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‘Oh my god. I can’t imagine anything more exciting. It would be the most wonderful thing to happen since Mum was alive.’

Holy sainted mother of Perfect Aggie. What could I say to that? ‘I’d still have to get tickets, and they’re probably sold out …’ I hissed weakly.

‘Don’t you worry about that!’ Dean had suddenly revived. Lordy. One mention of his dead wife and he was
a laser-focussed scientist all over again. ‘I’ll pull some strings at work. We’ve got some promotional connections with the Zed. I’ll get you a pair of tickets, no trouble.’

We all stared at each other with
tears in our eyes.

Look at us all, bonding
, said the tears in Mum and Dean’s eyes.

I’m going to meet the Divine Jazzy D to make up for my mother dying
, said Aggie’s eyes.

I am the most miserable, lying human being on earth and utterly in despair
, said my eyes. What in the name of Stephen Hawking had I done?

‘You’d better get three tickets,’ I said to Dean
, as he and Aggie hugged each other with disgusting amounts of father-daughter glee.

If I was going to do this, I would definitely be needing Dolores.

Dolores, naturlich (that’s German, btw, because I like German from when I lived there. It’s a very logical language where many small words slot together like Lego to make long words and the scientist in me just
liebes
it. That’s German for love, btw –
liebe
.
Ich
for I,
liebe
for love,
Deutsch
for German … though it’s normally “
Ich liebe dich
” which means I love you and similar dross and is rank, vomit-worthy and utterly unacceptable) … Gott in Himmel, where was I going with all that?

Ach, ja.

Dolores, naturally, thought the whole thing was completely brilliant, mainly because she was going to get a free ticket to the Double Vision gig. She tried pretending she cared about meeting Aggie and seeing how the “step-sisters” got along, (‘Badly,’ I told her) while all the time reminding me that I’d ignored every comment she’d ever made about the band and the Divine Jazzy D, so I must really really really want to impress Aggie.

‘I told you three months ago that they were on at the Zed,’ she said as we navigated the corridor towards the biology lab, with me sending evil stares to any male who got distracted by her bazoomas. ‘You took no notice whatsoever.’

‘You did not tell me that; I would have remembered.’

With a sigh, Dolores recounted the incident. ‘You were talking about chemical symbolism
or something and all the different letters and you mentioned Z for something and I said that Double Vision were on at the Zed and you said you’d be more interested in a double … something. Double heels?’

Ah. Now I remembered. ‘Double helix. Heeeeelix, to rhyme with Feeelix. It’s a DNA thing. Science, you know. In fact, if you
— ̕

‘AND AND AND,’ said Dolores, holding up a finger as she thought of something else, ‘I told you last week that Jazzy D was b
eing interviewed in Hotso, saying how happy he was to be coming to our town.’

‘You know I’d never read Hotso.’

‘You didn’t have to!’ said Dolores, sweeping off to the left down the bio corridor with her bosom leading like the prow of a ship. ‘I read it aloud to you during lunch. You kept saying mm mm mmm, like you were really listening.’

Oh yeah. Well, she had me on that one, too. ‘I think I was just enjoying my sandwich.’

Dolores spun around in the laboratory doorway and stuck her finger practically up my nose. ‘Well, you’d better listen to me now, Miss Clever-Clogs,’ she said fiercely in a teacher voice. ‘Remember, I’m the brainy one where Double Vision and Jazzy D are concerned. Okay?’

‘Okay.’ Wowsers. She was feisty when I’d got her annoyed. ‘Okay, okay. So where do we start?’

She plonked her files down on the desk and whipped out her phone. ‘Google, of course. We need to know where he went to school, when he was there, if he might possibly ever have even met you. And then we go on Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Tumblr and the DV website to see if there’s any way to contact him and pretend you actually know him. Oh, and we’d better do the same for Stephen Scowl.’

‘You’re the boss,’ I said, and I meant it. Blimey, Dolores sounded really bright and in
-chargey when she was discussing stuff she actually knew something about.

Unfortunately, though, it was bad timing, as just then Miss Sargeson strode into the lab looking all clinical in her white lab coat, and barked at Dolores to put her phone away.

‘She wasn’t calling anyone, Miss, honest,’ I said. ‘Just Googling.’

‘Not helping,’ muttered Dolores under her breath.

‘Dolores can Google on her own time, thank you, Ms Andrews,’ said Miss Sargeson sharply – to me – and then she strutted over and plucked the phone out of Dolores’ hand. ‘You can get this back at the end of the day. Now, please get your lung out and dissect it.’

‘Ca-at,’ moaned Dolores, but she stopped abruptly when Teach glared at us again.

‘Lungs! Now!’ she barked.

Sighing deeply, we trooped over to the bloody pile of innards that were on the front bench (yeah, she wasn’t actually asking us to slice open our chests, rip out an organ and cut it into little pieces – though if she had, I reckon one of Dolores’ lungs would probably have gone round the whole class). I selected a particularly handsome specimen that looked like it had come from a good, strong, opera-singing cow, and hoiked it back to our lab bench.

From that moment on, I must confess, I was pretty much back into ignoring everything that Dolores was saying – something about blood and how heinous her period was at the moment, followed by more drivel about Jazzy D and boys in general and the new guy she’d bumped into on the steps. I was far, FAR more interested in literally dissecting the actual lung as we were literally meant to be doing, so didn’t really notice that Dolores was nattering non-stop and casually turning on and off the Bunsen burner as she did so.

Eventually I noticed the smell of gas. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘Why? Is it annoying you?’ Dolores grinned nastily and switched it right back on again.

‘No. Well, yes, but that’s not the reason I said don’t do that.’

‘It so was,’ she said, and spun the little wheely cog thing backwards and forwards.

The smell of gas was getting really strong. Any minute now I’d be able to extract Dolores’ wisdom
(ha!) teeth without her noticing.

‘It’s not because
it’s annoying, though it really, really is,’ I said, pointing at her with my scalpel and reaching across to the Bunsen burner. ‘It’s because playing with it is dangerous.’

With an arched eyebrow, Dolores said, ‘We-ell, scalpels are dangerous too, and you’re playing with one of those,’ and then she whacked the burner on full. Gas billowed across the bench as I leaned towards the Bunsen burner, and
just then someone ran by with a naked flame …

Sigh. No, actually they didn’t. That would have been far better. Dolores could have burnt off her pink hair and a few inches of bosom and been far less attractive (though still more gorge than me) and I wouldn’t have done what I did next.

Which was truly heinous and bloody.

I stabbed the new boy.

Yep, scalpel in my hand, reaching for Bunsen burner when I should have just minded my own business and let Dolores blow up her boobs which have to be filled with helium, in any case, to be that big and bouncy. Boy walking by, clearly coming over to talk to Dolores who he’d met on the steps earlier, stretching out an arm either to shake her hand or turn off the burner or something … I don’t know. I just know that the scalpel in my extended hand met the middle finger of his extended hand and sliced a fair chunk out of it.

He turned white and fainted.

Chairs clattered to the floor as both Dolores and I leapt to his assistance. Where’s a jug of water when you need one? That was how Dolores had revived the previous fainting boy. All we had was a jar of pure alcohol that would have seared his eyeballs out of their sockets if I’d chucked it all over him, and a couple of week-old lungs. I couldn’t have him coming around with a bleeding, chopped-up organ draped over his face: he might think it was his severed hand and faint all over again …

So all I could do was go ‘Oh no!’ and stare at him.

And then stare and stare and stare.

Gosh, he was beautiful. Beautiously beautiful in a skinny, lanky, nerdy way that just hinted of weirdy beardiness in his future. This was a fellow scientist, I just knew it. A fellow lab lover. Someone I could discuss the double helix with who wouldn’t think I was talking about shoes. Someone I could compare notes with, and maybe kiss on his slightly-open mouth with the t
iniest strip of downy stubble above the top lip. Someone I would one day marry and procreate with, to fill the world with little genius children …

Dolores was prodding me in the side. ‘Cat! Do something. He’s bleeding.’

‘I can’t!’ I seemed to be incapable of movement.

‘I thought you wanted to be like a doctor or something,’ she said, her little nose wrinkling with concern as she gazed down at him.

‘No, I want to do a doctorate in science, not tend to open wounds.’

Move. Do something. Help him. You stabbed him! Help the guy.
My conscious was shouting at me even more than Dolores.

But I can’t, said some other part of me. He’ll look at me, and he’s beautiful, the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen, and I’m standing next to Dolores, for Chrissakes. Why oh why didn’t her boobs explode?

He was starting to stir, no doubt roused by the crashing of chairs as Miss Sargeson and the rest of the class thundered across the room.

‘What’s his name?’ I whispered to Dolores, like that mattered while he was bleeding all over the parquet flooring. And I thought she said “Ferdy” which was brilliant because it went with “nerdy” … and my mind went off into all sorts of daydreams about Nerdy Ferdy and Cat the Daft Bat being THE couple in the school, and I told my mind to shut up because love is just a chemical reaction in the brain and doesn’t really exist, but he was so beautiful …

‘It’s okay, Ferdy,’ I whispered, holding out a hand to help him up. ‘It’s just a cut.’

And the beautiful boy totally glared at me. ‘It’s Freddie,’ he said bitterly. ‘And you nearly chopped my finger off. What is wrong with you?’

He held the offending finger up for us all to inspect. His middle finger. Right at me, in a sign that even I couldn’t ignore. What
was
wrong with me? I’d just had a chemical reaction in the brain for someone who was clearly destined to hate me forever.

And when Dolores leaned over to help him up and he stared gratefully down her shirt, I felt the chemical reaction move somewhere else
and morph into different kinds of emotions. First, the lung-ish area, in which I suspected my heart resided, where it fluttered in a kind of fight-or-flight anxiety, and then down down down, right into the pit of my stomach, where it turned green and poisonous.

Jazzy Divine had better fall for Dolores too, was all I could think. Nobody other than
the divine Jazzy D was going to be able to curtail the electricity zapping between my biffle and the nerdy dream-guy now listening to every dim word she was whispering to him.

Jazzy D. You’re mine.

You have to be mine, so I can give you to Dolores.

I had to message him somehow. This HAD to happen now.

Jason Devaney

c/o Stephen Scowl

Talentfactory

PO Box 47863

London SW19 8DR

Dear Divine Jazzy D or of course
Jason Devaney
as I would call you,

Haha LOL and all that. I bet you’ve nearly forgotten me despite our regular emails over the past ten years since we were at school together in Jersey. I know, I know; I should have written more.

Actually I’m writing this real snail-mail letter via your manager, Mr Scowl, since I seem to have lost your email address even though I did definitely have it. Definitely. And Facebook etc is just so impersonal and, like, EVERYWHERE, don’t you think?

So, just to remind you in case stardom has totally gone to your head and you can’t recall large chunks of your childhood (as sometimes happens with stress and traumatic events like getting tossed around by mad fans in the mosh pit), it’s Cat Andrews here. Remember? Goofy old Cat – well, young Cat then because I was only 5 and you were 7 possibly 8 and in Year 3 when I was in Year 1. And I was called Catherine back in the day. My teacher was Mr Favreau and he was French. I … um … can’t quite bring to mind who your teacher was even though we were such close friends and you talked about him/her all the time.

Anyway, buddy, friend, matey mate mate … I hear you’re in town next week playing at the Zed with Double
Vomit
Vision, and I thought maybe we could hang out a bit after the show? I’ve got a really lovely friend who is so gorgeous she causes fainting, fighting and tidal waves in the school canteen who just can’t wait to meet you!

Call me and let me know where to find you after the concert!

Your old friend,

Cat Andrews – 07912 200976

Formerly Catherine Melissa Andrews X

Oh, and more kisses from Dolores, the lovely friend who is helping me write thi
s
