It's a Girl Thing (16 page)

“What will?” I ask.

“Your face. The wind will change and you'll be left with that frown forever,” chides Claude, simply because I've got a furrow on my brow you could put a thong on.

“She could get BOTOX injections if that happens,” suggests Fleur helpfully. “My mother had some last year, they iron out frown lines really well.”

“Or alternatively, she could just stop frowning,” suggests Claude, “which would be cheaper and less painful, wouldn't it?”

“S'pose,” I say.

“Come on, then, tell me what's up,” says Claude. “We've got a brilliant list of people here to choose from.” Claude waves her papers at me. “The trouble will be who to leave out. Why the long face?”

“You know why, Claudette,” I say, refusing to play along with Claude's ridiculous optimism. “I'm a bit worried about Panam—”

“Oh, Panama Shmanama!” spits Claude. “Catwalk Shatwalk, we're not letting that walking shop mannequin get in the way of our plans!” Claude is standing up now, blowing herself up to a full five-feet-one-inch of terror. “I mean, what is she going to do to us, anyway?” asks Claude incredulously. “What can she possibly do?!”

“Er . . . beat us up?” suggests Fleur, overtweezing one eyebrow into a permanently surprised arch.

“Yes . . . okay, she may beat us up, but she can't actually maim or kill us. That would be illegal.” Claude smirks. “Next?”

“Call us names?” I say.

“Well, yes, that's a possibility,” agrees Claude. “But remembering that she's called us names ever since the first day of Year Seven, that doesn't really freak me out. Every single time we see Panama, she says something to one of us . . . I mean, I just feel honored she can be bothered after all these years,” says Claude, almost convincingly. “We've obviously not lost that LBD magic, eh?”

Claude is standing with both hands on her hips, waiting for the next reason she can bat into oblivion.

“She could spread lies about us,” says Fleur. “She's always doing that sort of thing to people.”

“Well, if they're lies, they're lies,” argues Claude. “Only stupid people believe rumors without checking out the truth, don't they?”

If only this were true,
I think to myself.

We all stare at each other in silence. Finally I raise my deepest fears. “Well . . . what worries me is that Panama could just wreck the festival if she doesn't get her own way,” I say. “I'm telling you, Claude, that girl is evil.”

That last comment, for Claudette, was a bridge too far.

“RIGHT, THAT'S IT!” she shouts, losing all patience. “I have had it up to here with Panama Goodyear!” Claude signifies to an imaginary point in the air above her head. “I'm just not listening to this baloney for one more minute.”

Claude's deep brown skin shines quite majestically, illuminated by the swanky spotlights Fleur has on her bedroom ceiling.

Fleur sits up immediately, getting quite a start. I drop my magazine in shock.

“Oh, good. Nice to have your attention.” Claude laughs. “Now, listen to what I've got to say, as I'm not in the habit of repeating myself. This has got to stop. It has got to stop right now!”

Claude leaves a long silence.

“What has?” says Fleur eventually.

“All this Panama Goodyear business. I'm not standing for it,” says Claude, quickly correcting herself, “I mean we're not standing for it.”

“Hmmm,” I say.

“What do you mean,
hmmmmm?
I cannot believe you two sometimes!” says Claude. “I mean, do you think I'm scared of what that shower of mono-brain-celled no-hopers Catwalk can do to the LBD and to Blackwell Live? Do you?”

From where I was looking, Claude looked bothered, but in an angry, defiant way, not a meek, defeatist way like me.

“Because I'm flipping well NOT worried at all,” continued Claude. “I know the LBD too well.”

“Yeah, I know what you're saying, Claude,” I say, sounding lame and unconvincing. “I know we're better than them.”

“Oh, you DO, do you?” says Claude. “Or do you want me to run through exactly why we are the LBD one more time for you?!”

“If you want,” I say, beginning to smile. Claude really is hilarious once she gets going.

“Do it anyway!” shouts Fleur. “Go on, do it!!”

We both love Claude's little “why we're the LBD” speech: It's an astute, powerful rant that surfaces every time there's trouble afoot. After three years together, it's become quite a tradition; in fact I don't know where we'd be without it, especially in times such as this.

“The LBD . . . or Les Bambinos Dangereuses,” begins Claude, climbing up onto a chair to begin her speech. “Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Claudette, what is the LBD? What does it stand for exactly?”

“Tell us, sister!” Fleur shouts.

“Oh, I'm going to . . . don't you worry,” says Claude, holding her fist to her chest like a Roman emperor. “Well, firstly,” begins Claude, “we have the word
Les,
which is a plural article. And I'm not gonna bore you with a grammar lesson here, ladies, but suffice to say, it means there's more than one of us.”

“I hear ya!” says Fleur, for some reason now with an American accent.

“And in our case there's three of us,” continues Claude. “So whatever you're feeling when you're part of the LBD, you're not alone, as there's three people feeling it. A problem shared is a problem thirded . . . three heads are better than one . . . and all that sorta stuff.”

“United we stand?” suggests Fleur, thinking of other clichés. “There's safety in numbers?”

“Misery loves company?” I add.

“Yep, that too,” says Claude. “But whatever happens, the LBD don't stay miserable for long. That's just not a Dangerous Bambino thing. We get proactive and we sort things out.”

Claude is waving her hands about now; she really loves public speaking, even when the audience is tiny.

“Now: on to
Bambinos,
” continues Claude. “Well,
bambino
is a cool, funky, continental type of word for a baby, isn't it? And I think you will find without debate that we are extremely cool, hip young babes with more attitude and charisma in our left bum cheeks than that grinning goon Panama Goodyear has in her entire body. Aren't we, ladies?”

“You're not wrong,” agrees Fleur. “Carry on . . . I like this.”

“Dangereuses,”
shouts Claude, almost toppling off the chair, but steadying herself on a nearby door frame. “We are dangerous bambinos for oh, so many reasons. We don't take rubbish from people, specifically not Catwalk. We've always got a trick up our sleeves and we never give up . . . in fact, nobody ever really knows what our next move is going to be, we're cunning like foxes.”

“Ha ha ha, we sooo are!” Fleur laughs.

“We're wily like coyotes,” shouts Claude, probably annoying Evil Paddy downstairs, who is trying to enjoy a James Bond film in peace.

“We're dangerous like bambinos!” I shout, even louder, which was dangerous in itself if you've ever seen how cross Paddy gets when interrupted from watching
Goldfinger
for the seventeenth time.

“Dangerous like bambinos!” we all chorus, giggling like crazy.

 

 

(You're probably wondering how this all ended up in sort of made-up half-French-half-Italian, “Les Bambinos Dangereuses,” but, look, if you'd sat with Fleur, Claude and me for the whole of Year 7 French while Madame Bassett droned on and on about Monsieur Boulanger from La Rochelle, well, believe me, you'd make up stupid names for your gang too. The gods were truly in fine form the day we all ended up sitting in that French class together, because the very millisecond the LBD sussed out that the awesome triumvirate of Veronica Ripperton, Fleur Swan and Claudette Cassiera actually made pluperfect verbs more giggle-some, and the breaktime bullies less fearsome, and the Year 9 lads more lovely to lust over, well, that was the day our clique was born. And okay, on numerous occasions since that day I've wanted to strangle both of them for being exceedingly annoying . . . however, ahem, they're also my life-support system in an otherwise troublesome cosmiverse. Soppy, but true.)

I'm feeling a whole lot better now.

Soon the LBD are all sitting on Fleur's bedroom floor, surrounded by paper, having a good hectic debate about who's in, who's out and who had the requisite X factor to appear at Blackwell Live. Thanks to Claude's amazing pep talk, it's almost like the Catwalk problem never happened, although this isn't the end of today's turmoil. Of course, everyone likes Christy Sullivan, two of us even like Shop . . . but as Claude now fights for Guttersnipe to be included, I'm feeling sorry for Chester Walton and Fleur is playing devil's advocate by suggesting we could open with Mr. Jingles, the amazing crappy talking bear. The debate goes on and on, around in circles, featuring numerous raised voices and long silences, until we're interrupted by a peculiar noise.

Perchang
goes what sounds like a stone hitting Fleur's window.

“What was that?” says Fleur.

“Dunno, it's coming from over there,” I say.

“It sounded like someone throwing something,” says Claude.

“Yep, I think we have a visitor. If it's that pig Dion James, make sure we've got the water pistol loaded,” says Fleur, leaping up, with me and Claude following.

As the LBD fights for positions to press their noses against Fleur's window, Fleur lets out a little yelp.

“Eeeep,” she says. “There are six strange men outside my window! How good is that? Quick, Claude, open the window.”

And she's right, there are.

Outside on Disraeli Road there are six boys aged about fifteen, all gazing up at us. They all look distinctly hip-hop, in baggy jeans, expensive sneakers and gold chains. One of them even has a red bandana around his head like he's just stepped out of South Central L.A. and not come down the high street on a mountain bike, which seems to be more likely.

“Who are you?” shouts Claude.

“And what do you want?” shouts Fleur.

If my nan were here, she'd say something tactful along the lines of “Eeee, it looks like the flipping United Nations down there,” as the gang consists of two white kids, a Chinese-looking kid, two black lads of vastly different skin tones, and a Cypriot-looking kid with amazing brown eyes and sharp cheekbones.

“Are you Fleur Swan?” shouts the Cypriot lad.

“I am,” says Fleur, arching an eyebrow.

“Good, we're the EZ Life Syndicate,” announces the lad, as a few lads behind him do weird gangsta hand gestures. “We wanna be part of your festival.”

“Oh?” the LBD say. We're all a bit thrown by this, we've never even set eyes on these lads before, how the heck did they find us?

“Where are you from?” shouts Claude, taking authority.

“We're from Chasterton Secondary, it's on the other side of town,” says one of the black lads, who has powerful-looking wide shoulders.

“I know where Chasterton is,” says Claude. “Where do yer live?”

“We're all from the Carlyle Estate,” the lad says, gesturing at all of the gang, then behind him to two pretty, Hispanic-looking girls sitting on the wall behind them.

“Phhhhhh, ‘EZ Life'? 'Course they have an easy life, that estate is well plush compared to around here,” says Claude quietly to the LBD.

“Never mind that,” says Fleur. “So, what do you do, then?” she shouts down. “Do you rap or what?”

“Well, we're more of a syndicate . . . ,” says the Chinese kid. “We rap and, well, y'know, some of us deejay, some of us dance, one of us sings . . . it's a collective thing. It's an EZ Life thing. Yer know what I'm saying?”

More weird hand gestures.

“Er, yeah,” the LBD say unconvincingly.

“The guys at the Music Box told us about what you were doing, so we thought we'd track you down,” says one of the white lads, who has a ring on every finger and a really high-necked black padded jacket on.

“Well, you've certainly found us,” says Claude. “Now what?”

“Well, have you got ten minutes to hear us rhyme?” says the Cypriot boy, placing a CD into a portable ghetto blaster he's holding in one hand.

“Ooh, go on,” shouts Fleur, with little regard for the rest of Disraeli Road, who are probably enjoying some light early-evening television.

The neighbors are not going to like this one little bit.

“Nice one!” chorus the EZ Life Syndicate, switching on a bass line and turning the volume up to maximum. Within seconds the street is alive with an eerie, pounding, 132-beat-per-minute rhythm. There's lads throwing back and forth unfathomably fast rhymes, plodding moodily backward and forward, chucking weird shapes, while girls in tight black trousers and midriff-exposing T-shirts shake their booties. One lad is spinning on his back while others just stand around seriously, awaiting their turn to butt in with a line or merely a word of the track. All around them curtains are twitching and faces are appearing at windows.

“Get away from my Volvo!” shouts the bloke from number 42, wrapped only in a bath towel, “or I'm calling the police!”

“Ooh, is this a hidden camera TV show?” shouts the little old lady from number 52 to the two dancing, singing EZ Life girls. “Am I being filmed now? How exciting! I'm going to be on the telly!” she says, waving her hands at the nonexistent cameras in her garden hedge.