Was He The Queen?!

by Dillie Dorian

Was He The Queen?!

  This so far was a night without man-made disturbances – Charlie had stayed in his room, Zak had worn himself out again, and Kitty wasn’t stirring. Despite my tiredness from yet another long walk and the lingering muscle strain from Friday’s static game of Twister, I was having trouble sleeping. My head was spinning with the barefaced randomness that had been going on of late.

  Was He The Queen?!

  Dillie Dorian

  Copyright 2007-2013 Dillie Dorian

  Oops! Did I Forget I Don’t Know You?

  Double Dates (& Single Raisins)

  A Bended Family

  While Shepherds Washed My Socks

  Sitting Down Star Jumps

  Now, Maybe, Probably…

  And many more…

  https://www.dilliedorian.co.uk

  Contents:

  #0 Preambling Note To Shells

  #1 Was He The Queen?!

  #2 Squat Rudy & Bloody Otter

  #3 Mollies & Toms

  #4 Rabbit People

  #5 Drawing With The Darkness

  #6 The Glossy, Bossy Girl

  #7 A Different Perspective

  #8 Family Emergency!

  #9 Anvilicious

  #10 In The Pink

  #11 Scathing Remarks & Lard-Arsery

  #12 Denial & Embracement

  #13 tssis! tssis! tsssssis!

  #14 Feeling Rectangular

  #15 Milk Mission

  #16 Airing Out The Laundry

  #0 Preambling Note To Shells

  Dear Shelley + Assorted Prying Aussies

  Just as I’d resolved to keep it to myself, life got so hectic again that I genuinely needed to vent. With the help of my meek, sweet friends (Dani, Rindi and Fern), my nutty, batty friends (Devon and Rach, definitely), my catty, bitchy friends (Chantalle and Keisha), and even my… brothers’ friends (Andy and Ry), it was starting to look doable. The five month wait until you and your mum and dad and bro would be back from Oz for good, I mean.

  We were over the hump, as they say. (Whoever it is that says that.) The mourning period had long since ended, and we were only getting the occasional sniffles whenever the issue of not answering the phone came up. (By “we”, I of course mean me.)

  So yeah, there’s quite a lot I have to tell you. Things are very much not as they seem, and there’s been a lot of it going around of late. On the plus side, a few people at school have started taking “Cruddy” Sketched Kid seriously as a band since they got (part of) their name on a pub sandwich board. That’s something, I suppose.

  Other than that, you’ll just have to read and see…

  KCACO (meaning “keep calm and carry on”, as the WWII poster in our History room curtly put it)

  Harley

  #1 Was He The Queen?!

  Charlie skipped into the living room, hugging his matt black flip phone to his chest. “Guess what?!”

  I looked up from my copy of Sugar. “What?”

  “We’ve got the gig after all!”

  “Cool, where?”

  “Pub in town!” he squeed. “On Andy’s dad’s birthday like we wanted!”

  “Yeah? How many people?” I smirked. Sure, Andy’s dad’s got a whole bunch of friends, but it’d probably just amount to a casual beer and home again for most of them. The band needed a proper audience.

  “About twenty odd!” he gushed.

  “Gee, well done,” said Zak, taking one eye off his DS.

  “I mean… that’s the amount of people we need to bring to get… paid,” said Charlie, awkwardly. “Do you think we’ll be able?”

  “Sure…” I said, with as little intonation as I could manage. However he heard it was fine with me.

  “Die…” mumbled Zak absorbed back into his game.

  “I’m going to tell Devon right away!” said Charlie, needlessly, disappearing.

  I switched off and went back to The Top Seven Ways To Tell If He Likes You. Pity it didn’t include The Top Seventy Ways To Act Interested In Your Brothers. I couldn’t even get close to the mood for Charlie and his band-world ramblings, because my teeth still felt like a platoon of ants were inside my mouth trying to heave them out, after my afternoon ortho appointment.

  My mobile rang before I’d finished the article.

  “Yeah…?” I mumbled, dozily.

  “S’me.”

  “I can tell from the caller-ID, Dev. What d’you want?”

  “Y’heard about the gig, right?”

  “Well, ’course I did. Cyclone Charlie was here a minute ago, spreading the news.”

  “Great, isn’t it?!”

  “Yes, Devon.”

  “Y’don’t sound too thrilled…”

  “I’m doing my homework,” I lied.

  “Charlie, is she doing her homework?” I heard her ask to the brother in the background. “No, you’re reading Bliss.”

  “It’s Sugar, actually. Probably ask him why he was even halfway right about what magazine. Bye, Dev!”

  I hung up.

  Something had been niggling in my brain right the way since Charlie announced the gig. I was so sure Andy’s dad’s birthday was in September, which is nowhere near March.

  I ran to the kitchen calendar to check, and it was biro’d in for the seventh of September just like every year. Was he the Queen?!

  I flicked back to check when the gig was scrawled for. Yep, “Birthday GiG” in Charlie’s flailing vertical board handwriting – Saturday the 3rd of March. Three days before Andy’s fourteenth. Given that two members of the band were related to Hugh, who on earth had arranged this “birthday” gig?

  This was a question I posed to Charlie during tea. “His birthday’s not ’til we’re in Year 10,” I informed him. “Who organised this thing in the first place?”

  Charlie stabbed his sausage, mortified. “Bloody Otter. He’s a stoner, he doesn’t know anybody’s birthday.”

  “Language, Charlie!” warned Harry.

  “Bloody, bloody language!” repeated Kitty.

  But what a wonderful unbirthday surprise for Andy’s lovely dad – his own nearly grown-up nephew deciding when he would turn fifty-five…

  #2 Squat Rudy & Bloody Otter

  What felt like too soon after Rachel’s birthday fandango, was Rindi’s. There were actually about four weeks between their birthdays, but my nerves still hadn’t settled from the last cardbuying. I’d probably even have to get Rindi a present really, given that I couldn’t even kid myself she was annoying.

  School had been hell since half term, because SATs revision was in full throe, and Señor Campbell had started to properly obsess over the Spanish exchange next month. Even though everyone had gone back to being pally, Keisha and Chantalle had never quite exited Bitch Mode. I was also pretty sure they still spoke to Asta, though they both kept saying she was awful.

  On Saturday I took myself to the shops for a prezzie hunt. Devon was taking care of cards this time, having had the brainwave of selling Easter ones and gone into a mass production frenzy that she’d slap me for claiming was quite that capitalist. (It was.) So it was just me in the high street, shivering in my school jumper because I’d finally got up the courage to ask Harry for a new jacket and been told I’d have one of Aimee’s horrible chav fleeces until September.

  If I wore my own jacket now, Harry would cotton on and get narky about me “lying” to get more clothing allowance, which was utterly unfair because it really hadn’t fit since Year 8, and now I couldn’t even be seen in it. Aimee’s old pink fleece hoodie was one of those icky ones you have to pull over your head and mess up your hair, and it had “PRINCESS” studded across the back in fake crystals as if anyone was supposed to believe she could afford gemstones or was really royalty.

  Yick, ya
ck, yuck…

  The shops in town were pretty unhelpful, because I only had a fiver in my pocket and was supposed to keep half of it for emergency bus money. You couldn’t even get a book for £2.50 unless…

  I wound up in the charity shop once again. Oxfam had a whole shelf down the side for chick lit, and another at the back dedicated to more tween stuff. Half the books were the type where an adult recounts their early life of abuse for twenty hours, and I knew she wouldn’t fancy that. The rest were fictional accounts of being terrible at being a woman, a wife, a mother, or implausible love stories that made me want to go back to the kiddie section. I needed to pick something before the shop shut and rush home to help the boys prepare for their ridiculous gig, so I had to hurry. It wasn’t ideal, but I managed to pick out “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” and had to hope she’d never read it before, because I had, from the library two months ago.

  As a stroke of luck, they were selling the half-rolls of Crimby wrapping paper someone had donated, so I was able to pick the least festive to cover the book. Did the person think it would never be Christmas again? Would it actually never be Christmas again for that person? It made me sad to think, so I chose not to think about it anymore. Said “least festive” turned out to be a squat Rudolph pattern with a cheeky smile and round red nose, but I knew she’d like it anyway, so it was a done deal, with nothing more to worry about until the actual party in a week’s time. Nice and low-key, she’d chosen a friendly sleepover in the living room, as far from her two sisters as we could reasonably get without illegally pitching a tent in the Wildgrounds, or spending the night out in her garden which backs onto a graveyard.

  Back at our house, it was chaos.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!” moaned Charlie, right at me, the moment I’d got the front door open. “Jordy’s supposed to be here by now!!”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said drily, hoping to catch his sense of humour off guard.

  “It’s not funny, Harley!” he whined. “We’ve got to be at the pub to thingycheck at six and then we’re on at half seven and Devon says it’s a full moon!”

  “Have you even had tea?” I asked.

  “Noooooo… too nervous to eat.”

  “Get bread. Sit on sofa. Eat bread,” I commanded. He had to at least eat something – we both got the worst hunger pangs from skipping even one meal.

  Charlie did as he was told, and even chucked a slice to the ever-present Andy.

  “So what’re you playing?” I asked them, hoping I was being helpful.

  “Some of our own, then other stuff…” Charlie mumbled. “Dunno how long we’ve actually got.”

  “Like?” prompted Devon, who probably already knew and just wanted to hear him speak or something.

  Andy took over – ha! “Well, ‘Sanitising Urchins’ to begin with, ’cause it’s quite quiet; then ‘Seizing the Rapture’; then ‘Greyscale’ – people love that one-”

  “Who’s people?” I asked, looking at him cynically.

  “Well, everyone that’s heard it. It’s more like actual real music than most of the rest.” Charlie shivered, sucking air in through his teeth when he was done talking.

  “But I was going through the setlist!” protested Andy. “Then there’s ‘Off-White Indium’, and we’re finishing with ‘The Last Guerilla’.”

  That already sounded like enough material for a stupid short set in a pub no one cares about – covers would not be necessary.

  “Hey, what about ‘Fred Bare’?” asked Charlie. “He’s my Ziggy Stardust! My Saint Jimmy! My-”

  “There’s that weird bit of bass in the middle and I can’t play that fast!” Andy groaned. “I’ll always get that wrong, I know it.”

  “Argh. Miss it out, then! We’re playing ‘Fred Bare’ and that’s final! It’s got four parts; it’s an actual epic poem. And besides, the best.”

  “Y’know what?” withered Andy.

  “What?”

  “Do ‘Fred Bare’ second – and tell the girls what other stuff we’ll do!”

  “OK: some Green Day, then some Good Charlotte, and that’s about it. I said we don’t know how long we have. Where is Jordy?!”

  Where was Jordy…?

  “What time’s it?” Andy asked, trying to keep the conversation earthed, having noted Charlie’s rising vocal pitch.

  “Quar’ past five. He needs to hurry up!”

  “He’ll be here,” I reassured him, though I knew nothing of Jordy’s true reliability rate. “Now who’s your drummer tonight? I’d like to see you tackle the guitar and singing and drums all at once.”

  I don’t know why, but when you’re a twin, every time you can’t find a way to be a great big thunder-stealer, you have to be the one to point out their hugest, stupidest flaw at the last moment possible.

  “Still Otter,” said Andy. “We think it’s going to be Otter for a while.”

  “And can you actually play well enough to do other people’s songs?” I continued. I wasn’t just trying to antagonise – it would be mortifying for them to realise that one of the chords in “Walking Contradiction” was one of the chords they didn’t know… or, insert more accurate musician problem here.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Charlie insisted.

  The Tweenies doorbell went, and Andy rushed to get it. He returned shouting, “Otter’s here! He’s got his mate’s van opened up ready!”

  “Where’s JORDY?!” wailed Charlie.

  “I don’t know!” yelled Andy. “I’ll call him. Come on.”

  “Yeah, just let me brush my hair,” Charlie flustered. “Would eyeliner be too much?”

  “YES,” I provided, just in case.

  I went out the front to hang around the van instead of bothering with whingey Charlie and doting Dev. I’d been hoping Otter’s mate would be hot. He wasn’t – it was some guy with lank, light brown hair and an odd gardeny smell about him. I’d never seen him before, and it didn’t seem like they were close. Perhaps Otter was using him for his van.

  Otter himself looked OK. I’d always had a weird, wavery crush on him, because he’d always kind of been around since we were all very little. Sunday lunches and family barbecues and the like. He’d also always been about four years older (read: four years taller and more grown up), which was just attractive. He did in fact have bright green dreads, just like Charlie had told me, and I could see the lay of his muscles underneath his tight shirt. I’d thought stoners were lazy, but he was incredibly fit. It made me feel all wibbly.

  “Hey, Harley,” he said, when he spotted me.

  “Hhhhhhh…” I managed in reply.

  Great, a seventeen year old grunger had moved into my top spot as far as crushes went. This was worse than when Devon thought I was into Ben. At least Ben was spotty. Otter was tall and gorgeous and it just wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t Andy be gorgeous? He had a face like someone had dropped a brick on him as a baby – though I knew I really only felt that way because I’d known him properly for most of my life. Still, he was nice, and I wasn’t attracted to him, and had to instead fall head over heels for his stupidly hot older cousin who would never go out with me in a million years! I mean, he couldn’t, anyway. Keisha had gone out with a sixteen year old once for two days, but he wanted the wrong things and got a black eye.

  Charlie and Andy brought their mini amps and guitars to the van. They hadn’t needed a van for that! I said as much and felt stupid when Otter pointed out that he also had all his drum pieces in the back.

  “I’ve just rung Jordy – he says he is coming,” announced Andy.

  “We know he is coming,” snapped Charlie. “WHEN is he coming?!”

  Andy had no answer.

  The boys got a lift to the pub, and Devon managed to flirt her way in by buddying up with the limp cabbage guy for two minutes, but I had to walk with Mum. Harry was staying behind with Kitty, as well as Aimee and Zak who didn’t even want to come.

  At the pub, we waited and sipped Cokes and waited some more. It felt like
hours before even the soundcheck, and then there was another terrible band on before them. I’d never actually heard ‘Fred Bare’ or ‘The Last Guerrilla’ before, so I was able to stay patient and at least faintly interested until it was time for Charlie & Co to hit the stage. When it was, there was still no sign of Jordy. Maybe he’d wimped out at the last minute, bless.

  “Where is Jordy? Where is Jordy?” Charlie muttered not quite under his breath next to me at our sticky table. “Where is Jordy? Where is Jordy?”

  I followed his rhythm in my head, quite content with a situation where I would be free to ogle both Jordy and Otter onstage for an entire set – as long as everything went to plan.

  “Ring Jordy!” he suddenly exploded in Andy’s direction.

  “Why me? I already rang him,” Andy pointed out, fidgeting nervously with his bass.

  “I’ll bloody ring him,” sighed Otter. So he’d been the source of “bloody”. He was actually Bloody Otter, as gross as that sounds.

  “Excuse me,” said the landlord to Otter, who was very clearly already on the phone. “Have we got a problem? If you can’t start in five I’m going to have to ask you to pack up and go.”

  Otter shook his head, thin little dready bits wiggling as he did. “He’s not coming,” he said solemnly, three minutes later. “His nan’s gone into hospital and he’s not in the mood.”

  “He could’ve said earlier!” wailed Charlie.

  “That sucks about his nan,” said Andy, who looked completely neutral about the circumstances, being a doctor’s son. “But what’re we going to do?”

  “We don’t need a keyboardist,” said Otter. “No one needs a keyboardist unless it’s synthpop. Or symphonic metal. Or-”

  “Alright…” said Charlie, sickly.

  “Calm down,” said Devon, who’d been in the toilets for most of this conversation.

  “I can’t do it…” mumbled Charlie. He looked like he could start crying into his Coke from the stress of it, but me and Mum didn’t really know what to say because we were both pretty good at setting him off when he wanted to cool it.

  “Two minutes!” called the landlord.

  “Just get up there and give it your best,” said Andy’s dad, who had come to the pub without his mates and not let Otter forget about forgetting his birthday. “No one’s really here anyway.”

  Charlie nodded slowly and approached the corner that was acting as a stage. Otter sat down at his kit. Andy fussed with the pegs at the top of his bass. The crappy opening notes of “Sanitising Urchins” escaped Andy’s amp, and Charlie opened his mouth to sing, just as a group of three middle aged men lurched into the pub. One of them shook a fist at the band and said something nasty. He had a shaven head and an unshaven face, and he reminded me of someone I didn’t want to be reminded of.