Shoelace Chaser

Being 17 is hard enough – hormones, homework, the looming question of what comes next. Add caring for your mum to the mix, and Thea's juggling act is nothing short of Olympic.

Smart, self-sufficient and secretly just holding it together, she's spent the last two years keeping her life under wraps. No-one knows she's a carer. Not even Syd, her endlessly chatty new running partner who pushes her to pursue a university athletics scholarship and dream of something more. But chasing that future means leaving her mum behind – and the last time Thea tried that, things didn't quite go to plan.