All the Fun of the Fair: A hilarious, brilliantly original coming-of-age story that will capture your heart
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Praise for Caroline Hulse
‘Genuinely unputdownable books are rare in my experience. This is one. A brilliant, original comedy’
Daily Mail
‘A joyously wicked read that will cheer you up no end. A genuine tonic. So clever, so funny and so refreshingly different. I loved it’
Ruth Jones, co-creator of Gavin & Stacey
‘I have a feeling Caroline Hulse might be a genius, this book is so brilliant. Funny, clever and original’
Lucy Vine, author of Hot Mess
‘Razor-sharp comedy’
Sunday Mirror
‘Witty, whip-smart and wincingly observant, pure entertainment from start to finish. A Caroline Hulse book is a reading highlight of my year’
Cathy Bramley, author of The Lemon Tree Café
‘I loved The Adults! Funny, dry and beautifully observed. Highly recommended’
Gill Simms, author of Why Mummy Swears
‘A deliciously dark comedy of manners’
Daily Express
‘Like A House On Fire is everything I love in a book. A sharply observed study of relationships packed with subtle wit . . . What a triumph!’
Josie Silver, author of One Day in December
‘Brilliantly funny’
Good Housekeeping
‘A very funny writer and a wonderfully compassionate observer of human frailty’
Kate Eberlen, author of Miss You
‘Packed with sharp wit, engaging characters and off-beat humour, this is a fresh and feisty thrill-ride of a novel’
Heat
‘Painfully astute and brilliantly funny, Like A House On Fire is a triumph of a novel’
Beth O’Leary, author of The Flatshare
‘I loved it - funny and sad and relatable and deeply human’
Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange
‘Acutely observed and brilliantly funny. Very Nina Stibbe’
Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go
‘Sheer delight from start to finish’
Lesley Kara, author of The Rumour
‘Such a breath of fresh air! Witty, intensely human and (dare I say it) relatable’
Katie Khan, author of Hold Back The Stars
‘A keenly observed tale of family intrigue and craziness that will make you laugh and touch your heart’
Mike Gayle, author of Half a World Away
‘Funny, moving and astute. A triumph!’
Nicola Mostyn, author of The Love Delusion
‘A total joy from start to finish . . . Readers will all recognise (with affection) someone within its pages’
Charlotte Duckworth, author of The Rival
‘Absolutely loved Like A House On Fire. A proper delight’
Richard Roper, author of Something To Live For
‘A fantastic, moving and hilarious novel about family life, heartbreak, and the right and wrong kinds of crisps’
Sophie Hannah, author of Haven’t They Grown
Contents
Praise for Caroline Hulse
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
About the Author
Also by Caroline Hulse
Credits
Copyright
Prologue
Every year at primary school, the teachers held a special lesson when the fair came to town.
When I was six, we drew the fair.
Hunched over my section of the art table, I scratched out stick figures and shapes, mashing the coloured pencils across my sugar paper with a hard fist. I zigzagged across the page, showing the blur of a busy crowd.
‘Great work!’ Mrs Finnegan said. ‘Now get your names on your pictures so we can put them on the wall.’
Mrs Finnegan must have taught little kids for so long, she’d forgotten what good pictures looked like.
Six-year-olds’ drawings. On the wall.
When I was seven, we painted it.
I outlined a smash of candyfloss and people and lights. I circled my brush through purples and yellows in a whirling merry-go-round, stopping before the colours turned brown. I painted shapes round the edges, filling the paper.
I felt I was doing OK – until Martha leaned over the art table. ‘Is that a chicken?’
I dropped my paintbrush. I shot my arms straight by my sides, hands pointing down like a soldier’s. ‘No.’
‘It’s got a beak, though.’
Green paint glooped from my brush onto the picture.
‘You do know what the fair is, Fi-on-a? You’re not getting confused with pets’ corner?’
‘I did paint a chicken, I remember now.’ I gripped my seat with both hands. ‘One of the farmers brought his best chicken to the fair with him. As a treat.’
Martha looked round the table at the others and held her mouth open in a silent laugh. A string of spit hung between her top and bottom sets of teeth.
I knocked my paintbrush onto my skirt, making a green splat, which worked because Mrs Leyland came over and made a fuss. But then I went home and Mum made that revving noise in her throat, and went on about being careful and is that washable? Please tell me it’s washable, and Jonathan, have a look at this mess, and you’re lucky we won’t make you go to school in your pants tomorrow, Fiona.
Which I knew wasn’t true, even then.
And now I’m eleven, I know it’s not true. (Because of paedos.)
Still, I was in trouble.
When I was eight, school had just broken up for the summer when the fair came to town.
That was a good year.
When I was nine, we wrote haikus.
The fair is so loud
The rides spin and people scream
And so do my ears.
I knew how the fair sounded. I’d hung out of my bedroom window li
ke Rapunzel – except a crap Rapunzel who has nothing to dangle out, whose hair only reaches her shoulders because her mum says it’s easier to manage that way.
I leaned out of the window and I heard the screams and the fast, fuzzy music. I watched the glow of the dancing lights, bouncing back from the metal shutters of the garage over the road.
The rides are so fun
That the people inside feel
The joy of a king.
When I was ten, Mum had a word with my teacher, and there wasn’t a special lesson.
But kids brought their winning toys in anyway, a fluffy turquoise army of stuffed owls, all propped up fatly up at the side of the room against their owners’ lunchboxes. This is what you could have had.
‘Where’s your owl, Fiona?’ Martha asked, though she knew the answer.
‘Didn’t get one.’ I held my voice light. ‘Don’t like owls.’
That evening, I stopped with Mum and Grandma at a service station, and spotted a claw machine magically full of the same stuffed owls, all wedged inside, edge-to-edge, in a turquoise, big-eyed sea.
When Mum and Grandma went into the toilet cubicles, I nipped back out to the machine with the pound coins Grandma had just given me.
I put the first pound in the slot and concentrated on the buttons.
Steer steer steer stop. Steer steer steer stop. Drop.
A wing! Yesss, hold on tight! It’s going up but what’s that, don’t slip, no no no, please don’t, please don’t – no!
I put the next pound in.
I hooked an eye. The pincer looked firmly lodged behind the plastic and lifted the owl confidently, straight up, with only the tiniest sway, but – hang on, what are you doing? You were gripping! KEEP GRIPPING, please don’t – no!
I put the coins in, one after another, pushing desperately at the buttons. Watching the claw pinch my chosen owl and lift it for a few magical seconds. Watching in slow motion as the claw dropped the owl, sending it rotating slowly through the air, bumping back into the fluffy turquoise sea.
Mum and Grandma found me there, in tears.
‘You spent it all?’ Grandma’s T-shirt said Don’t Worry, Be Happy. ‘But why, darling?’
Mum made a line with her lips. ‘You just snuck out of the toilets without asking? And thought it was OK?’
‘All the kids have owls. They got them at the fair.’
Grandma turned to Mum. ‘Gail,’ she said softly.
Mum made hard eyes at Grandma. ‘What were you thinking of, Mum, giving a kid ten pounds for no reason?’
‘Hey now.’ Grandma stood up straighter. ‘I can give my granddaughter treats when I can afford it.’
Mum shook her head. ‘If you’d asked me, I’d have told you she wouldn’t spend it on anything useful.’ Mum made a jerky gesture at me. ‘And now she’s all upset.’
I cried some more. ‘Can you give me more money, Grandma?’
Grandma glanced at Mum and gave me a flat smile of no. And it wasn’t mentioned again, though Grandma did post me a stuffed owl toy when she was back in Glasgow at the weekend. I said thank you, like I meant it, and didn’t tell her the owl was the wrong size and colour, with long skinny woven legs rather than a ball of fluff. I didn’t tell her it was the wrong owl, and a week too late.
Mr Lincoln might not have mentioned the fair in class that year – the year I went double digits, not as life-changing as I was expecting – but it was all anyone talked about in the playground.
‘If you’re a group of girls, you get pushed by the fit boy on the Waltzers.’ Martha cradled her owl like a baby, supporting its head. ‘How old do you think the boy is, Fiona?’
I swallowed a crisp. It spiked my throat from the inside. ‘Eighteen?’
‘Hmm.’ Martha looked at Amy and back. ‘Did anyone see Fiona at the fair?’
The other girls shook their heads with their whole bodies, the action reflecting sunlight from the big owl eyes they all had sticking out of the tops of their rucksacks.
I swallowed hard but the crisp stayed lodged. ‘Probably no one saw me because I went at night. On Thursday.’ I put my hands to my throat. ‘At eleven o’clock. My parents say I’m mature so I’m fine to stay up.’
Martha nodded. ‘What was your favourite ride?’
I thumped my throat with my fists to make the crisp move. ‘Ghost Train.’
Martha looked at the others and back. ‘The Ghost Train was out of order on Thursday.’ She spoke in a voice that was so kind, it did a whole circle back to not being kind at all.
‘It was out of order.’ I didn’t notice the stuck crisp anymore. ‘But my dad fixed it.’
Martha looked at the others and back at me.
‘He used to fix things,’ I said. ‘He was an engineer before he was a postman. That’s actually true.’
I know now that if you say that’s actually true, it doesn’t help.
Martha shook her head at me. ‘The Ghost Train wasn’t broken on Thursday. It was a test.’
I pretended to see something fascinating in the nature area.
‘You failed the test,’ Martha said.
I narrowed my eyes at the imaginary thing. ‘Hang on, is that . . .’
I moved across the playground, as if pulled by the beam of a UFO. Past Mr Crane, who was shouting, ‘Stop bunching!’ at the footballing boys moving in one zigzagging clump.
I stood by the nature area, studying a bit of soil. I pretended I didn’t notice what the girls were saying behind me. Even though the words were being said specially for me.
That might have been the same day I cut off Martha’s plait.
In fact – I’m pretty sure it was.
But because school scissors are rubbish, I didn’t get the whole way through. I was still sawing at the plait when Mr Lincoln ran over and grabbed me. Still, I was happy with all the hair on the floor by the time he managed to pull me away.
Turns out kids like me are the reason they give you blunt scissors in primary school.
That night, alone in my bedroom to think about what I had done, I sat with my book of lists.
Next Year
1)I’ll be eleven
2)It’ll be 1996
3)I’ll have started high school
4)I’ll finally be in the same school as Lewis Harris from swimming club
5)I’ll have other friends too – proper ones. Girls, even. Definitely not Martha.
6)I won’t do weird stuff anymore
7)I’ll be normal
Normal. No more of the bad stuff, the Fiona stuff – like the plait-cutting, or that thing with the monkey bars. The kind of stuff I didn’t know why it happened, except it just did because I was STUPID STUPID FIONA.
Not next year. If anyone asked about me next year, people would say, Fiona Larson? Oh, she’s the normal one. Really normal.
I added the most important line.
8)I’ll GO TO THE FAIR
I snapped my book shut.
Next year. It was happening.
Next year.
1
One year later
A good spy stays alert to changes in his surroundings.
The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™
Thirty-nine days to the fair
I found the secret bag on the way to school, on the first day back after half-term.
I’d been walking through the park, looking up at the blackening sky, wondering when summer would feel, well, summery, like in the adverts, when I spotted a white shape between the leaves of the park’s second-biggest bush.
I dropped my rucksack on the grass, hitched up my skirt, and crawled into the bush’s open den-space. I pulled the white shape – a plastic bag – from the leaves, my heart beating fast. I took a breath and opened the bag.
Magazines. Nine magazines �
�� all with girls on the front.
So many girls.
Girls in underwear, girls in bikinis. Naked girls with their arms covering their bits.
It’s a long time since I’ve believed in hidden treasure, but still.
I flicked through the first magazine.
Inside – girls, everywhere. Naked girls, without arms over their bits. Girls in the shower, lying-down girls. Girls on all fours, sleepy girls, confused-looking girls. Girls with no clothes on, but still in shoes. Girls who looked both old and young at the same time, who didn’t look anything like the girls I knew. Or the mums. I didn’t think even Selina Baker and the sixth-formers would look like this naked.
After looking at so many pages, my brain was swimming with bellybuttons and legs and boobs, so I took a break by reading an article: My Favourite Things, by Kelly, 18, 36–24–36, from Winchester.
Turned out Kelly liked spending cosy evenings in with a nice fella, watching the soaps, and taking long rosy-cheeked walks with her dog in the New Forest.
I turned the page and Kelly and her friends were gone, replaced by new, shiny girls in underwear. I closed the magazine and looked up at the trees.
All in all, it was a lot to take in. I wasn’t sure I actually liked the magazines, though they were clearly treasure, so the best thing that had ever happened to me.
But I couldn’t be late for registration or I’d get done, so I slotted Kelly from Winchester back in with the others and pushed the bag back between the branches.
I crawled out of the bush and hurried into school.
I’m not meant to walk into school on my own, even though I’m nearly twelve. The hours either side of the school day are the best hours – my time. I don’t have to hurry home from school or tell my parents what I’m doing, not as long as I’m with a friend.
I was only on my own on the way in that day because, for some reason, Lewis wasn’t there to meet me at the lamppost, and you can’t always rely on Sean.
It’s fair enough that Sean doesn’t always want to walk in with us. He might have been good friends with Lewis back when they were both at Beech Avenue Primary, but there are two hundred kids in our year at high school. There are a lot more kids for Sean to choose from now.
Lewis is my best friend – has been since I lent him 10p for a cup of Ribena in the leisure centre café after swimming club, when we were seven. But Lewis isn’t as good as other boys, and it’s not his fault, exactly. It’s just Lewis doesn’t like football. And he doesn’t have a good coat and rucksack, and everyone knows, if you go to his house, the glasses taste of dishwasher. But Sean does have a good coat and rucksack, and he does like football, so Sean can make friends with better boys – maybe not the lads from the blue estate, not all the time, but better boys than Lewis. And actual boys, so better than me.