It's a Girl Thing (9 page)

Oh, God.

I really do find Jimi so unbelievably gorgeous that I almost feel sick every time I look at him.

Is this normal?

Yes, I know “love hurts,” but does it also make you puke and want to sit on the toilet a lot too? Or am I a freak?

The worst thing is, I can't even put my finger on what I actually want to do with Jimi. Do I want to snog him? Or just hang out with him and make him laugh? Or lock him in my room and make him listen to CDs with me? Or maybe I just want to be seen kicking about with him, holding his coat while he practices skating or helping him with his crutches when he has a fall, so all the other Blackwell girls say: “Oooooh, look! That Ronnie Ripperton's going out with Jimi Steele! I'm sooo jealous.”

Is that it?

I really don't know, I just know I want to be somehow more part of Jimi's life than I am right now. Anyway, whatever it is I want to do, when I found Jimi actually standing in my home, I settled for standing gazing at him without blinking for so long that my eyes became all dry and fuzzy, like old sweets down the back of the sofa.

Not a good image to portray.

“Hey, Ronnie!” shouted Jimi.

Gulp.

“Oi, oi, it's the landlady!” yelled Naz. “Hey, what do you think of the show so far, then, Ronnie? Not bad, eh? Considering our singer's tone-deaf, eh?”

Everybody, including me, giggled. Jimi blushed a bit and told Naz to shut his mouth.

“Well, as far as I could hear, you've just sounded like a car crash for the last hour,” I chirped. “Have you lot got any actual songs, or just . . . noisy noises?”

“Ooooooh, get her!!!” Naz laughed. “She means you, Jimi, of course.”

“I meant all of you,” I said, grinning cheekily. “I thought there was a fight going on down here, or something.”

I'm not really this cool, I don't need to tell you this, I was just pretending to be cool, and somehow it was working.

“We'd better practice a bit harder, then.” Jimi smiled, staring directly at me.

Uccckkk—he was giving me that “nearly hurl” sensation again.

I took the practice bit as my cue to leave, but just as I reached the door, Jimi shouted after me, “And you're in luck, Ronnie, I've checked with our manager. Turns out we ARE free on July twelfth to appear at Blackwell Live. Lost Messiah can be your headline act, eh?”

Jimi flicked his hair out of his eyes and played a loud B chord, shaking the foundations of the room, while Naz looked at him, sort of confused, trying to work out when in the last few hours Lost Messiah had acquired “a manager.”

I waited until the sound subsided, cocked my head to the side and said rather cutely, “Well, first you best make sure you're free this Monday after school, cos you'll have to come to the auditions. You know? Exactly the same as everybody else.” Then I took a few steps away, turned and added, “Oh, and you better get some singing practice. Because, well, standards are going to be very high.”

Then I shimmied out of the door, back up to my bedroom, to further screams of “Ha ha ha! She told you, Steelo, didn't she, eh? You Muppet!” from the rest of Lost Messiah.

What a triumph, eh?!

And, yes, I did remember to pull, not push, the pull door this time.

Chapter 4

After all the high spirits and jolly hoo-hah of the past few days, at precisely 3:00 A.M. this morning, I discovered what Mum's been wittering on about all my life when she says: “Things always seem blackest in the middle of the night.”

Silly old me thought this was Mum stating the bleeding obvious, like durrrrrr,
of course
it's dark at 3:00 A.M., or else we wouldn't need bedside lamps, would we? And how would we know when to go to sleep? Of course, now I realize that Mum was being “deep and meaningful” and she was actually meaning: “When your worries wake you up in the middle of the night, suddenly they seem bleaker than you could ever imagine.”

This is soooo true.

I slid under my duvet last night as a funky, sassy, music-festival-organizing chick who was over the moon with what we'd achieved. But at some point during the wee small hours, the bo geyman crept in, shoveling sackfuls of self-doubt down my ear-hole.

I tossed and turned for the best part of an hour, sighing, huffing, then rearranging my pillows thirty-six times, letting Blackwell Live stew in my half-sleepy brain.

Big mistake.

Before long, I wasn't simply terrified. Oh, no, I also became rather irate with the LBD for getting me into this mess. Especially that aggravating Claudette “Venn Diagram” Cassiera. Why can't she just leave things alone? Why is she like a dog with a bone when she has a plan? And why does she ride rough-shod over all my concerns and insecurities? Maybe I didn't really want to do this Blackwell Live thing . . . but now I
have
to!

Grrrrrr.

And as for that Fleur “Microbuns” Swan, this is all her fault too. If she wasn't so ditzy and shallow when it comes to lads, she'd have seen Blackwell Live for the awesome failure it potentially is. And not just as “a really good chance to snog some boys.” There is more to life than lads, Fleur Swan! (I hope.)

That's it,
I thought.
As of Monday I am resigning from the LBD and commencing kicking about with the Archery Society dweebs. Or I'll be a school loner. Far less trouble.

But I'm also blaming Mr. McGraw for my worries.

It was ol' gray chops who introduced me to imagining the worst-case-scenario outcome in every situation, including Blackwell Live. I didn't even know what
worst-case scenario
meant until I began Blackwell School and learned that
every single path
you choose to walk in life could have a W.C.S. if you're unlucky.

Say, for example, Blackwell enters a cross-country team in the local championships. Sure, we
might
win loads of medals and get our photo all over the local papers, it
could
be wonderful. But, wait for it; the worst-case scenario would be that we trail in last to every other school, we get our gym kits stolen by local sneak thieves, and then the minibus gets a flat tire, so we have to get towed home.

You didn't think of that, did you?

Bummer, eh?

Or, say in geography you were learning about Jamaica, about its lush tropical climate, local carnivals and gross national productivity. Well, if Mr. McGraw was taking that lesson, he'd point out the strong potential for freak weather conditions, causing the banana harvest to shrivel and a mass typhoid outbreak.

Getting the picture? Life sucks sometimes; get used to it.

So, anyway, at 3:14 A.M. on Saturday morning, I woke up needing the loo, but somehow started contemplating just what the LBD had got themselves into.

Not only had we promised McGraw and Guinevere, as well as the whole school, that we would put on an amazing Astlebury-style music festival with live bands and cheering crowds; we'd also stuck audition posters up and posted it on the World Wide Web too! Everyone was talking about it. There really was no turning back.

Now, every time I closed my eyes, all I could imagine was a big empty playing field and a tearful, disappointed Mrs. Guinevere. Nobody would want to buy our stupid tickets. In fact, as far as I could see, no bands would offer to play our idiotic concert anyhow.

My palms were beginning to sweat.

I mean, imagine if nobody turned up at the auditions? What if it's just the LBD sitting in the school gym on Monday, all by ourselves, playing I Spy for an hour, then doing the “walk of shame” through the streets home? We'll never live it down! Okay, I'll admit I wasn't so bothered about looking like a loser in front of McGraw, sheesh, I've had three years' practice doing that.

BUT WHAT ABOUT IN FRONT OF YEAR 11? What about in front of Lost Messiah (who have now started practicing in our function room so I can't even escape their ridicule out of school hours)?

“Aaaaggghhh!”
I eventually whispered out loud. “We're going to be the laughingstock of the whole school!”

(NOTE TO SELF: Find out exactly what is “the laughingstock.” I have no idea what this means. I just know Magda often threatens people with being it and it's a very bad thing to be.)

So, as you can see, by 3:30 A.M., I'd got myself worked up into a right pickle. In fact, by 4:00 A.M. I'd decided that my only option was to raid the Fantastic Voyage's safe, buy a one-way ticket to Negril in Jamaica, and set up an assumed life under a false identity. (Knowing my luck, I'd get there just in time for all the shriveled banana and typhoid fun.)

How the devil did this happen?

Blackwell Live was the best idea in the world five hours ago!

I texted Claude on the off chance she was still awake (y'know, brokering a Middle East peace deal, or whatever the heck Claude Cassiera does when she stays up all night), but Little C wasn't responding.

Eventually I decided to turn on my TV and see if there was some trashy nighttime movie to take my mind off my woes.

Big mistake.

All that was on at this stupid o'clock hour was the all-night news program on BBC, playing world headlines. They were NOT a barrel of laughs. There was a factory closing in Scotland and five thousand workers were destined to be jobless and penniless; a river had burst its bank in Russia and loads of people had been swept away . . . oh, yes, and a giant panda in Miami Zoo was refusing its meals due to its partner dying.

Grrrrreat.

I felt worse than ever then.

McGraw clearly has got a second job at the BBC producing the Worst-Case Scenario headlines.

Misery really does love company, so at about 5:00 A.M. I was pleased to hear Mum padding about the house, traipsing backward and forward to the loo about four times, then downstairs to the kitchen, where she had a good effort at waking the entire high street up making a snack. I heard a plate smash, some very loud rude words echoing up the stairs, then eventually the TV in the living room springing to life.

Excellent! Mum was up for the day.

I pulled a hooded top over my jimjams and went to tell her that my life was terrible and I needed to leave the country.

Unfortunately, Mum was having an attack of the nighttime blues herself. She was slumped on the sofa, dressed in a big chunky cardigan and tracksuit bottoms, her long brown hair scraped off her face in a high ponytail, watching the same depressing news program as I'd been. On Mum's lap was a plate holding a huge, clumsily made sandwich. Her eyes were a bit red-rimmed, like she'd been crying.

“You're up!” I said.

“Can't sleep, darling. I was, er, a bit hungry,” Mum said.

I sat down beside Mum, noticing that her towering sandwich was made from both crusts of the loaf. Banana slices, salami
and
cucumber were escaping from the sides of her culinary creation.

Bleeeeeugh.

Mum was staring at the TV forlornly.

“Stupid panda.” Mum sniffed. “He won't eat his bamboo.”

Mum nodded toward the screen, which showed a flurry of khaki-clad zookeepers, all shaking their heads, offering a sulky-faced panda various succulent-looking branches.

“I like bamboo shoots,” Mum continued, sounding like she was going to start sobbing. “They're very tasty in a hoisin sauce.”

Oh, dear.

I wasn't the only one looking for someone to make them feel better. Mum looked terrible, although it had to be said, from the noise she was making with her sandwich, it was making her feel a tad happier. (Especially the layer of marmalade.)

“
Mghhhph,
so what's keeping you awake, young lady?” asked Mum, taking another big bite. “Is this you having a late late night or an early early morning?”

“I've been to sleep,” I said. “But I'm awake now. I'm reeeeeally stressed.”

Mum sort of laughed.

“Huh, what exactly have you got to be stressed about?” she said. “You're only fourteen!” Then she quickly corrected herself as we've had, like, a hundred arguments before about how stressful it is being me sometimes. “Sorry. Sorry. I mean, what's stressing you out
now?
” Mum said. “I've lost track of where we are. . . . Do you still hate science?”

“Yeah, I hate science.”

“But you're trying, aren't you?”

“Of course I'm trying,” I lied.

“So it's not
that
you're stressed about?”

“No, I'm reeeeally stressed-out. Science just makes me depressed, that's different.”

“Ahh, depressed too?” Mum chuckled. “Depressed
and
stressed? Well, good to see that we made the right choice sending you to Blackwell.” Mum wiped her finger across the plate, picking up the last trails of marmalade. “You do know some families actually move house to qualify their kids for your school, don't you?”

“Mmmmm, yeah, you always say that,” I said.

Mum
does
always say that.

Mum and me have had some conversations so many times over, like this one about “how lucky I was to get into Blackwell,” that we've got this joke that we should just give them numbers and shout them out instead.

“It's not my fault I'm old and senile,” Mum says, pretending to be upset.

True, she is quite old, she's almost thirty-nine.

“C'mon then,” Mum said. “Tell me the whole story.” So I did. I told Mum all about how the LBD really really wanted to go to Astlebury, to which Mum said, “Well, you're not,” to which I said, “Ha ha, I already knew that, we're on to plan B now anyhow.”