Accidental Superstar

by Marianne Levy

  OK, not fiddling. Trying to call Lacey so we’d at least be able to talk to each other on our way in, like we’d planned. But her phone just rang and rang and rang.

  She probably had it on silent, or something.

  Which left me with a dilemma – how many times should you try calling a person before you start to seem like a bit of a mentalist? I stopped after fifteen attempts, and went back to staring out at the road. I couldn’t even try to look cool, as it was guitar lesson day. I had to stand there with this huge thing strapped to my back, like a kind of deformed tortoise.

  My mood wasn’t helped by the fact that the bus stop nearest our house would not have made it into a list of Harltree’s Best Bus Stops. Not even a top one hundred. The bushes around it were filled with chocolate wrappers and bits of polystyrene. The shelter’s seats had been kicked in and on the bit of plastic protecting the timetable someone had taken a permanent marker and scrawled a picture of what Gran would call a tinkle stick.

  Then, suddenly, just a few minutes before the bus was supposed to turn up, it was the Harltree version of Picadilly Circus.

  A bunch of year sevens were doing something complicated with playing cards and Finlay was making his finger have intercourse with an egg sandwich. Then Nicole announced she could make her eyeball pop out by holding her nose and blowing it at the same time. She couldn’t; she just snotted herself.

  Which was properly funny, and I did a big laugh to show how much I was in on the joke, only no one seemed to notice.

  And I thought of Lacey, and was about to try calling her again, when . . .

  ‘All right, Katie?’

  Oh no.

  ‘Jaz!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Out on the street she looked scarier than ever, the spots on her chin oozing yellow stuff, and piercings all the way up both ears. She’d even managed to put a stud through that little triangle bit in the middle. The bit that, strictly speaking, is not ear, but head.

  ‘I’m getting the bus now,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ Jaz was wearing a school skirt, but instead of the regulation navy blue sweatshirt, she had a black bodice type thing with sleeves that billowed out at the top, then narrowed from her elbows to her wrists and did up with rows of tiny buttons. This, combined with her piercings and a fairly extreme level of make-up, made her look like a twisted Victorian doll.

  ‘Because Mum has just bought the world’s worst house with the world’s worst man and . . .’

  I tailed off because it was possible that Jaz wasn’t quite listening. I could tell because she had turned her back on me and because she had started talking to Nicole.

  Now, I was aware that there are more unfortunate people in the world than me, and that being lonely at a bus stop isn’t the same as being in a famine or getting shot or catching a deadly disease. But somehow, knowing that didn’t especially seem to help.

  Just then, my deep and interesting thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Nicole walking backwards off the pavement and into the traffic.

  ‘Aaaargh, careful!’ I lunged forward to pull her to safety.

  Only, instead of thanking me for saving her life, Nicole shook me off, and Jaz said, ‘You’ve ruined it now.’

  ‘Ruined what?’

  ‘We’re videoing.’

  Then, to Nicole, ‘OK, start again.’

  At which point Jaz held up her phone while Nicole started wobbling off towards the road.

  And part of me wanted to stop them because obviously it was incredibly dangerous. But another part of me was quite interested to see what would happen. Nicole was veering off the edge of the pavement when, thank goodness, the bus turned up, braking just before it squashed her.

  My plan had been to stay safely downstairs, near the driver, but just as we were getting on, Jaz put her face right in mine and said, ‘You can sit on the back seat with us.’

  And suddenly I was pining for the good old days when it had just been me, the bus stop and my guitar.

  So we all piled on, shoving past a load of people who had left their bags and legs sticking out. One of them, this thin, veiny man, said, ‘Excuse me,’ in a really pointed way, and Jaz just laughed.

  The veiny man caught my eye and I did a face that said, Sorry about her, she’s not my friend or anything, I’m new to this bus actually and I’m finding it all a bit difficult.

  I’m not certain I managed to get all that across because the veiny man scowled and said, ‘Bloody cheek. In my day you’d have been caned.’

  So anyway, the bus set off, really slowly, like it had to visit every last street it could before getting us to school, and we were all sitting at the back of the top deck: Finlay and the year sevens shoving themselves between the seats, Nicole in the middle, plucking her eyebrows with what looked like a pair of pliers, and Jaz in the back corner, like some kind of public transport-based royalty.

  ‘Katie?’

  ‘Um, yes?’

  ‘Finlay is trying to open your guitar case.’

  I turned around, and he was.

  ‘Oh. Thanks, Jaz.’

  Mad Jaz was being nice. Weirdy weird.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without Lacey. It’s like you’re joined at the hip or something.’

  ‘Nah,’ I said, thinking of the zillion missed calls Lace would be finding the very second she looked at her phone. ‘We’re not actually even that friendly any more. You know. People move on. Apparently.’

  ‘Do you want me to get Finlay to egg her?’ said Jaz.

  ‘Um, no, that’s fine, thanks, Jaz.’

  ‘Cos he will.’

  And in fact, I was so upset at Lacey not phoning me back that I almost thought about saying yes, only at that exact second my phone rang and it was her.

  ‘Lace! Where’ve you been all my life?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ She sounded distant. In all the ways you can be distant. ‘We were walking along.’

  ‘You and who?’

  ‘Just . . . people.’

  I considered bringing up our pact to talk to each other on the phone and then decided it would sound needy and that I wouldn’t say anything about it.

  ‘It’s just . . . I thought we were going to talk, on the way in. Like we’d said.’

  ‘Sorry. Something came up.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Just leave it, Katie. She clearly isn’t interested. Let her go. ‘Want to come over tonight and see the House of Horrors? We’ve got mice and everything.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Oh go on. I’ll make Mum give us money for fish and chips.’

  ‘Fish and chips?’ The reply was immediate, and very enthusiastic. Unfortunately, it hadn’t come from Lacey. It had come from Mad Jaz. ‘I like fish and chips. And Nicole likes them too.’

  And suddenly I was hosting the world’s scariest sleepover. And that wasn’t even including our exciting new pets.

  ‘Um, Lace, ring me back in a sec, OK?’

  I put the phone straight down and was about to explain that it hadn’t been a general invitation, only I found that Jaz was going through the contents of my bag like that was a completely normal thing to do.

  ‘Ha ha, look, it’s Katie’s secret diary.’

  Of course, she’d found my lyric book. People like Jaz can smell that kind of thing a mile off.

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  She flicked it open. ‘Just Me. What is this, please?’

  Only Jaz could make the word ‘please’ sound like a threat.

  ‘I write songs.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Since when?’

  I thought back, and realized, which was quite interesting, that I couldn’t ever remember not having written them. The song for Manda’s fifteenth birthday, which had made her cry, even though she pretended it was an allergic reaction to her new mascara. The divorce songs, which made me cry. And the ones about silly stuff, like types of breakfast cereal and the weather and never being able to
find shoes that look nice and that I can also walk in. Actually, that last one isn’t silly at all, it’s very important.

  ‘Since forever.’

  I genuinely couldn’t tell whether Jaz thought this was good or bad. Her face was pretty hard to read, what with it being covered in eyeliner and cakey foundation which was supposed to hide her acne but in fact just made it look like acne under a layer of foundation. And because Jaz pretty much always scowls, even when she’s happy. Especially when she’s happy. It’s one of the ways you can tell.

  ‘Sing one, then.’

  She said it in this laid-back, not-bothered kind of a way, so quietly that I’d almost have ignored it, only when I looked up her eyes were staring right into mine. Like it was a test.

  ‘Really? It’s not like they’re any good, Jaz. You won’t be that interested, they’re just stuff I do when I’m –’

  ‘Sing one.’

  So there I was, new on the bus, surrounded by year sevens, Finlay, and Nicole. And a load of people who were going into work or wherever it is that adults go on a bus at eight in the morning, which I suppose must be work because otherwise you’d stay in bed.

  We were just going round the Old Ewe Roundabout, where Manda failed her driving test. There were drips running down the insides of the windows, and the air smelled like diesel and morning breath. Most of the non-school people had headphones in, so there was this tick-tick-tick sound of leaked-out bloblets of music, all mixed in with the noise of the engine and a bit of siren from outside.

  Not exactly an ideal environment for my very first public performance.

  Which I was about to point out, only then I realized I was actually more scared of what Jaz would say if I didn’t sing than if I did.

  So I took a deep breath, and then another one, as though I was standing at the top of the high diving board at the leisure centre. Except that’s a poor example, because I’ve never managed to jump.

  But I did sing.

  I’ve got mad skin

  I’ve got mad hair

  I borrowed your stuff and I don’t even care

  I’m the big bad apple on the family tree

  Deal with it, sister, that’s just me

  And . . . it was OK. Better than OK.

  I’ve got mad beats

  I’ve got mad moves

  I know your mum really disapproves

  If you’re up for a laugh then you’re my cup of tea

  Friends forever, that’s just me

  I could feel, without even having to look, that everyone was listening, leaning in, as if my words were a sort of a net, drawing them all together, and, for maybe a minute or two, the whole bus faded away.

  I’ve got mad love

  I’ve got mad hate

  I’ve got my whole life to come and I just can’t wait

  And here’s the thing, I think you’ll agree

  We’re all in this together. It’s not just me.

  I finished, and in the pause just after, I saw a new light in Jaz’s eyes. Because I’d done it. I’d opened myself up, taken a risk – and earned her respect.

  She opened her mouth slowly, her surprisingly pink tongue running across her bottom lip.

  ‘Katie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Finlay just dropped your phone out the window.’

  I’m going to try to be very calm about this and not go over the top or anything, so all I will say is that it was like the world had ended, and leave it at that.

  Just getting my phone back into my hand was hard enough, on an alien bus in the middle of who-knows-where. And when I did, the screen was cracked and the back was mashed and it wouldn’t turn on.

  I cradled it in my arms, hoping it knew how much I’d loved it.

  ‘Finlay, you are a dick,’ said Jaz.

  So it wasn’t shaping up to be the best of days.

  There was a bit of a moment when I came into the form room with the bus lot, and Lacey was there with the canal crowd. I was going to talk to her, but somehow a load of boys got in between us and by the time I’d squished past we were all on our way into assembly. You can’t talk there or McAllister murders you and strings up your guts on the information board.

  Then we were in the hall but not next to each other, which had never happened in the whole history of Katie and Lacey. Not that I minded or anything. I mean, I knew we’d have to sit apart eventually. I suppose. I just hadn’t thought it would happen quite so soon.

  We’d met on the first day of school, when we were the teeniest, weeniest kids walking along the canal, and we’d teamed up straight away in a friendship that, at least to begin with, was based on not wanting to get chucked in the water.

  No. There was more to it than that. Loads more. We both loved long baths – not together, whatever Devi Lester would have you believe – and going for walks around the playing fields just after it had rained.

  We could drink whole rivers of Diet Coke and stay up until four talking about which exact dog each of us would have and who we’d most like to go out with and what were the truly vital things you should get in a Chinese takeaway. (For the record, it’s a labradoodle, Robert Pattinson when he was being Cedric in the Harry Potter films, prawn crackers and Peking duck.)

  We even had the same hairstyle, or at least we did until one of us got trigger-happy with the scissors.

  ‘So, for my birthday,’ Savannah was saying, as we shuffled back out after twenty minutes of some woman talking about protecting bats, ‘I’m thinking I’d like a MacBook, a pair of diamond studs and as much Clarins stuff as they’ll give me. Plus Glastonbury tickets. Because of my creative spirit.’

  Well, where to start? The idea of Savannah at Glastonbury was so spectacularly hilarious that I almost didn’t say anything, just so that she’d go and I could hear about it afterwards. But that would have meant denying someone else the chance to go. Someone like Manda. Or me.

  ‘Savannah, do you know what Glastonbury is?’

  She ran her fingers through her advert-blonde hair. ‘Katie, how can you not know? It’s this amazing party where Cara Delevingne and Alexa Chung go to drink champagne and wear Hunter wellies.’ Her head flicked round to Paige. ‘I should ask for Hunter wellies, too.’

  ‘So you’re OK with sleeping in a tent,’ I said.

  ‘I’d stay in a hotel, babes.’

  ‘I don’t think there is one. I think you have to sleep in a tent and use a chemical toilet. And, honestly, it’s mainly about listening to music. You know, bands. While standing outside. Even when it’s raining. And it usually does.’

  ‘Eew. How do Cara’s brows cope? OK, not Glastonbury. Maybe I’ll get a Miss Sixty bag instead. Would that honour my creative spirit, do we think? The new season is pretty out there . . .’

  All the way through this I’d been trying to catch Lacey’s eye but she was deep in conversation with Sofie and then it was time for my guitar lesson.

  The story goes that when I was four I found Dad’s guitar and started playing on it. Mum discovered me plucking out a reasonably decent version of the Coronation Street theme tune and together they decided that I was some kind of prodigy and that I ought to have lessons.

  The funny (not in a ha ha way) thing about this is that I’m not a prodigy, or anything like one. I’m pretty rubbish. In my head, there’s Jimmy Page making it sound like his fingers are taking an actual stairway to heaven, and then there’s the reality which is Katie Cox mashing up chords in a Portakabin.

  The lessons have been going on so long that I’ve run out of things to learn, which sounds more impressive than it really is, because there’s no exam in being Eric Clapton. You either are, or you aren’t.

  I am not.

  I was running out of guitar teachers, too. There’d been a speccy bloke in his sixties who declared me ‘unteachable’ and took to reading books while I played, and a geeky bloke in his twenties who, to be frank, could have done with a few more lessons himself.

  My latest victim was this tall, nervy wo
man called Jill, who had enormous brown eyes and a mane of long, red, perfectly straight hair. It was a bit like being taught by a roe deer.

  ‘I’ve got something I’d like to finish off this week,’ I said to her as I unzipped my case, half expecting to find an egg sandwich nestling into the strings.

  She was fine with that, as she always is, and so I sat down and played Just Me, stopping every time it sounded less than perfect, which was mostly.

  If you’re up for a laugh then you’re my cup of tea

  Friends forever, that’s just me

  ‘No. That’s not right. It needs something else.’

  ‘Maybe just hold the E for a moment longer?’ offered Jill.

  I tried it, and it was better.

  I’ve got mad beats

  I’ve got mad moves

  I know that your mum really disapproves

  If you’re up for a laugh then you’re my cup of tea

  Friends forever, that’s just me

  I faltered, and, as usual, my hands wouldn’t do quite what I needed them to. . . . ‘That’s just me. J-just me. Just me.’ The notes fell away from my fingers. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Katie, it’s really good.’

  ‘Well –’ I was so embarrassed that I thought my cheeks were going to melt and start dripping on to the carpet – ‘thank you. Can I have one more go?’

  ‘Um,’ said Jill, ‘you’ve been here nearly an hour and in theory it’s only a twenty-minute lesson, so . . .’

  ‘What?! Why didn’t you say anything?’

  Jill mumbled some stuff about talent that was just her covering up the fact that she was too sweet to chuck me out.

  So I cut her off and raced to the canteen, where, thank goodness, Lacey was waiting for me.

  ‘Good lesson?’

  ‘It was fine.’ I didn’t really want to get into my extended one-woman show. ‘Anyway,’ I said, ultra-casually. ‘What did I miss this morning? I bet loads of stuff happened.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you were walking along the canal. While I was getting the bus from our new house for the first time ever. A bus I was on with Mad Jaz . . . I’m sure there’s loads of things you need to be telling me so I’ll shut up about everything going on in my life and let you talk.’