Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (32 page)

I put the notebook in my bag and walked down to the Broadway to meet Shazia at the café. She was
there already, sipping her hot chocolate. I don't know what I'd do without Shazia. Now I'd got used to it, I really appreciated that she was so hands-off about my money. Although I wished she'd agree to come with the rest of us to Ibiza for the summer.

Specialist travel agents are the best. They've usually visited the places they're selling you.

‘Hey, Shaz, had second thoughts?' I knew she'd say no. Where Shaz and I differ, fundamentally, is that she loves not having to worry about what her decisions should be, whereas I quite like working things out.

But even Shaz could surprise me. She gave me a huge grin and said, ‘Well, not exactly, but guess where my parents are taking us on holiday?'

‘No! Shaz! No!
Squeee!
'

‘Just a few miles away! We'll be able to meet up!'

‘Oh, Shaz, that's the best news ever!'

‘What's the best news ever?'

‘Jack! Shaz is coming to Ibiza.'

Jack's smile was straight from a mouthwash ad.

‘I'm not staying with you lot . . . we'll be a few miles away,' said Shaz, hastily, dipping her head to hide her blush.

Jack sat down heavily on the chair next to her and said, ‘That's the coolest thing I've heard since Lia said
she was going to buy Hard as Nails from my mum.'

‘It was the best way of expanding the bakery,' I pointed out. ‘It wasn't because it was your mum, or because I felt bad or guilty or anything. A purely business transaction. We're never going to develop the brand unless we have a bigger kitchen.'

‘You've got the builders in now, haven't you?'

‘Yeah, and I've been talking to the architect about making the upstairs a kind of workshop. So I can do more with the vintage clothes side of things, the customising, you know. I've got some great ideas. I know I won't be able to do much until I've got my A levels and been to uni, but I can start things up, can't I?'

Without qualifications you could end up with a pretty boring life, even if you're not worried about money. In fact, not worrying about money might make it even duller. . .

‘Why are you writing in your notebook all the time?' demanded Jack.

‘Oh . . . I'm just noting things down when they occur to me. I'm thinking of writing, you know, a book. A guide for people who win the lottery. Young people like me. It's much more difficult than you'd think.'

Jack spluttered a cloud of croissant crumbs. ‘Who's
going to read that? A self-help book for teenage millionaires?
Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery
? You must be joking.'

‘It's a great idea,' said loyal Shaz.

‘Well, I hope you're going to spice it up with highlights of your love life, Lia, or it'll be pretty dull.'

I thumped him gently. ‘Oh, do you? Well, I don't go in for kiss and tell. And it's not going to be for sale. I'm going to give it to Gilda, so they can hand it on when teenagers win the lottery.'

‘Blimey, Lia, you've got enough money to help thousands of people all over the world, and the ones you're worrying about are the lottery winners?'

‘Not just them,' I said, ‘but we matter too. And I am trying to help lots of other people in other ways.'

‘Yes she is,' said Shaz. ‘Why do you think she wants to study International Development at uni?'

‘I know, quite saintly, young Lia, isn't she? Must be our good influence, Shaz. I knew we'd get through to her in the end. Oh, by the way, Lia, Rafe says he's got to cover for his brother across the road. I think he'd be glad to see you.'

‘Don't call him that!'

‘My good friend Rafe? He won't mind. . .'

And he wouldn't, I knew it, because since Raf got a
place in the school's A team, and Jack started doing shifts in my dad's bakery, they had become quite matey.

Luckily, I could trust Jack to keep a secret.

So I walked over the road, and found Raf in the internet café, and listened to him enthuse about the new recipes he was printing off for my dad to try, and how he'd been researching local farmers' markets, and how, if my dad would start making stoneground, organic loaves with seeds and apricots, he reckoned we could do really well. . . Sometimes it felt like I was dating a candidate from
The Apprentice
.

‘Enough!' I said. ‘Way too much detail. Talk to my dad about it. I want to know if you've heard from
your
dad. How did he get on?'

‘How would I have heard from him?'

‘On your
phone
, Raf, for God's sake. I told him to send you a text.'

Raf shuddered. ‘I don't want to hear about it. It was your mum's worst ever idea, putting him in touch with those television people.'

‘It's fine. He'll be brilliant. Telling his celebrity anecdotes and advising people on their clothes.'

‘It'll just feed his gigantic ego. I'm not having anything to do with it.'

Raf hadn't actually spoken to his dad since he
discovered he'd sold loads of his amazing vintage clothes on eBay. I'd had to dissuade him from reporting his dad. I'd certainly never admitted that I'd taken more than a few choice items off Nick's hands. Some people, like Shazia and Raf, like rules. Others – like Nick and me – prefer to be more flexible.

No one could say that Raf's life was easy or simple. And there were times – when he got tense and pale and sleepless – that I worried about him. He wasn't mysterious any more, but he wasn't exactly your normal boy. But then I wasn't really a normal girl any more.

Raf shut the computer down, collected his printouts and put them carefully into a folder.

‘Shaz is coming to Ibiza!' I said, hoping Raf would be pleased. Ibiza had been a difficult subject ever since I booked his ticket without telling him. In the end, my dad had persuaded him that he deserved a bonus for being Top Bakery Employee. Rita and Norma were fine about it, because I bought them cruise tickets for Christmas.

‘I'm writing a book,' I told him. ‘A guide, to help people who win the lottery. So they're prepared for some of the stuff that happened to me . . . so they don't make stupid mistakes.'

And he laughed at me, and said, ‘Oh, so you'd have read a guide, would you? Something telling you what to do?'

‘Well . . . I'd have been interested. . .'

‘Yeah, but you wouldn't have actually followed anyone else's advice, would you? You'd have just rushed ahead, done your own thing.'

‘Well . . . I would. But not everyone's like me.'

‘No, that's true. You're unique.' He smiled at me, and he put his arms around me, and it was just like the night I won, all over again.

All the very best things in my life didn't come because I won the lottery. They came from the people that love me. That's why I'm lucky.

But I'm still glad that I won.

Many thanks to Liz Parker, Andy Carter and Irma Dawkins of Camelot who contributed so much information and ideas. Getting their help was invaluable. I take full responsibility, however, for the inaccuracy of some details of the ‘whole winner experience', introduced for story-telling reasons. Rest assured that if you win the lottery, the help you get will be even more professional and caring than that given by Gilda and Kevin the bank manager.

And thanks to Marsha Healey, Andrew Wigman and Jessica Pitcairn for telling me about debt, money management and Islam.

Thanks to Deborah Nathan for the palatial office space, and to Katie Frankel, Mark, Hannah and Zoe Berman for allowing me to hijack their home.

Thanks to all at Frances Lincoln, especially Maurice Lyon and Emily Sharratt, and to all at Andrew Nurnberg Associates, especially Jenny Savill and Ella Kahn.

Thanks to the Finsbury Library ladies – Anna, Amanda, Jennifer, Lydia, Becky and Fenella – and to Mum, Hannah and Jimmy for reading.

Most of all, thanks to Laurence, Phoebe and Judah for putting up with a lot of grouchiness and for going on holiday so I could finish this book.

• In most American and Australian states you have to be
eighteen
to play the lottery. In the UK the age limit is
sixteen
. In France there is no minimum age at which you can start playing the lottery.

• Your chance of being a jackpot winner in a standard lottery is
one
in 13,983,816.

• Callie Rogers was one of Britain's youngest ever winners in 2003, when, aged
sixteen
, she won
£1.9 million
. Seven years later, she told a magazine that she was down to her last £100,000 and wanted to train as a counsellor.