It's a Girl Thing (18 page)

“Yeah . . . well, I heard the Divines' new single,” mutters Benny to Tara, “but the Music Box won't be able to order me their new CD over from the States till late August, which sucks.”

“Those guys are rubbish down at the Music Box,” I hear Tara sighing above the general studio buzz. “I'm ordering all my import CDs over the Internet now. It's so much quicker.”

Along the raised stage area of the studio perches ten bottoms: one half being Catwalk, the other side, Lost Messiah. The two bands are joined in the middle by Panama Goodyear and Jimi Steele, sitting shoulder to shoulder. I can't help but notice that Panama keeps touching Jimi's knee and flicking her hair about when she's talking, accompanied by a weird high-pitched giggle whenever Jimi so much as speaks.

I figure Jimi is either telling Panama a long list of knock-knock jokes . . . or perhaps Panama really does beat Fleur Swan in turning into a syrup brain in the company of good-looking lads.

Catwalk's Abigail and Leeza are calling across to a solitary dark-haired, dark-eyed Christy Sullivan, who's looking completely gorgeous perched on a chair near the door.

“Yoo-hoo! Christy!” squeaks Leeza, patting the space between her and Abigail. “You can come and sit with us, Christy! You've only got a little bum, haven't you?”

“Er, ooh, no, it's okay, girls, really,” shouts Christy. “I'm quite comfortable here for the time being. Thanks and all that.”

Abigail and Leeza soon brush aside Christy's knock-back and are quickly engrossed in their favorite subject aside from themselves: step aerobics.

But above all the general melee, one voice can be heard above them all: “And I said, ‘Daddy, you
can't
buy me the Gucci shoes
and
the bikini for my birthday, that's an obscene amount of money!' ” Panama is telling Jimi rather loudly. “But Daddy told me that he's only got one little girl and he can spend his money how he feels. I mean, Jimi, what could I say to that?!”

“Errrr, well, I dunno, really,” says Jimi.

“Precisely!” squeaks Panama. “So I let him buy me them both! Hoo hoo ha ha ha ha!” Jimi tries to laugh along, but to be honest, he seems more transfixed by Panama's boobs, which are suspended in some kind of ultra-bra which has “raised and separated” her cleavage somewhere around her ears. (NB: I can hardly fill an egg cup with my knockers, let alone a D-cup. Another reason Panama Goodyear must be destroyed. Preferably in a freak steamroller incident.)

“But anyway, I'm babbling on about me again,” says Panama, taking her voice a little quieter now, although I'm still earwigging so I can make out every syllable. “How are you feeling after your accident? It was your arm as well as your leg, wasn't it?” she says, quite caringly. Her hand reaches out and gently rubs Jimi's right hand. “I was worried about you. You silly thing.”

“Oh, don't worry about me,” says Jimi, blushing slightly. “I'm always getting hurt.”

“Well, if you're going to keep on getting hurt, I'm going to have to keep on worrying about you. I'll have no choice,” Panama teases, sort of poking him in the belly. “I'll have to keep a very close eye on you from now on.”

Jimi pokes Panama's excessively flat stomach back, and they both giggle. Panama's good at this flirting business, I'll give her that.

 

 

“Right, everyone!” shouts Claude. “With respect: Shut up! I need to get through a few points, then you can all ask any questions that you want. S'that okay?”

“Yeah,” choruses the crowd.

“EZ Life Syndicate, are we all present and correct?” asks Claude.

“We are!” shouts a gaggle of voices at the back of the studio.

“Oh, and cheers, EZ Life, for coming all the way across town, we appreciate that,” Claude says, tipping their rather attractive frontman Killa Blow (aka Shaun Jones) a respectful nod.

“No worries,” says Killa, “we're all here now, Claude.”

And they were, all eight members of the Syndicate, plus two or three other kids who just seemed to be there lending moral support. I don't blame them for bringing reinforcements, it must have been flipping scary coming over from Chasterton to Blackwell. The LBD were sure the EZ Life Syndicate wouldn't show up, especially as both schools have a long history of fighting with each other, but it's flipping marvelous they did.

By the way, in case you're wondering how we convinced Mr. McGraw to let a non-Blackwell band perform at Blackwell Live, well, it's all down to Claudette obviously; she did all the talking.

“So EZ Life are in,” said Claude yesterday on her return from McGraw's lair, “but we've had to, er, compromise.”

“What sort of compromise?” I asked gingerly.

“Well, you know how much Mr. McGraw digs the Blackwell bellringers?”

“Yessss?” I said with a heavy heart.

“Well”—sigh—“McGraw says we can't have one without the other,” Claude continued, huffing and puffing, “so I took them both.”

“Ding dong!” I say, beginning to smile.

Claude's depressed expression was so amusing that Fleur and I simply had to laugh. In fact, I'm trying to stop giggling here in the drama studio, as Jemima and George from the Blackwell bellringers perch themselves directly beside Claude, handbells at the ready, waiting to give her a little recital if need be.

Eventually Claude opens up the meeting, battering through some fairly general business: thanking everyone for auditioning and saying “what a hard time we had choosing people,” blah blah blah. Obviously, Claude fails to mention that by 10:00 P.M. last Monday night we were so sick of arguing, in particular about the merits of Shop and his blue suede shoes, that I resorted to battering both her and Fleur about the head with a pillow. We fail to mention also that the Blackwell bellringers were there through sheer bribery, as these were private LBD matters.

Everyone doesn't have to know everything.

“You're probably thinking the festival is months away,” continues Claude. “But I'm here to spell it out that it's not. Today's Thursday, the twenty-sixth of June, and we've got to get this whole show together for the twelfth of July: That's just over two weeks.”

“What? Two weeks? Oh my God,” mumbles the entire crowd.

Jeez, when Claude puts it like that, even I feel queasy.

“So, in brief: We're leaving it up to you guys what you play and how you play it,” says Claude. “But the only rule is: Turn up on time and make it good.”

Everyone groans, including Panama, who nudges Leeza, then sneers at Claude, muttering, “Good? How could we NOT be good?!”

“Oh, and another thing: Try and keep it clean,” continues Claude, “and this isn't our request. I've got a message here from Mr. McGraw saying he won't tolerate ‘profanity and lewdness,' that's, er, swearing and ‘exposing your underwear to onlookers' in everyday speak.”

“Darn,” says Killa B, “I was going to show them my—”

“Never mind what you were going to do, Mr. Blow, we'll have none of it,” butts in Claude, laughing.

“Oh, and if anyone is in any doubt about which words are and are not appropriate for usage in front of Mr. McGraw,” adds Fleur, “please see me, as I've spent enough time in detention to find out.”

Everyone chuckles except the bellringers, who look at each other in abject horror. What kind of debauched nightmare have Jemima and George got themselves tangled up in?

“Is Mr. McGraw even coming on the twelfth?” asks Ainsley from Death Knell.

“Good question,” I say. “Last time we spoke to McGraw, he seemed to have suddenly remembered he had relatives from Outer Mongolia visiting that day, so he mightn't be able to make it.”

“Errrr . . . Has McGraw got relatives in Outer Mongolia?” asks Ainsley.

“Your guess is as good as ours,” I say. “We'll just have to see if he turns up.”

With cramps setting into people's bottoms, Claude pushes on quickly: “But to be honest, one of our biggest hurdles with Blackwell Live is funding. We've really got to sell tickets to make it work.” Claude delves into her folder and brings out some figures.

“Now, by my reckoning, the least amount we can stage Blackwell Live for is £1000, that will hire us a small outside stage, some speakers, and that's also for a marquee for refreshments and dancing, all that sort of thing,” says Claude. “So if we can sell 334 tickets at £3 a pop, we'll be all right.”

“And if we sell more, of course, we'll be even better!” adds Fleur.

“But the thing is,” I say, “there's one thousand pupils at Blackwell and another one thousand at Chasterton. And obviously, all of these bods have got family and friends who might want to come too. So, what I'm saying is, we really need everyone to start hassling people to buy tickets.”

Everyone nods back at me in agreement, which is wonderful, as I'm not much good at public speaking, in fact my hands are shaking as I say this. I hate it when everyone stares at me at once. I'm also a little bit paranoid about my speaking voice, since I heard it sounding so weird and nasal on Fleur's answer machine. Yuck.

“And if we could get some publicity in, say, the
Local Daily Mercury
or on Wicked FM, well, that would be great,” says Claude, setting a nifty trap. “Now, does anyone possibly have some contacts there?”

Claude raises a quizzical eyebrow.

At last! This is the very oxygen Panama's ego needs to flourish; immediately she's waving her arms in the air.

“Ooh, me! Me! I mean, us!” she shrieks. “Did I tell you all about the time Catwalk got through to the Wicked FM Roadshow ‘Search for a Pop Band' quarterfinals?”

“Yes,” groans the crowd.

“Oh. Well, we did, anyway,” bleats Panama. “And I know people there and at the
Mercury
and they think that I'm, sorry, I mean
we're
dead brilliant, so I'll give them a ring and see if I can drum up some interest.”

“Thank you, Panama,” says Claude through extremely gritted teeth. “That would be very helpful.”

Panama sits back, letting her large inflated head enjoy the attention it's receiving, before immediately turning to Catwalk's Derren and Zane, name-dropping loudly, “Oh, Warren will help us out, I'm sure, and Frankie will too . . . ,” witters Panama, referring to two famous local radio breakfast DJs by their first names only, just to ensure we all know she's practically their best mate.

“So, that's about it, really,” wraps up Claude. “We'll call another meeting when we've got a bit more to discuss—”

“I've got a final question,” announces Zane, waving one fake-tan-stained hand in the air.

“Go on, Zane, fire away,” says Claude slightly apprehensively.

“Who is top of the bill?” asks Zane.

Damn.

Suddenly all five sets of Catwalk's evil eyes are drilling into Claude, along with every other person in the studio. Claude takes a deep breath, rustling her paperwork to give herself a bit of time, then announces in a slightly faltering voice, “That's still to be confirmed, sorry.”

Oh, dear, that's torn it.

In a flash Panama's face transforms to a look of pure venom. I mean, how DARE Claude Cassiera be so insolent after the demands Panama dealt out last Monday? Clearly, this is incomprehensible behavior for Panama, and I wonder to myself, when was the last time the brunette bully didn't get her own way?

If ever, that is.

In truth, it would be easier if Catwalk simply stood up, walked over to the LBD, dragged us outside the drama studio and kicked us up and down the lower-school cloakrooms for a while. At least we could get it over and done with. Instead, they simply stare at us a little longer before muttering something to each other, broad smirks spreading across their collective faces. Then they calmly stand up and leave the drama studio, shouting a fake-friendly “Good-bye, thanks for everything!” as they go.

I think you'll agree, that's far more scary.

I tried to catch Claude's eye to shoot a “we've really done it now” glance at her, but Claude just thinned her lips and pretended to be distracted by her notes. She had her shoulders thrown back and her nose defiantly aloft, but despite her pose, I still knew she was pretending.

So I'm halfway down Lacy Road on my way home from school, and on this very rare occassion I'm without the LBD.

Claude stayed behind after the meeting tonight chatting with Liam Gelding, while Fleur went home via Gap to return a skirt she's decided she doesn't like. I ducked out of accompanying Fleur, deciding to go home instead. I simply couldn't face another episode of Fleur driving Gap's assistants crazy, demanding a full refund on a skirt she's worn to numerous parties before deciding it's gone out of fashion. I shan't be missed anyway, that Killa Blow offered to accompany her “as he was going that way anyway.” Obviously, Fleur was out of the door, reapplying plum lipstick to her ear-to-ear grin as she went, before I even had time to reconsider. Charming.

So I'm ambling home, mulling over the day's events, trying not to get myself run over on minor-road junctions, when I sense someone gaining ground behind me.

“Er, Ronnie . . . ,” a boy's voice says. “Ronnie, is that you? Wait up a sec.”

I turn around to find Jimi Steele, aboard Bess, trundling along the pavement toward me.

Oh my God!

Oh my God. This is like the very thing I have fantasizied about happening for as long as I can remember. Happening. Right. Now.

Me and Jimi Steele on a one-on-one! I've got him all to myself: a proper chance to prove exactly why I'm totally the kind of girl he can't live without.