In Skive, the problem is with Tommy himself, he wants to be cool. In Elevator Food, Angeline thinks she's fat and in NACS, Kit can't decide in his heart which girl he likes better. All very internal problems.

Plot notes for Walking the Balloon

But with Walking, the problem is something that Allie can't get a handle on. As a young boy, I felt that way when my parents had a fight. I felt scared things would get out of control and there was nothing I could do to make them stop. Allie represents that fear but unlike me, Allie is a strong person. She takes matters into her own hand. She tries to fix problems that aren't even hers. While it's true that her parents breaking up will affect her and Nat, she cannot heal her parents' relationship. Only they themselves can do that. And that is something that Allie eventually realises. She also learns something more important. To be dependent on someone else for your own happiness, even if that person is family, can be risky. You have to learn make yourself happy. You can't force people, even the people you love, to act a certain way just to make you happy. If you do that, you'll be miserable.

That was what I wanted to say in Walking. And so I sat down and thought about Allie, the person she is and I thought long and hard about how she would react to a divorce. I think her reaction to things is very common and identifiable. What is unusual about Allie is that she's very daring in a subversive way. She manipulates Nat, trying to make him sick so Dad will come home. She even tries to forge a letter in her mum's name. I know people do manipulate things to get what they want but for Allie, she has a higher goal -- to reunite her parents. That's what is so touching about her. She loves her family.

Divorce is a terrible thing for a teenager to go through and some readers have asked me about the outcome of Walking. Do Allie's parents reunite? Without having to say it, I think it's pretty clear what happens to them. But it's left unsaid because that's not the point of the story. Allie's journey from resistance to defiance to acceptance is the real story of Walking and that's why I finished her story with the scene at the SPCA. And in typical Allie fashion, there's that last subversive act there -- she takes matters into her own hands and decides to get a puppy for Nat, despite knowing Mum would object. It's Allie's way of saying, "Since you made a decision that I don't like, I can do the same." But again, there's no mean spiritedness in this. She's getting the puppy to make Nat happy.