by Juno Dawson
‘You don’t; you look fine.’
‘Have you got the petition?’
‘I do. And I practised what I’m going to say last night. It’s going to be fine.’ It was so weird, but Polly Wolff was bricking it; I could tell from her clenched jaw and the fingertips drumming her knees. I’d thought of her as unflappable.
We arrived at the town hall, a wood-panelled labyrinth that smelled of old people and libraries. There were Haunted Mansion portraits lining the walls, glassy oil eyes following us as we made our way through endless corridors. ‘If you just take a seat,’ said the receptionist, ‘the mayor will be with you shortly.’
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ Mr Wolff asked.
‘No. I think that’d make us look like kids,’ Polly said.
‘Don’t do anything stupid, and don’t swear …’
‘God, Dad, what do you think I’m gonna do? Nut the mayor?’
‘It had crossed my mind.’ He winked and Polly allowed him a suggestion of a smile. The door opened and a young man emerged.
‘Miss Wolff, do you want to come in?’ I guessed he was the mayor’s assistant or something. I sheepishly followed Polly into the office as if I were Dowdy McFrump, her trusty sidekick.
The mayor looked like a poodle in drag. Lots of frizzy white hair and make-up from the Coco the Clown School of Beauty. She wore a TARDIS-blue skirt suit which clashed so violently with the gold mayoral chains that I had to look away – it was like a two-year-old’s painting of a sunny day.
‘Hello girls, come on in and take a seat.’ We did as we were told. ‘I’m informed you’ve got a petition for me.’
‘Yeah.’ Polly handed her the lever-arch file containing all the signatures.
‘Well, I must say this is most impressive. Do you two do a lot of community work?’
‘No,’ we said in unison. You could do community service as an enrichment activity at school, but that mainly involved rummaging through donated junk in the local charity shops.
‘Oh I see, well, this will look awfully good on your personal statements for university, won’t it?’
‘That’s not why we did it,’ Polly said, calm and polite. ‘Mrs Mayor, we really love that golf course and think it’d be awful if it became a burger place. We already have three burger places in town. There aren’t any other crazy-golf courses.’
Mayor Thompson smiled sympathetically. ‘Oh I know, but it’s not council property dear. It’s really nothing to do with us.’
‘We thought all planning permission had to go through the council?’ I said.
‘That’s true, but with there already being food premises on the promenade, there’s a precedent. There’s no reason to block planning permission.’
‘Couldn’t the council take it over?’ said Polly. ‘It already runs the beach and the parks.’
The mayor took a sip of tea from her pink MRS BOSS mug. ‘You’ve done your homework, I’ll give you that, but I’m not sure there’s the budget for it. There’s actually a deficit to reduce.’
I cut in. ‘If the land is going to change use from a park to a restaurant, doesn’t there have to be a public consultation?’
Mayor Thompson smiled. ‘Well, of course. Although you’d have to get local residents to oppose it. If it was a residential area, you’d stand a better shot, but it’s commercial.’
‘They do oppose it,’ Polly said defiantly. ‘They signed the petition.’
‘A lot of people sign petitions; they might be less keen to write to the town-planning office.’
Polly shrugged. ‘Well, we can try.’
‘I have to ask –’ Mayor Thompson took another sip of her tea – ‘why is this crazy-golf course so important to you? I would have thought you’d be a bit old for it.’
‘Because crazy golf is cool,’ Polly said simply.
I was ready with our pre-prepared arguments. ‘There’s hardly anything for young people in Brompton. The arcades are about it, and they’re kinda scary. Tourism is important to the town, especially in the summer months; and, finally, do we really need more junk food? Let me ask you this, Mrs Mayor, do you want to encourage childhood obesity?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, you two are brilliant! I love it! Between you and me, I don’t want another burger place either, but, like I said, it’s not council business. I wish you well though, I really do. I hate it when people come to me complaining about youths and ASBOs and hoodies when I get to meet inspiring young women like you.’
Polly and I shared a quiet, pride-filled glance. Patronised, but proud.
When we got back to the common room at Brompton Cliffs, we filled the others in on what had been said. ‘Why can’t they just keep it open?’ Beasley whined.
‘Apparently they’re in debt or something.’ I scowled. ‘I think she only saw us to be polite, to be brutally honest.’
‘No need to be dispirited. We continue our crusade with gusto,’ Alex said. ‘We rouse as many people as humanly possible to block the planning application.’
Polly looked less enthusiastic. ‘It feels ******* hopeless. We have no money. The people with the most money will win. They always do.’
‘We can certainly make the lives of whoever buys it a lot more difficult,’ I put in.
‘But we still don’t get to play crazy golf. Isn’t that the whole point? We don’t have anywhere to go and I’m not going to The ******* Mash Tun every night.’
We fell quiet. Finally Daisy spoke, and when she did she jumped out of her chair like something had bitten her bum. ‘We should have a prom!’
‘What?’ I said.
‘To raise money for the cause. We have to do something and I think we should have a dance.’
‘Again,’ Beasley said. ‘What?’
‘Like in America! With limos and dresses and corsages and punch. We don’t get a dance until the Leavers Ball in Year 13 and that’s only for Year 13s. What if we had a prom for Year 11 and 12 too? We could charge, like, twenty pounds a ticket.’
‘People would pay more than that,’ Alice said. ‘I reckon people would pay thirty.’
‘OK, I don’t hate it. What would we use the money for?’ Polly asked, now looking less gloomy.
‘For PR,’ Alex said. ‘We could make flyers or buy an advert in the Gazette – a targeted media campaign to gain momentum. We could even attract new owners for the golf course.’
I took Polly’s hand – her snow-white skin betraying how warm she really was. ‘Come on, Pol. We can’t give up now. We’ve worked so hard.’
‘A prom, though? I’d rather **** in my hands and clap.’
‘Consumer demand!’ Alex said. ‘We have to get people to buy something they want.’
‘Do I have to go?’
‘No!’ I laughed.
‘You must!’ Daisy said. ‘We all must. It’ll be our prom, so it can be how we like. We can even have a crazy-golf course at the prom! You can hire mobile ones!’
‘That’s actually a pretty good idea,’ Beasley said. ‘I’m in. You think your dad will go for it?’
‘I can ask. I think he quite likes all this Hermione Granger **** so he might.’
My old school did have a Year 11 prom. I didn’t go because it was an in-joke in-waiting for the popular kids and I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to dress up like a Miss World contestant. But if we were in charge … it could be something as weird as we were. It reminded me of what Polly had once said: we weren’t the dregs of the school, we were the misunderstood elite. For the first time I believed her.
‘Let’s do it!’ I said.
It was all going to be so awesome! We’d have a prom and save the golf course and I’d marry Nico and we’d solve world hunger and live happily ever after!
I was so naive. Such a foolish little fool.
SPRING
Chapter Fourteen
Opportunity
I imagine you’ll be HUGELY surprised to learn that Zoë’s firing from Judas Cradle went down really well. Detect my sarcasm.
Here are some choice highlights:
1. ‘Well, I was gonna quit anyway to focus on The Gash.’
2. ‘It’s patriarchy bullshit. They obviously didn’t want a strong woman in the band.’
3. ‘They’ve been planning this for months, the scheming bastards.’
4. ‘They’re shit and I hope Etienne chokes on his own shit fumes from having his head that far up his own arse.’
‘Look,’ Polly said as we went round the school, putting up posters to advertise the prom. ‘If I come to Nico’s gig, Zoë will kill me. I just can’t.’
Don’t whine, don’t whine, don’t be a whiny bitch. ‘It’s like I never see you any more,’ I whined. That wasn’t true. What I wanted to say was ‘I never have you to myself any more,’ but I knew that was unreasonable.
‘You’re always with Nico too.’ Ah – so being whiny was OK.
‘No I’m not!’ I whined again. ‘He’s always with the band. They’re rehearsing like mad. Apparently the new keyboard guy is amazing. Please come. Just don’t tell Zoë.’
‘I can’t. I promised.’ She finished attaching the poster to the noticeboard opposite main reception. It looked PROPER. Mr Wolff had agreed to a Year 12 Prom – Year 11s weren’t allowed because of their exams and so we’d already started selling tickets to the event in June. It was going to be epic. We’d used some of the money to buy a website for the campaign, as well as flyers and posters.
By half-term, we’d learned who had bid on the Fantasyland site. It was a small chain of American-style diners called Howdy’s: a concept so awful it redefined awful. A new circle of hell Dante would have considered too heinous to commit to the page. The unseen villain now had a face – and the face was that of a chubby little cowgirl with red bunches.
‘OK.’ I admitted defeat. ‘But can we do something soon? Just us two?’
‘Don’t you like Zoë?’ Polly regarded me down her nose. With her hooded eyes, Polly sported ‘Bitchy Resting Face’ at the best of times.
‘You know I do, but I don’t wanna be a third wheel.’
‘You aren’t. She loves you hanging out with us.’
‘Really?’ I said with great scepticism. In fact, I got the distinct impression Zoë now saw me as evil Nico’s evil sidekick.
‘Well, she’ll have to accept it. But, yeah, we’ll hang out at the weekend or something.’
‘We should have a sleepover.’ It popped out of my mouth before I could think it through.
‘Hmm, Zoë might not like that.’
‘Why? I was thinking Beetlejuice and Domino’s pizza; nothing wrong with that.’
‘Just cos.’
It was so frustrating. I wanted our old camaraderie back but I didn’t seem able to manufacture it artificially. You know when you can’t think of anything funny or cool to say? I felt like a stand-up comedian with stage fright, desperately scanning a sea of blank faces for a seed of observational humour. ‘OK, but we’ll still hang?’ Needy Face.
‘Sure.’ Her tone contained a hint of, ‘Sure, let’s get a coffee sometime,’ and we all know what that means: you’re never getting that coffee.
I went along to the gig, as planned, with Daisy and Beasley. ‘We’ve already sold, like, seventy tickets at full price –’ Daisy was buzzing – ‘That’s over two thousand pounds! Renting the minigolf is only going to cost two hundred and fifty, so Alice thinks we should get, like, ice sculptures or a chocolate fountain or something.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, sipping a vodka, lime and lemonade which I thought was very classy of me. ‘But we want to keep the maximum amount aside for the campaign.’
‘I know, I know … but we do need it to be magical – people need to get something for their money. What about “Enchantment Under the Sea” from Back to the Future?’
‘“Enchantment Under the Sea With Golf?”’ Beasley asked sceptically.
Daisy would not be deterred. ‘OR, Disney theme! That would be SO cool.’
I said, ‘I like that. It could be nicely ironic – everyone loves Disney.’
‘There is NOTHING ironic about my love of Disney,’ Daisy added gravely.
The band came on and we cheered. Nico, as ever, gave me a special smile from the stage. I was a groupie and I loved it. I’d heard that other Judas Cradle fans had plotted my death and that made me strangely proud. And a little scared.
I worried sometimes, sizing up these other girls. I trusted Nico, I did, but anyone with eyes could see he was out of my league. On low days, I figured it was only a matter of time until a prettier or cooler version of me caught his eye. It was on days like that I questioned why he has a security code set up on his phone or started to wonder if I could guess his Facebook password. Dangerous thinking, and Nico had done nothing to provoke such behaviour other than be really hot.
As the first song – ‘Effulgent’ – began, it became clear that Alfie, the new keyboard player, was ten times better than Zoë. Alfie was the hippest hip Japanese guy I’d ever seen. What on earth he was doing in the culture-free abscess that was Brompton-on-Sea was anyone’s guess. In your face, Zoë, you friend stealer. The venom in the thought shocked me a little. I apparently had the hump with her, who knew. ‘She stole my friend’ – god, how preschool was I?
The band played their set and were truthfully the best I’d ever heard them. Even I fanned out a little. Etienne had bleached his eyebrows so he now looked entirely ethereal, like something from either a) a higher plane or b) Next Top Model. The band, in their new line-up, just worked. I tried to get backstage like I always did but I was stopped by a bouncer. ‘Can I get through?’ I asked. ‘I’m Nico’s girlfriend.’
‘I know, love. Sorry … can’t let anyone through tonight. Manager insisted.’
That was weird. The band’s manager, Cleo, was a local promoter who managed a few bands along the south coast. She’d always been pretty cool with me, so it was a little odd. I joined the others at the bar and waited for Nico to find me, which he did about half an hour later. The boy almost knocked me off my bar stool, such was the ferocity of his hug.
‘Hey! There you are. What took you so long?’ I asked.
‘You will never guess what just happened!’ Nico said.
‘The spaceship came back for Etienne?’ Daisy joked.
‘Almost as surreal. You know how Annie from Pitchfork loved the EP? Well, tonight she came to the gig and brought an A & R scout from Sony!’
‘What!’
Nico subtly pointed to a guy at the furthest end of the bar. He looked like a younger, hipster version of Captain Birdseye. ‘I know! He really loved us! He wants us to come up to London and meet with his team!’ I’d never seen a beam so beaming.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes!’ He threw his arms around me and swung me around, kissing my hair. Beasley and Daisy got involved too, hugging both of us into a big human sandwich. They congratulated him heartily and Beasley went to get celebratory drinks at once.
‘That’s so amazing,’ I said, smoothing my scrum-dishevelled hair back down. ‘You must all be so thrilled.’
‘I … I can’t even get my head around it.’ Nico was clearly overwhelmed; he was so high his feet were off the floor. ‘This is all I’ve ever wanted, you know what I mean?’
‘You deserve it, you really do. You guys were incredible tonight.’ He hugged me again, thanking me. He kissed me at the same time as the panic hit. I didn’t want him to go to London and be a famous pop star and leave me behind. I didn’t want that at all. I wanted him to stay here and play only for me at The Mash Tun until the end of time, and I couldn’t have hated myself more for thinking such thoughts, but they were all I could think about. They were a virus, multiplying and spreading in my mind. He’d go to London and be rich and famous and replace me with a Latvian supermodel called Anka and a coke habit.
I told my jabbering head to pipe down. Talk about getting ahead of oneself. But I did have those thoughts. They were there. I wondered if every partner of a successful person
had those ideas, or if I was truly the worst girlfriend in the whole wide world.
The secret managed to stay secret for two whole days. Nico didn’t want people knowing about the band’s road to stardom because, frankly, it wasn’t a done deal. If there’s one thing more excruciating than being a never-been it’s being an almost-was. The meeting was presumably to establish the band weren’t white supremacists or holocaust deniers before they developed them any further. They’d heard the EP, they’d heard the demos, they’d seen them perform. Nico and I decided not to discuss it until after the meeting – not because of my internal breakdown at the thought of losing him, more because he was already a nervous wreck and neither of us wanted to jinx it. Having had a couple of days to think about it, of course I wanted Nico to get a record deal. How cool would that be? Supportive girlfriend mode: ON.
The other problem though was Zoë. The fact the band had been scouted by Sony three weeks after Zoë had been ousted from the band did not look great. The band agreed to see if the meeting went well before letting the world at large know.
The cover was blown by the first day back at school after the holiday. I would later learn that Etienne had told someone who had told someone who knew someone in The Gash. Polly was not happy. ‘Look. I’m not gonna ******* fall out about it, but I think it’s well shady.’ The ‘but’ in that sentence suggested we might fall out about it.
Beasley and Daisy made agreeable noises and I was silent for a moment. It would have been easy to let Polly win, but it wasn’t right. I took a stand for my boyfriend. ‘Oh come on. It’s not like they knew the A & R guy was coming, is it?’
‘Didn’t they?’ Polly looked me dead in the eye. ‘Zoë thinks they were warned and that’s why they booted her when they did.’ It was lunchtime and we were eating outside on the lawns for the first time. It was cool and crisp, the sun as white as fresh linen. The first crocuses and bluebells had popped up through the thaw on the edge of the hockey pitch.
Had she been on the conspiracy-theory websites again? ‘That’s not true. It really isn’t.’
‘It’s bull****, Tor, and you know it. Zoë is entitled to any money they make. She was in that band from the start.’