But the studio space isn’t all. We should be able to put on gigs too, which is cool, because it is very hard to find somewhere to play a gig if you are under eighteen. This is because people who run venues are more concerned with making loads of money from selling BOOZE than encouraging the musicians of the future. Ages ago, Liz thought she’d found a venue that would let us play all-ages afternoon gigs, but it didn’t work out because of insurance or something boring like that.
Anyway, if Veronica’s thing works out, and Tall Paula said she seemed pretty sure it would, we will be able to play gigs regularly! And hopefully we’ll get to see lots of the camp people regularly again too, because they’ll be doing stuff at the Knitting Factory too.
‘There’s a whole arts space thing at the back of the Knitting Factory,’ said Tall Paula. ‘So they’re talking about working with the mentors from the other bits of the camp and having art and drama workshops and other stuff too.’
That would all be so, so cool. It would be like a continuation of the summer camp. I just hope our parents let us all out of the house long enough to actually go there. I have a horrible feeling mine won’t. My dad just stuck his head around the corner of my room and said he hoped I wasn’t going to stay up late writing, because I have school tomorrow. It’s only half past nine! Are they actually going to make me go to bed at this time every night all year?! Surely not. Humans only need about eight hours’ sleep and I’m hardly going to get up at half five in the morning.
Ugh. This time tomorrow I might actually be doing homework. What a thought.
I am not doing any homework, but that’s mostly because I am so, so tired. I had forgotten how exhausting stupid school is. It doesn’t really make sense because when we were at the summer camp we were standing up and moving around and DOING STUFF all day and I always felt fine in the evenings. But after one day of just sitting at a bunch of stupid desks, I’m so tired I can barely stand. It’s so unfair.
Today wasn’t totally and utterly bad, of course. It was nice to see some of the people we didn’t see as much of over the summer, like Emma and Jessie. And even though we have Mrs Harrington for English again this year, the class was actually quite interesting because we’ve been reading some good books for English and, to my great surprise, Mrs Harrington wasn’t as annoying as she usually is. In fact, she didn’t make a single reference to my mother’s books, which is not like her at all as she is scarily obsessed with Mum’s boring stories about kindly old ladies. As she hadn’t seen me for months, I’d assumed she’d be dying to ask me questions about ‘what lovely tales your mammy is thinking of now’ (that is how she always talks, so you can see how annoying she is). But no. In fact, she was so quiet I’d actually be worried that there was something seriously wrong with her if she hadn’t seemed pretty cheerful too. She just seemed a bit distracted. I suppose I should just be thankful and not question it too much.
Actually, I always feel a bit bad giving out about Mrs Harrington now, who is irritating but means well. I do not, however, feel bad about giving out about Vanessa Finn, who does not mean well at all and who has somehow become even more annoying since the last time I saw her, which was only a month ago at the summer camp. Apparently a few weeks ago she auditioned for a big part in an advertising campaign, and she’s totally convinced that she’s going to get it.
‘I’m expecting a call at any moment,’ she said at lunch, making sure everyone in the room could hear her.
‘I’m sure they’ll ring soon,’ said Caroline, Vanessa’s best friend.
‘It’s so exciting, Vanessa!’ said Karen Rodgers, and I had to remind myself of how Karen had stood up for Cass at the summer camp because otherwise her smarmy tone would have made me get sick. ‘And you totally deserve it! An actor with your skills deserves a bigger audience.’
Also, it turns out that getting this ad could be Vanessa’s only chance of being on television this year because her appearance in the reality show My Big Birthday Bash has been cancelled! Or rather, the entire show has been cancelled. I am quite relieved because we were all at her birthday party when they filmed it back in February and I don’t particularly want to see myself on telly. And Vanessa is pleased about it too.
‘Yeah, reality TV wasn’t the right outlet for my talents,’ she said.
Though of course we all know she didn’t want the show to air because her party ended up with her being knocked into a cake by a pink pony. But no one mentioned that. Cass caught my eye and made a little neighing sound, but that was all.
I did notice that Karen’s sidekick, Alison, was looking a bit bored when Vanessa was going on about all this. Ever since Karen and Vanessa became friendly I have been hoping Caroline and Alison would team up and escape their clutches, because both of them are quite nice when they’re not being sidekicks. But it doesn’t seem to have happened yet. Though Alison was on some sort of computer course during the summer and she was talking about that to Emma after maths (oh maths, I have not missed you) this afternoon. So maybe she’s escaping very, very slowly.
Another person who hasn’t changed much is Miss Kelly. She marched into our first geography class of the year and immediately started going on about her environmentally friendly summer holiday. She cycled all over France with some of her friends. It’s quite impressive, especially for someone of her age.
‘If I could have kayaked to France, that’s what I’d have done,’ she said proudly. ‘Unfortunately, I had to use a bigger boat.’
‘Like a rowing boat?’ asked Jessie, impressed.
‘Sadly no,’ said Miss Kelly. ‘The ferry. But after that, it was pedals all the way. Soon we were cycling along the roads of Brittany, stopping only for the odd baguette and slice of local cheese.’ And on and on she went for about five years. Actually, she did stop, after a while, so she could tell us about the horrors of fracking, which seems to be a way of getting natural gas from under the ground by destroying everything on top of the ground. It was quite scary, but I must admit it was more interesting than hearing yet another story of how she and her mates managed to cycle up a French mountain. You’d think they were elite athletes doing the Tour de France, rather than a bunch of middle-aged teachers cycling around the countryside, eating loads of Brie.
Oh, I’m actually too tired to write any more. I’m going to go down and watch telly for a while instead. Luckily the only homework we got was to read something in the history book, and I’ve already done that. Surely my parents can’t expect me to do extra study after just one day of school? It’s bad enough that they change the wifi password practically every day to make sure I’m not messing around on the internet on my phone.
I was actually driven out of our classroom at lunchtime today by Vanessa going on about that stupid ad campaign. She still doesn’t know whether she’s got the part or not, but when we were all sitting around the classroom eating our sandwiches Jessie foolishly asked her what the ad was actually for, and that set her off.
‘It’s for Bluebird Bakery,’ said Vanessa in a very important way, and we all tried to look as if we weren’t impressed or even as though we didn’t know what Bluebird Bakery is. But I was impressed, a bit, even though I’d have died rather than admit it to Vanessa. Bluebird Bakery is a really big brand and they always have big posters everywhere as well as regular ads on the TV. And they do make very nice biscuits. Of course, they usually have quite cool telly ads too, so surely they won’t let Vanessa appear in them. I mean, the sight of her messing around with some biscuits would certainly put me off eating them.
But the school musical did teach me I should never underestimate Vanessa – before the auditions I was convinced she’d be rubbish and then she turned out to be really brilliant, much as I hated to admit it. So maybe she actually would be good at making people want to eat biscuits. Anyway, she seems totally sure that she’s going to get this job and I couldn’t bear listening to her anymore so I went to the library to see if they’d got in any new books this term. Luckily they have, including a f
ew that look really good – there’s one called Code Name Verity about girls working undercover in France during the second world war which looks brilliant.
In fact, there were so many interesting-looking new books I wanted to get out about five of them, but we’re only allowed take out three at a time. A few sixth years always run the library at lunchtime when the librarian is on her break, and it turns out that Rachel’s friend Jenny is one of them this year. I was hoping she might let me take out extra books (after all, I am her best friend’s sister, and she’s usually quite nice to me – she came to our very first gig at the Battle of the Bands and cheered us on), but apparently not.
‘Sorry, Mini-Rafferty,’ she said. ‘I don’t make the rules.’
‘But couldn’t you bend them for me?’ I said.
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I’m a very serious part-time volunteer librarian.’
Fair enough, I suppose, but I do feel there should be some advantages to being the sister of the best friend of a part-time volunteer librarian. Anyway, I got out three books, so at least I have some decent entertainment to console me for having to not only go back to school, but spend all day listening to Vanessa go on and on about how she’s going to be ‘the face of Bluebird Bakery Yummy Scrummy Cookies’.
Cass, by the way, is totally convinced that Vanessa is going to get the job.
‘The thing about Vanessa,’ she said, when we were walking down Griffith Avenue on our way home, ‘is that, even though she’s a bit deluded, she’s not totally deluded. At least when it comes to her acting skills. Maybe she actually was amazing at her audition.’
‘Maybe she was,’ I said. ‘But she is still a bit … unreliable.’ When we’d last seen Vanessa, she was in the cloakroom telling some unsuspecting second year that she was a professional actress, which is a barefaced lie because she hasn’t got that job (yet) and she’s definitely never done any professional work before. ‘And remember when she was totally sure that theatrical agents were going to come to the summer camp and sign her up?’
‘I know,’ said Cass. ‘But I’m telling you, I have a feeling she’s going to be in that ad. It’d just be our luck to have to put up with Vanessa on our tellies as well as at school.’
‘And on posters too,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget the posters.’
Vanessa isn’t the only one around here who is confident about a future in showbiz. Tonight Mum and Dad’s musical society held their auditions for their next production, My Fair Lady. Their last show, Oliver!, was a big success, not least because Dad took over one of the lead roles at the last minute and, to my great surprise, he was totally brilliant.
Anyway, their old director has had to take a break from the musical society for a while because of some work thing so now they have a new director. She was just the assistant director last time and apparently she wants to put on quite a spectacular show. After Dad’s amazing performance in the summer, he is sure he is going to get another big part. Well, he won’t admit it, but I know it’s what he’s thinking. Every time I ask him about it, he gets all bashful and says things like, ‘Oh, it’s up to the director, there are lots of good people in the musical society’, but there’s a strangely confident look on his face that says, ‘I know they will remember my triumphant performance as the Beadle!’
In fairness, he’s probably right to be confident. I still can’t believe what a good dancer he turned out to be. It seems quite unfair that neither Rachel nor I have inherited his amazing dancing skills. And he can jump into the air and click his heels to the side too! It’s really impressive. I’ve been trying for years and I still can’t do that. And I only weigh half as much as him, so you’d think I’d be a bit more nimble.
How come I am only fifteen years old and already have not one nemesis, but two? And both of them are younger than me! First of all, of course, there’s Daisy’s terrible baby. I know Mum thinks it’s impossible for a baby to hate another person, but literally every single time I’ve met that baby it’s yelled and puked on me, and if that doesn’t show hatred I don’t know what does. And now, with the headbutting, it’s resorted to physical violence! God knows what it’ll do when it’s actually big enough to, like, attack me properly. At least at the moment I can easily escape it because it’s too young to crawl after me. And of course, apart from the headbutting (and I’ll watch out for that in future), it can’t do any serious damage yet. I mentioned this to Rachel after dinner today, and she laughed and laughed in a callous way.
‘I bet that baby could take you in a fight now if it really tried,’ she said. ‘You’re pretty weedy, really.’
A bit much coming from her – she’s hardly the pinnacle of physical fitness. I’d say she’s about as scrawny and feeble as I am.
Anyway, luckily I don’t see the baby very often. But I do have to see my other nemesis, that horrible little Sorcha Mulligan. I haven’t written about her in a while because she and her mysteriously normal parents (how did they produce such a monster?) have been on holiday, but I was doing my homework in my room this evening (yes, we’ve started getting proper serious homework again) and when I looked up at the window, there she was in her own room across the road, staring at me! Her traditional activity is to make horrible faces at me and dance around, but this evening she just stared at me for ages in a genuinely spooky way. I actually started feeling a bit scared after a while. I don’t know how she managed to stare so long without blinking. It was really creepy.
Mum always says I should just ignore her and it’s silly to let a seven-year-old child annoy me so much, but I bet if I hovered outside Mum’s study window and just stared at her like a terrifying serial killer/ghost child it would do her head in too.
On the plus side, a year ago Karen Rodgers was my nemesis – she was pretty awful to me when Mum’s book about a teenager came out and everyone thought it was about me – but she’s calmed down now and never really bothers me at all. Not directly, I mean. She still irritates me by going on about her drama group and her amazing boyfriend Bernard the Fairytale Prince (we call him this because she met him when he was being a fairytale prince at Vanessa’s birthday party). But she’s not actively trying to annoy me when she does this, so I can’t really call her my nemesis anymore.
That does still leave the baby and the Mulligan kid, though. I think the baby might be innately violent, but maybe the little Mulligan will find something better to do than freak me out? There must be something she likes doing besides harassing her neighbours. Mustn’t there?
God, school really is more boring this year. Even Miss Kelly telling us about natural disasters and the awful environmental consequences of leaving the water running while you’re brushing your teeth can’t make things exciting. And of course, we were right, all the teachers are constantly going on about how this is a big exam year. You’d think we were doing our college finals or something.
The only plus side is that Mrs O’Reilly seems to have forgotten that she banned me and Cass from sitting next to each other in history, so once again I can amuse myself by drawing pictures of Cass in the guise of historical figures and taunting her with them. Childish I know, but I have to take my pleasures where I can find them. I did a very good picture of her as Queen Victoria today, right under Mrs O’Reilly’s nose.
Home isn’t much more exciting than school. When my parents aren’t pointlessly reminding me and Rachel about our exams (which, lest we forget, are not for another nine months. Well, almost), they are blathering on about My Fair Lady. Dad is constantly singing ‘I’m Getting Married in the Morning’. I tried playing my snare drum earlier this evening to drown him out, but it didn’t work because he has a very booming voice.
And to make matters worse, when I was doing this Mum came into my room and told me to stop making so much noise! I told her I wasn’t making half as much noise as Dad, which was perfectly true, but she told me not to be silly and walked out before I could say anything else. I wish they wouldn’t treat me like a baby. They can’t go on about how I’m do
ing these supposedly really important exams one minute and then talk to me like I’m the same age as Sorcha Mulligan the next.
Right, I’m going to go and read more of I Capture the Castle now. It is very good. It’s about a teenage girl with a spoiled older sister who is very bored with her life and who sits there just praying for something exciting to happen. And then it does. I can really relate to it, even though she lives in a castle in the middle of the English countryside in the 1930s and I live in a semi-detached house in Drumcondra in the twenty-first century.
Nothing much happened in school today, apart from Vanessa going on about her future advertising stardom.
‘Don’t worry, girls,’ she said to me and Cass when she was leaving school today. ‘I won’t forget about you once I’m on TV.’
I hope she does. Maybe she’d stop talking to us then.
What makes her bragging even more ridiculous is the fact that she hasn’t even heard back from the agency yet. I’m starting to hope this means she hasn’t got the job. But I bet she has. I just have a feeling. So does Cass. She and Alice came over to my house after school to make our famous delicious fudge. We’ve started regretfully to accept that our dream of becoming the youngest celebrity chefs ever might be a bit ambitious, or possibly even deluded, but we might as well keep our hand in.
‘We can’t take our eye off the ball,’ said Cass, as we mixed together the ingredients. ‘Someone else might step in and become the first teenage sweet-making sensation. Plus we can still sell the fudge at our gigs. Or give it away as a gimmick if people aren’t willing to pay for it.’
‘If Vanessa gets that ad,’ I said, passing her some bits of white chocolate (we were experimenting with a new flavour), ‘she’ll steal our thunder. Well, sort of.’