Kelly (Enter Wildthyme)

Kelly was the 21 or 27 year old cashier at the Great Big Book Exchange, who had been Simon's best and only friend for either four or ten years.

Biography
During her childhood, she and her dad been alone, and Kelly had had to take on her dad's responsiblities while he worked.

She had begun working in the Great Big Book Exchange when she was around fourteen, later meeting Simon when he and his grandmother had entered the Exchange, searching for books to buy. Four years later, he had been to university, and upon Simon's arrival back in Darlington, Kelly had given him the Objet D'Oom and the Great Big Book Exchange after Terrance mysteriously disappeared.

At a session of the Writers' Festival, Simon meets Iris Wildthyme, and they immediately become friends, but Kelly distrusts Iris. An attendee of the festival, Anthony Marvelle, expresses an interest in Kelly, and one thing leads to another, and they sleep together in the Duke's Legs hotel.

The day after, Iris, Simon, and Panda convince Kelly to come with them to Montmartre, June 1984, on the brink of the Martian invasion. She became increasingly anxious over Iris and Panda's seeming disregard for what's going on around them, until she asked to be taken home.

She would then look after the Exchange in Simon's absence, until the winter of that year when Marvelle mesmerised and kidnapped her from Magda's home, as Marvelle knew she was useful to his plans as Kelly somehow knew of the Ringpull as detailed in one of her poems. She was the key to open it because of her time spent with the Aja'ib. Marvelle brought her to Valcea, and then the deserts of Hyspero. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

The Aja'ib told that her whole family was connected to Hyspero. According to some Hysperans she was the Ringpull. She was taken to Iris's base on Hyspero but was rescued. She felt like a reluctant time traveller. Euphemia told her to protect her as they were taken to the Scarlet Empress. The Empress told Marvelle to take her to the Ringpull so that she could open it. (PROSE: Wildthyme Beyond!)

Kelly used to smoke, and she attended the Writers' Festival, which was organised by her landlady and friend, Chelsea. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

Legacy
Seemingly coincidentally, in the drafts of a story written by Paul Magrs, there was a character who was very similar to Kelly. The character was going to be involved in a complicated subplot full of secret messages in books with big misunderstandings, but Magrs removed it as he felt it "was too much plot". (PROSE: The Great Big Book Exchange)

Appearance
Kelly had purple hair. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

Personality
Kelly was well-organised and she adopted a controlled lifestyle, being a little bit of a control freak. She enjoyed gothic literature. (PROSE: Enter Wildthyme)

Behind the scenes
The reason why Kelly is either 21 or 27 years old by the events of Enter Wildthyme, is because that one part of the novel states that it had been four years since she had met Simon (she was indisputably 17 at the time), and that she had been working the the Exchange for three years prior; contradictorily, two other instances state that it had been ten years since Kelly had met Simon, just after the death of Simon's parents.