Rock That Frock!

by Coleen McLoughlin

  Mrs Palmer clapped like mad, looking really pleased as we all panted and grinned at her. “That was brilliant,” she congratulated us. Her eyes flickered to the fireplace elephant and she frowned ever so slightly. “Did you move—” she began.

  “Glad you liked it, Mum,” Mel said loudly.

  “Do you think we’ll win?” I said, joining the conversation as quickly as I could before Mrs Palmer started asking awkward questions about the fireplace elephant’s new position.

  With one last glance at her elephant, Mrs Palmer smiled back at us. “With moves like that, you’re bound to,” she said warmly.

  Yay! Battle of the Bands, bring it on!

  Four

  You could’ve cut the atmosphere in our local youth club with a knife. Not even a knife, to be honest – a spoon would probably have done the trick. It was the day of the Battle of the Bands qualifiers, and the place was totally packed out with rock-star hopefuls.

  “Do you really think we’re ready for this?” Lucy asked nervously as we shuffled towards the desk where they were taking registration details.

  “As ready as we’ll ever be,” Mel said, trying to sound brave.

  “C’mon!” I said, rallying my band members. “Bounce Back rocks, OK?”

  Bounce Back was the name we’d given our band. It had just the right mix of fun and rhythm to it. And we looked totally wicked, even if I say so myself. We were all wearing black and gold. Mel had skinny black jeans and a white tee with gold swirls on it. Lucy was totally in black apart from her gold trainers, and I was wearing a gold ra-ra skirt that I’d made from this amazing gold crepe paper that works like material and doesn’t tear when you sew it.

  I turned around, looking for Mum and Nan. When I saw them standing with Mel’s mum and Lucy’s parents at the back of the hall, they both gave me big smiles and thumbs-up. Em and Dad were at footie, but Em had done me a card that morning. I took it out of my pocket and read it.

  It’s the winning that counts, not the taking part!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  I wondered if she knew she’d got it a bit wrong, and decided that she probably did. Winning was everything where Em was concerned!

  “You’ve got the CD, right?” Mel checked with Lucy.

  Lucy waved the CD at us. We’d done it so we just had the backing rhythms of Wave Like You Mean It and we would then sing over the top.

  Everyone was milling around in crazy, colourful outfits. Summer and her mates were stood in the corner, giggling in our direction while they adjusted their matching pink dresses (ick!). A couple of young kids were by the door, plastered in goth make-up and looking terrified. They couldn’t be old enough to take part, surely? And right in the corner I could see Ben, Dave and Ali prowling around each other like wary tigers. There was no sign of Jasmine. I’m sure Lucy had said she was in Ben’s band too.

  “You know that playground fight?” Lucy said, seeing me checking out Ben and his band. “It was about Jasmine Harris. Ben had heard this rumour that Jasmine had been two-timing him with Dave.”

  “No!” Mel gasped. “Seriously?”

  Lucy nodded. “That’s why he was laying into Dave in the playground.”

  “Do you think the rumour could be true?” I asked, watching as Ben and Dave started arguing in low voices while Ali looked on in a fed-up kind of way.

  “Who knows,” Lucy said. “Ben has dumped Jasmine anyway. That’s why she’s not here. But at least him and Dave are talking again.”

  Ben and Dave’s voices were getting louder. The kids standing near them were starting to edge away.

  “Not sure if I’d call that talking,” Mel said. “More like arguing.”

  We’d reached the registration table. “Names, band name, song,” said the bored-looking girl at the table. We told her. She raised her eyebrows a bit when we said our song, but wrote it down anyway.

  “What was that about?” Lucy asked as we took our seats in the hall.

  Mel shrugged. “Dunno. But hey – it looks like Ben’s band is first up!”

  Sure enough, Ben, Dave and Ali were climbing on to the stage.

  “A big welcome to our first band of the day – Snarl!” boomed a voice down a microphone.

  “Snarl sounds about right,” I said as the audience cheered and settled down in their seats. Ben was shooting Dave the filthiest looks over his drum kit as Dave tuned up his guitar.

  They lashed into their song like they were trying to kill it. Playing bass, Ali tried to keep it together, but Ben was too busy eyeballing Dave to keep to the beat, and Dave was totally off the beat as well.

  “Is it just me,” said Mel in a low voice, “or are Ben and Dave trying to turn this into some kind of musical duel?”

  “Oh dear,” Lucy groaned. “I guess they’ve still not made up.”

  Ben was battering at his drum kit like a lunatic, totally drowning Dave out every time Dave tried to do anything on his guitar. The song splintered into pieces, finishing all together as Ali flung his bass to the ground and stormed off the stage. Yelling could be heard backstage as Dave and Ben ran off the platform as well.

  “Er – thank you, Snarl,” said the voice on the microphone. “Next up, we have Coffin. Coffin?”

  “Coffin?” I echoed, pulling my thoughts away from Ben’s awful performance and shaking my head in disbelief as the band of shivering little goths clambered on to the stage. “What kind of a name is that?”

  It turned out that I had been right about their age – Coffin were a group of Year Sevens. And as eleven was too young for the Battle, they were ushered off the stage by one of the officials while the audience booed them happily. We then sat through five pretty dismal bands of assorted lads with names like Thrash Bunnies and Kick Mighty, who managed to strangle their songs so much that no one could work out what they were supposed to be.

  “The Fashionistas, please?” called the voice on the microphone, sounding a bit dazed by now. “The Fashionistas!”

  “This ought to be good,” Mel said, perking up as Summer and her mates climbed on to the stage. Summer shot me a glance I couldn’t quite work out. It looked like triumph.

  “They look awful,” Lucy giggled.

  Summer had so much hairspray on her head that her long, blond, teased-up locks looked like a cloud of candyfloss. I swear you could see her eyelashes from the back row. Shona and Hannah looked even worse, with bright pink lipstick slashed across their faces like a couple of primped-up dollies.

  A familiar-sounding tune kicked in from the speakers. Dumbstruck, we looked at each other as Summer, Hannah and Shona started moving to the familiar sounds of Wave Like You Mean It by Bubbly.

  “I don’t believe it!” Lucy squealed in horror.

  It was a nightmare. Summer was doing our song!

  “Wave, wave, wave like you mean it,” Summer sang, doing this fluttering thing with her hands.

  “If there’s a better way, I ain’t seen it,” Hannah and Shona sang obediently, standing just behind Summer like a couple of robotic backing singers.

  My brain was zooming at a million miles an hour. That was why the girl at the desk had raised her eyebrows when we had told her our song – she’d already written it down for Summer! And we were about to get up on that stage and do it all over again? There was no way the audience wasn’t going to boo us!

  “Did Summer know we were doing this song?” Mel hissed at me, recovering from the shock.

  “Please make this all a bad dream,” Lucy moaned.

  Crash-crash-crash went those familiar drums at the end as Summer, Hannah and Shona twirled like little ballerinas in a music box.

  “They like it,” Mel said in a hollow voice as the audience all clapped. “We’re dead.”

  “We’re not dead,” I insisted out loud. We’re totally dead, said the little voice in my head. I thought back to the day when I saw Summer, Hannah and Shona in the music practice room. Had I heard them singing Wave Like You Mean It then? I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Was it possible that they had heard us and ch
anged their song?

  “Good luck,” Summer hissed across at me as she walked past our row, heading back to her seat with Hannah and Shona. “You and your little band are going to look sooo stupid. Wave, girls. Wave!”

  Roaring with laughter, Summer, Hannah and Shona all waggled their fingers at us in these teensy, sarcastic waves. Summer had heard us! Of all the sneaky things to do…

  “Bounce Back?” called the voice on the microphone. “Bounce Back to the stage, please!”

  “What are we going to do?” Lucy squeaked in a terrified voice.

  “We’re going to get up there and show Summer Collins what we’re made of,” I said, practically pulling Lucy and Mel out of their seats after me. “Their routine stank. Ours rocks – and don’t forget it!”

  Up on the stage, I gazed down at the sea of faces. Mum and Nan were a couple of anxious-looking blurs at the back of the hall. My legs felt like jelly. Then a stifled giggle from Summer pulled me out of the panic-zone. There was no way I was going to let Summer win this! The opening chords of Wave Like You Mean It boomed across the hall as me, Lucy and Mel got into position.

  “Yawn!” Summer shrieked. “Be more original, why don’t you!”

  I grabbed the nearest microphone. “I’d just like to say,” I said as the beat moved towards the start of our routine, “first the worst, second the best. Remember that.”

  Jump, jump, jump – and down, jump, jump, jump – and around…We moved together perfectly, pumping the air and moving up and down the stage.

  “Put, your, hands, in, to, the, air,” we sang, waving our arms as we pogoed up and down. “Kick, your, feet, like, you, don’t, care. Wave, wave, wave like you mean it…”

  I cupped my hands behind my ears as Mel and Lucy danced beside me, listening to the way the crowd sang the next line back at us: “If there’s a better way, we ain’t seen it!”

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” we sang, moving into our elbows-to-the-knee move and snapping out again like perfectly drilled soldiers.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” the crowd roared back. This was the first song of the day where anyone had joined in. That had to be good, right?

  “If there’s a better way, better way, we ain’t seen it – whoo!”

  Crash-crash-crash! went the drums. We jumped into the air in our final pogo while everyone cheered like mad. And then my gold crepe-paper skirt decided that it was bored of hanging around my waist and decided to hit the stage instead, showing my pants to the world. The audience went totally crazy as I grabbed at the skirt with my cheeks burning like a bonfire. They seemed to think it was all part of the routine.

  “Nice move, Coleen!” Mel giggled as we bowed to the shrieking room and I nearly died. “Did you plan that in advance?”

  Unsurprisingly, Ben’s band didn’t make it. But somehow, Summer’s band got through the qualifiers. So did Thrash Bunnies. And so did we! OK, so it would take a bit of time to live down the dropping-skirt thing. But it was so going to be worth it if we went on to lift the Battle of the Bands trophy – and then got to wave it in Summer Collins’ face!

  Five

  We had just four weeks to sort out our song for the Battle of the Bands final, which was going to take place in the Town Hall. I still couldn’t quite believe that we’d made it through the qualifiers and would be singing up on the same stage that Bubbly had performed on just a few weeks earlier. Even more amazing, one of the Bubbly band members was going to be on the judging panel!

  “We’re actually going to sing in front of a member of Bubbly?” Lucy said, looking dazed as we compared the letters we’d got, confirming our places in the final.

  “You’d better start believing it,” I said, folding up my letter and tucking it back into my blazer pocket. “And we’ve still got half a song to write.”

  Mel was frowning at her letter, but I could tell she wasn’t really seeing it. Something had been eating her all morning.

  “Mel,” I said, “you’re supposed to be happy right now. We qualified, didn’t we? Anyone in there?” I clicked my fingers in front of Mel’s face.

  “Hmm?” Mel looked up.

  “Come on, Mel,” Lucy said patiently. “Time to spill.”

  “It’s Mum,” said Mel with a sigh. “She’s still really down about missing that promotion. She acted pleased that we got through the qualifiers, but I could tell that she was thinking about her work. I wish I could think of a present that might take her mind off things.”

  “How about another elephant?” I suggested.

  “I can’t find one she hasn’t already got, or doesn’t cost hundreds of pounds,” Mel said glumly. “Maybe I need to check out the car-boot sale again in a couple of weeks.”

  “Listen,” I said, thinking on my feet. I knew just the way to cheer my mate right up. “I don’t suppose you want to be our band manager, do you?”

  Mel looked shocked. “Seriously?” she said, a delighted little smile spreading across her face.

  I glanced at Lucy. Did she mind that I’d just sprung this on her? But Lu shrugged at me as if to say, “Why not?”

  “Now we’ve reached the final, we need someone to really organise us,” Lucy said out loud, joining in with my spur-of-the-moment plan. “Book practice rooms, boss us around until we’re word perfect. That kind of thing.”

  “I can’t imagine why we thought of you,” I added, punching Mel gently on the arm.

  It took Mel two seconds to think about it. “How do I book a practice room?” she said, looking dead animated as she tucked her letter into her bag. “We’ve got to get on and finish writing our song. How’s dinnertime?”

  “Good.” I grinned over at Lucy. It was working!

  “I mean,” Mel went on, “every dinnertime?”

  The grin fell off my face at that. I had a feeling Mel was going to be good at this job. Maybe a bit too good…

  After two dinnertimes in the practice rooms, we had our second verse.

  “Well done, Col,” said Lucy as I put my pencil down and stared at the finished song.

  “I hope it’s OK,” I said, scribbling an extra couple of lines thoughtfully at the bottom.

  “It’ll be great,” Mel insisted, doing her band-manager thing. “So now we’ve got our lyrics sorted, all we need is a drummer and a guitarist.” She made it sound so easy, like you just had to pop down to the local drummer-and-guitarist shop and take your pick.

  “Ben’s free now,” I pointed out hopefully. To be honest, it was the first thing I’d thought of when Ben’s band flunked the qualifiers.

  “You may have got Ben to do our fashion show,” Lucy said, shaking her head, “but there’s no way you’ll get him to play drums for Bounce Back.”

  “If we get his mates involved like we did last time, maybe he’ll do it!” I said, wondering how Dave and Ali might look as a pair of backing singers.

  “But you saw them at the qualifiers, Coleen,” Lucy pointed out. “Talk about World War Three. Ben doesn’t have any mates to involve right now. All he can think about is his ex-girlfriend, who isn’t talking to him either.”

  Mel was drumming her fingers on the table, her forehead all furrowed up.

  “You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?” I said to Mel, recognising the signs.

  “Maybe,” Mel said with a slow smile. “Maybe not. Just get ready to follow my lead after Friday morning’s assembly and do whatever I do, yeah?”

  Friday morning assembly was usually really boring. Mr Bulford read out a couple of notices, a bunch of kids did a bit of music and then we all went to class. I was dying to know what Mel was planning as we all filed in and sat down.

  A group of Year Tens were doing this morning’s music. As usual with a Year Ten assembly, Jasmine Harris was sitting up on the stage with a couple of other girls I didn’t know. They were all fiddling with their guitars and talking quietly to each other. Automatically I glanced around the room for Ben. He was sitting on the end of a row as far away from Dave as possible, looking up
at the stage. The whole world could see that he had this soppy face on as he watched Jasmine tuning her strings. Whatever Dave and Jasmine had or hadn’t done, Ben wasn’t over Jasmine – it was clear as anything.

  After Mr Bulford had finished droning about fundraising events and upcoming exams, the girls started playing. It was pretty good actually. All the guitars were overlapping each other and doing different things which somehow sounded like one piece of music.

  As we all jostled to our feet at the end Mel hissed at us, “Follow me.”

  Mystified, me and Lucy followed her out of the seats as she headed up towards the stage. Jasmine and the other girls were still putting away their guitars.

  “That was fantastic, Jasmine,” Mel said warmly.

  Jasmine looked surprised as we clustered around her. “Thanks,” she said, smiling slightly.

  “You were brilliant,” Mel continued, treading hard on my toes.

  “Ouch!” I squeaked. This was obviously where Mel needed us to do what she was doing: buttering up Jasmine Harris like she was a piece of toast. But…she wasn’t seriously trying to get Jasmine to join our band, was she?

  “Fantastic!” Lucy said, obediently beaming at Jasmine. She’d obviously twigged what Mel wanted from us as well.

  “Great,” I said, racking my brains for something to say. “Very – Jimi Hendrix.”

  “C’mon, Jas,” said the girl packing up beside Jasmine. “We’re gonna be late back to class.”

  “Hold on, Sita,” said Jasmine. She glanced at Lucy. “Do you have a sec, Lucy?” Lucy nodded.

  Jasmine leaned in. “Has Ben said anything to you about me?” she asked.

  “What kind of thing?” Lucy said, looking confused.

  Jasmine stood up. “Nothing,” she said. “Forget it. Wait up, Sita…”

  “Jasmine?” said Mel quickly. “Listen, we know it’s dead cheeky to ask, but – I don’t suppose you’d like to play in our band for the Battle?”