Rock That Frock!

by Coleen McLoughlin

  “What’s the point without Ben and Jasmine?” Lucy said with a shrug.

  “We’ve got to believe it’ll work out,” Mel said. “There’s less than two weeks left until the gig, guys.”

  “How’s your mum, Mel?” I asked, suddenly remembering.

  Mel shook her head. “Not great,” she said. “She was applying for a bunch of other jobs over the weekend.”

  “Jasmine,” Lucy suddenly hissed in my ear.

  I whirled around. Jasmine Harris was walking down the corridor, flanked by a couple of her mates.

  “And Ben!” Mel squeaked, lurching to a halt as we saw Lucy’s brother walking towards us from the opposite direction.

  We slammed ourselves back against the lockers that lined the corridor.

  “I want a word with you, Ben Hanratty,” Jasmine said.

  “Is that good?” Lucy whispered nervously as we watched Ben and Jasmine walking towards each other like cowboys in some kind of high-noon shoot-out. “It doesn’t sound good.”

  Jasmine’s two mates slid away from her side like well-oiled spacepods leaving the mother ship. Was it my imagination, or had the whole corridor gone quiet?

  “Ew,” said Mel, as Ben and Jasmine suddenly ran into each other’s arms. “What is it with these two doing stuff so publicly?”

  The corridor started cheering and whooping. Totally oblivious, Ben and Jasmine kissed. I tried not to stare. Seeing them like that was doing something very weird to my stomach. I’d never kissed anyone. I wondered what it would feel like – and if I’d ever do it and not even notice the whole school was watching?

  “OK,” said Lucy as we got off the bus the next day. “I’m officially grossed out.”

  “It’s all for the good of the band,” Mel pointed out.

  I was wishing I had little earflaps I could lower over my ears to cut out the smoochy noises going on behind us. Ben and Jasmine weren’t going to let a little thing like arriving at school stop them now.

  “I’ve rebooked practice room three for dinnertime today,” Mel said. “Now we just have to tell the lovebirds to meet us there so we can do some serious work on our song. We’ve got so much to do.”

  “You’ll tell Ben, won’t you, Lu?” I said.

  Lucy glanced back at her brother and Jasmine and shuddered. “No way am I interrupting that,” she said. “I’ll text him.”

  “By the way, how are you getting on with our outfits, Col?” asked Mel.

  I’d been working out a scheme for our outfits since the weekend, and it was looking great. “Trust me,” I said, tapping my nose. “I’m working on it.”

  And with that sorted, we made our way to our classroom. Summer pushed past us as we got to the door, making Mel lose her footing and bang into the wall.

  “What is your problem, Summer?” I demanded. Summer Collins was really winding me up now.

  Summer smirked at me. “I’m not the one with the problem,” she said.

  “I don’t like the way Hannah and Shona laughed just then,” I said to Mel in a low voice as we took our seats. Something was going on with Summer, and it was making me nervous.

  “Forget them,” Mel said. “They’re just jealous of our five-piece band.” She said five-piece band extra loudly, just to make sure Summer could hear her. “With that and our brilliant song, Summer’s little Fashionistas haven’t got a hope in the Battle.”

  “Summer might have written a good song,” I pointed out. Summer and her mates were certainly looking confident about something.

  “Yeah,” Lucy agreed.

  “They haven’t got an original idea in their heads,” Mel scoffed. “You’ve only got to look at them to know that.”

  We gazed at the way Summer, Hannah and Shona had all done their hair in side ponytails today. I don’t mean to be unkind, but Mel had a point.

  So what exactly was Summer looking so pleased about?

  We soon found out.

  Most dinnertimes, if the weather’s OK, the hall isn’t too busy. But because of the rain today, it was heaving. Practically all the tables were full and we had to queue for ages to get our food.

  “That’s ten minutes gone from our rehearsal time,” Mel said fretfully, banging her tray down on the last table we could find – the one right by the kitchens, which no one ever wants to sit at because of the smell. “Everyone eat fast, yeah?”

  We all turned to gaze at where Jasmine was sitting on Ben’s lap two tables down, feeding him bits of pasta and roaring with laughter. Eating like that was going to take ages. I was wondering how we could get their attention when Summer, Hannah and Shona stopped at the table in between us and Ben.

  “I see you got your letters then,” Summer said conversationally to Ben and Jasmine.

  The food in my mouth turned to dust as Ben and Jasmine looked round at Summer in surprise. A bit of pasta was still hanging off Ben’s lip.

  “Only,” Summer continued, “I guess no one told you that you didn’t write them. They were from your tragic little band mates.”

  How—?

  Summer shot me a look of blazing triumph. “You really shouldn’t blab your plans all over the dinner hall, Coleen,” she said. “I mean – anyone could be listening.”

  We just gawped at her in horror.

  “Sorry about your five-piece band, Mel,” Summer added silkily as Ben and Jasmine suddenly pushed away from each other. “Looks like you might just be down to three.”

  Eight

  “OK,” I began helplessly, holding up my hands

  towards Ben and Jasmine as Summer and her mates howled with laughter and wiggled off down the dinner hall. Lucy and Mel just sank their heads down on to the table as I spluttered: “We can explain, honest—”

  “This had better be good,” Jasmine said.

  “We’re listening,” Ben said.

  I couldn’t read their faces at all.

  “Right,” I said, wetting my lips and darting a frantic glance at my mates. But Lucy and Mel’s heads were firmly in their hands. It looked like I was going to get the full blame here – smack between the eyes.

  “Well,” I began, “since it’s totally clear to everyone in the school that you guys are nuts about each other, we just maybe gave you a teensy little nudge back together. You’d have got there in the end,” I added hastily. “We just – didn’t have time to wait, with the Battle of the Bands in just a couple of weeks, and…I mean,” I continued, feeling a little bolder as they didn’t howl me down, “you should be thanking us, right?”

  “Thanking you,” Ben repeated.

  “Next you’ll be telling us that you somehow set us up when we joined the band too?” Jasmine said.

  Mel cleared her throat. “Funny you should say that,” she mumbled.

  “Are you really, really mad?” Lucy asked, peeping timidly at her brother from between her fingers.

  “It was my little sister’s idea,” I burst out, seeing all my plans for winning the Battle of the Bands going up in smoke, “and I know you’re thinking: what kind of idiot listens to a seven-year-old? and you’re probably right – but we were that desperate! And you’re just dead good, both of you, and it was a real shame you didn’t make it past the qualifiers, Ben…”

  I tailed off. Ben and Jasmine both had these looks on their faces that reminded me of Dad when I was telling him about the pink yoghurt.

  “Are you – laughing at me?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Yup,” said Mel, as Ben and Jasmine both fell about, holding their sides and totally wetting themselves. “I think they are, Col.”

  So much for Summer Collins’ plan. Ben and Jasmine thought it was the funniest thing ever. I guess that’s love for you. We cracked on with our rehearsals, with Ben and Jasmine never wasting an opportunity to take the mick out of us for setting them up. I didn’t care. The song was going well at last, and having my crush and his girlfriend laughing at me was a small price to pay.

  “Summer’s as sour as a lemon with toothache,” Mel said gleefully as w
e finished rehearsals for the week on Friday dinnertime.

  “Good,” Lucy said. “First she nicked our song for the qualifiers, and then she tried to ruin our band for the final. I mean, how would she like it if we did that to her?”

  That set me thinking. Summer had got away with too much since this whole Battle thing began – not to mention the way she’d set me up at the fashion show that time. Payback was way overdue.

  “Have either of you heard Summer’s band practising this week?” I asked thoughtfully.

  Mel pulled a face. “Yes, worse luck,” she said. “I’m telling you, they were like three cats in a bag. You push my buttons, baby,” she started singing in a squeaky Summer voice, “I love you true, you push my buttons baby, I love youuu…Lame or what?”

  “Makes her sound like a pedestrian crossing,” Lucy giggled.

  I almost fell over as a brilliant idea whooshed through me, tingling through to my fingertips. It was a blinder.

  “I know how we can get Summer back!” I squealed. “She’s always stealing our ideas, right?” Mel and Lucy nodded.

  “So,” I grinned, “let’s give her something to steal.”

  The last lesson of the week was IT with Mr Rat. Mr Rat’s full name is Mr Ratnasinghe, but no one ever calls him that. He’s a really laid-back teacher, and he doesn’t mind much what we get up to during his lessons, so long as we got our work done.

  Just like we’d hoped, Summer and her mates had already bagged terminals F, G and H, which stand by the window. The worst ones – the ones with dodgy mouses and scratched keyboards – stand in the next row, just in front of Summer. No one ever wants to sit there, which was part of the plan.

  “Mr Rat?” I said in a low voice as we all shuffled into the classroom. “Can we sit at terminals N, O and P?”

  Mr Rat looked surprised. Well, as surprised as Mr Rat ever gets, which involves him raising his eyebrows two millimetres. “You want to sit there?” he said. “Go ahead.”

  This was Mel’s cue. “Oh, Mr Raat!” she wailed at the top of her voice.

  Summer and her mates looked up.

  “I can’t believe you’re making us sit there!” I added in my loudest, grumpiest voice.

  Mr Rat looked confused. “But you—” he began.

  “OK, whatever,” I snapped, cutting Mr Rat off and making a big deal out of flouncing towards the terminals with Mel and Lucy following me. Poor Mr Rat looked totally flummoxed.

  Phase one of our plan had worked like a dream. Now it was time for phase two.

  “But I want to wear the yellow one,” Mel said loudly to me as we worked through the spreadsheet on our screens. “It’ll look better for the gig than the red.”

  “Ssshh,” Lucy hissed, pointing really obviously over her shoulder at Summer.

  You could hear Summer’s ears flapping like mad behind us. Biting my lip so I didn’t laugh and give the game away, I whispered loudly: “No – we’ll do it like we said. Green for Lu, Red for you, Mel, and I’ll take the yellow. Got it?”

  Then we bent our heads over our work and concentrated on not giggling for the rest of the lesson. There was no way Summer hadn’t heard us. But would she take the bait?

  We’d arranged for a long rehearsal at Jasmine’s place on Saturday morning. I’m always interested in other people’s houses (nosey, Em would say), so it was brilliant seeing where Jasmine lived. It’s this old house right on the edge of Hartley, with a rambling garden full of apple trees and clutter and an old garage at the bottom where Jasmine plays guitar and hangs out with her mates.

  “Help yourselves,” Jasmine said, switching on the garage light and pointing to a tray of biscuits and fruit beside a kettle.

  “Cool,” Mel gasped.

  It was pretty cool. Jasmine had these two old couches in one corner of the garage arranged around a packing crate covered with a bright cloth that acted as a table. She’d decorated the couches with cushions, and paintings and drawings were stuck all over the bare concrete walls. A collection of random stuff lay scattered over the table: a couple of pens, a big black watch, several CDs out of their boxes and sheaves of guitar music all heavily scribbled over with a pencil. At the far end of the garage was a knackered old drum kit – “My mum’s,” Jasmine explained – and more packing crates, this time with cushions on top for sitting on.

  “Sorry about the mess.” Jasmine looked quite embarrassed as she cleared the top of the packing-crate table.

  “This is wicked,” I said, gazing around. Em would be dead jealous if I had a place like this.

  Ben was already at the drum kit, testing the cymbals. “Ready when you are,” he said, and launched into the intro of our song as we all scrambled into position.

  We had the first verse down just right. But the second one started giving us problems.

  “One more time,” Mel said, after we’d messed it up twice.

  “The sea, the sea,” we sang obediently, “the sea and you, the sea can see that you’re untrue…”

  “Sorry,” Jasmine said, looking angry with herself as she mucked up in the same place again. “It’s just that funny rhythm there…”

  “Keep going,” Ben called over the pounding drums.

  “You left the sand just like you planned,” we went on, “your life got messed, outta hand – you didn’t, didn’t stay in reach of paths that take you to the beach, ooh…Who’s sorry now? Who’s sorry now?”

  Ben was having a bit of difficulty with the last two lines, which were supposed to build up and repeat after a skipped beat. I stood by the drums and went over it with him, thinking dreamily how nice he smelled, while Jasmine hunched, frowning over her guitar, and Mel and Lucy went to sit down on the packing-crate stools.

  “Whoa!” Mel shouted, sliding off the packing crate she’d been sitting on as the wood broke and splintered underneath her.

  We all rushed over to help Mel up.

  “Jasmine, I’m really sorry…” Mel turned bright red with embarrassment as we stared at the mess of wood and sawdust on the floor.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jasmine said, hunkering down to check out the contents of the packing crate. “It’s just this dumb elephant of Mum’s inside. She hates it but can’t be bothered to get rid of it, so it just lives in here. Too bad you didn’t break it and all, Mel.”

  More sawdust slid out of the broken packing crate. Suddenly, we could all see a red, blue and white ceramic elephant’s trunk. It looked familiar.

  “I don’t believe it,” Mel said. “It looks just like—”

  “—your mum’s fireplace elephant,” me and Lucy finished Mel’s sentence at the same time.

  Ben and Jasmine watched us with puzzled expressions as we all fell to the ground and started pulling away the rest of the sawdust and packing materials, revealing the elephant in its full trumpeting glory. It was a perfect match for Mrs Palmer’s favourite ornament in the whole world.

  “Did you say your mum hated this?” Mel said, scrambling to her feet and swinging round to Jasmine.

  “Loathes it,” Jasmine said.

  “Do you think maybe – I could have it?” Mel asked breathlessly.

  Jasmine started to laugh. “Mum’ll think it’s Christmas if you take it,” she grinned. “Saves her a trip to the dump!”

  Nine

  I don’t know how we managed it, but an hour later, me, Mel and Lucy were heaving Jasmine’s elephant – we’d decided to call her Nelly – off the bus and staggering towards Mel’s block of flats.

  “Don’t anyone dare drop Nelly now,” Mel begged, sweat breaking out on her forehead as she struggled backwards down the pavement. “We didn’t go through an hour of sore arms for her to end up in pieces on the road, right?”

  We sidled carefully into the stairwell.

  “Nice elephant,” said a bloke we met on the stairs. “Where d’you get it? A jumbo sale?”

  “Ha ha,” Mel said in a sour voice as he headed on past us, laughing his head off.

  “And thanks for offering
to help us carry it!” I added sarcastically.

  “Plonker,” muttered Lucy – which is about as rude as Lucy ever gets.

  When we reached Mel’s front door on the third floor, we put Nelly down with a massive sigh of relief. My arms felt really weird, like my hands were going to float up to the sky all by themselves.

  “I hope your mum likes Nelly after all that,” said Lucy, collapsing against the wall as Mel fiddled with her keys.

  “She’ll love her,” Mel said, managing to look both dead pleased and totally knackered at the same time. “She’s been looking for a matching one for the fireplace for ever! I still can’t believe we found Nelly. I honestly—”

  The door opened and Mel’s mum reached out to sweep Mel into a hug. Me and Lucy glanced at each other in surprise. She hadn’t even looked at Nelly yet!

  “I got a new job!” Mrs Palmer said in excitement, kissing Mel all over the top of her head. “It’s an extra three pounds an hour, and it’s right on the bus route! They just rang to tell me!”

  “Wow, that’s brilliant, Mum!” Mel gasped. “Looks like your cheering-up present just turned into a celebration present!” She stepped aside and revealed Nelly with a flourish and a grin that went from ear to ear. “Ta-da!”

  And I think the whole block heard Mrs Palmer’s scream of delight.

  Every time we saw Summer and her mates in the last week leading up to the Battle of the Bands final, we made this big thing of saying “Shh!” to each other, like we’d been discussing something really secret – even if we’d just been talking about homework or last night’s TV or whatever. We also used the words “red”, “yellow” and “green” as often as we could, knowing that Summer was desperate for more details about our “secret” look for Saturday’s show.

  “Enough about Summer Collins,” Jasmine snapped at our last school dinnertime rehearsal the day before the gig. “What about our look? Or have you been too busy doing one of your special set-ups to remember you’ve got a real band to style?”