It's a Girl Thing (13 page)

True to his word, exactly as he'd promised Fleur in the dry cleaners, Christy was here, with a cheeky grin, clutching a CD of orchestral Frank Sinatra songs to his rather muscular chest.

“This is one my gran makes me sing for her every Christmas,” announces Christy as the introduction blasts through the air. Just a tiny hint of a blush seems to cross his cheeks when he realizes what he's just admitted.

“Awwwww,” choruses the LBD plus all the females in the gym. “That's really sweet!”

The thing is, Christy can get away with the gran confession as he's got lovely big brown eyes and he's . . . well, he's just an all-around smashing sort of lad. I mean, okay, he's no Jimi Steele in my opinion, but hey, who is? I know certainly that if anyone else admitted they sang for their gran, they'd have sounded really lame, but from Christy's lips it sounded really cool. Cleverly, Christy must have done a quick clothes changeover in the loos before he arrived, meaning he really cuts a dash from the crowds of black blazers and gray school trousers that surround him; he's wearing a tight black short-sleeved T-shirt and rather expensive-looking dark green combat trousers, showing off well-toned thighs.

Sigh.

Christy definitely has a certain special something about him. He's quite impossible to stop goggling at, even if he is singing “Fly Me to the Moon,” a song that was number one on the charts in about 1802. And sing? Christy can really sing! Big bursting notes and proper melodies too!

“He's a bit X-factor-y, isn't he?” murmurs Fleur, doodling on her notebook.

I'm sure if we'd not been sitting beside her, Fleur would have been practicing writing
Mrs. Fleur Sullivan
over and over again in swirly handwriting, or even adding up the letters in both of their names to find the percentage that Christy loved her. Okay, Fleur
alongside
the entire female contingent of the gym, who are all watching Christy with glazed expressions on their faces. In fact, most of them even have their heads rested in their hands, just gazing at Christy like they were gazing at a big basket of fluffy kittens.

“That was great, Christy!” says Claude as he finishes, drawing a big tick on her notebook beside his name. “Er, but one thing. Do you sing any modern stuff? I mean, that's a bit old-fashioned for what we need. No offense, mind.”

“Aw, well, none taken, yeah, I know what you mean,” says Christy, really blushing now. “I can sing whatever you want, really, ladies. Pop songs, rock songs, er, I've even got some of my own songs that I wrote at home. Me and my brother Seamus in Year Thirteen write our own stuff, you see, he plays the keyboards.”

“That's great!” says Claude. “Very promising.”

“I didn't know you had a big brother,” says Fleur dreamily.

Christy collects his CD and his schoolbag, giving Fleur a little wink as he bids us good-bye. Fleur twinkles her fingers back. As ever, I've become mysteriously invisible in the vicinity of my taller, curvier, blonder pal.

“Thanks for coming, Christy,” I add anyway. “We'll be in touch when we've had a good think about things.”

As Christy Sullivan leaves the room, fading to a snuggly memory in the hearts of a hundred Blackwell schoolgirls, Fleur turns to us both and says, rather unconvincingly, “He was rubbish, wasn't he?” She winks. “I mean, really bad.”

“Atrocious,” says Claude with a big grin across her face.

We all fall about in girlie giggles. Christy Sullivan was indeed wondrous. Blackwell Live has its first act!

And after Christy came the dancing girls.

Sheesh. I didn't realize that so many Blackwell kids took after-school classes at the Anouska Smythe School of Dance, the local dance school. Honestly, I didn't.

I thought most kids just lay about in each other's bedrooms from four P.M. onward, listening to loud music and putting off doing their homework like me, Fleur and Claude do. Well, that was until I sat through four girls, one after another, clad in tight-fitting leotards, chunky leg warmers and sweatbands. Every one pirouetting, leaping and high-kicking to classical music until I felt quite, quite bilious.

They're all so flipping energetic,
I think.
I bet they don't get lapped by the asthmatic kids when they're doing the 1500 meters, like I do.

“And can I just tell you,” gushes one tiny blond girl, “that I'm so excited about this opportunity to perform for you!” The silver ribbons tying up her curly locks match the girl's sparkly ballet pumps exactly. “I mean, I've been singing and dancing around the house since I was, like, two years old or something!”

“Great,” the LBD all say.

“And can I just add that everybody in my family, as well as Anouska Smythe herself, says I'm going to be a worldwide superstar!” she says.

“Really?” says Claude.

“Really!” Blondie squeaks before twirling into the distance, a flurry of arms, legs and curls.

“Good,” says Claude. “NEXT.”

 

 

“Did you bring any headache pills?” whispers Claude, touching her scalp. “I think I'm getting a migraine. This is quite stressful, isn't it?”

“Sorry, mate, I've not got any,” I say, noticing Matthew Brown, a Year 10 lad, approaching us.

“Hang on, I have,” announces Fleur, delving into her rucksack. “Er, but wait a second,” she says, furrowing her brow. “Why is Matthew Brown carrying a large teddy bear?”

We all look up at the next audition waiting to do his turn: She's right, he is holding something very bearish. But it's not quite a teddy bear, that's far too cute a word for the di sheveled, manky stuffed animal that Matthew is clutching to his chest.

“Errr . . . Matthew?” begins Claude with a puzzled expression.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” says the boy. “I am Matthew Brown and this is Mr. Jingles, the amazing talking bear . . .”

“Oh my God, he's a ventriloquist, isn't he?” I shudder. I feel exactly the same about ventriloquists as I do about jugglers. They depress me.

“Let's see if he can do it first.” Fleur giggles, waving at the furry freak show. “Hello, Mr. Jingles! How are you today?” she says.

“I'm gelly well, Gleur!” says Mr. Jingles, damn, I mean, says Matthew. I don't know how I'm possibly getting confused. My granny Tish could see Matthew's lips moving from half a mile away, and she's only in possession of one good eye. I've seen ventriloquism before; this is not the dictionary definition.

“Mr. Jingles, what have you been up to today?” continues Matthew to the moth-eaten museum piece.

“Gwell, Maffew,” says the bear, “I've bween gwatching twe livision!”

Thankfully, Claude has seen enough.

“Matthew, this is a music festival audition,” interrupts Claude quite firmly. Obviously Mr. Jingles has tested her patience. “What's with the ventriloquism?”

“Aha, but we haven't got to the singing, tap-dancing part yet! Have we, Mr. Jingles?” says Matthew, turning to the tufty puppet.

“Gno, we gwhaven't!” says the bear, shaking its head.

“But Matthew, we have got to the end of your allotted time. Sorry,” says Claude, tapping her watch and tutting.

This alone seems to annoy Matthew Brown a great deal. In fact, long after he's huffed and puffed out of the gym with Mr. Jingles slung over his shoulder, we can still hear him fuming about “people not recognizing great talent when they see it.” He's probably out there now joining forces with the squeaky curly-blond superstar girl, cooking up a plot to storm LBD HQ and batter us to death with his stuffed bear. Could these auditions get any worse?

Claude was looking a little weary by now too, so I prescribed a chocolate muffin to cheer her up. Little C smiles and begins searching in her rucksack. And boy, was Claude going to need cheering in light of the Blackwell Bellringing Society, who have just arrived en masse, proceeding to ding-dong merrily and on high (one of them even stood on the vaulting horse, clanging away) until the LBD begged for sweet mercy.

“Bellringing and migraines DO NOT mix,” mumbles Claude, spitting chocolate chips all over her paperwork.

Of course, by this point the very blatant nonappearance of Lost Messiah (and more crucially Jimi Steele) is playing on my mind. The possibility that I've been blown out began as a tiny seed of insecurity an hour ago, blossoming with each ticking second of the gym clock into a whole forest of self-doubt.

“Lost Messiah coming down to perform a special song for us”? Pah. Yeah, right.

“Jimi wanting to know especially if I was going to be there”? As if. My behavior of late is taking the term “dweeb” to previously unseen depths.

I could give myself a slap for believing the stuff that Fleur comes out with. I mean, it's not that Fleur's a liar, it's just that you have to take a lot of the things she says with a large pinch of salt cos she tends to exaggerate. But when she's saying something that you desperately want to hear more than anything else in the world, it's difficult to stick your fingers in your ears and play the “Can't Hear You” game, isn't it?

I stand up, scanning the line hopefully for Jimi's floppy locks or Naz's spiky shark's-fin haircut. No Aaron, no Danny, no Tyson: no Lost Messiah.

Nothing.

Total blowout.

Never mind, I don't give a hoot anyhow. Not that much. It's not like I made a special effort to look nice today or anything. It's not like I hardly slept a wink last night for going over my imaginary script of what I'd say to Jimi when he showed up.

Suddenly Claude lets out a little gasp, disturbing me from my worries. Another act has arrived; another act that isn't Lost Messiah.

“Liam?” Claude says. “What are you doing here?”

“These are the auditions, aren't they?” says Liam Gelding, his silver earring glinting in the late-afternoon sun. “Why do you think I'm here?” Liam has an electric guitar strapped around his chest, and he's holding sheets of paper with what looks like song lyrics scrawled all over them.

“We'll just set up quickly, then,” Liam says, gesturing to the rest of his, er, band: Benny Stark (plus trademark mad curly hair) and a girl holding a guitar and a snare drum.

I'm truly stunned to see Liam Gelding here at Blackwell Live's auditions. I mean, Liam's in our form, so we see him more than most folk . . . but hang on. Liam Gelding adding weight to a Blackwell after-school activity? This just isn't Liam at all. Liam's exactly the sort of lad who'd call us nerds for even dreaming up Blackwell Live in the first place. I sat with him for an hour today in PSE and he never even spoke, let alone mentioned his band.

Freaky.

“We're called Guttersnipe,” mutters Benny to Fleur.

Fleur writes the name down dutifully as Guttersnipe's rather fearsome blond bass player, apparently called Tara, plays a deafening
therwwwwwwwang,
checking her amp's working.

It certainly is: The table has just reverberated.

“I'm set to go when you lads are,” Tara announces, holding a guitar pick between her teeth.

Wow. Tara really does look fantastic with that guitar. I must remember to ask Mr. Foxton tomorrow exactly why I've wasted three years farting about on a glockenspiel when I could have been mastering bass guitar. By now, I could look exactly like Tara: cool, powerful and totally intimidating. You don't really get that look with two mallets playing “Old MacDonald.”

As Tara and Benny prepare, Liam hovers center stage, strumming the occasional chord and looking slightly jittery.

“C'mon, Benny, get a move on,” Liam starts to nag.

But just what Liam Gelding plans to contribute to Guttersnipe is really puzzling me. You see, I'm pretty sure Liam can't even read or write properly, so I don't suppose mastering lead guitar is high up on his things-to-do list either. I'm not being a bitch here, before you start thinking it, I'm being truthful. I really like Liam, but there's a bit of a story attached to him. He's just a bit “wild,” as my mum would say. You see, during Year 8, Liam sort of stopped turning up at Blackwell, preferring to hang around the Westland Shopping Mall instead. Liam Gelding proved to me that if you wanted to “opt out” of school, it could be done. Easily. And even when he did show up, he did stupid things like climbing up on the school roof or swearing at teachers, which meant that Mr. McGraw kicked him out again,
tout de suite.

“Suits me fine,” Liam would snort, heading for the gate.

Claude knows Liam a lot better than I do.

Bless her, she popped around to Liam's flat several times during Year 8 with projects and course work . . . but Liam was hardly ever home. One night, at LBD HQ, Claude got a bit upset and remarked that even when Liam did get suspended from Blackwell, it wasn't like anyone back home cared.

Anyway, I shouldn't gossip.

That's really as much as I know about Liam Gelding. Claude's very tight-lipped about what else she knows. It's cool, however, that Liam is turning up for school a bit more in Year 9. Sheesh, some days he even stays right though till 3:30 P.M. and everything.