by Grace Dent
Silly old me thought this was Mum stating the bleeding obvious, like durrrrrr, of course it’s dark at 3:00 A.M., or else we wouldn’t need bedside lamps, would we? And how would we know when to go to sleep? Of course, now I realize that Mum was being “deep and meaningful” and she was actually meaning: “When your worries wake you up in the middle of the night, suddenly they seem bleaker than you could ever imagine.”
This is soooo true.
I slid under my duvet last night as a funky, sassy, music-festival-organizing chick who was over the moon with what we’d achieved. But at some point during the wee small hours, the bo geyman crept in, shoveling sackfuls of self-doubt down my ear-hole.
I tossed and turned for the best part of an hour, sighing, huffing, then rearranging my pillows thirty-six times, letting Blackwell Live stew in my half-sleepy brain.
Big mistake.
Before long, I wasn’t simply terrified. Oh, no, I also became rather irate with the LBD for getting me into this mess. Especially that aggravating Claudette “Venn Diagram” Cassiera. Why can’t she just leave things alone? Why is she like a dog with a bone when she has a plan? And why does she ride rough-shod over all my concerns and insecurities? Maybe I didn’t really want to do this Blackwell Live thing . . . but now I have to!
Grrrrrr.
And as for that Fleur “Microbuns” Swan, this is all her fault too. If she wasn’t so ditzy and shallow when it comes to lads, she’d have seen Blackwell Live for the awesome failure it potentially is. And not just as “a really good chance to snog some boys.” There is more to life than lads, Fleur Swan! (I hope.)
That’s it, I thought. As of Monday I am resigning from the LBD and commencing kicking about with the Archery Society dweebs. Or I’ll be a school loner. Far less trouble.
But I’m also blaming Mr. McGraw for my worries.
It was ol’ gray chops who introduced me to imagining the worst-case-scenario outcome in every situation, including Blackwell Live. I didn’t even know what worst-case scenario meant until I began Blackwell School and learned that every single path you choose to walk in life could have a W.C.S. if you’re unlucky.
Say, for example, Blackwell enters a cross-country team in the local championships. Sure, we might win loads of medals and get our photo all over the local papers, it could be wonderful. But, wait for it; the worst-case scenario would be that we trail in last to every other school, we get our gym kits stolen by local sneak thieves, and then the minibus gets a flat tire, so we have to get towed home.
You didn’t think of that, did you?
Bummer, eh?
Or, say in geography you were learning about Jamaica, about its lush tropical climate, local carnivals and gross national productivity. Well, if Mr. McGraw was taking that lesson, he’d point out the strong potential for freak weather conditions, causing the banana harvest to shrivel and a mass typhoid outbreak.
Getting the picture? Life sucks sometimes; get used to it.
So, anyway, at 3:14 A.M. on Saturday morning, I woke up needing the loo, but somehow started contemplating just what the LBD had got themselves into.
Not only had we promised McGraw and Guinevere, as well as the whole school, that we would put on an amazing Astlebury-style music festival with live bands and cheering crowds; we’d also stuck audition posters up and posted it on the World Wide Web too! Everyone was talking about it. There really was no turning back.
Now, every time I closed my eyes, all I could imagine was a big empty playing field and a tearful, disappointed Mrs. Guinevere. Nobody would want to buy our stupid tickets. In fact, as far as I could see, no bands would offer to play our idiotic concert anyhow.
My palms were beginning to sweat.
I mean, imagine if nobody turned up at the auditions? What if it’s just the LBD sitting in the school gym on Monday, all by ourselves, playing I Spy for an hour, then doing the “walk of shame” through the streets home? We’ll never live it down! Okay, I’ll admit I wasn’t so bothered about looking like a loser in front of McGraw, sheesh, I’ve had three years’ practice doing that.
BUT WHAT ABOUT IN FRONT OF YEAR 11? What about in front of Lost Messiah (who have now started practicing in our function room so I can’t even escape their ridicule out of school hours)?
“Aaaaggghhh!” I eventually whispered out loud. “We’re going to be the laughingstock of the whole school!”
(NOTE TO SELF: Find out exactly what is “the laughingstock.” I have no idea what this means. I just know Magda often threatens people with being it and it’s a very bad thing to be.)
So, as you can see, by 3:30 A.M., I’d got myself worked up into a right pickle. In fact, by 4:00 A.M. I’d decided that my only option was to raid the Fantastic Voyage’s safe, buy a one-way ticket to Negril in Jamaica, and set up an assumed life under a false identity. (Knowing my luck, I’d get there just in time for all the shriveled banana and typhoid fun.)
How the devil did this happen?
Blackwell Live was the best idea in the world five hours ago!
I texted Claude on the off chance she was still awake (y’know, brokering a Middle East peace deal, or whatever the heck Claude Cassiera does when she stays up all night), but Little C wasn’t responding.
Eventually I decided to turn on my TV and see if there was some trashy nighttime movie to take my mind off my woes.
Big mistake.
All that was on at this stupid o’clock hour was the all-night news program on BBC, playing world headlines. They were NOT a barrel of laughs. There was a factory closing in Scotland and five thousand workers were destined to be jobless and penniless; a river had burst its bank in Russia and loads of people had been swept away . . . oh, yes, and a giant panda in Miami Zoo was refusing its meals due to its partner dying.
Grrrrreat.
I felt worse than ever then.
McGraw clearly has got a second job at the BBC producing the Worst-Case Scenario headlines.
Misery really does love company, so at about 5:00 A.M. I was pleased to hear Mum padding about the house, traipsing backward and forward to the loo about four times, then downstairs to the kitchen, where she had a good effort at waking the entire high street up making a snack. I heard a plate smash, some very loud rude words echoing up the stairs, then eventually the TV in the living room springing to life.
Excellent! Mum was up for the day.
I pulled a hooded top over my jimjams and went to tell her that my life was terrible and I needed to leave the country.
Unfortunately, Mum was having an attack of the nighttime blues herself. She was slumped on the sofa, dressed in a big chunky cardigan and tracksuit bottoms, her long brown hair scraped off her face in a high ponytail, watching the same depressing news program as I’d been. On Mum’s lap was a plate holding a huge, clumsily made sandwich. Her eyes were a bit red-rimmed, like she’d been crying.
“You’re up!” I said.
“Can’t sleep, darling. I was, er, a bit hungry,” Mum said.
I sat down beside Mum, noticing that her towering sandwich was made from both crusts of the loaf. Banana slices, salami and cucumber were escaping from the sides of her culinary creation.
Bleeeeeugh.
Mum was staring at the TV forlornly.
“Stupid panda.” Mum sniffed. “He won’t eat his bamboo.”
Mum nodded toward the screen, which showed a flurry of khaki-clad zookeepers, all shaking their heads, offering a sulky-faced panda various succulent-looking branches.
“I like bamboo shoots,” Mum continued, sounding like she was going to start sobbing. “They’re very tasty in a hoisin sauce.”
Oh, dear.
I wasn’t the only one looking for someone to make them feel better. Mum looked terrible, although it had to be said, from the noise she was making with her sandwich, it was making her feel a tad happier. (Especially the layer of marmalade.)
“Mghhhph, so what’s keeping you awake, young lady?” asked Mum, taking another big bite. “Is this you havi
ng a late late night or an early early morning?”
“I’ve been to sleep,” I said. “But I’m awake now. I’m reeeeeally stressed.”
Mum sort of laughed.
“Huh, what exactly have you got to be stressed about?” she said. “You’re only fourteen!” Then she quickly corrected herself as we’ve had, like, a hundred arguments before about how stressful it is being me sometimes. “Sorry. Sorry. I mean, what’s stressing you out now?” Mum said. “I’ve lost track of where we are. . . . Do you still hate science?”
“Yeah, I hate science.”
“But you’re trying, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m trying,” I lied.
“So it’s not that you’re stressed about?”
“No, I’m reeeeally stressed-out. Science just makes me depressed, that’s different.”
“Ahh, depressed too?” Mum chuckled. “Depressed and stressed? Well, good to see that we made the right choice sending you to Blackwell.” Mum wiped her finger across the plate, picking up the last trails of marmalade. “You do know some families actually move house to qualify their kids for your school, don’t you?”
“Mmmmm, yeah, you always say that,” I said.
Mum does always say that.
Mum and me have had some conversations so many times over, like this one about “how lucky I was to get into Blackwell,” that we’ve got this joke that we should just give them numbers and shout them out instead.
“It’s not my fault I’m old and senile,” Mum says, pretending to be upset.
True, she is quite old, she’s almost thirty-nine.
“C’mon then,” Mum said. “Tell me the whole story.” So I did. I told Mum all about how the LBD really really wanted to go to Astlebury, to which Mum said, “Well, you’re not,” to which I said, “Ha ha, I already knew that, we’re on to plan B now anyhow.”
So Mum said, “Why didn’t you ask me anyhow? You asked your dad! You think I’m an ogre, don’t you?”
So I said, “No, no, you’re not . . . you’re just a . . . It’s just that . . . Oh, God, yes, you ARE an ogre sometimes.”
This made Mum look sadder.
So then I told her all about Blackwell Live, and about Claude’s plan, and about our meeting with McGraw, then about Guinevere shouting at McGraw. This cheered Mum up loads.
“Ha ha ha . . . Rocket up his you know where!” Mum repeated. “That’s pretty terrible. You girls shouldn’t have heard that, really, y’know? Mrs. Guinevere would get into trouble. . . . Still funny, though.” She laughed.
Then I told her about the auditions and all about Lost Messiah, and the website and the tickets . . . by this point I was rabbiting away really quickly, and my palms were sweating again.
“I’m really scared, Mum,” I eventually said.
We both stared at the TV again.
When I looked at Mum next, she really was crying, vast rivers of tears flowing down her cheeks.
“I think this is all great!” Mum sniffed.
“You do?”
“Yes, it’s a wonderful idea, I’m really proud of you.”
“I’ve not done anything yet . . . and we might mess it all up,” I said.
“I’m sure you won’t,” Mum said. “This is so great. . . . I mean . . . when I had you, I was always worried that . . . well, you know, what if something bad happened to me when you were little? You, well, you’d not be able to look after yourself. And that used to upset me . . . but now I look at you, and you’re like a young woman, you’re taking the initiative to do all this great stuff . . . you know? You’re doing your own thing. That makes me really happy.”
I’d like to be able to say that this was one of those important mother-to-daughter chats, one I’ll be able to look back on in years to come, but I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t have a Scooby-Doo what Mum was blathering on about.
Mum was sitting there peering at me.
“What I’m saying is,” Mum continued, “it’s not easy being a mum, and the world is such a horrible place to bring a little girl into . . .” Sniiiiiiiiiffff. “And I used to worry all the time that sometimes I don’t make a very good job of things . . . but then I look at you, and I hear about the things you do . . . and I know that I did all right.”
Mum produced almost an entire man-size box of Kleenex from her pocket and blew her nose really loudly; in fact, so loudly that she could have blown a bit of her brain out.
“I’ve not been a bad mum, have I?” Mum said suddenly. Like my opinion at this moment really mattered.
“What? Of course you’ve not been a bad mum,” I said. What a stupid thing to ask. “Mum! You’ve been a top mum . . . hang on, you still are a top mum. What are you talking about?”
Mum continued, looking at me with her head slightly tilted: “I’ve just been wondering lately. What kind of a world is this to bring babies into? That sort of thing.”
“That’s really, er, heavy,” I say, rather uselessly.
Mum must be taking this row with Dad really to heart if she’s thinking all this crazy rubbish.
“Mum, you’re being dead silly here. I mean, you’re wrong. Totally wrong . . . I mean, I know that me and you fight a lot these days, but most of the time we have a brilliant laugh. You’re, like, the coolest mum out of my whole class.”
Mum cheered up when I said that.
“How am I cool?” she said, dabbing her eyes.
“You just are,” I said. Mum creased her brow slightly. “Right, okay . . . ,” I said. “Well, you were the only mum I knew when I was a little girl who would flambé my rice pudding at the supper table with a proper chef’s blowtorch like on TV cooking programs. Like, woooooosh! On fire!”
“Yeah, that was kind of cool,” Mum admitted, chuckling. “Probably not very safe, but cool.”
“And we used to bake loads of pies and cakes together when I was little. That was excellent . . . I mean, I know we don’t bake together that much now, cos it’s a bit, well, babyish. But, hey, we can do that sort of thing again if you want?” I said. I felt a bit bad now for always trying to be so independent. Those days were good fun.
“I’m sure we can,” Mum announced, smiling. “There’ll be more time for babyish things, I’m sure. Everything doesn’t have to be serious in this house.”
“Nah,” I said, grabbing the remote and flicking the channel on to cartoons.
“Ronnie, I really think things are going to be fine with your festival,” Mum said. “You’re a very competent young lady.”
Even though it was Mum saying it, this was still one of the best things anyone has ever said to me.
Then she stood up, announced the kitchen was opening early and padded off.
Next time I saw Mum, later on today, she was throwing around a lump of dough as big as her head and shouting at Muriel, our sous-chef. She seemed to be quite enjoying herself.
Weird.
paddy needs a chill pill
It’s now Sunday night. This weekend has totally dragged.
Both Claude and Fleur have been busy doing family stuff. Claude had to go to her cousin Gerrard’s house for her great-uncle Leonard’s birthday party (party is not the term any of the LBD would use to describe such events). Fleur, on the other hand, has had a huge row with Evil Paddy over the family phone bill. She’s been addressing this debt by polishing Paddy’s BMW and accompanying him to see her gran in the old folks’ home. Miss Swan insists she doesn’t give a hoot about Paddy and how he feels about her, like she’s so rock ’n’ roll that Paddy’s just a housemate she’d rather be rid of; likewise, Paddy treats Fleur like his evil nemesis, always on the prowl to rid him of his wages. Nice ruse, fellas, but I don’t buy this at all: They’re as thick as thieves really. They actually enjoy kicking about together, especially at the old folks’ home, which is not a barrel of laughs.
Fleur says that when she visits her gran—who is mad, blind, and has only two subjects of conversation, the Second World War and the escalating price of canned peaches—we
ll, it’s difficult to work out who in the room wants to be dead the most.
That’s really sad, isn’t it?
I don’t want to ever get that old.
Being abandoned by the LBD sucks. I’ve tried to occupy my time usefully (I sorted my CDs into alphabetical order and made a list of other CDs I need to buy), I’ve listened to my new Spike Saunders CD To Hell and Back about twelve times and learned all the words to a few tracks, and I’ve tried my very best to keep my mind off my worries.
Somehow I’m still a heady mixture of anxious and bored rigid.
The thing is, it’s tricky trying to be bored at the Fantastic Voyage. If you make it too obvious, there’s a good chance Loz or Magda will find you something useful you could be doing. Something like hosing down the cellar, or polishing various brass fixtures and fittings in the saloon bar, or even cleaning the front windows in full view of the high street traffic jam.
You DO NOT, repeat, NOT want that.
Especially not the windows option. Believe me, so many Blackwell kids will travel past you on the bus, grinning their heads off and waving, you may as well place an advert in the school newsletter announcing you’re changing your name to Billy No-Mates.
My saving grace has been that it’s drizzled all weekend, meaning at least I could skulk alone in my room without my parents harassing me too much. Lordy, if the weekend had been sunny, it would have been a different matter entirely. I’ve noticed, over the past fourteen years, that the moment the sunshine appears, grown adults seem to become totally obsessed that young people are “making the most of the sun.” (Ah, there’s a sentence that fills me with dread.) Oh, yes, if the sun even pokes its head from behind a cloud for ten minutes above the Fantastic Voyage, rest assured my parents are straight into my room, poking me with a stick, nagging me to “go out and enjoy the heat wave” and “stop missing the best part of the day” or even “go to the shop and buy ice cream cones for me and your dad.”
