bite my lip. As the bus doors swing closed, Dan says, “Great dress, by the way.”
“What?”
What?
The doors hiss closed and I look down to discover that in the commotion my coat has come undone, revealing…well, revealing pretty much everything. As the bus pulls away I fingers-and-thumbs my coat up, frantically scanning the moonlit street for Clarence at the same time. Suddenly he appears, hanging upside down from the top of the bus stop.
“Clarence! It’s a miracle! I spoke to Dan Ashton!”
He smoothes his right eyebrow with his finger. “And what’s more unlikely it appears you can almost flirt!”
“Flirt?” I attempt a casual dismissal of the accusation with an accompanying hand gesture; but I’m so flustered it comes out as a fit of spluttering, choking and arm-flapping. Like an angry ostrich trying to start a really old car.
“Well,” says Clarence, when I have eventually come to an embarrassed stop, “I don’t know if I’d really call it flirting, either, that being a delicate and balletic art. Whatever it was, that young man was lapping it up. He likes you!”
The words light a little candle somewhere inside my chest. The sensation is so strange – a quiet ache as sweet as it is strong – that I hardly hear Clarence say, “And that is going to be very useful indeed…”
7 Bravery, Cunning and Feats of Daring Do
“What is going on with you today, Can?”
Monday. I’m at Holly’s, in her room. We’re supposedly doing homework but actually listening to last.fm and laughing so hard we almost wet ourselves. Still in our school uniforms, Holly has fashioned a ‘Ramboesque’ headband from her tie and I am wearing my jumper as a turban. And people say kids have nothing to do these days. We lie side by side on the bed. Pirate being somewhat funsize and me lanky, her feet just about reach my knees.
“Nothing! What? I’m fine! Finer than swine drinking wine!” I dissolve into another fit of hysterics.
“That’s just it, though. You had the biggest mope ever on all last week and now you’re…”
“I’m ridiculous!” I squeak, before being swept away in a tide of convulsive giggles. Holly is absolutely right, of course. Since actually speaking, and I mean actual words to D. Ashton, the world has been made of marshmallows and someone appears to have switched off gravity. But as is so often with Holly, it is unwise, nay, impossible to give her the full facts. If I told Pirate that Dan and I had spoken and specifically mentioned seeing each other at The Blue, she would march me down there instantly and force me to talk to him, probably insisting I start with a ridiculously implausible lie.
“Hello Daniel Ashton! Our car has broken down – is it all right if we shelter here in your special music-shop, cubby-hole thing until the AA arrive to tow us to safety? What’s that you say? Aren’t we fifteen and unable either to drive or indeed buy a car?”
No. No. Nonononono.
Previously, I would have caved and told her everything, but having Clarence to talk to has got enough Dan out of my system to stop that happening. Clarence has a fantastic ear for music as well as listening and put both to full use yesterday. I am now able to play pretty much any chord on guitar (although getting from one to the next sometimes takes a while). Late last night, I wrote a song. This time I actually think it might be a quite good song. Later last night Clarence also extracted and digested the entire story of my Dan obsession, chewing over each titbit of information like an olive from the bottom of a cocktail. I don’t know how, but Clarence B Major knows exactly how it feels to be a teenage girl. He has also managed to bring together my improved musical and romantic talents to hatch a genius plan – a plan that will light a fire under Operation Awesome and take the whole deal stratospheric.
This is where Pirate comes in. I am marginally terrified about almost all of it but I’m 100 per cent convinced that it will work. Since Clarence put my head in that cloud on Saturday, anything seems possible. I feel like I’ve been given a preview of my future and I’m giddy at the thought.
Stomping over to the computer, Hol turns up Battle Royale by Does It Offend You, Yeah? Her bedroom is bigger than mine, but mostly pink and covered in pictures of princesses and ballerinas as she shares it with her two little sisters. On her way back to the bed she steps on a pointy, plastic doll.
“Bloody Norah!” she screams, face gripped by cartoon agony. I start laughing again, only just ducking out of Barbie’s way as Hol flings her at my head. I retrieve the doll and putting on my best Miss World voice.
“Pirate, don’t be mean to your friend Candy. She has news happier than dancing kittens and smiling unicorns!”
Hol ignores Barbie and levels her question at me. “What news is this, then?”
I jettison the thing into the toy landfill on the floor and scootch down to Hol’s end of the bed, removing my jumper-turban so as not to compromise either the gravity or brilliance of Clarence’s idea. Sensing something significant is about to happen, Hol removes her Rambo band.
“News of an unbelievably excellent plan. For The Biscuits. We need other members, right?”
Holly pushes her tongue under her bottom lip, crosses her eyes and screws her face up into a village-idiot expression, “NNnnuuh!!”
“A simple ‘yes’ will suffice, Rodgers. We need members, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And our efforts to get Operation Awesome off the ground have so far proved…well, useless really.”
She scowls.
“Although the OA concept has been fantastically executed and possessed of huge artistic charm.”
Placated, Holly gives a queenly nod. “Proceed.”
“Anyway I was thinking – you’ve got the right idea but maybe the wrong medium!”
“Medium?”
“Yeah – we need to reach out to people but in a way they’re going to, like, get excited by?” I take a little breath and feel a pang of guilt for passing off the ideas Clarence and I had talked about yesterday – Clarence’s ideas – as my own. “Hol, listen. What are the biggest music shows on TV?”
She gives me her trademark bored stare, one that you and I might throw at a wall of drying paint but that Hol reserves for teachers, siblings and other inferior life-forms. “There are no music shows on TV.”
I clear my throat. “Talent contests. Britain’s Got Talent. X Factor…”
“Are we counting those noises as music now?”
“OK the music’s terrible, but people love it. Millions of people! And the bit they love best is…?”
The Stare again.
“It’s the auditions, Holly. People love an audition – the chance to show off, the chance of success, the risk of rejection. Something about it captures their imagination. And even more than auditioning, people love to watch auditions.”
Half The Stare, half a frown of genuine confusion.
“Look. In two weeks, Mum and Ray are going away, right? On holiday to some mountain or other.”
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