Hi, my name´s Jess Jordan and I´m known locally as Charming but Insane. My business colleagues call me Mistress of the Universe, but hey, that´s a little bit over the top. I´m 15 years old, although a clairvoyant once told me I´d been here before as an Egyptian rat-catcher. So that´s 15 going on 4,000.

Physically I´m small dark and possibly Egyptian-looking, although being British I´m more likely to have descended from the Celts. The Celts were famous for having really bad tempers so it figures. I have evil eyebrows (I spend all evening plucking) but my boobs are something of a disappointment. Basically I can still see my feet: how unfair is that? I´ve named them (the boobs not the feet) Bonnie and Clyde and I keep giving them pep-talks, but they are definitely sulking.

My Mum and Dad split up shortly after my birth – well, you would have to, wouldn´t you? My Dad ran off westwards until he came to the sea and had to stop or he would have got wet. Basically this is known as Cornwall. He´s a painter and he often comes up to the city to see me, and every day he sends me a “Horrorscope” text message which makes my hair stand on end with terror and disgust. He hasn´t quite mastered the first principles of parenting, bless him, but of course I love him to the point of madness. Nay, beyond.

Mum´s a librarian. She wears ghastly old hippie clothing from a charity shop. She´s married to her garden. Every summer she digs up the first potatoes, comes back indoors, flings a muddy heap on the table and we are required to worship root vegetables as if they were sent from the gods. (Mum would say they were.) She does try hard to be pleasant, but often the stresses of being a single parent with a small income cause her to revert into a primitive and savage life-form in which she displays yellow fangs flecked with bloody foam. This is usually when I´ve stayed out late without warning.

My Granny, who comes and stays with us sometimes, is a complete star. She´s the most macabre person on the planet and she looks like Miss Marple, the sweet little old lady who solves murders. Actually my Granny wouldn´t just solve murders, she would, if given the chance, dish a few out herself.

My best friend is Flora Barclay. She comes from a family of rich high-achieving blondes. Even their dog is blonder, wiser and more fragrant than other dogs. Flora conceals her great intelligence beneath a thin veneer of dumbness as befits her hair colour.

And what about the boys in my life, you ask? Well, the glorious Ben Jones is of course always on my mind. But never, alas, on my body – except as a home-made tattoo done in tasteful coloured pens. He´s the school football captain (soccer, natch) and strolls around glamorously with supernatural light flickering around his fair hair. He once dropped a chocolate wrapper and I picked it up and cherished it for weeks. I´m afraid that´s the nearest I´m ever going to get to his lips. Maybe, what with this cloning business, one day I might manage to have his baby just by capturing a bit of his dandruff.

And I suppose the other “man in my life” is my best male friend Fred. We met at kindergarten years ago. He hit me over the head with an inflatable bus and this struck me (literally) as quite a smart career move. He´s got horrible long straggly hair which he thinks makes him look like a poet. But of course it really makes him look like a hobo. He has a way of talking which is faintly amusing. For example, yesterday on the way to school he said, “Forgive me for mentioning it, but there is a bogey sticking out of your nose and it bears a striking resemblance to a small but perfectly formed bison.” I think you´d like Fred. England is famous for its eccentrics and basically Fred is a five-star weirdo.