Superstar Babes

by Narinder Dhami

  Then it hit me. All of a sudden, full in the face, right between the eyes. Wham!

  ‘Listen to me, all of you,’ I announced breathlessly. ‘I’ve just had one of my best ideas ever.’

  Chapter Three

  SAD TO RELATE – and unbelievable too – Geena, Jazz, Kiran and Kim continued discussing Romy Turner’s trout pout without taking the slightest notice of me.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ I demanded.

  ‘Of course,’ Jazz replied. ‘Didn’t you realize we were ignoring you, you silly girl?’

  ‘But – I’ve just had the most fantastic idea!’ I protested.

  ‘Oh, yippee.’ Geena yawned. ‘Time for me to go and find my mates. See you, guys.’

  ‘Hold it right there!’ I said sternly. ‘This concerns you too, Geena.’

  ‘Bye, Amber,’ Geena retorted.

  ‘It’s about Mum.’

  Geena immediately turned back. ‘What about Mum?’

  I didn’t answer. Instead I flung out my arms. ‘Look around you. The Bolton Canteen. The Mackenzie Allan Studio. The SuperSports Gym.’

  ‘You’ve missed out the Kingston Medical Room,’ said Jazz. ‘And it seems like you should be heading straight there yourself.’

  ‘They’re all named after big businesses who’ve donated money to the school,’ I swept on regardless. Honestly, if I responded to every insult hurled at me, we’d be here all day. ‘What about if we could get something at Coppergate named after Mum?’

  There was silence. I had been glowing with excitement but now I suddenly felt unsure of myself as still no one said anything.

  ‘I think I just saw a pig flying across the sky,’ Geena said faintly. ‘For once, Amber has actually had a truly great idea.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Jazz, smiling widely. ‘A memorial for Mum, here at Coppergate. It’s brilliant.’

  ‘That’s a fabulous idea, Amber,’ Kim said, patting me on the arm. ‘I’ll help you any way I can.’

  ‘Me too,’ added Kiran.

  ‘All right,’ I said briskly, blinking very hard because I felt a teeny bit teary. ‘So we’re agreed then.’

  ‘But where do we start?’ Jazz asked.

  ‘And will Mr Morgan go for it?’ Geena added, looking a bit doubtful.

  ‘I can’t see Morgan turning down free money,’ I replied confidently. ‘And I was thinking about the library. If we could donate some money to the school, then Mr Morgan might agree to rename the library after Mum.’

  ‘The Anjleen Dhillon Library,’ Geena said thoughtfully. ‘Mmm, sounds good.’

  The library in our new school was about three times the size of the old one, and Mr Morgan had been making noises for some time about doing more fund-raising to buy extra books and new furniture. The problem was that now everyone, teachers and pupils alike, ran a mile every time the words sponsored event were mentioned.

  ‘Of course, we’ll ask Dad for the money,’ Jazz said.

  ‘Of course we won’t ask Dad for the money.’ I eyeballed her sternly. ‘We’ll raise it ourselves.’

  ‘But how?’ Geena enquired. ‘Everyone’s sick of sponsored events.’

  ‘Ours will be different,’ I assured her as the bell for morning lessons pealed out. ‘Anyway, the first thing to do is speak to Mr Morgan and see what he says.’

  ‘Actually, the first thing we need to do is find Mr Morgan,’ Geena pointed out. ‘If he exists at all. You do know that there’s rumours he’s left and been replaced by a hologram?’

  ‘OK, so he doesn’t seem to be around school much,’ I agreed. ‘But there’s his car.’ I pointed at the sleek silver Jaguar in the teachers’ car park. ‘So he must be here this morning.’

  ‘Let’s go right now!’ Jazz said eagerly.

  Kiran and Kim went off to class with instructions to let Mr Hernandez, my borderline-lunatic form tutor, know where I was. Mr Morgan’s office was in the quietest part of the school, a good distance away from the classrooms. I sometimes wondered if Mr M. actually realized that he was a headteacher at all. He always seemed to be out attending meetings, and as he was leaving next term anyway, he was around even less than before.

  Mr Morgan’s office door was shut and the neon sign above it had been switched from AVAILABLE to ENGAGED.

  ‘If you ever see it on AVAILABLE, I’ll give you a fiver,’ said Jazz.

  I raised my hand. ‘Shall I just knock anyway?’

  ‘Girls! What are you doing?’

  Mrs Capstick, the school secretary, had popped her head out of the office next door and was giving us the evil eye.

  ‘We just wanted to speak to Mr Morgan,’ I said apologetically, feeling like a criminal mastermind caught in some dastardly act.

  Mrs Capstick clicked her tongue reprovingly. ‘Now, now, girls, you know you have to come and see me to make an appointment.’

  ‘Well, what’s the point of that then?’ Jazz asked, looking up at the sign.

  Mrs Capstick ignored her. She ushered us into her office and opened a large blue diary.

  ‘Now let me see,’ she said, tapping her pen against her teeth. ‘Is it urgent?’

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I might be able to fit you in next week,’ Mrs Capstick went on thoughtfully. ‘Mr Morgan has ten minutes or so after lunch on Wednesday.’

  ‘Next Wednesday!’ Jazz exclaimed. ‘But that’s ages—’

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ I said quickly.

  Mrs Capstick wrote our names down in the diary and we wandered out.

  ‘Maybe Mr Morgan has a secret life as a superhero,’ Jazz suggested. ‘That’s why he’s never in school. He’s too busy saving the world.’

  ‘Oh, stop,’ said Geena. ‘I’ve just had this horrible image of Mr Morgan in a lycra costume.’

  ‘And on that ghastly note, I’ll see you two later,’ I added. ‘Start thinking up some fund-raising ideas – and they’ve got to be really different from anything that’s been done in school before.’

  We split up at the end of the corridor and went our separate ways. On the way to my form group, I began mentally ticking off fund-raising events. Sponsored walks, runs, spelling bees, silences, sleepovers, readathons . . . The list was endless. But our fund-raising was going to be special.

  I didn’t know how yet, but it was.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Amber,’ Mr Hernandez said as I entered the classroom. His blue shirt patterned with swaying hula girls was loud, even for him. ‘I’d given you up for dead.’

  ‘Not quite, sir,’ I replied. I sat down next to Kim and Kiran. ‘Guess how long we have to wait to see Mr Morgan.’

  ‘Got to be next week at the earliest,’ Kiran said. ‘Thursday?’

  ‘Close.’ I shrugged. ‘Wednesday.’

  ‘Well, you can start fund-raising right away,’ Kim pointed out. ‘You don’t have to wait to see Mr Morgan. What are you going to do first?’

  ‘Kim, these things take time,’ I said with exasperation. ‘It’s got to be thought about and properly planned.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know,’ Kim replied with annoying promptness.

  ‘What I mean is, I’m working on it,’ I said.

  I worked on it all through the morning when I should have been studying maths, science and French. By lunch time I had a long list of possible fund-raising events. Unfortunately I’d crossed the whole lot out. They were all too ordinary. Too dull. We needed something that would fire everyone’s interest and make them give us loads of money. But what?

  ‘God, I’m starving,’ I said as Kiran, Kim and I went across the playground towards the canteen. Although the lunchtime bell had literally only rung out about thirty seconds before, there was already a hungry crowd stretching right along the corridor, baying for food. ‘How do these people manage to get to the front of the queue so quickly?’

  ‘It must be particularly bad today,’ Kim remarked. ‘Look, Mrs Openshaw is on guard.’

  Mrs Openshaw was the cook. She�
�d started at the school a few weeks ago, but she was the only one of the dinner staff who was scary enough to make people behave. When she said you had to have vegetables, you had vegetables. She was broad and tall, looming over the younger kids like a bottle-blonde giantess, and occasionally when the queue got too rowdy, she’d stomp out, brandishing a wooden spoon. She was standing there now, glowering at everyone.

  ‘Hey, Amber, there you are.’ George Botley was at my elbow. ‘Come on. Mrs Openshaw’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Me!’ I laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘She is,’ George insisted. ‘She’s going to let you into lunch first.’

  I stared at him in bemusement.

  ‘The task you set me!’ George rolled his eyes impatiently. ‘Remember? I spoke to Mrs Openshaw, and she’s going to let you in early for lunch every day this week. Just like you wanted.’

  I was stunned into silence. But Kim and Kiran made up for that by shrieking with laughter and holding each other up very theatrically.

  ‘George,’ I spluttered, ‘you’re not serious?’

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Amber!’ Mrs Openshaw was waving her wooden spoon at me. ‘Over here, dear.’

  ‘Go on.’ George poked me in the back.

  ‘But – but – how?’ I groaned.

  ‘Mrs Openshaw’s a big fan of Who’s in the House?’ George explained, looking very smug. ‘And she loves Molly Mahal. I told her you’d get her autograph for her.’

  ‘George!’ I wanted to put my hands around his neck and deprive him of air. ‘I can’t do that! I don’t even know how to get in touch with Molly.’

  That wasn’t strictly true. Molly had left us the name and address of her agent when she moved out, but I wasn’t going to tell George that.

  ‘Oh, well.’ George shrugged. ‘You can tell Mrs O. that after the week’s over. Ha ha!’

  I looked at Mrs Openshaw and gulped. She was staring fiercely at the kids at the front of the queue. ‘Stand aside,’ she boomed. ‘Stand aside, I say!’

  A gap opened in the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea. With great ceremony George escorted me to the head of the queue, leaving Kim and Kiran chortling gleefully behind us. I burned with embarrassment as I ran the gauntlet of glares and grumbles from everyone else who had been in front of me.

  ‘Enjoy your lunch, Amber,’ Jazz said bitterly. She was fourth in the line with her friends Shweta and Zoe.

  ‘Look, I didn’t know George was going to do this,’ I wailed, but I was bundled inside the canteen by Mrs Openshaw. George stood just inside the doorway, grinning all over his stupid face, until the crowd closed in on him and shunted him out of the way.

  ‘I do love Molly Mahal.’ Mrs Openshaw nipped back behind the serving hatch, where the other canteen staff were watching us in amazement. ‘I can’t believe she used to live with you before I started at Coppergate. Trust me to miss all the excitement.’ She picked up a plate and began piling carrots onto it. ‘You’ll have cabbage and cauliflower as well, Amber.’

  It was a statement, not a question. As I carried my heavy plate over to the table and sat down on my own, the rest of the queue glaring at me through the windows, I realized that I had made a very, very serious mistake.

  I had completely underestimated George Botley.

  ‘I suppose you expect us to let you out of the playground gates first.’ Jazz sniffed as we left school that evening.

  ‘Oh, stop,’ I said. I had been teased without mercy all afternoon, and I was feeling rather fragile. ‘Look, I didn’t know George was going to pull that off.’

  ‘Well, he did, and rather spectacularly too,’ Geena observed. ‘And you’re going to have to carry on all week now, Amber.’

  ‘I think I should warn you that you might actually suffer some kind of serious injury,’ Jazz said helpfully. ‘Feelings were running rather high in the lunch queue after you swept past us with your nose in the air.’

  ‘I so did not do that,’ I retorted. ‘Anyway, I told George and Mrs Openshaw that once was quite enough.’

  ‘So is Mrs Openshaw going to get her Molly Mahal autograph as a reward?’ Kim enquired.

  ‘Well, I was thinking of forging it,’ I admitted.

  Jazz, Geena, Kim and Kiran stared sternly at me.

  ‘Oh all right, I’ll write to Molly,’ I muttered. ‘But it could be ages before I get a reply. Who’s in the House? doesn’t finish for another couple of weeks.’

  ‘Hey, Amber.’ George Botley materialized at my side, looking very satisfied with himself. ‘Enjoy your lunch?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ I snapped, against a backdrop of sniggers and giggles from the others.

  ‘Bet you didn’t think I’d manage it,’ George said in a jaunty tone.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ I agreed. At that precise moment we were passing the teachers’ car park; I saw Mr Morgan’s silver Jaguar again and an idea popped swiftly into my head. ‘George, I have another task for you.’

  ‘Cool.’ George cocked his head and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Geena, Jazz and I need to see Mr Morgan urgently,’ I went on. ‘Get us an appointment before next Wednesday.’

  George looked astounded and this time I was the one who felt satisfied. That had shut up the sniggers and giggles.

  ‘No way!’ George shook his head. ‘That is impossible.’

  ‘Nothing’s impossible, Georgie,’ I said, wagging my finger playfully at him. ‘I’ll wait for you to get back to me.’

  And I strode off, leaving George apparently deep in thought.

  ‘Amber, you’re quite, quite ruthless,’ Jazz said with grudging admiration as she and the others scuttled along behind me.

  ‘Why?’ I shrugged. ‘If by some extraordinary unparalleled miracle, George does manage to get us an earlier appointment with Mr Morgan, it’ll be all to the good.’

  ‘But he won’t,’ Kiran predicted.

  I smiled wolfishly. ‘Then I shall make him pay the penalty. As for you two’ – I eyeballed Geena and Jazz – ‘don’t rely on me, outrageously creative as I am, to come up with all the fund-raising ideas. Tomorrow we’ll have a meeting. And I shall expect each of you to have thought up at least one utterly fantastic plan to raise loads of money.’

  Geena looked down her nose at me. ‘Honestly, Amber, I can see you ending up as the tinpot dictator of some minor South American country.’

  ‘Oh yes, there aren’t many career choices for someone like Amber,’ Jazz agreed. ‘What about the villain in James Bond films whose aim is always world domination? That’s the ultimate in bossiness.’

  ‘Look, this is for Mum,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not going to pull any punches.’

  Geena and Jazz were silent. They looked a bit worried. Secretly, I was also slightly concerned. I was realizing that it wasn’t easy to come up with spectacular stunts that would raise hundreds of pounds, just like that. For the first time in the last two years, I began to feel a little sorry for Mr Morgan and his never-ending attempts to raise cash to pour into the bottomless money-pit that was Coppergate School . . .

  We didn’t tell Dad, Auntie and Mr Arora about our idea until we were all together, waiting for that evening’s Who’s in the House? to start. I put the TV on mute, stood in the middle of the living room and cleared my throat.

  ‘I have something to say.’

  ‘What have you done now?’ Auntie enquired. ‘I already know it was you who broke the microwave.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ I replied quickly. ‘Anyway, did you know that if Jazz hasn’t got any clean socks on a school morning, she washes out yesterday’s pair and dries them in the microwave? That can’t be good for it.’

  ‘What?’ Geena shrieked, dropping the pakora she was holding. ‘You mean we’re eating food that has shared a microwave with Jazz’s socks?’

  ‘Oh, you are so dead, Amber,’ Jazz muttered.

  Auntie and Dad raised their eyebrows at her.

  ‘We’ll be having a chat about the importance of planning ahea
d and being organized after the programme, Jasvinder,’ Dad said sternly.

  ‘As well as a l-o-n-g lesson on how to use the washing machine,’ Auntie added.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, having neatly deflected the question of how I accidentally broke the microwave in the first place, ‘this is about Mum.’

  There was instant silence, and Dad, Auntie and Uncle Jai looked intrigued. Quickly I outlined our plan.

  ‘And so we want to raise enough money to get the school library named after Mum,’ I finished up. ‘What do you think?’

  I didn’t dare look at Dad. I know what he’s like.

  ‘Girls, that’s a wonderful idea,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘I know your mum would be very proud of you—’ He stopped.

  ‘Don’t cry, Dad,’ said Geena. ‘You’ll start us all off.’

  ‘I think it would be a fantastic way to remember your mum.’ Auntie smiled warmly at us, and Uncle Jai nodded.

  ‘We’ll all help in any way we can,’ he said.

  ‘And if anyone can bully and browbeat people into giving lots of money, it’s you three,’ Auntie added.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘It was a compliment,’ replied Auntie.

  ‘And just to start off your fund-raising, I’ll give you a donation.’ Dad looked from me to Geena and Jazz. ‘Shall we say a thousand pounds?’

  ‘Oh, Dad, thanks!’ We all threw ourselves at him and had a group hug.

  ‘We won’t have much fund-raising to do now!’ Jazz said gleefully as we disentangled ourselves.

  ‘Er – maybe you’d better wait and see how much money Mr Morgan will want you to donate,’ Uncle Jai suggested.

  ‘It won’t be a problem.’ I waved my hand airily. ‘We can do this!’