BOOK EXTRACT: I MADE LATTES FOR A LOVE GOD

Humour may be Wendy Harmer’s tool, but the truths of travelling through teenage angst shine more brightly with a smile on your face.

I Made Lattes for a Love God is perfect reading for anyone in your life who is almost a teenager or maybe just wants to read a story that sounds a little like their life and lets them laugh at it, ever so gently.

You can read Meredith Jaffe’s full review of I Made Lattes For a Love God HERE.

Saturday morning.
January 3.

My name is Elly Pickering and I have a secret. It’s a secret that’s incredible, and I mean that in the true sense of the word. It’s really, absolutely unbelievable. It simply can’t be right.

I have to keep this secret for the entire weekend. That means there’s still forty-eight hours of brain-busting, bum-clenching, teeth-grinding silence to go!

Had I known just how huuuuge the secret was that I would be sworn to keep, I would never have pestered my mother to tell me. I blame her for blabbing. Why did she?

She must know by now that my willpower is non-existent. She must know that for the past fifteen years of my life I have:

★ Always eaten all my Easter eggs in one go before breakfast.
★ Always turned to the last page of every book I’ve ever read to find out the ending.
★ Always stuck my finger into the icing of every cake I’ve ever seen.

Why ask ME to keep a secret? It’s like putting a vampire in charge of the blood bank . . .

Oops!

Vampires.

Right there, that’s part of the secret. See, I’m practically giving it away already.

If you were sitting opposite me right now, you would see my face go as red as a tomato, my entire body start to twitch uncontrollably and you would say: ‘Hmmm, Eleanor. Is there something you’re not telling me?’

And seconds later, I would spill my guts.

Then I would swear you to secrecy too, but a few minutes later you would cave in and put the entire thing up on FacePlace.

Then the whole world would see it and go utterly mental.

Then my mum would see I can’t be trusted, go off her brain and murder me.

Then my entire summer holiday would be ruined, because I’d be dead.

SO, I googled ‘keeping secrets’ and came up with this advice:

1. Tell the secret over and over to yourself until it becomes just ordinary and hardly worth telling. OK, here goes.

Jake Blake is coming to Oldcastle. Jake Blake is coming to Oldcastle. Jake Blake is coming to Oldcastle. Jake Blake is… AAARGH!

It’s no good. The more I say it, the more I want to climb up on the roof here at Buckingham Palace, let off fireworks and blast myself out of a cannon shouting it to the world. It’s still the most juicy secret I have ever been trusted with. And why me? Everyone knows I can’t be trusted!

2. Tell the secret to a pet. They can’t talk. They just listen.

SO, now I have Camilla the cat sitting on the bed here in my bedroom (AKA The Dungeon). I look into her hairy face and those inscrutable marble eyes and tell her that Jake Blake is coming to Oldcastle.

Yes, THE Jake Blake. J-A-K-E-B-L-A-K-E. Here in Oldcastle. The same Jake Blake, movie star heart-throb, who is, at this

very moment, plastered all over my bedroom wall – his long lashes fringing piercing blue eyes that follow me around the room, his sleek black hair flopping over his forehead, his lips curved in a smile that’s as mysterious as the Mona Lisa’s.

He’s beautiful. And I’d tell him that if I ever got to meet him.

AND NOW I DO GET TO MEET HIM.

In fact, I’ll probably be hanging out with him for most of the summer!

Do you believe me, Mrs Duchess Cat?

ACK! Camilla looks utterly bored and has just started groom- ing her paws. This is pointless.

3. Write the secret down in a notebook or journal.

I’m not sure this will work either, but it’s worth a try. I find something to write on and grip my pen until my hand almost seizes up like a witchy claw.

Witches!

There I go again.

Still, I have to do something, anything to stop me picking up my mobile phone or going on FacePlace. So I write.

Dear bit of random paper: Here’s the secret. My mother, Libby Pickering, runs her own company called ‘Regal Events’. She’s been doing weddings, parties, the odd corporate thingo and I’ve been helping whenever I need to earn a few $$ to pay off my hideously mounting debts. I’ve been inscribing invitations, folding paper napkins and doing some waitressing stuff now and then.

It’s all been pretty low-rent as far as I’ve ever seen, even though my mother keeps telling everyone she meets that the company has some ‘new, important clients’ and will soon be doing ‘big things’. (This has always been a tad cringe- worthy.)

Well, last night, a ‘big thing’ ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Mum was on the phone after dinner (it was just her and me and a plate of spag bol), and when she hung up she was so excited she started bouncing around the kitchen like the possum that got trapped inside on Christmas Eve.

She didn’t want to tell me what the call was about, but I knew she was busting to tell someone, so of course I hassled her till she told me.

Mum said the call was from Hollywood. YES! The REAL Hollywood, U S of A.

It came from Festive Films. They want Regal Events to handle the publicity for a new big-budget movie that’s being made here in Oldcastle over the summer!

Huh?

I know, weird. How did my mum’s tiny little business get involved in a Hollywood movie?

Apparently Festive Films had some big publicity company here in Britannia all ready to go, then someone got fired, sick or (to be honest, I did fade a bit here), anyway, the deal fell through and they decided to hire a local company instead.

They looked up Regal Events, Ms Libby Pickering, her 5-star rating (which, to be honest, came mostly from some fake names I made up – ahem) and, there you go!

Now, here’s the even more amazing bit. The new movie is MONSTER CLASS 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s being made HERE because in the US, it’s the middle of winter and they come ‘Down Under’ to make films.