by Candy Guard
‘You’re right, Jelly, we can’t be worse than that!’ Myf said.
We agreed we would stick with Myf’s song ‘Love Me Please’ as we couldn’t come up with anything better in the time. We just needed to get some instruments and learn them. We already had bass but it had a GIANT spider’s web on it, which none of us was feeling brave enough to tackle . . .
‘Oi! Girliewirlies!’ Jay shouted through the window. ‘Roger needs his guitar back!’
‘Myf’s using it!’ I told him.
‘Well, how come she’s still playing a tennis racquet?’ he sniggered. ‘We need it! We’re starting up our band again. We want some of what sO.M.G.! have got, some of those groupies!’
‘Myf and Jay don’t have anything to do with Mould. MOULD. Something you make a JELLY in?’ I explained to them. ‘Jelly and the Mould Breakers? Don’t you get it?’
‘Whatever,’ Jay muttered. ‘Anyway, Roger needs his bass back. NOW!’
‘You’re welcome to come and take it,’ I said, pointing at the massive spider. Jay was even more frightened of spiders than me.
scooped up the spider, stepped into the house into our downstairs loo and flushed the chain.
He’d flushed the spider down the loo!
I went completely off him. I thought he was supposed to be an animal lover !
But then I reasoned with myself – he was so nice in so many other ways – and I had got a crush on him – and, I mean, I ate sausages and stuff even though I really liked pigs (apart from Sandy). . .
Maybe the spider would swim through the pipes and cling on somewhere and then manage to climb back up through the plug hole or something? (As long as it wasn’t when I was in the bath.)
Jay was saying, ‘Heard about you vomiting on poor old Rog last night, Jelly!’
‘Sorry, Roger,’ I muttered.
‘Oh, no worries, Jelly. You couldn’t help it.’
His hair was all back in place again, which made me remember his wash bag with all the cosmetics in it.
‘You’re welcome to keep the bass for now, Jells,’ he said. ‘I can practise on my old one.’
He at me and did his handsome smile but it somehow didn’t have the usual effect and I didn’t go that . I was still thinking about the poor spider.
–27–
Idiots
We spent the rest of the week rehearsing really every day after school for at least two minutes (exhausting!!) and Myf managed to learn one note on the bass guitar.
The rest of the time we worked on our image.
We had decided to go for an look and had all been raiding our mums’ wardrobes for their teenage clobber.
Myf’s mum had been a Madonna fan. Roobs’s mum was a great admirer of Diana, Princess of Wales. And my mum used to be an electro-pop fan.
We also chose our and decided to go for a GLAM ROCK LOOK in the facial department. We looked pretty ! Roobs said she knew someone in the band going on before us – ‘Band With No Name’ – and they had agreed to lend us their instruments. We were ready!!!
We planned one last rehearsal the night before the competition in the shed in FULL outfits and .
‘A one, a two, a one, two, three, four!’ I shouted. Roobs did her drum intro on the biscuit tins and Myf started blasting out her one note.
Then Jay stuck his head through the window.
Myf explained that she thought it was a long-forgotten one-hit wonder from ancient times (1960s).
Then Jay took back ’s guitar, checking it for spiders .
–28–
Shut Up!
The next day we tried really hard to come up with an original song on the way to the town hall on the bus.
And we carried on trying to come up with songs backstage while the first few bands played. But it was no good! We kept just repeating whatever anyone onstage was saying or singing . . .
‘Look,’ I told Myf and Roobs, ‘we can’t go on – it’s no good! We can’t actually play and we haven’t got a song! Don’t bother changing into your outfits.’
Myf and Roobs started protesting but they were announcing us –
‘Thank you very much, Band with No Name! And now welcome to the stage Jelly and the Mould Breakers!’
Myf and Roobs dragged me on to the stage.
I stood quaking on the stage in front of the crowd of expectant faces and thought I should explain that we couldn’t enter because we couldn’t play and we hadn’t got a song. MEANWHILE unbeknownst to me Myf had grabbed up Band With No Name’s lead guitar and Roobs had on to their drum stool.
I got as far as picking up the microphone and clearing my throat when there was this horrendous racket – Myf was strumming her one note and Roobs was bashing away on the drums behind me.
I couldn’t look round because of my profile!
I yelled, ‘I’m sorry, everyone, but we won’t be able to play . . .’
(I noticed Sonja Perkins was sitting right at the front wearing her headphones.)
‘We can’t actually . . .’ I continued, trying to be heard above the racket, ‘You see – SHUT UP!’ I yelled to Myf and Roobs. ‘SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!’
Then Fatty ran onstage (Sue, Julian, Cat ’n’ Fats were on next and were waiting in the wings).
Only I knew he was also telling them to shut up – he hated heavy metal.
And on it went – the booming, crashing music, me shouting ‘Shut up!’ over and over again and Fatty echoing me each time . . . Row-ru! Row-ru! Row-ru!
Then Sonja stood up, took her headphones off and started dancing and joining in too . . .
And it went on like this . . .
. . . until the audience, seeing Sonja as a very person, all decided they liked it too and soon the whole hall was dancing.
I did notice that Myf seemed to have miraculously learnt another note and once she got it right it sounded OK, and Roobs’s drumming, though a bit basic, wasn’t sounding too bad either . . .
But then Mum came on and started to try to drag Fatty off.
–29–
Feeling Ruff, Ruff, Ruff
I started edging off the stage, and was hurrying along the corridor when Sandy appeared out of the hall . . .
‘No,’ he said, grabbing my sleeve, ‘you shouldn’t.’
‘But you don’t understand – my family are all about to come on,’ I explained.
‘Jelleeeee! Jelleeee! Help!’ It was Myf and Roobs running towards us.
‘Anyway,’ Sandy said, ‘do you fancy going—’
But Sandy was drowned out by a marauding mob of screaming Year Eight girls coming after Myf and Roobs . . . and me!
Just as they swamped us, Sonja appeared, shouting, ‘Oi! Back off, you lot! Get in an orderly queue AFTER the show is finished else the girls won’t pose for selfies with you.’
Sonja asked if she could manage us, and we said yes – else she might’ve whacked us, and anyway, she had perfect credentials for being a band manager.
‘C’mon,’ Sonja said, ‘let’s go back in and watch the competition, not that we’ve got anything to be worried about.’
We all trooped back in and huddled at the back of the hall.
Sue, Julian, Cat ’n’ Fats’s Folk Combo weren’t going down too well.
Then it was Grarol, who made a grand entrance.
Last, and also least, it was Jay and the Mold Breakers (the slight change in spelling did not appease me).
It was very, very, VERY – but also very, very, VERY enjoyable. (And the fact that someone had changed ‘Mold’ to ‘Wind’ on their drum kit DID appease me!)
–30–
Jelly Legs
When the awards were presented we won ‘BEST BAND’ as well as ‘MOST ORIGINAL SONG’ for ‘Shut Up (Else I’ll Whack You)’ by Jelly and the Mould Breakers Feat. Sonz P and FattsZFatzo, as well as being the overall winner of Boxford’s Got Talent.
Despite the meanness of the audience towards my family, the judges awarded Grarol ‘BEST ACT OVER FIFTY’ (which meant she co
uld tell everyone she was only fifty-one when she was actually seventy-five), Sue, Julian, Cat ‘n’ Fats’s Folk Combo ‘BEST ANIMAL ACT’ (Mum felt she had achieved her dream and could happily go back to her ordinary life now) and Jay and the Mold Breakers the ‘AUDIENCE PRIZE’ due to looks talent.
So as overall winners we had to go on and sing again, and as is the tradition with Boxford’s Got Talent, the other winners came on and sang with us.
So we were like a kind of FAMILY SUPERGROUP just for one night. We had to do two songs – the lyrics of ‘Shut Up’ were very easy to learn and I quickly made up another rap called ‘Walk (Don’t Talk)’ Featz FattzZFatzo – knowing that Fatty would do EXCELLENT dancing and singing when anyone said the word ‘walk’ or anything that rhymed with ‘walk’.
I improvised most of the rap (I really was quite good at it, though I say so myself) and the one note that Myf had learnt plus the other one she had chanced upon and Roobs’s natural rhythm on the drums served us very well.
I’m talkin’ with my friends,
And he’s like, walk, don’t talk,
Walk, don’t talk.
Walk away, you dorks,
She’s comin’ wit’ me.
He pops my cork,
He eats yogurt with a fork.
He’s gonna walk wit’ me,
Not talk at me.
And afterwards, as promised by our new manager, we posed for selfies for an hour.
(Sonja was excellent at making sure none of our new groupies took too long taking their snap.)
Sonja seemed to have lost all interest in Benji Butler now she was manager of J.M.B. (and had heard ’s music) so Myf was .
Our dream of BILLIONS of boy groupies hadn’t come true – they were all girls – but none of us cared.
However, right at the very back was one boy groupie – Sandy Blatch – and he asked me to pose for a selfie with him. Just me. He was just about to put his arm round me when Cicliy came beavering over.
‘No, Cicily, I’m not,’ Sandy said firmly. ‘I let you boss me about because I was feeling and I thought Jelly didn’t like me any more which made me a bit sad . . . But then she stopped away when I looked at her and started staring at me and I knew she still liked me.’
‘B-but . . .’ Cicily stammered.
‘Go away, Cicily . . .’ he said firmly, and took his scarf from round her neck and put it back round my neck.
she pronounced threateningly, yanking her tartan scarf from Sandy’s neck and almost strangling him. But there underneath her scarf was my scarf! Still firmly tied and still with egg on it. He hadn’t taken it off even to wash it! Which was very unhygienic but quite
Sandy held his phone aloft again and just before he took the photo, he said,
And I turned to him and he me – right on the lips!!!!
Because he’d taken me by I didn’t have time to and I just him back – just as the flash went off. It was very nice and my tummy did a little somersault, and my legs went . . . well – they went .
Then there was this huge behind us – Cicily had tried to photo bomb us but she’d fallen awkwardly and hurt her foot. She was making an fuss and everyone was rallying round her and in all the I lost Sandy.
–31–
Cute Again
Later that night my phone beeped. Sandy had sent me the selfie he’d taken with a little message
Of course I went pink and my legs turned to jelly again, but I answered: ‘Yes x’.
I’d learnt quite an interesting thing. Boys are sensitive too – and if you away when they look at you they think you don’t like them but if you back at them for a bit longer than comes naturally (like I had to when I was trying not to display my ears in profile) . . .
. . . they think that you might possibly like them. And everyone wants to be liked – even boys.
I then spent quite a long time studying the photo.
My first proper captured on camera – and d’you know what? My profile looked quite pretty when I looked . And my ears looked quite cute again.
Endnote
1 French for ‘amuse mouth’ – a tasty bite-sized bit of food for before or between meals.
My Early Years in Music
When I was fourteen, my friends and I started a punk band called The Sokitz (our 657th possible name). We made badges, posters, and screamed and yelled whilst banging biscuit tins with sticks for a few minutes.
It’s really time for a reunion tour (we’re all broke). But must just quickly learn some instruments first . . .
Books by Candy Guard
Turning to Jelly
Jelly Has a Wobble
Jelly Breaks the Mould
FIRST PUBLISHED 2016 BY MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS
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