It's a Girl Thing

by Grace Dent

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - life is harsh ...

  Chapter 2 - banging the drum of love

  Chapter 3 - the thlot pickens . . .

  Chapter 4 - the best of times . . . the worst of times

  Chapter 5 - give us a tune then . . .

  Chapter 6 - an extra-special song

  Chapter 7 - another bright idea

  Chapter 8 - a pizza bad news

  Chapter 9 - hold the front page

  Chapter 10 - a special visit

  Chapter 11 - blackwell (really) live

  Chapter 12 - so, in conclusion

  Life is harsh....

  So here are me and Dad, hovering around each other, in a deadlock. This must be how the UN negotiators feel just before bombs begin getting lobbed. Eventually, the great fun-stopping ogre speaks:

  “Look, Ronnie. There is no way whatsoever you and your little posse of clowns . . .” (bit harsh, I thought) . . . “are getting tickets for Astlebury Music Festival. It’s far too dangerous, what with all those hairy lads sniffing about. And different trains you’d need to catch . . . and drug dealers injecting you with acid or stealing your tent . . . and, well, trouble like that. You’re just not going. No way! Nicky nacky nada way.”

  If Dad thinks dressing up the word “no” by saying it amusingly will earn him forgiveness for being “the man who killed summer,” he’s soooo wrong.

  In a previous life, I was obviously Vlad the Impaler.

  I’m paying big time for something.

  OTHER SPEAK BOOKS

  SPEAK

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  First published in the United States of America by G.P. Putnam’s Sons,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2003

  Published in Great Britain by Puffin UK, London, 2003

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004

  Copyright © Grace Dent, 2003

  All rights reserved

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15705-3

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15705-3

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A massive thank you to Sarah Hughes at Puffin UK for suggesting

  I write a novel, then badgering me politely again and again

  when I forgot. I’m so, so glad you did.

  Also, big thanks to everybody at Puffin UK for absolutely “getting” the

  LBD from the very first word and bringing it to life so beautifully.

  Eternal gratitude to Caradoc King and Vicky Longley at AP Watt for

  their fantastic support and belief in me.

  Thanks to Sophie, and lastly, thanks to Bryok Williams for

  reading every single word as we went along.

  You’re all brilliant.

  for mam—

  who lived with the world’s worst teenager

  Chapter 1

  life is harsh ...

  “Nope. No way. Absolutely not. Not over my dead body, matey.”

  Negotiations with Dad about my summer holiday plans have hit an all-time low. In fact, unless I’m much mistaken, Dad’s turned his back on me and shuffled halfway across the saloon bar in the Fantastic Voyage.

  He’s fiddling with beer mats and urgently rearranging slices of lemon, almost as if my fate is decided. Now, my friends, this is NOT the air of a man “carefully mulling his daughter’s future.” No. It’s the look of a man ignoring me. Someone hoping I’ll vanish. Or at least “cease being so flippin’ cheeky and squeaky” in his general direction.

  I, Veronica Ripperton, am, in fact, a full fourteen years and two months old, for crying out loud. Not “squeaky” at all. More “husky” and “womanly.” What does he know anyway? He can’t even pick his nose privately.

  So here are me and Dad, hovering around each other, in a deadlock. This must be how UN negotiators feel just before bombs begin getting lobbed. Eventually, the great fun-stopping ogre speaks:

  “Look, Ronnie. There is no way whatsoever you and your little posse of clowns . . .” (bit harsh, I thought) . . . “are getting tickets for Astlebury Music Festival. It’s far too dangerous, what with all those hairy lads sniffing about. And different trains you’d need to catch . . . and drug dealers injecting you with acid or stealing your tent . . . and, well, trouble like that. You’re just not going. No way! Nicky nacky nada way.”

  Dad’s sandy sideburns virtually bristle at the thought of his offspring having such pure, unadulterated fun. Pah. If Dad thinks dressing up the word “no” by saying it amusingly will earn him forgiveness for being “the man who killed summer,” he’s soooo wrong.

  “And while we’re at it, Ronnie. Go and put a bigger T-shirt on! I can almost see your boobs.” (Heaven forbid! I must be the only girl in England with a pair. Call the nipple police.)

  “And I can see your belly button too! And your knickers! No wonder my profits on bar meals are down. All that flesh. It’s just not right. . . .” Dad gazes at the fifteen-centimeter gap between my T-shirt and jeans with utter disdain, then slumps his shoulders woefully, as if the weight of the Western World rests upon them.

  Fine, so Dad isn’t loving the crop-top, low-slung hipsters look, I can live with that, but by this stage, I’m so seething about the whole Astlebury thing that I’m fantasizing about strangling the furry-faced loser with a beer towel.

  Dad’s not a happy man either; as I begin to huff and puff around the bar, slamming chairs around rather insolently, his eyes are bulging with rage . . . something is going to blow.

  “It’s a thong, actually. Not knickers,” I announce, yanking the offending lacy garment up even farther, out of the back of my trousers, proving my point nicely. Very bad idea.

  “It’s a WHAT??!” shrieks Dad, his lips thinning into two pale lavender strips.

  Ooops, time for a sharp exit, I think, hotfooting toward the pub’s back doors. (Okay, hotfooting as quickly as a girl can with a knickers-up-bum-crack situation going on.)

  But before I can hobble out the door, making a rather undignified exit, suddenly Dad is in front of me. He places a big hand upon my shoulder, his face quite calm again.

  “No. Stop, Ronnie . . . wait a minute . . . ,” he says, obviously wanting to make things up.

  Lawrence “Loz” Ripperton (aka “Dad” or “Keeper of the Wallet”) doesn’t like arguing. He’s all about peace and love, is my old man. It’s a good job really, as in our household: 1) I quite enjoy a good row and 2) Mum positively relishes a proper bust-up. While Dad is a bit of a mellow soul, my mother, Magda Ripperton, the female face of the Fantastic Voyage, is like a Tasmanian devil with lipstick. As the Fantastic Voyage’s chef, Magda’s at her happiest churning out dinner for two hundred, with a flaming griddle pan in one hand, a pan of boiling salted water in the other, holding a blazing row with the sous-chef at the same time. No wonder I go to Dad with all of my far-fetched requests, such as today’s “being let loose at a music festival with my best mates for the weekend.” Dad is far more likely to simply mishear me, get a bit mixed up and think I’m asking to go and see a band at the local town hall. Magda, on the other hand (or “that bloody woman,” as she’s known to the postman, the gasman, the meat suppliers, her accountan
t and various family members), would have sussed my game right away. She’d have hidden my shoes and put me on round-the-clock watch for even thinking about Astlebury.

  Thank God my dad is a pushover.

  “I’m sorry, love, if I’m spoiling your fun,” he mutters with a reproachful half smile. “I’ll make it up to you, eh, chooch?” He runs a hand over my hair, which makes me feel about five again. “Why don’t you ask Mum about the festival? If she says yes, I’ll have another think. . . .” Dad has obviously banged his head on a beam and forgotten ever meeting his wife, Magda; I’d have more chance asking if I could fritter the petty cash float on sparkly lip gloss and Belgian truffles.

  This for Ronnie Ripperton is a D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R. In fact, it’s a big, fat, flatulent sack of poo-flavored mess.

  Game over.

  My cunning-as-a-fox plan—get the green light for Astlebury from Dad, then get straight onto that premium-rate ticket hotline before word on the street reaches the basement kitchen—is scuppered. By the time Empress Venger was supposed to find out about Astlebury, me, Claudette and Fleur (aka Les Bambinos Dangereuses or the LBD, as we’re known universally) would be well on our way to forty-eight hours of watching all our favorite bands play live, camping out under the stars . . . oh, and, like, meeting up with just about a million totally lush festival-going boys. The LBD have seen and noted the sort of lads that go to music festivals on MTV. Meow! It’s like Snogfest Central, with a lot of loud music, dancing, crowd-surfing, staying up all night and eating veggie burgers chucked in. We want to go so so much, we talked about it for the whole week after seeing the ads on MTV. Astlebury Festival sounds like the natural habitation for an LBD member.

  “Hang on! I’ve got an idea!” chirps Dad. “Why don’t I take you girls to Walrus World in Penge instead!?” he says.

  My heart sinks. I’d rather jam my head in the tumble dryer, then switch it on.

  “You used to love those walruses, Ronnie. . . . Remember the one that juggles the balls!? . . .” Dad’s voice fades to a well-meaning whisper as I trudge into the early-evening air.

  In a previous life, I was obviously Vlad the Impaler.

  I’m paying big time for something.

  my manor

  The Fantastic Voyage: The pub on the high street where we live, in reality, isn’t all that “fantastic.” Well, it maybe was at one point (in medieval times when most of our regulars first started drinking here, back when people were thrilled just to be inside a pub and not being mauled by wolves or ransacked by high- waymen). Nowadays, it’s a bit sucky.

  The Voyage punters are a lost cause: All they want is comfy sofas, cold beer, local tittle-tattle and darts. Which is just hunky dory as that’s the Fantastic Voyage in a sentence. So here I am, storming down the high street in a really bad mood. Past the funny beardie-weirdie bloke who dances for spare change outside the bakery, almost getting flattened in my haste by a spotty geek pushing the bins out of McDonald’s. What a way to die! Squished into a big human Filet-O-Fish. I’m checking my reflection in the shop windows. (Hairs are a bit wonky, skin’s a bit shiny, but overall not bad, considering my trauma. I think I’m at my best when I’m fuming, just like Mum.) It feels good battering out my aggression on the pavement, covering ground quicker than anyone else on the street. Right now, I’m on my way to Fleur’s house. Fleur Swan lives just along the street here and around the corner, halfway down Disraeli Road. If I’d turned left out of the pub instead of right and walked the same distance, I’d be at Claude Cassiera’s flat. That is one of the most marvelous aspects of being in the LBD; we all live so close, we can summon an emergency meeting in minutes, which comes in handy as there are a lot of emergencies. Like today for example. I love this high street; the clothes shops, the cafes, the makeup counters, the alleyways, all of these are the LBD’s territory. It’s a good thing this street gives me a kick, really. If my parents have their way, I’m not going anywhere for a very long time.

  Blip. Blip. Bleeeeeep. Text!

  MAY KILL SELF B4 U GET HERE. HATE THEM.—FLEUR 6:46 P.M.

  evil paddy and the chocolate stain

  In the front bedroom bay window of the Swan family residence stands the lovely yet extremely angry Fleur Swan, her dainty snub nose pressed against the glass, awaiting my arrival. On spotting me turn the corner into Disraeli Road, Fleur disappears from view, leaving a chocolaty smudge on Mrs. Saskia Swan’s otherwise pristine windows. Fleur must be hopping mad if she’s scoffing sweets; normally she’s a highly saintly, plenty of fruit and veg, three liters of mineral water daily, glossy-haired, peachy-skinned kinda chick. Oh, and she’s five foot seven too, with honey-blond highlights. If she wasn’t one of my best friends, I’d definitely hate her.

  “Get this!” Fleur shouts, opening the door. “Apparently the loud music will damage my eardrums. Huh!” she says with a little false laugh of disbelief. “So I’m barred from going to Astlebury Festival? Can you belieeeeve that?! God, I hate them both!” she snarls, beckoning me in. I half expect to find Mr. and Mrs. Swan chopped up into small bite-size pieces on the den floor, but thankfully they’re both in full working order. Patrick “Paddy” Swan, Fleur’s dad, is reclining in a deep leather La-Z-Boy chair in their lavish cream den, while Fleur’s mother, Saskia, is fiddling about with a bonsai tree and some mini-clippers. Neither of them seem very concerned about their imminent murder. (Fleur’s house is a bit like one in a glossy mag. Except that in magazines people are rarely photographed yelling with chocolate all over their faces. Or enjoying a large post-work gin and tonic and the Racing Times like Mr. Swan was at this precise moment.)

  “Ah, Miss Ripperton, we’ve been expecting you,” Fleur’s dad announces. (He’s a big James Bond fan.) “So you’ll be in on this little fandango too, I suppose?” He sniggers. “Ha ha. If you two girls imagine that I’m letting you run riot in a field for an entire weekend, you’re obviously dippier than you both look,” he says, pausing briefly to tickle Larry, the Swan family’s excessively smug-faced pure white Persian cat, under his chin. Larry purrs contentedly, like a furry road drill. Mr. Swan, in his navy pin-striped suit, with smirking sidekick Larry perched beside him, looks every inch the dastardly Bond villain. I’m far too scared to begin my “but it’s a reeeeally good life experience” argument in case he flicks a switch on the arm on the leather chair, depositing both Fleur and me into the cellar, where we’d have to survive by eating earwigs.

  do you like my dancin’?

  There’s a somber mood up in LBD headquarters (Fleur’s bedroom, which is split-level with a walk-in wardrobe. Can you believe it? My room’s like a cigarette packet compared to hers . . . sheesh).

  “The air is ripe with the remnants of dashed dreams,” I announce morbidly.

  “Oh, flipping shut up,” Fleur says. “It’s not over yet. The fat lady’s not sung. That’s what they say, isn’t it? We might make it.”

  I picture Magda, only a hundred pounds heavier, discovering I’d nipped off to Astlebury without permission. “Singing” would not be her first response. She’d fricassee my ass and serve it with dauphinoise potatoes.

  “Hey, you wanna hear this,” Fleur says, cheering up. Fleur flips on Classic Deep Ibiza House: Volume 20 and whacks on the parent irritation button, aka the Mega Surround Blast switch that makes CDs more echoey, intense and altogether fabulouso.

  Bumph! Bumph! Bumph! Bumph!

  The bass line kicks in at 132 beats per minute, loud enough to make Paddy Swan’s back teeth rattle downstairs in the den.

  Bumph! Bumph! Bumph! Bumph!

  A flurry of activity breaks out in the Swan household. Doors are slammed, footsteps race upstairs, then what sounds like:

  “Turnghghhh thaaaaaaat muuuusssiccc dooooowwwnn!!! Cannn yooooou heeeeear me???!!! Dowwwwn! Noooooow!!!”

  He’s loud, Mr. S, but not as loud, however, as the bone-shaking cymbals, synths and the track’s wicked vocal:“Gotta move yer body

  Gotta make yer mine

  Gotta move yer body


  In the house tonight . . .”

  If this tune doesn’t get you dancing, well, you’re either dead or deaf. Quickly, we’re both up on our feet, me and Fleur, wiggling our hips, pointing our fingers, kicking our feet, giggling like nutjobs, ignoring Mr. Swan (one of the dead/deaf contingent) and his loud door-thumping.

  “Turn it down!!! Or I’m turning the electricity off at the mains!” he snarls. Fleur does a little hop and skip over to her bedroom door, throwing the bolt across, locking her dad out. Silly Paddy; he should know the LBD rule by now. If we can’t SEE him shouting, then we can’t HEAR him shouting, and if he can’t get in to begin shaking us warmly by the throats, he’ll have to wait to be heard during the gap between songs.

  Brilliantly, what grumbly-mumblies like Mr. S never realize is: There are NO gaps between songs in dance music compilations! Hee hee! That’s the best bit.

  “If we keep this up, he’ll drive us to Astlebury himself!” yells Fleur, doing a very rude uppy, downy, shake-it-all-abouty motion with her behind.

  Not if he saw you doing that, I think.

  From where I’m standing, Fleur looks every inch the disco queen. You could just imagine her really going for it, up on a podium at a cool London warehouse party, wowing the crowds, shaking her tushy in a furry bra and neon hot pants.

  I’d probably be the one giving the DJ a hand carrying his record box.

  “So, tell me the latest with Jimi,” says Fleur, swapping Ibiza grooves for a more mellow Ultimate Chilldown compilation. We’re sprawled on Fleur’s double bed, scouring Bliss and More! for pics of “blond babe” haircuts for Fleur to show Dimitri at Streets Ahead (our favorite hairdresser).

  “Pggghhh . . . nothing to tell,” I say bleakly. “I’m not entirely convinced he knows that I exist.” And this is true, I’m not sure Jimi Steele does know who I am.