The secular angel in contemporary children's literature: David ...

popular girls” (McNish, 2007, 8). Although it is clear that her thoughts about angels are never
far away, she has the will and power to control them now, thereby succeeding in acting
normally, or as expected of her teachers and classmates. The new environment in school also
acts to her advantage since none of the girls know where she was before or what she was
doing. “Ashcroft High. A huge comprehensive where only a handful of teachers knew what
she’d been like before, and none of the other students considered her a misfit or freak (…)
There was no more talk of angels, either. Freya was careful to make sure not one word on that
topic passed her lips” (McNish, 2007, 8). It is clear to Freya that if she is to begin a new life
as a ‘normal’ teenager, and eventually become a successful one, she has to work at it, and be
methodical. Her strategy seems to be working because “in the last month, (…) she’d been
accepted into one of the more select social circles at school” (McNish, 2007, 9). Through the
course of the book, the reader realises that even though Freya is new to this high school
‘game’, and might not have realised it from the very beginning, she slowly becomes aware of
what Amy Carr signifies, how she is able to achieve “fame”, and how much of a friend she
really is. However, Freya’s desire and longing to belong and be accepted is, at first, far greater
and stronger than her need to analyse Amy’s character in order to see her for what she is:
superficial and fake. At that point, her only concern is being accepted and welcomed by a
community to which she is a stranger and a newcomer, and she is well aware of the fact that
getting noticed by Amy Carr is her best chance of achieving, first, acknowledgment, and then
approval. Therefore, the choices that she makes are the product of her desire to fit in, and not
decisions based on a thought process through which the consequences of these actions have
been weighed and considered. In other words, her actions are not yet responsible, as she still
lacks the experience which would enable her to foresee the negative consequences of her
actions.
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