be sick, everyone wants to know what’s going on.
‘Oh my eff gee!’ Shimmi stage-whispers to me. ‘Did you see the look on her face when that ball hit Amie in the gob?’
‘Yeah, it was spooky…’ I mutter.
‘Spooky? Classic, more like. Just gawping into the sky like the rest of us and then a bloody rock-hard hockey ball hits her bang in the face?’
Shimmi is going a little overboard with her glee. OK, so Amie’s kind of a bitch and we call her ‘Amie Bellend’ behind her back, but nobody deserves that.
The school nurse has waddled out onto the pitch in her high heels, and Amie is being led away, along with her best friend Alice. Alice is crying, just like half of the girls on the pitch are. Even Mrs Kingsley looks shocked.
It would kind of go down in school history, that afternoon, especially as everyone was so dazed they couldn’t remember exactly how it happened, so all of the exaggerations may have been true. It’s probably safe to say that even girls in Daisy’s class would be claiming to find random teeth on the hockey pitch for years after that.
‘It was an accident, wasn’t it, Elyse?’ Mrs Kingsley is asking. ‘It was just an accident.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Elyse agrees.
Chapter Six
The rest of the week at school is pretty weird, after what happened to Amie, but I keep my head down and will it to go quickly. I’ve been waiting for this weekend for so long, I just keep my face buried in a book and my eyes on the prize.
On Saturday night, I rock up at the Arts Centre bang on time, in shiny new American Apparel leggings and my old Trouble Every Day T-shirt. And, of course, I’m the only one here. Typical. It’s my birthday, and I’m the one hanging around waiting. Still, I’m not going to get stressed about it because I have hit the birthday jackpot this year – not only is my birthday on a Saturday, but this weekend heralds the start of half term. Then there’s the added stroke of rare luck that has meant Trouble Every Day are playing here on my actual birthday. Best present imaginable, frankly.
I’ve already had a pretty good day – my mum let me sleep in undisturbed until a relatively civilised hour; we had pancakes for breakfast, and pizza and birthday cake for lunch; and, as well as the new leggings and other bits from my mum, Pete bought me the Alfred Hitchcock DVD boxed set – enough to keep me going for months – and Daisy gave me a really cool headband from Topshop.
Now, outside the Arts Centre, I hang about until finally Shimmi appears. She couldn’t look any more out of place if she tried. She’s done up as serious jailbait in her knee-high boots and tiny dress; her parents are usually so strict that, whenever she gets out of the house, she goes crazy and rebels in every possible way she can. As she picks her way over to me, Shimmi doesn’t even appear to have noticed that she’s drowning in a sea of ripped plaid and dirty denim on all sides. My own Converse might be the same as everyone else’s in the vicinity, but there’s a reason for that – my friend is not going to be much good in the mosh pit.
‘Some of the guys here would be quite hot if they had a wash!’ she exclaims loudly, giving me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Happy birthday, babe.’
The only thing that sucks about the otherwise perfect timing of my birthday is that it means Nathalie isn’t here. She’s been shipped off to Dubai with her mum for half term – no arguments. Excited as I am, it’s a shame Nathalie isn’t here tonight.
Anyway, more to the point: Trouble Every Day. They’re my favourite band in the world and, better yet, they’re sort of local. They’ve had a couple of singles played on 6 Music and have had a few write-ups in the NME, so people all over the place have heard of them, but they’re only a few years older than us and from a couple of towns away. Their song Everything and Nothing is my favourite song of all time, and I am officially In Love with their singer, Vincent August. He is, basically, the ideal man, in my humble, and admittedly limited, opinion. He writes all of the band’s lyrics, so is clearly amazingly sensitive and intelligent, is brilliant on vocals and guitar, and has the most beautiful face in the known galaxy.
Everyone at school knows exactly how much I love Trouble Every Day and, more specifically, Vincent August. So much so that I’m not even pretending to be cool tonight. I am so excited my stomach’s fizzing like I’ve ingested a whole tube of Berocca.
‘Oh my God, I can’t believe we haven’t seen them live since last year. Do you even realise, they hadn’t released Promises Written on Water then? It was brand new on their website last month. So, if they play it tonight, it’ll be the first time we’ve heard it live!’
‘Big wow. Hysterical much?’ Shimmi mutters.
We’ve had our hands stamped and are about to go into the venue when Shimmi stops statue-still. ‘OK, don’t look now – but right behind us, five o’clock…’
Of course, I automatically swivel around to look, but Shimmi grabs me. ‘I said don’t look, you moron! Look at me, read my lips: right behind us, weirdo twins, hockey massacre alert!’
‘No way!’Sure enough, the twins are sitting on a bench across from us, peering intently into the depths of Elyse’s bag.
‘Dare me to go and talk to them?’
‘Shimmi, come on, we’ll miss the —’ There’s little to no point in me finishing my sentence.
‘Hey,’ Shimmi greets them. ‘Mucho impressed by your moves on the hockey pitch this week – serve that snotty cow Amie Bellend right.’
‘Didn’t you hear, it was an “accident”,’ Elyse drawls. ‘She is a snotty cow, though.’
‘She’s the worst of the lot. Good thing you’re not friends with her any more…’
‘Yeah, it turned out we didn’t really have a whole lot in common. You’re Shimmi, right?’ Elyse grins. ‘Hey, Sorana – nice T-shirt.’
‘Um, thanks?’
I can’t work out if Elyse is making fun of me or not – probably because my gut instinct is that everybody is, all of the time – until she opens up her old army jacket to display the fact that she’s wearing the exact same one.
And that’s it. We’re off – all about how Elyse loves Trouble Every Day as much as I do, and so does Melanie. As we babble excitedly, it feels for a second like someone gets it. Then Shimmi starts to join in and I nearly burst out laughing, because I have never heard her so jazzed about Trouble Every Day in my whole life. I mean, Shimmi listens to Mariah’s greatest hits.
‘Oh, yeah, me too. Totally, deffo. My favourite one’s… What’s it called, again, Sorana? Something about “dead leaves in the winter” or some shit like that.’
‘Dead Flowers in the Fireplace!’ Elyse and I chant in chorus.
Then we all do burst out laughing. On the door, Shimmi and I show our hand stamps while the twins hand over their tickets, but instead of going straight ahead into the venue, Elyse immediately veers left and up the stairs.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask Elyse. ‘The gig’s
