And we are not the only people on the course to embrace different styles. Niall from Puce seems to have taken Shane O’Driscoll’s advice to heart. He appeared at today’s songwriting workshop wearing a big leather biker jacket and some biker boots. It was quite a contrast to his usual cardigan and desert boots. It’s not my sort of look, but he definitely looked a bit tougher than usual when he wearing it, like a bad boy from an American soap opera.
Of course, Charlie and his gang thought Niall looked hilarious because if anyone does anything new or different they think it’s stupid. They were sitting in front of us, and when Niall came in, Charlie said, ‘God, look at Puke boy!’ That is his hilarious name for Niall. (Because of his band being called Puce. Yes, that’s how sophisticated Charlie’s sense of humour is.) ‘I didn’t think he could look any more gay until I saw him in that leather,’ Charlie went on. Finn, the band’s drummer, was sitting next to him, and he laughed so much he choked on the Coke he was drinking.
Luckily, Niall was on the other side of the room for the workshop so I don’t think he heard them. In fact, I have noticed that Charlie tends not to say anything to other boys’ faces. Maybe he’s afraid one of them will hit him. Obviously I don’t approve of violence, but I sort of wish someone would, male or female. Actually, preferably female. He’d think that was worse.
But there are plenty of nice boys around too, even if some of them are going a bit mad. Richard is becoming more and more Ian Cliff-esque. His hair has gradually been moving upwards until today he had what can only be described as a quiff. And I bet he’d be wearing that posh suit of his brother’s every day if he could manage to steal it (apparently his brother started hiding it after he discovered Richard had stolen it for the Battle of the Bands last year). As he has no suit, he has just started wearing very fitted, quite formal shirts and alarmingly tight trousers in an effort to look taller. He is actually quite tall already, but Ian Cliff is practically a giant. I don’t think there’s anything else Richard can do to copy that unless he starts wearing platform shoes. But despite his Ian Cliff worship, he really is sound. I’m glad Alice is going out with someone I actually get on with.
And, of course, Richard isn’t the only decent boy around here. Jane has become friendly with a boy called Jamie who is doing the drama class. He is a bit older than us but he’s very nice. He wants to do drama when he goes to college next year, which immediately reminded me of John Kowalski, but he talked about it in a much less dramatic way than John did. Though of course that wouldn’t be hard. Jamie talks about studying drama the same way someone might talk about doing English or computer science or any other subject, whereas John talked about it like he was on a mission from God.
And Sam brought in that Good Omens book for me today (he forgot it yesterday).
‘If you like funny fantasy stuff you’ll definitely like this,’ he said. ‘I hope. Let me know what you think, anyway.’
He is so nice, like the Anti-Charlie. I’m still not sure about Lucy, though. I passed her in the foyer today, and she just looked past me like I didn’t exist. Could it actually be because she thinks I’m after Sam, what with all the book-lending stuff, and she’s jealous? Not that I’ve got the impression there’s anything going on between them. Maybe she just doesn’t like me?
Speaking of not liking people, I had managed to forget all about the Mrs-Harrington-being-in-Mum’s-book thing, but I was reminded of it this evening. Mum was in an unusually good mood, marching around the house singing songs from Oliver!. It turns out she’d sent the first few chapters of her book to her editor, and her editor really liked it.
‘And her favourite character is Patricia Alexandra!’ she said. ‘She said she’s my greatest villain yet.’
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to … I dunno, give her a softer side?’ I said. ‘I mean, maybe she could see the light at the end and become good and save the heroine’s bakery.’
I genuinely thought this was pretty clever of me. I mean, surely this would make Patricia Alexandra Harrington more complex and interesting? But Mum just laughed at my brilliant idea.
‘Sorry, Rebecca,’ she said. ‘But the character is working the way she is. And she’s going to get her comeuppance at the end!’
Oh dear. I don’t know what to do. If I keep going on about this, she’s going to get suspicious that something’s up. After all, I don’t usually show so much interest in her books.
But I should be able to come up with something. Shouldn’t I? I mean, my mother is not the only creative person in the family. I shared my lyrics with Cass and Alice today, and they went down pretty well, even if they did question some of my innovative word choices.
‘It’s a really good idea for a song,’ said Cass. ‘And I particularly like the chorus. But what is a tercel?’
‘It’s a male falcon or hawk,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ said Cass. She looked thoughtful. ‘Hmmm. I suppose John does look a bit like one.’
‘Exactly!’ I said.
So we are sticking with my lyrics. They really do go well with the song, if I say so myself. In fact, I can’t wait to get out my trusty rhyming dictionary and write some more words to the song we started working on this morning with Kitty. She is great at offering suggestions without, like, imposing her own ideas on us.
I love working with her so much. We’ve written a few songs over the last week and a half (even though most of them don’t have words yet), and we’d never have done all that without her encouragement. She is really nice, and her band are very good. They’re actually playing a gig tomorrow night. I wish we could go, but it’s in a pub so our parents would never let us. And, to be honest, we wouldn’t get in even if they did. Even when we’re all dressed up and wearing make-up I don’t think we could pass for older than sixteen at the very, very most. And that would be pushing it. Rachel says we all look about twelve, though of course she is exaggerating (and it’s not like she even looks her age either). My mum always says we’ll be glad of our youthful looks when we’re thirty, but that’s not much comfort now.
I really don’t know how Jane is managing to put up with Vanessa. I know she says Vanessa is different when they’re actually working on their play, but unless she has a complete personality transplant every time she enters the rehearsal room, I can’t understand how anyone can bear her. And Karen’s almost as bad. Today a gang of us were having some Cokes during the morning break, and Vanessa, Karen and Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince sat down at the other end of the table. Which is how we couldn’t help overhearing Vanessa talking about her new insane plans.
‘I’m going to invite some agents to see our showcase,’ she was saying.
‘You mean the play?’ said Bernard. ‘Oh Vanessa, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’
‘Of course it’s a good idea!’ said Karen.
‘I can’t believe this camp isn’t inviting agents anyway,’ sniffed Vanessa. ‘They’re so unprofessional here.’
‘Well, it is meant to be a camp for amateurs,’ said Bernard. But this didn’t go down well.
‘Bernard, I’m surprised at you!’ said Karen. ‘We can’t think of ourselves as mere amateurs.’
‘Karen’s so right,’ said Vanessa. ‘We need to think of ourselves as stars! I, of course, already do.’
Good grief. I am starting to feel very sorry for Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince. He seems relatively sane in comparison to his awful girlfriend and Vanessa.
Then Vanessa noticed us at the end of the table.
‘You must agree with me, Bert,’ she said to Richard.
‘It’s Richard,’ said Richard. ‘And I can’t say I do. We’re not pros yet. We’re here to, like, gain experience and learn stuff from the experts.’
Vanessa just tossed her hair crossly and turned away.
‘God,’ she said. ‘Karen, we really are the only professionals in this place.’
If by ‘professionals’ she means ‘deluded fools’, then I suppose she’s right. But at least she’s no
t as bad as that horrible Charlie. Alice and I had another run-in with him and his goons. It was actually really disgusting. The two of us were on our way back from the loo at lunch. We going down a corridor in the arts building when we passed the Crack Parrots, looking at something on Finn the drummer’s mobile and laughing. As soon as we got near to them, Charlie went, ‘Hey, girls, what do you think of this?’ And when he held up the phone there was a porn video playing on it. I looked away quickly so I didn’t see any details, but it was obvious what it was. It made me feel a bit sick and sort of upset. I couldn’t even think of anything to say. But Alice just glared at him and said, ‘Oh, you’re into sexual harassment now?’ and marched me along the corridor. She is always very good in a crisis. She never loses her head. Evan looked a bit uncomfortable, but the others just laughed more. They’re such revolting pigs. And Evan didn’t say anything to them so he can’t have minded that much.
Anyway, when we got back to the canteen, we told Cass, Jane and her drama mate Gemma what had happened. Gemma said she’d seen the Crack Parrots looking at porn a few days ago.
‘They don’t even care who sees them,’ she said. ‘They have no shame.’
Luckily we had a workshop with Kitty in the afternoon so we didn’t have to see the Crack Parrots again today. It was a really good workshop too, all about performing on stage, and it was actually more useful than Shane O’Driscoll’s more dramatic workshop last week. Kitty isn’t into big gestures and prowling. She says that her key to looking confident is to just put your head back and chin up and kind of stare down at the audience. I will definitely give this a try when we play next week. Practising my haughty stare was a lot of fun and made me forget about the Crack Parrots for a while. But now I almost wish I’d said something to Kitty about what they did. I mean, surely they can’t be allowed to go around showing random girls stuff like that?
Ugh. I don’t want to think about them now. I will go and read that book Sam lent me instead. It is very good. Actually, it features a boy who is the spawn of Satan. So maybe it will not be much of a distraction from Charlie after all.
More sweet-making practice today! This time we were back in my house, which meant that we had to put up with the sound of my parents singing songs from Oliver! all afternoon. Clearly all those years of yelling at her long-suffering daughters have taught Mum how to project her voice because you could hear her bellowing all over the house.
‘Sorry about this,’ I said, as the strains of ‘Pick a Pocket or Two’ echoed around the kitchen. ‘I thought they were going on one of their boring trips to the garden centre today. But they’ve gone musical mad.’
‘I actually quite like it,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, they can actually sing.’
‘What?!’ I said. ‘Alice, are you sure all the loud music of the last few weeks hasn’t damaged your ears?’ But she insisted she found the sound of my mum crooning ‘Who Will Buy This Wonderful Morning?’ at top volume delightful. I don’t know what’s come over her. At least Cass had an excuse for tolerating my parental warbling (though she wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about it as Alice). She’s in a very good mood because Liz is coming home on Monday.
‘We only got together about five minutes before she went off to Connemara!’ she said. ‘It’s so unfair. Well, you know what that’s like,’ she added to me.
‘I do,’ I said. Though I didn’t add that when Paperboy left I knew he wasn’t coming back and Cass knew Liz would be back in three weeks. That would have been a bit churlish.
Anyway, the fudge turned out pretty well (possibly because we put on loud music to drown out my parents, and then danced around to it as we stirred, which kept us full of enthusiasm). In fact, it was our best yet.
‘You know,’ I said. ‘We could actually start selling this soon.’
‘I dunno,’ said Alice. ‘Didn’t your mum say we needed, like, a food licence or something to sell things to the general public? And I think if you sell food someone has to come and inspect your kitchen.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Hmmm.’ I looked around our kitchen. On the counter, next to the mixing bowl, was a big pile of magazines, a cup half full of cold tea left over from this morning and a bag of Bumpers’ cat food. I don’t think it would pass any official inspections.
‘Well, we’ve got to start somewhere,’ I said. ‘Newspapers always have articles about people who start businesses in their kitchens. It can’t be that hard.’
‘We could always try building up a potential customer base,’ said Cass.
‘You sound very business-like, Cass,’ I said. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘I thought you would be,’ said Cass. ‘Anyway, I was thinking we could give some away next week. When we do our gig at the end of the camp.’
‘Wow, that’s actually a good idea,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could even make the little boxes! With that logo you designed.’
‘Yes!’ said Alice. ‘Though we’d have to find lots of boxes.’
We decided we could sort those details out later. After all, it’s almost two weeks until the final gigs. Well, a week and a half. Then we sat around in my room and ate the fudge and talked about the camp.
‘Sam’s really nice, isn’t he?’ said Cass.
‘So’s Lucy,’ said Alice. ‘Though she’s very quiet.’
‘I don’t think she likes me,’ I said.
‘Why on earth do you think that?’ said Alice.
‘I dunno,’ I said. And I didn’t really. Mostly because she doesn’t say anything. Then I thought of something. ‘The other day she just stared straight past me when I saw her in the foyer. And whenever I talk to her and Sam she doesn’t say anything, she just looks like she’s looking down on me.’
‘She is looking down on you,’ said Cass. ‘Because she’s, like, four inches taller than you. That’s not her fault.’
‘I think you might have a bit of a complex about tall people,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t think you like them.’
‘What?!’ I said. ‘That’s ridiculous. Look at my family! They’re all fairly tall apart from me. I take after my granny on my dad’s side, but my whole family are, like, giants.’
Cass and Alice looked at each other in what I’m sure they thought was a very wise way but which was just really irritating instead.
‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘That’s why.’
I hate it when they think they’re psychologists.
Anyway, as I told them, I don’t dislike Lucy. I just think she doesn’t like me. Which isn’t the same thing at all.
It is Rachel’s birthday on Thursday. She is going to be seventeen. I suppose I should get her something though I am not sure she deserves it. Her oh-so-perfect boyfriend Tom is back from his holidays, and he called over to our house this afternoon when our parents were out at the garden centre buying pots and compost and other boring things (if only they’d actually gone out yesterday when my friends were here). Rachel basically forced me out of the sitting room so she and Tom could have it to themselves. I shudder to think what they were up to, although when I said that to her she got really annoyed and said that I had a filthy mind and they just wanted some ‘alone time’ without me ‘hovering around and annoying us’.
As if I would. I’d rather not be anywhere near them. Anyway, whatever they were up to, I can’t see why they didn’t just go up to her room rather than forcing me out into the back garden like some sort of dog. The only good thing was that for once I had some credit on my phone so I could ring Alice. As ever, Alice was the voice of reason and pointed out that it was a lovely day and actually it was nicer out in the garden. She is very soothing sometimes. Though she did go too far when she said she’s always wished she had a sister and that I should count my blessings. Alice has always been into counting blessings, though I don’t think Rachel is one. A blessing, I mean. She is more like a curse. I said this to Alice, and she reminded me that, actually, Rachel has been okay to me a few times over the last year.
‘She gave you pretty good advice about Pape
rboy and John, didn’t she?’ she said. ‘And she was great about helping you defeat your fringe. And she even did your make-up for the Battle of the Bands.’
This is all true. I suppose she isn’t a curse all the time. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call her a blessing, though. Anyway, maybe I will get her a present after all. Not that I have much money to splash out on lavish gifts. Maybe I will write Rachel a song instead? I know I won’t have the band to play the music, but I can just sing it to her. And surely a personalised song is a gift more precious than anything you could buy in a shop. It is also much cheaper.
It is surprisingly difficult to write a song for Rachel. I mean, I’m pretty sure nothing rhymes with Rachel – there are no actual names in my dictionary, so I can’t even look it up. Not that many useful words rhyme with ‘sister’, either. Can I compare her to a fillister? Apparently, that is a word for an ‘adjustable plane’, whatever that is. Or a lister, which is a sort of plough? Probably not. Anyway, this is what I have so far:
You’re two years older than me
That’s where you’ll always be
You are my big sister
Sometimes I say you are a blister
But I don’t mean it when you’re nice to me
You’ve given me advice about boys
You do have a certain poise
And so I steal your clothes
When I’m feeling morose
And I hope you won’t make a noise
So happy birthday, sister dear
And enjoy your eighteenth year
This song is your present
I hope you think it is pleasant
And that it fills you with good cheer
I’m not sure it’s one of my best. It doesn’t actually have a chorus. And it sort of makes it look like the only good things about Rachel are her ability to give boy advice and the fact that she has nice clothes which I can steal. Which makes her look a bit shallow and me a bit selfish. But seriously, it just took me ages to write, and I don’t think I can manage any more. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts. And surely just having a song written just for you is a lovely present?