by Grace Dent
In case you don’t know Jimi Steele (which I find very very hard to believe, cos he’s just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life), I’d better explain:Deep breath.
Jimi Fact Number 1. He’s beautiful. (Have I said that?) No, he’s more than that, he’s totally gorgeous with pale blue eyes, long eyelashes and lovely plump lips. If he lived in America he’d probably star in his own prime-time show called simply: Jimi: Season
One.
Jimi Fact Number 2. He’s got amazing arms which are all toned on the tops. He’s also always tanned from being outdoors doing rugged laddish stuff like frittering entire days with a football or mountain biking . . . or being . . .
Jimi Fact Number 3. . . . on his skateboard! Yep, he’s one of those skatey boys. And he does, like, really dangerous stunts such as skating down flights of twenty stairs and jumping off really high curbs. Sometimes Jimi even has to limp to Blackwell School on crutches with a sprained ankle and get called “a blithering idiot” and “a lesson in stupidity” in assembly by Mr. McGraw, our headmaster. But Mr. McGraw is so wrong. Jimi Steele rrrrocks.
Jimi Sort-of Fact Number 4. He once held open the door to the chemistry department for me and smiled!!! “Conclusive proof that he’s hot for you,” according to Fleur.
Jimi Sort-of Fact Number 4a. Other LBD members (me and Claudette) are not entirely one hundred percent sure whether Jimi smiled at me. He might have been burping or remembering a funny bit from last night’s TV or something.
Jimi Fact Number 5. He’s almost sixteen years old and is in Year 11. That’s why he’s so manly and mature, in absolute contrast with the high-pitched, football-sticker-swapping morons that make up
Blackwell School’s Year 9 boy zone. Thus, I’ve got zilcho chance of turning Jimi from “boy who is a friend” into “boyfriend.” (And that’s if you can count burping at me in the chemistry department as being “a friend.”)
Let’s face it, he probably thinks I’m a bit kiddified. He probably wants a woman in his life that can at least mention going to Astlebury Festival without her dad’s eyes exploding, or her being forced to put on a polo shirt and a pair of big, frumpy, Victorian-era granny-knickers that cover her kneecaps and nipples.
When I’m older and require expensive therapy and rehabilitation in Arizona like all the A-List celebs do, Loz and Magda Rippertons’ ears will BURN.
So, in essence, I love Jimi Steele. He just creeps into my head and messes about with it all day and sometimes during the night. He, on the other hand, doesn’t really know I exist, which is sort of depressing, especially when I spend much of my free time with Fleur Swan, who needs a stick smeared with animal poo to keep boys away. Very often I feel like an insignificant speck of space dust orbiting around Planet Fleur. Fleur is just plain gorgeous, everyone can see it. She’s plainly charismatic and fresh-skinned. I have a deep-rooted fear that I’m simply “plain.” Being plain, to my reckoning, is far worse than being pig-ugly. Being plain means being invisible to lads like Jimi. I get depressed when I look in the mirror and think, Well, so this is my lot. And I’m really nothing special.
Every boy knows Fleur exists. Fleur’s the sort of girl who lads honk their car horns at, or that Year 7 brats send aftershave-scented love letters to. Fleur once sashayed into the dinner hall in her tightest-fitting school blouse (the one that looks like she’s smuggling M&M’s under) and I watched a Year 11 lad pour orange juice into his left ear. And yes, friends, I would switch the oven on and slow-roast my own head right now, if it wasn’t for the fact that Fleur is habitually just as stressed about boys as I am.
“I hate boys,” says Fleur, lying back on her bed. “I’ve had enough of them. I’m not going to fancy them anymore,” she announces. Considering Fleur is only fourteen and is in love with almost half of Year 13, I can’t help doubting her word.
You’d think Fleur would be happy, but she’s not. Her frantic love life causes her as many tears, sleepless nights and bitten nails as my shambolic, laughable excuse for one does me. Fleur’s men, you see, usually vanish off the LBD scene just as quickly as they appear. Er . . . funnily enough, usually just after meeting Mr. Swan, when he greets them with one of his famous “I will strangle you and turn your corpse into a novelty lamp shade if you even touch my daughter” stares.
“And you’re never going to get anywhere with Jimi if you don’t start making it a bit more obvious either,” Fleur tells me, shaking her head.
“I know,” I mutter, changing the subject. “Anyhow, what about you and Dion? I’ve not heard the latest.”
“Oh, yeah, well, you know he walked me home last Thursday?” Fleur says tragically. “And we had a proper snog outside the garden gate, you know, tongue in and swirly about sorta thing?” Fleur waggles her cocoa-stained tongue to illustrate. “Well, then he said he’d text me on Friday, after football,” she continues. “But he, er, didn’t. I don’t know what happened to him.”
“Vanished?”
“Vamoosh,” she says.
“Have you checked the cellar?” I mutter.
“What?” says Fleur.
“Oh, nothing,” I say, passing her another magazine.
Poor Dion, I think, imagining him captured, shackled and starving in Evil Paddy’s cellar prison. Everybody knows there’s not enough protein to survive on in an earwig.
Then something earth-shattering happens.
my life changed forever
Blip. Blip. Bleeeeeep. Another text! It’s Claudette.
Oh, by the way, that’s not the exciting bit. This is:
WHY IS JIMI STEELE CHATTIN TO YR DAD OUTSIDE THE VOYAGE?!!! TEXT ME BACK NOW!!! SCREEEEAM!!—CLAUDE 8:21 P.M.
Scccreeeeeam!!
The following five heart-thumping minutes are a bit of a blur. First, me and Fleur leap up and down for a bit, waving our hands in the air and squawking. I’m opening and closing my mouth, trying to express the wonderfulness of the news, but nothing comes out. (I look like a pleased cod.) Fleur is shouting repetitively, “Ooooh my Gawd!” and “What does he want?” with the occassional “This is it, Ronnie! This is it!” sprinkled in for hysterical effect. Eventually I catch my breath.
“WHAT IS IT?” I ask Fleur. “Why would Jimi Steele possibly be chatting with my dad?” (And please, God, say Dad didn’t tell Jimi to get a “proper well-fitting pair of jeans” on too? I’ll implode with shame.)
“Ooh, can you not see!?” squeals Fleur. “He’s come to ask your dad if it’s cool to ask you out! He’s SUCH a gentleman. That is soooo sweet! Oh my God, what are you going to do?”
Life rarely gets more exhilarating, joyous or utterly scrummy than the past three hundred seconds. I sit on Fleur’s bed, conscious that Ronnie Ripperton, the schoolgirl, the legend, the foxy strumpet, will never be the same again.
“Er, excuse me,” shouts Fleur, disturbing me from an awesome fantasy involving Jimi, myself and our twenty-bedroom Las Vegas love palace (paid for with Jimi’s “World’s Number-One Skateboard Champion” zillion-dollar sponsorships). “What exactly are you waiting for? Go home and find out what’s going on NOW!” yells Fleur, throwing my left shoe just past my head.
Ahhh, I love life!! On my way out, I even give Paddy a big toothy grin and cheery wave.
“Until next time, Miss Ripperton,” says Paddy eerily as I stride up the garden path. “And believe me, Veronica . . . there WILL be a next time,” he shouts after me, accompanied by a booming theatrical evil laugh: “Boo hoo haa haa haa!!”
Mr. Swan really does watch far too much television.
shoot me now, it’s the kindest way
One A.M.: I’m not going to school tomorrow.
I’m waiting until the coast’s clear, then I’m running away with the nearest circus. (Almost any circus or traveling fair will do. Well, except for the Chinese State Circus. They don’t even have any lions or tigers or dancing elephants or anything, just jugglers and acrobats—zzzSnorezz. Who the heck exactly WANTS to see jugglers? Grown-ups mystify me. When I r
ule the world, anyone caught balancing spinning plates on canes and encouraging people to applaud them will be placed under house arrest and have their crockery confiscated.)
I can’t face Blackwell School, Jimi or the LBD ever again, not after tonight. I’m humiliated, utterly. In fact, it’s 1:00 A.M. now and I can just about talk about it without hurling.
Deep sigh.
Right, so I scurried home, hoping to catch Dad at a quiet moment to grill him for every second of Jiminess. Every juicy word and sentence, every arch of eyebrow or hand gesture.
Okay, it’s worth a shot, even if Dad is typically worse than useless at this sort of thing. Mum once left Dad for three whole days following a row over a new deep freezer; Dad only noticed she’d gone when some customers pointed out they’d waited four and a half hours for a Sunday roast.
So, I wasn’t expecting Dad and Jimi to be STILL talking outside the pub. Jimi was wearing extra-baggy dark green combats with quite raggedy bottoms and a Final Warning sleeveless T-shirt. (Jimi always knows about cool bands BEFORE everyone else in the whole school, he’s so now.) His hair was spiked up and he was nursing Bess, his skateboard, under one arm.
(Oh my God. I know Jimi’s nickname for his skateboard. I’m turning into a stalker, I’ll have to buy a stained anorak and binoculars soon.)
My first mistake was that I flounced up with a “guys, I know you’re talking about me” smug expression plastered across my face.
Because both Jimi and Dad completely ignored me.
Or at least didn’t notice I was there. They just carried on talking.
“Ah, the Fender Stratocaster. What a guitar,” Loz was droning on.
Noooo! Dad’s on a “when I used to be in the music business” rant.
Run now, Jimi! I thought. Run like the wind! Man has evolved extra fingers listening to these stories! Brush the cobwebs from your spiky hair and flee! Save yourself. It’s too late for me!
But, no. Jimi seemed fascinated.
He was even joining in with comments about amps, acoustics and guitar strings. So I stood there, grinning like a spare Barbie at a tea party, for, ooh, just under a year, until they both clicked I was with them.
“Oh, hi, er, ooh . . . Bonny?” Jimi said. (His eyes sort of glazed over for a bit while he groped around for my name. Then he got it wrong. Not a good start.)
“Ooh, hello, love!” said Dad. “This young man’s just inquiring about using the pub’s function room for a rehearsal space for his band.”
Ouch. So, that’s Las Vegas canceled, is it? I thought.
Then, just as I crashed, burned and imploded into a toxic ball of shame, Dad sealed the deal as only a dad can:
“And I was just saying, Ronnie, well, it’ll give you and yer little pals something to watch, as you’ll not be going to Astlebury, eh? Hee hee!”
Congratulations, Father, you’ve finally killed me. That’s saved me a messy job. Dad could only have bettered this by es corting Jimi up to my laundry basket and showing him my period-knickers. You could have fried bacon on my cheeks, they were so hot.
But, don’t worry, with a bit of quick thinking, plus a large helping of style and finesse, I turned this dire situation right around. Coolly, I licked my lips, looked straight at my father and purred:
“Mmmm, well, Daddio, we’ll see about that. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”
Then I turned to Jimi and whispered firmly, but sexily:
“Babe. It’s Ronnie, NOT Bonny. You better learn that name, sweetcakes, cos you’ll be using it a whole lot more someday soon,” before wiggling off, triumphantly, into the Fantastic Voyage.
Oh, no. Hang on. I’m getting confused, that’s NOT what happened.
What ACTUALLY happened was this:
It’s all true—up until the “little pals not going to Astlebury” bit—to which I then pursed my lips like a dog’s bum and grunted, “Gnnnnnn pghhhhh gblaghhh,” before skulking off to my room.
I’ve edited from my memory the part where I attempted to push the pub’s “Pull” door for almost a minute while Jimi watched me pitifully.
(NOTE TO SELF: As far as I know, neither gnnnnnn, pghhhhh or gblaghhh are actual words. Well, not ones you would use in front of someone you really fancy, anyhow.)
Two A.M.: Something freaky-disco is going on. Loz and Magda are having a loud conversation in the den. I’m almost sure I heard Mum crying, which is totally illogical. Mum doesn’t cry, not even when making French onion soup. But I’m pretty sure I heard Mum sniffling and Dad almost shouting, “But it’s far too late for this, Magda—”
And Mum yell back, “It’s never too late!”
Then some doors were slammed.
Then Dad followed into the bedroom where Mum had stormed and the bickering continued.
“Pah! You would say it’s too late,” shouted my mum. “That’s you all over. Selfish! You only think about how you feel.”
That’s not really true, I thought, but I decided, sensibly, to stay under my duvet and not make it a three-way debate.
“But I’m thinking about you! Not just me. And all of us. It doesn’t feel right, this happening so late . . . ,” my dad persisted.
Blooming right it’s too late. It’s two in the morning. Small wonder I’ve got under-eye bags the size of Peru, living with Freak o’ Nature and his missus. I can’t put my finger on why, but that little squabble I heard has made me feel a bit weird. It’s okay for me to fight with both of them—that’s normal—but I don’t like it when they do it.
Chapter 2
banging the drum of love
Mr. McGraw exhales one of his deep trademark sighs.
Long and deliberately mournful, like a punctured airship falling miserably to Earth, Blackwell’s headmaster takes to the podium. Tapping the microphone twice with a thdunch, thdunch, a squeal of feedback rings around the antique Tannoy speaker system, deafening the hideously jam-packed gym. McGraw (or as he’s often known, “Quickdraw,” or lately by some meaner kids, “Prozac Mac”) surveys his six-hundred-strong audience with a heavy heart.
Once . . . , I can almost hear him thinking, Sweet Lord Jesus, just ONCE, can’t I get a phone call to say they’d all called in sick?
My eye lingers along the row of ten miserable-faced teaching staff required to be present for today’s assembly. All of whom seem to be in another world, entertaining those special thoughts which pretty much all teachers do between 9:00 and 9:30 A.M. in schools far and wide.
You can just tell Mrs. Guinevere, our deputy headmistress, is wishing she could be in beddy-bo-bo’s, sipping a mug of milky Earl Grey with the Guardian cryptic crossword. One look at the twisted face of Mr. Foxton, our new music teacher, shows the appalling hangover he’s suffering. Well, what I can see of his face does. His head is practically in his hands. The fact that Mr. Foxton (according to Blackwell gossips), at the age of twenty-four, still insists on visiting local pubs with his friends midweek and staying until almost TEN-THIRTY P.M. sipping lager and laughing is fine by me. It just makes it all the more hilarious watching him sit through a whole assembly, then toddling off to a double Year 7 glockenspiel and drum workshop. The other teachers just stare ahead, seemingly in some sort of depressed trance.
McGraw’s third-, fourth- and fifth-year crowd are grumpy and restless, largely due to the early hour (8:45 A.M. For the love of Moses, some of us still have pillow creases on our faces and sleep-snot in our eyes) plus the fact the hall smells of a pungent cocktail of feet, farts and cheap floor polish. Blackwell Sports Hall isn’t nearly spacious enough for four hundred chairs, so while Year 10 and Year 11 get a seat, us Year 9 bods make do squatting at the front of the hall, jumbled all over each other on bare floorboards. We look like refugees waiting for a food drop.
Honestly, I cannot wait for next term when I graduate to a proper seat and can live through one assembly without rampant pins and needles and someone’s pelvis in my face. Everybody seems to have forgotten the “mobiles on mute” rule too, thus a zillion techno bleeps a
nd hip-hop ring tones criss-cross the airspace.
“God has dealt me some very harsh cards,” mumbles McGraw under his breath, raising one hairy hand for silence.
“Good morning, children,” sighs McGraw.
“Good morning, Mr. McGraw,” we all reply.
And we’re off! Battering through Song 42 of the Happy Voices, Happy Lives Songbook for Children. Ooh, it’s a chirpy little number, this one, all about “banging the drum of love” and “putting your arms around the world.”
“I have nothing whatsoever to hug the world about,” I grumble to Claudette, who’s resting her Happy Voices book atop her generous C-cup bosom.
“Ooh, shut up,” Claude says. “I love this one. It’s one of my favorites,” she shrills, turning up her mouth volume to LOUD, savoring every syllable of the chorus.
So, as the rest of Blackwell drones through “Banging the Drum of Love,” Claude swoops and hollers, allowing every word just the right annotation and bags of whoomph.
“Ban-geeeeng the drrrums of luuurve!” Claude sings. “I waaant to geeeeeeve the worrrrld a beeeeeg huuug!!”
Claude winks at me and begins waving her hands in the air and clapping, satisfied that the entire assembly hall is beginning to stare at us. I’m giggling so hard now, I almost wee. Even the super-cool Year 11 bods are starting to snigger.
Mrs. Guinevere, deputy head, looks up from her sheet music, at first overjoyed that one pupil is putting true grit into the task, until her eyes rest upon the LBD and she sees that on either side of the songbird, I’m rolling about on the varnished floors with snot flowing down each nostril and Fleur is texting Dion a long, pleading love missive on her mobile phone.
