Girl, 15: Charming but Insane (22 page)

‘
I wanna laaaaaaaaarnch!
’ (What was that? She wanted lunch?) ‘
I shaaaaaakkkka kraaaaaaanch! I smaaaaaashshshsha carrannna smakkka flaaaagggga straaaaaaanch!
’

Jess was filled with a desperate, desperate, desperate desire to laugh. She mustn’t. She mustn’t. She looked away from Flora, hoping to fight off this demented giggle by watching Mackenzie instead. But he was doing something completely stupid with his guitar, kind of fighting with it. Only Ben Jones managed to retain some kind of dignity, plucking away at the bass line, but now Jess had got used to the sheer noise, she realised that many of his notes were just plain wrong.

Suddenly it stopped. They all stared at her, panting.

‘Amazing!’ stammered Jess. It was a useful word, doing great service today. For once, Jess could think of nothing more to say.

‘We’ve got another number, too,’ said Mac. ‘A quieter one. Let’s go!’

Jess hoped that during this quieter number she would stop wanting to laugh. She must not, must not, must not, must not laugh. The quiet number was even worse, though. At least during the noisy number Flora had been screaming. Now she was singing. And – oh my goodness! It was horribly obvious that she was tone deaf.

Mind you, she wasn’t getting much help from Mackenzie and Ben. Their random twangings sounded like a gang of bears who had broken into a tool shed.

‘
At naiaiaiaiaight . . . Iyn mah beyyyyyyyd . . . Ah finkofyew!
’ hooted Flora, with all the soaring beauty of a vacuum cleaner desperately in need of a service. ‘
When vah moooooon . . . Iys reyd . . . Ah finkofyew
!
’

Jess had stopped breathing. It was like being forced to watch a car crash in slow motion. The desire to laugh, instead of going away, was growing bigger and bigger like a high-speed pregnancy. It had filled her ribs and was crawling relentlessly up her throat.

‘
Wow wow, whoa oooh!
’ wailed Flora suddenly, shaking her head in tragic despair. Jess was reminded of a small dog she had once taken for walks. He used to bark just like that. ‘
Whaaaaaa . . . Oh whaaaaaaaaa . . . Didyew treeeetme laaaaaaaike . . . A fule . . .
’

Jess had to laugh. She just had to. Her only hope was to disguise it as a coughing fit. She grabbed her bag and whipped her hankie out. Thank goodness her mum had insisted, all these years, on her taking a handkerchief everywhere. Give the woman a medal!

Jess delivered the first few salvoes of laughing into the hankie while the band was finishing their number and, when the music suddenly stopped, she stood up, covering her face and coughing fit to bust.

‘S’cuse me – bit of asthma – got to get some fresh air – do that number again – I’ll be back in a minute,’ she choked, and staggered out.

She walked across the empty car park, hiding her face in the hankie and coughing theatrically, until she heard the band start into the number again.

‘
At naiaiaiaiaight . . . Iyn mah beyyyyyyyd . . . Ah finkofyew
!
’

Flora’s singing was a revelation. To think that such a terrible noise could come out of such a beautiful face! It set Jess off again. She found a corner of the car park where there was a low wall, sat down and howled with laughter until she wept. She laughed until she whimpered. She laughed until she was sure that there wasn’t a single scrap of laughing left inside her. She felt quite empty and shaken, and had to brush away tears before she walked back to the garage, as carefully as possible, as if her body were held together with frail thread. She entered the garage just as the number ended.

They all looked at her with a mixture of hope, defeat and frustration. Flora looked hopeful. Ben looked defeated. Mackenzie looked frustrated. Suddenly Jess felt very sorry for them. Poor fools. In five days’ time they were going to be on stage in front of the whole school. They shifted uneasily, all staring at her in an imploring way. Ben Jones caught her eye.

‘Go on, admit it, yeah?’ he said, trying for a little joke. ‘We are, like, so bad.’

Mackenzie looked furious. Flora looked insulted, but desperate.

Jess hesitated. If she just praised them and tried to boost their confidence, she would be standing back and doing nothing: delivering them without any warning to the ridicule of the whole school. But how on earth could they get better enough to perform in only five days? Flora would never be able to sing if she practised for twenty years. Jess uttered a silent prayer to the Goddesses of Rock Music.
Please
, she implored,
show me the way out of this
.

Then a miracle happened. Her mouth opened, and these words came out: ‘No, no, you’re fine. I think the problem is you’re not nearly bad enough. I just had this thought while I was dealing with my asthma, you know, why not
deliberately
be as bad as you possibly can? In fact, instead of being yourselves, why don’t you, like, invent three personas – you know, real, like, losers or airheads or idiots – and rewrite the songs so they’re really really terrible. I think it could really, like, work, as sort of comedy-rock, if you get me?’

A wonderful thing happened. Relief, excitement and gratitude broke out across their faces.

‘Brilliant!’ cried Mackenzie. ‘Then it doesn’t matter if we play a wrong note – because we’d be the idiots doing it, not us!’

‘And it wouldn’t matter if I sing badly!’ said Flora. ‘Oh Jess! You’re a genius!’ And she ran up to Jess and gave her a huge hug, which hurt quite a lot because of the Gothic necklace.

Ben Jones just said, ‘Great! Great!’ sort of quietly to himself.

‘You could even say a few words each before you started.’ Jess was warming to the idea now. ‘Sort of introducing yourselves, you know – so everybody knows it’s not meant to be you. You could be, like, “Hi. I’m Aaron Prendergast and this is my band Elastic Poodles. Let me introduce Jules Nerdstone on bass and our lead singer Jolene Brassiere . . .” You could each say something really nerdy and, like, corny, then do the song – as badly as possible.’

‘Write it down! Write it down!’ shrieked Flora. ‘What you said just then!’

‘Yeah, you should write our lines,’ said Ben. ‘You’d be brilliant. You’ve, like, saved our lives, yeah?’

Jess smiled and shrugged modestly. It was a slight exaggeration to say she’d saved their lives. But it was nice to feel useful. Ben gave Jess a look that shone with love of the purest, purest sort. Too bad it was the purest sort, thought Jess. But at least it was a start.

Chapter 25

The next few days were hectic. The band got their act together. Jess sat in on another practice. Now that they were trying to be funny, they were not so funny, of course. This time, Jess had to pretend to laugh, whereas the previous time she’d had to pretend she wasn’t laughing. Comedy is so complicated.

However, the band’s act now looked OK. Jess had made sure they wouldn’t disgrace themselves. She had also given Flora some slightly treacherous advice.

‘You could make Jolene a bit more outrageous in her, like, dress and make-up,’ advised Jess. ‘I mean, really really repellent.’ She was looking forward to that fair sight.

Mr Fothergill had offered to help Jess practise her stand-up routine, so they went to the English Department after school, two days before the show. Trembling slightly, and with her heart thudding like a disco backing track, Jess plunged into her routine.

‘
Girl, 15
. . . wait a minute . . .
Girl
? Hmmm. How about
Chick
? . . .
Bird
? . . .
Female
? Argh! I’m trying to draft this Lonely Hearts ad but I’m slowly losing the will to live. I can’t even get the first word right –’ Jess was distracted for a moment by a kid who knocked on the door.

‘Go away!’ yelled Mr Fothergill. This wasn’t a very good start. ‘Sorry, Jess,’ he said. ‘Carry on!’

‘Shall I start again?’ asked Jess.

‘No, it’s OK – carry on from where you were!’ Maybe he just wanted it to be over, fast. Jess cringed, but forced herself to go on.

‘
Girl, 15. Girl
. Ugh! I so hate the way
Girl
is so . . . girly. It sounds so naive and helpless. I can just see her weeping over an injured robin or embroidering rosebuds on an oven glove.
Gothwitch
? OK.
Gothwitch, 15, with bum like mountain range
. . . no, it just doesn’t equate. How about
Demon Goddess
? . . .
Part-time minor deity with slight touch of acne
? Hmmm. Perhaps
Girl
is safer ground after all.’

Mr Fothergill smiled in a rather encouraging kind of way. But was he only being polite? Jess gritted her teeth and continued.

‘OK, so we have
Girl, 15
– well, can’t do much about that unless I lie about my age. And it didn’t work when I tried to rent that adult-rated movie.
Girl 15 . . . attractive? Not unattractive
? Still not strictly true, but those poor fools will be none the wiser. Hmmm. Has anybody ever said anything complimentary about me? Uhh . . . well, when I was a baby, my granny did once say I was charming. Although moments later she was just as enchanted by a passing mongrel with fleas. OK, so we ditch the
attractive
.

‘
Girl, 15, house-trained
? Well, it’s something, though, isn’t it? And call me old-fashioned, but it’s a quality one would look for in a girlfriend.’

Mr Fothergill laughed – a little growl of a laugh, like a small dog who is hoping for a biscuit.

‘
Charming
is a good concept, though. You can look like the rear end of a dinosaur and still aspire to be charming. And I do. OK:
Girl, 15, charming but – let’s face it – insane; likes: vampires, Siberian tigers, friendly nuns and little else. Hobbies: burping for England – in fact, flatulence in general (all mine is of Olympic standard), tending to my granny’s ears (oh yes, I have what you might call a lifestyle) and
. . . what else? What are my other leisure pursuits?
Sitting down, occasionally interrupted by short but delightful periods of standing
.’

Mr Fothergill laughed again – out loud!
I love him! I love him!
thought Jess. Not in a gross pervy way – she would have loved anybody who laughed at one of her gags. Mr Fothergill laughed big and long. His laugh was a bit like Santa Claus’s: ‘HO HO HO!’ It was kind of weird, but Jess was immensely grateful, and ploughed on with more confidence to the end.

‘Great! Excellent!’ he said. ‘Well done! I’ll make a photocopy of your script, if I may – since you’ve memorised it now. Then I can prompt you if you forget your lines during the performance. Just one thing – I think you should be sitting at a desk. I know it’s called “stand up” but this time it can be “sit down”. Then you can actually be scribbling things on a piece of paper as you try to draft your ad, and every time you screw up a piece of paper and chuck it away, you can throw it into the audience. They’ll like that.’ Mr Fothergill was wasted at Ashcroft School. He should be directing in Hollywood.

‘I’ll take you home now,’ he said, once Jess had tried out the routine sitting down, and he had photocopied the script.