It's a Girl Thing

by Grace Dent

  “Yeah, I think I know what you mean,” agrees Claude, nodding furiously. “Like Spike Saunders!”

  “Exactly like Spike Saunders.” I smile. “I mean, a hundred boys could sing and look cool in videos almost like Spike does, but there’s something, really, like, totally . . . er . . .”

  “X factor about him?” Claude says, helping me along.

  “Yeah, totally X factor about him!” I grin.

  “I like his bum,” announces Fleur, somewhat missing the point.

  “Yes, Fleur, we all like his bum,” says Claude, shaking her head. “But we didn’t travel two hundred miles on a bus last year and pay stacks of cash to see Spike just to see his bum, did we?”

  “I did,” says Fleur, winking at me.

  “Oh, lordy,” says Claude, trying not to laugh at Fleur, as we both know it simply encourages her.

  Claude takes out a notebook and writes X factor? in big letters on a fresh page. Silently, I pity some of the poor souls determined to impress Claude this afternoon. Inadvertently, I’ve just made their job fifty percent harder.

  Eventually our judges bench is erected at the far end of the gym; three chairs sit behind it, facing toward the vast empty floor. Claude has unlocked the cupboard containing the gymnasium’s rather lame stereo system: a small CD player, radio and tape deck so ancient that it possibly belonged to Jesus before he kindly donated it to Blackwell School. After a few false starts, Little C soon works out how to blast tunes from the two main gymnasium speakers (a technical task that took Mr. McGraw the best part of five years to master).

  “Ooh, I hope people bring CDs and tapes to sing along with,” Claude worries aloud, strolling around the perimeters of the gym, checking for power sockets just in case people want to plug electric guitars or synthesizers in.

  “Yeah, me too.” Fleur giggles. “We can always just turn the volume up to MAX if they sound too awful.”

  “Fleur Swan, shame on you!” Claude says, wagging her finger.

  In truth, I’ve tried imagining what on Earth I’ll do if people are really really dreadful; cunningly I’ve decided that I’ll pretend to get something vitally important out of my rucksack, like a new pen or something, then I’ll place my entire head inside and have a good old hoot. Cruel, but necessary.

  “Come on, girls, we’ve got to be kind to everyone, no matter how awful they are,” says Claude, being the voice of reason as ever.

  Jeez, Claude Cassiera really does believe all that baloney about how “It’s not how good you are at something, it’s the taking part that counts,” which is quite clearly rubbish if you ask me. Nobody was “kind” to me last term when I trudged home last out of forty in the 400-meter race, were they?

  Yes, okay, I did walk the last two laps, and sit down at one point for a rest, but nobody said, “Well done, Ronnie! You did really well for just turning up and wearing your gym knickers the right way around anyway! That was really fantastic!” No, everyone was extremely rude indeed, especially Mrs. Wood, our PE teacher. She said she’d seen three-legged races run faster, then she suggested I do it on a moped next time. Everybody almost wet themselves laughing.

  If I were a cruel person, these Blackwell Live auditions could be my revenge on a school that mocks me.

  Good job I’m lovely, eh?

  “Now, while I remember,” says Claude, “I need someone to be in charge of collecting phone numbers. Who wants to do that?”

  “I can do that,” cheeps Fleur enthusiastically. “When do you want me to ask for them?”

  “Well, I thought,” says Claude, nabbing the table’s central seat and placing three notebooks and pens down, “just before a band or a singer performs, we’ll take a contact number for them. Then later on, back around your place, we’ll decide who’s in and out and call them with the good news. That sound all right?”

  “Good plan,” says Fleur, raising one eyebrow mischievously. “And even better than that, we’ll have loads of really cool lads’ phone numbers too, won’t we.”

  I have to laugh this time.

  “Yes, we will, Fleur,” says Claude. “But we won’t be abusing this privilege by phoning them for other reasons at a later date, will we?”

  “No, we certainly won’t, Claudette,” Fleur says, shaking her head.

  As Claude looks for more highlighter pens, Fleur winks again at me. It takes an iron will not to giggle at her.

  “Er, excuuuuse me . . . ,” echoes a voice from the far end of the gym.

  Our first performer has arrived!

  “Am I too early? Shall I go away for a bit?”

  Aha, it’s Chester Walton, a sporty Year 10 lad infamous for wearing far too much hair gel, the collar of his blazer perpetually turned up and an abundance of very fragrant body splash. I can smell Chester right at this moment from over 200 meters away.

  “No, Chester, it’s three fifty-eight P.M.,” says Claude charitably. “We can kick off a little early just for you. Please register your details with Fleur, then . . . well, do whatever you want. It’s your call.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” says Chester, smiling with all of his teeth. “And before I begin, can I just take this opportunity to tell you ladies how exceptionally radiant you’re all looking today.”

  “Thanks, Chester,” I groan. “So are you.”

  Chester swaggers up to Fleur, who immediately begins cocking her head to the side and gurgling like a drain.

  “Especially you, Fleur Swan,” continues Chester. “If your eyes got any bluer, I’d be tempted to change into my Speedo and dive straight into them. They’re like the Pacific Ocean.”

  (No, he really did say this. I’m not making it up.)

  “Oooh, Chester, shutttup, stopppppit, stop being silly!” says Fleur, losing all power over her brain cells. “Tee hee hee. Anyway, what’s your phone number?”

  “Oooh, Fleur, why do you want my phone number?” teases Chester. “Do you want to take me out on a date one night? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Noooo, shuttttup, not at all, ha ha hee hee,” simpers Fleur. “It’s just that—”

  “We want your number,” Claude butts in rather harshly, “so that in the slim chance you’re not rubbish, we can contact you.”

  What was that Claude was saying about being kind to everyone?

  “Ah, I see,” says Chester, undeterred. “But I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in what I have to show you.”

  Chester walks over to the stereo, stopping midway to examine his reflection in a nearby window, ensuring his collar is extra sticky-uppy, before inserting a CD into the stereo and pressing PLAY. Suddenly, the air fills with saxophones and cymbals; it sounds like the introduction to a rather old-fashioned jazz number. After a few bars, Chester pulls a hairbrush from his pocket and begins to croon.

  “This one is going out to all the laydeez in the house tonight,” says Chester, pointing individually at all three LBD members. “And I feel so very lucky to have such a beautiful audience, to hear me sing such a beautiful song. Which goes a little something like this . . .”

  “He is NOT playing at Blackwell Live,” announces Claude under her breath before Chester has even sung a note.

  “Ooh, wait on, Claude, this is going to be good.” I laugh. “He’s not even started yet, give him a chance!”

  With an open mind and a heavy heart, we gave Chester “a chance.”

  “Sometimes when a man lurrrves a woman.

  A wooman like yooooou

  It’s hard.

  Ooh, you know it’s haaaaaard?”

  It wouldn’t have been so hideous if Chester Walton could actually sing, but the boy couldn’t find a note, let alone hold the same one for more than two seconds.

  “Isn’t he great?!” coos Fleur, clapping along.

  Claude and I exchange withering looks.

  “Thanks, Chester,” says Claude as he finishes his final chorus, ending up somehow on his knees in front of the table. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Chester stands up
, blows each one of us a kiss, then makes his way through the small crowd gathered around the gym door, high-fiving some of the lucky, lucky souls who caught his performance.

  “Oh my God! Are all these people here to audition?” says Claude. “There’s flipping loads of them! Please make some of them better than Chester Walton.”

  I stand up to get a proper look. Claude hasn’t spotted the long winding queue stretching right along the corridor and into the lower school cloakrooms.

  “There’s about two hundred people!” I say, shaking my head in disbelief.

  “I told you so!” says Fleur, pocketing a spare copy of Chester’s phone number.

  Claude takes a deep breath and regains her cool, beckoning in the next Blackwell bod.

  “Constance Harvey,” announces a redheaded Year 9 girl. “I’ve not brought a CD or anything, I’ll just sing a cappella,” she says confidently.

  “Ooh, go on then, when you’re ready.” Claude smiles.

  In seconds, Constance is in full tunesome flow, bellowing out a heartfelt rendition of an old country-and-western song called “Stand by Your Man.”

  Constance, to give her credit, is really putting 110 percent effort into this audition, so I shouldn’t be harsh. And it’s not that she’s a bad singer; it’s just she’s not a very good one either. I’m not overly keen. I mean, call me Mrs. Unnecessarily-Harsh-Pants, but I don’t like the strange half-American accent Constance chooses to sing in (when I know full well she lives four streets away). Or the fact that she keeps waggling her arms about on the choruses like a demented windmill.

  Uggggggh! I was getting that really jittery 3:00 A.M. feeling again, aided and abetted by that ever-burgeoning queue of Blackwell bods carrying xylophones, trumpets and flutes.

  “I want X-factor people playing Blackwell Live,” I mutter quietly to Claude. “This is a PROPER music festival. Like Astlebury. Not a circus freak show.”

  Thankfully, Constance sings a shorter version of “Stand by Your Man” than I remember.

  The red-haired diva looks to the LBD pleadingly.

  “Thanks, Constance, that was really, er, something,” announces Claude without a hint of falseness. “We’ll have a think and be in touch.”

  “Fine, suit yerself,” says Constance, flouncing away with her snub nose pointed skyward.

  Claude looks at her watch, shaking her head.

  “Right, girls, we’re going to have to get through these acts a bit quicker,” she says, but her nag ends there as Fleur interrupts her loudly, leaping to her feet with both hands on her skinny bilinky hips. Fleur sounds furious.

  “OOH! LOOK WHAT THE CAT’S DRAGGED IN!” snarls Fleur, her eyes shining with anger. “IF IT ISN’T MY LONG-LOST FRIEND DION JAMES?!”

  And it is too.

  It is quite beyond belief that Dion—last spotted over a week ago snogging Fleur (proper snog, mind? Tongue swirly about and everything) outside her house on Disraeli Road and promising to call her to arrange another date before disappearing off the face of the planet—has the sheer audacity to make an appearance at the LBD auditions. But here he is, clutching an acoustic guitar with a stupid sheepish smirk plastered all over his unwashed face. Dion James must either be far far stupider than he looks (impossible), or he’s got some weird twisted death wish.

  “Awww, give me a break, Fleur,” moans Dion, hopping nervously from one foot to another. “I’ve been meaning to call—”

  “HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY YOUR GUITAR WITHOUT FINGERS?” yells Fleur.

  “Wah? Er, I . . . ,” mumbles Dion, checking his eight fingers and two thumbs are still attached to his hands. “Fleur, I’ve got my fingers, look!”

  “OH, YOU HAVE, HAVE YOU?” shrieks Fleur. “Well, they’ve obviously been out of working order for the last WHOLE WEEK as you couldn’t use your cell phone, could you? You lying, horrible piece of rubbish, Dion. Take your guitar and shove it . . .”

  Thankfully, as I cower under the desk, Claude takes control of this brewing, very public LBD hoedown. Gaggles of Year 7 girls and boys stand watching, totally transfixed by the unfolding drama. This is better than TV.

  “Fleur, Fleur, pipe down. We’ve got to be professional about this,” Claude says, turning stiffly to Dion, adjusting her specs with her finger.

  “Now, Dion. Despite you being lower than a wood louse, and sneakier than a snake, you do have a guitar, so get on with it and make it quick.”

  “Cheers, Claudette,” coos Dion.

  Dion, looking more like a ferret than I ever remembered him, strums the opening guitar riffs to a little ditty he has penned himself.

  He opens his mouth widely, displaying fawn-colored teeth, and sings the first lines.

  “Bab-ee you’re the one I want /

  I wanna take you in my arms,”

  sings Dion, looking at the floor, the ceiling, his shoes, anywhere except at Fleur.

  “I wanna run with you in open fields /

  And keep you away from harm.”

  The LBD look at each other mischievously, then glare straight at Dion, chorusing merrily and in a spectacular outburst of togetherness: “NEXXXXXXT!”

  “That was lovely, Dion, don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Claude smiles.

  Ha ha ha, you don’t mess with the LBD, I think to myself proudly.

  Dion shuts up abruptly. Well, for a second at least, before yelling something extremely rude that, as a young lady, I’d prefer not to repeat; then he stomps toward the door, leaving everyone in the gym giggling mercilessly.

  “Thanks, girls,” says Fleur, genuinely touched. “Dunno what I’d do without you.”

  “No problem, Fleur,” says Claude simply, “never liked him anyway,” before beckoning to the door: “CAN WE HAVE THE NEXT PERSON, PLEASE?! COME ON, KEEP IT MOVING NOW, PEOPLE!”

  Fun? Perhaps. But despite this drama, it was fair to say that the last half hour had gleaned nothing of even slender promise for Blackwell Live.

  Well, unless we planned to spend the entire festival summoning Fleur’s horrible ex-boyfriends onto the main stage, then humiliating them (which, hey, I’d have bought a ticket to see, but I’d wager the rest of Blackwell probably would not).

  Thank Jehovah for Christy Sullivan, who ambled in next.

  True to his word, exactly as he’d promised Fleur in the dry cleaners, Christy was here, with a cheeky grin, clutching a CD of orchestral Frank Sinatra songs to his rather muscular chest.

  “This is one my gran makes me sing for her every Christmas,” announces Christy as the introduction blasts through the air. Just a tiny hint of a blush seems to cross his cheeks when he realizes what he’s just admitted.

  “Awwwww,” choruses the LBD plus all the females in the gym. “That’s really sweet!”

  The thing is, Christy can get away with the gran confession as he’s got lovely big brown eyes and he’s . . . well, he’s just an all-around smashing sort of lad. I mean, okay, he’s no Jimi Steele in my opinion, but hey, who is? I know certainly that if anyone else admitted they sang for their gran, they’d have sounded really lame, but from Christy’s lips it sounded really cool. Cleverly, Christy must have done a quick clothes changeover in the loos before he arrived, meaning he really cuts a dash from the crowds of black blazers and gray school trousers that surround him; he’s wearing a tight black short-sleeved T-shirt and rather expensive-looking dark green combat trousers, showing off well-toned thighs.

  Sigh.

  Christy definitely has a certain special something about him. He’s quite impossible to stop goggling at, even if he is singing “Fly Me to the Moon,” a song that was number one on the charts in about 1802. And sing? Christy can really sing! Big bursting notes and proper melodies too!

  “He’s a bit X-factor-y, isn’t he?” murmurs Fleur, doodling on her notebook.

  I’m sure if we’d not been sitting beside her, Fleur would have been practicing writing Mrs. Fleur Sullivan over and over again in swirly handwriting, or even adding up the letters in both of their names to f
ind the percentage that Christy loved her. Okay, Fleur alongside the entire female contingent of the gym, who are all watching Christy with glazed expressions on their faces. In fact, most of them even have their heads rested in their hands, just gazing at Christy like they were gazing at a big basket of fluffy kittens.

  “That was great, Christy!” says Claude as he finishes, drawing a big tick on her notebook beside his name. “Er, but one thing. Do you sing any modern stuff? I mean, that’s a bit old-fashioned for what we need. No offense, mind.”

  “Aw, well, none taken, yeah, I know what you mean,” says Christy, really blushing now. “I can sing whatever you want, really, ladies. Pop songs, rock songs, er, I’ve even got some of my own songs that I wrote at home. Me and my brother Seamus in Year Thirteen write our own stuff, you see, he plays the keyboards.”

  “That’s great!” says Claude. “Very promising.”

  “I didn’t know you had a big brother,” says Fleur dreamily.

  Christy collects his CD and his schoolbag, giving Fleur a little wink as he bids us good-bye. Fleur twinkles her fingers back. As ever, I’ve become mysteriously invisible in the vicinity of my taller, curvier, blonder pal.

  “Thanks for coming, Christy,” I add anyway. “We’ll be in touch when we’ve had a good think about things.”

  As Christy Sullivan leaves the room, fading to a snuggly memory in the hearts of a hundred Blackwell schoolgirls, Fleur turns to us both and says, rather unconvincingly, “He was rubbish, wasn’t he?” She winks. “I mean, really bad.”

  “Atrocious,” says Claude with a big grin across her face.

  We all fall about in girlie giggles. Christy Sullivan was indeed wondrous. Blackwell Live has its first act!

  gotta sing! gotta dance!

  And after Christy came the dancing girls.