by Jean Ure
“And nail varnish?” begged Indy. “She could have nail varnish!”
Josh said he would allow me to have nail varnish, and he even let Indy pick the colour: deep, dark purple.
“Don’t ask me what I’d like,” I said.
“Got no intention,” said Josh. “I’m your fashion guru.”
“And I’m his assistant,” giggled Indy. It was really going to her head! But I didn’t mind; I know I have no clothes sense. They didn’t even let me choose the sparkly bits for my hair. Personally I rather fancied a pair of glittery butterflies, but Indy sucked in her breath and Josh, very sternly, said, “Carm, put them back.”
“But they’re pretty!”
“They’re tacky.”
“Tacky, tacky, tacky!” sang Indy. Like she knows any better than I do. “Look, stars! How about stars?”
Josh said yes, stars would do fine.
Indy beamed. “Stars for a star! Cos that’s what she’s going to be.”
“I dunno.” I shook my head. “It’s all very well getting stuff to wear, but what am I gonna sing?”
“We’ll work on it,” said Josh. “Maybe write something special.”
Yesss! I felt like flying at him and hugging him, only he’d probably just have got embarrassed. But I was really excited by the idea. A song written specially for the occasion! It might even gain me some extra points.
As soon as I got home, Mum demanded to know what I’d bought. “Put it on, so I can see!”
I was a bit wary, cos Mum is just, like, so critical, but I could tell at once that she approved.
“Wonderful,” she said, “to have a boyfriend who can choose clothes for you!”
I have told Mum so many times that Josh is not my boyfriend. He is just a friend who happens to be a boy. Mum doesn’t believe that is possible. She once said so in front of Nan. She said, “You can’t have a boy as a friend. Not just an ordinary friend.” Then she laughed and said, “Well, I never could.”
Nan, quick as a flash, said, “No, and look what happened to you!” Nan could be quite sharp, and she always, always defended me. I do miss her loads. She used to tell Mum to leave me alone, especially when Mum nagged at me about my weight, or said if Josh wasn’t my boyfriend then wasn’t it about time I got one?
I’ve had boyfriends! Two, in fact. One was Sam Wyman that lives in our block, and the other was Judd Priestley at juniors. They were both unimaginably boring. You couldn’t ever talk to them like I can with Josh. When I said this to Mum she raised both eyebrows and said, “Who wants a boyfriend for talking to?”
I said, “I do!” To which Mum retorted that I would “sing a different tune one of these days”. Well, pardon me, but I don’t think so!
Next weekend, I got together with Josh and we wrote a song for me to sing in the talent contest. We’ve been writing songs for ever. We started back in Year 7, and we’re still doing it. We work really well together. Sometimes we argue, but we never fall out. We tend to bounce ideas off each other, like Josh will say, “How about this?” and I’ll say, “Or maybe this?” and that will set us off and get us all inspired in a way that I don’t think would happen if we were doing it separately. We work out the music together, too. I play the guitar – well, just chords mainly, on account of being self-taught – but Josh is like a demon on the keyboard and the drums. He knows about music because his mum and dad are musicians. His dad is a violinist and plays in an orchestra, his mum teaches at a local school. Josh always claims not to be musical – he says I am far more musical than he is – but he knows things that I don’t, so I’ll, like, sing a phrase and Josh will pick it up and run with it. Between us, we’re an ace team!
This is the song that we wrote:
. Star crazy me
Floatin’ free-ee-ee
Into the ether of
Eternity
Now do you see me
Ridin’ high
Ridin’ high
Streamers of song
’Cross the sky-y-y
Nobody nothing
Ain’t gonna stop
This crazy crazy crazy gal
This crazy gal
Will reach the top
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Just watch me, babe
I’m floatin’ free
I’m flyin’ high-igh-igh
Gonna get there
Gonna be
Up there for all eternity
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Star crazy me
I’m floatin’ free
I said to Josh that we should both enter the contest, me as vocalist, him on the keyboard, but he wouldn’t. He said, “Don’t bully me! You’re always bullying me.”
I said, “Me bully you? That’s a joke!”
If either of us gets to be bullied, I’d say that it was me. Josh can be really bossy at times! Like he’ll tell me, for instance, that “You can’t possibly wear that top with that skirt, it makes you look like a parcel,” and I will immediately rush back indoors and change, cos I know that he knows about such things. I mean, I will just go and do it. No argument! Josh, on the other hand, tends to go all quiet and dig his heels in.
I said, “I’m just trying to give you your share of the limelight. Credit where credit’s due.” As Nan used to say.
Josh said he didn’t want credit. “And I don’t want limelight! I’m not like you.”
“You’re just scared!” I said.
“I’m modest,” said Josh.
I teased him about that. I said, “Aah, sweet! He’s all shy and retiring!” And I chucked him under the chin, really yucky, just to get him going, and he said “Gerroff!” and we had a bit of a tussle, all over the bed and round his bedroom, until his mum yelled at us up the stairs.
“What are you doing up there? You’ll bring the ceiling down!”
“You are just so childish,” said Josh.
“And you are just so stubborn!” I said.
He still wouldn’t budge. He said that I was the performer, not him, and I think that is probably right. Josh is more of a behind-the-scenes person, which wouldn’t do at all for me. I just love the buzz of being out there, in the spotlight, in front of an audience. Actually, to be honest, I hadn’t ever really performed in front of an audience at that point, except once in Year 6 when we put on a little end-of-term show and I was chosen to sing a Christmas carol. I belted it out at the top of my voice and Mrs Deakin, our teacher, got really upset. She seemed to think I was showing off. She said, “Honestly, Carmen! That was totally inappropriate.”
Well, but I did enjoy it! And I got a round of applause. So you can imagine I was really looking forward to the talent contest and singing our song. As soon as the notice appeared on the board – Entrants for Top Spot, sign here – I rushed to put my name down.
Carmen Bell Year 8 Vocalist
And that was when Marigold Johnson called me a fat freak, and ruined it all.
CHAPTER TWO
This is where it happened: in the locker room at school. Me and Indy were already down there, putting stuff away and sorting out what we needed for afternoon classes. The Year 8 lockers are in two rows, back to back, with a few odd ones tucked away in a corner, out of sight. Me and Indy were in the tucked-away part. In other words, nobody knew that we were there. We weren’t eavesdropping! We weren’t crouched on the ground with our ears pinned back. But when Marigold came bursting in with her usual crowd of gawkers and her mouth clattering on at about a hundred miles per hour, we couldn’t help hearing.
What she was clattering on about was the Top Spot contest. How her sister, Mary-Louise, that was in Year 10, was almost certain to win because she had professional experience. She had appeared in a commercial. She had made a demo disc.
“It really isn’t fair on all the others, but what can you do? My sister can’t be stopped from putting her name down just because she’s had experience.”
Then we heard Ashlee’s voice piping up: “Know who else has
put her name down? The Jelly!”
“The Jelly? You gotta be joking!”
OK, so that was when I should probably have emerged from my corner and shown myself, before Marigold could go on and say something nasty. But I didn’t, and I bet most people wouldn’t have, either. In that sort of situation, you just freeze to the spot and can’t move. The very last thing you want is for anyone to know that you’re there. It’s too humiliating.
I heard Ashlee’s voice again: “I’m not joking! I just saw her name on the list.”
And then Marigold, with her loud braying laugh: “That fat freak? Just cos her stupid old nan reckoned she was gonna be the next Judy Garland. Pur-lease!”
I could sense Indy next to me, holding her breath. Her hand reached out and dabbed at my arm, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I just felt so ashamed.
Someone said, “I think she fancies herself as some kind of rock chick.”
“Rock chick? Excuse me while I die laughing!”
Ashlee said, “Rock elephant, more like.”
“Rock jelly, more like!”
“What d’you think she’ll sing?”
“I know what she’ll sing, I know what she’ll sing! Like this, look… sh-shake, w-wobble and ROLL!”
Delighted shrieks of laughter, as from the sound of things Marigold hurled herself to and fro against the lockers.
“Sh-shake, w-w-w-WOBBLE and—”
“Drop dead, pea brain!”
I don’t know what came over me, I really don’t. But all of a sudden it was like this tidal wave of absolute fury crashed into me, and I leaped out from behind my locker and yelled:
“STUPID PEA-BRAINED BLUBBER-LIPPED MORON!”
There was a kind of shocked silence. Marigold was the one that dished it out, not the one that had it dished up. She stared at me like she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Then she took up a stance, her hands on her hips.
“What did you say?”
“I said” – I put my face up close to hers – “you’re a STUPID, PEA-BRAINED, BLUBBER-LIPPED MORON! And in case you don’t know what that means, which you probably don’t, it means you’re so dumb you’re practically a walking vegetable!”
Somebody tittered, rather nervously. Ashlee gave a little horrified squeal, and clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Why don’t you go and plant yourself?” I said. “Do us all a favour. Take root!”
With that, I flung open the door and prepared to stalk out. But Marigold had the last word. As I made my grand exit she bawled after me, “Get lost, you pathetic fag hag!”
That was when I bunked off school.
I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, I didn’t actually say to myself, “I am going to bunk off school and never come back.” It was just something that happened. I got as far as the main corridor and was about to turn up the stairs when this feeling of absolute despair came flooding over me. I couldn’t take it any more! I had to get out. Now.
I muttered at Indy that I’d left one of my books behind – “You go on, I’ll see you up there” – then I turned and fled. Back the way we’d come, through the double doors, across the parking lot and OUT.
The only other time I’d done anything like it was in Year 4, when I got told off for something that wasn’t my fault, and when I protested that “It wasn’t me!” the teacher wouldn’t believe me, and I was so incensed that I slipped out of the gates when no one was looking and ran all the way home to pour out my tale of woe to Nan. Nan agreed with me that it wasn’t fair. She said, “Sometimes, chickabiddy, life is like that. You have to be strong, and take the rough with the smooth.”
Just knowing that Nan was on my side had made me feel better. But Nan wasn’t there any more; she’d never call me chickabiddy ever again, or pass on her words of wisdom. I was on my own, now, cos Mum would never take my side. When I’d told her about the teacher being so mean, all she’d said was that she didn’t blame her. “You’ve caused enough problems in your time.”
No point trying to cry on Mum’s shoulder. I wouldn’t, anyway; it was something too shameful ever to tell anyone. But I would have told Nan! She was the one who had faith in me, the one who made me believe in myself. Just that morning, rummaging about for a clean T-shirt, I’d come across the last birthday card that Nan had ever sent me. She’d chosen it so carefully! On the front it had a picture of a groovy guy with a guitar, belting out Happy Birthday. Inside, in her shaky handwriting, Nan had written, To my own little star, who one of these days is going to shine so brightly!
I’d hidden it away in my secret place, beneath the lining paper at the bottom of a drawer. I’d never shown it to Mum. It was something precious, and I couldn’t bear the thought that she might laugh. I think, actually, that was what made me finally turn on Marigold, the fact that she’d dared to bring my nan into it. Her stupid old nan. I wished I’d never, ever told anyone about Nan! But it was back in Year 6, when I’d sung the Christmas carol too loud and upset Mrs Deakin. Defiantly I’d told her that “My nan says I’m going to be a second Judy Garland!” Sometimes when you’re only ten you say things you later wish with all your heart that you hadn’t.
If I hadn’t been chosen to sing the carol – if I hadn’t sung the carol too loud – if I hadn’t boasted about Nan… if none of those things had happened then maybe I wouldn’t have yelled at Marigold and bunked off school. But I had, and all I could think was that it was fate. There’s nothing you can do about fate.
When I got back to the flats I ran into one of our neighbours, Mrs Henson. She said, “Got the afternoon off, have you?”
I gave her a sickly smile and said, “Gotta headache.” I hoped she wouldn’t mention anything to Mum but I feared the worst. She is a notorious gasbag.
The minute I was inside the flat, with the door closed against the outside world, I began to feel a bit less fraught. I spent the rest of the afternoon sprawled on the sofa, headphones clamped to my ears with the volume turned up as loud as I could bear, listening to all my favourite tracks played by all my favourite bands. Mostly Urban Legend, cos they are like my Favourite of Favourites. Mum can’t stand them – she says they’re foul-mouthed and violent. I say that life is enough to make you foul-mouthed and violent, what with wars going on all over the place, and toxic waste covering the earth, and the polar ice caps melting. Not to mention terrorism. To which Mum just goes, “Don’t give me isms! Give me tunes.” Mum isn’t what I would call musical.
Nan, on the other hand, used to really enjoy listening to rock. I don’t think she liked it as much as her beloved show tunes – Over the Rainbow, and Oh What a Beautiful Morning, and all that – but she did once say she’d like to come to a rock concert with me.
“I could scream and throw me knickers on stage! That’s what you do, isn’t it? Throw your knickers? I could get into that!”
Mum said, “At your age? You ought to be ashamed!”
But Nan wasn’t ashamed of anything, which is why I try so hard not to be. Especially not of my own body. After all, it’s the one I was born with and I can’t help the way it is. It’s not like I gorge on junk food. It’s not like I don’t get any exercise. Mum doesn’t; she goes everywhere by car. Not me! I walk to and from the bus stop every day, and more often than not I walk up the stairs as well, all ten flights of them. I only take the lift if I’m feeling really knackered. I hate the lift! It smells of sick and stale pee. But there’s some people I know – Mum, to give just one example – that would get completely out of breath going up ten flights of stairs. I don’t! So I know I’m not a slob, and I’m certainly not a glutton. It is just the way I’m made, and I refuse to let small-minded, pea-brained pond life such as Marigold Johnson make me self-conscious.
That is what I have always told myself. But oh, that day she really got to me! It’s like I’d built up this wall to keep me safe, and she’d gone and brought the whole lot crashing down, leaving me exposed. Like naked, almost. Like a snail brutally torn out of its shell. Now I couldn’t pre
tend any more: it really hurts when someone calls you names.
If Nan had been there, what would she have said?
“Don’t you take no notice! You just remember, you’ve got something girls like that can only dream of… you’ve got a voice that’s going to take you right to the top. Up there with the stars, that’s where you’ll be! Then she’ll be laughing on the other side of her face, you see if she isn’t.”
But what if Nan were wrong? What if I didn’t have a voice?
I knew in my heart that Nan wasn’t wrong; I knew that I could sing. No one could take that away from me. But no one could make me look like Marigold Johnson, either! And who wanted a rock star the size of an elephant?
I tried so hard to hear Nan again. To hear her old, cracked voice telling me to have faith, to “Go for it, girl!” But it was no use. She wasn’t there, and I couldn’t bring her back. Music was all I had left. I turned up the volume until it was almost unbearable, until my head was pounding with the beat and I felt that I was drowning in a crashing sea of sound. At least that way I didn’t have to think.
If I could have stayed plugged in I’d have been all right, but Mum came home at six o’clock and I had to crawl back into the world, without my shell. Needless to say, Mum had bumped into Mrs Henson – or, more likely, Mrs Henson had bumped into her.
“What’s all this about a headache?” she said. “I never heard of anyone being sent home for a headache. Why couldn’t they just give you an aspirin, or something?”
I mumbled that they didn’t like to give medication. Mum said, “Sooner send you back to an empty flat.”
“They didn’t know it was empty. I told them you were here.”
Mum looked at me, rather hard. “OK! What did you want to get out of?”