Live and Fabulous!

by Grace Dent

  Jimi cups my cheek with his hand, looking a little more scamp-like.

  “C’mon, Ron,” he says, “just one little lunch, eh? I’ve got loads I want to say to you. What could possibly go wrong?”

  I look at him sadly. It’s very difficult to reject lunch with a lad who has long blond eyelashes, a perfect snub nose and a fab bum that just won’t quit.

  But Fleur will kill me if I say yes. This does not fit into the “blank him for a month” regimen.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Jimi,” I say eventually.

  The firmness of my tone makes Jimi rather exasperated. “Oh, look, Ronnie, just stop it! I’m not leaving things up in the air like this!” he says emphatically. “Why have you always got to be so annoyingly stubborn?”

  “Huh!” I huff, taking a deep breath, ready to begin illustrating why I feel “stubborn” when two familiar voices interrupt my rage.

  “Wooooo-hoooh! Head for the shelters!” whoops Aaron. “Think we’ve got World War Four breaking out here!”

  “Ha ha!” snorts Naz. “Get your tin hat on!”

  “Pgghhh,” I huff, eyeing Jimi’s two best friends disdainfully. “You mean World War Three, Aaron. There have only been two actual world wars so far.”

  Aaron looks a bit confused; he begins counting on his fingers. “So what was that last Middle East one?” he asks. “That was, like, fairly big, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s not the size of the war,” I sigh. “It’s the amount of countries involved in it, like when ... Look, hang on, I don’t want to discuss this. Can you two just bog off, please, we’re talking?”

  Aaron starts laughing even louder now. “Ahhhh ... still in the doghouse, are we, Jimi?” he snortles, rolling up a copy of Fireboard magazine and smacking Jimi over the head with it.

  Jimi’s previously kindly expression has stiffened to a frown since Dumb and Dumber showed up.

  “Coming to get some lunch?” asks Aaron.

  (He’s not exactly inviting me along too, it should be noted. Saying that I’ll probably just get in the way of all those grrrreat fart stories they always tell.)

  “Give us a minute, lads?” says Jimi, waving them away, turning to me rather grumpily. “Look, are you going to start acting like a normal human being and come for lunch with me or what?”

  “I beg your flipping pardon?” I growl back.

  Naz and Aaron chortle wildly at Jimi’s cheekiness.

  “Okay, obviously not,” Jimi grunts, being oh-so-much-more laddy now that he has an audience. “Well, suit yourself, lady.”

  “Oh, I will! Don’t worry,” I huff.

  “Oh, and say hello to my friend Fleur for me, will you?” he shouts.

  “She misses you desperately too!” I snap, picking up my bag and turning on my heel sharply.

  “Er ... okay then!” shouts Jimi back. “Well, I’ll see you around then!”

  “Don’t be so sure!” I yell over my shoulder, storming off.

  “Huh ... pghhhh ... ,” splutters Jimi, slightly pathetically. “And you can give me my Final Warning CD back too!”

  “Oh, whatever!Your stuff’s all in a trash bag. Come and get it before I give it to a thrift shop.” I grunt, storming toward the dining hall to tell Fleur the whole highly irritating saga.

  Fleur says jimi Steele’s a pig.

  She says I should just forget all about him and date Miles Boon in the lower sixth, as she’s sure that he likes me.

  “And he’s not at all like Jimi,” says Fleur. “He does charity fun runs for Third World famine relief! So he’s like totally sensitive as well as hot.”

  I groan, stuffing another lump of Millionaire Shortbread into my face. The last thing I need is another boyfriend.

  “And anyway, Ronnie,” continues Fleur seriously, “Miles has got a VW Golf with tinted windows. He’s, like, so totally streets ahead of Jimi.”

  poor life choices

  Just after final break, which was livened up by the traditional end-of term hoax fire alarm and an appearance by four gorgeous firefighters who took their tops off and grappled with a hose (phew), I grab my bag and head for life studies. In case you’re not familiar with Blackwell School’s curriculum, life studies is that weird compulsory class every pupil has to take weekly at some point where teachers are paid to dissuade you from “making poor life choices.” Y’know, stuff like having babies too early with Royston Potter, sniffing aerosol cans, auditioning for the Peppermint Palace All-Nude Dancing Bar or even growing your shoulder hair into tufts and parading about in a T-shirt.

  Okay, I made that last one up.

  Weirdly enough, I rather enjoy life studies. Especially when we have rollicking class debates about the stuff we’re studying. It seems that I, Veronica Ripperton, have emerged this term as the number one class debating maestro! Okay, I do get told off for being sarcastic to my opponents quite a lot, but when it comes down to the vote, I’m always winning.

  Praise be! I do have a skill, after all.

  Claude, on the other hand, loathes life studies. She simply cannot get her head around why people would even consider making any of these retarded life choices in the first place. She spends every double period with the countenance of a girl being heavily patronized. It’s actually pretty funny to watch. Especially last week when the class debated, “Is passing your GCSE exams important in the outside world?”

  Ha ha ha! She went properly loopy at anyone who dared to say no! That was really great.

  Today, as a final treat, we’re being allowed to watch a DVD. The girls’ choice won the vote, so Notting Hill with Hugh Grant is screening on the telly and everyone’s making a huge screaming fuss every time there’s a slushy-kissy scene, as if they’ve never seen anything so rude before. Me, I’m just finding it all a bit painful to watch.

  “You’re a right misery this week,” whispers Liam Gelding kindly as I shuffle in my chair. “I’m glad I’ve got six weeks away from you. Quite frankly, you make me want to hang myself.”

  At some level, this is Liam Gelding asking me how I’m feeling.

  “Thanks. The feeling’s mutual, rat boy,” I whisper back, propping my long face up on the desk and sighing.

  “Oh, flipping cheer up, Ronnie,” Liam says. “Look, I’m smiling and I have to sit beside Claudette and she smells of wee.”

  That makes me giggle a bit.

  “I do not smell of wee! You disgusting boy!” squeals Claudette, punching Liam’s arm. Liam must go home each night black and blue, Claude gives him so many dead arms. “And at least I do bathe! Not just in cheap rancid body splash like you do! Yuk! And anyway, leave Veronica alone. She’s not feeling herself at the moment.”

  I nod pathetically in agreement.

  “Why?” asks Liam. Liam’s second ear piercing looks a bit infected to me. It’s oozing pus.

  “She’s got ... er, personal problems,” whispers Claude.

  “Personal private problems, poo-face,” I say, aware that the next two rows are earwigging furiously. “So keep your schneck out and turn the volume down on your big pie-plate-shaped head.”

  Picking on Liam is making me feel a lot better.

  “Oh, right,” says Liam, furrowing his brow, a mischievous smile growing across his face. “So, this got anything to do with Jimi Steele dumping you last Friday?” he says loudly.

  “Huh! What?! He has not,” I gasp. “I’ve dumped him! Well, I’ve not dumped him but ... well, it’s ... gnngnnnnn! Nothing to do with you! Look, why don’t you bog off and grow the rest of that mustache you’ve been threatening to since the spring?”

  I can’t believe I’ve just played straight into Liam’s hands.

  “Hoo-hoo! Gossip! I got the gossip!” he shouts. “Heard the latest Jimi/Ronnie news, everyone? I know the full details!”

  “Shut. Up. Now,” says Claude firmly. “Or. Else.”

  Liam does immediately.

  Of course Liam has hit the nail on the head. Jimi Steele has officially done my head right in.

/>   I just don’t think I can do this “snub him for a month” thing. Jeez, I only managed to blank him for twenty-four hours when he forgot my fifteenth birthday and went with the lads to see Combat Zombie Explosion II instead. I caved in like a bad soufflé when he brought me those flowers and took me to Paramount Pizza.

  Seeing him at lunchtime hasn’t helped my plight at all. My head’s totally mixed up. It wasn’t Jimi’s first attempt to speak face-to-face to me, either, so it’s not like I can say he doesn’t care about the whole thing.

  Last Tuesday, he appeared at the Fantastic Voyage on the off chance I’d be in. Sadly, I was over at Fleur’s house, plotting our route to Astlebury as well as dissuading her from strangling her big sister Daphne, who’s just home from a year in Nepal. Tempers were fairly frazzled at the Swan house, but that was cool, as it quite distracted me from my own angst. It’s a difficult time for Fleur, not being the number one center of attention in the Swan household. I mean, Daphne Swan is a totally cool person, I want to be just like her when I’m twenty, but jeez, does she like talking about her traveling adventures!? I only popped down to the kitchen for a glass of water and had to sit through a forty-five-minute yarn about her “awesome experiences” at the Nepalese Festival of Panchak Yamar (which she says making a weird clicking noise with her tongue and spitting all over you, just like the natives). Of course, while I was brushing up on advanced Nepalese anthropology, the beautiful Jimi Steele was at the Fantastic Voyage, throwing stones up at my window.

  “He had a face like a bag of wet greyhounds,” Dad said.

  “Ooh, yeah, Ronnie!” scoffed Mum. “He was laying it on thick. He even had me feeling sorry for him. I told him to buzz off. He wanted an Oscar for that performance.”

  “Cheers, Mum,” I said, pretending to be grateful.

  But if deep down Jimi’s as upset as I am, does that mean I should let him get away with sometimes being a thoughtless, hurtful berk? Am I making a mistake?

  Oh, please God, pleeeease let the LBD be allowed to go to Astlebury! Please let there be tickets left. I need to get out of this town before I go mad.

  “Don’t worry, Ronnie,” whispers Liam Gelding quite sincerely as Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts lick each other’s ears. “It’ll be okay ... I’ll have a word with him.”

  “Don’t you flipping dare!” I squeal.

  “Liam! Don’t make me have to enforce a grave medieval-style punishment upon you,” warns Claude.

  “Pggh ... I’m only trying to help!” moans Liam, looking a bit confused.

  “Well, I don’t need your help, Liam, I’m doing just fine,” I say.

  And then the final bell of the summer rings loud and clear. It sounds absolutely wonderful.

  It sounds just like freedom.

  no destination

  “What do you mean, all over, Fleur? What’s all over?” shouts Claudette, trying to catch up with the blonde bombshell as she clip-clops rather briskly along Lacey Avenue, school bag swinging in the breeze. After the bell, we’d found our chum in the I.T. lab, frantically typing an e-mail to an address I didn’t recognize with red-rimmed eyes and a mascara river trickling down her cheek.

  “Look, calm down a second, petal,” says Claude, cupping an ebony arm around Fleur’s willowy waist. “Tell Auntie Claudette and Uncle Ron what the matter is.”

  I draw along beside them and pull out a packet of pocket tissues, passing one to Claude, who begins dabbing Fleur’s face as if she were three.

  “Fleur Swan ... ,” I begin patiently, “please tell me you’ve not been posting your photo on that ‘Am I a Hottie or Not?’ website again.”

  “Oh, surely not!” groans Claude.

  Last time Fleur played this game, posting one fairly flattering snapshot of herself on the information superhighway, some anonymous cybergeek in Michigan USA kindly pointed out she was “gawky,” “wore too much lip gloss” and “was probably a total airhead.” We didn’t hear the end of it for a week. Of course the eighty-five other voters who gave Fleur the 9/10 “Total Babelicious Minx” rating were totally forgotten in a cybersecond. Sometimes I don’t envy Fleur’s beauty. She sets herself some fairly high standards.

  “No, of course I’ve not been on that site,” mumbles Fleur. “It’s a stupid site anyhow.”

  “So what’s up?” I ask.

  “Hmmm ... It’s pretty bad,” sniffs Fleur. “Well ... very bad.”

  “Hit us with it,” I say. I prefer my bad news in one quick “punch to the stomach” bulletin. I can’t stand waiting about.

  “Oh, poo,” sighs Claude, shutting her eyes. “I know what you’re going to say. It is all over, isn’t it?”

  “Yup,” says Fleur. They both stand still, staring at each other. “They’re all gone. The Astlebury tickets are completely one hundred percent sold out.”

  “Wah! How?” I cry. “What? Like, sold out from the official ticket office?”

  Fleur turns to me, wiping her eyes on her school shirt.

  “No, like sold out absolutely everywhere. It was posted officially on the website at three-thirty P.M. I logged on in I.T. I’ve been ringing around other box offices ever since, but even then, tickets were vanishing as quickly as I could find them.”

  “There has to be another way!” Claude says vehemently, putting her hands on her shapely hips.

  “Well, I can’t see one, Claudey,” says Fleur. “I mean, I even went on eBay and found this guy called Dave in London who had tickets he wanted to get rid of ... but then loads of other eBay bods began bidding too, and it all got really out of control.”

  “How much were they?” I ask gingerly.

  Fleur looks at me, and her eyes well up again. “Five hundred and twenty pounds each by the end of school. Oh, and he’s got only two.” She sighs. “Well, he did have two. Someone bought them.”

  After a period of staring blankly at one another, we carry on meandering along the street. No one knows what to say.

  Suddenly, I’ve got this horrible, panicky feeling that I’ve no direction in my world anymore.

  I’ve got no school to go to tomorrow.

  I’ve got no Jimi Steele as my boyfriend.

  I’ve got no fantabulous rock ’n’ roll LBD adventure to chuck myself wholeheartedly into.

  I’ve got no clue what I’m going to do with the rest of my summer.

  Ditto my entire life.

  In fact, all I have right now is the LBD ... and neither of them are the feisty, foxy, fighting force that I know so well. They look like wounded soldiers staggering home from battle.

  Aaaaaaaagh, I’m free-falling!

  And right that instant, a horridly familiar plummy voice, as soothing as nails scratching a blackboard, splats me back to Earth. “What?” the girl’s voice is squealing into her mobile phone. “Her skirt? Oh my God! I know! Did you see that hideous creation she had on in the dining hall today? How cheap and nasty? Jeez, the only label Stacey Hislop wears is ‘non-flame retardant.’ Ha ha! What a complete pauper, eh?”

  “Uggggh,” I groan.

  Fleur jumps slightly, steadying herself quickly and pulling her shoulders back to greet the delightful vision of Panama Bogwash, sashaying home to Goodyear Mansions. Panama hasn’t spotted us yet; she’s far too engrossed slagging off poor Stacey, a really meek lower sixth girl who always eats by herself, reading a book at lunch. Eventually she sees us all standing in a row, staring at her, and visibly blanches. It’s almost as if Panama is terrified that some of the LBD’s grubbiness may leap the gap and infect her.

  “Afternoon, Panama,” nods Claude bravely.

  “Oh, hello, er, Maud ... and er, Ronnie,” says Panama, totally ignoring Fleur as she clips by. Today Panama is wearing an indigo Japanese silk kimono-style blouse, black leggings and pristine white pumps; her trademark auburn bob glistens in the late afternoon sun. Much as I loathe Panama, she probably possesses the most perfect slim figure I’ve ever seen in real life.

  (I told my dad about this once, around the time that Panama snog
ged Jimi. Gnnnngnnn, I can’t even think about that time now. Anyway, Dad said I was talking utter pig swill. He said men like women “with a bit of meat on their bones” and not ones like Panama who look like they’d have to run around in the shower to get wet. He also pointed out that Panama has slightly too many teeth for her mouth. “Well, I wouldn’t give her a bite of my apple, that’s all I’m saying,” Dad shuddered. “It’d be like sharing it with a racehorse.” My dad’s totally brilliant sometimes.)

  “So anyway,” Panama continues to bark into her phone, snub nose aloft, “if you want to swing by later, Leeza, please do. My mother’s manicurist is calling between six and eight, and I’m having the full French works and tips ... Actually, now that I think about it, you definitely should too. You’ve got hands like a Russian dockworker at the moment. Abigail and I were laughing about it earlier.”

  Panama seems to raise her voice slightly at this point, as if she really wants us all to hear her as she walks away.

  “Oh, and best of all, if you round up the gang, I can give out the Astlebury tickets too! Daddy says they arrived today!”

  Claude, Fleur and I all gaze at one another glumly. In an instant Panama Goodyear vanishes, leaving a sickening waft of Coco Chanel eau de parfum in her wake, as well as a macabre silence.

  “Well, all this really messes up my chances of meeting Spike Saunders again and marrying him,” mutters Fleur eventually, with a forced smile.

  She’s only half joking here.

  “I think I’m the most gutted about missing the Kings of Kong,” I say to no one in particular. “They confirmed they’re playing this week. They’re totally amazing.”

  I suppose I’ll just be listening to them in my bedroom now.

  “It’s not just missing the bands that I’m upset about,” says Claude. “And if Panama wants to go, well, good bleeding luck to her ... I’m narked about not going away to Astlebury with you two. This was just going to be like the most fabulous LBD fandango ever ... wasn’t it?”

  “Yup,” I say.

  “Yeah,” whispers Fleur. “Look, don’t, Claude, you’ll make me cry again.”