It's a Girl Thing

by Grace Dent

  “And the Local Daily Mercury, they adore us too,” interjects Leeza all of her own accord, which shocks me, as I’d always had concerns that she was battery-operated and didn’t move without Panama on her remote control. “They put us on the front page, didn’t they?” Leeza asks nobody in particular. “With the headline Catwalk Strut Toward Superstardom!”

  “Oh, shut up!! SHUT UP!” . . . is what I want to shout. “You only flipping got through to the quarterfinals of a stupid local dance competition, you annoying little Muppets. And you, Zane Patterson! You can’t brag, your head looks like a clementine orange!”

  But I don’t shout that, of course. I just sit there quietly, waiting for them to stop waffling on.

  “As I said, whenever you’re ready,” repeats Claude, her expressionless face giving away none of her annoyance.

  “Fine,” says Panama, taking a CD from her Gucci rucksack. She places it into the CD player, gathering her little family around her for a pre-show group hug.

  “Good luck, everyone. Break a leg!” Panama shrills pretentiously.

  “Or your necks,” mutters Fleur under her breath.

  And they’re off. And from the very first beat of the track, Catwalk spring into all-singing, all-dancing action, with Panama grabbing center stage straightaway with all the most breathtaking dance steps and highest notes. I can’t deny it, Catwalk can really dance, exactly like the people you see on MTV, and they can sing too, even if Panama does steal the show a bit, wiggling her bum and letting out the occasional piercing scream.

  Unfortunately, I’ve seen Catwalk performing this track, called “Running to Your Love,” many times before. Following Catwalk’s success in the Wicked FM competition, Mrs. Guinevere arranged numerous school performances so we could all “share their happiness.”

  All it did, as far as I was concerned, was make Catwalk’s heads even more grotesquely swollen.

  “Oooh, baby. I’m floating in the sky!

  Like a big love pie!

  You make me feel real high!

  Oh, my Oh, my

  Tra la la la!”

  Panama sings as the rest of Catwalk run on the spot and do star jumps behind her.

  “You see, I told you Shop was talented,” I whisper to Fleur.

  Yet, regardless of how the LBD feel about Catwalk, the irrefutable fact was the rest of Blackwell loved them. If you took a quick look around the gym, everybody was clapping along and whistling (including some teachers, who must have been en route to their cars when they heard the opening notes of “Running to Your Love,” dropped their briefcases and sprinted back). Everyone was lapping up Catwalk’s foot-perfect dance routine and five-part harmonies.

  “They’re excellent,” coos one girl, her eyes alive with joy.

  On the closing bars, a rapturous applause explodes, filling the whole gym. Panama looks around at the audience with a meek, ever-so-humble, slightly shocked smile, mouthing to her fans, “Oh, please, please stop it! That’s too much. Thank you, everybody!” before taking a deep bow and walking purposefully toward our table. As she draws closer, Panama’s expression rapidly changes from a humble smile to a scowl.

  “Right, you little morons,” Panama says under her breath so that only the LBD hear. “Let me make this very clear: You NEED Catwalk for your sad little concert, so let’s not forget that, shall we?”

  We all glare back at Panama in utter dumbfoundment.

  “And we’ll have the top-of-the-bill slot too on Saturday the twelfth. No arguments,” Panama continues. “And we don’t play sets less than an hour long, so if you need to drop another act to make extra room for us, well, so be it.”

  “But,” begins Claude, quickly shutting up as Panama’s face draws closer to her own.

  “And just you make sure my name, er, I mean Catwalk’s name is printed biggest on all of the posters too, because after all, we’ll be the main attraction.”

  Claude, to give her credit, does try her best to stand up to Panama at this point. No easy task, as Panama Goodyear is quite, quite terrifying. “Look, Panama, we’re not desperate,” says Claude politely yet firmly. “If we think you’re good, you’ll be included, that’s how the selection process works.”

  Panama’s face flushes with fury, her eyes narrow and her bee-stung lips pucker into an angry, vicious pout.

  “Look, Maud, or Fraud, or whatever lame-ass name you’re sad enough to be called, let me remind you again.” Panama is now jabbing Claude’s shoulder with a plum-nail-polished finger. “You NEED Catwalk. You NEEED us desperately. In fact, as desperately as your freaky giraffe mate here needs to stop growing before she ends up in the circus.” Panama nods her head cruelly at Fleur, who stares straight ahead, denying Catwalk the pleasure of a reaction.

  Panama goes on, “Plus, I’ve chatted with Mrs. Guinevere and Mr. Foxton. They both agree that without my incredible talent, Blackwell Live will be a total joke.” Panama is chuckling now. She knows having Blackwell’s teachers on her side is her killer punch. “So don’t give me any of your attitude, girls.”

  “Or what?” says Claude rather bravely.

  “You’ll see,” threatens Panama. “I’ll make you all, individually, extremely sorry to have ever met me.”

  Then Panama withdraws slightly, giving us all a little smile, almost as if she’d just invited us all to her house for a sleepover or something.

  Now she’s really scaring me.

  And I believe Panama’s threats, but I don’t have time to ponder the dark possibilities of her vengeance, because Panama then spots Mrs. Guinevere, who’s popped by the gym for a quick visit. In a millisecond, Panama’s face transforms from pure evil to instant sunshine.

  “Ooh, Mrs. Guinevere! Yoo-hoo!” Panama shouts, waving her hand. “Good to see you! I’m so glad you could make it down!”

  Mrs. Guinevere smiles broadly at Panama, placing her arms around Leeza and Abigail’s shoulders, offering them both congratulations on another wonderful performance.

  We’re doomed, I think to myself.

  “Remember what I said,” says Panama, turning on her heel and sashaying off.

  I look to Claude, trying to stop my bottom lip from wobbling, desperately hoping she might have a sheet in her Blackwell Live folder detailing the perfect murder and dismemberment of a Year 11 bully. Or, at very least, a cunning plan to sweet-talk Panama Goodyear out of taking over Blackwell Live. But I’m not in luck.

  And when I turn back around, Fleur has made her excuses and disappeared to the loo . . . where she stays until her eyes stop being puffy.

  Chapter 6

  an extra-special song

  So I suppose I should tell you what happened to “my special song.” You know, the one Jimi was meant to be singing for me?

  Well, we did get our Lost Messiah performance eventually, but it wasn’t quite the life highlight I was bargaining on. It just didn’t turn out that way. Life never does, does it?

  “Aim low, never be disappointed,” that’s what one of the great philosophers once said. I forget which one. Oh, hang on now, I think it was Old Bert who told me that. Bert’s the bloke who waits outside the Fantastic Voyage’s front door every morning for Dad to open up so he can have a pint while he plans his day of betting on horse races. Maybe I shouldn’t base my life around Bert’s wisdom, he doesn’t even remember to put his teeth in some days.

  Anyhow, I’ll tell you very quickly what happened after Catwalk bummed us all out, but I won’t dwell on things, as Claude’s keen that we don’t. . . .

  So Panama sloped off to have a little chat with Mrs. Guinevere, and Fleur returned to her seat, claiming she’d had a bad stomach and hadn’t been crying at all. I genuinely don’t envy Fleur her looks sometimes. She’s always getting it in the neck from some girl or other who thinks Fleur’s entrapping her boyfriend. Or that Fleur’s being arrogant and conceited when she’s actually just walking to lessons. Or wearing a new jacket. Or has just washed her hair, which just so happens to make it more glossy and model-like. Be
ing beautiful is a bit of a pain in the butt, it seems. Girls don’t give Fleur a chance. Once, in Year 7, I watched Fleur go through a short stage of walking with her shoulders stooped to try to appear shorter. And when miniskirts came back in fashion last term, Fleur wore a long elegant skirt almost to the floor, almost in protest. “Too much hassle,” she muttered, meaning the continuous wolf whistles and black looks Fleur’s long, shapely legs drew from Blackwell’s inmates. Luckily, Fleur hasn’t taken Panama’s malice too harshly today. She was soon back at the table, smiling.

  Especially as, just then, an angel came in the form of Ainsley Hammond. Despite Ainsley’s black clothes, pale face, lilac-streaked hair and predilection for crucifix earrings, Ainsley Hammond from Year 11 really is the loveliest, nonscariest lad you could ever meet.

  “Ooh, so we’re auditioning right after Catwalk! How exciting!” remarked Ainsley sarcastically as he took to the floor. “If I’d known that beforehand, I’d have brought my autograph book.”

  Ainsley’s band, Death Knell, with their raggedy clothes, uneven lipstick and smudged eyeliner, looked exactly like they’d staggered from the film set of Attack of the Killer Zombies. However, when Claude confided to Ainsley about Panama’s demands, quickly the whole band was a united spooky front of support for the LBD.

  “Who on Earth does she think she is?” said Candy, a tall hippy girl wearing dangly bat-shaped earrings.

  “Ughh, don’t worry about it,” commiserated another lad, with weird devil spikes at the front of his otherwise short-cropped hair. “You should hear some of the abuse she gives me.”

  “Now then, let’s not give the wicked witch the pleasure of knowing we’re discussing her,” said Ainsley rather ironically, considering he perpetually looks en route to a Halloween party himself.

  “I agree,” said Claude.

  If only it was that easy to make Panama disappear, I thought.

  “What you gonna do for us, then, Ainsley?” asks Fleur.

  “Well, it’s quite an experimental sound,” says Ainsley, absolutely earnestly. “But we’re calling it nu-goth speed reggae.”

  “Right,” the LBD all say.

  “Okay then,” says Claude. “When you’re ready.”

  Death Knell were quickly lost in music, playing a bizarre track called “The Dead Can Dance”: a weird assortment of steel drums, crashing electronic noises, bass guitars and melodic flutes.

  Freaky-disco, I think to myself.

  Death Knell certainly aren’t my cup of tea, I’ll admit, yet from the way every kid in the surrounding five-mile area who possessed dyed hair, a piercing or a henna tattoo had now appeared in Blackwell’s gym, nodding away and punching the air appreciatively, I was obviously in the minority.

  “Well, they seem to be popular, don’t they?” said Fleur.

  “Not half,” agreed Claude.

  “What do we think so far?” shouted Claude to a Year 7 girl with her hair woven into a hundred minibraids.

  “Excellent!” shouted the girl. “Death Knell rrrrrrrock! You’ve got to put them in.”

  So unofficially it was decided that if we didn’t include Death Knell, we’d be lynched, and at this point it was unsaid, but we needed all the friends we could get.

  “Right, you lot, you’ve had your chance,” said Mr. Gowan, who had just appeared beside us. He does that a lot, Mr. Gowan, he suddenly appears without warning. He must know a secret Blackwell tunnel system or something.

  “It’s eight P.M. and it’s time to get out. Do you think I’ve got nowhere else to be but here?” Mr. Gowan grumbles.

  The entire gym stared blankly at Mr. Gowan, trying to imagine where exactly else he has to be. I mean, he lives on the premises, for Lord’s sake. He spends his summer vacation at a “vacation village” three miles away, it’s not like he’s a big globe-trotter.

  “Sorry, Mr. Gowan, can we have five more minutes?” pleaded Claude.

  “Well, just make sure it’s only five,” said Gowan, wilting under Claude’s excessively polite demeanor. “But don’t you make me have to come back in here and pull the plug on you. Yer hear me, girls?”

  “We hear you!” chorused the LBD.

  “We hear you too, Mr. Gowan,” chorused a group of deeper male voices.

  IT WAS LOST MESSIAH. Well, three of them at least: Naz, Aaron and Danny.

  Hallelujah!

  “Just caught you all, thank God,” flustered Naz, trying to find an outlet for his amp. “I’m so sorry, girls, like, a hundred apologies, we’ve had a bit of, er, trouble, you see.”

  “Well, you’re here now, that’s the main thing,” said Claude, sounding extremely joyous to see him. Sheesh, if you’re a good-looking lad, you can get away with anything, can’t you?

  But where was Jimi? That was what I was wondering. “Aren’t you missing a lead singer?” asked Fleur.

  “Precisely,” said Naz. “Our dumb, clumsy lead singer. He’s, er, on his way.”

  And just at that moment the gym doors swung open and in limped Jimi Steele, carrying Bess, his skateboard, under his arm, dragging his left leg behind him like a wounded soldier.

  “Jimi!” I shrieked (not at all coolly, now that I think about it). “What’s happened to you!?” The knee of Jimi’s navy blue combat trousers was ripped and he was holding his right wrist toward his chest.

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing, really, I just sort of fell,” said Jimi, cocking his head to the side, blushing slightly. “It’s, er, like, worse than it looks.”

  Jimi held up his wrist, showing us a grisly spectacle of blood and gnarled skin.

  “Ugggghhhh!” chorused the LBD (oh, and every other girl in the gym who had suddenly became interested in Jimi Steele’s general well-being).

  See what I mean about being good-looking getting you special treatment? Mr. Gowan’s entire arm could have fallen off, and just because he looks a bit like a potato, no girl would have turned a hair.

  “Yep, Big Brain here has just had an argument with a flight of stairs and a skateboard,” continued Naz, shaking his head. “And the stairs won.”

  Jimi blushed again, then winced as his wrist rubbed against the waistband of his trousers. “It was your fault, Naz,” said Jimi. “You shouldn’t have told me about the new handrail.”

  “Ah, I see, this was all my fault, was it?” Naz sniggered. “Sorry about that, Jimi . . .”

  From the ensuing Lost Messiah argument, it transpired that the County Council, in their infinite wisdom, had installed a new freestanding handrail to the steps of the Westland Shopping Mall. No big excitement there, you might think. Well, no, except for the fact that Naz had spotted the rail and told Jimi about it. He’d told Jimi that not only was the new installation very steep and newly waxed (ooh, that’s like a red rag to a bull for a skater), but then he’d also bet Jimi he couldn’t skate right down the thirty-seven steps and land on top of Bess without hitting the oncoming traffic jam.

  “Wow!” moaned all the girls in the gym.

  “He’s soooo sexy,” whispered one Year 8 girl to her friend, rather too loudly, her face flushing pure scarlet.

  It’s a weird fact of life that the more recklessly boys behave, the more attractive they become to us girls. In fact, by risking his life for five minutes of glory, Jimi had the gym agog with adoration.

  The girls wanted to snog him, the lads wanted to be him. “And I nearly had it too,” said Jimi. “Well, the first time I did, but the second time I tried I made a real balls-up of it.”

  “We thought he was worm food,” said Naz. “He just lay there not moving for a few minutes after he fell. We were totally freaking out.”

  “Well done,” said Claude rather dryly.

  “Are you okay to sing, Jimi?” asked Fleur.

  “Yeah, I think so, I’ll be okay. I don’t know if I can play guitar with my wrist, though,” said Jimi. “But I’ll give it a go.”

  Jimi walked over to where Aaron had tuned up Jimi’s guitar and attempted to pull the strap over his head. Only he lost ba
lance a bit and stumbled, knocking his damaged knee rather clumsily against an amp.

  “Owwwwwweeeew!” moaned Jimi. “That hurt!”

  Jimi slumped down onto the floor with his head in his hands, he looked really terrible now. A shocked mumble filled the room. I just wanted to run over and give him a big cuddle . . . but I was too late.

  “Oh my Lord, are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?” came a concerned voice, suddenly taking charge of the situation.

  It was Panama Goodyear.

  I thought she’d gone home.

  “Dunno,” said Jimi, looking up at Panama’s heaving bosom and big brown eyes and probably feeling a lot better. “I just felt a bit woozy for a second.”

  “Well, let’s a have a look at you,” said Panama, getting down on her haunches to Jimi’s level. “Let’s see if you’ve broken anything, eh?”

  Silly me, I had no idea Panama had a flipping degree in nursing, but there she was, manhandling MY Jimi Steele, making him bend knees and raise and lower his limbs so she could give her own “diagnosis.” I swore to myself, if she asked Jimi to take any articles of clothing off for a proper examination, I was going to go over there and slap her till she was sore too.

  “I think you’re going to be fine,” announced Dr. Goodyear eventually, rubbing Jimi’s arm. “You’re just a little bit shocked, that’s all.”

  “Shocked? Shocked!” I quietly fumed. “Of course he’s shocked! You big strumpet! You practically had his head between your boobs! I hate you, Panama Goodyear!”

  “Aw, thanks, Panama, I feel much better now,” said Jimi.

  “Glad to be of help,” simpered Panama, standing up and giving the LBD a little smug smile, as if to say, “Thank heavens for me.”

  “Panama saves the day,” muttered Fleur.

  Jimi made a miraculous recovery soon after that; in fact, he was up hopping about with a smile across his chops. Lost Messiah then went on to perform a song they’d written a few nights before called “The Girl with the Golden Mouth,” which was all about some troublesome girl who always gave Jimi back-talk and sent him loopy. To be fair, Jimi did sing the song directly to the LBD, and by default a lot of the lines were sung straight to me with him looking me right in the eye . . . but I’m sure he was only being kind.