The Real Rebecca (14 page)

‘Oh, that’s okay,’ said Emma. ‘It’ll be fun anyway.’

‘Well, um, thanks,’ said Alice. And that was that. I suppose it doesn’t really matter if Ellie and Emma see us making fools out of ourselves. As long as they don’t tell anyone.

To my amazement, Rachel says she wants to come too.

‘It’ll be hilarious,’ she said. ‘The three of you up on the stage. I hope they’ll have room for the sofa, seeing as that seems to be your instrument of choice. Admit it, you don’t play the drums out in Alice’s garage at all. You’re just in her sitting room bashing the couch.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘I’m not having you there laughing at us.’

Rachel sighed. ‘I’m only joking,’ she said. ‘Well, sort of. I do think you’re probably better at playing the sofa than the drums. But I actually do want to go and cheer you on. I’m not a total bitch, you know.’

Hmmm. Maybe she isn’t. She did arrange for me to get the drums in the first place, after all.

‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Okay, I suppose you can come. If you behave yourself.’

Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘God, talk about ungrateful. I’m not sure I want to go now.’

‘Alright, alright,’ I said. ‘I do want you to come. Thanks.’

‘That’s more like it,’ said Rachel smugly, and ran out of the room before I could throw a drumstick at her (I did
anyway, but it just hit the door frame. She is very good at dodging missiles. So am I, come to that. We’ve spent a lot of the last fourteen years throwing things at each other).

WEDNESDAY

Extra band practice today! My mum was going to see some friend who lives in Malahide so she gave me, Cass and Alice a lift out to Alice’s house (with the bits of drums I took home the other day) after school and then collected me and Cass afterwards. Alice is in a very good mood because something quite cool happened on our way to school today. We were walking down Calderwood Road and then Alice said, ‘We should use this opportunity to have a band practice.’

‘How?’ I said. ‘Do you have a guitar and a drum kit in your school bag?’

Alice sighed. ‘No, I mean we should practise singing the song. It’s not like there’s anyone else around. We need to come up with lyrics, anyway.’

‘Oh, all right,’ I said, and we started singing. Not very
loudly, I might add. It was quite fun, singing as we marched along, and then I noticed a familiar figure cycling along quite near us. It was Alice’s dream boy on a bike. And he was looking right at us in a friendly way.

‘Hey,’ he said cheerfully, ‘you’re not bad. You should start a band!’

He looked like he was about to cycle off, and then Alice, sensible, shy Alice, looked straight at him and said, ‘We already have. I’m the guitarist.’

Bike Boy looked genuinely impressed. He was cycling very, very slowly. ‘Seriously?’

We both nodded. ‘And she plays drums,’ said Alice.

‘Wow,’ said Bike Boy. ‘Well, good luck. With the band, I mean.’

And he cycled off. Alice and I just stared at each other with our mouths open until he’d made it to the end of the road and turned the corner and then we both shrieked. But not too loudly.

‘Alice, I think being in a band is good for you,’ I said. ‘I bet you wouldn’t have dared speak to Bike Boy a few weeks ago.’

‘I think you’re right,’ said Alice. And her good mood
lasted for the rest of the day, even when Miss Kelly started waffling on about peak oil and how she hoped we all liked cycling because by the time we were forty only billionaires would be able to use cars.

The practice went quite well too. We have written some very basic lyrics for our song. We weren’t really sure what to write about, because song lyrics should be about significant romantic life experiences, and, to be honest, none of us have actually had any yet. All we’ve had is ‘fancying boys we don’t really know properly’, and as Cass said thoughtfully, ‘I don’t think you can really write a song about that without sounding like a stalker.’

So we kept going with the ‘bap-bap-bap’s’ until Alice said, ‘Why don’t we write about the fuss about your mum’s book, Bex?’

‘What?’ I said. ‘We can’t write about that. It’d sound insane.’

‘Yes,’ said Cass. She started singing to the tune of our nameless song.

‘I didn’t mean literally about your mum’s book,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, we could write about someone wanting to show the world what she was really like. Which is what you want to do now everyone thinks Ruthie O’Reilly is you.’

‘Hmmm, that is a good idea,’ said Cass.

‘Everyone doesn’t really think Ruthie O’Reilly is me,’ I said. ‘Do they?’

‘Here, listen to this,’ said Alice. She started playing the chords of the song. Then she started to sing.

‘Wow, that’s not totally terrible,’ said Cass.

‘It’s really not,’ I said. I sat down behind my drum kit. ‘Let’s try it all together.’

And we did. And it sounded kind of good. We came up with some more lyrics (Alice wrote them all down so we wouldn’t forget anything) and I think it works. Every so
often Alice will mess up a chord or I’ll drop a drumstick, but we managed to play both songs from beginning to end lots of times without any HUGE mistakes.

‘We actually sound like a real band,’ said Cass. ‘At least, a real band who can only play very, very short concerts because we only have two songs.’

‘That’s all we need to be able to play for the Battle of the Bands,’ I said.

By the end of the practice we were all in such a good mood, including me, that I forgot how much I hate my mother at the moment and talked quite cheerfully to her in the car on the way home. After we dropped off Cass, she said, ‘So, am I forgiven?’

Then, of course, I remembered all the terrible things that have happened at school recently.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll never forgive you. That book has ruined my life!’

And I didn’t say anything for the rest of the journey. Mum looked a bit sad and I felt slightly guilty, but then I remembered Karen Rodgers sneering at me and reading out bits of the book and said nothing. I am not very good at being aloof and stand-offish, though. When we got
home we all watched a funny programme on telly and although I was determined to sit very straight at the end of the couch and not join in everyone’s foolish laughter, I sort of forgot after a few minutes. Well, it really was funny. And being aloof isn’t much fun.

I still haven’t forgiven Mum, of course.

FRIDAY

Or as I like to think of it now, Paperboy Day. Although it wasn’t, because I didn’t get to see him. I can’t believe it. I was in need of some cheering up as school was extremely boring. When Mrs Harrington isn’t harassing me and acting like a lunatic, she is still a terrible teacher. When I think of the way Ms Ardagh used to make English classes so fun, I want to cry. It used to be my favourite class, and now I dread it. Luckily Mrs Harrington didn’t single me out for any more public humiliation today. She just droned on about
Great Expectations
for what seemed like about six years. And every other class was just as dull, although German managed to be boring AND weird. I
ended up having to sit next to Vanessa Finn again and she kept writing me notes about her ridiculous party like we were best pals. Apparently she is having a dress made for her out of solid gold or something. I don’t know, my brain started to switch off after the first sentence. I can’t believe her parents are spending so much money on this craziness. Hasn’t she heard that we’re all meant to be tightening our belts, whatever that means? I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to be splashing out on gold dresses and tanks.

So yes, today was not a good day. And then I missed Paperboy! Mum said it was okay for me to practise my bits of drum in the house as long as I did it up in my room rather than in the sitting room with my beloved sofa. So when I came home from school I thought, correctly, that a bit of drumming would make me feel better. I decided to put on some music to drum along to and I was enjoying myself very much when the door opened and Rachel came in, all dressed up like a dog’s dinner because she was going out with Tom.

‘What do you want?’ I said. ‘I’m practising my drums!’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Rachel. ‘I can hear you all over the house. I thought I’d let you know that that Paperboy of
yours is looking very well this evening.’

I nearly dropped my drumsticks.

‘When did you see him?’ I cried.

‘Just now,’ said Rachel smugly. ‘He just called for the paper money.’

‘But … but it’s only half-five!’ I said. ‘And I didn’t hear the door bell.’

‘Well, that’s because you were making all that noise,’ said Rachel. ‘You can probably hear that racket half way down the street.’

I scowled. ‘You sound like Mum, ‘I said. ‘And I can’t believe I missed him.’ I have given up pretending I don’t fancy him to Rachel, because my pretending just seemed to amuse her. ‘He’s the only boy I like and I only get to see him once a week.’

Rachel sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Would it make you feel any better if I told you that he asked after you?’

This time I really did drop my drumsticks. ‘Really?’ I squeaked.

‘Yes!’ said Rachel. ‘Well, sort of. I answered the door and he looked sort of surprised. He’s probably so used to you racing out to the door and panting at him every week,
he doesn’t realise anyone else lives here. Anyway, he said he was here for the paper money, and I said, “Oh, you’re a bit earlier than usual, I’ll have to go and get it,” and he said something about a change of schedule and I went off to get the cash from Mum. And when I came back he pointed upstairs and said, “Um, is that your sister playing the drums?” And I said, “I’m afraid I don’t have a sister, but we are looking after a poor idiot orphan, and every Friday night we let her hit some saucepans with a wooden spoon.”’

‘What?’ I shrieked.

‘Oh, calm down, you fool, I didn’t say that,’ said Rachel. ‘I was a perfect sister, actually. I said, “Yes, that’s her. She’s not bad.”’

‘Did you really?’ I asked, rather surprised.

‘Yes,’ said Rachel. ‘Seriously, I did! And he said, “Yeah, she’s very good,” and looked a little bit impressed. And I said, “She’s in a band, you know. They’re entering some battle of the bands next week,” and he said, “Oh, cool, I’ll see them then.” And that was it.’

‘What do you mean, that was it?’ I said.

‘I mean he said bye and went off. What else was he going to do, come up and start a drum circle with you?’

‘How did he look when he said he was going to see us in the battle of the bands?’ I said. ‘Did he look like he was just saying it out of politeness or did he look like he actually wanted to see us?’

‘Oh, God, I don’t know,’ said Rachel. ‘I’m not obsessed with him like you. He looked perfectly friendly, and like I said, he really did look quite impressed by your awful drum bashing, God knows why. So I think you can assume he’s at least slightly interested in seeing your ridiculous band. He must be mad.’

‘But what …’ I began, but Rachel cut me off. ‘I’m off to see Tom,’ she said. ‘And I’ve told you all I can about your beloved. So if you want to analyse his every word, go round to Cass’s house.’

But I couldn’t, because she’s at another one of her brother’s football matches. Her parents are making them all go for family bonding. Cass says they’re the most boring things ever and she just stands at the side of the pitch and listens to her iPod. It’s not so bad at this time of year, but it’s really awful in winter. So I rang Alice instead. We spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what Paperboy’s statement could mean.

‘I hate to say it,’ said Alice, ‘but it might just mean that he’s going to be at the battle of the bands. And no more.’

‘But is he going to see us or his friends?’ I said.

‘Well, in fairness, Bex, I’m pretty sure he’s going mostly to see his friends,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, it’d be a bit odd if he was just there to see us. He barely knows you.’