The Mayor Of Pontybridge

XX: "WHO NEEDS DRUGS WHEN YOU HAVE JUDGE RINDER?"

'Pontybridge, we have a hero in our midst! For on Friday night, while most of us remained blissfully ignorant in our beds, Mayor candidate Reginald Parker battled against an old evil. Not only did he successfully aid an interception of a white-supremacy-fuelled rave, but also saved a young boy's life. Zachary Phelps, 15, was walking home from a friend's house when repeat offender Tom Page hit him with his car and then left the scene. Phelps suffered minor brain trauma, a broken leg and a neck injury, but the young man says he does not 'want revenge.' Instead, he plans to set up an animal sanctuary, using the warehouse previously used to hold these raves (see bottom left). Reginald and his daughter, (see top right) Florence, plan to help him with this plan. If you wish to donate, further details and contact information are on PAGE 7.'

Lola Lamar, The Pontybridge Observer

Save for in formal newspaper articles, high school registration, and previous tense meetings with her Mum, Flo almost exclusively goes as just that. Flo. Florence, to her, has always reeked of the bourgeois and nursing pioneers, (who, while very admirable, did not have names too fit for less capable girls in the 21st century) and within just seconds of meeting somebody, she makes this very clear: no Florence, no touching her neck, (unless, of course, you were Lola, who could probably stab her in the kidney and make it feel good) and no asking about 'that little spell she did in the mental place.'

Jaguar hasn't previously had any difficulty adhering to these rules - he calls her Flo or Arsehole, never puts his hands in immediate vicinity to her neck, and skims over the issue of her mental illness with tact surprising for a boy who's spent a good deal of his life absolutely off his head. And so when he walks into her room, raises an eyebrow at the framed photo of her and Harper on her wall, and uses her full name very steadily, she knows that something is up. Specifically, she knows she's probably pissed Jaguar off by breaking Harper Hatley's heart. It's an upset one, upset another free kind of deal, with them, in the same way that everyone that does so much as look at Flo in the wrong way faces the full wrath of Shay Pierce. Right then, Flo feels incredible sympathy for the guy who had his Range Rover purposely backed into after calling her a stupid bitch

(It should be noted that not only did Shay back into his Range Rover, but she backed into his Range Rover with a tractor).

"So I finally got the truth out of Harper, this morning," he says, fixing his gaze on her. He's unnerving when he's sobered up - at least high, he can't keep his pupils focussed for much longer than a minute. "And Christ, Flo, I get that I told you to tell him, but you kissed Lola first? Why the fuck would you do something like that?"

Flo can think of a few reasons. One: Lola is quite possibly the person in possession of the most s ex appeal in South East England (not that, admittedly, there's exactly a lot of competition, the most common specimens being either enthusiastic middle-aged churchgoers or boys who think they're Eminem, and demonstrate this by wearing only low-crotch tracksuit bottoms and fake gold chains and talking loudly about 'murdering that pussy.') Two: Flo is, as has been pointed out, a stupid bitch. Three: they were there, and she got caught up in the moment, and it's no excuse but she had a chance to kiss Lola Lamar.

She shrugs. "I don't know," she says. (She does). And then, because that seems a kind of lackluster way to explain ripping someone's heart out, she adds: "it was stupid. I know that."

"But do you regret it?" Jaguar asks. She opens her mouth, but he cuts her off. "Don't even try, Flo. You know if you were sat back there in Lola's house then you'd kiss her all over again. Like, fuck, cheating is bad enough, but cheating on Harper? That's cruel. It really is."

"I know," she says, holding her hands up. "Trust me, I know. He told me he thinks nobody loves him, Jag. Not even you. And he kept talking about this anyway thing-"