It's a Girl Thing

by Grace Dent

  “Definitely,” says Claude. “They’re having a row, just let them argue it out. Your mum and dad are a right pair, Ronnie. They love each other to bits, anyone can see it. This time next week they’ll be trying to dump you at your granny’s again because they want to go on one of their romantic weekends.”

  We all giggle then, fake putting our fingers down our throats, grimacing. I don’t even want to contemplate what my parents get up to on the “romantic weekends” they occasionally take in Parisian hotels and suchlike, but I hope it involves a lot of examining the in-room trouser press and looking at the River Seine and NOTHING too “romantic.” Bleeeeeughhh.

  “Anyhow, I need your full attention over the next week.

  We’ve got a very full schedule . . . you’re going to be my righthand chick.”

  Oh, dear, I know EXACTLY what Claude’s talking about here. I knew she wouldn’t leave our little LBD conversation about the Blackwell fete last night as pie in the sky for too long. That’s just not Claude’s style.

  “Oh, Claude, we can’t,” I say.

  “You’re not being serious?” says Fleur with a look of growing anxiety.

  “It’s impossible . . . isn’t it?” I say.

  But Claude has that scary, unstoppable look in her eyes.

  “It IS possible,” Claude affirms. “We’re going to see Mr.

  McGraw at first break to put our plans to him about Blackwell Live.”

  Claude pauses a moment to enjoy the sound of her new title; she invented the phrase “Blackwell Live” at 3:15 A.M. this morning, sitting up in bed at Flat 26, Lister House.

  You see, late last night, long after the LBD had giggled, fantasized, danced and gossiped till we were exhausted about how totally, unbelievably fantabulouso it would be to turn Blackwell fete into a full-scale local pop/rock extravaganza; long after I’d toddled home, encountered Magda and fallen asleep; and hours after Fleur had finished her vitamin E deep-impact face pack and turned on her Whale Sounds Power Snooze CD, Claudette Cassiera was awake until at least 4:00 A.M. . . . plotting. As you can imagine, Claudette plotting is a very scary thing indeed. It involves numerous sheets of paper, spider diagrams, doodlings and scribblings out. It also involves the emergence of one of Claudette’s infamous “THINGS TO DO” lists.

  Oh my Lord. I can see one being produced from Claudette’s rucksack right now. Point one says:1. Make appointment with McGraw to discuss Blackwell Live.

  It has a big tick against it. She’s only gone and done it!

  “Oh, I have GOT to see this one.” Fleur smirks.

  “That’s good,” retorts Claude, “because you’re coming along too. I need full LBD backup to swing this one in our favor.”

  That wipes the smile right off Fleur’s chops.

  “Of course, Fleur,” continues Claude, “this will require you to act pleasantly, schoolgirlish and, well, almost like a normal human being for over twenty whole minutes . . . Swanno, can I count on that?”

  Fleur giggles and sticks her tongue out. “Huh. It’ll take a lot more than me saying a few pleases and thank-yous for McGraw to start liking me again.” Fleur laughs.

  “Perhaps,” says Claude. “But it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

  “Do you think I should apologize again for that massive bill he got from . . . ooh, what was it called? . . .” Fleur thinks deeply. “Oh, yeah, Castles in the Sky, the bouncy castle company?”

  “Well, yes, you could . . .” Claude stops, then changes tack. “Actually, Fleur, I’ve thought about that now. DON’T mention the bouncy castle incident. In fact, Fleur, don’t speak at all. Just smile.”

  Fleur crosses both eyes and gives a big smile with all of her teeth and gums showing, made all the more eerie by the fact she has plum-colored lipstick smeared on her front teeth.

  “That’s very pretty, Fleur,” says Claude. “Very genuine.”

  Claude turns her attention to me.

  “Right, Ronnie, you’re my only hope here. Once we’re all in McGraw’s office, we have to work together tightly to get the outcome we want.”

  “What, like a Good Cop-Bad Cop sorta routine?” I ask, suddenly feeling very devious.

  “Well, no,” corrects Claude. “More like Nice Schoolgirl-Even More Crawly Bumlicky Schoolgirl.”

  “Oh, well,” I say. “Can I be the first one?”

  “For sure.” Claude smiles.

  As far as an LBD planning meeting, this is highly civilized. We’ve got a smidgen of a plan together, and no one has felt the need to call each other a “total durrbrain” or get personal about the other girl’s hairstyle. Sadly, our good progress is brought to a halt by minor classroom chaos.

  Mr. Ball has left the front of the classroom and is striding around the benches, inhaling deeply.

  “Has somebody got sweets?” he says. “I am certain that I can smell chocolate. And it’s a milk chocolate too.”

  Mr. Ball’s highly sensitive nostrils are twitching.

  “C’mon, hand ’em over, whoever you are!” says Ballsy. “You all know how I feel about sweets in the chemistry department.”

  Yes, Mr. Ball, we all know how you feel about sweets in general. You adore them. It’s rumored that the local newspaper seller Mr. Parker bought a new Volvo last year on the strength of your minty humbug, chocolate raisin and cola cube addiction.

  Poor Sajid Pratak, a tiny pip-squeak of a boy perched on one of the back benches, is caught mid-chomp.

  “Sajid!” yells Mr. Ball.

  “Mggghp sir!” goes Sajid.

  “Bring those sweets up here,” Ball instructs.

  Sajid trudges to the front of the class, surrendering his crumpled bag.

  No sooner is Saj reseated, Mr. Ball is pointing at the blackboard with one hand while his other furry hand begins foraging amongst the sweeties, making them disappear into a clearing in his face forest.

  “Sweets are forbidden in the chemistry lab, Sajid,” Mr. Ball says. “Mmeghg-specially”—chomp, chomp—“delicious chocolate-coated mghTurkish Delight sugch as this. You children could have any manner of hazardous chemical on your hands when you’re eating. Your innards could dissolve!”

  Sadly, this is what always happens when weak-willed Mr. Ball finds sweets in his classroom. Firstly he confiscates them as he’s “paranoid we’ll get poisoned,” then he ends up scoffing the lot. Afterward, Mr. Ball feels wracked with guilt about pilfering confectionery from victims under five feet tall, so he ends up buying the pupil more sweets in return next lesson. The LBD all roll their eyes and giggle.

  “Stop moaning, Mr. Pratak,” says Mr. Ball. “Just you get on with writing up that experiment till the end of the lesson.”

  BBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRING goes the school bell.

  “Which is now!” Mr. Ball smiles, relieved.

  We all start packing our bags.

  “Good-bye, Year Ten!” shouts Mr. Ball, making a sharp exit for the staff room before some pesky student teacher nicks his comfy chair by the radiator. “See you soon!”

  “Year Nine!” we all shout.

  And then he’s gone.

  in search of great craic

  “But what are we going to say to him?” I ask Claude anxiously as we head toward McGraw’s lair.

  We’re weaving through the morning breaktime crush of a thousand Blackwell bodies. Agghh . . . I spot Jimi standing just inside the school yard with his two mates Aaron and Naz. Thank God Naz is doing something extremely impressive with a football (spinning it on one finger, since you ask), meaning I can slip by without Jimi seeing my face. I flinch again when I see Panama and two of her clique, Abigail and Leeza, hovering around one of the doorways that we need to pass through. As tradition requires, the girls all flash filthy looks at Fleur simply for being taller and naturally prettier than they are. They’re mumbling some rubbish about Fleur being a “lanky cow,” their usual route of attack. Most girls would crumble under such abuse; however, Fleur seems oblivious. Fleur Swan really is bully-proof—just like her name suggests, she gl
ides right through trouble with her nose in the air, which just seems to make her tormentors more determined. It doesn’t matter today anyway, we’re moving pretty quickly. Fleur and I have to hurry to keep step with Claude’s increasingly purposeful stride. We’re now drawing dangerously close to the doors of the administration corridor, a sort of Blackwell inner sanctum situated in the center of the school, home to the offices of McGraw; Mrs. Guinevere, deputy head; plus Edith, school secretary (and part-time fire-breathing dragon).

  I cannot flipping believe Claude is taking us here.

  Nobody chooses to walk down this corridor via their own choice.

  No, this is a corridor that you’re sent to, well, to be more accurate, frog-marched to, when you’ve been caught slap-bang in the midst of being a social nuisance.

  Actually, for such a scary place, the admin corridor is really rather beautiful. In general, Blackwell’s decor is a fetching hue of sludge green, earwax yellow and incontinence brown; however, this 100 meters of space boasts pristine white marble floors that are polished daily, fresh pale turquoise walls and opaque patterned glass lamp shades. It’s almost like a TV home makeover team turned up, blew all their budget on the admin corridor, then decorated the rest of Blackwell for £14.29.

  “Er . . . well, I’ve not really planned exactly what we’re going to say, as such,” says Claude, knocking on Mr. McGraw’s polished teak door. “And anyway, it’s not just McGraw. I forgot to tell you, it’s Guinevere as well. I said it would be better if they both were there. Y’know, kill two birds with one stone?”

  Fleur and I look at each other in sheer horror.

  I suddenly feel a terrible urge to go to the toilet.

  But it’s too late, the door has opened.

  “Ah, Claudette Cassiera. Come in, come in,” McGraw says, his gray face alive with delight. This is about as enthusiastic as I have ever heard McGraw being about anything, including last winter when he appeared on local radio saying the school was flood-damaged and closed for the week.

  “And Veronica Ripperton too?” he adds, with a weaker smile, probably clocking that I’m wearing cream ankle socks instead of regulation three-quarter white ribbed ones.

  “Oh, and it’s you. Fleur Swan. What a lovely, er, surprise,” McGraw lies, clearly remembering bouncy castles, Bovril and a whole string of other minor offenses he could be taking into consideration.

  Claude nudges Fleur, who, on cue, gives a big broad smile from ear to ear, sort of twinkling her fingers at him. She looks like she should be dispensing dinners on a Virgin Airways flight.

  We all file into the office, then stand rigidly in an arc facing McGraw’s desk.

  “Oh, please, young ladies, do have a seat,” says McGraw, flourishing his hand around the room, pointing out chairs usually reserved for parents.

  A seat?

  A SEAT!?

  Ha ha! How flipping different is the McGraw Office Experience when you’re not there for Bovril-related wrongdoing?

  Unbelievable!

  Suddenly there’s a further knock on the door. Mrs. Guinevere slips in behind us.

  “Sorry I’m late, Sam, er, I mean Mr. McGraw,” she says in her rich Dublin accent.

  Mrs. Guinevere looks almost regal in a long black velvet skirt, an ornate flowered waistcoat and a crisp white linen blouse. Her cropped auburn hair is flecked with strands of gray, which shine like platinum.

  “Mrs. Guinevere, please have my seat,” says Claude, spotting the chair shortage and leaping up. Quickly she’s taller and slightly more powerful-looking than anyone else in the room.

  Very cunning.

  “So, Claudette, what can we do for you?” asks McGraw. “Something about a special concert you’d like to help organize?” McGraw is looking down at a slip of paper with Edith’s swirly writing across it.

  “Yes, sir,” begins Claude. “An open-air music event for school musicians. You know, like a real chance for local talent to perform? Plus, an opportunity to raise money for local charities too . . .”

  Jeez, Claude, when you put it like that, I think I’ll be busy hand-washing my thongs that day. Still, five minutes into the meeting and we’ve not been ejected yet.

  “And what musicians do you have in mind?” probes McGraw. “I know that the Blackwell Bellringing Society has suffered a huge drop in support since Mr. Cheeseman left for his new teaching job....Yet still they ring on, spreading joy. Would they get a slot on the bill?”

  “Er . . . well—” Claude winces.

  “And I DO know that Miss Nash from the music department has been teaching her lunchtime choir group some wonderful Elizabethan close-harmony madrigals,” McGraw continues.

  “Veronica, make a note of that,” says Claude, simply for effect. “They sound very promising.”

  BUGGER OFF, I write on my notepad, showing both Claude and Fleur. Fleur almost giggles, but at the last minute turns it into another big smile. McGraw and Guinevere peer at us all intently.

  “But, really, it would be a celebration of all things musical and rhythmic,” says Claude, stepping up her campaign. “You know, like singing and rapping, and dancing . . . and we’d have rock bands and pop music and—”

  “Pop music?” says McGraw.

  In the same tone as you’d say “Dog poo?” if you found it on the bottom of your flip-flop.

  “Yes, pop music,” says Claude. “And other stuff.”

  Claude, to give her due, then follows this up by making some dead grown-up points about “school morale” and “making Blackwell a household name.” But by this point I don’t think McGraw is listening.

  He’s staring out of the window mournfully, probably imagining Blackwell School filled with marauding youth, all of them dancing, stage-diving, playing loud guitars, snogging each other and having a really fantastic time. Ironic, as this is exactly what we can see slipping away from us.

  “Well, girls,” McGraw says, drawing a red pen line through the slip of paper before him, “I really don’t consider Blackwell School grounds a fitting location to hold an event such as—”

  McGraw begins what sounds like it might be extended grumble, but he doesn’t get too far.

  “I love it,” says Mrs. Guinevere. Her eyes are all twinkly. “It would be like a little mini local music festival!” she enthuses. “What an exciting idea! That sounds like great craic!”

  Mrs. Guinevere says the word craic to sound like crack. In this context none of the LBD are that sure what it means, but it sounds like a really good giggle nevertheless.

  We all flash Mrs. Guinevere our largest, most relieved smiles. “We think so too!” I say. “It would be totally fantabulous!”

  “I’m sorry?” says Mrs. Guinevere.

  “It’d be good fun,” explains Claude.

  “Ahhh . . . I get you now!” Mrs. Guinevere laughs.

  Mr. McGraw huffs, puffs, then places his left elbow onto the desk, resting his head forlornly on his hand, directly beside a framed black-and-white photograph of his depressed-looking self standing with Myrtle, his equally gloomy wife. Our headmaster then sighs again, in a tired-of-life way, this time from the very bottom of his belly.

  “Look, what you’re suggesting isn’t some picnic in the park, you know, girls?” moans McGraw. “It will require a lot of long, arduous, complex planning and hard work . . . and a lot of responsibility heaped on your young, inexperienced shoulders. I really don’t think that three Year Nine girls are up to this task.” McGraw shakes his head. “I mean, how will you even manage to . . .”

  I hate to admit this, but I think he could be just a teensy- weensy bit right. We could really mess this thing up here. Well, all right, it’s most likely to be me, I could really mess this up. This whole thing seems like another fab opportunity for me to prove to the teachers that I’m a burnout who “doesn’t see projects through till the end” and “flakes out under responsibility.”

  Wonderful.

  Okay, this might just be nerves.

  Don’t get me wrong, I real
ly want Blackwell Live to happen, it’s just the potentially hideous, snowballing sense of personal failure that I’d rather avoid.

  “I’ll help them,” interrupts Mrs. Guinevere. “I don’t mind, in fact I’d love to get involved! We put on many a play and concert without too much strife when I was a young girl at St. Hilda’s in Dublin.”

  Mrs. Guinevere breaks out another big grin, even just remembering it.

  “It’ll certainly be a challenge, but I’m confident these girls can rise to what’s needed of them.”

  You go, Mrs. G!

  “Anyway, the girls can report in to me with their day-to-day progress,” Guinevere adds. “So I’ll know if they’ve tried to sell the school to the sultan of Brunei or blow up the playing fields . . . oh, I’m sure it will be fine, Mr. McGraw.”

  We all flash our best angelic smiles in Mr. McGraw’s direction. He wrinkles his nose back at us.

  “Well, think about it at least,” Mrs. Guinevere says.

  McGraw stares once again out of the window; he must love this, knowing the whole room hangs on his every word.

  Following a long silence in which I notice that Mr. McGraw has been doodling a picture of a tree on his phone message pad, King Doom eventually speaks.

  “Money,” he says, placing both hands behind his head, satisfied with the stumbling block he’s conjured up. “How are you planning to pay for all of this? Are your piggy banks going to stand the strain, or are you all doing double paper routes at the moment?”

  McGraw smirks. He’s found, so he reckons, the chink in Claude Cassiera’s armor.

  “Well, I thought we’d sell tickets,” answers Claude. “The concert will take place over the weekend, after all, so people would probably expect to pay a little entrance fee just to cover costs, wouldn’t they?”

  Claude does seem to have a good answer for everything so far. I’m so glad nobody’s asked me anything yet, or Fleur, who looks about ready to tell McGraw to stick his school fields up his bum. Or worse.

  “Oh, deary me,” mocks McGraw. “You’re going to invite pupils to show up at Blackwell over the weekend? . . . And you’re going to make them pay for the pleasure?! Come now, Miss Cassiera. If I thought that was feasible, I’d be holding this conversation with you via conference call from the Happy Coconut Beach Bar in Honolulu! I’d be a millionaire by now.”