Well, tonight was properly mental. I’ve got so much to think about now. My head is going to explode. So basically, we’re doing the “Increase the Peace” Prince Charles presentation on Thursday 9th April—which leaves us, like, three weeks to get it all together and none of us have done anything ’cos we were going to do it last weekend but we all went to a shubz instead in Chadwell Heath ’cos this girl Martika who used to go to Mayflower was celebrating her eighteenth birthday and she had this proper amazing party in her garage and kids came from all over Essex and it all got well messy.
Basically, I lost Joshua completely and Carrie had a fight with Saf and Sean met a boy from the Isle of Dogs and Nabila drank a Breezer and wore false eyelashes with her hijab which is strictly forbidden by Allah and we were all dancing and being stupid and it was a proper amazing night. But the end result is that we’ve done nothing about Prince Charles whatsoever. Sorry Charlie.
So we’re all round at Josh’s house tonight for an “Increase the Peace” meeting, sitting in his big living-room/dining-room area which is all pure white walls and polished bare floorboards with a massive oak dining table and bookshelves full of books and vases with one single tropical flower sticking out of them and copies of posh furniture magazines lying about on a posh coffee table that doesn’t look like it ever had a cup of coffee on it in its life.
Me and Josh and Luther and Sean and Nabila are all sitting round the oak table talking about how behind we are with schoolwork and Josh is moaning on about how he’s never going to get into Oxford if his marks aren’t good, he’s going to have to go somewhere crap like Durham or Edinburgh. Then his mother appears wearing a navy blue apron over navy trousers and her hair in a weird turban thing, giving us all the evils, which I can never tell if she really means or whether her face is just naturally stuck like she’s just smelled a bad fart.
And I don’t bother saying hello to her this time as I’ve tried loads of times and I always get the same reaction, no matter how much I try to not wear my gold or not wear my scrunchie or not wear my hoodie, she still treats me like I’m NOT A REAL BLOODY PERSON at all and always starts talking about Josh’s good friends in North West London who I’ve still never met and then she always starts talking about her friend Jocasta’s daughter Claudia who is “asking after Josh again.” So to be quite honest, I’m not bothering with Mrs. Fallow, I’m more interested at this moment in Josh’s neck ’cos now I can see him in the direct sunlight sitting with his back to the patio doors I can see there is a mark on his neck that LOOKS JUST LIKE A HICKEY. And I haven’t given my Josh a lovebite. ’Cos as I say, he went missing at Martika’s shubz and I’ve not seen him much since then at all.
And I want to kick off and leave but just then the doorbell rings and I go and look out of the bay windows and it’s Uma. And Uma is looking one hundred percent how Uma likes to look and she’s not compromising for anyone, certainly not Mrs. snooty Fallow.
Uma’s got on footless leopard-print tights and a denim mini-skirt with black snakeskin pumps and a skin-tight white cropped T-shirt which shows her belly-button ring. She’s got on an electric pink hoodie, two sets of big gold hoops and her gold clown pendant. She’s wearing her gold charm bracelet and carrying a massive white fake Mulberry handbag from Ilford market. Uma is standing in the front garden by Josh’s mother’s row of recycling boxes, finishing off a Marlboro Red, and as Josh gets to the door, she shouts, “Zeus! Come on!” and Zeus comes trotting in behind her doing his best devil dog impression ever. For some reason, I want to cheer, because the thing I love about Uma is she ALWAYS keeps it real.
Well, it all starts going off then, ’cos Uma strides in and Zeus pads in after her and she shouts, “Sit down, Zeus!” which Zeus does ’cos he’s actually properly trained ever since Uma’s little brother shoplifted Dog Whisperer on DVD for Uma’s Christmas pressie. So Uma’s been doing the whole command/reward thing and Zeus has been learning it. Well, Uma sits down and gets out her laptop from the massive handbag and clicks a bit and logs into Josh’s WiFi broadband and starts showing us all the MySpaces and Facebooks of kids at Mayflower who make music already and she’s talking proper fast about e-mails she’s sent and who she’s heard back from. And we’re sitting there, proper amazed at how much she’s achieved.
Then Uma starts saying that what we need is some people who are a bit more professional to help out, y’know, like local rap artists who have a big name on the local pirate radio stations like the Crowley Park Brapboys and the Rinse and Go Fraternity? Maybe folks like that could do a little collaboration with the Year Sevens and Eights? Then Uma says that she’s having no luck getting in touch with them but didn’t Carrie and Shiraz’s ex-boyfriends Bezzie Kelleher and Wesley Barrington Bains II used to know all these people really well? In fact, didn’t they used to lay down tracks with them when they were in the G-Mayes Detonators? It’s people like that we need to really help out, she says.
So Carrie says to me, “Well, we could ring Wesley and Bezzie and ask, couldn’t we?” And I say, “Errrrm, dunnno about that.” And Joshua bursts out laughing and says “Wesley Barrington Bains II!! Ha ha ha, are there two of him?” So I say, “Shut up, Joshua. Just shut up!” but Joshua is proper wetting himself going, “The G-Mayes Detonators! I’ve heard it all now! Ha ha ha ha!”
“Oh, just shut it!” I say. “And anyway what’s that bloody mark on your neck?!”
And at that point there is a huge, ear-splitting scream in the kitchen and it’s Mrs. Fallow howling, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Joshua, call the police! Call the animal control! There is a rottweiler in my kitchen! A ROTTWEILER! Call the dog-catcher! And it’s eating my Portuguese Pasteis de Natas that I’ve baked for my book club! Aaaaaaaaaghhhhhhh!”
So we all run into the kitchen and Mrs. Fallow is standing on the kitchen table flapping her arms and crying and Uma tries to catch Zeus but he is properly distracted by the Portuguese jam tart things and Mrs. Fallow is shouting, “Get it out! Get that rottweiler out of here! Call the police!” And in the end Uma shouts, “Oh, shut your trap you silly cow, it’s only a Staffy!” and Mrs. Fallow goes PROPERLY BERSERK then and chucks us all out and somehow in the confusion poor Zeus forgot all the things he learned from his Dog Whisperer DVD and he ended up taking a wee right up the front of Mrs. Fallow’s Aga cupboard thing.
But it’s made of iron, I’m sure it’ll wipe clean. Some people are so dramatic.