Anne-Marie Conway

''Worrying about things is like sitting in a rocking chair,'' she said. ''It give you something to do but it doesn't actually get you anywhere.'' Her face creased up and she started to laugh her big wheezy laugh. ''Do you get it, Becky? All that rocking backwards and forwards, going over and over the same old worries, and at the end of the day you're in exactly the same place as when you started.''

I couldn't imagine my mum showing anyone she was boss. She was the sort of person who said sorry if someone pushed in front of her to get on the bus.

We'd been living in our new house in Oakbridge for just over a week and I hated everything about it. When mum said we were moving to the country, I'd imagined a pretty, old-fashioned cottage with roses round the door - I got the old bit right, but it was dark and gloomy with massive spiders, and cobwebs so thick it was impossible to see light through them. We'd spend every spare minute trying to get it sorted, but it still gave me the creeps.
"New house, new job, new beginning," Mum kept saying, doing her best to sound cheery. But the "new beginning" bit was hard - at least, it was for me.