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Now in their last school year, best friends Nonie, Jenny, Edie and Crow are so close to beginning glittering careers. So why do their challenges suddenly seem overwhelming?

The girls have choices to make: Who will wait for fame and success? Who will emerge an outright star? Who will fall in love? And who will turn her back on all her dreams?

Third in the fabulous, sharply observed and compassionate Threads series.

Threads was the winner of The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2009

PRAISE FOR THREADS

‘A magical tale…’ BLISS

‘Intelligent chick-lit with lots of heart.’ BOOKSELLER

‘Great fun…girls will love it.’  JACQUELINE WILSON

PRAISE FOR BEADS, BOYS AND BANGLES

…more than a zesty fantasy about teenagers engaged in a kind of junior Gossip Girl/Sex and the City fashion fest. Bennett’s clever depiction…makes you see the gorgeous clothes, and why they’re worth it – as long as they’re ethically sourced... AMANDA CRAIG, THE TIMES

'The series ties in with the themes all girls love: fashion, acting, boys... yet adds so much more to all of that and yet manages to be so warm and honest and cool.' CATHY CASSIDY

I’m sitting in the back row of a salon in Paris, surrounded by fashion students, buyers, editors and movie stars, and watching THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CATWALK SHOW I WILL EVER SEE IN MY LIFE.

It doesn’t matter that it’s hot in here. It doesn’t matter that everyone around me looks so unbelievably chic I might as well have shown up in my pyjamas (actually, the kimono I’m wearing does have a hint of pyjamas about it). It doesn’t matter that beside me, a fifteen year-old in a serious afro is bouncing up and down with excitement, and making her chair wobble.

It’s just good to be here. Dior couture. John Galliano at his most incredible best. Dresses that are so huge and theatrical they’re almost impossible to wear. But so exquisite you want to spend the next year examining every inch of them. Microminis with vast bustles. Trains that take up three quarters of the catwalk, smothered in gold embroidery. Shoes that are perfect pieces of sculpture in their own right and belong in a museum. Hair that … Well, you get the picture. Galliano didn’t exactly skimp on this one. And we’ve only seen twenty outfits so far. We’re not even half way through.

My friend Crow – the girl in the afro beside me – is a designer. She’s constantly thinking up new ideas for beautiful clothes, and drawing them, and making them. She’s been doing it for years and has a queue of people who want to wear her outfits. But she is a teenager. She does most of it from a workroom in the basement of my house in Kensington, in between GCSE classes and remedial maths. She doesn’t have a building full of seamstresses on tap, like they do at Dior. Or access to the best makeup artist, hairdresser, DJ and set designer in the world, like John Galliano does. Actually, she does have access to the best DJ, or one of them. He happens to be my brother. But that’s beside the point.

What I mean is that my friend makes clothes in a spare room and here we are, witnessing the absolute height of fashion. This is as bold and creative and luxurious and EXPENSIVE at it can possibly get. It’s the toughest ticket to get hold of in the fashion world, and when my brother said he could wangle two of them for us, we practically fell over. Now, sitting in the middle of it all, surrounded by models, lights, photographers, music and fashionistas, I’m still recovering from shock.

The dresses keep on coming. Galliano seems to have hired pretty much every supermodel in the world to wear them. And not only does each girl have to walk down the mini-catwalk to pose for the photographers, she then has to climb some steps, stand on a podium with a throne, strike a regal pose and climb down again, with every frill, flounce and hair intact. They’re athletes, these girls. They’re being paid a lot of money, but they’re earning every penny.

Finally, Crow stops jumping for a minute and grabs my sleeve.

‘This is it,’ she whispers. ‘The bride.’