Fanmail Page 4

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ I hissed. ‘You don’t want everyone knowing we’re going to meet Jason.’ I decided to use his real name to sound more, well, real. Like I really knew him. For the millionth time that day, I wondered if my letter had ever got to him.

  Aggie nodded quickly. ‘Sorry. You’re absolutely right. So are we meeting him before,’ she said, under cover of the double-page spread of Jason and his pectoral muscles which could frankly give Dolores a run for her money, ‘or after the show?’

  ‘After,’ I said quickly. ‘Definitely after.’

  As I wasn’t at all interested in hearing the “guys”, I’d already planned to spend the whole show tracking down Stephen Scowl or a door with stars on it, and finding out just where the “guys” would be after the event. Then I could be standing by with Dolores the Decoy, and Nerdy Ferdy/Freddie would be mine. I mean, Aggie could get to meet him and make her dreams come true …

  So that’s what I did, after we’d spent forty five minutes squashed into each other and everyone else while we waited for the main doors to open at 6.30pm, and then the next seventeen minutes climbing a million stairs like something out of Kung Fu Panda to find our seats, and then a total of fifty two minutes going back down them, finding the loos while Dolores re-did her lip-gloss, and then clambering back up them again. At 8pm the support band came on (can’t even remember their names, but felt very sorry for them as everyone just started doing Mexican waves and shouting “Double Vision” and “Jazz-eee, Jazz-eee, Jazz-eee” right over the top of all their songs), and then finally, FINALLY, at just after 9pm the lights all went dim and then flashed on again in a rainbow of laser beams, and the crowd went ballistic. Several small girls beside me started to cry. One of them was Dolores.

  ‘What are you crying for?’ I said, mystified.

  ‘I don’t know! I’m just so excited,’ she snivelled.

  ‘Well, please stop it. Your mascara’s running.’

  How was she going to land the dreamy Jazzy D with panda eyes? I handed her a tissue, checked that all the band were on stage and that both Aggie and Dolores were suitably entranced, and then hollered, ‘I’m just going to the loo.’

  I don’t think they even heard me; just stood there clutching each other’s wrists while Dolores screamed like a fire engine siren for no apparent reason. Aggie put out her hand as if to offer to mind my bag for me, so she must have registered I was off somewhere, but I needed that bag so I clutched it to me and waved, then sidled past four hundred hysterical year 10s to get to the aisle.

  This gave me a good opportunity to face the stage and check out what all the fuss was about, and honestly, I do not get it! The “guys” were all leap-frogging each other and yelling to different sections of the audience, but let’s face it, anyone could do that. Even me, and I’m hopeless at gymnastics. They were all quite good-looking in an obvious say, but there wasn’t a skinny-nerdy-brainy type among them; in fact, a couple of them looked like the only test they’d ever pass would be one for steroids.

  And then there was Jazzy D. The Divine Jazzy D. Or Jason Devaney, as I was determined to call him. Well, yes, he was quite pretty, I suppose, with big wistful eyes and a quirky way of holding his guitar (all of which I could only see on the massive screens either side of the stage, as the stadium was so huge that, in reality, they were just action figures in the distance).

  I looked again at Jason. What was it about him? He started to sing, and I suppose he had quite a good voice. A light tenor in madrigal terms. He danced as well as the rest of them, though not as often as he appeared to be actually playing his guitar. And he did look quite muscular, with biceps flexing whenever he strummed a chord, and a powerful neck that made his costume collar look a bit tight so he had to loosen it every now and again, to the massive excitement of the thousands of tweeny girls in the audience who obviously thought he was about to rip off his shirt any moment. ‘Keep it on!’ I wanted to shout, every time the cry of ‘Off, off, off!’ rippled around the stadium.

  Not my type. That’s all I’ll say. And remembering that the one who was my type was under the misconception that Dolores was his type, I hurried down the near-vertical stairs and ran out into the vast corridor that circled the arena.

  It took me nearly forty five minutes to trot around the entire venue, looking for ‘Manager’s Office’ or ‘Mr Scowl’s Trailer’ or similar. Eventually I found a sectioned-off area which obviously led directly from the stage, as it was manned by some very burly … well, men.

  ‘Can’t come through here, love,’ said the nearest of them. ‘You’ll have to go back to your seat.’

  ‘Is this where Jason comes off the stage?’

  I fished around in my bag, and he suddenly looked quite alarmed.

  ‘Security did check your bag, right?’ He held out a hand. ‘Best give it here, sweetheart.’

  Now several of the others were lurching towards me too. At this rate I was going to get thrown out. Finding what I was searching for, I pulled out my second letter to Jazzy D and handed it over.

  ‘Just an envelope, that’s all,’ I said. ‘Look, nothing else in my bag. I’m a friend of Jason’s from school in Jersey and I wanted to say hi afterwards.’

  ‘Right,’ said the man, clearly not believing a word.

  ‘It’s true – ask him what the Year 1 teacher was called at his school. It was Mr Favreau.’ Wow. I’d almost convinced myself we genuinely were mates in Jersey.

  ‘If you say so, love. Now, back to your seat.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, sounding a teensy bit desperate, ‘just give him the letter in the interval and tell him I’ll see him afterwards.’

  The man seemed almost sorry for me. ‘There’s no interval, darling. It’s not a the-atre, you know.’

  ‘Oh.’ No interval? There was always an interval at choral events. ‘Well … just give it to him when you can.’

  He nodded in a completely unconvincing way so I knew that the letter was going in the bin the second my back was turned. For a moment I considered taking it back from him, but he’d folded his arms by now and his biceps were even more bulgy than Jason’s, so I just nodded back at him, and shuffled backwards trying to do some kind of Jedi mind-trick on him until I hit a wall, then turned and ran back to my seat.

  I’d missed almost the whole thing, thank the stars. In fact, I got back to my seat just as Jason announced, ‘And this is our last song,’ and picked out a very nice acoustic melody on his Ovation (that’s a guitar, not a new words for abs or something).

  Aggie and Dolores were both in a trance. I pulled Dolores’ hair to get her attention. ‘Come on, we’ve got to go now.’

  ‘But it’s the last song!’ bleated Dolores.

  ‘The best one,’ added Aggie. ‘I bought a glowstick specially for waving. It’s Show Me Tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to show you now. Jazzy D, downstairs, coming off the stage – but only if we leave THIS SECOND!’

  They took one look at me, grabbed their programmes and legged it, followed by a swelling stream of girls who’d overheard me and cottoned on to what we were doing, or had just seen a queue and decided to join it. Consequently by the time we got back around to the cordoned off area, running at full pelt, we were no longer at the head of the crowd which had taken on a life of its own, and the man who’d had hold of my letter (and was no longer holding it, I just about managed to notice) glanced up to find a tsunami of teenagers bearing down on him, just as Double Vision finished their final encore and spilled down the steps at the side of the stage.

  Our side.

  ‘There they are!’ screamed someone, Aggie I think, and suddenly the tide swerved and stampeded towards the crash barriers.

  ‘It’s him, it’s him!’ Dolores could be heard above everyone else to begin with, but was soon drowned out by the cries of ‘Jazzy! I lerv you! Jazzy, Jazzy! You’re Divine!’

  Time to use my height to my advantage. ‘Quick, Dolores, get on my shoulders!’

  Queen Divvie
wasted no time in climbing up my back as best she could, and if it was more of a piggy back than a shoulder-ride, it didn’t seem to matter. It still gave us some extra thrust as we barged our way through the madness, Dolores tossing her pink hair around and yelling ‘I love you, Jazzy’ and me going, ‘Jason! Jason, it’s me, Cat Andrews. Dolores, shout Jason Devaney instead of Jazzy.’

  We’d just reached the barrier and the “guys” were sprinting along the other side of the metal bars, waving a little nervously.

  It all happened so quickly.

  Dolores shouted, ‘JASON DEVANEY!’ at the top of her voice.

  Jason was just running by at that very second, and turned to look at us in surprise.

  I stuck my hand out, saying, ‘Jason, it’s me, Cat Andrews, from Jersey,’ …

  … as Dolores stretched out a taloned hand too, and ripped his too-tight collar right off his shirt.

  He clutched his throat as if he’d been strangled, but didn’t stop running. Though he did have time to gaze up at Dolores.

  Yes! I thought. Now there’ll be instant chemical reactions and marriage proposals.

  Then I saw the expression on his face, and it wasn’t adoration. In fact, it wasn’t anything like the expression on Nerdy Ferdy/Freddie’s face when he’d stared up at Dolores.

  It was fear. Pure, animal fear, mixed with a teensy bit of loathing.

  And then he was gone.

  Jason Devaney

  c/o Stephen Scowl

  Talentfactory

  PO Box 47863

  London SW19 8DR

  Or c/o The Zed Security

  Hi Jason,

  Just to confirm that me, Cat Andrews from your former school in Jersey and my gorgeous brawl-causing friend, Dolores (and someone else but you don’t need to know about her) … anyway, we’re going to be back stage waiting for you after the show at The Zed, and it will be great to catch up on old times.

  Hey, I just remembered something else about our school. Do you recall the pea pod tree out the back of the playing field? The one that was actually a massively poisonous laburnum tree with evil seeds? Well, do you know it was me who stopped half of the reception class eating them, because I knew something they didn’t know:

  Peas don’t grow on trees!

  It was after that they cordoned it off and put that ‘keep away’ sign on it.

  Right, chuntering on about nothing, and we can discuss this and many many many other fond memories of our jointly-attended primary school when I meet up with you after the gig. See you very soon.

  You’re on stage in approximately fourteen hours.

  Cat Andrews x

  And Gorgeous Dolores xxxxxxx

  Chapter 5: Daydreamer (David Cassidy)

  Really starting to despise Jason Devaney. How much trouble did he get me into? More than I’d ever been in before, basically.

  First of all with Dolores. I don’t honestly know what she was so snickety about. She actually got the idiot to look at her, and to stay still long enough for her to separate the collar from his shirt. Pity it wasn’t the head from his shoulders. That might have saved me the whole of the miserable episodes that followed. True, Dolores would have been in prison, her cell wall plastered with articles headlined “DERANGED DIVVY DECAPITATES DIVINE!” and similar, and then school might have been a bit less fun (although … wait … that would solve all the issues with Freddie or Ferdinand the scientific beautiful one … Oh sorry. Day dreaming again. Repeat: do not want Dolores to do time. Even just long enough for me to get a shot at the guy of my dreams. Or maybe … no, no, stop it now).

  Anyway, she was super-snarky with me the next morning after the concert, when I caught her on the front steps showing the offending collar to guess who – Freddie the Ferd Nerd. As if he’d be interested!

  But strangely, he was.

  ‘Hey, I reckon that’s an original Fred Perry,’ he was saying, inspecting it like the forensic scientist I knew he was going to turn into. With me.

  ‘No, not Fred Perry,’ said Dolores, and honestly, she uttered the next bit really slowly with a very round mouth, as if he was a moron. ‘Ja-zzy Di-vine.’

  Freddie, to my astonishment, didn’t tut loudly and walk off. Instead he grinned a full set of delightfully uneven teeth. ‘I know. Your beloved, isn’t he?’

  Yes, I urged silently. Say yes, he is.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she said instead, and stupid Freddie stupidly blushed like a stupid ten year old. I am seriously beginning to doubt his intelligence.

  So this is where I got into trouble with Dolores.

  ‘Hey, I need that collar.’

  She hadn’t seen me walking up to them; she looked a bit shocked when my arm snaked over her shoulder and went to grab the scrap of material.

  Instantly she snatched it back. ‘No way! I tore it off him. It’s mine.’

  ‘You could sell it on eBay,’ suggested Freddie. ‘You’d get a fortune.’

  ‘No!’

  That was me shouting. EBay? How did he know about such matters? I wanted to like him less and less but his mousy top lip was just inches away from my own and it looked so delicious that I found myself staring at it, rather than listening to what he was saying. Suddenly I realised he was looking at me, accusingly, like “oh it’s you, Finger-stabber.”

  ‘Why not?’ he said.

  Dolores and I spoke at the same moment.

  ‘Because I’m keeping it forever.’ Dolores. Obviously.

  ‘Because … because how would you prove it was his?’ That was me. Oh sweet scientists, I’d actually spoken directly to him! Now to say something to really win his scientific brain over. ‘Other than extracting his DNA and getting something else off him to match it with, and then correlating the whole lot with perhaps a controlled experimental sample and a few … graphs.’

  I trailed off because they were both studying me as if I was the one needing a few scientific experiments.

  ‘Okay, calm down,’ said Freddie under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear him, and then he nodded at Dolores in a “see you later” kind of way and marched off, shouldering his bag onto his skinny, adorable back.

  ‘I wasn’t going to sell it on eBay anyway,’ said Dolores. ‘As if I’d part with it.’

  ‘But I do really need it,’ I said, hoping that would be enough to just encourage her to give it to me.

  It wasn’t. ‘Why? You don’t even like Jazzy D. You don’t even like Double Vision. You’re not even a Divvy at all – you disappeared for their entire set! Why would you want it?’

  ‘Because I have to send it back to him to prove that I’m not a maniac but a truly honest friend who did actually know him at primary school in Jersey, and before that I have to show it to Aggie and Dean so they think I do actually know him, and so Mum doesn’t think I’m a total freak.’

  Yep, so they were the other people I’d managed to upset and get into trouble with: Dean and Aggie and even Mother Dearest. First of all, our little rampage around the stadium had meant that we got questioned by security and were escorted off the premises, so that when we eventually got to text them to say READY NOW it was really, really late, and two burly guards were standing either side of us. Dolores was just cuddling the collar like it was a pet stoat, actually singing gently to it, but Aggie was practically in tears.

  ‘I’ve never been in trouble with the police,’ she confessed in a very small voice so the nearest guard wouldn’t hear her.

  ‘It’s not the police,’ I said. ‘They’re just hired muscle. They can’t actually do anything.’

  ‘But I’ve never been in trouble with anybody!’ whispered Aggie. ‘Even hired muscle. My dad’s going to blow a gasket.’

  Weirdly, I could see some advantages in this. If Dean and Mum turned up to find us in trouble with the pigs and thrown out of a concert out of 20000 screaming teenage girls, Dean would see that I was completely unsuitable as a family member and would slowly and delicately extract himself from Mum. I didn’t want a big
showdown or anything – that might upset Mum – but if he just sort of disappeared then surely that would be better all round. He’d have to just fade away, wouldn’t he? Dean wasn’t a monster, after all, and he couldn’t exactly say to Mum: “We’re splitting up because your daughter is a criminal and a bad influence.” Hmm. Maybe if I could get a restraining order against the Divine one, it could all happen quite quickly …

  I was just contemplating vaulting the barrier and screaming out, ‘Jazzy! I’m coming for the rest of your shirt!’ when the car turned up.

  Mum was driving, and she took one look at the three of us – Dolores chatting to the younger of the two security guards and stroking a strange strip of fabric like a baddie in a James Bond movie, Aggie in tears, and me probably appearing to be on the verge of breaking out of the crowd and making a run for it – and she turned white. Instead of gesturing to us to get in quickly, she screeched to a halt on the double yellow lines and leapt out of the car, with Dean following closely.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she said. ‘Why are you detaining these girls?’

  ‘We’re not detaining, we’re restraining,’ said Big Burly. ‘These two borderline assaulted Jazzy D and we’re making sure they don’t get backstage to finish the job.’

  Mum blinked rapidly as Aggie finally burst into tears and Dean escorted her to one side. ‘Are … are they in trouble?’ Mum asked finally after Dolores and I both launched into vivid and not entirely accurate descriptions of what really happened.

  ‘Only if they try to get back in to a DV concert.’ Big Burly nodded to Little Burly. ‘Shane’s got their pictures on the security camera which will be circulated to all venues, and we’d like to respectfully ask that they stay away from the lads.’

  ‘Good God,’ was all my mother could say.

  Dolores screamed and then she burst into tears too. We were ushered into the car pretty quickly after that. I sat in the middle of a crying Dolores and a sobbing Aggie all the way home like the statue in the centre of a gushing fountain, trying to work out which part of my experiment had gone so hideously wrong.