Chapter 3

the thlot pickens . . .

So it’s 9:25 and I’ve just arrived at double science.

It’s the fresh dawn of another of “The Happiest Days of My Life,” which is how Mum refers to Blackwell School as she’s prodding me out the door every morning.

I find this description ironic in view of Granny informing me that Mother was a terrible truant back in the 1980s, who only attended lessons if chased there “with a swishy stick.” Nevertheless, despite being extra snug as a bug in a rug under my duvet earlier this morning, plus one very good go at feigning glandular fever, I’m here at my bench, eager to embark on some vital Bunsen burner and pipette action.

This is more than can be said for Mr. Ball, our science teacher.

Eventually, at 9:35, following a good gossip with Fleur and Claude about which shoes we might buy next term (to heel or not to heel? That is the question), the door to the science lab creaks open and the upper half of Mr. Ball’s body swings into view.

Ball’s forehead is all wrinkly, he looks confused.

“Er . . . have I got you lot now?” Ball asks, peering at his watch.

“No, sir,” lies Liam Gelding.

“Oh? . . . Right. Sorry,” says Mr. Ball, closing the door again.

Through the windows we can see Ballsy disappearing off along the lower school’s main corridor on the trail of his lesser-spotted science class. All thirty-two of Ball’s pupils dissolve into sheepish giggles. It’s got legs, Liam’s little joke, it’s run and run since first year. It doesn’t take much to confuse Mr. Ball, so the kids tend to have a little fun at his ditzy expense.

You see, if you needed to know about quantum physics, or the lowdown on moon landings or man’s evolution from an ape, Mr. Ball is the right man to ask, he’ll truly wow you with his big scary-scientist brain capacity; however, ask Mr. Ball which class he’s teaching next period or even where he parked his car that morning, well, now you’ve got him bamboozled.

I like Mr. Ball, though, it’s good to be a bit ditzy, I reckon. “You’re evil, Liam Gelding!” hisses Claude, shaking her head, trying not to smile. “Go and chase up Ballsy and tell him he’s got us until ten thirty-five.”

Liam Gelding, with his pale green eyes, brown cropped hair and rather sexy silver earring, has, for some bizarre reason, become a whole heap more attractive and fragrant this term; however, at this precise moment he’s spoiling the effect slightly by excavating his left nasal cavity with his finger. Liam’s desperately trying not to meet Claudette’s eye as he knows she’s absolutely right.

“And he’ll be in the admin office getting a right roasting off Edith now too . . . she was exceptionally irate when I was passing by her hatch this morning. Poor bloke,” nags Claude.

Liam gazes straight ahead, his index finger buried almost near to the knuckle.

“And he was off sick with flu last week as well,” Claude adds in a melodramatic way. “He must feel terribly weak.”

Liam’s willpower is cracking, he begins to stand up.

“Okay! Okay! Cassiera, you win! I’ll go and get him.” He laughs.

It’s incredible how readily the boys cooperate with Claudette’s wishes ever since she sprouted that stupendous C-cup bosom.

Too late, however. Mr. Ball has returned, he must have found his timetable. Mr. Ball, I always think, looks a touch like a scientific teddy bear: He’s short and plumpish with a furry beard, a tufty mustache and an abundance of chest hair, which creeps from the top of his creased white lab coat. None of Mr Ball’s lab coats quite fit; the top three buttons are traditionally left unfastened, displaying several unattractive inches of graying string vest. As ever, Mr. Ball is completely unfazed by Liam’s little gag.

“Are you guys Year Nine or Year Ten?” he asks, still not quite up to speed. “Year Nine!” we all chorus.

Ball grabs the exercise book belonging to one of the kids on the front bench and flicks to the last written page.

“What were we doing last time we met?” he inquires. “Crystals or locusts?”

“Crystals,” we all shout.

The locusts, lazing about in their cages at the rear of the lab, breathe a collective sigh of relief.

“Ahhh, I know where we are now!” announces Ball, a broad smile breaking through his beard. We all give him a little cheer and round of applause.

Quickly, Mr. Ball springs into action, gathering all the class, including me, Fleur, Claude and Liam, around the demonstration bench to watch his latest trick.

Now, last time, as far as I can recall, we were distilling some light blue—or, hang on, it could have been dark green—fibers in a conical flask with some other sort of white powdery stuff.

I think.

Then . . . after heating the contents of the flask, we discovered that the clear liquid (I didn’t quite catch its name) that Mr. Ball dropped the fibers into had changed color. It turned either blue or green.

(I’m not quite sure which.)

Mr. Ball’s experiment proved without doubt that . . .

Oh, God, I’ll admit it: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS PROVED. I wasn’t listening. I’m not even listening this time either, despite the fact that Mr. Ball seems to be frothing-at-the-mouth excited about the formation, over the previous seven days, of turquoise crusty bits on the sides of his conical flask.

“This chemical reaction,” Mr. Ball announces, “denotes something very very interesting indeed!”

In truth, I’d be more interested hearing Mr. Ball explain how I have now been sitting in science for what seems like over four hours while the clock on the lab wall still insists on reading 9:51.

I really wish I could like science, but it really doesn’t float my boat at all. It didn’t seem to matter in Year 7 and 8, but now I can feel that I’m slipping behind and I don’t even know how I could begin to catch up. What do I do?

If I tell Mr. Ball, he’ll just make me do extra science tuition, which is like signing up for extra medieval torture or something. He might even make me go and sit in Room 5 in the “special tuition” center, which isn’t something anyone wants to be seen doing. Liam Gelding had to go to Room 5 for English and maths for a while last year, then when he came back afterward to join us for his other lessons, everyone in the class would sing, “Special needs, special needs, spesssshhhhel needs!” to the tune of that old song by the Beatles “Let It Be” until Liam’s face flushed scarlet.

Kids can be cruel, eh? That’s what grown-ups always say. Unfortunately most Blackwell kids mistake this for one of the school rules, i.e., “Kids are required to be cruel at all times during the school day and even more so at breaks and lunchtime.”

Okay, between you and me, what terrifies me most about asking for help is being officially certified “dumb.” Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen, I’ve seen the special stickers they put on your personal files to signify “borderline retarded.” I’ve skated pretty close to this with a few school reports too. Not in cool lessons like English or religious studies, no, I tend to A grade them. I’m talking about maths and science. That’s where I blow, big time. Those snidey little remarks written on my end-of-year report cards really keep me awake at night:

“Ronnie is a capable girl but loses all interest when the going gets tough. Grade: D,” my science teacher bitched last year.

“Pah, that’s what you’re like with everything. You’ve always been a quitter,” snapped my mother helpfully.

“Gnnnngn,” I grunted, grasping around for one really difficult thing in my life I’ve actually finished. And failing.

I am such a loser.

Worse still was my maths card: “Veronica is quite simply a waste of my time and her own in this lesson. I have grave concerns for her future employment if she persists on lagging behind the year group. Grade: E.”

I cried when Mum and Dad got home from that Blackwell’s report evening. Because at some points during that term I’d even tried, a bit. Eventually Loz came upstairs and told me not to fret because if I ended up with no qualifications at all, I could get a job with him as a barmaid. “Those new computerized cash registers work all the sums out for you,” he said.

This made me cry even more.

But I’m certainly not telling anyone I can’t understand science, it’s not worth the hassle. One good thing about science lessons, I suppose, is that Mr. Ball is typically so busy distilling stuff, pipetting and mucking about with test tubes that you can usually grab a good, lengthy, albeit whispered, chatter. Today, however, I’m feeling more than a little subdued. I’m glad I’ve got the LBD there so I can get a few things off my chest.

Something fishy is afoot back home at the Fantastic Voyage, I tell Fleur and Claude as we crowd around the microscope, looking for whatever it is we’re looking for. I’m more than slightly bummed that neither Mum nor Dad will tell me what’s going on. I know for certain they’re not speaking to each other, that’s for deffo, not that I’ve even seen them in the same room over the last week to confirm their silence.

I can just tell. Despite my scientific deficiencies, I’m flipping cleverer than they give Ronnie Ripperton credit for.

Take last night, when I moseyed home from Fleur’s and was rooting around in the laundry room for a clean school shirt to iron. Innocently I yelled through to Mum, who was prepping parsnips in the kitchen: “Oi, Mum! Do you know where my short-sleeved school shirt is?”

“No . . . not really sure,” Mum shouted back. “I know where all of your long-sleeved ones are, they’re over the drying horse. Why do you want the short one?” she asked.

All was well so far.

“Well, Dad says it’s going to be red-hot tomorrow—”

Big mistake! Blastoff! Mum’s lips puckered, her nostrils flared and her eyes thinned to venomous slits.

“Hmmmph . . . well, you had better listen to your father then, seeing as he’s got that hot line to the BBC meteorological department,” she sniped, hurling silky slithers of parsnip into a vast pan of bubbling water.

Whenever Mum and Dad row, “Dad” suddenly becomes “your fath-er,” almost as if Loz hatched me all by himself in a bin around the back of the Fantastic Voyage and Magda had nothing physical to do with the whole process. It’s almost as if Mum can distance herself from him, and by default from us, the Ripperton clan, with just a few strangely chosen syllables. This time, however, seemed far more serious; there was a real hurt in her eyes, like Dad had done something so heinous that I wouldn’t even want to know.

This really gave me a jolt. It was at this point I realized that home has been pretty weird and miserable over the last week. And that I’m not coping very well with my parents’ long morbid silences and blatant irritation at each other. Or their midnight mumblings and shoutings the very second they notice my light is switched off. I even had a stupid nightmare last night that Dad had died suddenly, and I was running about trying to plan a funeral while Mum was laughing maniacally and making a fancy cake. That was hideous.

But whatever is going on, neither side are giving anything away.

“What’s up, Mum?” I said, anyhow.

“Nothing,” she said, forcing a thin smile. “Nothing at all. If you want me to iron a shirt, then leave it on top of the dryer, I’ll do it once we’ve sorted the cash registers out.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but what is up with—?” But I was interrupted by the kitchen order phone ringing.

Then, earlier this morning, on my way out of the pub to school, I tapped Dad for my lunch money. Dad was sitting in the saloon bar, still in his pajamas, slurping a big mug of tea, reading The Daily Mirror. I had decided to forgive him for his Jimi faux pas yesterday, on account of his extreme cack handedness in most social situations like that, it’s all I can expect, really. Oh, and the fact that I wanted my lunch money with minimum fuss.

“So, Ronaldo,” he asked. “What’s on the agenda today?”

“Phhghh . . . double science,” I sighed. “And then I think I’ve got religious studies . . . dead boring. We’re doing theology at the moment. Y’know, the meaning of life and all that.”

“Ooh, the meaning of life? How good’s that, eh?!” muttered Dad as I slung my schoolbag over my shoulder, trudging toward the door. “Hey, Ronno, do me a favor,” Dad shouted. “If you find out that meaning of life thing by, say, four-ish, give me a quick call on my cell phone, will yer?”

“Will do, Pops,” I yelled. “See ya. Love yer.”

Dad continued in a voice only just loud enough to hear: “It’ll give me something to think about in prison after I’ve strangled your mother. . . .”

At some level, I think Dad was only half kidding.

 

 

“Ooh, that’s awful, Ronnie,” squeaks Fleur, tweezering turquoise crystals under a microscope so we can all share in its holy wonderment. Mr. Ball is hopping from bench to bench, trying to prevent the stupider kids from tasting the crystals as they’re, like, poisonous.

“What you need is some counseling,” whispers Fleur earnestly. “You’re, like, practically an abused child. Do you find that Loz and Magda take their aggression out on you when they’re arguing?” she asks. “You might need a social worker.”

“No, not really,” I say, shaking my head, gazing out the window at the pouring rain. Dad’s hot line to the BBC weather department must have been faulty. “In fact, I got five pounds lunch money this morning instead of two fifty. Dad told me to go spend his profits on false eyelashes for all he cared. I don’t think that’s really child abuse, Fleur.”

Fleur looks disappointed.

“You might still need a bit of therapy, though,” Fleur says hopefully. “Like that sort where you swim with dolphins in Israel and cry a lot. I saw it in Marie Claire magazine.”

“What you need,” interrupts Claude, “is to just let your mum and dad get on with it and try to keep yer shneck out of things.”

(NB: Shneck is the LBD’s word for nose. Say you see someone with a big nose. It’s the LBD rule that you’ve got to go “Sherrrrneckkkkk!!” really loudly in a squawky way . . . praying that the person in question with the “biggen shnecken” isn’t conversant in LBD.)

“Mmm . . . I know what you’re saying,” I reply. “Probably I should.”

Claude looks extra authoritarian at the moment in her lab specs.

“Definitely,” says Claude. “They’re having a row, just let them argue it out. Your mum and dad are a right pair, Ronnie. They love each other to bits, anyone can see it. This time next week they’ll be trying to dump you at your granny’s again because they want to go on one of their romantic weekends.”

We all giggle then, fake putting our fingers down our throats, grimacing. I don’t even want to contemplate what my parents get up to on the “romantic weekends” they occasionally take in Parisian hotels and suchlike, but I hope it involves a lot of examining the in-room trouser press and looking at the River Seine and NOTHING too “romantic.” Bleeeeeughhh.

“Anyhow, I need your full attention over the next week.

We’ve got a very full schedule . . . you’re going to be my righthand chick.”

Oh, dear, I know EXACTLY what Claude’s talking about here. I knew she wouldn’t leave our little LBD conversation about the Blackwell fete last night as pie in the sky for too long. That’s just not Claude’s style.

“Oh, Claude, we can’t,” I say.

“You’re not being serious?” says Fleur with a look of growing anxiety.

“It’s impossible . . . isn’t it?” I say.

But Claude has that scary, unstoppable look in her eyes.

“It IS possible,” Claude affirms. “We’re going to see Mr.

McGraw at first break to put our plans to him about Blackwell Live.”

Claude pauses a moment to enjoy the sound of her new title; she invented the phrase “Blackwell Live” at 3:15 A.M. this morning, sitting up in bed at Flat 26, Lister House.

 

 

You see, late last night, long after the LBD had giggled, fantasized, danced and gossiped till we were exhausted about how totally, unbelievably fantabulouso it would be to turn Blackwell fete into a full-scale local pop/rock extravaganza; long after I’d toddled home, encountered Magda and fallen asleep; and hours after Fleur had finished her vitamin E deep-impact face pack and turned on her Whale Sounds Power Snooze CD, Claudette Cassiera was awake until at least 4:00 A.M. . . . plotting. As you can imagine, Claudette plotting is a very scary thing indeed. It involves numerous sheets of paper, spider diagrams, doodlings and scribblings out. It also involves the emergence of one of Claudette’s infamous “THINGS TO DO” lists.

Oh my Lord. I can see one being produced from Claudette’s rucksack right now. Point one says:

1. Make appointment with McGraw to discuss Blackwell Live.

It has a big tick against it. She’s only gone and done it!

“Oh, I have GOT to see this one.” Fleur smirks.

“That’s good,” retorts Claude, “because you’re coming along too. I need full LBD backup to swing this one in our favor.”

That wipes the smile right off Fleur’s chops.

“Of course, Fleur,” continues Claude, “this will require you to act pleasantly, schoolgirlish and, well, almost like a normal human being for over twenty whole minutes . . . Swanno, can I count on that?”

Fleur giggles and sticks her tongue out. “Huh. It’ll take a lot more than me saying a few pleases and thank-yous for McGraw to start liking me again.” Fleur laughs.

“Perhaps,” says Claude. “But it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“Do you think I should apologize again for that massive bill he got from . . . ooh, what was it called? . . .” Fleur thinks deeply. “Oh, yeah, Castles in the Sky, the bouncy castle company?”

“Well, yes, you could . . .” Claude stops, then changes tack. “Actually, Fleur, I’ve thought about that now. DON’T mention the bouncy castle incident. In fact, Fleur, don’t speak at all. Just smile.”

Fleur crosses both eyes and gives a big smile with all of her teeth and gums showing, made all the more eerie by the fact she has plum-colored lipstick smeared on her front teeth.

“That’s very pretty, Fleur,” says Claude. “Very genuine.”

Claude turns her attention to me.

“Right, Ronnie, you’re my only hope here. Once we’re all in McGraw’s office, we have to work together tightly to get the outcome we want.”

“What, like a Good Cop-Bad Cop sorta routine?” I ask, suddenly feeling very devious.

“Well, no,” corrects Claude. “More like Nice Schoolgirl-Even More Crawly Bumlicky Schoolgirl.”

“Oh, well,” I say. “Can I be the first one?”

“For sure.” Claude smiles.

As far as an LBD planning meeting, this is highly civilized. We’ve got a smidgen of a plan together, and no one has felt the need to call each other a “total durrbrain” or get personal about the other girl’s hairstyle. Sadly, our good progress is brought to a halt by minor classroom chaos.

Mr. Ball has left the front of the classroom and is striding around the benches, inhaling deeply.

“Has somebody got sweets?” he says. “I am certain that I can smell chocolate. And it’s a milk chocolate too.”

Mr. Ball’s highly sensitive nostrils are twitching.

“C’mon, hand ’em over, whoever you are!” says Ballsy. “You all know how I feel about sweets in the chemistry department.”

Yes, Mr. Ball, we all know how you feel about sweets in general. You adore them. It’s rumored that the local newspaper seller Mr. Parker bought a new Volvo last year on the strength of your minty humbug, chocolate raisin and cola cube addiction.

Poor Sajid Pratak, a tiny pip-squeak of a boy perched on one of the back benches, is caught mid-chomp.

“Sajid!” yells Mr. Ball.

“Mggghp sir!” goes Sajid.

“Bring those sweets up here,” Ball instructs.

Sajid trudges to the front of the class, surrendering his crumpled bag.

No sooner is Saj reseated, Mr. Ball is pointing at the blackboard with one hand while his other furry hand begins foraging amongst the sweeties, making them disappear into a clearing in his face forest.

“Sweets are forbidden in the chemistry lab, Sajid,” Mr. Ball says. “Mmeghg-specially”—chomp, chomp—“delicious chocolate-coated mghTurkish Delight sugch as this. You children could have any manner of hazardous chemical on your hands when you’re eating. Your innards could dissolve!”

Sadly, this is what always happens when weak-willed Mr. Ball finds sweets in his classroom. Firstly he confiscates them as he’s “paranoid we’ll get poisoned,” then he ends up scoffing the lot. Afterward, Mr. Ball feels wracked with guilt about pilfering confectionery from victims under five feet tall, so he ends up buying the pupil more sweets in return next lesson. The LBD all roll their eyes and giggle.

“Stop moaning, Mr. Pratak,” says Mr. Ball. “Just you get on with writing up that experiment till the end of the lesson.”

BBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRING goes the school bell.

“Which is now!” Mr. Ball smiles, relieved.

We all start packing our bags.

“Good-bye, Year Ten!” shouts Mr. Ball, making a sharp exit for the staff room before some pesky student teacher nicks his comfy chair by the radiator. “See you soon!”

“Year Nine!” we all shout.

And then he’s gone.

in search of great craic

“But what are we going to say to him?” I ask Claude anxiously as we head toward McGraw’s lair.

We’re weaving through the morning breaktime crush of a thousand Blackwell bodies. Agghh . . . I spot Jimi standing just inside the school yard with his two mates Aaron and Naz. Thank God Naz is doing something extremely impressive with a football (spinning it on one finger, since you ask), meaning I can slip by without Jimi seeing my face. I flinch again when I see Panama and two of her clique, Abigail and Leeza, hovering around one of the doorways that we need to pass through. As tradition requires, the girls all flash filthy looks at Fleur simply for being taller and naturally prettier than they are. They’re mumbling some rubbish about Fleur being a “lanky cow,” their usual route of attack. Most girls would crumble under such abuse; however, Fleur seems oblivious. Fleur Swan really is bully-proof—just like her name suggests, she glides right through trouble with her nose in the air, which just seems to make her tormentors more determined. It doesn’t matter today anyway, we’re moving pretty quickly. Fleur and I have to hurry to keep step with Claude’s increasingly purposeful stride. We’re now drawing dangerously close to the doors of the administration corridor, a sort of Blackwell inner sanctum situated in the center of the school, home to the offices of McGraw; Mrs. Guinevere, deputy head; plus Edith, school secretary (and part-time fire-breathing dragon).

I cannot flipping believe Claude is taking us here.

Nobody chooses to walk down this corridor via their own choice.

No, this is a corridor that you’re sent to, well, to be more accurate, frog-marched to, when you’ve been caught slap-bang in the midst of being a social nuisance.

Actually, for such a scary place, the admin corridor is really rather beautiful. In general, Blackwell’s decor is a fetching hue of sludge green, earwax yellow and incontinence brown; however, this 100 meters of space boasts pristine white marble floors that are polished daily, fresh pale turquoise walls and opaque patterned glass lamp shades. It’s almost like a TV home makeover team turned up, blew all their budget on the admin corridor, then decorated the rest of Blackwell for £14.29.

“Er . . . well, I’ve not really planned exactly what we’re going to say, as such,” says Claude, knocking on Mr. McGraw’s polished teak door. “And anyway, it’s not just McGraw. I forgot to tell you, it’s Guinevere as well. I said it would be better if they both were there. Y’know, kill two birds with one stone?”

Fleur and I look at each other in sheer horror.

I suddenly feel a terrible urge to go to the toilet.

But it’s too late, the door has opened.

“Ah, Claudette Cassiera. Come in, come in,” McGraw says, his gray face alive with delight. This is about as enthusiastic as I have ever heard McGraw being about anything, including last winter when he appeared on local radio saying the school was flood-damaged and closed for the week.

“And Veronica Ripperton too?” he adds, with a weaker smile, probably clocking that I’m wearing cream ankle socks instead of regulation three-quarter white ribbed ones.

“Oh, and it’s you. Fleur Swan. What a lovely, er, surprise,” McGraw lies, clearly remembering bouncy castles, Bovril and a whole string of other minor offenses he could be taking into consideration.

Claude nudges Fleur, who, on cue, gives a big broad smile from ear to ear, sort of twinkling her fingers at him. She looks like she should be dispensing dinners on a Virgin Airways flight.

We all file into the office, then stand rigidly in an arc facing McGraw’s desk.

“Oh, please, young ladies, do have a seat,” says McGraw, flourishing his hand around the room, pointing out chairs usually reserved for parents.

A seat?

A SEAT!?

Ha ha! How flipping different is the McGraw Office Experience when you’re not there for Bovril-related wrongdoing?

Unbelievable!

Suddenly there’s a further knock on the door. Mrs. Guinevere slips in behind us.

“Sorry I’m late, Sam, er, I mean Mr. McGraw,” she says in her rich Dublin accent.

Mrs. Guinevere looks almost regal in a long black velvet skirt, an ornate flowered waistcoat and a crisp white linen blouse. Her cropped auburn hair is flecked with strands of gray, which shine like platinum.

“Mrs. Guinevere, please have my seat,” says Claude, spotting the chair shortage and leaping up. Quickly she’s taller and slightly more powerful-looking than anyone else in the room.

Very cunning.

“So, Claudette, what can we do for you?” asks McGraw. “Something about a special concert you’d like to help organize?” McGraw is looking down at a slip of paper with Edith’s swirly writing across it.

“Yes, sir,” begins Claude. “An open-air music event for school musicians. You know, like a real chance for local talent to perform? Plus, an opportunity to raise money for local charities too . . .”

Jeez, Claude, when you put it like that, I think I’ll be busy hand-washing my thongs that day. Still, five minutes into the meeting and we’ve not been ejected yet.

“And what musicians do you have in mind?” probes McGraw. “I know that the Blackwell Bellringing Society has suffered a huge drop in support since Mr. Cheeseman left for his new teaching job....Yet still they ring on, spreading joy. Would they get a slot on the bill?”

“Er . . . well—” Claude winces.

“And I DO know that Miss Nash from the music department has been teaching her lunchtime choir group some wonderful Elizabethan close-harmony madrigals,” McGraw continues.

“Veronica, make a note of that,” says Claude, simply for effect. “They sound very promising.”

BUGGER OFF, I write on my notepad, showing both Claude and Fleur. Fleur almost giggles, but at the last minute turns it into another big smile. McGraw and Guinevere peer at us all intently.

“But, really, it would be a celebration of all things musical and rhythmic,” says Claude, stepping up her campaign. “You know, like singing and rapping, and dancing . . . and we’d have rock bands and pop music and—”

“Pop music?” says McGraw.

In the same tone as you’d say “Dog poo?” if you found it on the bottom of your flip-flop.

“Yes, pop music,” says Claude. “And other stuff.”

Claude, to give her due, then follows this up by making some dead grown-up points about “school morale” and “making Blackwell a household name.” But by this point I don’t think McGraw is listening.

He’s staring out of the window mournfully, probably imagining Blackwell School filled with marauding youth, all of them dancing, stage-diving, playing loud guitars, snogging each other and having a really fantastic time. Ironic, as this is exactly what we can see slipping away from us.

“Well, girls,” McGraw says, drawing a red pen line through the slip of paper before him, “I really don’t consider Blackwell School grounds a fitting location to hold an event such as—”

McGraw begins what sounds like it might be extended grumble, but he doesn’t get too far.

“I love it,” says Mrs. Guinevere. Her eyes are all twinkly. “It would be like a little mini local music festival!” she enthuses. “What an exciting idea! That sounds like great craic!”

Mrs. Guinevere says the word craic to sound like crack. In this context none of the LBD are that sure what it means, but it sounds like a really good giggle nevertheless.

We all flash Mrs. Guinevere our largest, most relieved smiles. “We think so too!” I say. “It would be totally fantabulous!”

“I’m sorry?” says Mrs. Guinevere.

“It’d be good fun,” explains Claude.

“Ahhh . . . I get you now!” Mrs. Guinevere laughs.

Mr. McGraw huffs, puffs, then places his left elbow onto the desk, resting his head forlornly on his hand, directly beside a framed black-and-white photograph of his depressed-looking self standing with Myrtle, his equally gloomy wife. Our headmaster then sighs again, in a tired-of-life way, this time from the very bottom of his belly.

“Look, what you’re suggesting isn’t some picnic in the park, you know, girls?” moans McGraw. “It will require a lot of long, arduous, complex planning and hard work . . . and a lot of responsibility heaped on your young, inexperienced shoulders. I really don’t think that three Year Nine girls are up to this task.” McGraw shakes his head. “I mean, how will you even manage to . . .”

I hate to admit this, but I think he could be just a teensy- weensy bit right. We could really mess this thing up here. Well, all right, it’s most likely to be me, I could really mess this up. This whole thing seems like another fab opportunity for me to prove to the teachers that I’m a burnout who “doesn’t see projects through till the end” and “flakes out under responsibility.”

Wonderful.

Okay, this might just be nerves.

Don’t get me wrong, I really want Blackwell Live to happen, it’s just the potentially hideous, snowballing sense of personal failure that I’d rather avoid.

“I’ll help them,” interrupts Mrs. Guinevere. “I don’t mind, in fact I’d love to get involved! We put on many a play and concert without too much strife when I was a young girl at St. Hilda’s in Dublin.”

Mrs. Guinevere breaks out another big grin, even just remembering it.

“It’ll certainly be a challenge, but I’m confident these girls can rise to what’s needed of them.”

You go, Mrs. G!

“Anyway, the girls can report in to me with their day-to-day progress,” Guinevere adds. “So I’ll know if they’ve tried to sell the school to the sultan of Brunei or blow up the playing fields . . . oh, I’m sure it will be fine, Mr. McGraw.”

We all flash our best angelic smiles in Mr. McGraw’s direction. He wrinkles his nose back at us.

“Well, think about it at least,” Mrs. Guinevere says.

McGraw stares once again out of the window; he must love this, knowing the whole room hangs on his every word.

Following a long silence in which I notice that Mr. McGraw has been doodling a picture of a tree on his phone message pad, King Doom eventually speaks.

“Money,” he says, placing both hands behind his head, satisfied with the stumbling block he’s conjured up. “How are you planning to pay for all of this? Are your piggy banks going to stand the strain, or are you all doing double paper routes at the moment?”

McGraw smirks. He’s found, so he reckons, the chink in Claude Cassiera’s armor.

“Well, I thought we’d sell tickets,” answers Claude. “The concert will take place over the weekend, after all, so people would probably expect to pay a little entrance fee just to cover costs, wouldn’t they?”

Claude does seem to have a good answer for everything so far. I’m so glad nobody’s asked me anything yet, or Fleur, who looks about ready to tell McGraw to stick his school fields up his bum. Or worse.

“Oh, deary me,” mocks McGraw. “You’re going to invite pupils to show up at Blackwell over the weekend? . . . And you’re going to make them pay for the pleasure?! Come now, Miss Cassiera. If I thought that was feasible, I’d be holding this conversation with you via conference call from the Happy Coconut Beach Bar in Honolulu! I’d be a millionaire by now.”

Okay, McGraw’s joke is slightly amusing, but no girl gives the big spoilsport the pleasure of a chuckle, especially not Mrs. Guinevere, who is possibly even angrier than Fleur at this point.

Claude is rustling about in her folder. She produces a single sheet of paper covered in what looks like percentages and equations.

“Okay, I understand your concerns, Mr. McGraw, but if I can refer you back to the results of the Blackwell questionnaire that we filled out last year.” Claude waves her piece of paper. “It seems that pupils probably would pay to see music, if we put on a good enough show for them, that is.”

“Questionnaire? What questionnaire? We’ve never done a . . . ,” argues McGraw, looking confused.

Mrs. Guinevere catches Claude’s drift.

“Ah, Claudette’s talking about the physical and social education department’s life science questionnaire. You know? The one we gave out to all one thousand Blackwell pupils to fill in last June?”

“That’s the one!” Claude smiles. “Do you not remember it, Mr. McGraw?” she says.

“Pgh, splagh . . . Of course I remember it . . . ,” mutters McGraw. “We wanted to . . . er . . .” McGraw admits defeat. “Oh, remind me again what we wanted, Mrs. Guinevere?”

“To find out Blackwell pupils’ likes, dislikes and attitudes toward school and home lives,” prompts Mrs. Guinevere.

“Ah, yes, I remember it now. I was just a little, er, confused for a second,” snaps McGraw, dredging the darkest corners of his memory for any info whatsoever about that PSE project. Eventually tiny bits start seeping back.

“What’s this got to do with anything?” he says. “All I can recall is several pupils filling in a lot of insolent remarks about my tie collection and some bright spark suggesting we build a Blackwell Tarzan Swing. Pah! It simply underlined to me the percentage of utter buffoons I’m employed to baby-sit between eight A.M. and four P.M.”

“Actually, we did gain a lot of useful info from that questionnaire,” says Mrs. Guinevere patiently, turning back to Claude, who’s waiting to read from her sheet. “What did you find out, Claudette?”

“Well, according to official Blackwell statistics, it seems that ninety-five percent of our pupils said that one of their main pocket money and Saturday job wage expenditures was . . .” Claude pauses for effect. “Music.”

Mr. McGraw’s face is an absolute picture. He looks a bit like a lottery winner who’s just discovered he’s boil-washed and tumble-dried his winning ticket.

“Oh,” he grunts.

Claude continues, “They buy CDs, concert tickets, dancing and singing lessons, guitar strings, ballet shoes . . . they download MP3s off the Net, rip CDs . . . that sort of thing . . . it seems that Blackwell is sort of united by a common love of music.”

Claude places the piece of paper back into a folder she has rather presumptuously felt-tipped Blackwell Live across.

“Riiiiiiiight,” says McGraw crossly. The one thing more annoying than thick pupils, he’s just discovered, is flipping smarty pants pupils, they must drive him mad.

“Oh, dear, is that the time?” announces McGraw. “Sorry, girls, your time’s up, I’ve got a class to supervise in two minutes.”

Our headmaster rather abruptly winds up our appointment; obviously he’s heard quite enough. “We’ll get back to you forthwith on this matter,” he says, nodding toward the door. “Off you pop now, you don’t want to be late for third period.”

There’s nothing much else we can do now, well, aside from claim squatters’ rights and refuse to leave his office.

Claude looks crestfallen; she packs her orange folder into her little black rucksack, thanks both the teachers for their time and makes toward the door; Fleur and I follow closely behind. However, as Mrs. Guinevere holds open the door, directing us three disheartened LBD members through, she whispers under her breath, just loud enough for us to catch, “Don’t hurry away, ladies, wait outside for a moment,” before snapping the door shut, leaving us on the other side.

“I thought I had him there for a minute,” says Claude, her eyes seeming a little bit red-rimmed. “He was on the ropes, I just needed a few more jabs at him . . . ,” she says.

Fortunately for the LBD, however, behind the door, the bell for round two seems to have already dinged and donged.

At first, we hear Guinevere and McGraw having a civilized discussion . . . but this turns quickly to just Mrs. Guinevere’s voice, its volume increasing with every sentence. We can’t hear every word from where we are in the corridor; however, the LBD can still make out a few fantastic sentences.

“I cannot believe you sometimes, Samuel!” Mrs. Guinevere says, followed quickly a few moments later by: “You need a rocket placed you know where to get you moving, that’s what you need!”

Claude and I look at each other, our eyes wide with excitement. I’m really hoping Mrs. Guinevere doesn’t suddenly fling open the door, because Fleur has her ear pressed so firmly against it, she’d certainly fall in and end up perched upon McGraw’s lap.

But the next part we overhear is the very bestest bit of all: “I can leave anytime!” Mrs. Guinevere screeches, obviously not realizing that we can hear her. “I’m not the only staff member combing the Guardian job section for a one-way ticket out of Blackwell, you know!”

The LBD all place our hands over our mouths at the same time, suppressing fits of giggles.

After that, everything inside McGraw’s office goes suddenly very silent, the next few minutes dragging by extremely slowly. Claude turns to me with an anxious expression.

“Maybe Mrs. G’s got the sack?” Claude whispers. “It’s very quiet in there now, isn’t it?” Claude gazes down at her polished black shoes, then looks me straight in the eye.

“Oh, God, this is all my fault,” she says.

Just then, the door opens and Mrs. Guinevere appears with a calm, triumphant smile. She claps her hands together in a businesslike manner, then places one carefully manicured hand onto Claude’s shoulder.

“Right, ladies. We’re in business,” our deputy head announces. “You’ve got four weeks to kick this thing into shape. I’m suggesting Saturday, July twelfth for the concert, that’s end of term. Let’s kick summer vacation off with a bang, eh?”

We all stare at her in disbelief.

“But you’ve not got a lot of time, so it’s all systems GO from this moment on . . .”

I wish one of us could think of something to say back.

“What did you call the concert on the front of that folder, Claudette?” Mrs. Guinevere asks. “Blackwell Live, wasn’t it?”

“Uhhh, yes, miss?” Claude replies, smiling widely.

“Blackwell Live!” repeats Mrs. Guinevere. “I like that name, it has a ring to it, doesn’t it? So as I say, ladies, get shaping with a plan, have a root around for some bands, singers and, well, whatever you can come up with, then give me the latest news in a few days’ time. We’ll take it from there.”

Mrs. Guinevere turns on her heel and clip-clops away down the administration corridor.

“I’m sure it will be great craic, girls . . . great craic!” she says as she walks away. “The best of luck with your planning!”

And then she’s gone.

“Did that really just happen?” asks Fleur, grinning not just from ear to ear, but somewhere around the back of her head too.

“OH. MY. GAWWWWWD,” I squeal. “That was a yes! It was a yes!! . . . Hang on, that was a yes, wasn’t it, Claude?” I double-check.

“Too right it was a yes!” says Claude. “We’re putting on Blackwell Live! We’re going to do it, just like we talked about last night!!”

SCREEEEAAM!

After confirming and double confirming that Jimi Steele isn’t anywhere in close proximity . . . I throw my arms in the air, wave ’em like I just don’t care, holler, whoop, then join with the LBD in a celebratory Funky Monkey dance routine right along the administration corridor, through the middle school cloakrooms, then twice around the school pond. Life has taken a fantastic, brilliant, amazing upturn!

How glad am I now that, when I put the oven on last night and threatened my dad that I’d commit suicide by sticking my head in if he didn’t allow me go to Astlebury, I changed my mind at the last minute and just made a baked potato instead? Imagine if I’d have missed this!

and there’s more

I’m back home at the Fantastic Voyage now. I’ve just finished playing a few rounds of “Guess My Mood Today” with Mum (today’s answer, in case you’re wondering, was Distant and Angry). But this won’t depress me tonight, not after so many amazing things have happened today.

For example, the bit when McGraw spotted the LBD stacking our trays in the dining hall after lunch and was forced to, through Britain’s tightest lips, tell us he was “really pleased” to see us “taking on such a worthwhile project.” That was great. Especially as it was quite clear that it was giving McGraw physical pain similar to hemorrhoids to say so.

Another fab bit was sticking up our first Blackwell Live audition posters, just outside the assembly hall, and watching the first small crowd of looky-loos gathering to read all the details. How cool is that?

By the way, our posters say:

CALLING ALL BLACKWELL SINGERS,

MUSICIANS, DANCERS, ROCK BANDS
AND BUDDING POP IDOLS!

We need you for Blackwell Live on Saturday, July 12th—
Blackwell School’s very own

 

MUSIC FESTIVAL

Auditions are this Monday, June 23rd, 4:00 P. M. in the gym.
Speak to Claudette Cassiera, Veronica Ripperton or
Fleur Swan for further details or simply show up and
show us what you can do.

Within less than an hour, people began stopping the LBD in the corridors, in the school yard and on the playing fields to ask us what the devil we were playing at, or even funnier still, to sing us a few verses of their favorite songs, do a bit of break-dancing, or tell us about the Grade 3 piano exam they’d just passed! One lad even jumped out from behind the geography shelf in the library and serenaded me at the top of his voice:

“Has anyone ever seeen my bay-beee?
The one with the beautiful eyes
Cos there ain’t nooooooo dis-guisin’
The way I luuuuurve her!”

Then he did a bit of a tap dance . . . which would have been quite flattering, except that the lad was Boris Ranking, a sturdy fourth-year lad with bright orange hair and amazing tangerine lashes who looks exactly like a Highland calf.

By the time we’d arranged with Johnny Martlew, the Year 13 lad who designs the Blackwellschool.com website, to post the details on the Latest News page, then persuaded Edith to stick a note into the class registers so that form teachers could tell every class, we’d started to feel a bit like pop stars ourselves. In fact, by about 4:00 P.M., everybody was talking about the LBD. It was brilliant!

However, better than all of this was what occurred at about seven o’clock this evening, just as I was lying down on my bed to do my French homework.

Okay, I’ll admit that I’m not usually a big homework-done-on-time sorta lady, and let’s face it, I had a lot more than feminine and masculine pronouns on my mind after today’s events, but I had to get this stuff learned. You see, I’ve got one of Madame Bassett’s legendary vocabulary tests tomorrow morning and I cannot fail.

No way.

It’s simply not worth the hassle of giving M. Bassett a less than 50 percent result. She’d probably just pick on me for the entire double period, making me stand up and describe, in French, the complex details of planning a music festival or something equally horrendous. Can you imagine?

“Errr . . . J’aime beaucoup le, sorry, I mean, la musique . . . et, ooooh la la . . . Je n’ sais pas . . . er . . . Et j’ai besoin d’une tente. . . . Errr . . . and j’aime le veggie burger . . . Oh, God, pleeeeease can I sit down now?” (Dissolves into tears.)

She would love that, Madame Bassett would.

La bitche.

So anyhow, I’d just opened my Tricolor textbook and was becoming quite engrossed in a very interesting story involving a man from La Rochelle named Monsieur Boulanger who, rather spookily, also worked as a baker (fancy that, eh? What a coincidence) when a loud noise reverberated through my floorboards, almost shaking all of the teddy bears off the top of my wardrobe.

This kinda made me angry.

You see, not only was I the last to arrive in this family, therefore I got the bedroom which is the size of a gerbil hutch; worse still, I’m also situated directly above the Fantastic Voyage’s function room; hence, I’ve got to endure being woken up some Sunday mornings by noisy christening parties, or even kept awake some evenings by tipsy lunatics singing “I Will Always Love You” over the karaoke.

(Hang on—maybe I am an abused child after all?)

Okay, to be fair, Dad hardly ever hires the function room out these days as he says it’s not worth the bother (I think he means my moaning), but it certainly sounded like something was going on down there now.

KEEEEEERRRRWWWAAANNNNNNNNG!!!!

Yep, that sounded like a great big noisy guitar riff to me. So, after a lot of sighing and throwing myself about my room, blaming my father for my inability to break out of Ability Stream 2 for French, I popped down to stick my shneck around the function room door . . . only to find something so wonderful and unbelievably cool that I fully plan to bore my grandkids senseless with the memories of it when I’m a white-haired, false-hipped old nana.

Jimi Steele and Lost-flipping-Messiah were practicing underneath my bedroom!

I didn’t know Dad had said yes to this!

I was frozen to the spot for the first few moments. I even considered running back upstairs, having a shower and ironing my best going-out clothes, then appearing back downstairs in full makeup. But even I could see the vague lunacy in that plan; they might have gone by then. So I stood at the back of the room, watching Jimi and Naz tuning up their guitars and arguing over chords. Now, okay, I do remember what I said about becoming a stalker, so I was trying to be cool about it, but heck, I was there long enough to notice how Jimi’s sandy hair seems to have acquired gorgeous honey-blond highlights since summer began. (These are certainly, I feel, naturally bleached through all those long outdoors hours Jimi spends in search of nice waxy benches and handrails to skate along.)

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.