by Sue Limb
Jess had stopped breathing. It was like being forced to watch a car crash in slow motion. The desire to laugh, instead of going away, was growing bigger and bigger like a high-speed pregnancy. It had filled her ribs and was crawling relentlessly up her throat.
‘Wow wow, whoa oooh!’ wailed Flora suddenly, shaking her head in tragic despair. Jess was reminded of a small dog she had once taken for walks. He used to bark just like that. ‘Whaaaaaa … Oh whaaaaaaaaa … Didyew treeeetme laaaaaaaike … A fule …’
Jess had to laugh. She just had to. Her only hope was to disguise it as a coughing fit. She grabbed her bag and whipped her hankie out. Thank goodness her mum had insisted, all these years, on her taking a handkerchief everywhere. Give the woman a medal!
Jess delivered the first few salvoes of laughing into the hankie while the band was finishing their number and, when the music suddenly stopped, she stood up, covering her face and coughing fit to bust.
‘S’cuse me – bit of asthma – got to get some fresh air – do that number again – I’ll be back in a minute,’ she choked, and staggered out.
She walked across the empty car park, hiding her face in the hankie and coughing theatrically, until she heard the band start into the number again.
‘At naiaiaiaiaight … Iyn mah beyyyyyyyd … Ah finkofyew!’
Flora’s singing was a revelation. To think that such a terrible noise could come out of such a beautiful face! It set Jess off again. She found a corner of the car park where there was a low wall, sat down and howled with laughter until she wept. She laughed until she whimpered. She laughed until she was sure that there wasn’t a single scrap of laughing left inside her. She felt quite empty and shaken, and had to brush away tears before she walked back to the garage, as carefully as possible, as if her body were held together with frail thread. She entered the garage just as the number ended.
They all looked at her with a mixture of hope, defeat and frustration. Flora looked hopeful. Ben looked defeated. Mackenzie looked frustrated. Suddenly Jess felt very sorry for them. Poor fools. In five days’ time they were going to be on stage in front of the whole school. They shifted uneasily, all staring at her in an imploring way. Ben Jones caught her eye.
‘Go on, admit it, yeah?’ he said, trying for a little joke. ‘We are, like, so bad.’
Mackenzie looked furious. Flora looked insulted, but desperate.
Jess hesitated. If she just praised them and tried to boost their confidence, she would be standing back and doing nothing: delivering them without any warning to the ridicule of the whole school. But how on earth could they get better enough to perform in only five days? Flora would never be able to sing if she practised for twenty years. Jess uttered a silent prayer to the Goddesses of Rock Music. Please, she implored, show me the way out of this.
Then a miracle happened. Her mouth opened, and these words came out: ‘No, no, you’re fine. I think the problem is you’re not nearly bad enough. I just had this thought while I was dealing with my asthma, you know, why not deliberately be as bad as you possibly can? In fact, instead of being yourselves, why don’t you, like, invent three personas – you know, real, like, losers or airheads or idiots – and rewrite the songs so they’re really really terrible. I think it could really, like, work, as sort of comedy-rock, if you get me?’
A wonderful thing happened. Relief, excitement and gratitude broke out across their faces.
‘Brilliant!’ cried Mackenzie. ‘Then it doesn’t matter if we play a wrong note – because we’d be the idiots doing it, not us!’
‘And it wouldn’t matter if I sing badly!’ said Flora. ‘Oh Jess! You’re a genius!’ And she ran up to Jess and gave her a huge hug, which hurt quite a lot because of the Gothic necklace.
Ben Jones just said, ‘Great! Great!’ sort of quietly to himself.
‘You could even say a few words each before you started.’ Jess was warming to the idea now. ‘Sort of introducing yourselves, you know – so everybody knows it’s not meant to be you. You could be, like, “Hi. I’m Aaron Prendergast and this is my band Elastic Poodles. Let me introduce Jules Nerdstone on bass and our lead singer Jolene Brassiere …” You could each say something really nerdy and, like, corny, then do the song – as badly as possible.’
‘Write it down! Write it down!’ shrieked Flora. ‘What you said just then!’
‘Yeah, you should write our lines,’ said Ben. ‘You’d be brilliant. You’ve, like, saved our lives, yeah?’
Jess smiled and shrugged modestly. It was a slight exaggeration to say she’d saved their lives. But it was nice to feel useful. Ben gave Jess a look that shone with love of the purest, purest sort. Too bad it was the purest sort, thought Jess. But at least it was a start.
Chapter 25
The next few days were hectic. The band got their act together. Jess sat in on another practice. Now that they were trying to be funny, they were not so funny, of course. This time, Jess had to pretend to laugh, whereas the previous time she’d had to pretend she wasn’t laughing. Comedy is so complicated.
However, the band’s act now looked OK. Jess had made sure they wouldn’t disgrace themselves. She had also given Flora some slightly treacherous advice.
‘You could make Jolene a bit more outrageous in her, like, dress and make-up,’ advised Jess. ‘I mean, really really repellent.’ She was looking forward to that fair sight.
Mr Fothergill had offered to help Jess practise her stand-up routine, so they went to the English Department after school, two days before the show. Trembling slightly, and with her heart thudding like a disco backing track, Jess plunged into her routine.
‘Girl, 15 … wait a minute … Girl? Hmmm. How about Chick? … Bird? … Female? Argh! I’m trying to draft this Lonely Hearts ad but I’m slowly losing the will to live. I can’t even get the first word right –’ Jess was distracted for a moment by a kid who knocked on the door.
‘Go away!’ yelled Mr Fothergill. This wasn’t a very good start. ‘Sorry, Jess,’ he said. ‘Carry on!’
‘Shall I start again?’ asked Jess.
‘No, it’s OK – carry on from where you were!’ Maybe he just wanted it to be over, fast. Jess cringed, but forced herself to go on.
‘Girl, 15. Girl. Ugh! I so hate the way Girl is so … girly. It sounds so naive and helpless. I can just see her weeping over an injured robin or embroidering rosebuds on an oven glove. Gothwitch? OK. Gothwitch, 15, with bum like mountain range … no, it just doesn’t equate. How about Demon Goddess? … Part-time minor deity with slight touch of acne? Hmmm. Perhaps Girl is safer ground after all.’
Mr Fothergill smiled in a rather encouraging kind of way. But was he only being polite? Jess gritted her teeth and continued.
‘OK, so we have Girl, 15 – well, can’t do much about that unless I lie about my age. And it didn’t work when I tried to rent that adult-rated movie. Girl 15 … attractive? Not unattractive? Still not strictly true, but those poor fools will be none the wiser. Hmmm. Has anybody ever said anything complimentary about me? Uhh … well, when I was a baby, my granny did once say I was charming. Although moments later she was just as enchanted by a passing mongrel with fleas. OK, so we ditch the attractive.
‘Girl, 15, house-trained? Well, it’s something, though, isn’t it? And call me old-fashioned, but it’s a quality one would look for in a girlfriend.’
Mr Fothergill laughed – a little growl of a laugh, like a small dog who is hoping for a biscuit.
‘Charming is a good concept, though. You can look like the rear end of a dinosaur and still aspire to be charming. And I do. OK: Girl, 15, charming but – let’s face it – insane; likes: vampires, Siberian tigers, friendly nuns and little else. Hobbies: burping for England – in fact, flatulence in general (all mine is of Olympic standard), tending to my granny’s ears (oh yes, I have what you might call a lifestyle) and … what else? What are my other leisure pursuits? Sitting down, occasionally interrupted by short but delightful periods of standing.’
&nbs
p; Mr Fothergill laughed again – out loud! I love him! I love him! thought Jess. Not in a gross pervy way – she would have loved anybody who laughed at one of her gags. Mr Fothergill laughed big and long. His laugh was a bit like Santa Claus’s: ‘HO HO HO!’ It was kind of weird, but Jess was immensely grateful, and ploughed on with more confidence to the end.
‘Great! Excellent!’ he said. ‘Well done! I’ll make a photocopy of your script, if I may – since you’ve memorised it now. Then I can prompt you if you forget your lines during the performance. Just one thing – I think you should be sitting at a desk. I know it’s called “stand up” but this time it can be “sit down”. Then you can actually be scribbling things on a piece of paper as you try to draft your ad, and every time you screw up a piece of paper and chuck it away, you can throw it into the audience. They’ll like that.’ Mr Fothergill was wasted at Ashcroft School. He should be directing in Hollywood.
‘I’ll take you home now,’ he said, once Jess had tried out the routine sitting down, and he had photocopied the script.
‘Oh, it’s fine, I can walk, it’s not far,’ said Jess.
‘No, I’ll drop you off at home,’ said Mr Fothergill, ‘in case your mother’s worried.’
‘My mother only worries about the International Situation,’ said Jess.
‘In that case,’ said Mr Fothergill, ‘she must be out of her mind with terror.’
He picked up his jacket and switched out the lights. They strolled down the corridor.
‘We’ve just got to pick up Fred,’ said Mr Fothergill.
Jess’s heart lurched. She and Fred had not exchanged a word or a look, let alone an ape impersonation, for ages. Suddenly her legs felt as if they were made of cooked spaghetti. They reached the door of the Editorial Office. It was open. Fred was inside, tapping away frenziedly at his PC keyboard amid a chaos of papers.
‘Home time, Fred,’ said Mr Fothergill.
Fred looked up, saw Jess and suddenly went pale. And then he went red.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Jess politely.
‘Fine, thanks,’ said Fred. He shut down the computer, got up and stuffed a few pieces of paper in his bag. He didn’t look at her.
‘Fred’s looking forward to acting as theatre critic for the show,’ said Mr Fothergill. Jess felt sick with fear. ‘He says he’s going to rip everyone to shreds.’
‘When does the newspaper come out?’ asked Jess, too paralysed with horror to say anything interesting.
‘The beginning of next week,’ said Mr Fothergill, as they walked across the car park towards the Greased Banana. ‘I’m afraid my car is a sporty two-seater, but I’m sure you two can squash up together, just for a half-mile or so.’ Mr Fothergill unlocked the car with the carefree, cheery manner of a practised torturer. ‘You get in first, Fred. Jess won’t mind sitting on your knee, will you, Jess?’
‘Oh no,’ said Jess. ‘It’ll be good practice for when I sit on the knee of the editor of The New York Times.’
‘You’ll probably be the editor of The New York Times, Jess,’ said Mr Fothergill, opening the passenger door.
Fred clambered in clumsily, and Jess, urged on by Mr Fothergill, fell in on top of him.
‘Sorry,’ said Mr Fothergill, ‘but I’ll just have to fasten the seat belt. It’ll go round both of you, no problem.’
Fastened together in hostile misery, Jess and Fred waited while Mr Fothergill got into the driver’s seat, messed around with his glasses, dropped his keys and generally wasted time. Eventually the Greased Banana started with a roar. Jess could feel the warmth of Fred’s lap. He was sitting very still, and was totally silent – no doubt in deep shock. Jess felt hot. She felt cold. She shivered. Mr Fothergill drove out along the road, merrily chatting about theatre critics. Jess and Fred were both speechless at the ghastliness of their situation. It was Mr Fothergill’s turn for a monologue now, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Eventually they got to Jess’s house, and she climbed out.
‘Thanks for the lift, Mr Fothergill,’ she said. ‘Sorry I was so heavy, Fred,’ she added clumsily, not looking him in the eye. ‘Gotta lose some weight. Bye!’
The Greased Banana roared off again. Jess walked up her garden path, relieved and yet somehow a bit sorry that this bizarre episode was over. It was the first time she had ever sat on a boy’s lap.
How ironical that it should have been Fred’s. He must have hated every minute. She had felt hot and cold and shivery with a mixture of excitement and horror. If it was like that with a boy she hated, what would it be like with Ben Jones? Although she wasn’t sure she and Ben would ever get on lap-sitting terms. Jess thought it was more likely that she might one day sit on a red-hot barbecue, or a live alligator.
‘Hello, love!’ cried Granny perkily. ‘There’s been a massacre in Venezuela!’ Always so cheerful in the face of disaster. ‘And I’ve made a coconut cake!’
Halfway through the coconut cake, Jess noticed that she had a bit of a sore throat. Later, watching Jurassic Park with Granny, Jess had another attack of shivering. She felt hot. She felt cold. Maybe it hadn’t been the horror of sitting on Fred’s lap. Maybe it was the flu.
‘You look a bit flushed, love,’ said Granny. By the time her mum came in from her peace meeting, Jess was lying on the sofa covered up with Great Grandpa’s army blanket. Her mum took her temperature. It was 39 degrees.
‘That’s two degrees of fever,’ she said. ‘You must go to bed. Oh my goodness! My baby! I was out at a stupid meeting and all the time you were ill!’ Whenever Jess was ill, her mum came over all sentimental and slushy. ‘Darling! I’ll get you some scrambled egg!’
‘I don’t want scrambled egg!’ croaked Jess. ‘I don’t like scrambled egg even when I’m well!’
‘Yes, of course, sorry, I’m such an idiot!’ said her mum, helping Jess upstairs and fussing around, making the bed ready. ‘Oh no! We’ve run out of Vitamin C!’
‘What’s her temperature in Fahrenheit?’ shouted Granny from the bottom of the stairs.
‘About a hundred, I suppose,’ replied her mum.
Jess didn’t like the sound of that. A hundred! It sounded terrible. What if she died? Well, if she did, at least Fred would be sorry.
Jess ran a little video in her head in which Fred came to her funeral, inconsolable with grief, and visited her grave every day for the rest of his life, sobbing and chucking rosebuds about. Also, because she had sat on his lap, he never washed his knees again. Although probably he never washed them anyway.
All night she shivered and shook. Every bone in her body ached. She couldn’t move. Peculiar feverish dreams came and went. She was riding on the wing of an aeroplane. The traffic in town was being directed by a gigantic naked baby. Worst of all, she was doing her stand-up routine and she couldn’t remember the words. When she woke up next day, her sheets were wet with sweat.
‘My poor baby! You can’t possibly go to school today,’ said her mum, mopping her brow with a horrible smelly face flannel.
Jess knew she couldn’t go to school. It was enough of a challenge just to walk the few steps along to the bathroom.
‘It’s the flu,’ her mum said. ‘You’ll probably feel better by the weekend.’
‘But it’s the show tomorrow,’ croaked Jess. ‘I’ve just got to get better for that.’
‘I’m sorry, love,’ said her mum. ‘But I think you’d better put that right out of your mind.’
A huge, bitter disappointment engulfed Jess. The one day of the year when she was really longing to go to school – the one day when she might have something really special to offer – was tomorrow. And it was just not going to be possible. Her body had let her down. Silently Jess cursed the God of Influenza. She bit her lip hard, trying not to cry, but she did snivel a bit into her pillow after her mum had gone downstairs. In fact, the flu had made her feel so weak, she broke down in tears every time she thought of the TV adverts for the animal shelter.
Desperately, Jess tried to think o
f a bitter joke to cheer herself up, to keep the tears at bay. Eventually she thought of one. At least her performance wouldn’t be ripped to shreds by Fred in his role as theatre critic.
Chapter 26
The next day Jess was still ill, but she managed to go downstairs. Her mum made up a bed for her on the sofa. Granny could take care of Jess while her mum was at work, as long as she didn’t have to go up and down stairs.
Jess’s mobile phone began to beep. Her dad had heard she was ill and started to text her.
WHAT SORT OF FLUE IS IT? he said. WHAT IS YOUR TEMPERATURE? TELL GRANNY TO GIVE YOU LOTS OF DRINKS.
MY TEMP IS 203, replied Jess, AND GRANNY HAS JUST GIVEN ME MY THIRD GIN & TONIC.
ARE YOU JOKING OR ARE YOU DELIRIOUS? asked her dad.
DELIRIOUS, replied Jess. P.S. WHY DID YOU AND MUM SPLIT UP?
There was a long pause, during which Jess and Granny watched The Simpsons, then her dad texted back.
IT’S A LONG STORY, TOO LONG FOR A TEXT. TO DO WITH MY DREADFUL PERSONALITY DISORDER.
CHICKEN! answered Jess.
I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I SEE YOU, promised her dad. EXCUSE ME WHILE I VISIT THE N.POLE. ONLY JOKING! GET BETTER SOON. I LOVE YOU.
Sometime after The Simpsons, Jess went to sleep and dreamt Bart was a real, life-size friend of hers. She was quite disappointed when she woke up.
Granny pottered about, sat nearby and made her some dainty little sandwiches, like for a dolls’ tea party. She read Jess extracts from the paper about the most grisly murders. This passed the time quite pleasantly until her mum came home. By now Jess’s pains had gone, although she still felt so weak, she could hardly raise her head. Jess slept again, and dreamt she was living in a cave in India with an owl. When she awoke it was 8.30 in the evening. By now the show would be in full swing. Jess should have been performing her very first stand-up comedy routine. Instead she was lying on the sofa, watching a trashy TV game show.