Close-Up Extract.

First, here’s Jimmy talking …

But let me set the scene first. You’ve already got the voiceover- this is me, talking. It’s my voice you’re hearing. So now – as well as listening to me - picture me in my room now – I’ve got the attic bedroom. Imagine a camera positioned in the doorway, panning around. There’s a tiny window, a navy blue square, as it’s getting dark now. Next turn and focus on a wardrobe with the door open, and my gear spilling out of it – wardrobe not big enough. A TV/DVD combi on a chest of drawers, of which none shut properly – too much stuff. And an ummade bed snug under the sloping roof, with that black and white poster of James Dean stuck on it, except one corner has come loose of its Blu-tack and hangs down vertically. I reach up (because I’m on the bed) and try and fail to stick it back on.

That tells you everything you need to know, as you can read cinematic images. The attic bedroom – that sets me apart from my family (Mum, Steve my step-Dad, and the kids Stacey and Kyle). I’m like the Outsider, the one that doesn’t fit. Yeah, that’s cool. The Outsider. A film noir starring Colin Farrell as me. Once Melanie at school said I looked a bit like Colin Farrell, which was a chat-up line if ever you heard one, you will agree. Then all the mess – that tells you I’m a tortured genius, in the process of finding himself (and a clean pair of socks – I keep forgetting to put them in the wash.) And the James Dean poster – that I’m young and cool and angry. And also that movies are my life, and one day I’m going to be a movie director. I’m serious. Completely and absolutely serious. I bought that TV/DVD combi myself – with the money Gran left, though it didn’t stretch to a camcorder, worst luck. Gran always believed in me. In her memory I watch as many movies as I can. So how can my mum say I lack ambition? The fact I put in no work for my AS Levels is because strictly they’re not relevant. And anyway, like shooting a movie, you can always retake. Right now, I’m more into developing my own vision, my own signature. I don’t want to be like anyone else, I’m not Tarantino or Hitchcock or Spielberg or the Coen brothers, especially as there are two of them. I’m me, whoever he is.

Good line, that. “I’m me, whoever he is.” Yeah. Like it.

So I lie there, smiling, I’ve forgotten about the spat with my Mum, and the only cloud in my mind is that fact that I’ve got to get up at 5.15 tomorrow morning. Yeah, you heard me right. 5.15. I’m on the early shift at Coffee Corp, where I serve the coolest cappuccinos in town. Oh yeah, I said I’d tell you about me and my Mum. But you don’t really want to know. There’s not much to say. Mums aren’t interesting, they’re just there. Like the walls of your house – boring but necessary. And you ignore them until they start looking for the Psycho DVD you borrowed, know what I’m saying?

And now here’s Liz …

Writing stories is like lying, in a way. Pure fiction. So that’s why I’m writing a diary – everything you’re about to read in here is true. I won’t exaggerate or varnish or hide anything, even if it’s painful and embarrassing. So, Maggie, if you’re reading this (she won’t be – but mums have a habit of accidentally picking up your diary!) don’t say you haven’t been warned.

So – for posterity – I’m Elizabeth Burns, 17, and I live with my Mum, Maggie. People call me Liz. Those are the bare facts. What am I like? Ordinary. Well, no. No one likes to think they’re just ordinary. I’m not one of those pink, fluffy, girlie girls – there are so many of them at college like with their straightened hair and low cut trousers. I’m not a Goth, though I can see where they’re coming from. My hair’s short, and gelled into spikes when I can be bothered. I had red bits put in a few months ago and they're still visible. I haven’t got ready for bed yet, so I’m still in my Che Guevara T-shirt and brown combats. Lookswise, my eyes are too large and my nose too small. I wear a nose-ring. I’ve thought about getting other piercings but I’m not sure.

Other stuff about me – I’m currently single. I have had a couple of boyfriends but both were disasters. The first one was when I was only 14 and I wanted to see what it was like, going out with someone. It lasted a month until he proposed marriage – at 14! That gave me second thoughts. So I finished with him. Last year I went out with Darren because I thought he was cool. He always so looked so miserable and I thought I could cheer him up. He was brooding and discontented and sold the Socialist Worker in the city over the road from McDonald’s. Only he turned out to be a) boring b) more cheered up by the weed he smoked than me, and then he was even more boring and c) dying to get me into bed which was even more boring still. So I finished with him too.

Now I’m perfectly happy not having a boyfriend, despite the fact that all the girls at college are boy-obsessed. I mean, it’s sad. Here we are in the twenty-first century and still girls are rating themselves by whether boys fancy them or not, or thinking having a boyfriend makes you whole in some weird way. What I’m saying is that I don’t want a relationship – they always end in tears. Just getting off with blokes is OK, having fun, having a laugh. But as soon as you start trusting someone or depending on someone, you risk being let down