‘Reduced! Love a bit of pineapple on my pizza.’
And then he started asking Mum about her day while simultaneously nibbling at her earlobe.
‘Mainly,’ said Mum, who, for once, seemed to be finding Adrian’s attentions as annoying as I did, ‘I spent the day talking to people who’d come to tell me they’d seen you all on the internet. Perhaps next time you could tell me before you decide to become famous?’
I sat up a bit straighter. ‘You saw it! What did you think?’
‘Whoah there, horsey,’ said Adrian, before Mum could tell me how proud she was and how lovely I’d sounded and stuff like that. ‘We’re online?’
‘Jaz put it up,’ I told him. ‘I didn’t ask her to but she did. And it’s doing quite well.’
‘Nice one,’ said Adrian.
‘Well . . .’
As I spoke I found that I hadn’t considered how I’d tell them all. And that half of me wanted to pretend that it wasn’t a particularly big deal, that stuff like this happened to me all the time, that Adrian’s stupid jamming session hadn’t been an event or anything and that I was basically totally chilled about it.
That half of me was almost immediately overwhelmed by the other half, which was hugely excited and couldn’t keep its mouth shut.
‘Actually, it’s better than that,’ I said. ‘I’ve – we’ve – it’s gone really big. Thousands of people have watched it. Hundreds of thousands.’
‘What the –’
Mum stood up just as Amanda spilled her squash all over the table, which Adrian was giving a thump. ‘Katie, this is huge.’
And Amanda said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because you were at work,’ I said. ‘And anyway, it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Of course it means something,’ said Amanda. ‘Of course it does!’
‘It’s just one of those things that goes around. Like Savannah’s bum. Which I don’t think was even Savannah’s, honestly, because it was so incredibly perfect and –’
‘Can I see it?’ said Adrian.
‘What? No! Oh, you mean the video.’ I set my face to the full I Told You So. ‘If we just had broadband like I’d said . . .’
Mands had her phone out.
‘There,’ I said. ‘Over four hundred thousand views!’
‘That’s nearly half a million people,’ said Mum, and I saw that she was shaking. ‘Christ almighty, Katie.’
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be . . . it’s not . . . this is . . . ’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘I can’t get my mind around it.’
‘Me neither.’
We all huddled around the screen, and for a second I thought about how in the olden days everyone used to huddle around the fireplace and then I gave up on my historical musings because there I was on the video, singing, and that was much more interesting.
Without a load of people talking and clattering up and down the corridor, I could hear the sound properly, and all the words. And yeah, it was sort of amateurish and there were bits where we weren’t quite together but in a way it made it better. It gave it credibility.
‘That girl’s got a face like a wet weekend,’ said Mum. ‘Oh hang on, that’s Lacey.’
‘She was in a bit of a strop,’ I said.
‘And who’s that on the drums? In all the black floppy stuff? She looks like a bat.’
‘Mad Jaz.’
‘And that’s you, Amanda?’ said Mum. Honestly, she was looking at everyone except me.
‘That’s my foot,’ said Amanda, looking at me rather sourly, even though it wasn’t my fault she’d been cut off. Nicole was the one holding the phone, not me.
The onscreen Katie was just getting into I’m the big bad apple on the family tree and for once, it sounded as good as it had in my head.
‘We weren’t quite together there, were we?’ said Adrian. ‘You came in a bit quicker than we were expecting, Katie.’
‘I dropped a beat,’ said Amanda.
‘That’s Katie’s timing,’ said Adrian. Then, to me, ‘Don’t worry. We can work on that.’
‘Oh, can we?’
‘Absolutely. That and your breath control. See how you run out of air on the ends of lines?’
‘That was on purpose.’
‘You need to be thinking about your diaphragm. Breathe from your stomach, not your chest. Nice bit of finger-work there, Amanda.’
‘Thank you. Although I’m surprised you can hear it, the drumming’s mental.’
‘I like the drumming,’ I said, even though she was right, it was. ‘I think the drumming’s the best thing about it. And I’m being pretty OK . . . aren’t I?’
‘What you need to do, Katie, is push the air out from under your ribcage. Put your hand on my stomach while I sing and you’ll feel.’
There was literally no way I was going to put my hand on Adrian’s stomach, which was currently bulging away beneath an ancient red T-shirt with Oasis printed across his moobs.
‘Go on.’
‘I’m all right, thanks.’
‘Just put your hand there.’
‘Maybe another time.’
‘Just here.’
‘It’s fine, really.’
‘Katie, put your hand on my stomach!’
I put my fingers, the very tips and nothing more, on to his T-shirt. I’d expected it to be squidgy, whereas in fact, he felt completely solid.
‘Baaaaaaaaah. Can you feel what I mean?’
My hand was on the bit of him that had pressed up against Mum when she and him . . . Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Anything to make this stop. ‘Yes I can.’
‘Then there’s your diction. If you’re going to sell the song then you need to be thinking about –’
And just like that, I’d had enough. ‘You know what? Why can’t you just say you like it?’
‘We do like it,’ said Mum.
‘Instead of being all “Katie this” and “Katie that” and “Katie you can’t breathe” and “Katie your timing’s off”, why can’t you just say well done?’
‘Constructive criticism,’ said Adrian. ‘No one’s perfect.’
‘Four hundred thousand people seem to like it,’ I said. ‘Four hundred thousand people seem to think my breathing is excellent.’
‘You have to remember that Adrian was in a band,’ said Amanda. ‘He knows what he’s talking about.’
‘Maybe we should be listening to his stuff, then,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should turn off your phone and spend the rest of the evening enjoying Adrian’s clear diction and excellent timing.’
Which I meant sarcastically.
So you can imagine how I felt when that is exactly what we did.
Adrian’s band was called Vox Popular and, as he told us, a lot, ‘it was in that lull between eighties synth and Britpop. Like an electro Blur, but pre-Blur.’
Not my kind of thing at all.
I turned the record over and there were two blokes on the sleeve. One had dark hair and a stonewashed denim jacket and eyes that were sort of sleepy. And the other one was Adrian, about a million years younger, with all this hair on his head, wearing a leather jacket, but a much smaller one, cut tight around the top of his jeans. I caught myself, for about a microsecond, thinking that he’d been quite good-looking.
Yikes. Katie, you need to wash your brain out with soap and water. And maybe some fire, just to be on the safe side.
‘You can really play,’ said Amanda, the big suck-up.
‘And you can really sing,’ said Mum, in a way that made me cringe so hard I was genuinely in danger of bursting a kidney.
‘Well,’ said Adrian, lifting up the needle so we could listen to it all over again, ‘I dunno about that. God, I haven’t played this in years.’
Interesting then, I thought, that in a house of complete chaos, he knew exactly where to find it. It was suspiciously undusty, too.
I noticed there was a bit of a silence. Clearly I was supposed to say something pleasant.
‘How many did you sell?’ I asked.
‘All together?’
‘All together.’
He fiddled with an invisible bit of something off the table. ‘We . . . we didn’t. We cut the single, but before it came out, we split up. Creative differences.’
‘So you didn’t sell one? Not a single single?’
‘Never had the chance,’ said Adrian.
‘And I’ve had four hundred thousand people listen to my song.’
‘Katie!’
‘I’m just saying.’
Mum and Amanda both started talking at once, presumably in some kind of race to see who could tell me to shut up first, but before they could, Adrian waved a meaty hand.
‘She’s right, she’s right. Tell you what, K, want me to put in a call to Tony?’ He pointed down at Sleepy Eyes. ‘He’s still in the industry, got his own label now. Top Music.’
That Adrian knew anyone in the music business was doubtful. That the dude in the denim had his own label was incredibly unlikely. And that this man would have any interest in me seemed beyond impossible.
I opened my mouth, but Mum was ahead of me.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘But –’
‘Katie is not going to follow in her father’s footsteps,’ said my mother, and I hadn’t seen her so upset in a long time. ‘I don’t mind this as a . . . hobby. But that’s all.’
‘It’s just a video,’ I said.
‘And that’s fine. That’s terrific. But you’re not to go getting ideas.’
If someone tells you not to get ideas, it’s a guaranteed way to start getting ideas. Really. They should stick it at the top of our creative writing paper in English.
‘But if Adrian can . . .’
‘Nope,’ said Mum.
‘Can we at least watch it again?’ I asked.
And so we did.
‘Lacey –’
It was first break, which I always think is a really bad name for what is basically a massive dash to hit the loo, the vending machine and the lockers all in fifteen minutes. Hardly a break. Even netball is more relaxing.
I’d sacrificed my morning Dairy Milk in pursuit of my best friend, who’d bolted out the door the second the bell went. She tore off down the stairs through this huge scary crowd of year thirteen blokes and even though I was slightly afraid I’d get caught in a clump of bad stubble, I had to follow. It was like one of those films where someone’s chasing their true love through an airport only instead of customs officers and passport control there were rucksacks and a shedload of Lynx.
I finally cornered her in the stairwell, small and pale and angry, like when next-door’s rabbit got trapped behind the tumble dryer in our old garage.
‘What?’
‘I just . . .’ Next time, I thought, as Lacey stood there glaring at me, I would definitely decide what I was going to say before I started running. Forward planning. I’d never truly appreciated its importance until now. The good thing, at least, is that I was going to take something from this, to learn, to really grow as a person –
‘WHAT?’
‘I just thought we ought to have a talk. About everything.’
She folded her arms. ‘OK. Let’s have a talk.’
The sight of Lacey standing there with a white face and a stance that can only be described as ‘confrontational’ gave me complete conversation paralysis. Even her elbows were giving me evils.
‘Um,’ I said.
‘I’ve got mad beats! I’ve got mad mooooooves!’ This was being sung by a teeny-weeny girl I recognized as the school chess champion. And I did not want to be down on her. Being chess champion, she clearly had enough problems already, but this just wasn’t helpful.
I grinned in a way I hoped would shut her up. Instead, she saw Lacey and started bashing an imaginary tambourine.
‘THIS IS WHAT MY LIFE IS LIKE NOW,’ said Lacey, and she did not seem happy about it.
Which was a bit of a shame, really, because the chess champions of this world must have it fairly tough. It was probably nice for her to feel like, just for a day or so, there was someone even lower down the pecking order to laugh at. To give her a taste of what it’s like not to be at the bottom of the popularity pile.
I explained this to Lacey.
‘So you’re saying that you think it’s OK for that little idiot to basically BULLY me?’
‘No. Yes. But it’s not bullying, exactly, not really.’
‘Last night we went to get petrol,’ said Lacey, her elbows angrier than ever, ‘and the bloke behind the counter started singing it.’
‘At the petrol station?’ I said, trying to decide whether I was pleased at the idea that now completely random people were watching. ‘Which one?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘The one on the main road? The one by Sainsburys? Or that one up past the church, or the one by the fish and chip shop –’
‘Stop listing petrol stations!’
‘Sorry. I just want to know what he said.’
‘That his little sister has listened to it a hundred times and now they can’t stop singing it even though it’s really annoying.’ She said that last part with a relish that I found inappropriate.
‘That’s great,’ I replied.
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘And then Auntie Rachel phoned from Scotland because she’d seen me in it and told Mum that my fringe looked bad.’
‘Your fringe looks great! It really brings out your eyes.’
She smiled slightly. ‘Do you think so? You need to get one. I’ve got scissors, somewhere . . .’ She started rootling through her bag. So I jumped in before anything terrible could happen.
‘Isn’t this a tiny bit amazing, though? That people in Scotland are watching? I mean, I know it’s embarrassing that everyone’s doing tambourines at you, but isn’t it sort of awesome, too?’
Judging from the way that Lacey’s expression changed, I should probably have just let her chop me a fringe right then and there. In fact, I should probably have let her shave my entire head.
‘Why is it still up?’ said Lacey. ‘You said Jaz was going to take it down. Why hasn’t she?’
‘I asked her to,’ I said, hoping Lace wouldn’t notice that my left eyelid had started to twitch. Besides, I had asked her. It wasn’t a complete lie, so long as you ignored the conversation afterwards. ‘I asked and then I begged and she just laughed. You know what Jaz is like. She’s mental.’
‘Ask her again.’
‘I will. But . . . I sort of worry that the more we ask her to take it down, the longer she’ll keep it up there.’
Lacey sighed. ‘Yeah. There is that, I suppose. Kit Kat?’ She snapped off a finger and waved it at me.
‘Ta.’
Thank the Lord we were finally having a proper conversation. Because it hurts, having your best friend turn on you. It’s like being attacked by your pillow or something.
‘I’m sorry it’s so embarrassing for you, though,’ I said.
‘Aren’t you embarrassed?’
‘My bedroom is in a bit of a state, isn’t it?’ I admitted. ‘And I wish I’d worn more make-up.’
‘Yeah,’ Lacey agreed. ‘You do look pretty awful.’
‘Huh.’
‘And that thing you do with your nostrils on the high notes is so bizarre!’
‘Um.’
‘It’s like your whole face goes into this spasm . . .’
‘Er.’
‘It’s a good thing you sound nice. They were playing it on the Breakfast Show this morning and –’
I grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Seriously? That’s huge.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lacey sadly. ‘A load more people to laugh at me.’
‘Lacey,’ I said, trying to be casual, ‘can I look at it on your phone? Just for a sec?’
She fished it out of her pocket, still talking about how the guy at the petrol station had been asking where he could buy the single and how should she
know, and then, as I was about to check in on my numbers –
‘I’ll have that, thank you, Lacey.’ McAllister materialized in front of us. ‘No phones in the corridors.’
‘But –’
‘And Katie, I have a message for you from the Head. She wants you in her office, now.’
‘But –’
‘Now,’ said McAllister, who is basically McGonagall, only evil. So I left Lacey fuming and phoneless and went upstairs.
The Head lives in this little office right at the front of the school where she can look out over the playground like a sort of lady God. I say she lives there, I don’t suppose she sleeps there, but I can’t imagine anything else. She wears a wedding ring so there must be a Mr The Head out there, but I can’t imagine him, either.
Anyway, I turned up at the school reception and hung around by all the glossy posters. These had quite impressed Mum the first time she came in, until me and Mands explained that they’re only glossy so you can peel the chewing gum off them without causing any damage. They didn’t laminate the first set and I think they lasted about a day and a half.
So I pretended to admire a poster about how many different types of vegetable you can get in our canteen (a very exciting four) until the school secretary looked up and saw me, and shook her head in a sort of general disapproval at my existence, following it up with:
‘Wait here, please. There’s something of a queue today.’
At which point I looked across at the sofa to see the queue, which consisted of Mad Jaz.
‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered.
‘The usual,’ said Jaz, who apparently had a usual. ‘You?’
‘I don’t even know,’ I said. Then, because I was clearly in enough trouble that it didn’t matter if I got into more, and the itch to find out how the video was doing was unbearable, worse even than when I’d broken my arm and had to use one of Gran’s knitting needles to scratch inside the plaster and then got it stuck in there and a doctor had to pull it out again and when she did it was covered in bits of fluff and skin goop, ‘Can I borrow your phone?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jaz. I found myself slightly wanting to hug her. Jaz was turning out to be a pretty decent mate, after all.
She dropped it into my lap and I brought up the video. Eight hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and sixty-six views.
Accidental Superstar Page 8