• A story is not an easy thing to write, especially when it’s your own. Why would anyone want to know what’s going on in my life? I’m boring. I don’t have that many friends, no real hobbies, nothing. I’m a vaguely pointless person sometimes. Then I found out that no-one is pointless unless they choose to be that way. What does it matter what anyone else thinks of me? I’m me and that’s all that matters. But it’s taken me a long time to find that out.


    I was just two years old when I was adopted by John and Rose. I always knew I was adopted – it’s never bothered me. There were other things to worry about – trust me, you’ll see. Anyway, Stephy was four when I arrived, all pink and pigtails (she still is actually). She hated the fact that she had to give up her second best playroom for me. You see John and Rose had money. Lots of money. This is because John and Rose are Jonathan and Rosalie McArthur, the IT couple of the 90’s with both of them still starring in daytime TV soaps. And Stephy is THAT Stephy, presenter of “Bubblegum!” a place where pink, fake tan and plastic are their three major deities. And no, she doesn’t know what a deity is. You can tell this is soooo not my scene.

    Music and reading are my life. It seems like writing is going to become part of that too. People need to know that there are actually some downsides to this kid of a celebrity crap.

    Anyhoo, at two years old I was taken from a regular foster family and thrust into life as a McArthur. It wasn’t pretty. There were tears and temper tantrums and that was just Mom. I was suddenly the centre of a media frenzy as “the amazing McArthur’s taken in a poor orphan”- they made it sound like I was Annie. From that day onwards I have been paraded from show to show, party to party and tabloid to tabloid. The novelty kid. The whole world watching me oh so closely. And yet I still managed to turn out fairly normal. It hasn’t been easy.

    Stephy and I fight – period. She’s the perfect daughter Mom always wanted. She has her own show, is in some cheesy teen soap, owns nothing but pink and for her 21st birthday she wants her boobs done. Barbie doesn’t even cover it.

    I’m a completely different ball game. The spare. The one who is always just outside Mom’s bubble. Skinny jeans, Converse, everything my mother and Stephy wouldn’t be caught dead in. I play baseball with my dad and surf everyday. The only thing Stephy does at the beach is sun worships.

    So that’s my crazy, crazy family. I start college in the fall – although I have to stay close to home because God FORBID I should have any independence. So read on, dear friend, and find out why living in the shiny celebrity world is not always so nice.

    Chapter One

    3, 2, 1 ….

    “BILLIE, where are my baby pink Capri pants?”

    Ah the gloriousness of a morning in my house. Stephy is better than any alarm clock that you could ever buy. And in 3, 2, 1…

    Like most mornings my bedroom door almost flew off its hinges. And, like every morning, I roll over and ignore her. She leaves eventually.

    Pulling the covers over my head I realise, not for the first time, that Stephy has a really annoying voice. I look up as I hear the thud of a Converse shoe hit the far wall. She’s pawing her way through my stuff, throwing it every where looking for those stupid pants. There goes a hoodie. I hate my sister.

    “HEY, I don’t have your stinking pants, ok? Out!” And flip flop hits the mirror on my vanity. I’m out of bed in once bounce, shutting the draw and lifting her bodily from my room. I’m not a morning person.

    So that’s what I go through every morning. This morning was no different. There’s always something she’s lost, a lip gloss, a shoe, her cell phone. I personally think that it’s her marbles that have gone AWOL.

    Eating breakfast is pretty much the only quiet time that I have. Me and my dad always eat breakfast together. Helping myself to cereal, I plonked myself down next to him. I don’t have to say anything, we both like the silence. It’s the only silence that we get in this house. Flicking through the newspaper, one particular article caught my eye. Beginning to read I realised that Stephy had broken the golden rule – she’d talked about me n an interview. I was going to kill her.

    Dad saw my hand start to screw up the page and it suddenly disappeared.

    “What?” he said, skimming the page. “Oh”

    We looked at each other.

    “Yeah, oh. I may actually have to kill her this time Dad.”

    Looking at me he knew that I was deadly serious, but he didn’t try and stop me getting up from the table. I oozed calm as I walked from the kitchen. As I got into the hallway, I took a deep cleaning breath and…

    “STEPHY, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!” It’s surprising how far a scream like that carries in a house as big as ours.

    “Jesus, will you keep it down. What wrong with you now?” She’d come from the doorway to my right, the library Dad always called it. So not only was she bitching about me in national newspaper, she was invading my personal space. Again.

    “What the hell is wrong with you Stephy? Have you got some sort of malfunction? Has all that peroxide leaked into the fluff that you call a brain?”

    She stared at me blankly. I’m used to seeing that look. I waited but still they penny didn’t drop.

    “The Teen Scream interview. The one where you tell the whole world how you think I’m a FREAK!” I was really starting to lose it.

    “What about it?” she asked all confused.

    “The one that is in a NATIONAL NEWSPAPER! How could you… I mean… AHHHHHHHHHHH” I screamed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. If that girl had any brain cells I would run through the mall butt naked, I swear to God.

    “You said I couldn’t diss the music you like. I didn’t so you can’t say I did ‘cause that would be a lie!” She was waving a finger at me now as she raised her voice to match mine.

    “So you dissed my clothes instead. And my hair. And my PERSONALITY!!!!” I was ready to rip every blonde hair out of the stupid head of hers.

    “They said they wouldn’t print that!” she screamed back at me. At least she had the decency to look vaguely embarrassed.

    A deep voice said, “But why did you say it Stephy?”

    We both whipped around at that point. Neither of us had seen Dad come into the doorway behind us. He was still holding the article in his hand. We both just stared at him. Dad never got in the middle of our fights and mom was always at some beauty parlour and didn’t hear them. We just got on with it. Hearing him speak was the last thing either of us had expected. He turned to me and knew that he wanted me to leave. I grabbed my school bag and ran. It was at that point that I knew how bad the article was. I hadn’t finished reading it. It looked like I didn’t want to.