Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their super-strict father all their lives. Their attempts to find out what being an ordinary teenager is like — buying nice clothes instead of wearing Mum’s odd, hand-made garments, reading teenage magazines etc. — are greeted with fury by their Dad. But when he is hospitalized with a stroke, Prue suddenly discovers what it’s like to have a little freedom.

Unable to cope, their mother enrolls them at the local comprehensive where, for the first time, they experience school life. Prue had never thought it would be so so hard to fit in. The only person she can talk to is the young Art teacher, Rax. She and Rax bond over art lessons, and soon he asks her to babysit for him and his wife. This becomes a regular “date” and Prue can’t wait for the ten minutes they have alone together when he drives her home. She wonders if Rax has the same feelings for her. But he can’t act upon them, can he?


From the Trade Paperback edition.