Abigail Character Study

At the start of the book series, Abi is sixteen, with events of Firebound starting on her birthday (7th December. She is a Fire elemental Guardian and due to this she tends not to feel cold. She is in Year 11 at school, currently doing her GSCEs. She is the youngest of three children to Thomas and Julia Cooper. Her mum died the year previously (age 51), two days after her fifteenth birthday (9th December) and in the last year she has seen very little of her dad (age 53 at the start of the book). She has two older sisters. Beth is twenty-two (6 years and seven months older) and in her fourth year at St Andrews University. Holly is eighteen (two years and three months older) and in Year 13 (sixth form) at the same school as Abigail, studying for her A-levels.

Personality

Abigail is very competitive and hates losing, even in games with her sisters, and never backs out of a challenge. This is not her best quality as she can be a bad winner, over-celebrating, showing off and bragging when she wins and an even worse loser, sulking and losing her temper.

She is equally stubborn and curious. Her mum would say that if anything rivalled her competitiveness and stubbornness, it was her curiosity. When Abigail was six, she fell out of a tree and broke her arm when she was trying to reach the top branches. Six months later, she twisted her ankle when she had jumped from the swings at the local park, after seeing what height she had needed to be at get to the other side of the playground. She also used to climb over the railings at the local castle caves. She threw herself into life, not scared of getting hurt as she knew that she would bounce back. Her dad thought the best way to tame this and her endless energy was to get involved her in sport.

Abigail is ambitious. She wants to be successful in herself and recognised for her achievements. She may be naturally talented at sport but she puts hard work in order to help achieve the potential that she has. She practices for long hours and keeps herself fit, not accepting any excuses. She wants to achieve her best and believes that although the competition is tough, she could achieve a career in professional sport. She is determined to make people proud of her. Although she doesn’t let it show at school and can let deadlines for homework and coursework slip, she works hard at school especially when she is not in the same classes as her friends, so will not look like a ‘swot’ in front of them. She is happy to achieve at school as long as she gives the impression that she doesn’t care, she is determined to do enough to achieve her goals. This can be undermined by her arguing with teachers, getting into trouble or refusing to work if people start to compare her to her sisters.

She has a strong sense of who she wants to be and wants to been seen as someone that is worth knowing. She wants people to recognise her for who she is, her abilities and not who she is related to. She hates pity and being seen as weak, especially after her mum’s death when she has seen people’s sympathy as pity, instead she wants to be a person in her own right and stand on her own two feet. She does not want people to see her cry or crumble but to be strong.

Abigail is quite insecure in herself, despite appearances to appear confident. She has a fear of rejection. She believes that no one like her for who she is as a person in herself, but for who she is as a symbol. This insecurity also is present in her confidence in her abilities and she will spend hours building up her confidence in a new skill or ability before she will act in front of others. This allows her to act confident and to show off when she is in front of others.

She is brave, determined and courageous. She is not afraid to talk up for what she believes in. In Year Eight, organised a walk out of her form room when the heating in the classroom failed and they were told that they were not allowed to wear their coats in class. This was a protest that her parents were equally proud and dismayed by as she answered back to the school’s deputy headteacher. She also takes risks on the sports field and has injured herself as she dived to make a header, placing her head at the same level her opponent was raising her foot to. She is a team player but also can take initiative and lead. She is passionate and a good leader, making her the captain for most of her sports teams, however she was never considered as a school prefect due to her lack of ability to stay out of trouble and due to the fact that she can be outspoken.

Being taller than almost all the girls and a fair few of the boys in her year group at school, Abigail is used to having attention on her. She has tried to use this to her advantage and make herself popular as she believes that having attention focused on her is better than no-one. Due to her popularity at school and commitments to her sports teams, she never used to be at home. Adapting to this at an early age (primary school), she can be seen as oozing popularity, good at capturing people’s attention and inspiring others to be on her side. Her personality linked to this was infectious, upbeat and she could get others to follow her lead. This led to her captaining the sports teams that she played for. She would get a buzz off people hanging off her every word and doing what she wanted them to do. However, this also led to her being cocky, a brat and self-indulgent at times as she was used to having people do what she wanted. She can also be shallow as long as it’s linked to clinging onto her popularity.

She has a strong sense of morality and beliefs and can be very noble. She is willing to sacrifice her happiness for others, if she believes that it is the right thing to do. She is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. She was in the Brownies for about a week, until Brown Owl told her and a friend off, and when she believed that they had not been the ones at fault, she put worms in Brown Owl’s sandwich. After getting caught doing this, she was asked to leave, but showed no remorse as she believed that she was in the right and being told off was an injustice. She always fights back, answers back to people even when it is not the wisest choice to do so. She has never had an issue with breaking rules. Whenever a teacher told her off at school, she had to have the last word, often landing herself in more trouble, especially if she believed she was in the right. She is a runner and would often hurdle the fence in the back garden, if she wanted to get away from life and head out, keeping her head high, moving forward and not thinking about her problems. She can be too idealistic, wanting to believe the best in a situation.

She trusts her gut and her beliefs and throws herself into things as she doesn’t like having time to think. She likes to keep moving, running ahead with her plans and action. She is not made for patience, with her dad stating that she didn’t have an ounce of patience, with her preferring quick results. She doesn’t do well with silence and stillness. This means that she can be a loose cannon, often acting first and not thinking about the consequences until she is facing them. When she slows herself down and allows herself time to think, she is quite intelligent and able to be strategic about things and make good decisions, however, she has to be forced to slow herself down and stop and think things through.

Abigail can have a quick temper, which is seen as a family trait and her mum always encouraged her not to let her temper get the better of her. Sometimes with greater success than others. This is not helped by the fact that it can be easy to wind her up as she is not good at hiding her emotions and wears her heart on her sleeve. In Year Nine, Julia made Holly help Abi with her maths homework and when Holly used patronising tones with Abigail, as she explained the content, Abigail twisted the book back out of her hand, breaking three of Holly’s fingers in the process, threw the maths book across the kitchen and stormed out the back door, disappearing for a run, returning an hour later to Julia telling her that she was grounded. She can be impulsive.

She is not to be the best timekeeper especially when she is over involved in something or not interested in keeping the time, and when she gets caught up in something, she tends not to be too observant about what is going on with other people.

Abigail was never the best behaved at school or at home, but most of the trouble prior to her mum’s death was pretty low level. She would miss her curfew on a semi-regular basis, with would lead to her trying to sneak back into the house. This would be followed by her mum yelling at her, her arguing back and then sulking at the terms of her grounding.

Relationship with Her Family

 Tom:

Previously, Abigail has had a good relationship with her dad, but since Julia’s death, Tom has shut himself away from his daughters. He has spent long days in the office at work and undertaken many more business trips than he had previously done. When he has been home, he has shut himself away in his study. He works as a management consultant and this has always involved some element of travel, which was why Julia only worked part time.

He shares Abigail’s interest in sport. He is a Nottingham Forest football fan and he got Abigail involved in football when she was seven. Initially Tom had got her involved in sport because he thought it was a great place for her to burn off her energy and channel it into something positive. This lead to Abigail growing up as a ‘daddy’s girl’ and both Beth and Holly believe that Abigail is his favourite child.

Tom is keenly invested her Abigail’s sporting ability and at the age of fourteen, he started to encourage her to look into American colleges after she finished her A-levels, so that she could get elite coaching over there. Prior to Julia’s death, Tom had not missed any of her football matches or athletic meets, even rearranging meeting so that he could attend them. After Julia’s death, he stopped going altogether.

Her dad was much more fun and not the disciplinarian of Abigail’s parents. He would often fall for Abigail’s innocent ‘butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth’ smile, when she had got into minor trouble at school, up to the Christmas of Year 10. Her mum had never believed this smile.

He has prevented Abigail from having a relationship with her maternal grandmother, throwing her and banning her from the house, following Beth’s eighteenth birthday.

Desperate to get her dad’s attention, Abigail has spent the last year getting into trouble at school.

 Julia:

She believes that her mum wasn’t proud of her when she died. They could have a volatile relationship, in which they would constantly argue. This was primarily prompted by the fact that her mum was the parent that was at home more, was available to attend school meetings and primarily disciplined her children. They both also have the famous ‘family temper’, although Julia controls hers better than her daughter.

Julia was often torn between frustration and pride over her youngest child. She would admire the fact that Abigail would stand up for her beliefs, but get annoyed at the methods. She would be disappointed that Abigail would refuse to attempt to control her temper and struggle with her daughter’s priorities to be popular above all other things. This would lead to even more arguments between the two of them as she would claim that Abigail should be making different choices. However, Julia respected her commitment to her sport and the teams that she played for, and while she may ground her daughter, she would always say that school and sporting activities were an exception to the grounding.

As well as working part time at a local art gallery, her mum was an artist, primarily working with oil paints. Her mum had converted the garage into an art studio and when she was focusing on a painting, all of her children knew not to interrupt her, unless they wanted to be sent to their room. Julia used to doodle pictures during tense dinners, as a tactic to break the tension and get people laughing.

On the night that she died, Julia had come to Abigail’s room. Abigail was sat at her desk, doing some overdue coursework. Julia had tried not to lecture her daughter, knowing what was going to happen that night, but had mentioned that she should have done the coursework. On leaving the room, Julia had told Abigail that she loved her and Abigail had not said it back. This is a moment that she has regretted ever since.

 Beth:

Is only just starting to have a real relationship with her sister. Being six years older, Abigail was only starting Year Seven when Beth left on her gap year and this was followed by going to St Andrews University afterwards, meaning that she still saw Abigail as a little kid. Prior to this she had been forced to act as a babysitter for her younger sisters when her parents had gone out. This along with Abigail’s bratty behaviour and status within the Guardian world, had made her resentful towards her younger sister. As Abigail reached the last year of primary school, this had started to lessen a little she watched her sister take over the captaincy of sports team, lead others and get called up for the local centre of excellence, leading Beth to believe her sister could make a good leader.

While at university, Beth was able to see her sister growing up. She was aware that Abigail was getting into trouble, but never witnessed it too much first hand and heard more about her sister’s achievements on the sports field. She was starting to grow proud of her.

Helped by the age gap and what she knows that Abigail will have to face, she is very protective of her sister. She also has had similar issues with her temper, but being older manages to control it better and tries to keep Abigail from making mistakes that she will regret. She hid Abigail’s fifteenth birthday card from her parents, the last that her mum had written. So that Abigail could not tear it into tiny pieces following their mum’s death, only returning it after Christmas.

Abigail gets on really well with Beth’s long term girlfriend, Leigh and they share an interest in running. She is also more willing to take advice from Leigh than she is from either of her sisters.

 Holly:

She has a close relationship with Holly, given that they were reasonably close in age. However, like most sibling relationships, it was full of arguments and fights as well as support. Holly has taken it upon herself to lecture her younger sister, especially about her behaviour and not paying attention to her GCSEs. She knows Abigail’s routines, such as automatically throwing her sister a chocolate bar when she comes back in from runs. They would also compete over the volume of Holly’s TV and Abigail’s music.

Holly used to try to deflect blame from herself when there was fights at home, often trying to place the blame for starting the fight on either of her sister and then arguing if she hadn’t been the cause of the fight she should not be punished. Holly would also try to take advantage of her sister’s bad decisions at home, if she could get them to work for her. When Holly was sixteen and Abigail was fourteen, she had got Abigail to agree to do her chores for a month, in exchange for not telling their parents that she had caught Abigail sneaking back into the house after midnight following a party at Jordan’s house. Their mum had got suspicious of Abigail helping Holly out and had questioned both of them, to avoid getting into trouble herself, Holly had then told the truth.

Holly is very protective of her younger sister. She has always come to her side whenever she has been hurt and no matter how much she had screwed up something. She has spent the last year, trying to bail her out of trouble at school, often going to Abigail’s Head of Year, trying to get forgiveness for her younger sister’s behaviour as she explained how much she was struggling to cope with Julia’s death.

Age Spread

 Age Spread of Abigail’s family from her birth to the month prior to Firebound – the first book in the series starting. I have put school years in here, so that it can help anyone unfamiliar with the English (and Scottish in the case of Beth’s University) system.

Book One (Firebound) starts in December – character ages are as follows:

Tom = 53 years and 5 months old

Beth = 22 years and 7 months old (Scottish University – Year Four)

Holly = 18 years and 3 months old (English Secondary School – Sixth Form – Year Thirteen)

Abigail = 16 years old (English Secondary School – Year Eleven)

 Events Linked to and After Her Mum’s Death

 Tom woke Abigail up, in the middle of the night that her mum died at around four o’clock in morning. He told her that her mum had been in a car accident, that the car had caught on fire and that she had died. He explained that a man called Lucas White had been involved in the accident.

After her mum’s death, Abigail had nightmares for months, often waking up in sweat and tears. For the first month she was comforted by her dad, Beth or Holly. Although the nightmares continued until the May, she started to hide them after January as she didn’t want to have her dad or Holly continuing to run into her room. Beth had gone back to university in the January, following Julia’s death. She attended Lucas White’s trial and can clearly remember every aspect of it, and only after his sentencing of causing death by dangerous driving, did her nightmares stop.

After her mum’s funeral, she ran out of the wake and got drunk, returning home after midnight, with her family going spare.

She is under threat of suspension at school for her behaviour and has a criminal record. The police having brought her home twice in the last year. Some of this has been done on purpose and there has been an element of a mission of self-destruction has she has tried to get her dad’s attention and she has taken pride in whatever trouble she has got into at school, if it has caused her dad to react to her.

After her mum’s death, her behaviour became much angrier and rasher. She let her emotions get the better of her.

Just before Christmas, in the December after her mum’s death, she was brought home by the police for the first time, after getting drunk in the park. This overlooked with a simple ‘telling off’ and no warnings or cautions were given.

In the February, she got into trouble over a bit of graffiti that she had meant to write and setting a bin on fire, she never meant to set. She threw the nearly empty can into the bin and it managed to catch on something, set of fire, panicked she ran from the scene and was caught of CCTV. She deeply regrets this, the chaos it caused and the fact that it stays permanently as a record and while she has got into other trouble, she has not done anything else like that since.

Her mum’s death has also added to the insecurity that she has in herself. She believes that people she loves disappear. Her mum said that she loved her and never came home and her dad turned his back on his family and she lost her close relationship with him. This lead to her being scared to get hurt again and when people got close to her she would run, and close her heart to protect it.

As the books starts, Abigail knows that she is not over her mum’s death, that she is still struggling with the fall out and is dreading the year anniversary.

School

She is not the best student and her homework and coursework is often overdue and her biggest concern used to be what excuse to give to teachers for why she had not done her homework. Despite this, she is bright and is in first or second set in all of her subjects. This means that she is a higher set than most of her friends in most subjects and despite the trouble that she has gotten into, she has managed to keep her grades up. She often downplays her academic abilities but she is brighter than most people view her as, especially when she focuses and her predicted GSCE grades are all between 6 and 9.

Throughout school, since primary school, she has always been defiant. She fights back if she doesn’t agree with something and will argue back with her teachers. This means that there has always been background trouble that Abigail has gotten in, but none of the trouble was really serious until Year 9, and she didn’t get regular trouble until Year 10.

Abigail is used to having people stare at her as she walks down the corridors and used to enjoy it. She had exploited this attention, and in Years 9 and 10 in particular, got people to do what she wanted, used a witty remark to get the dinning room attention or deliberate made a comment in class to get a laugh from the rest or the room as she answered a teacher back. She likes to be the centre of attention and values being popular at school and used to be very popular, however as she has spent more time in isolation at school and less with her friends, her popularity as dropped since her mum’s death. This has not been helped by people in the corridors at school whispering about her mum’s death. Since those whispers had started, she had fine-tuned the great Abi Cooper act, that acted confident, held her head high and gave the impression that she couldn’t care less about what was said about her. She had also been respected an admired for her sporting abilities, playing on four sports teams and helping the school to win numerous competitions.

She has been getting in deliberate fights at school, getting detention and spending days in isolation in an attempt to get her dad’s attention. Her school file is the size of her thumb and most of that has been added in Years 10 and 11. This has not helped to get her dad’s attention so far and Abigail believes that no one cares anymore about what gets written on her school report. She has been on weekly report and reporting to Mrs Morgan each week since the start of the Year 11 school year to the book starting in the December of that year.

She is on the verge of being suspended but Mrs Morgan, her Head of Year, has not carried through with the threat, despite telling Abigail that she is wasting her potential, losing her allies in the staffroom and running out of sympathy.

She thinks objectively about the classes that she takes and doesn’t just take the lessons that she enjoys. For example, even though she hates Science with a passion, she works at it as she wants a career in sports science. She is aiming to study this at university with Leeds and Loughborough being her first choices due to their reputations for sports universities.

She is naturally quite good at English, especially when she gets to express opinions in a piece work. She is not a big reader. Less than a month into Year 10, her mum had even taken to putting ‘Of Mice and Men’ on her plate during meal times and refusing to hand over any food until she had read the required number of pages after Mrs Morgan had called her and told her that Abigail was failing behind.

Julia encouraged her to take GCSEs in French and History, stating that it was good to have traditional subjects in her GCSEs and that it would benefit her to take a foreign language and a humanities subject in her studies.

She is taking GCSEs in English, English Literature, Maths, Science (dual award), French, History, ICT, PE, RE.

Tutor Group – 11HJ (Miss Jackson)

Head of Year – Mrs Morgan

House – Raven

Head of House – Mr Tomkin

 She goes onto take A-levels in Biology, English Combined, PE and Physiology.

Sports

She is naturally athletic, and she picks up sports easily. Her body is built for running, due to her long legs and shorter torso. She keeps it toned and puts a lot of effort, time and practice into toning her abilities. She is fast runner and very few people can outsprint her and they all compete in the county athletics teams. Running is linked to her confidence levels and when she is running well, she feels more confident and generally happier in herself. She is flexible and has quick movements, being that she tends to play on the wings for teams and stays out of the way of physically stronger players. She is fearless in her decisions and can push herself to the extreme, including knocking herself out on a goal post as she raised in to score in Parks Steels match.

Although she is naturally talented, she has had to work at her abilities, and she prefers to do this without others watching. When trying a new sport or new technique, such as taking a free kick in football or a free throw in basketball, she prefers to work on her own. She would spend hours in the back garden firing shots into the goal or basketball net, until she knew she could impress others when she would try the same shot in a training session in front of her teammates. This included her infuriating her mum as she would fire shots off against the garage while her mum was working in there so she could practice catching the ball on the rebound. Even with practice, her confidence didn’t always come as she needed encouragement and support from others to inspire the confidence in her. Once the confidence comes, it buzzes off her and she is able to reflect that confidence on others.

She is very competitive when she takes part in sport and doesn’t do well with failure. This means that she refuses to give in, pushing herself to the maximum and making sure that her teammates do the same. She leads by example, and both instructs and encourages others to do the same. She feels the need to excel and get praise and she isn’t afraid to put the hard work in to do so. Praise and competition spark the life into her and Abigail believes this makes her who she really is.

She gets a natural high and buzz from playing well. She believes that there is nothing like the adrenaline of winning a race or hearing a crowd cheer her on.

Although she is most talented as a runner and especially as a sprinter and it wouldn’t take much more work to get involved at a national level, she prefers the togetherness of team sports. She has been told by scouts that she should pick a focus if she wants to achieve this potential.

She is plays on the basketball, hockey and football teams and she also runs on for the athletics team as a 100 and 200 metre sprinter. She captains each of these teams and has led the school football team to reaching the county cup semi-finals at the start of the books. Hockey is her least successful sport and she is more a team player than one of the stars, however she is a good leader even if she isn’t the most talented player on the team.

She first started showing ability on the football teams, with her dad signing her up to the local Parks Steels team at the age of six. She is still with them and plays and captains two years above her age, currently playing for the under 18s team. She was made captain at seven for the first time when she started to captain the under 9s team. She plays in midfield on the wing or occasionally on the right of a front three.

At eleven, she got called up for the County Centre of Excellence for athletics and started to break Nottingham city records for her sprint times.

When she was fourteen, she started getting recognised beyond a local level for her sporting abilities and was watched by England scouts for both football and athletics, however she never received a call up. Scouts have continued to watch her on a reasonably consistent basis until the start of the book. She is closer to getting a athletics call up rather than a football call up as she runs for the Nottingham Centre of Excellence. This led to serious conversations, eighteen months before the books start on whether she would be able to make it as a professional athlete.

She has won multiple trophies both on an individual and team bases and has a whole bookcase that is filled with trophies and medal including player of the season and top goal scorer awards. She keeps these trophies in pristine condition and is very proud of them.

She enjoys being the star player and takes pride in it and believes that anything less is a come down. Due to this she makes sure that she is at the best of her abilities at all times and doesn’t let people see her weaknesses. After Julia died, she devoted even more energy into her sport, almost exhausting herself, both as another way to get her dad’s attention and so that she was still seen as someone who was excellent in her own right and worth talking about for her abilities. She accepts nothing less than excellence in her abilities and is always working on toning her abilities.

She has benefitted from playing sport in other ways. Playing sport helped her become popular at school, due to her winning awards for herself and the school. It gave her the confidence to talk back to teachers and make new friends. It has well helped her control her temper and burn out her excess energy.

She played a bit of tennis and cricket when she was younger, but now mainly plays them in PE and not outside of it. She has also spent summer holidays getting involved in the water sports activities along the River Trent as she got involved in different activities.

She has planned on studying sport and getting into it professionally.

She had enjoyed several sports-based holidays growing up, including skiing in the Alps, surfing in Cornwell and scuba diving in Egypt. As well as mountain biking, swimming beach volleyball and pretty much any other sport that she can get involved in.

School Teams

Athletics Sprint Team (100/200m) – Year 10/11

1.      Abi Cooper (tutor group – 11HJ)

2.      Vicki Huston (tutor group – 11MR)

3.      Faye Johnson (tutor group – 10ST)

4.      Rachel Wimms (tutor group – 11TC)

5.      Anna Prowse (tutor group – 10PR)

Basketball – Year 10/11

1.      Nikki Gregor (tutor group – 10CB)

2.      Issy Watson (tutor group – 11MR)

3.      Abi Cooper – captain (tutor group – 11HJ)

4.      Laura Kane (tutor group – 11KS)

5.      Morgan Scott (tutor group – 10LM)

6.      Rachel Wimms (tutor group – 11TC)

7.      Kelly Weaver (tutor group – 11HJ) 

Football – Year 10/11

1.      Nat Gerald (tutor group – 11JI)

2.      Madison Willis (tutor group – 10SW)

3.      Olivia Roberts (tutor group – 11NR)

4.      Vicki Huston (tutor group – 11MR)

5.      Morgan Scott (tutor group – 10LM)

6.      Nikki Gregor (tutor group – 10CB)

7.      Abi Cooper – captain (tutor group – 11HJ)

8.      Rose Jones (tutor group – 11HR)

9.      Laura Samon (tutor group – 10ST)

10.   Shannon Johnson (tutor group – 11DW)

11.   Kelly Weaver (tutor group – 11HJ)

12.   Gaby Lowton (tutor group – 10GV)

13.   Ellie Birdcutt (tutor group – 10JC)

14.   Lucy Shaw (tutor group – 10PR)

15.   Molly Dawson (tutor group – 11MR)

16.   Brooke Vaulks (tutor group – 10ST) 

Hockey – Year 10/11

1.      Nat Gerald (tutor group – 11JI)

2.      Alex Polworth (tutor group – 11NR)

3.      Claire Ward (tutor group – 10SW)

4.      Anna Prowse (tutor group – 10PR)

5.      Sophie Flannery (tutor group – 11JI)

6.      Gaby Lowton (tutor group – 10GV)

7.      Abi Cooper – captain (tutor group – 11HJ)

8.      Faye Johnson (tutor group – 10ST)

9.      Issy Watson (tutor group – 11MR)

10.   Bianca Bryan (tutor group – 10AU)

11.   Louise Sutton (tutor group – 11NR)

12.   Maya Atlan (tutor group – 10AU)

13.   Becky Sutton (tutor group – 10PR)

14.   Taylor Simpson (tutor group – 11KS)

 Park Steels Team

1.      Emily Flint

2.      Kaitlyn Jones

3.      Kaylee Byers

4.      Sam Potter

5.      Lily Moore

6.      Jasmine Thomas

7.      Abi Cooper – captain

8.      Leah Charles

9.      Jada Williams

10.   Megan James

11.   Faith Clark

12.   Olivia Roberts

13.   Nat Gerald

14.   Ashley Campbell

15.   Chloe Shipson

16.   Issy Evans

 County Athletics Sprint Team

1.      Trinity Walker

2.      Hannah Thompson

3.      Riley Brown

4.      Abi Cooper

5.      Ava Davies

6.      Mia Adams

7.      Ella Taylor

Relationships

Generally Abigail can’t resist boys with a hint of mischief to them. She doesn’t like going for the ‘good boy’ as she thinks that they can be boring and she enjoys an adrenaline rush when she can get it.

Tyler – He was Abigail’s first serious boyfriend. They started dating when she was fourteen (in Year 9), dating from the February until the end of the school year. He was two years older, in Holly’s school year group. He was quite academic and very into his athletics. He was in the same Centre of Excellence as Abigail and was a 400 metre hurdler. As they were at the same school, they used to catch the tram together to practice. This lead to them getting closer and spending most of the tram journey in each other hands.

He is thoughtful and intelligent and dumped Abigail because he didn’t like the fact that she tried to tried to exploit her popular status at school, thinking that she was too shallow at the time.

Jordan - As of the start of the books, she was in a relationship with Jordan Meller. They started dating at the start of Year 10 and have been dating for fourteen months. When they got together, Abigail was more popular at school, however since Julia’s death the roles reserved and Jordan is the more popular one of the two of them at school. Neither Abigail or Jordan’s parents like the relationship as they think that they are not a good influence on each other. Abigail started missing her curfew when she started dating Jordan, which led to Julia grounding her several times at the start of the relationship. Jordan parents are very aware of the trouble that Abigail has gotten in since Julia’s death and don’t want Jordan to get involved in it.

Abigail is not keen on dating Jordan as the books start, however she believes that dumping him would be social suicide at school. She also wants to cling onto as much of her life from before Julia’s death that she can do. The main issue being that Jordan is much more interested than Abigail in having a sexual relationship, with Abigail being nervous to open up her heart to him in case she gets hurt and generally feeling that she is not ready.

Appearance

Abigail is seen as looking like her mum, only inheriting her dad’s height and at 5ft9, she is taller than her mum when she died and taller than both of her sisters. She has long legs, which she believes are her best asset. Her body is toned, due to the amount of competitive sport that she plays. She has long red hair, which is more vibrant in colour and longer in length than her mum’s falling half way down her back. Her hair is normally worn in a plait or a ponytail, however when she wants to look like her mum, she will wear her hair down. She has brown eyes and lots of freckles.

She wears jeans, jogging bottoms and shorts with t-shirts, vest tops and football tops most of the time. When going out her go to item is her biker jacket. She wears trainers as often as she can and has a huge collection of them both for sport and casual wear. She wears her mum’s old necklace and rarely takes this off.

Her Home

The Cooper house was full of noise and life as Abigail grew up (prior to her mum’s death), whether it had been her dad yelling that he had tripped over a school bag or the music blasting out the converted garage as her mum painted.

Her room is a mess, and she throws clothes such as jeans and hoodies on the floor into a to be worn again pile. The overlapping posters on her wall are of half dressed sportsmen, have frayed edges and have been blue tacted on the wall in an ad hoc fashion.

There is a tree in the back garden that Abigail used to climb as a child and her dad spent forever, pulling her out of the tree with cuts on her fingers. Her mum nearly throttled her, when she caught Abigail using the same tree to climb out of her bedroom window, when she was grounded for staying out late with Jordan, when she was fourteen.

The back garden contains a football goal and a basketball net in addition to a patio with furniture and a barbecue and a lawn.

Random Bits of Information on Her

• Chocolate is a comfort food for her, she also tends to go to chocolate and fizzy drinks if she wants a quick sugar high, even through she is very aware of her body and what is good for it.

• Apples are her go to fruit when she is looking for a quick breakfast in the morning.

• She is very ticklish.

• Her laptop desktop screen is a family photo. Her phone screen saver is a photo of her at a Nottingham Forest match.

• She is not a good cook – she can burn beans on toast.

• She is a Nottingham Forest fan.

• She doesn’t watch too much TV, instead watching sport or listening to music.

• She still has her teddy that was put in her cot as a baby, however teddy has seen better days. One of his eyes is hanging off, his fur discoloured and patchy. Teddy had been thrown around, flung at doors, dropped on numerous floors and even been left at her mum’s art gallery overnight on more than one occasion.