by Anna Carey
‘Now we just have to hope there are spaces left,’ said Cass. And she took a deep breath and tapped the number of the Arts Camp office into the phone. ‘Go out of the room!’ she hissed at me and Alice. ‘I’ll get nervous talking to the camp people if you’re watching.’
So we went out into the hall. A minute later we could hear Cass going, ‘I’m ringing to see if there are any more places for bands on the North Dublin Arts Camp’ and ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and ‘Okay’ and ‘Thanks very much’.
‘This could be good or bad,’ said Alice nervously. But then Cass came out, and she was beaming.
‘There are a few places left!’ she said. ‘Apparently they only added the band bit of the camp at the last minute so it hasn’t been as well publicised as the art and drama things. So I’ve booked us in, and our parents have to ring and pay by next week.’
‘A few places left!’ said Alice. ‘Maybe Richard and the Wicked Ways would like to do it too!’ She wanted to ring him straight away, but then she remembered that he didn’t have a half day.
‘Maybe Bad Monkey could do it too?’ I said.
‘Nah,’ said Cass, looking a bit disappointed. ‘Liz and Katie are going to be in Irish college for the first two weeks of it.’ But she cheered up when we started looking at more details about the course on the website.
‘Just think,’ she said. ‘This is just what we need. A place to practise. Mentors to teach us the ways of rock!’
It is all very exciting. I couldn’t stay for too long because I was meant to be coming straight home after school and Mum was making dinner early, but Alice texted me later to say that Richard and the Wicked Ways had managed to get a place too. It’s a pity about Bad Monkey not being able to do it, though. Liz is really nice and funny. She and Cass see each other a lot, and it is proof of how much I like her that I don’t really feel jealous, even though Cass has found a new friend. Well, I only sometimes feel a bit jealous. In fact, we’ve all made friends this year. Like Jane, who we met at Vanessa’s terrible party and who ended up saving the day at our musical.
Ooh. Maybe she’d like to do the arts camp too? She could do the drama thing, it’s not like she’s not used to putting up with Vanessa. I will text her now and cross my fingers.
Oh God. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have got even more stuck in my web of lies to Mrs Harrington. After English today she nabbed me when I was trying to sneak out of the classroom and said, ‘So, Rebecca! Did you have a chance to ask your mammy about my character? I don’t want to be any hassle, but I’d just love to know!’
And I realised I just had to tell her the truth. Or, okay, not the actual whole truth, which was that I had been lying all the time, but the truth that my mum wasn’t going to be putting her in a book. I could tell her that Mum − no, even better, Mum’s publisher – had decided she was never going to put any real people in books in case any of them sued her for libel and that she couldn’t even make an exception for Mrs Harrington. I took a deep breath.
‘There’s just one thing …’ I said. This was it. I knew Mrs Harrington would be disappointed, and she might even take it out on me in class (though I had a feeling she wouldn’t − she’s incredibly annoying but she’s not intentionally mean). But I couldn’t let this madness go on any longer.
‘Yes?’ said Mrs Harrington.
And just as I opened my mouth, I realised I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I am a total chicken.
‘Um, my mum wanted to make sure she’s got the spelling of your name right,’ I said. ‘How do you spell it again?’
‘Just the usual way of spelling Patricia Alexandra,’ said Mrs Harrington. ‘So, well, P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A and then A-L-E-X-A-N-D-R-A.’
Good heavens. I did not expect her to have a name like that. I thought it would be a lot more … ordinary. And Irish Mammy-ish.
‘Patricia Alexandra?’ I said without thinking, in a very surprised voice. ‘Really?’
Mrs Harrington looked slightly bemused, as well she might at my suggestion that she didn’t know her own name.
‘Um, yes,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to spell it again?’
‘Oh, no, that’s okay,’ I said.
‘Well, I can’t wait to read all about the fictional Patricia Alexandra Harrington!’ said Mrs Harrington happily. ‘Let me know how it’s going!’
There is only one thing to do. I have to make sure Mum actually puts this character into her next book and names her Patricia Alexandra Harrington, without telling her about my web of lies. I will have to drop lots of helpful hints. The only problem is − well, actually, there are a lot of problems, but one of them is that the last time I tried to suggest plot points to my mother she didn’t take them seriously. In fact, she might have even been laughing at me, like the ungrateful woman she is. But I have to give it a try. I can’t do anything about it right now as she is off at her Oliver! rehearsal. Dad was a bit worried about missing it, though, as Rachel kindly told him, the absence of one chorus member won’t really make a huge difference (even if that member of the chorus is understudying the Beadle). She had a point − I mean, I was in the chorus myself in Mary Poppins. And even I have to admit that I could have missed one rehearsal without the whole show collapsing. Anyway, Mum can tell him what he’s missed.
Even though we’re being made to work all the time, I am getting very excited about the summer camp. Ellie is going to do the art course, to hone her dress-designing skills, and Jane has managed to get a place on the drama bit! Her best friend from school, Aoife, is going to visit her aunt in Australia for most of June so she was expecting to be very bored all month and this has cheered her up. Even though Vanessa and Karen will be doing it too.
‘I think I might be immune to Vanessa at this stage,’ she said on the phone last night. ‘After all, we were in that drama class together and then the musical.’
I think she might be a bit too optimistic. After all, I’ve seen Vanessa almost every day for two years of school and I’m definitely not immune to her yet. But maybe Jane is made of sturdier stuff than I am.
Anyway, Cass printed all the details of the camp so we could look at them together at leisure at school (well, at lunchtime). It looks brilliant. We’re going to have these workshops, sometimes just with us and our mentors, sometimes with the other bands, and then we’ll be given our own practice rooms and we can work on our own stuff there. And at the end of it we will all play a gig.
‘This is going to be the greatest summer ever,’ said Alice.
‘I wonder if we’ll have any time for our sweet-making business?’ said Cass.
‘We can do it at weekends,’ I said.
Alice looked a bit dubious.
‘I’m not sure the sweet thing is going to work,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s a great idea, but don’t you need a bit more experience?’
Honestly! She’s as bad as my mother.
‘We’re going to get some experience!’ said Cass.
‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘Come over to my house and we can give it a try.’
Alice can’t go on Saturday because she’s meeting Richard. I will have to beg my parents (or rather my mum, Dad isn’t back until Saturday) to let me leave my studies for a few hours. She’ll probably let me, though, because I have been working impressively hard over the last few weeks. I deserve an afternoon off.
My ‘Put Mrs Harrington in a Book’ plan has begun. And I think it might actually be working! I am a genius, if I say so myself.
‘So, Mum,’ I said this evening, while I was peeling potatoes like the domestic servant I am (my parents would prefer it if I did nothing but study and peel vegetables. Though at least today as Dad is still away there were slightly fewer vegetables to peel than usual). ‘How’s the new grown-up book coming along?’
Mum is writing a new book for adults because she finished her second terrible book about a girl my age a few months ago. At least, I assume it’s terrible. I haven’t read it yet, but the last one was awful, AND it basically ruined my
life for a while so I’m not looking forward to the second one, even though Mum says she’s learned her lesson and is going to make sure everyone knows that Ruthie Reilly in the book has nothing to do with either of the author’s children.
Anyway, Mum is taking a break from writing about irritating teenagers (thank GOD) and is returning to her usual sort of book about kindly mammies and middle-aged ladies finding love and setting up cafés in villages and stuff. Surely, I thought, there must be room for a Patricia Alexandra Harrington figure in there somewhere.
‘Oh, it’s early days, but it’s going okay,’ said Mum. She looked quite pleased to see me taking an interest in her books again. She used to like telling us about the plots and letting us know how the writing was coming along, but after Rachel and I got so annoyed about Ruthie last year she has kept quite quiet about it. All I knew was that she’d started another book and that it was for grown-ups.
‘Do you know what it’s about yet?’ I said.
‘Yes, more or less,’ said Mum. ‘Careful with that potato peeler!’
‘I am being careful,’ I said. ‘So what’s it about? There are no fourteen-year-olds in it, are there? Or even fifteen-year-olds?’
Mum laughed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The only children in it are under ten. There is absolutely no chance anyone will mistake you for any of them.’
Well, I suppose that’s something, at least. Anyway, it turns out the new book is about a woman who moves to a little village (I have said this before, but I have no idea why my mother writes about little villages all the time, considering she’s from Phibsboro and has lived in north Dublin for her entire life) and opens a bakery and falls in love with a local farmer who supplies the bakery with eggs. It sounds dreadful, but all her books do, to be honest, and lots of people really do love them (though probably not as much as Mrs Harrington and Gerard do).
‘Does this woman have a name?’ I said hopefully.
‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘Lily Fitzsimons. It’s perfect for her.’
Damn.
‘So are there any other main characters?’ I said. Surely there was someone who could be called Patricia Alexandra Harrington?
‘Well, there’s the farmer’s sister who tries to get them together,’ said Mum. ‘And I think I’m going to put in a local teacher whose kids go to the bakery after school …’
That was it! Or rather, her. How absolutely perfect.
‘What’s she called?’ I said.
‘She doesn’t have a name yet,’ said Mum. ‘She’s just a vague sort of character at the moment.’
‘What about …’ I pretended to think about it for a moment. ‘Patricia Alexandra Harrington?’
Mum laughed. ‘Wow, you’re very helpful all of a sudden! What brought this on?’
‘I’m just grateful you’re not writing another book about stupid Ruthie,’ I said.
‘Hmmm,’ said Mum. ‘Actually, that’s not a bad name. It might work.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll thank you in the acknowledgements if I go with it!’
I didn’t want to push it, but I think my scheme might have worked. I’m actually a bit surprised, to be honest. Surely it can’t be as easy as this? Maybe it can.
I feel a bit weird. Guess who I saw on my way home from school today?
John Kowalski.
It’s been ages and ages since I’ve seen him − not since we had our huge fight the day of the musical. So it took me by surprise. It was on Griffith Avenue, of course. I’d just said goodbye to Cass and was about to cross the road and go up Gracepark Road when I glanced around, and there he was, walking along with a strange girl. When I say strange, I mean that she was a stranger to me, not that she had, like, two heads or was wearing fake antlers, or anything. She looked totally normal. Anyway, he looked pretty surprised to see me too, but only for a second, and then his face returned to its usual haughty expression, and he said, ‘Oh, hello Rafferty.’
I had been going to walk on, but he stopped. And I felt it was too rude to just march past so I stopped too. Really I am too polite for my own good sometimes.
‘Hi John,’ I said. I waited for him to introduce the girl, but he didn’t so I looked at her and said, ‘Hi, I’m Rebecca.’
She looked a bit shy and nervous and said, ‘Um, I’m Aoife.’
I assume she is his new girlfriend because she was gazing at him in a rather adoring way. I noticed they weren’t holding hands, but then I remembered John’s stupid rule about not showing any sort of human affection in public. And how he didn’t want to call me his girlfriend because he hated being ‘tied down with labels’. I hope for her sake that Aoife doesn’t mind all that nonsense because I certainly did.
‘So, Rafferty,’ said John, and I have to admit that when he looked at me in that sort of amused, sort of arrogant way and called me by my surname I did feel a bit funny for a minute. It reminded me how I really did like him for a while back then, despite everything. And by everything I mean him being a selfish, snobby, cigarette-smelling fool. ‘What are you up to these days? I hope you’re not frittering away your time with nonsense.’
And now I remembered why I broke up with him.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m getting ready for an amazing summer music camp. Me and Cass and Alice are doing it with the band. Richard’s doing it too. It’s going to be brilliant.’
John looked slightly taken aback for a minute.
‘Oh, right,’ he said. Then he said, ‘I’ll be concentrating on my writing, of course. Maybe doing a bit of acting. Expanding my creative horizons.’
‘What about you?’ I said to Aoife. She looked taken aback too.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll be writing too. John’s been really encouraging my poetry. He thinks if I work hard I could be a really serious writer.’
‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Aoife’s really getting to understand great literature. Neither of us have any time for frivolous fluff.’
Good grief. He hasn’t changed a bit. Well, all I can say is that I hope Aoife is actually writing stuff she likes, and that if she isn’t she’ll see the light and not let John show off and boss her about all the time, like he tried to do with me. I really did have a narrow escape.
But I didn’t say this to Aoife, of course. I just said, ‘Oh, cool. Anyway, I’d better go …’
‘See you around, Rafferty,’ said John in a grand voice. Aoife gave me a shy sort of half-wave, and they were off down the other end of Gracepark Road. And that was that. I walked home feeling very odd. Not in a ‘Oh, I wish I was still going out with him’ way, because I certainly do not. In fact, I’m relieved that I’m not still going out with him, because he is terrible. I suppose Cass is right. Maybe you do feel funny about your exes for ages afterwards. Even if you would rather get sick than ever go out with them again.
Dad is coming home tomorrow. I hate to admit it but I have quite missed him. I’ve texted him asking him to get me one of those lovely lipsticks like Rachel’s one for my very own.
Today Cass and I began our new lives as amazing sweet-makers. It was a bit of a rocky start, of course, but I’m sure we’ll get better soon. We weren’t helped by my mother acting like we were eight years old. She kept hovering over us and going on about how boiling sugar was really dangerous and that we weren’t to touch it − as if we would, we’re not mad. Eventually I had to tell her that if she actually wanted us to have a hideous accident the best way to make this happen was to stand right next to us and keep distracting us by going on about the dangers of cookery. So she went to the other end of the kitchen and looked at us nervously.
Of course, she needn’t have worried. We were fine. The trickiest bit was after the fudge had boiled and we had to stir it really hard for about ten minutes. It turns out that, even with all my drumming and Cass’s keyboard playing, we have very feeble wrists. And stirring fudge is really hard work. Eventually we had to give in and ask my mum if she’d take a turn, but she was going out to collect my dad from the airport so she couldn’t.
‘I was onl
y waiting until you’d got past the dangerous boiling sugar stage,’ she said. ‘I’m running late already. Your dad’s flight is due in a few minutes.’
So we had to keep beating it ourselves.
‘I think my wrist is going to fall off,’ I said after we’d had a few turns each.
‘Well, if Alice was here there’d be three of us and it would be easier,’ said Cass, taking the wooden spoon. ‘We could take shorter turns.’ She stirred and stirred until she was red in the face. Then she dropped the spoon in the bowl, exhausted.
‘Has it been ten minutes yet?’ she said.
I looked at my watch.
‘More or less,’ I said.
So we left it to set, as the instructions advised.
‘You know,’ said Cass, as we drank some refreshing lemonade while the fudge did its thing, ‘if this all works out, we might even get our own cookery show on telly. Teenage cooks! Who are also in a band! I think it could work.’
‘Ooh, and we could play a song in each episode,’ I said. ‘That could be our gimmick.’
‘What are you blathering on about?’ said Rachel, wandering into the kitchen.
‘Our plans to be celebrity-cooks-slash-rock-goddesses,’ said Cass.
Rachel laughed in a not very supportive way.
‘Ha! Well, let me know how that works out for you,’ she said, and strolled out again.
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘What does she know?’
‘Yeah, she’ll be sorry when we’re incredibly famous and she’s begging to be allowed on our show,’ said Cass. ‘Is the fudge set yet?’
But it wasn’t, so Cass had the excellent idea of designing some labels for the boxes in which we will sell our wares. Cass wants to design theatre sets, and she’s pretty good at designing other things too. Of course, she consulted with me, and after a while she came up with a cool little logo with the words Hey Dollface written in two different types of lettering.
