Chapter 1

It’s the end of the Autumn half term holiday. Katie and Poppy are in the 6^th Form now, Katie is studying for three A-Levels, Poppy is doing BTEC Diplomas in Business Administration and Health & Social Care.

As part of their promised help for Poppy and Belle’s charity, the school are also running a suite of short courses in charity work for Katie, Poppy, and Lia.

Belle is now studying for GCSEs, choosing Sports Studies, Catering, Health & Social Care and Music.

Mrs Best, the Music teacher, was initially reluctant to let Belle join the course, as she’d not attended any Music classes in Year 9 whilst she caught up with Maths and English. Katie and Poppy both begged the teacher to let Belle audition for the course.

They almost dragged Mrs Best down to the school hall, where Belle was playing Linus & Lucy from Charlie Brown’s Christmas album on the school’s grand piano.

“I don’t see any sheet music; did you play that from memory?” Mrs Best asked after Belle had finished.

“Err, yes. I kind of have to, I don’t know how to read music.”

“Mmm, how did you learn to play the piano?” Mrs Best asked.

“I watched my mum play, she let me sit on her stool and we played together.”

“If I let you join the course, you must learn how to read music,” Mrs Best told Belle.

“I can read music,” Katie told her, “I could help Belle learn.”

“OK Belle, play me something else, if I like it, you can join the course.”

Five minutes later, after listening to a practically note perfect rendition of Clair De Lune, Mrs Best clapped Belle on the shoulder, “OK, you can join my class, Belle. I’ll speak to Mrs Oliver and make sure she pops you on my timetable.”

“Yayyy,” Belle cried as Mrs Best left the hall, “thanks Katie. I can read a little bit of music, but I play better without.”

“I saw there’s lessons on the app we got with the piano, we’ll start working through them.”

“Awesome. Do you want to play something with me?”

Poppy spent the rest of the lunch hour watching her sisters playing, marvelling at just how perfect Belle was when she was doing something she enjoyed. Which, thinking about it, was practically everything.

Today they’re visiting a shelter in Dalston, a district in East London that none of the girls can remember visiting.

“Where even is it?” Belle mused as she mashed her Coco Pops into a kind of chocolate soup.

Lia loaded the map on her phone, “it’s not far from Hackney, so I don’t know why none of us have heard of it, I’ve been to Hackney loads.”

“Who do we know there?” Poppy asked, “Why have they asked us for help all of a sudden?”

“One of Lady Marina’s friends, Izzy I think, was visiting someone,” Lia replied, “some popstar apparently. Dalston is the new Shoreditch, all the hipsters have moved there. Anyway, Izzy was one of the models who visited a few shelters with Marina when we first started, so when she passed a homeless shelter near the station, she went in and spoke to a few of the volunteers and clients. They were apparently gobsmacked to see a smartly dressed model in the place, even more so after she’d helped them make tea and sandwiches...”

“Hang on a sec,” Belle interrupted, “are you saying one of the models Princess Marina roped in to attract the media has actually visited a homeless shelter on her own?”

“That seems to be what’s happened, yes.”

“I fucking love my job!” Belle cried as she poured herself another coffee.

“So, as I was saying, Izzy helped out for a bit then went to visit her popstar friend. The next day she mentioned the shelter to Marina, saying she’d left them some money as they were short of funds, so Marina thought it would be somewhere we could help, which is what we’re going to do today.”

Poppy finished her toast, then asked, “So, how do we get there?”

Katie scratched her head, “I can’t think of a simple route across there, we’ll probably have to mix District, Elizabeth line and a bus.”

The gate buzzer sounded as Belle was fetching their coats, “that will be the post,” she shouted, “I’ll get it.”

She returned to the kitchen with a stack of bills and pizza menus, she put the menus in the recycling bin and left the bills on the counter.

“Hang on a sec,” Lia told Belle, “there’s a letter here for you, and Poppy, ohh ... there’s one for you Katie, and one for me. They look posh, I wonder what they are?”

“Mmm, who’s writing to us,” Belle asked, “maybe it’s about the book, it’ll be in the shops soon.”

“But ... the book is yours and Poppy’s, why would they write to me and Lia, and why separate letters?”

“And why is the envelope embossed with The Cabinet Office?” Lia added.

Belle ran to the stairs, “DAD!” she yelled, “We’ve got letters Dad, what should we do?”

Alex stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, “what’s this about letters?” he asked, pouring tepid coffee into the last available mug.

Belle gathered up the letters, “we’ve got these, what should we do?”

Alex picked up the top letter, admiring the high-quality stationery and Cabinet Office logo, “have you considered opening the letter, to see what it is?”

“But ... we don’t know what it is,” Belle whined, “it might me something bad.”

“A letter is unlikely to be dangerous,” Alex reassured her, “what’s the worst that could happen? You might get a paper cut.”

Lia plucked the letters from Belle’s fingers, selected Belle’s letter and gave it back, “open it,” she told her.

Belle carefully slipped her tiny finger under the flap and opened her envelope. She pulled out the letter, it was on heavy-weight paper, embossed at the top with the same Cabinet Office logo as the envelope.

“Ahh...” Alex gasped as he realised what the letter was.

“What is it?” Poppy asked him.

“Let Belle read it,” he replied.

“The Prime Minister has requested that I contact you...” Belle started, “How does the Prime Minister even know I exist?” she asked, incredulously.

“Maybe he watches the Tonight Show and saw your interview,” Lia offered.

“I bet he reads the Sunday papers,” Katie added, “you’ve been featured a few times in the Sunday magazines.”

“Carry on,” Poppy said.

Belle’s eyes and lips moved as she silently scanned through the letter, “God, the language is so flowery, doesn’t he know I missed two years of school?”

Alex asked for the letter and read it quickly, “mmm, can one of you rouse your mum while I make coffee.”

“What’s going on?” Belle asked, “why have you turned all serious?”

“I’m not serious,” Alex replied, pulling clean mugs from the dishwasher, “I’m stunned.”

Jenny stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, she’d worked late last night, “I was in the middle of a nice dream, this had better be good,” she grumbled.

Alex brought six mugs of coffee to the table, “open the rest of the letters,” he told the girls.

Lia opened hers first, “fucking hell!” she cried as she passed her letter to Jenny.

“Is this serious?” Jenny asked.

Alex passed her Belle’s letter by way of reply.

Katie opened hers, reacting in a similar manner.

“Before I open mine, is this good news?” Poppy asked.

“It’s very good news,” Lia answered.

Once he’d read the letters, Alex lined them up.

“So, it looks like Belle and Katie have been nominated for an MBE, and Poppy and Lia have been nominated for an OBE.”

“What does that mean,” Belle asked.

“Well, these are both honours awarded by the King for services to the country. Somebody has seen the good work you’ve all done and nominated you for these awards.”

“Why the different letters?” Belle asked.

Alex thought about how to answer that, but Jenny jumped in first, reading from her phone, “These are both orders within the Most Excellent Order of The British Empire, Belle, your MBE stands for Member of the Most Excellent Order of The British Empire. Lia, your OBE means Officer of the Most Excellent etc. According to this page, MBEs are awarded in recognition of great service to the community or country, OBEs are awarded in recognition of outstanding service.”

“So, is an OBE better than an MBE?” Belle asked.

“It’s a higher-ranking award, yes,” Jenny answered.

“Good, because Poppy and Lia deserve a better award than me, because they do more work.”

“Noooo!” Poppy cried, “you do a lot more work than me, you sort out the food and plan the meals.”

“But you persuade people to give us the food, and you meet with people, and talk to our clients, you do so much to help people find work and fill in forms.”

“She’s right, you know,” Katie added, “you’re so important to the charity, Poppy. When people come into our hubs, they’re often scared and confused. They speak to you, and I can see them relaxing as you talk them through whatever they need.”

“It’s just...” Poppy started.

“It’s just nothing,” Belle interrupted, “You’re the figurehead, you started the charity, you deserve the moon on a stick.”

Poppy’s phone rang, stopping any further debate.

“Oh, hey Amy!” Poppy answered, “how’s everything up north?”

“Everything is fine here, I was just checking if you’re still going to the hostel at St Giles’ today.”

“Yeah, we were just on our way out when the post arrived, now we’ve been a little side-tracked.”

“Is it good post or bad post?”

Belle waved at Poppy and pointed at a section of the letter requesting they don’t discuss the nomination with anyone.

Poppy waved her off, “Amy doesn’t count,” she whispered.

“What was that?” Amy asked.

“Ahh, nothing. Err ... we’ve had some letters; we’ve been offered some awards.”

“Oh really, what kind of awards?” Amy asked.

“Nice ones ... mmm ... they’re supposed to be secret, but I’m sure we can trust you ... Belle and Katie are getting MBEs, me and Lia are getting OBEs. I can understand why Lia has a higher honour, because she’s doing so much work, but not me, I hardly do anything. Belle though, she should have the OBE, she works her little socks off in the kitchen.”

“I think everyone except you is fully aware of why you have earned an OBE, Poppy. Anyway, have you thought about why you’ve been nominated?”

“We thought maybe the Prime Minister watched us on the TV,” Poppy replied, “although now I’ve said that out loud, it does sound a bit unrealistic.”

“Well, he may have watched you on TV,” Amy replied, obviously struggling not to laugh, “but I’m thinking that a certain cousin of the King may have nominated you, and then had some friends speak to the Prime Minister.”

“You mean Marina?” Poppy asked.

“Unless you know any other members of the King’s extended family.”

“She’s his cousin...” Poppy said, uncertainly, “she never mentioned being such a close relative,” she turned to Lia, “did Marina ever tell you she’s the King’s cousin?”

Lia wrinkled her brow, thinking over the conversations she’d had with Lady Marina, “no, she didn’t, all she said is she’s related. Now I’m thinking about it, she does live in the same building as one of Prince Andrew’s daughters, so she must be close to the King.”

“And there you go,” Amy told Poppy, “Marina is very impressed with you all, so she put your names forward and Geoff seconded the nominations and Marina’s friends did the rest.”

“The letters just say nominated,” Lia said, close enough to Poppy for Amy to hear. Poppy blushed and realised she was the only person who could hear Amy’s reply, so she put her phone on speaker and asked Amy to repeat her answer.

“Mmm, did I mention I got an OBE a few years ago?”

“NO!” they all replied.

“Ahh, so it works like this. Someone nominates you, anyone can nominate anyone else, obviously you can’t nominate yourself. You have to fill out a form and explain why you are nominating this person. You have to go into a lot of detail about what this person has done to deserve their award.

“All nominations are passed through to a committee who decide who deserves an award, and which award they should be offered. Then they send out the letters.”

“But why do our letters say we’ve been nominated, are we still at the choosing stage,” Belle asked, “why tell us now and get us all excited.”

“Relax,” Amy replied calmly, “read the whole letter. You’ve been through the choosing stage, now you need to reply to the letter to accept the nomination.”

“Oh, don’t they just assume we’ll accept?” Katie asked, “do some people refuse?”

“I’ve just been reading,” Jenny broke in, “some people do refuse awards.”

“Why would someone refuse an honour?” Lia asked.

“Well, it says here that some people refuse OBEs and the likes because they object to the name British Empire for a few reasons, some because of the imperialism of the Empire, and some because the Empire no longer exists, so they think the award is essentially meaningless. A few people have turned down OBEs because they felt the deserved a higher award...”

“Well, those people are just snobs,” Belle replied in a disgusted tone, “I shall ask my social secretary to accept my nomination.”

“Who’s your social secretary?” Poppy laughed.

“Katie of course, because she’s the best at typing and writing letters.”

A couple of hours later, after Lia had managed to track down Marina to thank her, and Marina had feigned ignorance of the nominations, the girls eventually set off towards Dalston, the morning’s shock news adding a spring to their step.

After changing from the District Line to the Elizabeth Line at Paddington, then to the Overground at Whitechapel, they finally arrived at Dalston Junction a little before noon.

The night before, Belle had packed up 20 portions of each of the three meals she’d cooked in Karim’s kitchen, so the four of them hoisted their heavy backpacks and followed the directions Marina had sent Lia.

Belle’s backpack was almost empty, yet she was still groaning like she was carrying a full army pack by the time they reached the shelter five minutes later.

The street door was standing open, “wow, this place is clearly more trusting than the hostel in Camden,” Lia whispered.

“This part of London is nicer than Camden,” Poppy replied before she knocked on the door, “anybody home?” she shouted.

“Hang on a sec folks, I’m just up a ladder,” came the reply from inside the building.

A couple of minutes later a middle-aged woman came to the door wiping her hands on the bottom of her apron, “I’m so sorry, I was just washing the walls, how can I help you?”

“Hello, our friend Izzy was round here a few days ago...”

“Oh my, she was lovely, it was a surprise to have such a smartly dressed young woman like that turn up out of the blue, then she helped prepare supper. Mmm, you four look kind of familiar ... gosh, you’re Poppy and Belle aren’t you! Oh my, come in, let me show you around.”

Belle wasn’t about to stand for two of her sisters being left out, “these are our sisters, Lia and Katie. Lia runs the charity; Katie helps write our promotional material and sometimes helps me cook.”

“I saw you all on the television, Shannon, my daughter, she was so pleased to see young women like yourselves bringing our world to the mainstream news. I’m Margaret, Maggie to my friends and our guests. Shannon is in the back, have a look around while I fetch her.”

The girls were left in a large room, two tall stacks of tubular chairs were in the middle of the room, next to similar stacks of tables. The walls were cream, there was a ladder against the far wall, and a bucket of soapy water.

“We might as well get stuck in helping,” Katie offered as she placed her heavy backpack on the ground.

Belle ran to the bucket, pulled out a soapy cloth and set to work washing the wall. Lia spotted a couple of floor brushes, passing one to Katie, they moved over to the other side of the room and started sweeping the floor.

“Is there another cloth?” Poppy asked, Belle dipped her hand in the bucket and confirmed there was, so Poppy climbed the ladder and started cleaning the bits Belle couldn’t reach.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Shannon was bringing in a delivery ... err, I didn’t expect you to clean the place...”

“No problem,” Belle replied brightly, “we’ve come here to see how we can help you, so we thought we’d ... err ... help.”

“Do you have a mop?” Lia asked, “we’ll clean the floors now we’ve swept up the dust and litter.”

“There’s one in the utility room, just through there,” Maggie replied, “but you don’t need to.”

“Maybe not, but we want to,” Poppy said, “why don’t you tell us about your shelter while we work.”

“Yes,” Belle added, “we’d never even heard of Dalston until our friend Lady Marina told us about Izzy’s visit.”

“Well, where to start ... we’ve been open for, oh, it must be 5 years now. My husband, Steve, he’s the Vicar of St Giles’, the church over the road, he saw the number of people living rough rising year by year and was desperate to do something to help. This building used to be a primary school, it closed about 10 years ago when there was a bigger one built near the park.

“The building had been empty for a couple of years, so Steve approached the council, he offered to take it off their hands and turn it into a shelter. We spent about a year begging for money from lots of charities and aid groups, and eventually we had enough money to gut the place and fit it out to our purposes ... oh, here’s Shannon.”

“Hey everybody,” Shannon exclaimed as she pushed a trolley into the room, “tea and cake!”

Poppy practically jumped down the ladder at the news of cake arriving.

Lia placed Shannon around Marina’s age, mid-to-late twenties. She was tall, slender and very pretty, with short, bobbed blonde hair.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Shannon announced as she poured the tea, “first a beautiful model pops in, then you four turn up.”

“Well, the events are connected,” Lia admitted, “Izzy was one of the models Marina roped into helping during our launch. Clearly, she was affected by what she saw during those two weeks, so when she passed your shelter the other day, she decided to look around, then she told Marina, who told me.”

“And we decided to take a look ourselves,” Poppy continued before taking a bite of her cake, “mmm, nice cake ... yeah, and see if there’s anything we could do to help you out.”

“Well, we’ve been following your work,” Shannon replied, “it’s so inspiring, seeing everything you’ve been doing, with feeding the hungry kids, and your advice sessions. A few of our regulars have been to your meetings. One of our girls came by just yesterday, she’d spoken to you, Poppy, at a shelter in Camden, she said you’d put her in touch with an agency who’ve found her a job at an animal rescue centre. She’s so excited about starting work on Monday.”

“Mmm, is she called Jade?”

“Yes!” Shannon replied, amazed Poppy remembered Jade amongst all the girls she must see.

“I’m so glad she’s found a job. She told me the only thing she misses from home is her dog ... let me think ... ahh yes, she had a poodle called Alfie ... her little sister would have been heartbroken to lose both Jade and Alfie. I hope there’s lots of nice dogs for her in the shelter.”

“She said there was a poodle just like Alfie when she went for her interview,” Shannon told Poppy, “and even better, there’s a room where she can live until she finds somewhere permanent!”

“Oh wow, that’s perfect. I’m so pleased.”

Belle dashed to the doorway and dragged one of the heavy backpacks over, “we’ve brought food!” she told Shannon, “Poppy has been flashing her cleavage at people again, so we got loads of ingredients yesterday. I made three different meals, a potato and cauliflower curry, a root veg casserole, and a ham and cheese pasta bake. We don’t normally get chance to use meat in our meals, but Poppy did enough flirting to get me a load of boiled ham, so I chopped it up and put it in with the cheesy pasta.”

“Oh wow, there’s so much food here, more than we need,” Shannon replied as she looked in the other bags, “Mum, why don’t you phone Monica, see if she needs any for her kids.”

“Monica runs a kitchen across the park,” Maggie explained, “she feeds the kids who refuse our help.”

“Ahh, we have a few kids on our patches like that,” Lia replied, “the poor souls have been so badly damaged they find it difficult to trust anyone.”

“We try to win them over with tasty food,” Belle added.

“And does that work?” Shannon asked.

“The food helps,” Poppy replied, “but it’s all the other stuff we do that finally brings a few of them out.”

“We’ve managed to get about a dozen street kids out from under a bridge and into a shelter,” Lia added, “they wouldn’t even accept our food at first...”

“That really annoyed me,” Belle pouted, “so one day I took the food out to them myself and told them how much effort we put into bringing them hot, tasty food. The leader, a boy called Patrick, eventually came out from under the bridge, I gave him the box of food, telling him I’d be back in two days, we didn’t have a 7-day operation at the time.”

“Weren’t you afraid going out there?” Maggie asked.

“I know Krav Maga...” Belle replied.

“She does,” Lia added, “although she’s no Jackie Chan yet.”

“Thanks for the support, Lia,” Belle laughed, “anyway, I didn’t go alone, I had a couple of big guys backing me up. They stayed out of sight though, so the kids weren’t intimidated. When I went back, Patrick was waiting for me, sitting on a pile of pallets by the entrance to the railway arch. He smiled at me but didn’t move. I walked up and put the bag of food on the pallet.

“He finally spoke as I stepped away, he told me the soup was great, I told him I’d brought hot pot today, with a buttery pastry top, and some cans of pop. He asked me why I brought him food when he’d always refused it before, I told him our goal was to feed everyone that needs food within the areas we’re covering. They’re living on our patch, so I made them some food. I asked him if he could read, or if anyone in his group could read, he said he had a couple of girls who were OK at reading, so I gave him one of our leaflets.

“Two days later Patrick and a girl showed up at our Leyton hub, Katie met them, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I spoke to them. I thought Patrick was a bit arrogant, but the girl was nice, Cherish did most of the talking, she asked about the help we could give them, I explained all the services we offered, found them some new clothes and pointed them in the direction of a gym that would let them use their showers, a week later half the group were in a shelter, and two of them were in rehab. Cherish is working now.”

“That’s fantastic,” Maggie enthused, “but why did only half their group come for help?”

“Some people just don’t trust anyone,” Poppy explained, “they see outsiders as predators, so they stay close to their friends, the only people they trust.”

“Do they still accept your food?”

“Oh yes, we still send them food,” Belle assured her, “and will continue to do so whilst they’re living in an area we cover.”

“Amazing, I wish Steve was here to meet you, we’ve often discussed you four and your charity over dinner.”

“Maybe next time we visit,” Lia replied, “because now we know you’re here, we won’t forget about you.”

“So, do you want to look around?” Shannon asked.

“That’s why we’re here,” Lia replied with a smile.

“So, like mum probably told you, this building used to be the local primary school. It was only a small school, with one class per year group, so there were 7 classrooms, obviously, along with this room, the school hall, where we hold group sessions, serve meals and sometimes run money raising bingo nights. There’s also a couple of offices, the kitchen, and a small gym. We use four of the classrooms as dormitories, two are bathrooms and the last is a meeting room...”

“How many people can you accommodate?” Poppy asked.

“32, 8 per room,” Maggie replied, “16 males, 16 females, or 24 and 8, depending on the mix. We don’t like to turn people away, so we sometimes use the gym for sleeping accommodation.”

“Do you have to use the gym often?” Lia asked.

“More often than we’d like,” Shannon answered, “we’ve been OK this week, because the weather has been nice. Once the nights grow colder, we’ll need to use the gym.”

“Is there scope for expansion?” Poppy asked, “do you have any land behind the building?”

“There’s the old playground,” Shannon offered, “One plan we have is to raise money to build an extension on the back, to make some purpose-built dormitories.”

“Could we have a look at the facilities you offer?” Belle asked, “as long as nobody is using them ... we don’t want to wake anybody up.”

“It’s OK, there’s nobody in, we turf everyone out each morning,” Maggie replied as they left the hall and entered a corridor that ran the whole length of the building, “so, to the left we have the kitchen and offices, on the right we have the classrooms, ahead is the gym and a storage area.’

“Do you mind if I have a look out the back first,” Lia asked.

“Not a problem, the door is unlocked,” Shannon replied.

Lia pushed the door open, pulling a long tape measure out of her bag as she stepped outside.

“Grab the end and run over there,” Lia told Belle, “we’ll get this area measured then look in the gym.”

Katie jotted the measurements into an app JoJo had given them, the app would then calculate how many buildings they could fit in the space.

Lia checked Katie’s phone then walked over to Shannon and Maggie, “We could easily pop a couple of buildings out here, each sleeping 12 people, they’d only take up a third of the yard, so you’ll still have plenty of recreation area. We could tidy this area up at the same time, get a fresh surface laid, then paint some markings for football and netball.”

Shannon was astounded, “you say that like it’s easy, but it would take us months to raise the money.”

“It’s already paid for,” Lia assured her, “we’ve a benefactor who has prefunded our hubs, she’s agreed that we can include your shelter in the programme.”

“Ahh, so these accommodation units would be like the cabins you’ve been putting on the streets?”

“Yes, they’re very flexible, we’ve mostly been using them as offices and meeting spaces, but we’ve also set up a couple of dormitory blocks for busy shelters like yours. They’re very well insulated and come with toilet and shower facilities. We’d also install a third, smaller cabin for staff accommodation, that one would have a kitchen so people living in these units could make a hot drink in the evening.”

“And how long do these buildings last?”

“Can I answer that with ‘we don’t know yet’,” Lia replied, grinning. “We have a similar building as our main office, although we have so many staff now, we’ve also got another office in Soho where Flower runs our HR department, and a catering office in Camden where Rhiannon runs our kitchens and food supplies. Anyway, my office is guaranteed for 10 years, but has a projected life of 25 years if it’s well maintained. Unfortunately, the building supplier is unwilling to offer a guarantee for our street buildings, because ... well ... our clients don’t generally treat them nicely. We have a maintenance crew available, and they’re good at patching things up, and they’d do the same for your buildings...”

“I get the picture,” Shannon laughed, “what do we need to do in return?”

“Fill the buildings with people and pay the electricity bill. We even provide the beds and bedding.”

“Oh wow, this is almost too good to be true.”

“That’s what we thought when Amy offered us the money for the hub programme. She basically gave us a blank cheque, if we find somewhere that needs our help, she pays the bills. Shall we have a look in the gym?”

The gym was about 35m square, big enough for a netball or basketball court, around the walls were climbing frames, and Lia could see the fixtures on the ceiling where there used to be climbing ropes. The floor was solid wood, a little marked and scuffed, but otherwise it was in good condition. In the corners of the room were piles of bedding for when they need to use the gym for overflow guests.

“I’m liking this gym,” Lia said as she watched Belle climbing the wall bars, “oh yes, once we’ve installed the cabins and you stop needing to use this for additional bedrooms, I think we could tidy it up, then you could think about hiring it out for a little extra income.”

“OK, shall we look at the dormitories now?” Poppy asked as she lifted Belle off the climbing frame, “or should we come back for you when you’ve finished playing.”

“You spoil all my fun,” Belle groused as she led them back into the main part of the shelter.

The former classrooms are on either side of the main corridor, Shannon swung the door of the first room open.

“This is the night staff accommodation and office, we keep a log of everyone who uses the shelter...”