AN: I'm assuming here that dollars would be used throughout the world, to make things easier. Hope this explains the use of dollars in London. And honest, I'm not racist. All people are equal. But, Charlotte's parents are evil racist bastards. Go tell 'em off. And please excuse me going a little overboard on the clothing – blame Lotte. She's never seen any bohemians before, bless 'er. Please let me know if she turns Sue.

It was early in the morning. The sun had just begun to rise, coaxing birds out from under fragile wings, and into song.

I slumped against the grimy, soot – blackened wall, and sifted through the contents of my pocket, murmuring to myself as I did so. I was fairly sure that there weren't that many people who dared to come through the back streets of London, especially as there were so many reports and rumours floating around nowadays. I hid a smirk in my collar, though there was nobody watching. I, personally, had always found murder to be so coarse, such a crude crime. I much preferred the stealth of picking pockets. Nobody, you see, would suspect a small, redheaded girl, whose clothes were several sizes too big, and sometimes – well, mostly – stolen, and whose shoes were old, ratted trainers.

Not that I was dressed to impress, or anything.

I looked down at the objects in my hands. A handful of silver coins, a couple of notes, a mini calculator, and a pencil. Right - time to start the day.

I walked along the path, turning a sharp left, which led me into the main street. I got looks of course, because what true Gaga is used to this? The vision of an underfed, poorly clothed teenager, scraping a living on citizens' loose change, and stolen bank notes. No-one, that's who.

I strolled into a newsagent, casually glancing around for anybody who looked like they could be otherwise easily distracted. For some odd reason, people notice more when you're self-conscious, so I shook out my hair a little, and grinned at a boy who looked vaguely my age. Smoothing out my grubby jumper, (striped, 'borrowed', while the children played in the park on a hot summer's day) I stepped into the queue. The woman in front of me didn't seem to notice. Nor did she notice as my hand slipped into her pocked, and pulled out a twenty.

Nice. More than I was hoping for, at least.

I frowned, and patted my pockets anxiously as though I'd just lost something, pushing the twenty dollars into my pocket as I did so. The woman I'd just nicked the money from looked at me, concerned.

"Are you alright, dear?"

I looked up into her face. She looked sweet, the sort of kind person a kid would look for if they were lost, or had forgotten their bus passes,

But I'm not a kid.

I grinned bashfully.

"I was meant to get the paper for my dad… I must've lost the money. I'd better go home, tell him there weren't any left."

"Well, are you sure? Oh – wait, dear, I'm sure I could pay for you, you wouldn't want him to get angry or anything, would you?"

Now, let me get a fact straight here. Yes, I steal, and yes, I do it when sometimes I really could live without it. But I do, believe it or not, have a heart, so I decided twenty was more than enough to take from her.

I put on my best shocked face.

"My daddy, angry? No, he'll understand completely. But thank you very much, that was very kind of you to offer."

And with my pathetic excuse still ringing in my ears, I turned, and fled the shop.

After a few days of living in the streets, especially after having lived in a really coddled Gaga family all your life, you realise just how well off you were, and you start to really regret running away. Or getting kicked out. Or whatever.

Then, after another few days, once you actually start to look homeless, with the ratted hair, and the grubby clothes, and everything, people start to notice you more. You sit on a street corner for a few hours, holding paper cup of coffee from a cheap stall, and a few people will come up to you – not close enough to look as if they actually care, but just enough so that they can judge whether you have any money or family. And they'll usually give you a coin or two – usually around 10, 20 cents maybe. And that doesn't seem much, but after five or so people come up to you with twenty cents, you can get another coffee. Ten people, and you can get a bus somewhere.

And again, I don't do this for fun. If you want the full, brutal honesty of this whole thing, I do it because I have no money, nobody that cares about me, and no food to speak of. If I didn't do it, I'd die.

And to be honest, no thanks.

So I'd been sitting on my little street corner, feeling a bit miserable because sometimes faking it can be difficult, and I'm no actress, these couple of people came up to me. There's a boy, and a girl. The girl looks familiar somehow – though I'm buggered if I know her from somewhere. Memory like a goddamn goldfish, that's me. The boy seems to be frustrated, he's walking a couple of paces in front of the girl, and she's shouting something, having to run to keep up with him. As they get closer, I notice something odd.

The guy's black.

I know what you're thinking. And I'm not a racist. Honest. My parents were, totally. I never got it, but there we go. It's just, the fact that he's black, and he has a little blonde chick following him, that's interesting. In my primary school, there were quite a few black children. And I was really good friends with them – in fact, a girl called Renita was my best friend. And I wanted to go round her house, so I asked my mum, and I went round after school.

But, hell, the scene she made when she had to come pick me up – it was probably the most embarrassing day of my life. Needless to say, I changed school, and I never saw her again.

Anyway, so I haven't seen anything like that before, so it threw me a little bit. But they came nearer, and I stood up, trying to get a better look. Their clothes and hair were unlike anything I'd seen, ever. Well, the girl's was, the guy was kinda bald. But their clothes – they were absolutely amazing. The guy was wearing what looked quite like a kilt, except instead of tartan it was a black material, covered with writing, and a couple pictures, which looked hand painted. The girl – wow. Just, wow.

Her hair was like an explosion in a cute hair factory. It was all dreadlocked, with loads of little ribbons, and bits of junk. Her makeup was quite strong as well. I noticed her eyes, mainly. Outlines with massive rings of black. The guy stopped at the coffee stall I was standing next to, and ordered two.

Then he stopped, and looked behind him. The blonde was leaning against the wall across the street, quite obviously sulking.

The man swore, and handed the coffee stall owner several coins. He grabbed both the coffees, looked around, and grinned when he saw me.

"Sorry about this, but can you hold one of these a sec? My girlfriend's sulking, and she'll come over if it looks like I'm talking to you."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Do I get to drink it?"

He rolled his eyes, but grinned again. I liked this guy, he had a nice smile. And nice teeth. Which you could see when he was smiling. Nicely. Ah well, he has a girlfriend.

She's pretty hot too.

"What's your name then, red?"

I scowled. "I was about to ask you the same thing. Stop taking the piss out of the hair and maybe I'll tell you."

"He held out a hand. "Brit."

I nodded, sipping the scalding tea-flavoured liquid. "This is meant to be coffee? But whatever. I'm Charlotte. Unusual name."

"Charlotte?" he frowned, and I laughed.

"No, fool. Brit."

He shrugged, "I guess. I chose it. Considering my parents kicked me out, I figured I got to change it."

I narrowed my eyes. How old was he? "Me too. Where you guys staying? Cos I haven't got anywhere, so I know this is really pushy, but-"

"You whore!" The blonde had returned, as predicted by my new friend. And suddenly I'm not too sure why I thought she was hot. She's got to be a year or two younger than me, but you couldn't tell it to look. I'm sixteen, but I look about fourteen. I'd guess she's about fifteen or so.

"Oi, bitch, ah' was talkin'!"

I frowned again, trying to place her accent. She clearly didn't like me doing this, because she grabbed my shoulders, and pushed me back a few steps.

Brit stepped forward, trying to handle the situation. "Meat, babes, chill. Charlotte, Meat. Meat, Charlotte." She lets go of me, and launches herself at him instead. I step backward, worrying that she'll hit him, but she buried her head in the crook of his neck, and her body began to shake slightly. She was crying.

Brit was stroking her back with one hand, and beckoning me loser with his other hand. He tossed his coffee in the bin on the corner of the street, and held her properly, until she slowed down a little, and she seemed to be able to form sentences.

"Ah' wanna go home!" She cried, muffled in his neck. He sighed. "So do I, Babes. Look, all we need to do is find our way back, and then it'll be okay, yeah?"

To me, he grinned.

"Yeah. You can come with us. It'll maybe take a couple days to get there, though, okay? Reckon you can handle that?"

I couldn't quite believe my luck. "I can live with you guys?"

"Sure. Nice gang of us, call ourselves the bohemians."

I nibble my lip.

"Yeah, but where are we actually going?" my nervousness must have been apparent, for Meat slung an arm round my shoulders and grinned infectiously at me.

"Sugar – we're going down."

It was the first sensible thing I'd heard that morning, so I nodded.

"Sounds good. Let's go."