Literary Heroine Names:

Roxy Montana – too much like Hannah?

Ruby Fire – naff !

Laura Wild – too similar to one of my real literary heroines.

Anna Franklyn – ditto.

Jet Steele – sounds like a female wrestler!

Hmm, I guess I’ll come back to my name later or I’ll never get started on the book. I’ll just stay as Claire for now. And keep my surname as Weeks, even though it sounds like ‘weak’. Just another great thing to thank my stepdad Alan for, I guess. Along with a knowledge of Neil Diamond that borders on child abuse. Why can’t he listen to music from after 1980? And songs that don’t have titles like ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’! Is it any wonder I’ve been driven to seek refuge in the world of literature?

Anyway, back to the questionnaire:

Character’s name:

Claire Weeks (soon to be changed to something way more kick-ass).

Character’s age:

Fifteen (well, fifteen in one day’s time).

Briefly describe your character’s appearance:

She is short and thin, with dark brown shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She needs a radical makeover.

What kind of clothes do they wear?

Black.

How do they get on with their parents?

They don’t.

What physical objects do they associate with their parents?

An iPhone permanently attached to her stepdad’s hand like some kind of growth. And a collection of tracksuits in every colour of the rainbow for her mum.

Do they have any brothers or sisters?

No, but they have a couple of alien life forms from the Planet Obnoxious posing as seven-year-old twin brothers.

What was their childhood like?

Grim – and it still is.

Think of one positive and one negative event from their past and how it has shaped them:

Hmm, well, the first thing that springs to mind is the day Helen moved away to Bognor Regis. This was mortally negative on two counts: firstly, I lost my one true friend and secondly, who wants to live in a place that is named after a bog? Seriously! And just because some bright spark added the word Regis (which I think means royal), it doesn’t make it any less bog-sounding. Then there was the time last summer when I wanted to go to the Hyde Park Music Festival, but Alan said I couldn’t because Jay-Z was headlining and he felt that listening to too much rap music would be ‘bad for my personal development’. Like listening to Neil Diamond droning on about being ‘forever in blue jeans’ isn’t?!! Of course, my mum agreed with him. She always agrees with Alan because he is a life coach and therefore ‘an expert at life’. I’m not so sure about that. As far as I can tell, being a life coach basically means that you charge people a load of money to tell them how messed up their lives are and then charge them another load to tell them they need to fix it.

Alan’s company is called OH YES YOU CAN! and he likes to do those really annoying mimed speech mark things with his fingers whenever he’s talking and wants to emphasise a word. For example, when I told him that I don’t even like rap and I actually wanted to go to the music festival to see the rock band Screaming Death, he looked at me and sighed and said, ‘I don’t really think that subjecting yourself to a day of heavy metal would really be "helpful" for your personal development either, Claire.’ And he wiggled two fingers on each hand around the word helpful. Personally I think he is a "complete moron".

Right, better try and think of a positive event for my character. There was the moment I made friends with Helen, on our first day at Rayners High. I’d been sitting in our classroom, faking smiles like I had a twitch while thinking, Oh, God, why couldn’t I have been born in 1867 to a pioneer family in the American Midwest and only have to worry about making it through the next winter rather than seven long years at high school? But then, when one of the boys started teasing this Asian girl and everyone else started laughing, I caught sight of Helen. I could see from the way she was frowning that she was thinking the exact same as me – this boy is a total loser. As soon as I managed to make eye contact with her I sort of raised one eyebrow, the way I’d seen this sarcastic cop character do on TV, and she did the same back and then we both started smiling – but proper, mean-it smiles rather than oh-my-god-my-jaw-is-going-to-break-if-I-have-to-prop-this-thing-up-any-longer kind of smiles.

That was a whole four years ago now. It’s been six months since Helen moved away. Her leaving is another reason for me writing a book. I don’t really have anyone to talk to any more – not anyone who gets me. And the great thing about having an imaginary reader is that you can write exactly what you want, how you want, and you can at least pretend that they’ll like and understand you. And won’t want to beat you up or call you names.

How does your character speak?

Too fast apparently, at least according to her mum and Miss Davis, her form tutor.

What is their favourite meal?

Fish and chips wrapped in paper, with loads of salt and vinegar, outside on a freezing cold day.

Do they believe in God?

No. Don’t know. Maybe. But not a God with a long white beard who sits on a cloud. I gave up on that one the year we went to Florida on holiday and I stared out of the window looking for God for the entire eight-hour flight. No one lives on clouds. At all.

What is their bedroom like?

Full of books. And full of mess according to my mum, but she doesn’t get it. I know where everything is and I like having everything close to hand, not shut away in cupboards or filed away on shelves like everything else in our house.

What is your character’s motto in life?

Tidying is for wimps. And cleaning is for people with way too much time on their hands, who should be made to move somewhere deadly dull – like Bognor Regis.

Does your character have any secrets?

Yes. Since Helen left I’ve skipped school three times to go up to the Southbank to people-watch for the day. And although everyone in my class – including my teacher – knows I’m being bullied, my parents don’t. What a great secret!

What makes them jealous?

People who are happy and don’t ever get picked on.

Do they have any pets?

No, because a stray dog hair or morsel of cat food might get on to the carpet and cause their parents to have a total freak-out.

Is their glass half full?

She’s currently drinking a can – of coke – and it’s nearly empty. Bit of a random question!

Have they ever lost anyone dear to them?

Helen when she moved away. And I guess there’s my real dad. Although he left when I was just a baby and moved to America, ‘because he had commitment issues and was incapable of growing up’ according to my mum, and I’ve never seen him since. Can you lose something if you can’t remember ever having it?

Who do they most admire?

Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne Frank.

Are they popular?

No. But I try not to let this get to me because I wouldn’t really want to be popular with most of the people I go to school with anyway. It’s kind of like asking Anne Frank if she’d want to be popular with the Nazis.

Do they love themselves?

No, of course not!

What is their motivating force in life?

To get through a day without being beaten up.

What is their core need in life?

To not feel like the wrong part in a jigsaw all of the time.

What is their mindset at the beginning of your story and what do they want?

She is totally fed up and she wants to change everything. Everything.

Chapter One

‘Dear writer, imagine if you will that your reader is a trout, swimming merrily downstream. The first paragraph of your novel should be like the maggot on the end of the fisherman’s line. Juicy and appealing to the point of irresistible. Hook them with that and then let the rest of your first chapter reel them in.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

If you could pick any date in the calendar to find out that you aren’t actually who you thought you were then I suppose your birthday is pretty much perfect. Today, on my fifteenth birthday, I found out that for my entire life I’ve been living a lie.

I actually got up before my parents this morning as they’d been to this cringey conference called ‘Unleash Your Inner Tiger’ last night and didn’t get home till late. Well, when I say late, I mean late for them. They got back at twelve-thirty. I know this because I was still up re-reading The Bell Jar at the time. Normally, my parents go to bed at nine so they can get up mega early and do an hour of Nordic Walking before work. Nordic Walking should be renamed How-to-Totally-Humiliate-Your-Kids Walking. It basically involves striding about in giant steps while holding a pole in each hand – the type of poles you use when you’re skiing. This wouldn’t look so weird if you were hiking your way through a snow drift, or up a mountain. But when you’re walking down a London street in the middle of summer it looks about twenty different kinds of wrong. Anyway, when I got up this morning at seven, there was no sign of them, their walking poles or the twins.

I poured myself a glass of icy water from the fridge and sat down at the breakfast bar, wondering if there was any chance Mum and Alan would let me have the day off as it’s my birthday. But getting Alan to agree to me bunking off is like getting the Pope to sell his soul to the Devil – it’s never going to happen. So I sat there sipping at my water, hoping it would dilute some of my usual morning sickness. I’m not expecting a baby or anything – just another crap day at school. To be honest, I haven’t even been kissed before, let alone anything else. Well, I’ve been parent-kissed, and too-much-perfume-Grandma-kissed, but not heart-trembling, knee-quivering, boy-kissed. So there’s probably more chance of the Pope getting pregnant, but anyway . . .

When the post plopped through the letter box I nearly didn’t bother going to see if there were any cards for me. I mean, all of my friends would be giving them to me in person in school, wouldn’t they – ha ha! But then I remembered the text I got from Helen last night about the card she’d sent me with a really sick joke on the front and how I wasn’t to open it in front of my parents. So I put down my water and trudged along the hall to the door. Fanned out across the doormat were a couple of the insane magazines Alan subscribes to – Get a Life! and Do It Now! – and some brown, bill-looking envelopes for my mum. Poking out from underneath them I could see two that were obviously cards. I picked them up but only one – the one in Helen’s handwriting – was addressed to me. The other one, in a bright blue envelope, was addressed to someone called Cherokee Brown. I double-checked the address, thinking that the postman had delivered it by mistake; there was no way someone with such a cool name could be living in Magnolia Crescent. The most exciting thing to happen around here is when the milkman leaves an extra pint by accident. But the address was definitely ours. I was still turning the envelope over in my hand when Mum came bounding down the stairs in her bright pink tracksuit.

‘Happy birthday, pumpkin,’ she called, coming over to give me a kiss. Then she saw what I was holding and said, ‘Ooh, a birthday card. Is it from Helen?’

I shook my head. ‘No. The other one is. This one’s for someone called Cherokee Brown.’

Mum stared at me as if I’d said, ‘This one’s for someone called Adolf Hitler,’ before snatching the card from my hand.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as she marched off down the hall and into the kitchen. By the time I got there she was stuffing the card into the bin.

‘Well, it’s not for you so we’d better get rid of it,’ she replied, her voice all weirdy high.

‘Yes, but aren’t we supposed to put it back into the mail or something? Return it to sender like that Elvis song Alan’s always singing.’

‘Dad,’ Mum muttered.

‘What?’

‘You should call him Dad, not Alan.’

‘All right, Dad’s always singing.’ Now was clearly not the time to get into the whole what-I-should-call-Alan debate. Deciding to play it cool, I sat back down at the breakfast bar and yawned loudly. ‘Haven’t I even got a card from my own mother then?’

Mum’s shoulders softened and she gave me a half smile. ‘Of course you have. I’ll go and get it. And the boys. Then I’ll make us all some breakfast and we can give you your pressies.’

I made my face grin. ‘Great.’

As soon as she left the kitchen I darted over to the bin and pulled out the card. The envelope was dotted with grease. I stuffed it inside my dressing gown and ran up the three flights of stairs to my room. Just like Mrs Rochester I live in the attic. (Actually it’s a loft conversion but that doesn’t sound quite as dramatic, does it?) Flinging the pile of books from my beanbag I sat down, pulled out the card and studied the writing. It was in slightly wonky capitals – like it was from someone who couldn’t write very neatly but was trying really hard. I took a deep breath and slid my finger under the seal. I ought to tell you now that if there was a question in Agatha Dashwood’s Character Questionnaire saying, ‘Do they make a habit of opening other people’s mail?’ the answer would be a definite no. But something had got my mum rattled and I wanted to know what it was.

I pulled the card from the envelope. The picture on the front was of a country landscape. It was the kind of card you’d buy for an elderly aunt. Or someone who likes cleaning and lives in Bognor. It wasn’t really the sort of thing I’d imagine someone called Cherokee going crazy for.

I opened it. There was no printed message or naff rhyme inside; instead the person who’d sent it had written HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY in large crooked capitals in the middle. At the top, in smaller writing, they had put To Cherokee and at the bottom from Steve. And at the very bottom, in tiny letters, as if they hadn’t been sure whether to say it at all, they had written: P.S. You can find me most lunchtimes performing in Spitalfields Market. By the record stalls. If you want to find me . . .

‘What are you doing?’

By the time I’d registered that my bedroom door had opened, Mum was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the card in my hand. Then her gaze dropped to the bright blue envelope on the floor.

‘I’m just –’ I broke off, and I could feel my face flushing. What was I doing, opening somebody else’s mail?

Mum marched over, holding out her hand. ‘I thought I told you to leave it,’ she hissed. ‘Give it to me.’

I tightened my grip on the card. ‘You didn’t tell me to leave it, you just threw it in the bin.’

‘Exactly. So why would you want to get it out and open it?’ Beneath the sheen of her morning moisturiser I could see that her face was flushed too.

‘Because –’

But before I could go on Mum made a sudden lurch for the card. I rolled over on the beanbag just out of reach.

‘I wanted to read it,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see what had got you so spooked.’

‘I’m not spooked,’ Mum spluttered, waving her hands about like an extremely spooked person. ‘But you can’t go reading other people’s mail. It’s not right.’

‘Oh, and binning it is?’ I stumbled to my feet, clutching the card to my chest. ‘It’s really weird, because this person, Cherokee Brown, is fifteen today too. Don’t you think that’s a bit of a coincidence? That we share the same birthday and someone thinks we share the same address.’ I didn’t have a clue what the coincidence meant, but it was obvious from her flushed face that Mum did.

‘What did he say?’ she asked, staring at me.

‘What did who say?’ I watched as her gaze dropped to the card.

‘What did he say?’ This time Mum almost screamed it. I looked at her in shock.

‘What’s going on, ladies?’ We both turned to see Alan poking his head round the door. He never actually sets foot in my room – I think he can sense the anti-life-coaching force field I’ve erected with my mental powers to keep him out. ‘Fiona? Claire? Is everything OK?’

‘Yes, yes, everything’s fine,’ Mum replied sharply over her shoulder. ‘Can you go and get the boys up for breakfast? We’ll be down in a minute.’

Alan smiled, his teeth all square and straight like the white keys on a piano. ‘Okey-dokey. Happy birthday, Claire-Bear.’

I gritted my teeth and smiled back. ‘Thanks.’

As soon as we heard his feet padding off down the stairs Mum and I turned back to look at each other.

‘What did who say, Mum? And how did you know it was from a man?’ I waved the card at her. ‘You know who sent this, don’t you? You recognised the writing and that’s why you threw it in the bin. Who is he? Who’s Steve? And who is Cherokee Brown? Why won’t you just tell me?’

Mum’s head slumped. She stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her tracksuit top and scuffed one of her bare feet on the floor. She looked like a little girl who’d just been told she couldn’t go out to play.

‘You are,’ she muttered.

‘What?’

‘You are Cherokee Brown.’

Chapter Two

‘It never ceases to amaze me how many writers seem to forget that they have five senses. When you are describing a scene don’t just tell the reader what your character is seeing, write about what they can hear, smell, touch and taste as well.’

Agatha Dashwood,

So You Want to Write a Novel?

When most people hear laughter they instantly look around to see where the joke is and whether they can join in. But when you know that you actually are the joke, even the slightest snigger makes you want to crawl behind the nearest rock and hide. Unfortunately there aren’t any rocks on the way to school. There isn’t anything much except house after boring house, all exactly the same with their paved front gardens and green wheelie bins standing guard like giant toads. I’ve tried loads of things to make the walk more interesting and less like a death-row march. Spying through gaps in net curtains, making up weird titles from the letters on car number plates, only treading on the cracks in the pavement. But today, for the first time in months, I didn’t have to do anything to take my mind off the laughter that I knew was coming. My head was rammed to the brim with my mum’s revelation. I was Cherokee Brown, or at least that was what I’d been called when I was first born, and the card was from my real dad whose name, apparently, is Steve Brown.

But why had he got in touch now – after fifteen years of nothing? Why had he come back from America? What had happened to his ‘commitment issues’? Question after question kept popping into my head, but I still