But that was never going to happen.
I love dancing, but I’m not a natural, not like Kat and Pearl. I just don’t look like her or the others. She’s right. I am the wrong shape. You know skinny jeans? They won’t fit me ever, ever, ever. I thought Starwars would change this little fact.
I roll on my side. My room usually makes me happy. The carpet’s thick and dark pink and my quilt has the thinnest, softest feel. Also, I’m surrounded by flowers. Nan gives me her old gardening magazines and I cut out the flowers and stick them all over the walls. Mum was annoyed at first, but gave up when they started to creep on to the ceiling and out of the door.
My eyes drift to my bedside table where I dropped my phone. It is cluttered with pens, Playmobil people (not mine), a pile of books and . . . What is that? I sit up and grab the glass of water I keep by my bed.
Something is in there. Something pink and white. Slowly, it turns round in the water to face me, or should I say grin at me? They are teeth. I’m staring at a big pair of grinning teeth!
‘Hello, love!’ says a familiar voice from the doorway.
Oh.
It appears that my grandmother has moved into my bedroom. ‘Hiya, Nan,’ I say, quickly taking in all the nannish evidence that is scattered around: a stack of Heat magazines, the pillow-case-sized knickers drying on the radiator, the whiff of Chanel No5, and the electric blanket on my bed (I thought it was extra cosy). ‘What are you doing here . . . in your onesie?’
She should be watching Countdown in her sheltered housing on the other side of town.
‘Surprise!’ she lisps – it’s hard to talk without teeth. She must realise this because she fishes them out of my glass of water and pops them back in. ‘Best not drink that, love. My flat’s flooded. Doreen upstairs put a cake in her washing machine and it just kept spinning and pumping out water all day. It was like a foam party in the communal lounge. Your mum had to come and rescue me.’
She sits down at my dressing table and begins rolling tiny blue rollers into her hair. ‘Now, what’s up with you, grumpy face?’
‘School was the worst,’ I say, curling up my toes so hard they hurt. Then I tell her about the whole disastrous day. While she listens, she powders her bosom with a huge powder puff and begins to file her nails. By the time Mum calls me down to tea, she’s given them two coats of ‘Lush Tangerine’.
‘Don’t worry, Bea, love,’ she says. ‘I’ve got the perfect plan to teach those nasty girls a lesson.’
Uh-oh . . . but just as she’s about to explain, Mum shouts at me to lay the table. Nan flops down on my bed, spilling Beanie Babies on to the floor, and starts tapping away on her iPhone.
‘Go and help your mum,’ she says as I leave the room. ‘Nan’ll sort it all out!’
In the hallway, I meet Emma, who has dry spaghetti Sellotaped to her cheeks, a sultana up each nostril and a pair of Mum’s tights tucked into the back of her pants. She is mostly naked although she has coloured in a lot of her body with green felt tip.
‘I’m a green cat,’ she informs me, then rubs herself against my legs and rolls on the floor. ‘Tickle!’ she instructs. I tickle her tummy and just when I’m thinking how great it is to have a little cat-sister she bites my hand. I try to shake her off, but the more I shake the harder she bites.
I go into the kitchen, dragging her in behind me.
Mum’s rummaging about in the fridge. ‘There’s a postcard from Dad on the table,’ she says, emerging with some cheese. ‘He got it signed!’
I pick it up. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘He got Robert Pattinson to sign it for you . . . It says “For Bea, love Robert Pattinson”.’
‘Well, this has been signed by a Robert Pattingstone, who, I suspect, is one of Dad’s friends pretending to be Robert Pattinson because Dad forgot to do the ONE thing I asked him to do in Tijuana.’
‘Well, bless him for trying,’ she says, stopping what she’s doing to bend down and stroke her cat-daughter. Dad makes props for films: giant ice-cream cones, aliens, that kind of thing. He’s one of those weirdy-beardies who you see on ‘making of’ DVDs. The old dudes who go on about how it took them eight weeks to craft one elf sword out of papier mâché and goat hair, when all you really want to see are the bloopers. For the past three months he’s been in Mexico making helmets for gnomes.
Right now, Mum’s got a slightly manic look on her face so I don’t make a fuss about Dad being a big fat liar, Nan (his mother) staying in my room or Ralph’s trip to school with me. She’s an A&E nurse and gets pretty stressed saving lives and NEVER seeing her husband. Instead, I sit back and enjoy my fried egg with baked bean ‘hair’, smiley ketchup face and mashed potato beard. It’s supposed to be Dad.
Emma’s allowed to lap up her yolk, cat-style. Gross.
‘It’s all sorted, love,’ says Nan, wandering in to our room later that evening. She waves her phone triumphantly. ‘You know, your dancing problem.’
I stop blowing up my airbed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I just had a chat with Lulu, my old dance teacher, and she’s got a partner for you! She’ll give you a crash course so you can be ready for the auditions on Thursday.’
‘A crash course? What in?’
‘Jive . . . rock and roll . . . you know, like in the film Grease.’ She looks very pleased with herself.
Jive? Rock and roll? The very words are tragic. ‘Look, Nan,’ I say. ‘I can’t do that sort of dance in the competition. It needs to be more like what you see on music videos.’
‘But that’s pornographic, Beatrice. I should know. Anyway, you said yourself, you’re allowed to do any style of dance.’ I am speechless, partly because I’m horrified, and partly because I’m still trying to blow up the airbed. ‘So it’s decided then. You’ll do a nice jive dance for your competition and you won’t need to be in a group with those mean girls. When they see you on Thursday, they’ll be amazed.’
Yes, amazed. Also delighted. But for none of the reasons Nan thinks. Does she want me to die from humiliation?
‘You know, Nan,’ I say desperately, ‘lessons are expensive, and I don’t think Mum and Dad can afford them.’
‘My treat, love. Anyway, I get a discount because I made Lulu and Rockin’ Ray’s costumes for the National Jive Championships last year.’
‘But who’s going to be my partner?’ Surely it won’t be Rockin’ Ray? ‘All the people taking part have to be under sixteen.’
‘She knows that. She says he’s a lovely young man. Don’t worry, you’ll meet him tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow!’ This is terrible . . .
‘I’ve booked you in for your first lesson, straight after school. Now, if you don’t mind, dear, I really must get back to my book.’ And with that Nan arranges herself on my bed, takes a big slurp of gin and tonic and opens up her novel. ‘Sunset’s been lured into a hayloft by a wicked millionaire and I can’t imagine what’s going to happen next!’
2
‘I’m sorryarse aboutarse the dance-arse,’ says Kat, doing her puppy eyes at me from our usual bus seat. After a moment’s hesitation, I sit down next to her. I manage to be frosty for about 0.25 seconds before she sticks some chocolate under my nose and says, ‘Twixarse?’
Twixarse . . . that’s funny. I can’t stop myself from laughing. We invented the language of ‘arse’ together. It’s definitely easier to learn than French.
‘I forgive you-arse, Katarse,’ I say, taking the Twix. Then, to seal the deal, we play our bus game. It’s good today. At each stop we say a random number and the person who gets on the bus matching that number is our secret lover. I get Sniffin’ Jake (who once sniffed my hair in the canteen queue) and Kat gets Pearl (how appropriate).
When we get to form, she squeezes my arm and says, ‘Back in a minute,’ before heading across the room. This morning, Pearl is busy instructing her followers in the ancient art of eyebrow plucking. Kat joins the group of girls who surround her.
I go over to Betty, w
ho’s drawing on Amber’s arm. Betty’s mad as a badger and I love hanging out with her, but I secretly suspect she finds me boring and only puts up with me because of our girl-gang past. Betty was the fourth member of the Ladybirds. Right now, she’s using a red biro to carefully colour in a pair of pouting lips, and in the middle of the lips she’s written ‘The Panty Liners’ in bubble writing. ‘Hey, Bea! What d’you think?’
‘It’s impressive, especially the shading. And it’s so big!’
She grins. She looks particularly crazy today, but in a good way, with her racoon hat, black-rimmed specs (she doesn’t need them, but she thinks they make her look ‘like a peng newsreader’) and her knee-high socks. No way will Mr Simms let her get away with all that, but she doesn’t care. ‘It’s our dance group’s name and logo.’
‘Really? You’re entering Starwars?’
‘Yeah, me, Charlie and Amber are going to be doing some amazing street dancing.’ She starts to bust some moves to show me what she means. ‘Just like The Pink Ladies, we’re going to be shakin’ our booties and jigglin’ our jugs in the judges’ faces for five minutes . . . but we’re going to be doing it Betty-style!’
‘Ohh,’ I say, the penny slowly dropping, ‘so you’re going to copy Pearl’s group?’ Is she insane? Yes, slightly.
‘Kind of! Except instead of hot pants – I’m guessing they’ll be in hot pants – we’ll be dancing in baggy hiking shorts . . . and “Total Support Front Fastening” bras.’
‘You’ve already got them, haven’t you?’
‘Already wearing them! And we won’t dance to “Do Ya Thang” or “Twang My Thang” or whatever, we’re going to have “When I’m Sixty-Four” by the Beatles. I feel a tiny bit bad about that – I don’t want to disrespect the Beatles, or old people, but it’ll be totally worth it. It’s going to be massive, Bea.’ Her eyes go dreamy as she imagines it, then she flashes them back on to me. ‘So, big invitation . . . drum roll . . .’ She taps her hands on the desk. ‘Do you want to join us?’
For a moment, my heart leaps at the thought of all the fun I could have, but if I did that I’d lose Kat forever. ‘I’d better not. Kat would never speak to me again. She’s in Pearl’s “Twang My Thang” group.’
‘OMG! You wouldn’t want to upset Kat . . . can you imagine?’ She laughs, then stops when she sees my face. ‘What’s wrong?’
I consider telling her about Kat dumping me, but decide not to. To see Kat and Betty together, you’d never believe they once made up one half of the Ladybirds. Really, it was their fight that eventually led to our big split.
Just before our nativity play in Year Four, Betty ripped off her star costume in front of Miss Hooker and screamed ‘I’m Mary!’ again and again and again until her words came true. You see, Betty’s mum died when she was tiny and Miss Hooker always felt sorry for her. Unfortunately, Kat was Mary. Chances are they would have forgotten about it by home-time if Kat hadn’t snatched Jesus back mid-performance and started the infamous Ladybirds punch-up.
I don’t want to open old wounds.
‘My nan’s come to stay at our house for a few weeks,’ I say. ‘She’s sleeping in my bedroom . . . with me. We’re sharing.’
‘Are you serious? I wouldn’t let anyone share my bedroom.’
Charlie adds, ‘No one would want to. It’s disgusting.’
‘True.’
Suddenly, a shadow looms over us. Pearl is standing, hands on hips, glaring at Betty. She’s breathing heavily through her nose in an attempt to look hard and scary. It works. ‘What are you doing?’
Betty looks up. ‘What?’ Nothing scares Betty. Not even Pearl.
‘That.’ Pearl prods Amber’s arm.
‘Since you ask so nicely, Pearl, I’ll explain. I am colouring in a pair of lips. In the centre of the lips are the words “The Panty Liners” which is the name of our, like, totally awesome dance group!’
‘You stole our name,’ says Pearl.
‘You’re called The Panty Liners too? No way!’
‘You know what I mean, weirdo. We’re called The Pink Ladies and your name sounds just like ours.’
Betty pretends to think about this for a moment. ‘I don’t think it sounds just like yours. Really, it’s only the first letters that are the same, creating the illusion that they’re similar.’ She turns away from Pearl and carries on with her colouring in.
‘Change it,’ says Pearl, threateningly.
‘Ummm . . . let me think about that . . .’ Betty taps her biro on her teeth. ‘How about . . . no?’
‘You think you’re so clever, you and your strange little freak friends, don’t you?’
Betty ignores Pearl and her ‘strange little freak friends’ all do the same. Everyone can tell when Pearl’s about to get nasty. She leans over, and puts her face close to Betty’s.
‘You’ve even got a weird face. It gives me the creeps. You should try a bit of make-up because at the moment your face makes me feel sick. It’s bad enough that you smell without having to look at that.’ Pearl presses a finger into Betty’s forehead, then turns and walks back to her seat.
Pearl knows just how to hurt someone. Once, just once, Betty forgot to wash her PE kit and it smelt. Pearl noticed and she’s never shut up about it since. That’s what she’s like.
We sit in silence for a few seconds and then Betty says, ‘And your face looks like a great big pile of steaming –’
‘Betty,’ warns Amber. ‘She’s watching.’
‘Kat hangs out with such nice people,’ says Betty, turning to me. Her voice has the whisper of a tremble in it.
‘Kat didn’t say anything,’ I say.
Betty looks at me for a moment longer then turns back to Amber and her tattoo. If Betty and Kat were a Venn diagram, I’d be the squashed bit in the middle.
The rest of the day drags on and after school I leave on my own. Kat’s going to Pearl’s house to ‘plan their image’, but says she’ll ring me later.
I’m walking across the playground when a familiar voice calls out, ‘Over here, Bumble Bea!’
Nan! What’s she doing inside the playground . . . wearing a white cowboy hat . . . and a Topshop fur coat? She’s pushing Emma in her buggy and, for once, my sister looks like the normal one . . . even though her face is painted like a frog.
‘Ready for your lesson?’ asks Nan.
‘Got your bra,’ says Emma.
‘What?’ She’s got Nan to dress her in green so she looks more frog-like. She’s even got little froggy ears – cute.
‘Got your BRA on my HEAD!’ she screams. I hear some Year Ten girls gasp. I peer closer. Those aren’t ears! Those padded cups belong to the ‘jazzy’ lime-green bra Nan got me for Christmas.
I grab Emma’s buggy and jog with her towards the exit. ‘Come on, Nan,’ I say, praying she’s following me. ‘I can’t be late for my first salsa lesson.’
‘Jive lesson, Bea.’
‘Yep, jive lesson. Definitely can’t be late for that.’
Twenty minutes later, we’re standing outside a church hall on a deserted street behind Tesco’s. Stuck on the information board is a cream flyer for the Memphis Belle Jive Studio. This, combined with the loud rock ’n’ roll that’s drifting out of the door – something about a ‘big ol’ lovin’ machine’ – tells me we’re at the right place.
I feel sick. Shyness overwhelms me and I’m rooted to the pavement. I have to get out of this. Just as I’m thinking about pretending to faint, Nan pushes open the door and disappears inside, dragging Emma behind her.
I can’t pretend-faint on my own. It’d be more embarrassing than not fainting at all. So, heart thudding to the music, I push open the door and step inside. The door slams, blocking out the sunlight, and for a moment my eyes can’t adjust. Then I see movement in the centre of the room.
It’s a dance.
A breathtaking dance.
Whirling round the hall are a man and a woman – Lulu and Ray, I guess – and they’re dancing so quickly, so amazi
ngly, that I just have to smile. Lulu swings in our direction and flashes us an enormous grin. Her red lipstick matches both her Converse and the cherries on her top. Ray, the man spinning her in a never-ending sequence of twists, is best described as Elvis-like, but think lean, mean Elvis, not chubby, forty-deep-fried-squirrel-burgers-a-day Elvis. And my biggest surprise is their age – they’re in their twenties, not drawing their pensions as I’d suspected.
Still they keep dancing, slowing down for a few moments to waltz with exaggerated slowness before flying apart again. Bang on the end of the song, Ray swings Lulu up and over his head so she’s left upside down, dangling in space. Carefully, he returns her to the ground and they come over to us. I notice that I’m still smiling and all thoughts of pretend-fainting have vanished.
‘So you’re the Beatrice I’ve been hearing so much about,’ says Lulu. ‘Do you want to learn to jive?’
That’s when it hits me. There is nothing in the world I want to do more than learn to jive. But even as I consider the incredible possibility that, one day, I could dance like Lulu, I hear myself saying, ‘Yes, but I could never do what you just did. I can’t dance.’
‘Have you ever tried to dance like this?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know you can’t do it?’
I shrug.
Nan speaks up, ‘She’s right, love. Jive is a different kettle of fish to the stuff you usually do. For one thing, you don’t do it on your own. You have a partner and he shows you what to do by leading you.’
‘It’s the men who do all the hard bits,’ says Ray.
Lulu rolls her eyes. ‘We won our first jive competition after we’d been dancing together for just two months. You might be a natural. Anyway, Bea, I know you’ll be fine because I’ve found you a great partner. You’ll be perfect together.’
Flirty Dancing Page 2