The Real Rebecca (13 page)

‘Dad has a friend who’s an army officer,’ said Vanessa. ‘He said we could just borrow one for the day.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yah. And we can paint it pink as long as we paint it grey or green or whatever boring colour it’s meant to be afterwards.’

It was so mad I have to admit I was kind of fascinated.

‘Are you going to, like, ride through the streets in it? In a tank?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’ll be, you know, looking out in the top in my new outfit. Waving at people.’

I always knew Vanessa was a bit peculiar and annoying, but I thought she was basically harmless. Now it sounds like she wants to be Hitler. Only more pink. Anyway, Frau O’Hara came along then so she had to shut up (in English at least). But she kept going in German. She was of course meant to be talking about telly programmes but I’m pretty sure she was still talking about the party (it is hard to tell as her German is even worse than mine). I heard the word ‘Pferd’ which means horse so maybe she is just obsessed with
horses in general? Although she also said something about a ‘Fest’. As soon as the class ended she started talking about the tank as well (or Panzer, as I believe they are called ‘auf Deutsch’), but I said I had to go to the loo urgently and ran away (it was the only excuse I could think of). To be honest Vanessa’s mad party should be a distraction, but at the moment I can’t think about anything but Paperboy and that horrible girl. Why did I go in to Tower on Saturday? If I hadn’t seen them I wouldn’t feel so awful now. I mean, I know that it doesn’t change the fact that he’s going out with her (IF he is) but at least then I wouldn’t know about it. Every time I think about it I feel sick. And very, very sad.

THURSDAY

We had an extra band practice after school today. Alice asked her mum to let us do it, to cheer me up, which was very kind of her. I’m not sure it actually worked, because now I’m back home again and I feel miserable, but I have to admit that when we were actually practising it did distract me from my misery for a while.

Maybe I should start writing poetry. I could turn my sadness into great literature.

Nothing rhymes with Paperboy.

If only I knew his real name. Although it’s probably something unrhymable, like Jonathan. Not that he looks like a Jonathan. I actually can’t imagine what his name might be. He doesn’t look like an anything, if you know what I mean. I mean, you wouldn’t look at him and think, ‘There’s a Dave,’ or ‘There’s a Rory.’

Anyway, there isn’t any point in finding out what his name is. I’ll probably never talk to him about anything but newspapers. And I’m not sure I even want to do that anymore.

FRIDAY

I feel a bit funny. In a good way. Something very weird and potentially very, very good has happened. I don’t quite know what to think about it. I was really jittery when I came home from school because I knew Paperboy was going to call in a few hours. And I didn’t know whether to leave Rachel or Mum to answer the door or to brave it and do it myself. A part of me really wanted to see him but another part of me couldn’t bear the idea. But then I thought that if I didn’t answer the door, he’d think I was hiding from him (and he would be right). And then I felt ashamed of myself for being stupid enough to think that he’d even notice, or that he even remembers Saturday.

I decided to distract myself by practising my drums. Rachel was up in her room, Dad wasn’t home from work yet and Mum was in her study, so I put on some music and started drumming away on the cushions. I was hoping I might get so lost in music that I would forget about the impending arrival of Paperboy but of course I didn’t and I
kept looking over at the clock. When it hit six o’clock my stomach was churning and when the door rang at half six I thought I was going to get sick. But I yelled ‘I’ll get it’ (my voice came out a bit weird) and ran out to the door, still holding my drumsticks (and if I’m being totally honest with myself, and I should be if I want this diary to be an accurate description of my life when I look back on it in my old age, I have to admit this: I didn’t put the drumsticks down before going out because I hoped he would be impressed by the fact I play the drums. GOD I’M SO SAD).

Anyway, I kind of flung open the door and there he was. I’d been thinking about him so much all week that it was a shock to see him in the flesh, in different clothes. In my head he looked exactly as he’d looked on Saturday. I felt my throat go all dry and I swallowed before I said, ‘Oh, hi, I’ll get the money.’ But before I could get away, the (possibly – I don’t want to tempt fate) cool thing happened.

Paperboy said, ‘Um, I’m sorry about Saturday.’

I sort of stared at him and, after what seemed like about five years but was probably only about five
seconds, said, ‘What for?’

Paperboy let out a long breath. ‘Em, I think I was a bit rude. By accident.’

‘No you weren’t,’ I said, but Paperboy was on a roll. ‘I’d just bumped into my ex outside Tower and it was all a bit weird because we haven’t really seen each other since I broke up with her and when we met you I was kind of surprised. So I might have acted a bit weird. Or rude. But just because I was surprised to see you there.’

‘So was I,’ I said. ‘It was weird seeing you, um, out of context. I mean, not doing your whole … paper thing.’ But while I said this I was just thinking. ‘His ex! HIS EX! HIS EX!!!’ and I thought I was going to die of happiness.

‘So yeah, I’m sorry if I seemed a bit, you know, off,’ said Paperboy, looking a bit awkward. Neither of us said anything for a moment. Then he suddenly looked surprised and pleased. ‘Hey, are those drumsticks?’

‘Um, yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m in a band.’ I didn’t add ‘and we can’t really play any songs!’ because that would not have been impressive. And Paperboy looked kind of impressed. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Wow, that’s brilliant. What are you called?’

For a moment I wished we weren’t committed to our new name. But we are.

‘We’re called … Hey Dollface,’ I said. ‘But we haven’t been a band for very long. We’re just starting out, really.’

‘Cool,’ said Paperboy with a grin. ‘I like the name. It sounds like something out of a trashy fifties’ movie.’ I have never seen any trashy fifties’ movies, so I hope this is a good thing. It sounds pretty cool anyway. And Paperboy wasn’t finished.

‘Hey, have you heard about the Battle of the Bands thing in the Knitting Factory?’ he said. ‘It’s for
undereighteens,
so it’s on a Saturday afternoon. It’s in about three weeks, I think. My friend Johnny is entering his band.’

‘Wow!’ I said. ‘That sounds brilliant.’ And it did. Although I can’t imagine that we will be good enough to enter a battle in three weeks, unless we want to totally humiliate ourselves. And frankly, I’ve had more than enough humiliation for a lifetime recently. I can’t take any more.

‘Yeah, you should enter,’ said Paperboy. ‘You can look it up online. I went last year and it was good fun. It’s an
easy way to play a first gig. And you don’t have to worry about whether the audience likes you or not, because they’re all just worried about their own sets. Although that may not be ideal either. Am I talking too much?’

‘No,’ I said.

He was smiling. He has such a nice smile. One side of his mouth seems to go up a bit more than the other. I could look at him all day. God, I hope I wasn’t staring too madly at him. ‘Anyway, I’d better go and harass some more of your neighbours for money. It’s just something I like to do on a Friday evening.’ He raised his hand in farewell. ‘Let me know if you enter the Knitting Factory yoke.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Um, thanks!’ And he sort of waved and went off and I waved a drumstick at him as he went down the drive. I hope he knew I was waving goodbye and not, like, threatening him with a drumstick beating or something. Then I closed the door, ran upstairs, ran into my room and shrieked at the top of my voice in pure, pure joy. I jumped up and down and then fell on the bed smiling from ear to ear. I’m still smiling now. I know I’m being stupid and it doesn’t mean anything really but Paperboy doesn’t have a girlfriend after all AND I had a proper
conversation with him AND he thought it was cool that I’m in a band AND he said, ‘Let me know’ if we enter the competition which means he wants to talk to me again (or at least he isn’t totally terrified of the thought). And nothing might come of this and I might never talk to him again but right now I am very, very happy.

I can’t believe I talked to him for that long. It was like a dream. ‘Let me know if you enter the Knitting Factory yoke.’ Squeeeeeeee!!!

SATURDAY

Band practice today! Cass’s mum gave me and her a lift to Alice’s house. I didn’t say anything about Paperboy or the Battle of the Bands on the way because (a) I couldn’t talk properly about Paperboy in front of Cass’s mum and (b) I wanted to make a grand announcement to my bandmates and you can’t make a grand announcement twice. So I
waited until we were in the practice room and told them all.

Cass said, ‘Oh my God, I’m so jealous! You bitch!’ But I don’t think she meant it. Unless she is a very good actor. She seemed genuinely quite pleased for me. If she does really like him she is being very noble.

Alice looked delighted and played a very loud power chord in my honour. And then she revealed that she has actually written a song. Well, some chords that make a song. It doesn’t have an actual tune or words or anything. But it has a riff and she played it and it was actually pretty good. Very choppy and poppy and sharp. I started drumming along and Cass played a squelchy, funky sort of bass line and it didn’t sound bad at all.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘if we tighten that up and make up a tune and everything, we really could enter this Battle of the Bands.’

‘Are you serious about that?’ said Cass.

‘Of course I am!’ I said. ‘Why do you think I mentioned it earlier?’

‘Well,’ said Cass. ‘I thought it was just part of the Paperboy conversation. I mean, I didn’t think you actually
wanted to enter it. I thought you were just pleased he thought we should do it.’

‘Of course I want to enter it!’ I said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I think I want to enter it,’ said Alice.

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Cass. ‘It’s in three weeks! We’re not good enough!’

‘Oh come on,’ I said. ‘I looked up the details online last night and you only need to play two songs. So we could do this one and a cover.’

There was silence as Cass thought this over.

‘Just think, Cass,’ I said. ‘All of us rocking out on stage … everyone cheering us on …’

‘Everyone laughing at us, more like,’ said Cass.

‘Cheering!’ I said.

‘What,’ said Alice suddenly, ‘is the point of us being in a band if we only ever play in here? I mean, why are we doing it?’

‘The love of music,’ said Cass loftily.

‘If it was just the love of music, we could just do it on our own, not in a band. We need to play in front of other people! We need an audience.’

‘Just imagine what nice boys would be there and how
impressed they’d be,’ I said. ‘Not that that’s the most important thing, of course. But still!’

‘Huh,’ said Cass.

‘Just think about it,’ said Alice, the skilful diplomat. ‘Let’s practise a bit more first.’

So we kept going with the song. Alice started singing a tune over the chords and we all offered suggestions. Then we all started singing it together, like one of those sixties’ girl groups. It’s quite hard to hear each other over the noise of the instruments – we can’t use the microphones because we don’t have enough amplifiers – but we turned the volume down on the guitar and keyboard and I tried to drum quietly. Alice and I worked out a sort of harmony so we sounded like a little choir. Of course, we didn’t have any lyrics, we just sang ‘bap-bap-bap’ instead. After a while it actually, seriously, started coming together. It sounded like actual music. I couldn’t believe it.

‘Wow, Alice,’ I said. ‘You’ve actually written a song.’

‘We’ve written a song,’ said Alice. ‘You two came up with your own drumming and keyboard bits and we all made the tune. And we’re all singing. I just put the chords together.’

We looked at each other in amazement. We wrote a song! A brand new song, that didn’t exist before this afternoon! It was an excellent feeling. We played it from beginning to end with only a few wonky mistakes and at the end of it Cass said, ‘Okay, okay, let’s do it.’

‘Seriously?’ squeaked Alice.

‘Yeah, go on. Let’s make a fool of ourselves in front of everyone we know. You know half our class will turn up just to laugh at us, don’t you?’

They probably will, but I don’t care. We’re entering the competition!

MONDAY

I had a brainwave and took home little bits of my drums so I can practise at home. I took the snare drum, which is the small rattly drum, and the bass drum pedal (I am making it hit the side of the sofa instead of a drum. Good old sofa, what would my musical career be without it? It’s practically a drum kit now. Although Mum and Dad aren’t too happy about this. Mum said I’ll destroy the sofa bashing
away like that but I told her I don’t actually hit it that hard. I am a skilled artiste, after all). So anyway, I’m sure I’ll be able to manage the whole pedal business by the time of the competition. Which, I might add, we have officially entered. I did it last night. I just had to fill in a form online saying how many of us there were, and what instruments we played, and how many singers we had. We told Ellie and Emma about it and made them promise not to tell everyone else.

‘You’ve got to let us come, though,’ said Ellie. ‘I mean, surely you want someone cheering you on?’

It’s true, we do. But only if we’re good. Which we may not be. But we don’t want to admit that. Oh, being in a band is complicated.

‘Well, yes, we do,’ said Cass. ‘But it might all be very boring for you. I mean, there are going to be loads of bands playing and I’m pretty sure most of them will be crap.’