Disclaimer: I only own the characters; none of the script (except the minor modifications).
Looking in on The Boozer (named so by the kids as the only place where underagers could buy cheap alcohol) that Saturday, you would see six kids, all wearing jet-black T-shirts proclaiming them: 'THE GANG' in silver glitter calligraphy, though you could really only see 'E GA' and half of the N peeping out of their partially unzipped leather jackets. A red-headed girl (Joanna) and a golden-eyed boy (Oscar) were sprawled against each other on a sofa, a beautiful black girl (Molly) and an attractive Asian boy (Felix) were sitting curled up at opposite ends of a couch, and a blond boy (Chris) and a gorgeous guy (James) were lounging around in separate chairs. They had obviously been chatting for a while when Joanna launched the next sentence.
'There's nothing to tell! He's just my lab partner.'
'C'mon, you're going out with the guy!' interrupted Felix. 'There's gotta be something wrong with him!"
'Alright Lex, be nice,' soothed Dave patronizingly. Joanna nodded gratefully at him. 'So does he wear white? White and goggle glasses?'
Molly hit him. 'Wait, does he fancy Mrs Bimbo?'
The others looked at her bemusedly. Mrs Bimbin was blue-eyed, blond-haired, and wore slutty outfits. She was also a substitute teacher – and completely dense.
Molly shrugged. 'Just, 'cause, I don't want her to go through what I went through with Ray in Year 8.' They all made noises of sympathy. 'It's OK, he got over it.'
'Okay, everybody relax,' pacified Joanna. 'This is not even a date. He is helping me with my homework.'
There was a silence heavy with unsaid sarcasm. Eventually, Dave supplied it. 'Sounds like a date to me.'
Joanna hastily changed the subject. 'OK. Weird dreams anyone?'
Dave stuck his hand up. 'Oooh, I had one!'
Joanna glared at him. 'A'right, shoot.'
Dave settled down; always good for a gossip or a retelling. 'OK, so I'm onstage right? And I realize that I'm naked.'
'Oh yeah.'
'Very common.'
'Uh-huh. Then I look down, and I see that there's a mike…there.'
'WHAT?' yelled Oscar, before remembering that they were in a public place. 'Oh, right.'
'All of a sudden, the mike starts to send out static.'
'Oh God, then what?' Joanna was forgetting her annoyance at Dave; this stuff was gold.
'Then I picked it up…'
'Yeah…'
'And I started singing 'I Gotta Feeling' by the Black-Eyed Peas!' he burst out.
'No!'
''Fraid so,' he admitted.
Chris cleared his throat pointedly, and Joanna immediately turned to him. 'Oh sorry honey; you were saying?'
'I just feel like someone reached down my throat, grabbed my small intestine, pulled it out of my mouth and tied it around my neck...'
'Cookie?' offered Felix.
Molly cleared her throat. 'Miss Heart didn't say Deniz's name in the register today.'
'Ah,' Oscar voiced.
'Here, let me get you some water,' Molly offered; Chris didn't drink.
'Thanks.'
Dave started to rake his fingers through Chris's tangled hair, making noises of annoyance.
Chris jerked away. 'Dave, I don't need you to 'groom' me, I'm fine. Leave my hair alone.' Dave left off and Chris carefully began teasing his hair back into its normal tousled spikes.
Dave folded his arms crossly. 'Fine. Look a mess.'
'I'll be fine alright?' he stressed. 'Really guys, I hope she has fun in Hollywood.'
'No you don't,' stated Molly.
'That's true,' he agreed.
'And you never knew she had a famous mother?'
'No!' he shouted. 'She never told me! What, was I supposed to sense that her mother was recording albums in Soho while we were kissing?"
'Sometimes I wish I could sense stuff like that,' commented Oscar. 'That'd be cool.'
'Alright, Chris,' Felix put in. 'You're feeling a lot of pain right now. You're angry. You're hurting. Can I tell you what the answer is?'
Chris indicated permission.
'Sixth Form Common room!' announced Felix. 'Come on; hot girls gagging for it!'
'You're disgusting,' Molly informed him.
'I don't want that,' Chris drooped. 'I just wanna have a girlfriend again!'
BANG.
A girl entered. At first glance, all you could think was…WOW. She was beautiful. Not beautiful in the traditional sense of the word per-say, but radically, wonderfully radiant. Her haze-blue eyes were thickly outlined in a kohl which Molly recognised as 'Velvet of the Night', a product she had thought was only on sale in New York City, having bought some on her annual trip their that summer (her parents were American), and she wore a dress that barely cleared her thighs, patterned solidly with swirls and flowers, an exact copy of the item that Joanna had seen on display in a store in France last Easter. She was probably quite petite, but she was tottering on enormously high heels (James guessed them at £150 from a high-rise department store in England), which suggested that she was a little uncomfortable with this clear fact, and her hair was…wow. Bright, sun-blonde, and tousled almost to the extent of bed-head, but somehow deliberate in its messiness. Molly fingered her own dead-straight, crimson tresses, and wondered whether Diana had got hers styled in the Caribbean. It looked like the type that had once been dreadlocks. She approached the bar, looking around hopefully.
'And I just want tolerance!' added Dave, flinging his arm out expectantly.
'Diana?' exclaimed Joanna.
'Jo, hi!' she cried. 'I've been looking all over for you!'
'Hey!' Joanna greeted her. 'Guys, this is Diana. Our younger sisters were friends back in England, and then I moved to America and we lost touch. Di, these are my friends, Chris, Felix, Molly, Dave…and you remember Oscar?'
'Hi everybody!' Diana tilted her head playfully. 'Hey, did I land in a showing of 'Pretty People'?'
'She's like that,' Joanna whispered loudly. 'You get used to it.'
'So why are you here?' interrupted Chris, eager for a chance to prove himself.
'Oh, my parents wanted to move back near my aunt, and I just said 'great, that's where Joanna lives!'
'Uh-huh,' replied Chris, fascinated.
Back at Molly and Felix's house (they weren't siblings, but her Mum and his Dad were married), they were waiting for Joanna's date to appear, as she had told him to come round to their place.
RING!
Oscar ran for the door and flung it open. A geeky-looking boy with huge glasses and a stack of books clutched to his chest stood on the doorstep.
'Er…hi,' he greeted Oscar nervously. 'I'm Sid.'
'Who's Sid?' muttered Diana.
'That's Sid?' exclaimed Felix. 'The guy who always has his posters of Bunsen Burners pinned up? What were you thinking?' he hissed at Joanna.
'Be quiet, he's sweet,' she retorted. Then she noticed Diana, looking a little left out. 'Oh, Di, if you want to be shown around…I can stay…'
'No, no!' insisted Diana. 'You go; have fun!'
'Thank you!' squealed Joanna. Grabbing her coat, she waltzed out of the door, leaving the others bewildered in her wake.
'So, Diana,' Chris attempted conversation. 'What're you up to tonight?'
Diana shrugged. 'I had set up a date with a guy back home, but I don't think that's possible now, so…nothing!'
'Oh yeah, sorry about that.'
'Ah, he wasn't that nice,' she assured him.
'Yeah, well, it's not that bad; I mean, England, this time of year, talk about your' – he looked hard at the floor – 'mad dogs…anyway, if you don't feel like being alone, the boys are coming for a homework gathering.'
'Yes, and we're very excited about it,' interrupted Felix.
Diana smiled at him. 'Well actually thanks, but I think I'm just gonna crash my sister's birthday party. You know, I haven't seen her for a while.'
'Oh, sure!' agreed Chris. 'You have fun!'
'Hey Molly, you wanna come?' invited Oscar.
'Oh, I wish I could, but I don't want to,' Molly told him bitingly.
He nodded in an 'I understand' way.
Later, tucked away in Chris's room, the boys were getting started on their DT homework, assigned art equipment spread all over the floor.
Chris squatted in the middle, reading from a pamphlet of instructions. 'I'm supposed to attach a wooden pole to the seat with a bunch of these tiny screws.' He paused, as if the answer would come out of the air. 'I have no wooden pole, I see no tiny screws – and I cannot feel my legs,' he finished.
'I think we've got a desk here,' Felix informed him from across the room.
'It's a beautiful thing,' Dave commented.
Felix uncovered an extra part from beneath the carpet. 'What's this?'
Oscar examined it interestedly. 'I would have to say that is a wooden pole.'
'Which goes where?' inquired Dave.
'I have…no idea,' was the carefully thought-out reply.
After a quick glance to ensure that Chris wasn't looking, he chucked it out of the half-open window. 'Done with the bookcase!' he announced.
'All finished!' Oscar agreed.
Chris barely heard, having uncovered a jacket from under his bed. 'This was Deniz's,' he informed them. 'She wore it all the time.'
'Hey-hey-hey-hey!' interrupted Felix. 'If you're gonna start with that stuff, we're outta here.'
'Yes, please don't spoil all this fun,' Oscar voiced cynically.
'Ross, let me ask you a question,' offered Dave. 'She got the class ring, the joint carving from the tree, and that coat you took turns wearing…what did you get?'
Chris hesitated. 'You guys.'
'Oh God.'
'You got screwed.'
'Oh my God!'
'Oh my God!'
'I know, I know, I'm such an idiot,' concurred Sid, picking at his French fries companionably. 'I guess I should have caught on when she started going to Math Clinic six times a week. Who else apart from Harry even takes Saturdays?'
'My brother's going through that right now; he's such a mess,' Joanna told him. 'How did you get through it?'
'Well, you might try accidentally losing something of hers, say her –'
' – new boyfriend's phone number?' suggested Joanna.
'That's actually a good idea!' Sid assured her. 'Me, I went for her Maths homework.'
'You took her Maths homework!' Joanna was very impressed; Miss Cole was widely renowned as the 'demon math teacher'. 'The worst thing I ever did was, I snitched on Joe when he pulled my hair.'
Sid nodded genially, obviously humouring her. 'Er, great!'
Joanna nudged him playfully. 'So what's this date entail?'
Sid grinned. 'What do you want it to entail?'
Joanna shuffled her chair away tactfully. 'Sid, you're nice and all, but I really think –'
Sid grabbed the answer sheet. 'One kiss for the homework.'
'Does that actually work?' asked Joanna incredulously.
'It's my first time. Up to you to prove it,' he challenged.
'I've been dumped!' repeated Chris for the fourth time. 'In a relationship for three years and now I'm dumped!'
Felix put his head in his hands. 'Shut up!'
'You must stop!' stressed Dave, hitting the chair Chris had been labouring over with the palm of his hand, collapsing it immediately.
Chris gave the pile of wood a long, hard look. 'That only took me an hour.'
Oscar grabbed his wrist. 'Look, Chris, you gotta understand, between us we haven't had a relationship that lasted longer than a snog by the lockers. You, however, have had the love of a beautiful girl for three years, at the end of which she ripped your heart out, and that is why we don't do it!' Chris stared at him. 'I don't think that was my point!'
'It's just hard,' drooped Chris. 'I was so in love with her, you know?'
'Chris,' Felix said, through gritted teeth. 'You are fourteen. This is ridiculous. GET OVER DENIZ, ALREADY!'
'Y'know, here's the thing,' Chris carried on dreamily as if he hadn't heard. 'Even if I could get it together enough to ask someone else out…who am I gonna ask?'
He gazed wistfully out of the window, little knowing that, on the other side of the block, Diana was doing exactly the same thing.
The next day at school, the boys, Molly and Diana were having lunch at their custom table in the cafeteria. Joanna had not yet showed up.
'OK, I'll see you,' her familiar voice reached their ears, and they turned to see her breaking away from what had evidently been a loooong kiss with Sid.
'Hi guys.' Diana winked suggestively.
'Shut up,' Joanna mouthed half-angrily back. 'Thanks Sid.' She smiled at Sid before taking her seat with the others. Sid walked away reluctantly, turning to wave at her before leaving the canteen.
'That wasn't a real date!' Felix burst out. 'What the Hell do you do on a real date?'
Joanna smiled tolerantly. 'Shut up, and give me my Ribena.'
'Okayyy!' Felix handed it back quickly.
'All right kids,' Oscar stood hastily, 'I gotta get to the club. If I don't learn those buttons…' he went quiet temporarily. 'It doesn't make much of a difference.'
Diana put down her forkful of spaghetti. 'So, you guys all do clubs?'
'Yeah,' Molly replied slowly. 'See that's how we make friends.'
Dave smiled at Diana. 'Yeah, I do Drama.'
'Wow!' Diana looked a little overwhelmed. 'And these are compulsory.'
Molly shrugged. 'Doesn't say so in the application form…but yeah.'
'So in Drama,' Diana addressed Dave. 'Do you put on any plays in public?'
'Uh-uh,' Dave notified her, deadpan.
Everyone else left, only Joanna and Diana remaining.
'Well, wish me luck!' Diana announced, standing.
'What for?' Joanna called.
Diana beamed optimistically. 'I'm gonna go join a club.'
Joanna was having a great time in her Creative Writing Club – which she mostly used to chat to Ellie, scribbling a couple of pages in the last five minutes of break.
'So how was the movie?' Joanna enquired brightly.
Ellie analyzed her. 'You snogged someone, didn't you?'
Joanna's jaw dropped. 'How do you do that?'
Ellie shook her head disbelievingly. 'Oh, I hate you. I'm watching Emma Watson trying to save Rupert Granger from a Chimera, and you're snogging someone?' Joanna didn't answer 'So? Who?'
'You know Sid?'
Ellie's eyes widened. 'Sid, the Bunsen Burner guy? Oh yeah, I know Sid.'
Joanna was starting to get suspicious. 'You mean you know Sid like I know Sid?'
'Are you kidding me?' she asked rhetorically. 'I take credit for Sid. Y'know, he got the idea for the whole 'Maths homework' thing from me?'
'Of course it was a line!' yelled Felix, a little too loudly, considering that they were back in the Boozer.
'Why?' cried Joanna. 'Why? Why would anybody do something like that?'
Dave gave her a look. 'I assume we're looking for an answer more sophisticated than: 'to get some'.
Joanna threw her hands in the air. 'I hate boys! I hate boys! 'Cept you, Ozzie,' she added. 'Is it me,' she continued. 'Is it like I have some sort of beacon that only cats and creeps can hear?'
Molly rubbed her hand soothingly in circles on her back. 'There, there.'
Joanna was nearly in tears. 'I just thought he was nice, y'know?'
There was a sad silence – before Felix burst out laughing. 'I can't believe you didn't know it was a line!'
Joanna pushed him so hard that he toppled right off the arm of the sofa.
The news had just finished, and it was time for the children to go to their separate houses, having hung out at Molly and Felix's after The Boozer had closed.
Molly turned off the TV. 'Well that's it.' She looked at Chris, already half-asleep, fondly. 'Wanna stay overnight? I'll call your parents.'
Chris shook his head. 'No. Gotta face Mum sometime.'
Joanna patted his head. 'You be OK?'
He nodded dozily. 'Mmm.'
'Hey, Jo?' Diana held up a flat, green book. 'What's Sid's Maths book doing here?'
Joanna smiled. 'Give it here, I'll take care of it.'
She took the book and then trooped into the bathroom, where, a minute later, they heard a flush. She returned, her hands vacant.
Molly gave her a thumbs-up. 'Good call, Jo.'
'Thanks.'
Oscar glanced at Chris and Diana, cosily squashed up on the same sofa, taking in the situation. 'Guys; wanna get a drink?'
The others instantly took off before Chris and Diana could get a chance to follow them – or even notice they were gone.
Diana sighed, and nestled her head into the crook of Chris's neck. 'This is nice.'
Suddenly aware of the position, Chris felt himself start to get very hot. 'Um…yeah.' He started breathing a little heavier than usual, hoping he wasn't about to have a heart attack.
'You know, I saw you in a magazine once,' Diana remarked. 'Something about being a singer's daughter's boyfriend?'
'Oh yeah, that'd be Kiera and Deniz,' confirmed Chris. 'So?'
Diana wriggled a little, getting a bit more comfortable. 'I thought you looked really cute.'
Without meaning to, Chris cringed away.
'What?'
'Look,' he confronted her. 'I really like you. So…when we're settled in a bit more…do you think I could ask you out?
She beamed beatifically. 'Sure. Go nuts.'
Smiling at her, Chris got up and made his way over to the door. Once outside, he nearly bumped into the babysitter, really only there to cook and bring Molly and Felix cool CDs. 'What's up with you, Demure?'
Chris cocked his head thoughtfully. 'I just grabbed a lifeline.'
She looked at him as though he were insane. 'Whatever, kid.'
