It's a Girl Thing (2 page)

In a previous life, I was obviously Vlad the Impaler.

I'm paying big time for something.

The Fantastic Voyage: The pub on the high street where we live, in reality, isn't all that “fantastic.” Well, it maybe was at one point (in medieval times when most of our regulars first started drinking here, back when people were thrilled just to be inside a pub and not being mauled by wolves or ransacked by high- waymen). Nowadays, it's a bit sucky.

The Voyage punters are a lost cause: All they want is comfy sofas, cold beer, local tittle-tattle and darts. Which is just hunky dory as that's the Fantastic Voyage in a sentence. So here I am, storming down the high street in a really bad mood. Past the funny beardie-weirdie bloke who dances for spare change outside the bakery, almost getting flattened in my haste by a spotty geek pushing the bins out of McDonald's. What a way to die! Squished into a big human Filet-O-Fish. I'm checking my reflection in the shop windows. (Hairs are a bit wonky, skin's a bit shiny, but overall not bad, considering my trauma. I think I'm at my best when I'm fuming, just like Mum.) It feels good battering out my aggression on the pavement, covering ground quicker than anyone else on the street. Right now, I'm on my way to Fleur's house. Fleur Swan lives just along the street here and around the corner, halfway down Disraeli Road. If I'd turned left out of the pub instead of right and walked the same distance, I'd be at Claude Cassiera's flat. That is one of the most marvelous aspects of being in the LBD; we all live so close, we can summon an emergency meeting in minutes, which comes in handy as there are a lot of emergencies. Like today for example. I love this high street; the clothes shops, the cafes, the makeup counters, the alleyways, all of these are the LBD's territory. It's a good thing this street gives me a kick, really. If my parents have their way, I'm not going anywhere for a very long time.

Blip. Blip. Bleeeeeep.
Text!

 

MAY KILL SELF B4 U GET HERE. HATE THEM.—FLEUR 6:46 P.M.

In the front bedroom bay window of the Swan family residence stands the lovely yet extremely angry Fleur Swan, her dainty snub nose pressed against the glass, awaiting my arrival. On spotting me turn the corner into Disraeli Road, Fleur disappears from view, leaving a chocolaty smudge on Mrs. Saskia Swan's otherwise pristine windows. Fleur must be hopping mad if she's scoffing sweets; normally she's a highly saintly, plenty of fruit and veg, three liters of mineral water daily, glossy-haired, peachy-skinned kinda chick. Oh, and she's five foot seven too, with honey-blond highlights. If she wasn't one of my best friends, I'd definitely hate her.

“Get this!” Fleur shouts, opening the door. “Apparently the loud music will damage my eardrums. Huh!” she says with a little false laugh of disbelief. “So I'm barred from going to Astlebury Festival? Can you belieeeeve that?! God, I hate them both!” she snarls, beckoning me in. I half expect to find Mr. and Mrs. Swan chopped up into small bite-size pieces on the den floor, but thankfully they're both in full working order. Patrick “Paddy” Swan, Fleur's dad, is reclining in a deep leather La-Z-Boy chair in their lavish cream den, while Fleur's mother, Saskia, is fiddling about with a bonsai tree and some mini-clippers. Neither of them seem very concerned about their imminent murder. (Fleur's house is a bit like one in a glossy mag. Except that in magazines people are rarely photographed yelling with chocolate all over their faces. Or enjoying a large post-work gin and tonic and the
Racing Times
like Mr. Swan was at this precise moment.)

“Ah, Miss Ripperton, we've been expecting you,” Fleur's dad announces. (He's a big James Bond fan.) “So you'll be in on this little fandango too, I suppose?” He sniggers. “Ha ha. If you two girls imagine that I'm letting you run riot in a field for an entire weekend, you're obviously dippier than you both look,” he says, pausing briefly to tickle Larry, the Swan family's excessively smug-faced pure white Persian cat, under his chin. Larry purrs contentedly, like a furry road drill. Mr. Swan, in his navy pin-striped suit, with smirking sidekick Larry perched beside him, looks every inch the dastardly Bond villain. I'm far too scared to begin my “but it's a reeeeally good life experience” argument in case he flicks a switch on the arm on the leather chair, depositing both Fleur and me into the cellar, where we'd have to survive by eating earwigs.

There's a somber mood up in LBD headquarters (Fleur's bedroom, which is split-level with a walk-in wardrobe. Can you believe it? My room's like a cigarette packet compared to hers . . . sheesh).

“The air is ripe with the remnants of dashed dreams,” I announce morbidly.

“Oh, flipping shut up,” Fleur says. “It's not over yet. The fat lady's not sung. That's what they say, isn't it? We might make it.”

I picture Magda, only a hundred pounds heavier, discovering I'd nipped off to Astlebury without permission. “Singing” would not be her first response. She'd fricassee my ass and serve it with dauphinoise potatoes.

“Hey, you wanna hear this,” Fleur says, cheering up. Fleur flips on
Classic Deep Ibiza House: Volume 20
and whacks on the parent irritation button, aka the Mega Surround Blast switch that makes CDs more echoey, intense and altogether fabulouso.

The bass line kicks in at 132 beats per minute, loud enough to make Paddy Swan's back teeth rattle downstairs in the den.

A flurry of activity breaks out in the Swan household. Doors are slammed, footsteps race upstairs, then what sounds like:

“Turnghghhh thaaaaaaat muuuusssiccc dooooowwwnn!!! Cannn yooooou heeeeear me???!!! Dowwwwn! Noooooow!!!”

He's loud, Mr. S, but not as loud, however, as the bone-shaking cymbals, synths and the track's wicked vocal:

If this tune doesn't get you dancing, well, you're either dead or deaf. Quickly, we're both up on our feet, me and Fleur, wiggling our hips, pointing our fingers, kicking our feet, giggling like nutjobs, ignoring Mr. Swan (one of the dead/deaf contingent) and his loud door-thumping.

“Turn it down!!! Or I'm turning the electricity off at the mains!” he snarls. Fleur does a little hop and skip over to her bedroom door, throwing the bolt across, locking her dad out. Silly Paddy; he should know the LBD rule by now. If we can't SEE him shouting, then we can't HEAR him shouting, and if he can't get in to begin shaking us warmly by the throats, he'll have to wait to be heard during the gap between songs.

Brilliantly, what grumbly-mumblies like Mr. S never realize is: There are NO gaps between songs in dance music compilations! Hee hee! That's the best bit.

“If we keep this up, he'll drive us to Astlebury himself!” yells Fleur, doing a very rude uppy, downy, shake-it-all-abouty motion with her behind.

Not if he saw you doing that,
I think.

From where I'm standing, Fleur looks every inch the disco queen. You could just imagine her really going for it, up on a podium at a cool London warehouse party, wowing the crowds, shaking her tushy in a furry bra and neon hot pants.

I'd probably be the one giving the DJ a hand carrying his record box.

“So, tell me the latest with Jimi,” says Fleur, swapping Ibiza grooves for a more mellow
Ultimate Chilldown
compilation. We're sprawled on Fleur's double bed, scouring
Bliss
and
More!
for pics of “blond babe” haircuts for Fleur to show Dimitri at Streets Ahead (our favorite hairdresser).

“
Pggghhh . . .
nothing to tell,” I say bleakly. “I'm not entirely convinced he knows that I exist.” And this is true, I'm not sure Jimi Steele does know who I am.

In case you don't know Jimi Steele (which I find very very hard to believe, cos he's just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life), I'd better explain:

Let's face it, he probably thinks I'm a bit kiddified. He probably wants a woman in his life that can at least
mention
going to Astlebury Festival without her dad's eyes exploding, or her being forced to put on a polo shirt and a pair of big, frumpy, Victorian-era granny-knickers that cover her kneecaps and nipples.

When I'm older and require expensive therapy and rehabilitation in Arizona like all the A-List celebs do, Loz and Magda Rippertons' ears will BURN.

So, in essence, I love Jimi Steele. He just creeps into my head and messes about with it all day and sometimes during the night. He, on the other hand, doesn't really know I exist, which is sort of depressing, especially when I spend much of my free time with Fleur Swan, who needs a stick smeared with animal poo to keep boys away. Very often I feel like an insignificant speck of space dust orbiting around Planet Fleur. Fleur is just plain gorgeous, everyone can see it. She's plainly charismatic and fresh-skinned. I have a deep-rooted fear that I'm simply “plain.” Being plain, to my reckoning, is far worse than being pig-ugly. Being plain means being invisible to lads like Jimi. I get depressed when I look in the mirror and think,
Well, so this is my lot. And I'm really nothing special.

Every boy knows Fleur exists. Fleur's the sort of girl who lads honk their car horns at, or that Year 7 brats send aftershave-scented love letters to. Fleur once sashayed into the dinner hall in her tightest-fitting school blouse (the one that looks like she's smuggling M&M's under) and I watched a Year 11 lad pour orange juice into his left ear. And yes, friends, I would switch the oven on and slow-roast my own head right now, if it wasn't for the fact that Fleur is habitually just as stressed about boys as I am.

“I hate boys,” says Fleur, lying back on her bed. “I've had enough of them. I'm not going to fancy them anymore,” she announces. Considering Fleur is only fourteen and is in love with almost half of Year 13, I can't help doubting her word.

You'd think Fleur would be happy, but she's not. Her frantic love life causes her as many tears, sleepless nights and bitten nails as my shambolic, laughable excuse for one does me. Fleur's men, you see, usually vanish off the LBD scene just as quickly as they appear. Er . . . funnily enough, usually
just after
meeting Mr. Swan, when he greets them with one of his famous “I will strangle you and turn your corpse into a novelty lamp shade if you even touch my daughter” stares.

“And you're never going to get anywhere with Jimi if you don't start making it a bit more obvious either,” Fleur tells me, shaking her head.

“I know,” I mutter, changing the subject. “Anyhow, what about you and Dion? I've not heard the latest.”

“Oh, yeah, well, you know he walked me home last Thursday?” Fleur says tragically. “And we had a proper snog outside the garden gate, you know, tongue in and swirly about sorta thing?” Fleur waggles her cocoa-stained tongue to illustrate. “Well, then he said he'd text me on Friday, after football,” she continues. “But he, er, didn't. I don't know what happened to him.”

“Vanished?”

“Vamoosh,” she says.

“Have you checked the cellar?” I mutter.

“What?” says Fleur.

“Oh, nothing,” I say, passing her another magazine.

Poor Dion,
I think, imagining him captured, shackled and starving in Evil Paddy's cellar prison. Everybody knows there's not enough protein to survive on in an earwig.