Love cracks you open like an egg. It leaves you sizzling in a pan, too stunned by the liberation from your shell to realise that you're about to be eaten up. Well, that's how I felt when I met Kieran Kamau. Crack. Sizzle. And then that wonderful and awful ohmygod moment when I knew that life would never be the same again. Quite how much my life (and his) would change was, fortunately, way beyond the scope of my imagination on that day. I suppose you think I'm mad, talking about eggs.

But, you see, it was eggs that started it. Half a dozen of them. Free-range, of course, because Mum won't buy battery- farmed ones. Anyway, there I was, humming my way along the road, (the song was 'One Summer Morning' by The Chickadees, in case you're interested) and I was counting the cracks in the pavement, as you do, when splat! I walked right into him and dropped the carrier bag. The tomatoes rolled into the road to instant death by passing cars, the eggs broke, and I swore. Loudly. I can now testify that eggs will not fry on a hot pavement, but they did congeal a bit. I looked at the mess and knew, just knew, that Mum would slay me.

Then I realised that the person, the bumpee, so to speak, was still there. 'I'm really sorry,' he said. Not, 'Why don't you look where you're going, you idiot?' which is what my immediate response would have been. I looked at him. He looked at me. Contrite brown eyes, like a puppy, and it took me a minute to notice the rest of him. It was worth losing the eggs for. His skin was the colour of warm amber, the same colour as the necklace that Aunt Bee gave me for my last birthday (my fourteenth, if you must know).

She told me the beads had been formed forty million years ago, and I love that one piece has a strange kind of fly in it. Anyway. His hair was dark brown, almost black, and coiled in shiny ringlets all the way to his shoulders. He was wearing baggy jeans and a white short-sleeved T-shirt that made his skin look even more golden. And he was tall, almost a head taller than me, and I'm pretty tall for my age. 'Are you OK?' he asked, and I suddenly felt very, very stupid, staring at him, unable to say a word. I gave a squeak, and he bent down to pick up the egg carton and put it back in the plastic bag. It was full of bits of goo and eggshell, and I kind of knew how those eggs must feel.

Once he broke eye contact my voice came back. 'I'm fine. Sorry!' was the best I could say. I took the bag from him and ran, when really all I wanted to do was ask him who he was, where he lived, and whether he'd mind if I stalked him. I didn't look back. Mum, as she tactfully put it, was Not Amused, and we had baked beans on toast for tea. .