Welcome to version 4.0! I've made a few edits to make it match my latest edits to Raindrops and completely redone ALL the screenshots for the third time!
— Silver, 2026

I resented my parents for being so rich. Being so upper class was always a cause for scorn in the playground. Father was a successful businessman, Mother an award-winning scientist and 62nd in line to the throne, being the 17th cousin 15 times removed (or perhaps it was 12th cousin 25 times removed, either way I didn't care) of the Queen. "You've royal blood in you, Anthony, you should be proud," my father would say. When the kids at school heard this, they responded joyously with "Tony's a toff! Tony's a toff!" Needless to say, I didn't have any friends at school.

I took solace in music. I bought a guitar, learnt some simple chords and started writing some songs. My mother was proud at first, when she saw I was making an effort. "You'll get there one day, Anthony," she beamed. She stopped beaming, however, when she heard my lyrics.

I wished I had siblings to share the burden with. I felt suffocated by my parents' desire for me to be just like them. I couldn't think of anything worse. I wanted to have fun, take risks, be daring. Not spend dinner discussing what colour to paint the living room, like my mother, or throwing endless parties desperately trying to persuade Kent's movers and shakers to be my best buddies, like my father did.

While the kids didn't want anything to do with me, I wasn't totally friendless. I found a kindred spirit in Jack Faerie, who arrived in town when I was twelve. He was descended from an Inkan emperor on his mother's side. That was much cooler than being related to the Queen. He was trying to launch an art career after getting his Fine Arts degree in London, but in the meantime he held guitar lessons to help pay the bills. As soon as I heard, I signed up.

He had a band and he let me and the other village kids come to watch his practice sessions. He was my hero, everything my parents weren't. He hardly ever combed his hair ("What's the point? It'll only get tangled again tomorrow"). He hardly ever got his hair cut ("I don't see the point, it'll just grow back"). He wore black and thumb rings. He played electric guitar. He listened to punk and metal. He was so cool, but he didn't give a damn. I wanted to be like that, saying "What's the point?" and not giving a damn.

I begged Jack to allow me to tag along when he and his mates went to see Muse once, and Mother went ballistic when she found out where I'd been.

I was badly embarrassed for Jack, but he thought it was great. Made a change from being chased around by his girlfriend, he said.

"Your mum packs one hell of a punch! And I thought my girlfriend was mad! Great fun! We should go to more concerts, man!"

Sophie Adebayo was the daughter of one of Mother's friends, and she took an instant liking to me when we were introduced. Maybe now I've someone to have fun with, I thought.

"She's a lovely girl, isn't she?" Mother would say. "Very well-spoken and lovely manners. She was very impressed to hear about my links to the royal family. We spent ever so long poring over the photo album and she was genuinely interested. Unlike someone." She glared at me. "She's intelligent and very beautiful with it. You could do worse than her, Anthony."

So Sophie and I started to hang out. No doubt Sophie was beautiful, but her unparallelled beauty was matched only by her unparallelled dullness. And her sense of humour left a lot to be desired. She thought giving noogies was the funniest thing ever invented. She just wouldn't let up.

"Just once more, Tony, please!"

I suggested sneaking out to a club one night. She looked at me in stark horror. "But Tony, that's an awful thing to do! Whatever would your mother say?"

I tried to explain that the whole point is that my mother is not supposed to know, hence she wouldn't say anything, but she clearly wasn't impressed. "No, Tony. It's not dignified."

So much for having fun.

And so life continued in all its magnificent dullness. I tried very hard to like Sophie, I really did. I could learn to love her, I tried to convince myself. But there was no denying it. Sophie was just a younger version of my mother (but at least my mother never noogied me).

And then the Miltons moved in.

They mostly kept to themselves, but I learnt something about them from my mother, who worked at the university where Mr Milton was studying for a Masters degree in agriculture. They used to have a farm in Sligo, Ireland, but they'd sold up and moved here, to Cloud Magna, though no one was sure why.

"Don't think much of the daughter," Mother said to my father. "Ashley Milton seems like a very respectable man, but that Melissa girl seems a bit common, don't you think, dear? Not dignified like Sophie."

"Oh I don't know," replied Father. "I'm hosting a charity lunch next week, Margarette, do you think I should invite them?"

From the moment I saw Melissa, I knew she was the one for me. I knew Melissa would sneak out any time she liked and wouldn't care one fig what her father said. After her first week at our school, I tentatively asked if she'd like to go to the cinema with me. "Do I look desperate?" She laughed, and flounced off.

Of course she'd have nothing to do with me, why would she? She was wild and independent. She didn't care about lessons, she answered back the teachers, skipped class — I even heard a rumour that she'd got nicked stealing lipstick from Boots, but when I asked, she dismissed it with a disparaging laugh. "As if I'd get caught!"

Strangely enough, she had no friends at school either, but not because she couldn't; the girls were queueing up to be her pal, and the boys in my year fancied her.

She just wasn't interested. "That bunch of wet wimps? Ha! What losers! Who'd want to hang around with them?"

She was so cool, she was even cooler than Jack! What chance did I stand with her?

And then one night, when I was fifteen, as I was sitting in my front garden, watching the stars and pondering how dull my life was, I saw her strutting across the road.

"Hey, Melissa, what you up to?" I called.

"None o' yer business, Toff!" she laughed. She hesitated for a moment, then came over and looked at me warily. "Why you askin'?"

"Well, I'm bored. Maybe I wanna have some fun," I looked at her meaningfully. Not the most suave of chat-up lines, I know — hey gimme a break, it's not like I had much experience — but she seemed to like it.

"You?! Mr Toff? Garn! Gonna ask mummy if baby can go out, then?" she twinkled.

"Hell, no! I can go out when I like, see?"

And to my surprise, she grabbed me and laughed. "Maybe you're not so bad. Come on then."

And Melissa and I officially became an item.

To honour the occasion I invited her round for lunch the next weekend. My parents were none too impressed. "Do you call that a skirt," I heard my mother mutter to Father. "More like a belt! How could he invite such a vulgar girl round to a respectable house like this? Shame for sure."

My dad coughed politely. "Umm, so you're friends with Tony are you, Miss — ah — Milton?"

"No, he's my boyfriend, Mr Oxford."

Mother nearly choked on her food. "But you already have a girlfriend! What about Sophie?!"

"Kicked 'er to the kerb, dincha, Tone!" Melissa laughed.

Mother stopped speaking to me after that.

In the weeks that followed, I flaunted my relationship with Melissa to my parents, daring them to say anything about her, just itching for a showdown.

They responded by refusing to acknowledge that we existed.

I was sure Mother'd have a fit if I invited Melissa to stay over, but nothing doing.

But who cared? I'd never had so much fun in my life. We snuck out on school nights and spent every weekend together.

Jack's art was selling now and he'd bought his own place. It had a pool and everything, which was more than the village sports hall had. His door was almost always open. There was so little to do in the village back then, that his living room became like a common room for us teens and students to hang out. There were always drinks and snacks and games. A lot of the time, Jack wasn't even there. I'm sure some of the kids were nicking his stuff, but he didn't give a damn.

"Are you sure I used to have a tape deck? I'm not sure I did."

Melissa and I would go down to his house on weekends and holidays and learn to play guitar, or swim, or watch Jack paint, or drink Ribena and listen to old vinyls.

Melissa loved it. "We don't need no eddy-kayshun!" she'd roar.

Every time Jack's girlfriend Amber told us we were scaring away the pixies and can we tone it down a bit, Jack would smile at her and say, "What's the point? If I turn it down, the kids'll just turn it up again." Melissa always roared with laughter when he said that. It wasn't that funny; perhaps she was drinking more than Ribena.

Jack would get us group tickets to concerts or gigs every few weeks, but was disappointed when Mother refused to notice. "Never mind, maybe she'll deck me next time," he'd sigh.

Melissa and I were turning eighteen soon. Things were getting serious between us. I decided to ask her dad what my chances with her were.

"Maybe, maybe. You know, Lissa's a good girl really," Ash opined. "She went a bit off the rails after her ma walked out on us. She started sneaking out and never doing her homework. I'm not so worried as I used to be though, you know, she listens to you. She adores you, Tony, so she does. All I hear from her is Tony this and Tony that. But you know, you have your A Level finals next summer and she'll be lucky to scrape a single E at this rate. She's a bright girl, I know she can do better. You'll try to get her to study again, sure you will? I don't want her to end up in some dead end job that she hates."

"Okay, Mr Milton," I said, trying to steer the conversation back on course. "But what do you reckon? I have enough saved up to move out after the exams are over. Would she be interested in... in getting engaged?" I blushed.

"Heh heh," he grinned. "She's her father's daughter. No harm in asking."

I'd no idea what he was on about (no change there then), but I decided that once we left school and I got a job and my own place, I'd pop the question.

I had a word with Melissa about the exams. She was quiet for a bit, but then surprisingly enough she agreed.

"Yeah, I'd like to get a good job, Tony. I used to have a part time job, but my da made me quit cos my grades were so crummy. You know it was kinda fun though, having my own income, instead of just cribbing money off my da. Maybe I'll hit the books."

I couldn't believe it. Melissa had got sensible.

The fun nights out stopped as Melissa and I studied for our finals. Strangely enough, I didn't mind too much. I wanted to do well, so I could make my own way in the world and not have to spend my life being ignored by Mother.

We both passed and I'd enough money in my trust fund to put down a big deposit on a decent pad.

My parents pretended not to notice.

Melissa and I both went to university in Canterbury. I started a BSc in Psychology, and Melissa got into a Pharmacy course. After a couple of weeks, Melissa was practically living with me. I decided to make it official. But what would she say?

Result!

We'd both grown up a lot, we had our own place now, and there was no fun left in shocking our parents with our hedonism. As Jack would say, what's the point?

When Mother heard that we were engaged, she wasn't too pleased. I was fed up of the constant silent-but-deadly bickering and decided that she'd have to accept us. We invited my parents round for dinner and Mother eventually gave her cautious blessing.

"But only because she's studying to be a pharmacist. It's a very respectable profession." She glared at me.

When the big day was approaching, I was terrified. What if no one came? What if my parents boycotted it or caused a fuss? What if Melissa got cold feet?

Luckily my parents came and Father invited a lorry-load of his friends too. Melissa and Ash had invited loads of their family over from Ireland. Melissa's grandmother was definitely the life of the party. Jack and his band were going to perform the music and Father had arranged the catering. But then it was time to take our places under the wedding arch. My heart thumped wildly and my palms sweated. What if she said no? I couldn't bear it.

Melissa blushed shyly as we said our vows. I'd never seen her looking so sweet before. With trembling fingers, I placed the ring on her finger. "I love you, Tony," she whispered as she slipped the ring onto my finger.

Later, on our flight to our honeymoon, we discussed the wedding.

"It was a great wedding party, wasn't it, Lissa?" I grinned.

"Grand!" She laughed. "We should hold another party sometime, you know."

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Bigger and better, we'll invite the whole town, give them a right old knees-up. We'll invite Jack and his cool friends, all our friends from uni obviously, and definitely your family from Sligo. Do you think it'd be a good idea to invite my friends from work, too? Maybe not, I don't know... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just you remind me of someone. I'm trying to figure out who it is."

"Oh how strange!" She giggled. "It's your father!"