I had to get up really early today to deal with my stupid fringe. I hoped it might have got nice and flat and sleek overnight, but it hasn’t. It still looks all puffy. So I tried to reproduce what Cass and Alice did last night, and, although it took ages and a lot of fiddling around with pins, I think it worked. It didn’t look totally freakish anyway. And I used Rachel’s brilliant mineral powder and my nice new posh lipstick so people would notice that instead of my weird hair.

Though to be honest, today was so much fun I actually forgot about my fringe after a while. This morning I met up with Alice, Cass and Richard, and we all walked down to the college together. The actual campus was huge, with loads of different buildings, which was all very confusing, and we ended up wandering around in circles until we found a ‘North Dublin Summer Arts Camp this way’ sign.

‘You’d think they’d have put these signs near the actual gates,’ said Cass grumpily. But she only sounded grumpy because she was feeling a bit nervous. As was I. I don’t even know why.

Anyway, we followed the sign and ended up at one of the biggest buildings. Seriously, it was about the size of our whole school, and it was just for arts stuff. And there’s a theatre somewhere on the campus as well.

When we went inside, there were loads of boys and girls milling around looking as confused as we felt. Lots of them looked a bit older than us, which made me feel even more nervous. But eventually we found a big noticeboard telling us where all the different groups were meeting up. All the bands were told to go to the Orchestra Room.

‘Orchestra Room!’ said Cass. ‘That sounds very fancy.’

It wasn’t, though. It was just a big room with a grand piano and some chairs in it and loads of music stands piled up in a corner. We all sat down and looked around at our fellow summer-schoolers.

‘I wonder will we be able to find Jane and Ellie at lunch?’ I said.

‘I was wondering the same thing,’ said Alice. ‘This place seems huge. I can’t imagine we’ll ever be able to find our way around it.’

‘Consider it practice for when we get to actual college,’ said Richard, but he looked very relieved a minute later when his bandmates came in. He waved at them, and they came over and grabbed some seats nearby. We didn’t know any of the other bands, but one of them included a few boys from Richard’s class in school. He didn’t seem to like them very much and with good reason.

‘I didn’t realise they were doing this,’ he said when he noticed them on the other side of the hall.

‘Is their band any good?’ I asked.

‘I doubt it,’ said Richard. ‘Ah, I dunno, I’m not being fair. They could be good. They’re just kind of … annoying.’

But before he could say anything else, a man and a woman walked up to a pair of microphones set up next to the grand piano and waved. Everyone suddenly stopped talking.

‘Wow,’ said the woman, looking a bit surprised. ‘You’re all very quiet all of a sudden! So … hi! My name’s Veronica Flaherty, and I’m a guitarist and a sound engineer.’

Cass and Alice and I looked at each other. Veronica had been one of the organisers of the Battle of the Bands!

‘And my name is Tom, and I play the bass,’ said the man, ‘and sometimes the drums.’

Then Veronica told us how excited they were about the summer arts school and gave a speech about what we’d be doing over the next three weeks, which we kind of knew already from the website, and how at the end of it we’d put on shows for everyone in the camp. Then she called in all the people who were going to be our mentors, which sounds very reality TV. There were four men and two women, and they all looked like they were in their twenties and thirties. Some of them looked quite familiar − the camp has managed to get some quite big bands, which is impressive. When a very tall skinny man in a sharp suit came out, Richard looked very surprised and excited.

‘No one’s going to try and make you sound a certain way,’ said Veronica. ‘We’re just going to help you do the stuff you already want to do.’ The mentors each introduced themselves, and there was more talking about what we were going to do in each week, and then we were released into the wild, or at least the rest of the college, for a short break. As soon as Veronica and Tom left the stage, Richard said, ‘Oh my God, did you see who that was?’

‘Who who was?’ said Alice.

‘It was Ian Cliff! In the suit! Ian Cliff from Verfremdungs-effekt!’ said Richard.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Alice. ‘They’re not bad.’

Verfremdungseffekt are a Dublin band who are pretty popular, and Richard loves them. Alice went with him to one of their gigs a while ago and said they were pretty good, in a sort of melodramatic gloomy kind of way (which, now I think of it, is quite like Richard’s own band).

‘What does Verfremd-whatsit actually mean?’ I said. ‘It sounds a bit German.’

‘It is German,’ said Alice. Her mum is German so Alice can speak German better than our actual German teacher. ‘It literally means, like, alienation effect. Or distancing effect. But I don’t know what that really means. If you know what I mean.’

We did.

But Richard, because he is Verfremdungseffekt’s biggest fan ever, did know what alienation effect meant.

‘There was a German writer called Brecht who did plays, and he wanted to remind the audiences that they were actually watching a play, not real people, so they’d be more critical and not get emotionally involved. So Verfremdungseffekt is the word he used to describe how he did this. The characters would, like, turn around and start talking to the audience and stuff.’

I was not very impressed by this. I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten that I was watching a play. I mean, surely it’s quite obvious that the people are, like, on a stage? And acting? Anyway, Richard was still going out about how brilliant Ian Cliff was and how much he hoped they’d get him as their mentor when we left the Orchestra Room. And it turned out that we needn’t have worried about not finding anyone because as soon as we walked out into the corridor we bumped into Jane.

‘Oh, thank God I’ve found you,’ said Jane. ‘Something terrible has happened.’

‘Oh God, you’re not sick, are you?’ said Alice nervously.

‘No,’ said Jane. ‘Well, sort of. But only because they divided us up into groups, and I’m in the same one as Vanessa and Karen! And Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince, though I don’t really have anything against him apart from the fact he’s going out with Karen. We’re going to have to spend the whole summer camp coming up with a play together.’

‘Just the four of you?’ said Alice.

‘No, thank God,’ said Jane. ‘There’s another girl and two boys. But still!’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. And I patted her arm sympathetically.

‘Oh well,’ said Jane bravely. ‘It’ll be good acting practice, trying to pretend they’re not driving me mad. What’s your thing like?’

‘Pretty good, I think,’ said Cass. And we told her about Veronica and Tom and the mentors.

‘So, who’s your mentor?’ said Jane.

‘We don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘They’re telling us in a few minutes when we go back in. Do you have mentors?’

‘Not like that,’ said Jane. ‘Just facilitators. Whatever that means, exactly. Oh! I forgot to tell you. One of them is Cathy.’

‘Director Cathy?’ said Alice. Cathy Laverty directed our production of Mary Poppins. She was okay, in an intimidating, serious sort of way.

‘The very same,’ said Jane. ‘She’s still doing that scary glare thing. One of the boys started messing around at the start of the session, and she just … stared at him until he turned around, and then he shut up immediately. It’s like magic.’

Then we realised that people were starting to go back into the various meeting rooms, so we told Jane we’d see her at lunch and headed back into the Orchestra Room. When we got back to our seats, Richard and his bandmates had been joined by the other band from their school. They were having a serious conversation about which mentor they wanted to get. Of course Richard was going on about Ian Cliff and how he was the greatest artist in Dublin and Verfremdungseffekt were the best band since the Bad Seeds.

‘Yeah, they’re not bad,’ said a boy from the other band. He laughed. ‘We’ll have to fight you lot for him.’

‘I hope we don’t get one of the girls,’ said one of his bandmates. ‘I just can’t take girly musicians seriously.’ He looked at us and grinned in what he probably thought was a charming way but which looked more like a smirk to me. ‘No offence.’

‘Lots of offence taken,’ I said. I could see why Richard hadn’t looked very pleased to see them here. He looked even less pleased now.

‘Wow, Charlie,’ said Richard. ‘I didn’t realise you were that scared of girls.’

Charlie looked annoyed.

‘I’m not SCARED of them, Murray,’ he said. But before he could say anything else obnoxious, Veronica and Tom and the mentors came back in.

‘So,’ said Tom. ‘We’re going to give you each a mentor now! First up … Richard Murray and the Wicked Ways. Where are you, Wicked Ways?’

Richard and the bandmates put up their hands and looked a bit nervous.

‘Your mentor is Ian Cliff from Verfremdungseffekt!’ said Tom, and Richard looked very relieved. Ian looked over and nodded at them in a very serious way.

Then they called the Crack Parrots, which, it turns out, is the name of horrible Charlie’s band. I was hoping he’d get one of the women but alas he didn’t, he got some man called Simon from a band called Aniseed. And then it was our turn.

‘Now, where are Hey Dollface? Ah, hello there,’ said Veronica. ‘Your mentor is Kitty Shorthall from the Chalet School!’

A woman with a bob and a very cool dress gave us a cheerful wave. We waved back, and Veronica went through the rest of the list. There were seven bands and, to our surprise, one solo artist.

‘Right, last but not least is Paula Howard,’ said Veronica. ‘Our only solo act this year. Where are you, Paula?’

A very small girl all dressed in black with lots of hair and a fringe that almost covered her eyes put up her hand.

‘Cool,’ said Veronica. ‘Your mentor is Dave Crewe from Panda Gun. Right, now I want you all to come up here and meet your mentors! And then you’ll go off for your first workshops. Today you’re going to have workshops with your mentors all day, but from tomorrow we’ll be mixing things up a little.’

‘See you later then,’ said Richard, giving Alice a quick kiss, and then we all went off to find our mentors.

‘What if she hates us?’ said Cass.

‘What if we hate her?’ I said.

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Alice. ‘She’ll be lovely. She looks nice and friendly.’

And she was all of these things. Unlike obnoxious Charlie, I wanted us to get a woman for a mentor. There aren’t really that many girls in bands like ours, and it’s surprising what a difference it makes when you actually see any. It’s like you’ve got permission to do what you’re doing, even though you know that really you never needed any permission. Kitty seemed to feel the same way.

‘Hello, ladies,’ she said when we came up and introduced ourselves. ‘I’m really glad I got a band with girls in it. It’s always good to see more girls starting bands!’

And after that we got on really well. We went into our designated practice room, which had some amps and instruments in it, and Kitty told us about her band, the Chalet School, which sounds really cool; they met when they were in college, and they released their first album last year. And, of course, we told her all about Hey Dollface.

‘We played our first gig at the Battle of the Bands in the Knitting Factory last year,’ said Cass. ‘It went pretty well.’

I was going to say, ‘Apart from the bit where I fell backwards off the drum platform,’ but then I stopped myself. Surely Kitty didn’t need to know about that minor mishap? It wasn’t like I’m going to do it again. At least, I hope not.

‘But we had to take a break for a while because I hurt my wrist,’ said Alice. ‘So we haven’t actually played any shows since then. We want to, though.’

‘That’s a great idea,’ said Kitty. ‘And it’s great that you’ve played a gig already. My band were together for about a year before we actually got on a stage!’

It was really easy to talk to her. In fact, I wish she was going to teach us everything, but it turns out that some of the workshops are just going to be each band alone with their mentor, and some of them will be all the bands together. Anyway, we had lots of fun; we played her our song ‘The Real Me’, and she said it reminded her of a band called Veronica Falls, and before we knew it, it was lunchtime.

‘This is brilliant,’ I said, as we walked into the big college canteen café place where we’re going to have lunch every day. ‘We’ll probably have written a whole album by the time this course is over!’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Alice.

‘Oh, come on, Alice,’ said Cass. ‘All this practice! Hours a day! We’ll be practically professionals! Ooh, look, there’s Jane and Ellie, they’ve saved us some seats. And who’s that with Ellie?’

‘It’s Sam!’ I said. ‘From Mary Poppins. I don’t know who the other red-haired girl is, though.’

‘Jane!’ roared Cass. ‘Ah, she heard us.’

We hurried over.

‘Look who it is!’ said Ellie. ‘Sam’s doing the art course too!’

‘Hey!’ said Sam in a cheerful way.

It was cool to see him again. He had been quite shy for most of the musical, but it turned out that this was because of his terrible fear of having to understudy John Kowalski’s stupid part. Anyway, we talked properly for the first time on the very last night of the show, and he turned out to be really nice.

‘And this is Lucy,’ said Sam, pointing to the red-haired girl. She was very tall and quite imposing, with high cheekbones.

‘Hey,’ she said, waving at us. We waved back. Then I realised who she was.

‘Oh, you do comics together, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Sam told me about them when we were doing the musical.’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Lucy. ‘Hello.’

‘Cool,’ I said. But Lucy didn’t say anything else. She just smiled a bit distantly and looked down at her hands. I am not sure if she’s rude or shy. There is a fine line sometimes.

Anyway, the art course sounds really good. Cass thought so too. In fact, she is a bit jealous of our artist chums.

‘I’m starting to wish we could do a bit of both courses,’ she said, as Ellie and Sam explained about their teachers and how they were all going to work on different projects – Ellie’s going to do fashion-design stuff, and Sam and Lucy are going to do comics. ‘It might be good for my theatre-set-design career.’

But I think we’re both glad that we’re doing the rock camp. It really is so much fun. And it looks like we’ll be able to avoid Vanessa and Karen fairly easily. We only saw them once today, when we were on our way out with Richard.

‘What are you doing here?’ said Vanessa in her usual charming and not-at-all-rude fashion.

‘We’re doing the rock camp,’ said Cass.

‘Oh, right,’ said Vanessa. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Um, you’re the one who told us about it,’ said Alice.

‘Did I?’ said Vanessa, in a bored voice. Then she noticed Richard and said, ‘Oh, hey, Bert. So you’re doing this rock thing too.’

Richard looked confused for a minute.

‘Um, it’s Richard,’ he said. ‘I just played Bert in Mary Poppins.’

‘Richard? Really?’ said Vanessa. ‘Oh, whatever. I just saw the role, not the boy.’ And she marched off, leaving us staring at each other. I can’t believe she played the lead role of the musical opposite Richard for weeks and weeks and she can’t even remember what his name is.

Oh God, my mother’s roaring at me, I’d better go and see what she wants.

I don’t believe it! Apparently even during my actual summer holidays when I am spending my days working hard on the future of music, I am not allowed to relax. Apparently my mother has a problem with me leaving my bag on the floor in the hall. I am not sure where else I’m meant to put it. It’s not like there’s a special bag cupboard. She also gave out to me for leaving my jacket on the couch instead of hanging it up on the coat rack, which is a bit much if you ask me. It’s not like anyone was trying to sit on the bit of the couch where the jacket was. Anyway, I am too fatigued after all that arguing to write much more. But basically we spent the afternoon working on one of our songs with Kitty. It was brilliant, and I actually felt I was learning something. Which is something that doesn’t happen in actual school that often.

Ugh, that boy Charlie and his stupid band Crack Parrots are so disgusting. They were hanging around the main foyer this morning when Ellie, Alice, Cass and I walked in, and when we passed them Charlie pointed at each of us in an obnoxious fashion and said, ‘Seven, eight, seven and …’ – he pointed at Cass – ‘seven, but if you lost the glasses you might be an eight.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Alice.

Charlie smirked, which seems to be his normal facial expression. ‘Marks out of ten, girls,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, you didn’t do too badly. I mean, I’d go with any of you if I had to.’

We just stared at him in disgust while his idiot bandmates sniggered. And then we walked off.

‘I think we should have said something to him and totally put him in his place,’ said Cass. ‘But I couldn’t think of anything.’

‘Neither could I,’ I said gloomily. ‘What a pig.’

‘My mum always says that if someone is rude you should never respond with rudeness,’ said Ellie. ‘Because the laws of the universe mean that whatever someone sends out into the world is returned to them threefold. Which supposedly means that if anyone is horrible, they’ll get three times as much horribleness and bad luck back to them. But I’m not sure this is actually true.’

We looked back at Charlie. He and his stupid friends were still hanging around making comments at some other girls who had just come in.

‘He looks pretty happy,’ said Alice. ‘And Richard says he’s always been like that.’

‘And think of Vanessa,’ said Cass. ‘I don’t think the universe has punished her yet either.’

So much for the laws of the universe.

Anyway, besides Charlie and his stupid friends, today was pretty good. We started writing a new song with Kitty.

‘You shouldn’t be afraid to mess around,’ she said. ‘Some of the best songs happen when you’re not trying too hard. Just fool around with some chords and riffs and see what happens.’

It was very inspiring. We also got talking to some of the other bands, who seem pretty nice. They are mostly boys, but there are quite a few girls. There’s a girl called Maggie in a hip-hop group called Positive Trigger who seems cool. And there’s a band called Exquisite Corpse, who are all girls apart from a boy who plays drums. They are kind of gothy and look very dramatic and gloomy, but they’re not really, as we discovered. When I heard what they were called I thought they were going to be into, like, sitting around in graveyards writing poetry about death, but they turned out to be much more entertaining. We got talking to them when we were in the hall waiting for the afternoon workshops to start. A tall girl with black dyed hair, lots of very dramatic make-up and an amazing sort of corset-y dress that looked very uncomfortable leaned towards us.

‘Hiya!’ she said, in a very cheerful voice. ‘I’m Paula. What d’you think of all this so far?’

She and her bandmates are from Beaumont and are very nice. They practise in her attic.

‘My parents were a bit scared at first,’ she said. ‘I think they thought we’d turned into Satanists or something. They thought we were going up there to do dark rituals. Which we weren’t, obviously.’

‘They’re okay about it now, though,’ said her bandmate Sophie. ‘Your mam helped me fix my skull hair bobble last week when the skull started coming off the elastic bit.’

‘And I think they’ve got quite into the music,’ said Paula. ‘I heard my dad humming “Chemical Eternity” the other day.  That’s one of our songs,’ she added.

‘I don’t know if that means he likes it, though,’ said Sophie. ‘It could just be because he’s heard it a million times and now it’s stuck in his head forever, whether he likes it or not.’

‘Yeah, I think my parents are quite relieved we’re doing this course,’ said Paula. ‘It gives us somewhere to practise so we won’t be up in the attic for a while.’

‘We’ve got a big shed at my house,’ said Alice. She explained about living in the middle of nowhere. ‘It should be perfect. But it’s tricky for the others to get to. I wish there was somewhere in town we could use.’

It was fun talking to another band about this sort of thing. It’s good to know we’re not the only ones with organisational problems. They were all really nice. And it turns out even their name isn’t that creepy really. It’s just what a group of artists used to call that game where you draw a head and fold over the paper and then someone else does the same and draws the body and then someone else draws the legs. So not very scary at all. In fact, Paula is more chirpy than I am, even though she sings songs about falling in love with ghosts.

There is also the other, shorter Paula, Paula Howard, the small solo artist with the fringe. She is very quiet in a mysterious sort of way. Whenever you say anything to her she just answers in very short sentences. But she’s not unfriendly. Small Paula is the only solo artist, and no one really knows what her music is like yet. She is quite intriguing. In fact, everyone on the course seems to be doing lots of different things. It’s a good mix. We’re all going to put on gigs for the whole camp over the last few days of the show, but of course we’ll get to see most people do stuff during the workshops over the next few weeks.

But, if I am being very shallow (and surely I should be allowed to be shallow in my own diary), I must admit that I am quite disappointed with the boys. Is that really mean? It’s just that I was hoping I might fancy someone, and there isn’t really anyone there that I fancy. Even though there are loads of boys on the course. I have a horrible feeling I really will never find love again. Maybe Paperboy and John Kowalski are all I’m ever going to get. And maybe I should be content with that, but I do still want to, like, fall madly in love with someone and not have them leave the country after five minutes or turn out to be a total goon. Surely that’s not too much to ask?

Also, my fringe is still misbehaving. I hoped it might have grown a bit in the last few days which might weigh it down some more. But it doesn’t seem to have happened. It’s still as fluffy as ever. On the plus side, I have got better at clipping it back and to the side so it doesn’t look too bad then. But still.

If we are not complete musical experts by the end of this course I will be very surprised. Today we had an excellent songwriting workshop with Richard’s beloved Ian Cliff. I do not think he is as much of a genius as Richard does, but he was very good. And very imposing, as he is about ten feet tall in his stylish suits (he always wears suits – I can’t imagine him in, like, jeans) and looks even taller because his black hair is pushed up in a sort of quiff. But he has revitalised my creativity, especially when it comes to writing lyrics. Ever since Paperboy’s absence fuelled my creative powers, I’ve ended up becoming the band’s chief lyric-writer, but so far I’ve mostly written lyrics about what I was feeling at that very moment, which is probably why I haven’t been feeling very creative lately, what with things being dull and exam-centric.

But Ian Cliff reminded me that we can all draw from our past. And, as my love life seems to be a thing of the past, this was fine by me. So I have come up with some lyrics for the song we started working on yesterday. They are about John Kowalski.

I think I might have to work on them a bit before I show them to Cass and Alice. I know that Persil line is a bit odd. And I don’t even know if John’s clothes were washed with Persil. It could have been Daz. Or something environmentally friendly like Ecover (Miss Kelly would approve of that). Anyway, whatever they were washed with, he didn’t do the actual washing. He used to boast that he always refused to do what he called ‘mundane, pointless household duties’, even when his parents threatened to stop his pocket money. He seemed quite outraged at the very idea that he could be ‘bought off’, as he put it.

Anyway, I wouldn’t want to mention anything to do with laundry at all but very few things rhyme with ‘rehearsal’. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything else. But I’ll figure something out.

And I wasn’t the only one who has been creative and productive today. When we met Jane at lunch today she had some surprising news − though we were lucky we were able to hear it because Positive Trigger have started having rap battles with each other at lunchtime and sometimes they can get quite heated and noisy (though in quite a good-natured way. I think it’s all for show; they all seem to be good friends). Anyway, we managed to find a relatively quiet corner and sat down with some sandwiches.

‘How’s it going, working with you-know-who?’ asked Cass sympathetically. ‘Do you have to go out to the corridor every few minutes and take deep breaths to calm down?’

‘Do you think you’ll get through the whole thing without pushing Karen off the stage?’ I said. ‘I used to want to do that a lot during Mary Poppins rehearsals.’

‘Actually, it’s not bad,’ said Jane. ‘I know! I’m as surprised as you.’ She said that they’re all really focused on the play and it’s really intense. ‘It’s like we’re so busy they’ve forgotten how to be annoying,’ she said. ‘And Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince is a good influence. Seriously! Whenever Vanessa starts demanding stuff he kind of calms her down.’ She said that Gemma, Alfie and Josh, the other members of the group, just won’t put up with any nonsense from Vanessa. Or indeed Karen.

‘I know it’s really hard to believe,’ she said. ‘But we’re working really well together. We’ve all come up with lots of good ideas for the play we have to do.’

Their play sounds very ambitious – lots of physical stuff going on. I didn’t realise they were all so good at gymnastics. And I’m not sure how they’re going to do the bit with the dragon, but Jane said they’ll work something out.

Speaking of all things theatrical, my parents are getting even more annoying as the musical approaches. This evening I was trying to listen to music and read after my hard day’s work in the world of rock, but I couldn’t concentrate because they were in the kitchen singing ‘Oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah’ at top volume. And when I went in to complain and ask them to sing more quietly, they just laughed.

‘I didn’t think you minded a bit of noise around the house!’ said Dad. ‘What about your drums? You’re always banging away on that little snare drum.’

‘That’s different,’ I said. ‘I’m learning an instrument! That’s like homework.’

‘But we’re doing our homework too,’ said Mum. ‘And our instruments are our voices. Oom-pah-pah!’ And then she and Dad laughed like fools. Sometimes I think they are not very mature for their (very) advanced age.

My fringe hasn’t improved, by the way. I bumped into Mrs Mulligan and her horrible child on my way home today, and that little brat said ‘Nice hair!’ in a really fake voice. And then she smirked at me! It was bad enough when she was just gyrating at me. I can’t believe she’s moved on to actual words. I just smirked back at her and said, ‘Thanks!’ as her mother smiled at her and said, ‘Aw, that’s very nice of you Sorcha.’ Clearly the little monster has fooled her poor parents into thinking she is a normal human being.

But, on the plus side, my fringe doesn’t seem to have actually got worse. So that’s something. And in more good news, Cass came out to Richard and Ellie and Jane. This afternoon, she asked me and Alice had we told anyone about her coming out to us. Which we hadn’t. Not that her gayness is some big dark secret or anything, but we figured it was her choice to tell people or not and we shouldn’t go around talking about it without telling her. After all, coming out even to her best friends was a big deal for Cass. So we told her we hadn’t said anything.

‘I didn’t think you would have, but I thought I’d check,’ said Cass. ‘Anyway, I just thought I should say it was fine if you want to mention it to Richard. And I’ll tell Ellie and Jane.’

So they all know now. They were all cool about it, though Richard did tell Alice later that he was a bit surprised.

‘I mean, I’d never have guessed,’ he said. ‘She’s pretty girly. She doesn’t look like … you know.’

‘Like what?’ said Alice fiercely.

‘Ah,’ said Richard. He seemed to realise how stupid he sounded. And if he didn’t, he certainly did by the time Alice had given him a lecture about stereotypes and judging people by appearances and how Cass could be as girly or not-girly as she liked. But he seems to be totally fine about the whole thing anyway. As were Ellie and Jane.

‘I spend half my life surrounded with my mum’s hippie friends from her various goddess groups,’ said Ellie. ‘Gayness does not scare me.’

So Cass is relieved. It did make me realise how unfair it is that I never had to worry about people being weird about whoever I fancied. I mean, I didn’t have to worry that the world would have a problem with me going out with John Kowalski, even though he was a fool. And yet Cass has to worry about people being horrible about her and Liz, who is lovely! Truly this world is an unfair place.

I hate that horrible Charlie! And his friends, too, though he’s definitely the worst of them. We were divided into two groups for workshops this afternoon, and as soon as we walked in we realised we were in the same one as the Crack Parrots.

‘Oh brilliant,’ said Cass, gloomily. ‘That’s all we need when we try to figure out sound levels. Charlie and his goons making not-so-smart remarks.’

‘Maybe they won’t be so bad,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, surely they’re not going to say anything with the mentors around.’

But it turns out that Charlie is cleverer than he looks (which wouldn’t be hard, because he looks like a cocky idiot). He never said anything obnoxious when the mentors could hear. But as soon as their backs were turned or they were busy helping someone else, he’d be off.

‘Are you sure you can figure out those leads?’ he said, when Cass and Alice were hooking things up to the mixing-desk. ‘I know girls aren’t great at technical stuff …’

‘We’re fine,’ said Alice primly. And then she played a giant power chord on her guitar.

‘Excellent, Alice,’ called Kitty. ‘Lovely crisp sound. Now, check your keyboard level, Cass.’

Cass played a thunderous bassline on her keyboard. It was far too loud and distorted.

‘Oops,’ she said.

Charlie laughed.

‘I told you,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go and make me a sandwich instead?’

‘Yeah,’ said one of his bandmates, whose name is Robbie. ‘We all know a girl’s place is in the kitchen! Not at the mixing-desk.’

‘Seriously, what did that sound like?’ said Finn, the drummer.

But before we could say anything, Kitty and Dave came over.

‘Everything okay?’ said Kitty. ‘You just need to adjust the levels there, Cass.’

‘I can do it for her,’ said Evan, the Crack Parrots’ bass player. ‘I’m pretty good at this sort of thing.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Cass coldly. ‘I’ve got it.’ And she fiddled around with the dials and played a few notes until the keyboard sounded okay.

It was very annoying, because the class was really useful, all about how to make sure your instruments and vocals sound good together on stage. But those stupid boys put us in a bad mood. It was particularly irritating because they weren’t very good at mixing their sound either, but they didn’t seem to care. They still thought they were brilliant. We were all meant to be taking turns, and Charlie and Evan kept hogging the microphones for ages. Their music is rubbish too.

We cheered up a bit later, though, when Paula Howard turned out to be better than anyone else at realising what lead went where and making music sound good. Charlie looked as sick as a pig when the mentors praised her skills. But we didn’t get to hear any of her music. She said she didn’t want to play live yet. So she just engineered Positive Trigger for a bit. Their songs are pretty good, all about life on the mean streets and how hard it is for them to hustle their way through every day. I was quite surprised to find out that they are all actually from Clontarf, which is not very mean at all. Paperboy was from Clontarf, and his house was much bigger than mine and was also just down the road from a few posh restaurants and a supermarket my mother will only visit on special occasions because it sells nothing but fancy hummous and organic rashers. Also, two members of Positive Trigger, Oisín and Archie, go to a private school in town. But maybe Clontarf is tougher than it looks?

There was another band called Puce, who, despite their colourful name, are quite boring. Not in an obnoxious way, just in a sort of wishy-washy generic indie way. I mean, you barely noticed when they were on stage. They all look really alike too. They do have nice cardigans, but that is the only thing that sticks in the mind. And even the cardigans all look the same, so that doesn’t help much. But perhaps the camp will improve their stage presence.

Anyway, I was quite sorry when the session was over, because it was all very interesting (even with poor old Puce). We were giving out about Charlie and his gang when we bumped into the art people on our way to the canteen.

‘Sam,’ said Alice. ‘You know Charlie and Evan and all of them from school, right? Are they always really obnoxious?’ She paused and looked a bit guilty. ‘Um, I hope they’re not your best friends. Sorry if they are.’

But Sam laughed.

‘They are definitely not my best friends,’ he said. ‘And yes, they are mostly really obnoxious. Well, actually some of them are okay when Charlie’s not around.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Well, I know it’s probably hard to believe, but yeah,’ said Sam. ‘The problem is Charlie’s almost always around.’

‘He’s not very good at sound engineering, anyway,’ said Alice. ‘He was the worst of the lot.’

‘Yeah, Paula was in our group too, and she was the best,’ said Cass. ‘Small Paula, I mean, not tall Goth Paula.’

Sam laughed. ‘I bet Charlie didn’t like a girl doing better than him.’

The art projects all seem to be going really well. They’re each working on one big project over the whole course and then they do different challenges every day.

‘Mostly still comics,’ said Sam. ‘But different sorts. It’s really good. And I’m writing stuff too, which used to be Lucy’s department.’

‘How are you finding drawing?’ I asked Lucy.

‘Oh, it’s good,’ said Lucy. She looked kind of vague, as usual. ‘I mean, I always liked drawing, I just didn’t think I was very good at it. So I left it up to Sam.’

‘She’s really good,’ said Sam. ‘I always told her she should do more of it, and she ignored me! But it looks like this course is going to succeed where I failed.’

I hope I didn’t say anything to upset Lucy. She never looks me totally in the eye. I mean, she’s not very friendly. I hope she doesn’t think any of us are after Sam, because I’m certainly not. And neither is Ellie, because she likes another boy on the course (his name is Cillian but it turns out he has a girlfriend and talks about her all the time so poor Ellie knows she doesn’t have a chance).

Anyway, Ellie has lots of work to distract her because she is going to make the costumes for Jane and the crazy people’s play. It will be her big project in the art course. She says it’s quite a challenge.

‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the dragon,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s not exactly a normal costume. And I have to make sure they can do gymnastics and juggling in most of the outfits. And that they’ll be okay for the human pyramid bit. But I’ll figure something out.’

Speaking of stage ensembles, my parents went off to collect their costumes for their own musical this evening. A member of the musical society is making most of them, and she only lives down the road so she suggested they call round for a fitting. My dad took photos of them on his phone, and all I can say is I hope they add some fabric to Mum’s outfit. I know she is meant to be some sort of Victorian floozy, but surely she doesn’t need to show so much chest? It’s a bit much, especially at her age. I mentioned to her that it was a bit low-cut, and she just LAUGHED.

‘Come on, Bex, it’s hardly indecent exposure!’ she said. ‘Would you prefer all women over the age of thirty-five go around wearing sacks?’

‘Of course not!’ I said. ‘I’m just worried you’ll … feel self-conscious.’

But she just rolled her eyes and told me to chop some leeks. She clearly doesn’t appreciate my concern. As usual. I don’t know why I bother.

Today we had a workshop in stage performance. The mentor who was doing it is called Shane O’Driscoll. He is the lead singer of a band called The Invited, who aren’t my sort of thing, but lots of girls really fancy him for some reason. He is definitely not my type, though. He is kind of hunky in a fairy-tale prince sort of way, and his hair is all tousled with gel. He has lots of tattoos in Chinese lettering, and he wears leather trousers and lots of leather wristlets and necklaces and things. Which must be very hot in this weather, now I come to think of it. I was wearing a denim skirt with bare legs today, and I was still roasting.

Shane believes it’s really important for bands to put on a big show. He started off by saying that we all have to find our own way to capture the crowd’s attention, but I think he thought his own way was the best.

‘You’ve really got to put your soul into your performance, he said, which is fair enough. But then he said, ‘I like to gesture to the crowd, like I’m singing straight to their hearts. And when I reach a particularly emotional part of the song, I like to stretch out one hand and then draw it back to my chest, like I’m pulling the audience closer.’

I tried to imagine me and Cass and Alice doing that on stage. I couldn’t, not least because we’re all playing instruments most of the time. If I started waving my arms around and opening and clenching my fists, I’d drop my drumsticks.

‘I also have a move I call “prowling”,’ said Shane. ‘I like to walk from one side of the stage to the other like a panther, looking out at the audience the entire time. It’s like I become a charismatic big cat.’

I can’t imagine Alice prowling across the stage like a panther. Or any sort of charismatic big cat. She’s the only one of us who could even try, because me and Cass are stuck behind instruments. If we tried prowling we’d have to push our instruments in front of us as we went around the stage, which wouldn’t look very cool.

Shane also suggested that we think about having stage sets, which, of course, was music to Cass’s ears.

‘When Bon Jovi toured a few years ago they had a big set that looked like a scuzzy nightclub,’ said Shane. ‘Loads of neon signs, poles, that sort of thing. You could build some props, create a proper stage set.’

I could tell that Cass was getting quite excited at the thought. I looked at her.

‘No, Cass,’ I whispered. ‘You are not making us a scuzzy nightclub. Anyway, you don’t even know how to make neon signs.’

‘I don’t want to,’ she said. ‘But we could do something else.’

She could be on to something, I suppose. Maybe we could have some sort of set. Maybe we could make the stage look like, I dunno, an ordinary sitting room. Or even the shed where we practise. But definitely no neon. Or poles.

Anyway, Cass wasn’t the only one who was intrigued by Shane. Niall, the lead singer of Puce, looked like he was listening very intently all the way through, even when Shane was praising his own leather trousers.

‘These old trews are a part of me now,’ said Shane, which didn’t sound like a good thing to me. ‘They’re like my rock uniform. The way I see it, if you want to be a rock god, you’ve got to dress like a rock god! So find your uniform. It could be leather. It could be feathers. It could be denim. It could be eye-catching jumpsuits. It’s up to you.’

I could see Niall taking notes. I can’t imagine him in an eye-catching jumpsuit, but you never know, maybe he could pull it off.

Shane is also fond of explosions and fireworks and trap doors − ‘Audiences love seeing you pop out of a trap door!’ − but he admitted that we might find arranging all of these things quite difficult when we’re only starting out.

Anyway, it was all quite interesting, especially when we got the chance to try out some of the techniques (sadly we didn’t get to try out trapdoors or fireworks. Or, indeed, jumpsuits). Tall Paula from Exquisite Corpse was particularly good at prowling. She even did a bit of a panther-esque snarl as she paced from one side of the stage to the other, which made Shane nod seriously and say, ‘Very good, Paula. You’ve got great stage presence.’ Small Paula, however, didn’t want to perform at all.

‘Don’t you want to give it a try?’ asked Alice. But Small Paula shook her head.

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I’m not ready.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Alice, but we were all a bit disappointed. Now Small Paula is the only person on the course whose music we haven’t heard yet. It is very intriguing. I can actually imagine her prowling like a panther, even though she looks more like a small pony than a big cat, with that impressive fringe.

I just tried doing some prowling in front of my mirror, but I’m not sure I pulled it off. I think I looked a bit silly. Also, whenever I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t help noticing my stupid fringe, which was starting to work its way out of its hairpins and fall down over my face. Of course, it didn’t help that I turned around and saw that horrible Mulligan brat across the road laughing her hideous head off at me. I just glared at her and drew the curtains. I can’t believe that appalling child is forcing me to live in darkness in the middle of summer just because she has no manners.

Today we had the first proper Hey Dollface sweet-making session because Alice was FINALLY free at the weekend. So we all went round to Cass’s house to work our magic. We had plenty to talk about before we started our sweet-making because Cass came out to her parents last night. She hadn’t even planned it. Apparently her little brother Nick was being really annoying at the dinner table and going on about the summer camp and asking whether Cass had fallen in LUUURVE (as he put it) with any of the boys on it. He just wouldn’t shut up so eventually Cass got really annoyed and told him to go away. Except she didn’t actually say ‘go away’.

And her mother gave out to her for using a rude word and to Nick for trying to annoy her, but afterwards, when Nick had gone off to do whatever stupid twelve-year-old-boy stuff he does, her mum got all serious and said that she wasn’t to ever worry about not having a boyfriend, and the thought of her mother having a ‘serious chat’ about LOVE with her was so horrible that Cass said, ‘I’m not worried, I’m gay!’ basically just to shut her up.

Anyway, not only was Brenda (for that is Cass’s mother’s name, and she insists that we are on first-name terms) not upset, but she reacted a bit TOO well. She seems to think that having a lesbian daughter makes her cool (‘As if anything could,’ said Cass), and she keeps going on about it and trying to be all understanding. Like, ‘Well, Cass, as a lesbian, I’m sure you appreciate this …’ Cass says it is terrible, and I can see why. In fact, Cass is starting to wish she’d never told her at all. But, as she said herself, ‘Her being so freakishly positive about it is much better than the other way around.’

She much preferred her dad’s reaction, though. He was a bit surprised, and then he said, ‘And do you really like this girl?’ And Cass said yes. And he gave her a hug and said, ‘Well, if you’re happy then I’m happy, Boldness.’ And Cass was so touched she didn’t even mind him calling her Boldness, which was her family nickname when she was very very small and which usually drives her mad if her parents call her it. So it has worked out very well.

Anyway, Brenda only told us how great it is to be gay once while we were making our fudge, and then she went off to her Pilates class. Our fudge went really well. I think we’re getting the hang of it at last, although maybe it was better than our previous efforts because this time there were three of us so we could share out the beating of the ingredients. It was much less exhausting than when it was just me and Cass. We also put on music so we could work in time to our favourite tracks.

It was still surprisingly hard work, even with Alice and the music, but it paid off. Even Nick, who is the sort of rude person who just spits out any food he doesn’t like, said it was ‘not bad’. Which is high praise coming from him.

‘Maybe we could experiment next time,’ I said. ‘Like, add nuts. Or chocolate. Or a different flavouring. Like, I dunno, orange or lemon or something.’

‘Or raisins,’ said Cass.

‘Ugh, no, I hate raisins,’ I said. ‘What do you think, Alice?’

‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ said Alice. ‘Maybe we should perfect the vanilla sort first.’

‘I think it’s perfect already!’ said Cass, and we did a special triumphal dance around the kitchen, which Alice eventually joined in.

Poor Cass is missing Liz, though. Even our dancing (and our delicious creations) weren’t enough to make her forget her sorrow for the whole afternoon. Liz’s phone was confiscated at the Irish college, and she has only been able to ring Cass once when she was meant to be ringing her parents. In their very brief conversation, she told Cass that when they arrived it was like one of those films where someone goes to prison and has to hand over all their possessions. And then they get them back, like, ten years later and everything’s out of date. Anyway, it sounds pretty tough, though apparently the actual Irish college is quite fun apart from the lack of phones and internet access, and she has learned how to do lots of set dances. Not that this is any consolation for poor Cass.

‘I feel like she’s been gone forever,’ said Cass. ‘And it’s only been two weeks!’

I know how she feels, of course. I too have known the anguish of long-distance love. Although a part of me thinks Cass is making a fuss out of not very much. I mean, Liz will be back in two weeks. Paperboy went to Canada forever! That is true misery. But I didn’t say that to Cass. I don’t think it would have cheered her up.

It did all remind me, yet again, of my lonely single state. I had such a fun afternoon, but when I got home I felt a bit sad. I don’t even know why I feel so bad. It’s not like the others would make me feel left out. It’s just that I can’t help feeling I’ll never meet anyone again. I mean, like I said before, I am surrounded by boys at the camp, and I still don’t fancy any of them. And it’s not like I fancy any of the girls either. I’ve wondered about whether I ever could, especially since Cass came out, but I haven’t so far. Though surely any girl would be preferable to, say, Charlie. Except, you know, Vanessa or someone. Anyway, I don’t fancy any girls or boys on the camp. And I know it shouldn’t be a big deal. But when I think about Cass and Alice being all loved up, it feels like it is. And then I feel guilty for feeling bad about my friends being happy. Life is very complicated sometimes.

To distract myself from my own self-pity, I have done some more work on those song lyrics about John Kowalski. It is still quite tricky. I tried putting in ‘I met you at a musical’ instead of ‘rehearsal’ but not much rhymes with ‘musical’ either. Still, I gave it a try.

Though that doesn’t totally work either. Also, he didn’t get there on a bicycle. I don’t know if he even owned one. The only time I ever saw him near any bikes was when he was smoking by the bike racks.

Oh my God, I have found the most amazing thing ever to help me in my song writing! It is a rhyming dictionary, and you can look up any word and see what rhymes with it. I can’t believe it was in my house all the time and I didn’t know about it. I took a break after writing that last bit about John and went down to get a glass of juice. And when I was there I happened to mention to my mum that it was hard finding words to rhyme when we were writing songs.

‘Why don’t you use a rhyming dictionary?’ she said. ‘I’m sure I’ve got one somewhere in my study.’

And she did! And it is like magic! There are loads of words that rhyme with ‘musical’ that I never even thought of! In fact, I have never even heard of lots of them. Like ‘caulicle’, which is apparently a ‘small plant stalk’. Not that I can compare John to a small plant stalk. But it just shows how many interesting words are out there. There is also ‘ossicle’, which is a bone in the ear. Of course, I can’t use that either. But there are so many words on the list I must be able to use some of them. There are loads of words that rhyme with ‘rehearsal’ too. It’s brilliant.

I think I have the perfect rhyme!

A tercel is a ‘male falcon or hawk’. I didn’t know that until I saw it the rhyming dictionary. But actually, it describes John Kowalski well because there is something haughty and bird-of-prey-esque about him. This book’s brilliant. I don’t know how I ever wrote songs without it! I am going to go and write some more lyrics now.