The Real Rebecca (10 page)

I HAVE DRUMS!

Well, not in my actual possession. They’re in Alice’s garage. But they’re mine (for the moment) and I played them and I hate to admit it, but Rachel was right and they are a bit harder than the cushions. But I wasn’t that bad (even Sam said so, so HA! to Rachel).

Mum and Rachel (she had to come because she knows Sam) and I all went out to Sam’s house at about ten o’clock. Sam was really nice. He is one of Tom’s best friends. The drums were in the dining room and he had left them up so he could tell me what each drum was called and give me a quick lesson while Mum and Rachel had a cup of tea with his parents in the kitchen. So I had my first drumming session, and it was actually pretty hard – I could play a beat for a couple of minutes but then I’d get a bit confused about which of the drums I was meant to be hitting. And the cymbals were quite tricky too. Working the pedal was the hardest, though – every time I concentrated on getting the pedal beat right, I’d forget what I was meant to be doing with my hands.

But Sam said I’d get the hang of it soon enough. Then he showed me how to take the drum kit apart (you’ve got to unscrew lots of weird little keys and things) and put it back together again (I’m glad he did that because I wouldn’t have been able to do it properly on my own). He even did a little diagram for me! He is quite good looking too (although not as good looking as Paperboy). I asked him if he was looking forward to going to America and he
said not really because he’ll have to come back next year and do sixth year again (well, sort of again, he’s just started sixth year now), but he’s looking forward to seeing New York (his mum’s job has something to do with the U.N.). And when I told him about my plans to start a band with Cass and Alice and about how Alice had an electric guitar but no amp he lent me a little amp and some microphones and their stands as well. ‘Someone might as well put them to good use,’ he said. He is brilliant. I sort of wish he wasn’t going to America at all. I would like to see him again. Even though he is (a) too old and (b) my heart belongs to Paperboy.

Anyway! We got the drum kit and the amp and the microphones and stuff into the car and took it out to Alice’s. Mum went off to chat to Alice’s parents, who were all excited about her stupid new book. They both love Mum’s books, God help them. Alice says Germans love sloppy books about Ireland, and that’s why her mum first came over here in the eighties, because she’d read loads about the beauty of the countryside and how friendly and magical the people supposedly were. That is why she loves Mum’s books so much. Although Alice’s dad is from
Clontarf, so he doesn’t have any excuse. Anyway, I put the kit back together again (the diagram helped, and so did Alice and even Rachel). And then there it was. Our band room (well, band garage). Alice’s guitar was there already, and it was propped up against the bass drum and it really looked like a proper band rehearsal room.

‘Except you can’t play the drums and you don’t have any songs,’ said Rachel. She is so annoying. She and Mum went home (Mum came back later to collect me – she is still feeling guilty about destroying my life so she is being very good about lifts) and Alice and I sort of looked at the drums and then at each other and then we got very excited and jumped up and down and cheered.

‘Let’s play something!’ said Alice, and I said she should start playing something and I’d try playing along. Alice has been learning classical guitar but of course she can play chords and stuff too, so she plugged in her dad’s guitar. But we couldn’t start rocking straight away because she had to tune it first which took about five years. Then she did a big chord. Even though the amp is tiny it sounded pretty good. It sounded very rock and roll.

‘Wow,’ said Alice. And we both looked at each other
and started laughing. Then she started playing a song by that sixties band the Kinks – the one that goes ‘all day and all of the night’. It only has three chords in it so she could just about manage it. I started drumming along and it was a bit wonky and I couldn’t work out the foot pedal thing but it worked! Well, I was more or less in time with the music. I am a drummer! We tried a few more songs and Alice sang a bit (she says it’s hard to play and sing at the same time but she did quite well) and I was surprised at how tiring it was, bashing away. But it was brilliant. It was the most fun I’ve had in ages and ages. We’re going to have another practice tomorrow – Cass is coming out too.

Sunday

First proper band practice today! It went really well, to my surprise. I say surprise, because the way Cass was going on I thought we’d have to spend the entire time helping her turn on the keyboard. She was acting like she barely knew how to play the piano even though she’s done her grade 4 exams, which apparently means she should be able to play
fairly complicated stuff. When we got off the bus at the end of Alice’s road (or rather, country lane, because it’s not really what you’d call a road. There’s grass growing in the middle of it and only two other houses apart from theirs. Also, it’s about 20 metres long) she was still moaning on about how crap she was going to be which was weird because Cass is hardly ever nervous. On the worrying scale, Alice is probably the most neurotic, then me, and then, a long way away, Cass. But today she was all over the place. It was very surprising. However, when she saw the practice room (as we are now calling the garage) she cheered up a bit.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘It does look very … official.’

‘Will we try that Kinks’ song?’ said Alice. Cass thought she didn’t know it and started dithering again but then she realised she did know it after all and we got going. And it sounded … well, not good, exactly, but it sounded like music. Cass realised that playing bass lines on the keyboards is actually pretty easy if you have any sense of rhythm at all (which she does, thank God) and she figured one out pretty quickly. In fact, I hate to say it, but I think I myself might be the weakest link at the moment. I can’t
quite get the hang of the cymbals yet. Or the whole playing-the-bass-drum-with-my-feet thing. I wish I could take the drums home so I could practise during the week but that’s not very practical. I’d never get them on the bus, for one. And there’s no way Mum would help me lug them around the place. Anyway, I can practise playing the drums on cushions, even though Rachel tells me to stop every time I start, because apparently the faint noise of drumsticks hitting cushions ‘drives her mad’. She should count herself lucky I can’t take the drums home, you can barely hear those cushions.

Anyway, we are all very excited about the band. But we’re not going to tell anybody about it. It was Cass’s idea, and she’s probably right.

‘They might want to hear us. Or they’ll want to know the names of songs and stuff,’ she said. ‘And we won’t have anything to tell them so we’ll look mad. We should wait until we can actually, you know, play more than one song.’

I think this might be a good idea.

MONDAY

Ugh. I hate my school. I spent the entire day wishing I was practising my lovely drums instead of sitting in that stupid place. Apparently my mother doesn’t even bother telling me when she’s going to humiliate me now. It seems there was an article yesterday in some newspaper we don’t get at home all about Mum and her stupid new book. And as well as a ginormous picture of Mum (which, sadly, is the sort of thing I’m used to by now), there were photos of me and Rachel as small kids! Dancing around on a beach in stupid pink shorts! I remember that photo being taken – it was when we were on holiday in Kerry when we were little. We were working out a dance routine to a Destiny’s Child song. One of these photos was on the noticeboard in our classroom when I got into school today.

No prizes for guessing who was sniggering away next to it.

‘Hey, Rafferty,’ said Karen. ‘I see you were in the paper again. Looking good!’

‘Oh, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll lend you my lovely shorts if you like.’

And I just sat down at my desk. Luckily that was when Miss Kelly came in and started talking about polar bears dying horribly. I’ve never been so glad to be terrified. After the class Ellie pulled down the picture and tore it up. Thank God she did, because our next class was in the same room and it was Mrs Harrington. Imagine if she’d been going on about those shorts! She was awful as it was. We are meant to be doing
Romeo and Juliet
, but Mrs Harrington keeps going on about the importance of romantic love. The thought of her getting romantic with anyone is too much.

Then after the class was over, Vanessa Finn proved she really has lost her mind by saying ‘Hey, Rebecca, I thought you looked really cool in that photo’ as she passed by me and Cass. She is definitely insane. There is no way on earth she can possibly think that is true.

Anyway, at lunchtime I went to find Rachel to warn her about Mum’s latest betrayal. I never usually look for her at school, as we generally pretend we don’t know each other while on school grounds, but recent events have made us
realise we need to stick together. I stuck my head in the door of her form room and one of her classmates said, ‘Oh God, Rache, is that your sister? I didn’t recognise her without her lovely shorts.’

So obviously Rachel already knew about the disaster. But she came out to me anyway. She was all red and
cross-looking
.

‘What is it?’ she said snappishly.

‘Oh, charming,’ I said. ‘I came over here to warn you about that stupid article and this is the thanks I get.’

Rachel looked slightly ashamed of herself, for once.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh God, I can’t believe she gave them that photo.’

‘Rafferty!’ came a voice from inside Rachel’s classroom. ‘Are you and Rebecca practising your dance routine again?’ It was her friend Jenny, so I knew she was only joking, but Rachel looked like she was going to explode.

‘This,’ she said, ‘is the final straw.’

‘We hope it is,’ I said. ‘Who knows what Mum has planned next?’

Who indeed? When I got home I politely asked Mum about that terrible article.

‘Where did they get that horrible, horrible photo of me and Rachel?’ I bellowed.

Mum looked uncomfortable.

‘I gave it to them, of course. And before you start shouting and roaring, it was a few weeks ago, before I realised how upset you’d be about the whole thing. I thought you’d think it was funny.’

‘FUNNY?’ I shrieked. Then Rachel came in and started shouting too. EventuallyMumstopped looking apologetic and started looking cross.

‘Look girls,’ she said. ‘I have to give interviews to promote the book. I do this for all my books. It’s part of my job, which is selling books, so that your dad and I can pay the mortgage and look after you two. We need this money and this is part of how I earn it. So unless you’d like to have no new clothes or nice holidays in France or dancing classes …’

‘We haven’t gone to dancing classes since I was ten,’ said Rachel grumpily.

‘Oh for God’s sake! Well, no pocket money or new shoes or iPods or new music. That is what my job and your dad’s job pays for, as well as the food on the table and the
clothes on your backs and the roof over your head, and it would be nice if you ever appreciated it!’ And she looked very cross and walked out of the room.

Rachel and I looked at each other.

‘She has a point,’ said Rachel.

‘Well, she would if she hadn’t given them that photo. I mean, no one made her do it,’ I said.

‘True,’ said Rachel. We tried not to speak to Mum for the rest of the evening, but I don’t think she even noticed. Some mother she is.

Dad is, of course, on her side. ‘I know it was embarrassing,’ he said. ‘But your mother really did think you’d find it funny. So did I. I mean, it’s a lovely photo of the two of you.’

‘It might be lovely in a family photo album,’ said Rachel. ‘Although that’s a matter of opinion. It’s not lovely in a newspaper that somehow everyone in school managed to see. I don’t even know how they did it. It’s not like that paper puts every article online.’

‘Well, if it’s any consolation, all this publicity stuff will be over soon,’ said Dad. ‘And then everyone will forget about it.’

He seemed very confident about this, but I bet they won’t. I’m going to get compared to that awful Ruthie O’Reilly for the rest of my life. I know I will.