It's a Girl Thing (25 page)

“Yeah, C. What's up?” asked Fleur.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “It's nothing. Well, nothing really. It's just that I was thinking about how proud your dads are of you . . . and I was just sort of thinking, well, y'know, well, I was just being a bit stupid . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“You're not being stupid,” I said, reaching out and sort of grabbing her wrist.

“Yeah, I am. And there's no time to be daft now, anyhow,” said Claude, regaining her composure instantly, doing that en-viable thing Claude can do when she just “switches off and gets on with things.”

“Well, I think,” announced Fleur, who is fantastic at situations like this, “if your dad was here today, he'd be totally proud of you, Claude. Cos you're the reason all this is happening really, you know?”

“Mmmm,” said Claude, and then a little tear escaped down her face, which she vamooshed with her sleeve, and then smiled.

“No, really, Claude. We're all really proud of you,” said Fleur.

“Thanks, girls, I'm okay, really.”

“And anyway, if you really feel left out,” I said, “I know a lovely, albeit slightly depressed, man who adores you and would love you to be his daughter.”

Claude smiled, then rolled her eyes.

“Are we perhaps talking about a certain Samuel McGraw here?” Fleur giggles, raising an eyebrow.

“Mr. McGraw!” repeated Claude, chuckling and shaking her head. “I could live with him and Myrtle, couldn't I? We could sing songs from
Happy Voices, Happy Lives
around the piano and eat homemade scones! That would be fantastic.”

“And when you did something wrong, like snogged a boy or wore too much makeup, McGraw would come into your room and say . . .”

Fleur then broke into a near-perfect mimic of Mr. McGraw in all his gray-faced glory:

 

“A credit!”
the LBD chorused together, falling about laughing.

 

 

Of course, the week wasn't destined to go without problems.

By Tuesday the LBD were duly rounded up by Edith and marched to the administration corridor for an “emergency meeting” with Mr. McGraw over ticket sales. It emerged that during Tuesday morning's break, on one of McGraw's rare excursions outside of his office, he'd overheard a Year 7 kid squeaking that Blackwell Live ticket sales had reached over 2,000. (We'd actually sold 2,221.) He also heard that kids from schools other than Blackwell and Chasterton had been buying them. Lymewell Academy and Cary Hill girls had begun eagerly pitching up at breaks with their pocket money.

“Right! That's it!” shouted McGraw, raising one hairy hand at us like a traffic policeman. The tension was broken here slightly by the fact that McGraw's hand had
Remember to pay gas bill
scrawled upon it in green felt-tip pen. “This has
got
to stop.”

“What has, sir?” asked Claudette, straightening her glasses. I love it when Claude says “sir.” She can totally pull it off and sound respectful. I just sound like I'm in a BBC period drama.

“The tickets. You have to stop selling tickets! That's enough now.”

“But the school field is massive, Mr. McGraw,” chirped up Fleur, breaking our cardinal rule: Always let Claude do any talking to McGraw. “We can fit in loads more people than two thousand,” Fleur argued.

“Ha! Well, that is
exactly
the sort of careless devil-may-care response I'd expect from you, Fleur Swan,” snapped McGraw, who was actually quite rattled by events this time, not just depressed, as I'd predicted. “Let's have a riot, shall we? That's what you want, isn't it? The school razed to the ground? Looting? Chaos?”

“Errrr.” We all stared blankly. He was beginning to scare us a bit, as his eyes were bulging.

“And I suppose you'll be carrying the can when the worst-case scenario happens and somebody loses a foot in a stampede, will you?” shouts McGraw.

“
Can?
What
can?
And how will someone lose a foot?” muttered Fleur, genuinely flummoxed.

“Okay, shall we stop selling tickets then, Mr. McGraw?” said Claude. “Like, right now?”

“Hallelujah,” whispered Samuel McGraw. “Thank you, Claudette Cassiera. I knew you'd take my point.”

“Pghhh,”
said Fleur, who obviously couldn't keep her displeasure under wraps a second longer.

“Right, you can go now. Off you trot,” said McGraw as we filed out. “But believe me, if I see one more ticket on sale, well, you girls will see a dark side to my countenance.”

“Mmmm,” we all murmured.

“I mean, let's get something straight here, ladies,” McGraw shouted after us as we slumped away down the corridor. “Nobody likes a good time as much as myself. And I mean
nobody.
But there have to be limitations and boundaries to the fun. Do you hear me?”

“Gnnnnn,”
we all moaned, walking faster.

“We can't all just have fun willy-nilly, you know? That's not how life works, is it?” he yelled. Thankfully we were too far away to care.

 

 

Naturally, the second we told people that tickets were sold out, they became the most very desirable piece of paper a kid could have. Things just went berserk.

I have never been so popular.

My cell phone began to buzz at all times of the day and night with people I'd not spoken to for months. Like people I once sat beside on a school trip in Year 7 who'd suddenly remembered what “really good mates we were after all.” Oh, and by the way, could they have two tickets for themselves and their cousin Hubert? It was really tough saying no to people, but we were determined McGraw wouldn't catch us out.

By Thursday, demand was at fever pitch. McGraw himself was patrolling the school confines, rounding up enterprising black-market ticketsellers and making them enact humiliating punishments like litter-picking and chewing-gum removal. Sadly, this just gave the illegal market for tickets a more dangerous, glamorous edge; tickets began to change hands for £20 a time, which I'd have been happy about if we'd been seeing a penny of this profit. In fact, the LBD were so busy trying to distance themselves from these nefarious activities and trying to appear disgusted whenever McGraw goose-stepped past us, as well as sorting out squillions of other things, lordy me, I was quite exhausted. I wasn't too busy, however, to notice Panama and Jimi, who seemed to be going everywhere together by this point.

It was vile.

“I don't understand boys,” mulled Claude aloud on Thursday afternoon as we wandered home, totally shattered, from school. “They make absolutely not an iota of sense at all. I mean, what do they actually want from a girlfriend? Why would Jimi Steele bother with Panama?”

“Thank you,” I sighed. I'd been saying that every day since last Sunday, at least twenty-seven times a day, on repeat play.

“Well, I've got an idea, Claudey.” Fleur smiled. “Why don't you ask Liam Gelding about what goes on in a lad's mind? You'll be seeing him later, won't you?”

“Might be,” murmured Claude.

“Oooooooh hooooooh!” Fleur and I singsonged, extremely childishly.

“It's not like
that,
” Claude snapped back. “He just keeps turning up to help me with Blackwell Live stuff . . . and then he, er, well, ahem, he stays for his tea.”

Fleur shot a knowing glance across at me. I winked back. There was something old tight-lips wasn't quite telling us here.

Claude carried on walking like this was a totally normal thing to admit.

“What, like, you have romantic dinners together?” said Fleur, grasping at straws.

“No, Fleur,” says Claude. “It's more like, well, you know how my mum really loves cooking? Like stews and curries and cakes?”

“Yeah,” we say.

“I think she's trying to feed him to death,” Claude said solemnly.

“What a way to go,” gasped Fleur.

 

 

When I got home to the Fantastic Voyage that Thursday night, I found my dad huddled in one of the back alcoves with a posse of rather hairy strangers. Large steaming plates of Cumberland sausage and mashed potatoes with oodles of onion gravy cluttered the table, along with many pints of lager. Everyone was eating, drinking or smoking merrily. Immediately, I spotted my uncle Charlie among them!

Oh my God, I'd not seen this man for about five years! And he hadn't changed a bit. (Charlie's not my real uncle, by the way. He's just a mate of Dad's who has turned up every few years since I was a baby to rattle on with Dad for
entire weekends
about guitars. I truly hope Mum doesn't come back at this moment. She'd probably just turn around and walk out again.)

“Miss Veronica Ripperton!” shouted Uncle Charlie, putting down his half-rolled cigarette and attempting to bear-hug me into his stinky leather jacket.

“
Mghgh
UncleCharlie!” I said.

“Now, boys,” shouted my dad. “And here we have my Blackwell Live Festival-organizing daughter, Ronnie. This will be your boss for the next few days, so watch yourselves. She takes no prisoners.”

“Like her mother,” said Uncle Charlie.

“Very much so,” whispered my dad.

“Dad. Who are all these people?” I said, removing bits of rolling tobacco from my hairline.

“Now, don't be too shocked here, but I've got you some proper help, in the shape of this road crew for Blackwell Live,” said Dad rather proudly. “I mean, come on, Ronnie, don't we always say that if you're going to do something, you may as well do it properly?”

“Yes!” I laughed.

“Well, now we're really doing it properly!” he said. “Another lager, anyone?”

Everyone cheered.

Chapter 11

“Dad! I think I can see that bloke's, er . . . bum.”

“What? Where? Oh,
him
. . . oh, that's fine. That's normal.” I'm transfixed by a staggeringly hairy bottom, rising like a hirsute moon over the back of a pair of grubby denims. The bum's owner, Vinny, is bent double, wiring up a microphone in the center of Blackwell Live's rather impressive stage.

“He's a roadie,” announces Dad, biting into a veggie burger. Not Dad's usual breakfast fare, but the lady setting up the burger van, one of the many culinary delicacies selling at Blackwell Live, offered him a free sample.

“What do you mean, ‘a roadie'?” I ask.

“That's what Vinny is. He works on the road with rock bands, you see, setting their gear up and dismantling it all again and—”

“Wearing jeans that show his bum crack?” I giggle.

“Unfortunately, yes, it goes with the territory.” Dad smiles. “Hey, but don't knock them. These lads your uncle Charlie brought with him are like gold dust, Ronnie. Best in the business.”

I can see that.

They've never stopped slaving away since the second they arrived on the Blackwell Live festival site. True to his word last Sunday, Dad called in a few favors from my uncle Charlie, who works with rock and pop bands; and, lured by an offer of free pub grub and limitless lager, Charlie rounded up a small team of rather jaded, equally hairy guys who could lend us a hand for Blackwell Live.

“Dad, what does Uncle Charlie actually
do
for a living?” I ask, squinting in the morning sun.

“He's a tour manager; on the road with rock bands,” Dad explains, as if that makes things any clearer. Dad sees my bemused look. “Okay, well, when a band goes on tour, Charlie's the bloke who makes sure they get to where they're meant to be, and sorts out their money . . . and makes sure they're in bed in time to look pretty the next day. All that important stuff that no one wants to do.” Dad nods at Charlie, who's in deep conversation with Claudette.

“So, he's like the band's dad?!”

“Yeah, I suppose he is.” Dad chuckles. “But I bet they give him less trouble.”

“Cheers, Dad,” I groan.

“Hey, Ronno, it's a bit of luck, though, eh? That these lads had a few days going spare? They're on their way down south to another gig, y'know? I told 'em your gig was for charity. A kiddies' charity. That's it, isn't it?” says Dad, wiping onions and ketchup off his face.

“Yeah, sort of,” I reply.

Charlie's arrival was more than “a bit of luck,” it was a god-send: Blackwell Live's road crew comprised of three roadies, Vinny, Blu and Pip, as well as three enormous, burly, bald-headed security guys with awesomely wide necks and biceps the size of my thighs. One of our security blokes, who boasted an eagle tattoo on his neck, went by the nickname of Masher. I didn't press Charlie for a reason why. It was just great knowing that McGraw now had to quit his yakking about Blackwell Live getting out of hand.

“Anyway, Charlie owes me,” concludes Dad, watching as a multicolored Blackwell Live banner is hoisted above the stage by two Year 7 girls. “I've bailed that rogue out of trouble enough times over the years.” Dad adds, burping majestically, “Hey, fantastic burger, by the way, Ron! You wanna try one?”

Tempting, but I couldn't eat a thing.

Today is the big day! It's July twelfth! Today is Blackwell Live!

I don't know whether to laugh, cry or vomit.

 

 

It's 10:00 A.M. Surreally enough, in under three hours our opening act, Christy Sullivan, will take to the stage. The lovely Christy is backstage already, pacing back and forth in an expensive Italian silk shirt in navy, snakeskin jeans and dark sunglasses; he's chatting nervously to his, in my opinion, even better-looking older brother, Seamus.