Hazel Wood Girl (10 page)

I went down at midnight last night with a torch and thought I could feel someone near the Hazel Wood, by the ruined cottage. So I left the note and ran. It was probably just a fox.

This morning we rehearsed a new number where I do a duet with Christophe, which I know is just more scheming on Em-J’s part. He looked a little sad again even though I could see his note from me sticking out of his back pocket.

Then a man came around from the local paper to interview us and take a picture. We all got ridiculously 
excited then and the mood really picked up. Remembering that we are doing it for Barry is really important so that we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Then tonight, me and Mum had just finished eating dinner (Dad and Adam were working late with the vet and the cattle) when there was a knock at the back door.

We expected it to be one of the men who help out on the farm, but this time it was Christophe, asking for me.

I didn’t get
too
excited, but I was glad to have the chance to make things right.

He said he was wondering if I wanted to practice the vocals on the new number. I felt like saying something sarky like,

‘Won’t your girlfriend mind?’, but instead I just smiled and said,

‘I’ll get my jacket.’

I started veering us toward the stone barn, even though I knew he was automatically headed for the Hazel Wood. I thought it would be less complicated that way.

I think that I was more relaxed with him now that I know that he’s out-of-bounds (or ‘girlfriended’ as Em-J calls it). He was just like he is with the others, really funny, and even insisted on giving me a piggy 
back when I wasn’t walking as fast as him. Then he threw me down onto one of the hay bales that we’d dumped outside the barn.

He was going,

‘So, mademoiselle rock star, how do you mange to look so glamorous all the time?’ and was shoving hay down my back and messing up my hair.

I was gasping for breath I was laughing so much.

As soon as he stopped I jumped up and grabbed a whole other bale and threw it on top of him and he pretended to be dying underneath it. We just messed around for ages, saying strange things in French (his French accent is so sexy), singing the songs in the styles of different singers and pushing each other off the hay-bale stage, and then we ran out of energy and stopped, and looked at each other.

‘Hello, Hazel Wood Girl.’

‘Hello, Watcher.’

‘You can always talk to me you know.’

‘I know.’

And then with the worst timing of anyone in the whole history of the universe, Mr Granger marched around the side of the barn. He walked off as soon as he saw us, but his being there was enough.

‘Right,’ Christophe jumped up, ‘We’re finding those papers.’ 

I think when we were interrupted it sort of reminded us that we don’t usually carry on like that. We looked around the whole barn in case we missed something the last time, Christophe even climbed up into the rafters. They are definitely not there. Eventually, still a bit embarrassed about earlier, we decided to sing the new song, and practised it until Dad came in and said that Mindy was on the phone to Mum and wanted a word with me too.

Christophe asked about Mindy and I just laughed and said,

‘You have plenty of time to find out how wonderful my sister is.’

He half-jokingly said,

‘Well, if she’s anything like you I like her already.’

That kind of made me feel good, and kind of made me nervous of when they do meet. I know I’ll hardly get a look in with him once she’s back, and fabulous Helen-the-girlfriend had better watch out too!

For now though, I am just loving the fact that we are now more friends than ‘sort-ofs’. It’s like The Watcher and The Hazel Wood Girl finally met tonight for the first time.

I haven’t written in this for a couple of days because it’s been all postering, rehearsing, getting the barn in order, getting the stage up … all that good stuff. The school came good on the fifty chairs, which I collected with Adam and Liza last night. The local amateur theatrical society provided us with their lights; they really make the barn look like a professional venue. Dad is being really great and
said that he’ll take care of the electricity bill.

When I’m lying in bed about to fall asleep, I imagine myself singing in front of the audience and it makes me want to pretend to lose my voice so I won’t have to do it. Then I remember that Barry Finch really
has
hurt his voice from the smoke and I know that I’m brave enough to do what I need to do.

The gig is TOMORROW and I just want it to be OVER!

Only ten tickets have been sold, but the others say that pretty much everyone just pays at the door. We’ve been rehearsing through the amps and with mikes so I’ve had time to get used to that. So I suppose there’s nothing to be nervous of.

Nope. No good, I’m still sweating like a pig about it.

I was sick to my stomach all day. We had decided that last night was the last rehearsal apart from the sound-check. The extra equipment like the mixing board arrived at about two pm and Em-J and her techie friends Tank and Rainbow (really) had it sorted, so I went to run through all the lyrics and drink a carrot and celery juice to keep my energy up.

We had the sound-check at five and it all sounded really good.

At six Em-J and I went up to my room to change. We both looked fantastic, ‘super-yummy’, as she’d 
say. Em-J had on these white, loose jeans, a white sleeveless t-shirt, and a really old, light-green leather jacket. Her blonde hair was a little more spiked than usual. She added one long, dangly earring and a small diamond stud in the other ear, then finished it off with black nail polish on her short fingernails. I asked her about shoes and she said she wasn’t going to wear any, and promptly painted her toenails black too.

Since my hair had gone so fair in the sun, I left it loose except for one small plait down the front on the right. I decided to wear the sneakers that The Watcher had decorated for me, and so had to build the rest of the outfit around that. I took out my dark jeans and Em-J said,

‘No! We need you looking as cool as you sound, baby-doll,’ and took over.

She decided on a short denim skirt with a bit of a flare, two belts criss-crossed over, long socks falling down, a thin jumper with a t-shirt over it (which sounds weird, but looks the absolute business). I would never have been able to think of how to put an outfit together like that. I
so
looked the part that I felt I was finally seeing who I want to be.

We checked ourselves in the full-length mirror and decided we were ready for the front cover of the 
coolest of music magazines.

One thing was really bothering me (there’s always something with me!) so I shared it with Em-J.

‘What if Barbara and her friends are there and start booing?’

‘Not coming, chick. She’s still on the island.’

‘But you said she’d be back.’

‘That was just to get you to sing.’

‘Did my mum tell you I wanted to be in the band?’

‘Your mum, your dad, Adam, and even Christophe. I almost had to hire a receptionist, I was getting so many phone calls about you!’

I suppose it’s good when people get involved in your life.

The guys made such a fuss when we met them in the kitchen that I felt like the night was already a success. They especially loved the belts, and I caught Christophe checking out my legs!

Mum made us all eat spaghetti in veggie sauce, which annoyed me at the time, but later I knew she was right.

We advertised that it was starting at eight, but by eight o’clock there were only a few cars in the makeshift car park (aka the small fallow field). Em-J said that even if we only had ten people in the audience that we were to be really professional and 
play our best for them. I was a bit relieved that there would only be a few, but a bit sad too because it would mean we wouldn’t make much money for Barry.

Then, by the time we had walked over, loads more cars, bikes and people on foot had arrived, and Beau said he counted eighty. Then in the half-hour before we went on stage, more people arrived, and Dad said we had over 250. I wished he hadn’t told me that because then I went all shaky and was sure I’d be seeing the spaghetti again soon!

Next thing, Adam was up on stage and welcomed everyone, and rabbited on a bit about fire exits and stuff that I couldn’t even understand because my heart was thumping inside my head, and my stomach was in my throat, and my feet and legs seemed to be gone completely. Christophe gave my hand a quick squeeze and his was as clammy as mine. I closed my eyes and imagined myself standing in the Hazel Wood, with a breeze blowing and the birds jumping about, and then I heard …

‘For the first time ever, put your hands together for … FARMER!!’

The others bounded up onto the stage, Beau cracking his drumsticks together above his head, Em-J giving the crowd a thumbs up, and Christophe 
grinning and nodding and raring to go. I somehow got up there and looked out at the pool of people, all of them eagerly waiting to know what we were made of.

What was
I
made of?

I looked from one face to another, so many people from school who had laughed at me, ignored me, snubbed me. Then there were others, maybe people that I had ignored because I was feeling so sorry for myself. I knew in that moment what I had to do. No messing it up for the first few notes, no faltering before I found my feet. I glanced over to Beau, Em-J and finally Christophe, letting each of them know with a look that I was ready to sing, ready to finally be the person I was put here to be. I know that sounds dramatic, but I really felt it.

Em-J started with a slow riff, then Beau joined her with a steady hi-hat and soft snare. Then I could hear Christophe slide into the opening phrase and before I knew it, my voice was resonating through the speakers and throughout the stone barn. The audience came even more alive with each verse, each chorus, and with their cheers and applause at the end. We sounded amazing! My moves and gestures and little dancey bits went down well with the crowd, but even better with Beau who whooped at one hip 
move I made, and Christophe who yelled out,

‘You move it, girl!’

Then it all became a blur as I grew stronger and more confident as one song followed another. Em-J and Christophe introduced all the numbers, until it came to the song I wrote that night not long ago, ‘Whisper Me A Morning’.

I announced,

‘This song is for anyone who has ever felt that they are alone. It’s to let you know that you are always surrounded with people who want you to be happy and who want to share your life.’

People even applauded my intro! I sang that song as I have never sung in my whole life. I felt like everything that happened over the last year was leading up to that moment. The cheers were louder than ever and Christophe strode across the stage and kissed my cheek. As we kept playing, the audience moved in so close that the first six rows were squashed right up against the side of the stage, and the whole room seemed to be dancing.

Near the end, Christophe, while lining up the next song, said something really cool about a community not just being about old photos and documents, but that it was about creating new memories together, and you could tell everyone felt goosebumps all over. 

When we reached the end of the set the crowd kept cheering for an encore. So we did the duet, even though we had decided that it might not be ready. It’s kind of a love song, and I caught myself scanning the crowd for any girl that might be Christophe’s girlfriend. There were so many likely candidates.

The applause and cheers went on for ages and my mouth was hurting from smiling so much. We all hugged each other and Em-J whispered to me,

‘This is
one
of our dreams come true, supergirl, now we can get all the others in place.’

The yoga ladies had all brought brownies, mini-strawberry tarts, and all kinds of cakes and pastries, plus a huge vat of non-alco fruit punch for the younger people and a wine cooler for the adults. So the party carried on for two hours after we got off stage.

So many people were coming up and talking to me and I got to know about two dozen people who live in town and the farms around, who I didn’t even know existed before. One or two people from school said they were sorry they didn’t get to know me better during term time. Matthew Blondel from my class asked me to his party next week! At first I was going to say, ‘I’ll see’, but I’m not that kind of person, so I thanked him very much instead. 

Beau was mostly with his parents, aunty, uncle and cousins who looked so proud of him. Em-J was entertaining half the room with her stories, and I could tell that she was thinking how this was the first night of thousands like this, and that when she’s famous she’ll remember that tonight was when it all got started. We caught each other’s eyes and winked.

I could see a whole crowd of girls around Christophe as he joked and hugged, and I just smiled, thinking about the notes and pictures from him that I’d be able to look at later on. I might not be his girlfriend, but I’m his friend and his fellow band member and that means a lot.

Sammy-boy was popular with all the younger kids because he was the only one who had a sibling in Farmer. Having a hedgehog probably helped too. He must have been tired because he went home early with Mrs Hooper.

Just before people started drifting back to their cars, my dad got up on stage and announced that we had raised the funds for Barry to be able to return to college. He then said that a private donor had added enough to buy Barry a scooter as a token of the town’s thanks for his caring and bravery during the fire. I knew instantly that the donor was my dad, and 
I felt really proud to be his daughter.

I so wish we had all grabbed a minute together before we left, but Beau was going off to a friend’s house, and Em-J had to get a lift with her mum and dad. Christophe went at some stage too, but I didn’t even get to say goodnight to him. I’m glad he didn’t introduce me to Helen, that might have put a downer on a perfect night.

I still can’t believe it, I’m a singer in a rock band and I just did my first gig and people loved it! Maybe those peanut-butter toast-sandwiches I’d eat on the way to school did have magical powers after all!

Mum just came up to wish me good night, which she hasn’t done in years, as I usually go and find her downstairs and just tell her I’m off to bed. She told me that she was so happy that everyone got to see the girl that she always knew was special. I said,

‘I wish Mindy had been here.’

And I meant it. Mum says it will be fun for us all to relive it, telling her about it when she gets back. I can’t sleep. It’s a quarter to one and I’m wide awake. They’ll have taken out all the equipment by now, but I want to stand in the barn and enjoy the feeling while it’s still fresh.