Finding Violet Park. Jenny Valentine

       Copyright

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       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Copyright © Jenny Valentine 2007

      First published in hardback in Great Britain by Harper Collins Children’s Books 2007

      Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

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      Source ISBN: 9780007291243

      Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007394043 Version: 2015-04-01

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       For Alex and his Tardis Heart

      Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

Copyright

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

       EIGHT

       NINE

       TEN

       ELEVEN

       TWELVE

       THIRTEEN

       FOURTEEN

       FIFTEEN

       SIXTEEN

       SEVENTEEN

       EIGHTEEN

       NINETEEN

       TWENTY

       TWENTY-ONE

       TWENTY-TWO

       TWENTY-THREE

       TWENTY-FOUR

       TWENTY-FIVE

       TWENTY-SIX

       TWENTY-SEVEN

       TWENTY-EIGHT

       TWENTY-NINE

       Keep Reading

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Books by Jenny Valentine

       About the Publisher

       ONE

      The mini cab office was up a cobbled mews with little flat houses either side. That’s where I first met Violet Park, what was left of her. There was a healing centre next door – a pretty smart name for a place with a battered brown door and no proper door handle and stuck on wooden numbers in the shape of clowns. The 3 of number 13 was a w stuck on sideways and I thought it was kind of sad and I liked it at the same time.

      I never normally take cabs but it was five o’clock in the morning and I was too tired to walk anywhere and I’d just found a tenner in my coat pocket. I went in for a lift home and strolled right into the weirdest encounter of my life.

      It turns out the ten pounds wasn’t mine at all. My sister Mercy had borrowed my coat the night before – without asking – even though boys’ clothes don’t suit her and it was at least two sizes too big. She was livid with me about the money. I said maybe she should consider it rent and wouldn’t the world be a better place if people stopped taking things that didn’t belong to them?

      It’s funny when you start thinking about pivotal moments like this in your life, chance happenings that end up meaning everything. Sometimes, when I’m deciding which route to take to, say, the cinema in Camden, I get this feeling like maybe if I choose the wrong route, bad stuff will happen to me in a place I never had to go if only I’d chosen wisely. This sort of thinking can make decisions really really difficult because I’m always wondering what happens to all the choices we decide not to make. Like Mum says, as soon as she married Dad she realised she’d done the wrong thing and as she was