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  About this book

  Ellie’s thrilled to be doing work experience at teen magazine, Heart, even though life isn’t all celebrity chat and fashion makeovers for the wannabe journalist. She’s given the job of walking the Editor’s pampered pooch, when she really wants to track down a famous author for an exclusive interview. But could the little dog help lead her to the star?

  Contents

  1 Holiday jobs

  2 Sophie has some news

  3 A question of pots

  4 Drawing a blank

  5 A breakthrough and heartbreak

  6 Back to the park

  7 Francesca takes control

  8 Interviews

  9 Sunshine and rain

  10 At the Boat Show

  11 Come back, Ferdinand!

  12 Cornered

  13 All is revealed

  14 Another surprise

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  For sailor Paul, with love

  It was the beginning of the summer holidays, and Ellie Ixos had six weeks stretching ahead of her. Some of her friends were looking forward to a lazy summer, with a bit of swimming, lots of parties and hopefully, if the weather was good enough, plenty of barbecues. Others, like her best friend Hannah, were planning on earning some money. Hannah was off to Spain with her mum, dad and older sister in a couple of weeks, and was determined to earn some extra cash by working in her aunt’s shop before she went. She already had a list of things she wanted to bring back.

  “Clothes are fantastic out there,” she told Ellie. “I need some new sandals, but I’m going to wait until I get there before I buy any. And last year I saw a brilliant leather jacket, but I’d spent all my holiday money, and couldn’t afford it. This year I’m going to make sure I earn enough to buy one.” She looked suddenly stricken. “I hope I like this year’s designs!”

  Ellie laughed. “They’ll have something you’ll love, I’m sure.” She paused, thinking of Hannah enjoying her holiday, while she would be spending the summer at home in London. “I’ll miss you when you go,” she said.

  Hannah, who was lying on the grass in her back garden, sat up. “No you won’t. You’ll be too busy being a cool journalist at Heart magazine. With all the excitement of that you’ll never miss me.”

  Ellie gave her a teasing grin. “That’s true.” There certainly were compensations for Ellie in spending the summer holidays at home, and she couldn’t wait to get back to work at the magazine. It really was a job to die for.

  Hannah pouted and poked her friend in the ribs. “Well!” Then she relented. “And that’s fine. I don’t mind. After all, I’m going to be having fun. And you’ll need something to do to keep you out of trouble while I’m away.”

  Ellie rolled over onto her stomach and picked a long strand of grass that the mower had missed. “Tomorrow,” she said, absently chewing the stalk, “you’ll be stacking shelves, and I’ll be fetching the Heart editor’s coffee order. What glamorous lives we lead!”

  Hannah poked her friend again. “You wait. By the time I get back from Spain you’ll probably have appeared on TV, been invited onto some megastar’s yacht, and interviewed all the most famous actors and musicians in the world!”

  Ellie giggled. “Don’t exaggerate!”

  All the same, it was exciting to be going back to work at Heart. So far, Ellie had interviewed Pop and Lolly Lowther, the famous modelling pop stars, and had found herself on a photo shoot with Zone One, her absolute favourite boy band. She still felt a pang when she remembered how Al had looked deep into her eyes as he had sung to her. Her secret dream was that she would meet him again, and he would ask her out. She knew it would never happen, but all the same…

  Reluctantly, she turned over and stood up. The shadows were lengthening, and it was time she went home. She gave her best friend a hug. “Good luck tomorrow.”

  Hannah hugged her back. “And you.”

  “See you online?”

  “Of course.”

  “Bye then!”

  “Bye!”

  Now it was the following morning, and Ellie was at the stunning office building in the city, where Heart had its home. On the way up in the lift she double-checked that she had the old notebook she always carried. It had belonged to her father, and she liked to think it brought her luck. It also connected her to him in a very special way, because he’d died before she’d been born. All through the notebook were helpful phrases he had written out for himself. The first, and the one that she liked best so far was You can do this!

  Ellie got out of the lift on the third floor and when she reached the lobby she changed into the shoes she’d brought with her to wear in the office. The Editor in Chief, Angel Makepiece, was very fussy about her white carpet, and about her staff too. Before going into the large, open-plan office, Ellie checked her hair and make-up. It would never do to look anything but as perfect as she could manage.

  There was a new girl at the reception desk. She looked a few years older than Ellie, with long dark hair and beautiful, slanted black eyes. She looked at Ellie and smiled.

  “Welcome to Heart, the magazine to die for,” she said. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Ellie Ixos,” said Ellie, showing her ID. “I’ve come to work for the summer.”

  “Of course – Ellie!” the girl seemed delighted to meet her. “I’m Debbie Wu. I’ve heard all about you from Piano.”

  “Really?” Ellie was sure that if Piano, or Pea-Are-No as she liked her name to be pronounced, had talked about her to Debbie, the conversation wouldn’t have been very positive. Piano had always resented Ellie, right from the first day, when she had arrived for the work placement arranged by her Uncle Patrick, who was on the board of Heart magazine.

  Debbie Wu glanced behind her, and then gave Ellie a knowing smile. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve heard a bit from Francesca too. I listen to both sides, and can make up my own mind about people.”

  Ellie shrugged. She hoped that was true. And maybe Piano had decided that, if Ellie was going to keep working at Heart, it would be worth her while being a bit nicer to her. If so, it would be a great relief to Ellie.

  “Do you know if I have my own desk?” she asked. “Last time I used Piano’s, but that was because she was on reception.”

  “I’m pleased to say that you do!” Debbie looked almost as happy as Ellie felt. “Or at least, Angel and Francesca decided it would be a good idea to have a spare for freelancers, and while you’re here, that means you. We’ve had a bit of a rethink in the office,” she went on. “And they delivered the desk last week. It’s over by the window.”

  Ellie looked, and realized that there had indeed been a few changes. The water cooler had gone, and in its place there was a new desk. It was right beside the window, so she’d have a wonderful view.

  “Fantastic! Where is everyone though?”

  “Piano and Francesca are having an editorial meeting with Angel in her office,” said Debbie. “I think they’re trying to look at their work deadlines to see what they can do to make it a bit less of a scramble to get each issue out.”

  “Deadlines can be pretty stressful,” agreed Ellie, remembering how tough it had been meeting Angel’s deadline for her article about Zone One. Her day with the band had been brilliant, but writing it up under pressure hadn’t been quite so much fun.

  She went through the reception area, and over to have a look at her new workplace. The desk was blonde wood, with space underneath to store her laptop, and there were two little drawers to one side. There was a comfortable-looking chair, and when she gazed through the window she had a view of the office building opposite, and the street below. For a moment she stared down at the traffi
c. She could hear hardly any street sounds from here, three floors up.

  She sat down, opened her Heart laptop and switched it on. Her email inbox contained a short, friendly welcome message from Francesca, the Deputy Editor, a similar one from Angel, that was so impersonal it had to have been used for every employee since Angel had become Editor, and another email entitled Brief, that also came from Francesca’s address. There wasn’t a welcome message from Piano, but then, Ellie hadn’t really expected one.

  It was wonderful that Angel Makepiece had decided they needed someone of the magazine’s target age in the office, and even more wonderful that she’d asked Ellie to be that person. That, and the fact that she got on well with Francesca, more than made up for Piano not liking her. She clicked on Brief and it opened.

  Your brief this summer is to list people that you think Heart readers would like to see featured, then contact and interview them! We already have an in-house list, but hope you might be able to add to it. Email me some names for us to discuss. Then we can decide who you should contact first. Make absolutely no approaches until after I’ve given you the go-ahead.

  Ellie leaned back in her seat, her heart suddenly beating very hard. What a fantastic brief! She could think of dozens of people she’d love to read about…and meeting them would be even better. She didn’t feel even the tiniest bit envious of Hannah and her Spanish holiday now. This was going to be the summer of a lifetime!

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she scrambled to put down all her favourite band members, singers and film stars. She wondered if she really would get to meet some of them over the next six weeks. She knew that it could take a while to set up interviews, so there was no time to lose.

  After half an hour she had a long list, and she spent the next few minutes arranging it so that her very favourite people were at the top. She knew she wouldn’t have time to get through anything like all of them, so she might as well put the ones she liked best, first. As soon as she’d finished, she emailed the list to Francesca, feeling very pleased with herself. She looked at her watch and saw that there was time to spare before she needed to fetch the staff their coffee. She reckoned she’d done really well with her first job.

  “Ellie?” It was Francesca, back from her meeting with Angel, and she was smiling.

  “Hi!” said Ellie, beaming at the Deputy Editor. “It’s great to be back.”

  “It’s good to have you back,” said Francesca, looking at her laptop screen. “And I see you’ve lost no time in getting a list of people back to me.”

  “Well, I thought I ought to get on with it,” said Ellie, feeling pleased.

  Francesca picked up a sheet of paper from her desk and offered it to Ellie. “This is our in-house list,” she said. “It looks as if most of the people you mention are already on it. But there are a couple we hadn’t thought of.” She glanced at her screen again, and then back to Ellie. “Charlie Daniels…his name rings a bell but I can’t place him…who is he?”

  “He wrote the wonderful fantasy trilogy, Fanghurst,” said Ellie. “The books that are being made into three films. The first film was amazing! I went to see it with my friend Hannah. I’m not surprised it won so many awards. And the second one is coming out soon. I can’t wait!”

  “Oh, of course!” Francesca looked annoyed with herself. “Yes, I should have known. I’m sure Joe will take some pictures of the actors arriving on the red carpet when it opens. But I haven’t seen anything about the author. Has he written anything else?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ellie. “I can check, but I think they might have been his first books.”

  “Well,” said Francesca, looking thoughtful, “we don’t usually interview authors, but this certainly was a huge film deal. There might be a good story in it. Why don’t you have a bit of a dig around online and see what you can find out about Charlie Daniels? Maybe he should go to the top of our list. He’d be someone a bit different for a change, and we might be able to tie an interview in with the new film when it comes out.”

  “Okay,” said Ellie. She glanced at the in-house list and noticed another omission. “What about Zone One?” she said, thinking about the boys in her favourite band – especially Al.

  Francesca laughed. “You can’t keep interviewing the same boys,” she said. “Just because you like them.”

  Ellie blushed.

  “Go on. Have a look for Charlie Daniels. We can decide if you ought to try and get an interview when we know a bit more about him. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Ellie. She studied the list more carefully and felt surprised. “There are quite a few people on here that I don’t know,” she said to Francesca.

  “That’s probably because they’re up and coming.” Francesca gave Ellie a teasing look. “Some of the musicians are working on albums that will be really big in a year or so’s time.”

  “Wow,” said Ellie, impressed. “Well, I’ll get searching for Charlie Daniels.”

  Ellie did intend to search for him, but she couldn’t resist keying in one or two of the names on the in-house list that she hadn’t recognized. One was an actor who had only had a couple of small parts in TV dramas, but who looked absolutely gorgeous. Another was a singer in a band she’d never heard of. The band had some music online, and Ellie made a note to listen to it when she was at home. Then she got down to the job in hand.

  Authors didn’t often become well known, and Ellie couldn’t think of anything at all that she’d read about Charlie Daniels, although she’d loved his books. She didn’t know if he was young or old, or whether he lived in England or not. But when she googled his name she discovered that he had a website and a blog, so it was going to be easy enough to find out about him.

  Ellie spent some time reading his website, his blog and anything else she could find that mentioned his name. Eventually she sat back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.

  “Francesca?”

  “Yes? How are you doing?”

  Ellie bit her lip. “Charlie Daniels is odd. I can’t quite work it out.”

  “What’s the problem? Isn’t he very interesting?”

  “No, it’s not that.” Ellie twisted in her seat so she could look at Francesca properly. “I think our readers would love to know more about him. But in spite of reading loads about his books I can’t find out anything about what he looks like, how old he is, where he went to school…there’s nothing!”

  Francesca stared at Ellie. “Really? Doesn’t he have a website?”

  “Ye-es,” said Ellie. “But there’s not much on it.”

  A slight smile touched the corners of Francesca’s mouth. “That’s why you do research, Ellie. I thought you knew that. Not everyone puts their whole life history on their websites. How about Facebook?”

  “Tried that,” said Ellie. “I have been doing research. I’ve googled him, read his website and blog from beginning to end, and anything else I could find, but it’s all so insubstantial.”

  “Well that might actually make him more interesting,” said Francesca, smiling properly now. “Perhaps he’s a bit shy. Some authors are, I believe. But there must be some contact details somewhere. Maybe you’ll get a scoop. I don’t recall seeing him interviewed anywhere else. Go for it! But before you do, you might as well fetch our coffee. It’ll soon be time, and no doubt Angel will be asking where hers is in a moment.”

  Ellie closed the lid of her laptop and sighed. Francesca expected initiative, and usually Ellie had plenty of that, but at the moment, with this project, she was feeling a bit frustrated. She was sure that if she had a website, and she’d written a fantastic series of books, she’d definitely be blowing her own trumpet, and including lots of pictures of herself with the stars of the film. True, on the website there were some photos of the actors, but not one of Charlie Daniels himself, not even a single publicity photo, and yet she knew that most authors had at least one of those. On the other hand, Francesca was right. It made him rather mysterious, and it would be fun if she coul
d track him down. She just needed to work at it a bit, and use her imagination.

  She paused at reception on her way out to fetch the coffee. “How do you like your coffee, Debbie?” she asked. “I’m just off to get some for everyone.”

  “I don’t drink coffee,” Debbie told her. “I like Earl Grey tea best.” She smiled at Ellie. “I make myself a drink in the kitchen whenever I want one.”

  “Oh.” The small kitchen off the lobby was hardly used by anyone else. Ellie wondered what Piano made of that. She could imagine her sneering at the very idea of tea.

  Ellie warmed to Debbie. Anyone who seemed comfortable to be a bit different was okay by her. “See you in a while then,” she said. She hurried to the lift, and when it came she took it down to the basement.

  Ellie should simply have gone to the ground floor, and out at the front of the building, but she had a few minutes to spare, and she wanted to go and say a quick hello to Sophie, her best friend in the building. Sophie was the post girl, and was kept busy servicing all the offices. Her boyfriend Flynn also worked in the building. He was part of the IT Department that existed to keep all the computers up and running. He was very good-looking, and was Ellie’s second favourite person working at Heart.

  As soon as Sophie saw Ellie she dropped what she was doing and gave her a big hug. “How are you?” she cried. “I was hoping I’d see you. I thought it was today, and then I wasn’t so sure. I wondered if I’d got the date wrong. So how’s life treating you?”

  “Fine,” said Ellie, hugging Sophie back. Although Ellie only saw her when she was at work, Sophie felt like the big sister Ellie had never had. “Been busy though.” She explained about her brief and Sophie looked impressed.

  “Sounds great,” she said with enthusiasm. “It’s good they’ve given you a longer-term project this time, as you’ll be here for a while over the summer.”

  “I’m having difficulty with the person they want me to tackle first though,” said Ellie. “And it’s really frustrating because I actually suggested him! I don’t have time to chat for too long now because I have to fetch the coffee, but it’s Charlie Daniels, and I can’t even find out what he looks like. None of the information on his website gives any clues.”