(note – Sweaty and Trendy are local terms where I live. Trendies are your
average fashion followers, Sweaties are gothy, rock music lovers who like
bands like Nirvana, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit etc.)
No Sweat Romeo
I've no problems with fashion - let me say this right at the start. I don't mind it. If you feel comfortable conforming with something as trivial as clothes or music, that's fine by me. But the thing that really bugs me - and it's more a boy thing than girl thing I think - is this dumb Sweaty vs. Trendy culture that somehow grew up 'round here.
If you don't have Sweaties or Trendies near where you live, the descriptions are as follows -
Sweaty (A.k.a. Grungies or Grungers): Someone who enjoys rock music and fashion that includes hooded sweaters and lots of chains, and dissing Trendies.
Trendy: Someone who enjoys mainstream music and fashion, and dissing Sweaties.
They're really just the 21st century backlash of the Mods and Rockers.
The Sweaties and Trendies indulge in the fantasy that they are the only people who exist. They also indulge in the fantasy that they are completely different from the other. The Sweaties also like to think that they are apart from the crowd, the Trendies that they are ahead of it.
All in all, you can see what's happened here. Oh and, incidentally, don't call a Sweaty or a Trendy by that name to their face. It's an insult. That's the dumbest thing about them, you see, they've managed to name each other instead of themselves. A typical case of "I don't know what I am but I sure as hell know what you are".
And then, in my class it's particularly strong. Girls as well as boys. Believe me, teachers just don't know what the hell they're on about when they put us in seats boy-girl-boy-girl. They ought to do it Sweaty-Trendy- Sweaty-Trendy.
Then there's me, our year's answer to an old granny, if the truth be known. I've got to admit it, I'm probably middle-aged before my time. Yes, me, moi, ick, Holly Van Daan. I used to be referred to as 'Granny' by both sides (not that I mind - I've friends in both). That was before it got strong, and I could hang out with whomever the hell I liked. Then the sides started warring, and I, neither Sweaty nor Trendy, was stuck in the middle. Teachers have started calling me a troublemaker since then. Totally unjustified. It's just that whenever we got to lessons, we have two sets of rows, or groups of tables, and Sweaties sit on one side and Trendies on the other. So I, seeing no other alternative, get a chair and sit in the middle. I don't want to be labelled. I'll talk with either side. Often I sit with a Sweaty on one side, a Trendy on the other, speaking quite friendly to both. They're all right, when they don't diss the other side.
Teachers always ask me to move. I say, "Where to?"
And they say, "Wherever you're at a desk."
I say, "I can't choose, choose for me."
And I get moved that way. I'm not called Granny anymore. With the Sweaties I'm a bit of a weirdo, so I said I was the Peace Minister for Sweaties and Trendies, and after that they called me 'Mr. Minister' and now just plain 'Minnie'. As for the Trendies, I'm really just an annoying boff so they call me, because I'm half-Dutch, (careful you aren't bowled over by the amazing wittiness displayed in this nickname) 'Clever-clogs'. Frankly, I find both a bit nauseating. Everyone else (well, one person to be honest) calls me 'Holl'.
Anyway, the story I'm telling you is a very old one actually, only the names of those involved have been changed to 'Sweaty' and 'Trendy'.
Picture the scene. One morning the usual dull crap is happening. The teacher is calling for silence for the register, (Miss Webster, or Spider Brains is the name of the creature sitting at the front desk) and I'm sitting in my usual place in No Man's Land, getting knocked by the occasional paper missile.
Then the door opens and through it comes a girl that for the moment we will call Juliet, and she is the very model of Sweaty-ness, although under all that dark make-up you can see she is pretty.
"Ah, you're here," says Spider Brains. She raises forward one of her eight, hairy limbs and beckons Juliet Sweaty to the front.
"This is Katie," she says. "I want you all to welcome her to this class, and help her to find where her lessons are. Katie, why don't you sit here next to Rachel?"
She is so spineless, she has failed to notice that Rachel Trendy, leader of the Female Trendies is only sitting on her own because Sarah Cooling, her very own Trendy best friend, has gone to hand a book in. She certainly doesn't want her space taken up by Juliet Sweaty.
"Er, Miss, Sarah sits there."
"That's all right, Rachel, Sarah can sit next to Holly when she comes back. I don't think that Holly would be a very good influence on our new girl."
Well, that has just proved that she knows absolutely nothing. Because after ten minutes with me, I could have debriefed Katie on the current situation and either delivered her to the right group of Sweaties or even persuaded her that both sides were as bad as each other.
So Juliet Sweaty has almost right away got herself right next to Lady Trendy. I watch the drama unfold. Sarah returns, and is put next to me. She doesn't complain much, but she does moan about Katie.
"I can't believe that my seat's been taken by that Sweaty slut. She looks like bloody Marilyn Manson." (She doesn't, she has short hair for one thing) "How could old Spider Brains do that?"
"Teachers today are blind to the plight of Sweaties and Trendies," I say.
"Hey, you're right, Clever-clogs. Teachers speak a load of crap. Why didn't she put Madame Manson with the Sweaties, where she belongs?"
"Dunno," I shrug. Then I carefully divert the course of the conversation off the age-old feud. "So, before you return to the trenches, what lesson have you got first?"
She goes into a soliloquy on her physics lesson, which is quite funny actually, as Sarah's a great joker, and my eyes wander. Suddenly, over the super fashionable barbed wire, I spot Danny Carmell, the Trendiest of all secondary school Romeos, looking at Katie with a look of surprised adoration on his face.
*
As the day began, Sarah went to physics, and Rachel (cursed with the task of looking after Katie) and I went to our chemistry lesson. Danny Carmell was there, as well as the various female Sweaties who were just dying to pull Katie out, back to where she belonged. Then, just to ruin the next scene for all of us observers (actually, probably just me) our chemistry teacher decided to put us in alphabetical order. I'd probably ruined my own attempt to view the drama, because the chemistry teacher was sick of me sitting in the aisle between benches and moving me every lesson.
He read out names, carefully adding Juliet Sweaty into the right place - Katie Tate, in with the T's. Lady Trendy is Rachel Williams, in with the Ws. Our poor new girl was already sick of hearing of Rachel's radically different beliefs, and I was dying to save her...
See if you can visualise the scene now.
The chemistry teacher says, "Right, Michael Andrews, here, Lisa Barnes..." and so on with our tens of thousands of Bs until he says, "Danny Carmell, Holly Daan..."
I've never been too fond of Romeo Trendy, and besides, I want to rescue his Juliet before they never meet and the whole thing is ruined. Union for the Sweaties and Trendies! Freedom for fashion! That's the cause I'm fighting for.
"That's Holly Van Daan," I say. "With a V."
He rolls his eyes at Holly the troublemaker. Then, just as I planned, I am put between Katie Tate and Rachel Williams.
"Hi, Rache, hi, Katie," I say.
"Hi Clever-clogs," says Rachel.
"Hi," says Katie.
"I'm Holly Van Daan," I say. "So where're you from, Katie?"
"Harrison School. Parents pulled me out 'cause it was crap."
"Seems like a crap school. What're you doing at break, d'ya know?"
She looks dubiously at Lady Trendy. "I dunno," she says. "I brought my walkman, with a Nirvana CD in, but..."
As I guessed, she is a model Sweaty.
"I'll take you 'round, if you want," I offer, in a friendly way. "I've got some good mates I think you'll like. Rachel's, uh, a bit stiff with new people."
"She's a bit too Trendy for me."
"Trendies are OK when they forget that they're Trendies. Same with Sweaties."
Might as well get her acquainted with myself.
"So you're not very grungy yourself, then?"
"Not a Trendy neither. Have you, uh, ever, uh, seen Romeo and Juliet?"
"No, I can't stand Shakespeare."
Great, I'm in a literary void. Usually I start on Shakespeare.
"Oh, well this school's a bit like the opening scene, where the two families are fighting. I come in the script as 'A Citizen'. My line is, 'A plague on both your houses.' I don't mind Sweaties or Trendies, but I don't like the feud. I know some cool people on both sides."
She's looking at me like I'm some kind of weirdo, which I probably am. The idea of cool Trendies is probably beyond her. I'll change her yet. That look of adoration on Danny's eyes says I must do.
So at break, I take Katie away from the corruption of Lady Trendy, and introduce her to all sorts of people, including of course, Danny Carmell, whom we just happen to be walking past. And I was right; he does adore her. I can hear him softly murmuring, "What light from yonder window breaks?" and am disgusted when, as we walk away, Katie says, "What a slimy Trendy."
"He's all right," I say. Poor old Danny is a Shakespeare enthusiast too, but unlike me, he's no actor. (I've starred in numerous lead roles with my theatre group, you might have seen the reviews in the local papers) That's probably why he's so obvious, to me, anyway.
Finally, in defeat, I hand her over to the Sweaties and spend the rest of break with them, discussing the latest Satanic snake-eater's hit, which is quite a good one actually, even if when you take the swear words out, it becomes an instrumental.
At lunch, having just about given up on a join between Sweaties and Trendies, I spend the time with my best friend in the whole world, who is a totally Dutch guy named Christian who remembers a country with no Sweaties or Trendies. We sit around and talk in Dutch, because his English is rubbish, and because no one can understand a word we're saying. The cruel thing is, Christian is a couple of years ahead of me, so my protests are made alone.
*
Katie started calling me Mr. Minister that very afternoon. I'm on to a loser, I thought. Maybe I should retire back from the Sweaty-Trendy world and stop trying to change it. Shakespeare's most famous lovers may have had love at first sight, but it would take longer (perhaps forever) for Katie to feel the same way about Danny. Personally I couldn't blame her, but I did feel sorry for Danny loving across the barrier of fashion twisted barbed wire. But then, he'd only just seen the girl, so maybe he would have changed his mind soon.
*
Inevitably, next morning, the scene is one a spy reporting to camp. Katie unashamedly sits with the Sweaties, Sarah is back from No Man's Land and sitting next to Lady Trendy in one of the many trenches that the side facing desks create. I'm the only one with a desk facing the front, and I'm the only one sitting at it, as usual. Spider Brains approaches her desk, deaf to world, or at least our class. Missiles continue to fly, most of which land in front of me. I put them in the bin.
"Settling in, Katie?" she asks.
"Yes, thank you, Miss Webster," reluctant Juliet replies.
It's time for another amazing Personal and Social Education lesson today. After taking the register, Spider Brains says she wants to split us into groups.
"All get into groups of four," she says.
A few chairs are shuffled, but mainly, the change is minimal. Four female Sweaties sit in one corner, four female Trendies in another; the same happens with the boys.
I don't move. Thankfully our class has 25 people, and so divides into four with one remainder.
"Holly?" says Miss Webster, expectantly. She doesn't teach Maths - if she did, and had a little initiative, she'd realise that all she really needed to do was divide the class by five.
I look at her, and say, sadly, "Miss Webster, I would have thought it was obvious that by now that I don't put myself in with any group. Other people do that."
She rolls her eyes and says, "Holly Van Daan, please, it really doesn't matter what group you are in."
"That's what you think."
A little daunted, she carries on. "In your groups, give yourselves each a number from one to four. Holly, you can be four."
This is such an old trick in my school, and it is dead easy to master if you are in a group. Seeing as I refuse to be in a group, I have no choice, but I can hear the other groups planning. The idea is, we all pick numbers, and then she makes different groups out of the numbers picked - all ones in one group, all twos in another group and so on. This is the only time when Sweaties and Trendies work together. You can see it at work when she says, "All right, all ones put their hands up." The group of female Sweaties, including Katie, all put their hands up, as do two of another group of four Sweaties.
And so you see how it works. She tells us to pick numbers between 1 and 4, but she doesn't tell us to pick different ones.
Giving a weak I'm-really-too-tired-of-this-class-to-care smile, she directs them to a corner of the room. This carries on, until Alister Trendy's group, who are all fours, are joined by Rachel, Sarah, and myself.
One of Alister's group is Danny (who is also his best friend), and the theme today is aptly, "Teenage Romance". We are asked to write down all the things we associate with love. And - without boasting - I think my list is the truest.
Love
Bearing
Protecting
Sacrificing
Thinking of others before yourself
Wanting for someone not what they want or what's best for you, but what's best for them
Forgiveness
Good list, huh?
Well once we finish, we take a look at some of the others, and discuss which ones really have to do with love. It proves to be a hard task, because in our group we have one depressed teenager, one head-over-heels in love, one cool observer (me) and the rest were indefinable. Rachel's rather cynical list contains "lying", "cheating", "fake", "shallow" and not forgetting, "something you could only feel for a pet." Oddly enough, that's something Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols also came up with, not that Rachel would know that.
Danny's nauseating parade of private emotion reads thus - "Meeting someone's eyes and knowing that they are the one and only person for you, the only one you could ever love. Holding them in your heart like precious gold that should be looked after.
Knowing that this one person is your life, even in the first few moments of encountering one another.
Having the strength to hold on for always, or else it is just an empty dream."
All in all, you can tell he's been sneaking a look in poetry pages of the girl's magazines that female Trendies insist on leaving lying around as a proclamation of "I'm with the 'in-crowd'."
*
The other boys' lists contained Britney Spears - several times! And also sex (even more times) and kissing. I was trying to argue that they were just expressions of love (apart from Britney Spears) and didn't tackle with what love was. Rachel said that there was no love, and Danny said that there had to be. Sarah said she didn't care as long as there was chocolate.
About half of the Sweaties included Courtney Love.
The biggest surprise came the next day. It's time for another action scene, so don't move from your seats, ladies and gents, and don't spill popcorn on the pages.
Danny sits on his own, nursing a Tesco's-own-regurgitated-goo sandwich filling sandwich. It's unusual for him to be on his own. He scrapes the table with his management accounting biro, and slowly chews the sandwich, looking like the very personification of melancholy (that is, he's the figure of sadness).
"Morning, Dan!" I say cheerfully. Drearily he lifts his head and looks at me.
"What?"
"Morning, you idiot! Good morning!"
"Is the day so young?" He returns to his sandwich, munching it millimetre by vomit-worthy millimetre. I join in on the script.
"What sadness lengthens Daniel's hours?"
He lifts his hands, and underneath them I read, "I love Katie".
"Could you... Could you set us up, Clever-clogs?" I'm gobsmacked.
"Why ask me? I thought Liam was the expert on setting people up." (Although I'm pretty good, even if I do say so myself.)
"Yes, but Liam's, well..."
"A Trendy?" I interrupt, with brutal honesty.
"Well, he's very anti-Sweaty. And you aren't... you're like Benvolio from Romeo and Juliet, you see the stupidity of it all."
"No, I'm not," I say, abruptly. Definitely not.
"Why not?"
"Benvolio was a Trendy."
"Aren't you?"
What a stupid question, I ask you. You would think he might have noticed Holly Van Daan sitting in the middle.
"I'm a fence-sitter, Danny, not a Trendy. I like Trendies but personally I'd rather have my own identity. Besides, you've got the story wrong."
"What?"
Danny looks startled and confused. "What do you mean?"
"You're supposed to fancy the minor Sweaty Rosalyne first. Someone less devastatingly attractive. Juliet comes later. But yes, all right, I've been invited to gatecrash Paul Bantam's party on the 16th, and he really is Lord Sweaty. And the great thing is this..."
"What?"
"It's a goth party. So just turn up in black make-up, no one'll recognise you."
"Black make-up? But only... girls... wear make-up!"
"Not if you're a goth. Besides, what would your Katie think, if you turned up looking, well, Trendy?"
He shudders, turning pale. He looks like he's about to retch, and then says, sounding a lot braver than I thought he would, "All right, I'm in."
"That's fine, then," I say. "You can meet me and Christian at 8, round my house. We'll be gatecrashing at 8:30, and then you can blend in with the crowd. No one'll notice you, but Paul always gets us to gatecrash. He says it gives the party atmosphere, if none of his friends bother to invite anyone else and forget to tell him. You've been to Alister's parties. They're like that."
He looks mega-confused again.
"Look, me and Christian go to provide conversation topics, and to have Paul's girlfriend Jenna try to convert us to being Sweaties. I'll see you later. Remember, 8 o'clock, black gothy make-up."
I start to walk away, and he calls me. "Holly..."
"Yes?"
"Are you going as a goth?"
"Of course not! It's got to be ultra boring turning up to a party late and then fitting in as if you'd been there all the time. And me, gothic? You've got to be kidding."
OK, so maybe I didn't handle that as well as I could have but, hey, what do I care? He was coming, although I would have to make sure that I had some black eyeshadow just in case he wimped out on the clothes front.
*
Without boasting too much, Christian and I looked well cool. Christian might've been my best friend for years, but I was almost beginning to fancy him. He was gorgeous. As for me, I looked kind of like the heroine in vampire movies. Sort of delicate and beautiful, and refusing to be taken in by those fantasy figures of gothic horror.
At 8:15, just when I had begun to give up on Danny, he turned up on the door. I nearly fell over. I nearly passed out solid and DIED. He was so... gothy. So gothy I'd almost begun to give up on the cause. It looked liked a conversion.
Look at him. His face is totally white and his hair is totally black... his eyes are purple rimmed, and his lips are also black, and his suit... well I thought that he smile and we'd see fangs.
"You really are Danny, aren't you?" I say, only half joking.
"My sister... She... I look like a total prat, don't I?"
"You look like you're gonna get Paul really mad for stealing his show," I say, admiring him. "It's excellent. Hey, Christian, let's go."
*
Christian had only turned seventeen a few months before, and already he had a car he could drive. It was great. I shoved Danny in the back, and I sat next to the driver's seat...
The party was really raging, there was loads of psychedelic rock playing and the door was open. We marched in, and as some people yelled out, asked us what we were doing there, and asked us if I'd turned Sweaty, Danny slipped in behind. So our Romeo moves in to meet his lover...
*
"Good luck," I whisper to him in the maze of black and white bodies, as he moves the crowd. Christian is actually pretty cool at parties when you can't understand what anyone else is saying anyway. Suddenly warning signals flash up, and Paul's best mate and chief lackey, Tony yells, "Hey, that's Danny Carmell, he's Trendy!"
Not many people actually hear him, the music is so loud. Paul replies. "Shut up, Tony, I don't want another of your ****ing fights spoiling my ****ing party, so just get on and enjoy it, all right?"
That's what he said. All right, so I censored it a bit, but you're a polite audience. I hope so, anyway. In the background, Christian is trying to persuade Danny to dance a bit. He still maintains, "I'll look like a total prat."
Then our Juliet sees him, and she's gobsmacked. She approaches him and asks him if he wants something to drink. She pours him the dodgy mixture from a jug that's probably at least one quarter vodka (and the rest pure alcohol, I wouldn't be surprised), and he loosens up a bit. Pretty soon they're snogging on the sofa, and I've never felt happier in my life.
I'm a little tipsy with Dutch courage by now, and I grab Christian and make him give me a congratulatory kiss. Then Craig Danson says he's going to drag me to join the Sweaties, and since he's pretty strong, he picks me up and carries me, screaming in true damsel in distress manner, around the room.
Later on, I find Danny has vanished and Katie too. I'm hopeful that they might have gone for a more private kiss but no, Christian tells me that Dinah, Jenna's best friend, led Katie away and suddenly I see them in another corner of the room, talking to Craig.
Christian says, "Danny left. He thought he wasn't fitting in. I couldn't stop him, Holl'." I kick myself.
Katie doesn't look like she's enjoying the party any more.
*
My English teacher is the kind of Philistine who reckons it's better to read Shakespeare than to watch it. This is rubbish. The best thing to do is act it, then watch it, and then if you have to, read it. Reading's a last resort.
She's always telling me to stop muddling up my tenses. She says that if I must write in the present tense, I must try to maintain it. She has no idea of atmosphere. But the days following were full of it.
*
On Monday, I spend a lot of time with the Sweaties of the form. Katie calls me and whispers to me confidentially.
"Minnie, I really love Danny Carmell." I nod. "I know."
"Why? Why did he have to be a Trendy? He looked so gothic last night, so cool, and now he's a Trendy and all my mates hate Trendies and so do I.
"Why did he have to be Danny Carmell, the role model for Trendies, Minnie?"
"I don't know, Katie, I don't know. But if you love him then it doesn't matter what group he's in."
"No, I love him, but I hate Trendies and…?" She falters, and looks at me pleadingly, hoping I'll understand.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?"
"That's right. He came to my house last night, I was just looking out the window thinking about him and he came and we talked, and he asked me where I had a ladder so he could climb up and be with me, and he said he loved me."
"I think he does."
She sighed quietly on that Monday, quietly but often, and soon she confided her secret in Dinah. I think Dinah understood.
*
Dinah 'set up' Danny and Katie the next time, and this time it was a proper date, what the Yanks call "going steady" described the new couple perfectly. I was happy again, and Christian and I made sure it went well by occasionally checking up on Danny and Katie in school time.
Then disaster managed to strike again. Tony picked a fight with Christian that break time, accusing him of bringing Trendy Danny to the party dressed up as if he was 'one of them'. Christian doesn't usually get angry, but Tony made him livid. They fought and fought and fought, until Danny saw the fighting, and told them to stop, it was stupid.
I admired him then, how he'd seemed like a soppy old soul and then turned out all knight-in-shining-armoury and tried to stop the fight. But I still stood staring in horror when Christian, two years older than that overgrown muscly chunk of a male adolescent Tony, was knocked to the ground, hurt, and his nose bleeding, and other things besides.
*
"Christian," Danny whispers hoarsely to my best friend, and Christian whispers back, "Holly's right. A plague o' both your stupid fashion statements."
*
Danny lunged at Tony a second later, and gave him the same treatment. I was hysterical and close to tears, and all I said was, "you better move, Danny, because you could get expelled for doing that."
In assembly the next morning we all had to file in silently and the headmaster went on and on about a terrible fight, in which Christian Astel and Tony Parks were seriously hurt, and how Danny was suspended. To me, it seemed terribly unfair. Tony Parks had started it... Tony Parks had hurt Christian, and Danny was only defending him.
*
How quickly the sun sets.
Jenna decides to set Katie up with Craig, my strong gothic horror friend. Of course Jenna doesn't know that Katie is already seeing Danny, and Katie starts panicking. As usual, she turns to moi for advice.
"What'll I do, Minnie?"
"You'll have to tell her you won't."
"But any girl would die for Craig..."
"Except me and you."
"Yes! Except me! What'll I do?"
The disaster happens at registration. Katie says quite loudly and clearly, "I won't go out with Craig, Jenna. Me and Danny are already going out."
Shrieks of "Danny Carmell?!?" can be heard for miles around, and Katie flushes. I feel the flush for her, shrinking away painfully. Sweaties remember how he beat up Tony, Trendies become convinced that our Romeo defected to the other side.
All I can think of is how dumb I've been. Why did I think that uniting Sweaties and Trendies was more important than whatever I had to do to unite them? Now two of my friends are miserable and in disgrace with the people who accepted them, and my best friend is in hospital because he helped me do it.
Maybe old Spider Brains is right. Maybe I am a troublemaker.
*
From that day on I took no real satisfaction out of sitting in the middle. Each side was giving me evils. Some saw that it was my fault that Danny was in trouble, and others said that I'd caused the trouble with Katie by inviting Danny to gatecrash with me. I didn't talk to anyone for a couple of days.
*
Finally, one break, Katie approaches me.
"Holly."
She didn't call me Minnie, but at that moment I'm too depressed to notice.
"Go away."
"You think this is all your fault, don't you?"
I nod bitterly. "Christian's in hospital, Danny's suspended, and you're... well..."
"Yeah, I know. Look, it's not your fault. It's Tony's. If Danny hadn't got suspended, Jenna wouldn't have thought I was depressed and tried to set me up with Craig."
"If I hadn't started it... Girls don't fight but Christian was fair game. But hey, maybe nothing's really changed... Christian'll recover and Danny can come back to school soon." I spoke more to reassure myself than Katie.
She looks away sadly, and I curse myself for my quick words. Didn't I of all people know that the Sweaty-Trendy divide was infinite and eternal, and that once a breach was discovered it was immediately blocked again?
"Mum says she doesn't want me seeing Danny again. She's phoned up the school and everything. And Jenna still wants me with Craig. She says she doesn't want me wasting my time on Danny."
"Katie... I'm sorry..."
"It's not your fault. Me and Danny'll have to sort it out. Can you think of any way out of it, Holl'?"
I shake my head. "I'll have to wait and see if I get an idea later. Can't think of anything now."
*
The next couple of days passed uneventfully. I visited Christian both days, and thankfully he was getting better. Katie didn't speak to me much, and most of the leading Sweaties and Trendies weren't speaking to me because I'd tried to create a link between them. Last lesson on Friday was an English lesson, and I sat - where else? - in the middle at the front, where old Mrs. King could keep an eye on Trouble-maker Holly. She rattled on about Far From the Madding Crowd while I sat wondering when we were going to do Shakespeare, and when we did, whether I would really enjoy it. I scrawled out some quick comprehension answers, and then, while her back was turned, grabbed a copy of Plays by Shakespeare: Volume 2 from the desk. It contained Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I fumbled through to the middle pages hoping that the bard might see a way out of the situation that didn't rely on a letter that might get delivered too late.
Of course, I didn't find the answer, because it's only when Romeo and Juliet lie dead by each other's side that the two fashion freaked families renounce their differences. And looking at things, that would be all that was going to solve the current problem.
Then another idea struck me - What if I'd been focusing on the wrong play? Danny Carmell could be brave Lysander, and Katie gentle Hermia, caught in a series of events such that in the dark night fairies confused them but in the dawn everyone saw the light. It wasn't Romeo and Juliet that I wanted to follow. It was the Midsummer Night's Dream, and I had to wake everyone up, or else the tragic end would really happen.
*
It was around ten o'clock, I guess, and my prodigal mother had left me alone for the night to spend some time with her adoring boyfriend. I can't say I'm all too thrilled with him, but he's an entirely different story.
It's a dark scene of calm, as I can't say I've ever been afraid of empty houses at night, unlike so many of my peers. It's odd, really, and I blame it on watching too many horror movies that girls my age can't stay at home alone. I sit on the settee, doing some history work, and my peace is disturbed by some harpy of a telephone. It's probably my mother, so I answer it.
"Hello? Hello, is this Mrs. Van Daan?"
"Speaking," I lie, "Who's calling?"
"This is Jonathan Tate. I believe that my daughter Katerina" - Katerina, I ask you! - "went out with Holly this evening to watch a late night film at the cinema. I think it was the new Spielberg one..."
"Yes, that's right," I lie again. What has Katie done?
"Katerina's a little late home, did she or Holly say anything?"
"Oh yes, Holly phoned to say the film would end a little later than expected. I'm afraid I assumed that Kate- Katerina had done the same for you, Mr. Tate. I'll be sure to take her home as soon as it ends. They're two sensible girls, I'm sure they'll be fine."
"Thank you, Mrs. Van Daan..."
I hear him just about to utter another syllable to request something awkward of me, so I say, "Thank you, Mr. Tate, goodbye," and swiftly hang the phone up.
I'm fairly certain I never gave Katie my number, so it must be a curse to the poor girl that there's only one Van Daan in the phone book. And I know exactly where Katie is. It doesn't take a genius. And somehow or other I acquired the exact address. So, resolving to pay Mum back later, I call Rachel Williams.
"743760, Madelyn Williams speaking."
"Hello Mrs. Williams, may I speak to Rachel, please?"
"Who is it, please?"
"Holly Van Daan."
I can hear her sweetly calling her daughter to the phone.
"What do you want, Clever-clogs?"
I hear Mummy interfering with, "Rachel dear, that's no way to speak to your friends."
I'm certain Rachel is rolling her eyes.
"Hi Rache. I realise that you feel you have no reason to listen to anything I say right now..."
"Well I'm glad you know that..."Rachel interrupts. I have to think quickly.
"...But if you don't get yourself down to the park on Andrews Road, I'm going to make your life hell. Don't think I can't."
"Why?" Oh think of something you can blackmail her for, Holly!
"It's something extremely important that you need to be there for. Bring your Mum, bring any bodyguards you like. But you need to be there..."
"Don't be ridiculous. Even if I did agree, what would I tell Mum?"
"Tell her you've got homework sheets for me or something, it really doesn't matter. Just make sure you're there. I can make your life a waking nightmare, Rachel. I've - got your diary." That was a flash of inspiration!
"What?!"
"I haven't read it. Yet. But you'll only get it back tonight."
"I'm coming, Holly, I'm coming."
"You'd better."
"See you there then... Er, bye."
"Bye!" I say, sweet as honey.
I haven't really got her diary, but it pays to watch, because she accidentally shoved it inside a folder in her locker, and I heard her panicking and asking Sarah where it was. I know that was a very bitchy thing to do, letting her panic like that, but it was my last card to play.
A couple more phone-calls...
Paul Bantam's mobile for instance.
"Hi? Hello?" I say into the crackling void.
"Hello? Hello? This is Paul Bantam, hello?"
"Hi Paul, where are you?"
"The nightclub john... Who is this?"
"It's Holly."
"What do you want, Mr. Minister?"
"Meet me a couple of roads down from there, could you? Andrews Road Park?"
"Why should I, after you brought Danny to my party?"
"It's very important, and if you do it, I'll buy you a drink, no matter how illegal. Bring Jenna."
"All right, I'm coming."
"Bye!"
And finally, leading male Trendy, Danny's best friend, Alister Campbell.
"Hello?"
"Hello, may I speak to Alister please?"
"I'll just get him..."
I know exactly how to get Alister out.
"Hello?" Alister says.
"This is destiny," I say, with a very slight hint of a French accent. "You have a date with me, Alister Campbell, and we're meeting in Andrews Road Park. Tonight."
"Who...?" He begins to stutter.
"Be there," I order him, and put down the phone.
I put on my coat and get my bike from the shed. I'm a champion cyclist when I want to be, and tonight I'm going at mega fast speed. This is the craziest stunt anyone could ever pull, I tell myself quietly, but you wanted it that way. If this comes off it'll be 90 per cent luck.
*
And I arrive just in time. I find Paul and Jenna arguing by a streetlamp on Andrews Road, Rachel huddled next to a parked car a little further along and Alister rushing up the street.
Rachel marches towards me, fuming so hard smoke was nearly coming out of her ears, and Jenna turns to me just about to give me a piece of her mind.
"Why have you dragged us here, Holly?" Rachel and Jenna intone together each into a different ear. Then they notice each other, and being arch- enemies, quickly withdraw, embarrassed.
"What…?" They both start, but fail to finish.
Alister runs into our little huddle. In a frenzy, he attempts to break through us, and I catch him by the arm.
"Hold on, Lord Trendy," I say. "You've got a date with destiny."
"How did you... Er... Oh," he says, looking very embarrassed at the revelation that he'd been had.
"Where's my diary, Bitchy-clogs?"
"In your Business Studies folder, between Advertising and Management, if I'm not mistaken, in your locker."
"How…?"
"I watched you put it in there, and this is important enough to lie for."
"So what now, Minnie?" Paul interrupts, before Rachel can digest this possibly relieving piece of news.
"You are all coming with me."
*
I frog-marched them all along Andrews Road and into the park gate. Marigold Street was straight up the footpath, and passing the Rec.'s landmarks such as the baby swings and lovers' bench, it was ten to one...
"Danny, Katie," I called into the whispering dark. If they weren't here they were in Danny's house on Marigold Street, but I was sure I could hear something in the gloom. I'd rehearsed this in my head.
There is shuffling in the darkness, and then I move in, and am confronted by the guilty looking couple, each with heavy looking bags on their backs.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Go away, Holly."
"I think I deserve an explanation." This time I'm speaking straight from another script. It belongs to a romantic film, or a soap, I don't know which, but it sure has an effect on them. romantic souls that they are.
"Well, we're…" Danny pauses.
"Running away? Is that it? Can't live unless you're together? This is the only answer?"
"Well, yes," Katie says shamefully.
"Come out here a minute."
They slowly walk out, and are shocked to discover class leaders of their respective fashion sense fighting outside. Now we are seven, my lucky number.
"Do you see how stupid this is?" I demand of them. "Because of your meaningless feud, Romeo and Juliet here are just about to commit social suicide. There doesn't have to be hate across the border. I've shown it and I've proved it. You might wear different clothes and say different things, but deep down you're all the same insecure selfish little souls."
"Look, I didn't come here to get insulted." Rachel protests. The others - all the others - readily agree.
Danny hugs Katie in the gloom, no longer caring who sees them.
"Don't you want to hear the truth for a change, instead of the comforting insincere things that Spider Brains writes on your reports? Well you're fighting for no reason. You're fighting because you can't bear anyone to be different. They have to all be the same, all the same zombies following the same trends, with no real beliefs at all."
"Danny nearly killed Tony," Paul says.
"That's an exaggeration, and Tony really did nearly kill Christian. Tony's out from hospital now, but Christian isn't. That was the result of Tony's total narrow-mindedness. Danny was at your party, Paul. You didn't stop him then. Shows you had some brains."
"Listen..." Jenna interrupts.
"Why don't you, Jenna? You've never exchanged more than a few words with Danny and yet you claim that that pillock Craig Danson is better for Katie. Wrong. Craig's only interested in getting a fantastic girlfriend with looks nearly as good as his own. Someone who he can fancy almost as much as he fancies himself. Someone who he can show off. It would have been easy for Danny to show Katie off to every Sweaty boy who's ever met her and they would have been jealous as hell. But for the sake of his own and Katie's modesty, he kept quiet."
"What about…?" Alister begins and I'm on to him.
"If Danny is your best friend, why haven't you supported him? You don't even know Katie's last name and yet you cast her out because she's a Sweaty. You haven't realised it yet, have you? You four are so alike. You have to be the best, the most fashionable, the most popular, and yet as soon as someone decides they don't want to follow you then you hate them."
Then Alister and Paul look at one another, and Rachel and Jenna look at one another.
A car goes down Marigold Street, the trees rustle conversationally, and they all carry on staring.
Paul coughs theatrically.
He says to Alister, Trendy Party King, to Alister Campbell, looking him straight in the eye, "I think that Holly's right, and I guess I'll be willing to accept Danny, so long as he doesn't mind Katie being one of us."
Alister nods, puts his hand forward and they shake on it. "I guess Katie's all right."
Rachel, made nervous by this almost friendly gesture by her male counterpart, brushes her hair back. "Fashion," she says, "Fashion isn't..."
"Fashion isn't everything," Jenna says. "That's why we invite Holly to our parties."
"Yeah," says Rachel. "It's... different, really, having someone else there."
They don't shake hands, as they've been sworn enemies for too long, but they do look at each other, each one most likely thinking, I might be wrong about this, there might be some good in her.
The trees rustle again, and my hair is blown into my face. I brush it back with my hands and for a second cast my eyes away to the inhospitable long grass of the playing field and the starless sky, and remember where I am.
"I suppose I better get home, really, seeing as I'm not going with Danny." Katie is the speaker, and she looks nervously along the streets. Danny opens his mouth...
And Rachel says, "My brother's got a car waiting for me, and seeing as you live up near my way you might as well come too."
"Thanks."
"Cheers, Rache," Danny says.
"We better get back to the Palace," Paul says. (The Palace, by the way, is the nightclub I called him from.)
"Yeah, I still owe you that drink," I say. "Anyone else coming?"
"All right then," Alister says. "You still owe me a date, Holly. Coming Dan?"
*
In a small huddle we trekked back across the park, and we left Rachel and Katie to go home with Rachel's brother (Rachel has a very assertive personality when she thinks about it, and she bullied him into taking her) and the rest of us went to the Palace. It's odd, really, what music can do to you, because I swear we were ready to become best friends as soon as we came out.
I'm going out with Alister next Saturday, and I'm paying. The logic behind this came from him, saying that if Sweaties and Trendies are equal, then so are boys and girls. And I asked him why he wasn't paying for himself (we'd be 'going Dutch' so to speak) and he said that I asked. And I said that was just a trick to get him to Andrews Road and he said that in that case it served me right.
The reason I didn't say no on account of Christian was that, although after a decent dose of alcohol it seemed like a good idea, he's my best mate and if I was any closer to him, he'd be my brother.
It's nothing really special between Alister and me, not like Danny and Katie, but then again, who knows. All I know is that if we have another date, he's paying.
*
"... And he said, 'It serves you right, then'," I say, although I'm speaking in Dutch. It's Sunday lunchtime, and I'm around Christian's house to welcome him out of hospital. Christian smiles. "Good for him, then. So what do you think will happen on Monday?"
"Absolutely no idea. Jenna knows now that Dinah helped Katie go out with Danny, Sarah's going to discover that Rachel gave Katie a lift home of her own accord and Katie and Danny are going to have to decide where they stand on the whole Sweaty/Trendy thing. Or sit, rather, that's a bigger issue. Is it me, or does this sound like some kind of soap?"
"Soap?"
"Sorry, that's my Dutch up the creek again. You know, soap. Series."
"Oh series," said Christian, who'd thought I wanted to clean myself with Danny and Katie. He says teasingly, "Have you given up on Shakespeare then?"
"Not completely, there's hope for Bill yet. Mind you, Shakespeare finishes at the curtain, in real life we have to go on and on."
And so I finish. I draw a curtain on these events past, but never forget them. You need to know how to resolve differences, and experience is the best teacher for that.
So give me your hands, if we be friends, and Holly shall restore amends.
THE END
No Sweat Romeo
I've no problems with fashion - let me say this right at the start. I don't mind it. If you feel comfortable conforming with something as trivial as clothes or music, that's fine by me. But the thing that really bugs me - and it's more a boy thing than girl thing I think - is this dumb Sweaty vs. Trendy culture that somehow grew up 'round here.
If you don't have Sweaties or Trendies near where you live, the descriptions are as follows -
Sweaty (A.k.a. Grungies or Grungers): Someone who enjoys rock music and fashion that includes hooded sweaters and lots of chains, and dissing Trendies.
Trendy: Someone who enjoys mainstream music and fashion, and dissing Sweaties.
They're really just the 21st century backlash of the Mods and Rockers.
The Sweaties and Trendies indulge in the fantasy that they are the only people who exist. They also indulge in the fantasy that they are completely different from the other. The Sweaties also like to think that they are apart from the crowd, the Trendies that they are ahead of it.
All in all, you can see what's happened here. Oh and, incidentally, don't call a Sweaty or a Trendy by that name to their face. It's an insult. That's the dumbest thing about them, you see, they've managed to name each other instead of themselves. A typical case of "I don't know what I am but I sure as hell know what you are".
And then, in my class it's particularly strong. Girls as well as boys. Believe me, teachers just don't know what the hell they're on about when they put us in seats boy-girl-boy-girl. They ought to do it Sweaty-Trendy- Sweaty-Trendy.
Then there's me, our year's answer to an old granny, if the truth be known. I've got to admit it, I'm probably middle-aged before my time. Yes, me, moi, ick, Holly Van Daan. I used to be referred to as 'Granny' by both sides (not that I mind - I've friends in both). That was before it got strong, and I could hang out with whomever the hell I liked. Then the sides started warring, and I, neither Sweaty nor Trendy, was stuck in the middle. Teachers have started calling me a troublemaker since then. Totally unjustified. It's just that whenever we got to lessons, we have two sets of rows, or groups of tables, and Sweaties sit on one side and Trendies on the other. So I, seeing no other alternative, get a chair and sit in the middle. I don't want to be labelled. I'll talk with either side. Often I sit with a Sweaty on one side, a Trendy on the other, speaking quite friendly to both. They're all right, when they don't diss the other side.
Teachers always ask me to move. I say, "Where to?"
And they say, "Wherever you're at a desk."
I say, "I can't choose, choose for me."
And I get moved that way. I'm not called Granny anymore. With the Sweaties I'm a bit of a weirdo, so I said I was the Peace Minister for Sweaties and Trendies, and after that they called me 'Mr. Minister' and now just plain 'Minnie'. As for the Trendies, I'm really just an annoying boff so they call me, because I'm half-Dutch, (careful you aren't bowled over by the amazing wittiness displayed in this nickname) 'Clever-clogs'. Frankly, I find both a bit nauseating. Everyone else (well, one person to be honest) calls me 'Holl'.
Anyway, the story I'm telling you is a very old one actually, only the names of those involved have been changed to 'Sweaty' and 'Trendy'.
Picture the scene. One morning the usual dull crap is happening. The teacher is calling for silence for the register, (Miss Webster, or Spider Brains is the name of the creature sitting at the front desk) and I'm sitting in my usual place in No Man's Land, getting knocked by the occasional paper missile.
Then the door opens and through it comes a girl that for the moment we will call Juliet, and she is the very model of Sweaty-ness, although under all that dark make-up you can see she is pretty.
"Ah, you're here," says Spider Brains. She raises forward one of her eight, hairy limbs and beckons Juliet Sweaty to the front.
"This is Katie," she says. "I want you all to welcome her to this class, and help her to find where her lessons are. Katie, why don't you sit here next to Rachel?"
She is so spineless, she has failed to notice that Rachel Trendy, leader of the Female Trendies is only sitting on her own because Sarah Cooling, her very own Trendy best friend, has gone to hand a book in. She certainly doesn't want her space taken up by Juliet Sweaty.
"Er, Miss, Sarah sits there."
"That's all right, Rachel, Sarah can sit next to Holly when she comes back. I don't think that Holly would be a very good influence on our new girl."
Well, that has just proved that she knows absolutely nothing. Because after ten minutes with me, I could have debriefed Katie on the current situation and either delivered her to the right group of Sweaties or even persuaded her that both sides were as bad as each other.
So Juliet Sweaty has almost right away got herself right next to Lady Trendy. I watch the drama unfold. Sarah returns, and is put next to me. She doesn't complain much, but she does moan about Katie.
"I can't believe that my seat's been taken by that Sweaty slut. She looks like bloody Marilyn Manson." (She doesn't, she has short hair for one thing) "How could old Spider Brains do that?"
"Teachers today are blind to the plight of Sweaties and Trendies," I say.
"Hey, you're right, Clever-clogs. Teachers speak a load of crap. Why didn't she put Madame Manson with the Sweaties, where she belongs?"
"Dunno," I shrug. Then I carefully divert the course of the conversation off the age-old feud. "So, before you return to the trenches, what lesson have you got first?"
She goes into a soliloquy on her physics lesson, which is quite funny actually, as Sarah's a great joker, and my eyes wander. Suddenly, over the super fashionable barbed wire, I spot Danny Carmell, the Trendiest of all secondary school Romeos, looking at Katie with a look of surprised adoration on his face.
*
As the day began, Sarah went to physics, and Rachel (cursed with the task of looking after Katie) and I went to our chemistry lesson. Danny Carmell was there, as well as the various female Sweaties who were just dying to pull Katie out, back to where she belonged. Then, just to ruin the next scene for all of us observers (actually, probably just me) our chemistry teacher decided to put us in alphabetical order. I'd probably ruined my own attempt to view the drama, because the chemistry teacher was sick of me sitting in the aisle between benches and moving me every lesson.
He read out names, carefully adding Juliet Sweaty into the right place - Katie Tate, in with the T's. Lady Trendy is Rachel Williams, in with the Ws. Our poor new girl was already sick of hearing of Rachel's radically different beliefs, and I was dying to save her...
See if you can visualise the scene now.
The chemistry teacher says, "Right, Michael Andrews, here, Lisa Barnes..." and so on with our tens of thousands of Bs until he says, "Danny Carmell, Holly Daan..."
I've never been too fond of Romeo Trendy, and besides, I want to rescue his Juliet before they never meet and the whole thing is ruined. Union for the Sweaties and Trendies! Freedom for fashion! That's the cause I'm fighting for.
"That's Holly Van Daan," I say. "With a V."
He rolls his eyes at Holly the troublemaker. Then, just as I planned, I am put between Katie Tate and Rachel Williams.
"Hi, Rache, hi, Katie," I say.
"Hi Clever-clogs," says Rachel.
"Hi," says Katie.
"I'm Holly Van Daan," I say. "So where're you from, Katie?"
"Harrison School. Parents pulled me out 'cause it was crap."
"Seems like a crap school. What're you doing at break, d'ya know?"
She looks dubiously at Lady Trendy. "I dunno," she says. "I brought my walkman, with a Nirvana CD in, but..."
As I guessed, she is a model Sweaty.
"I'll take you 'round, if you want," I offer, in a friendly way. "I've got some good mates I think you'll like. Rachel's, uh, a bit stiff with new people."
"She's a bit too Trendy for me."
"Trendies are OK when they forget that they're Trendies. Same with Sweaties."
Might as well get her acquainted with myself.
"So you're not very grungy yourself, then?"
"Not a Trendy neither. Have you, uh, ever, uh, seen Romeo and Juliet?"
"No, I can't stand Shakespeare."
Great, I'm in a literary void. Usually I start on Shakespeare.
"Oh, well this school's a bit like the opening scene, where the two families are fighting. I come in the script as 'A Citizen'. My line is, 'A plague on both your houses.' I don't mind Sweaties or Trendies, but I don't like the feud. I know some cool people on both sides."
She's looking at me like I'm some kind of weirdo, which I probably am. The idea of cool Trendies is probably beyond her. I'll change her yet. That look of adoration on Danny's eyes says I must do.
So at break, I take Katie away from the corruption of Lady Trendy, and introduce her to all sorts of people, including of course, Danny Carmell, whom we just happen to be walking past. And I was right; he does adore her. I can hear him softly murmuring, "What light from yonder window breaks?" and am disgusted when, as we walk away, Katie says, "What a slimy Trendy."
"He's all right," I say. Poor old Danny is a Shakespeare enthusiast too, but unlike me, he's no actor. (I've starred in numerous lead roles with my theatre group, you might have seen the reviews in the local papers) That's probably why he's so obvious, to me, anyway.
Finally, in defeat, I hand her over to the Sweaties and spend the rest of break with them, discussing the latest Satanic snake-eater's hit, which is quite a good one actually, even if when you take the swear words out, it becomes an instrumental.
At lunch, having just about given up on a join between Sweaties and Trendies, I spend the time with my best friend in the whole world, who is a totally Dutch guy named Christian who remembers a country with no Sweaties or Trendies. We sit around and talk in Dutch, because his English is rubbish, and because no one can understand a word we're saying. The cruel thing is, Christian is a couple of years ahead of me, so my protests are made alone.
*
Katie started calling me Mr. Minister that very afternoon. I'm on to a loser, I thought. Maybe I should retire back from the Sweaty-Trendy world and stop trying to change it. Shakespeare's most famous lovers may have had love at first sight, but it would take longer (perhaps forever) for Katie to feel the same way about Danny. Personally I couldn't blame her, but I did feel sorry for Danny loving across the barrier of fashion twisted barbed wire. But then, he'd only just seen the girl, so maybe he would have changed his mind soon.
*
Inevitably, next morning, the scene is one a spy reporting to camp. Katie unashamedly sits with the Sweaties, Sarah is back from No Man's Land and sitting next to Lady Trendy in one of the many trenches that the side facing desks create. I'm the only one with a desk facing the front, and I'm the only one sitting at it, as usual. Spider Brains approaches her desk, deaf to world, or at least our class. Missiles continue to fly, most of which land in front of me. I put them in the bin.
"Settling in, Katie?" she asks.
"Yes, thank you, Miss Webster," reluctant Juliet replies.
It's time for another amazing Personal and Social Education lesson today. After taking the register, Spider Brains says she wants to split us into groups.
"All get into groups of four," she says.
A few chairs are shuffled, but mainly, the change is minimal. Four female Sweaties sit in one corner, four female Trendies in another; the same happens with the boys.
I don't move. Thankfully our class has 25 people, and so divides into four with one remainder.
"Holly?" says Miss Webster, expectantly. She doesn't teach Maths - if she did, and had a little initiative, she'd realise that all she really needed to do was divide the class by five.
I look at her, and say, sadly, "Miss Webster, I would have thought it was obvious that by now that I don't put myself in with any group. Other people do that."
She rolls her eyes and says, "Holly Van Daan, please, it really doesn't matter what group you are in."
"That's what you think."
A little daunted, she carries on. "In your groups, give yourselves each a number from one to four. Holly, you can be four."
This is such an old trick in my school, and it is dead easy to master if you are in a group. Seeing as I refuse to be in a group, I have no choice, but I can hear the other groups planning. The idea is, we all pick numbers, and then she makes different groups out of the numbers picked - all ones in one group, all twos in another group and so on. This is the only time when Sweaties and Trendies work together. You can see it at work when she says, "All right, all ones put their hands up." The group of female Sweaties, including Katie, all put their hands up, as do two of another group of four Sweaties.
And so you see how it works. She tells us to pick numbers between 1 and 4, but she doesn't tell us to pick different ones.
Giving a weak I'm-really-too-tired-of-this-class-to-care smile, she directs them to a corner of the room. This carries on, until Alister Trendy's group, who are all fours, are joined by Rachel, Sarah, and myself.
One of Alister's group is Danny (who is also his best friend), and the theme today is aptly, "Teenage Romance". We are asked to write down all the things we associate with love. And - without boasting - I think my list is the truest.
Love
Bearing
Protecting
Sacrificing
Thinking of others before yourself
Wanting for someone not what they want or what's best for you, but what's best for them
Forgiveness
Good list, huh?
Well once we finish, we take a look at some of the others, and discuss which ones really have to do with love. It proves to be a hard task, because in our group we have one depressed teenager, one head-over-heels in love, one cool observer (me) and the rest were indefinable. Rachel's rather cynical list contains "lying", "cheating", "fake", "shallow" and not forgetting, "something you could only feel for a pet." Oddly enough, that's something Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols also came up with, not that Rachel would know that.
Danny's nauseating parade of private emotion reads thus - "Meeting someone's eyes and knowing that they are the one and only person for you, the only one you could ever love. Holding them in your heart like precious gold that should be looked after.
Knowing that this one person is your life, even in the first few moments of encountering one another.
Having the strength to hold on for always, or else it is just an empty dream."
All in all, you can tell he's been sneaking a look in poetry pages of the girl's magazines that female Trendies insist on leaving lying around as a proclamation of "I'm with the 'in-crowd'."
*
The other boys' lists contained Britney Spears - several times! And also sex (even more times) and kissing. I was trying to argue that they were just expressions of love (apart from Britney Spears) and didn't tackle with what love was. Rachel said that there was no love, and Danny said that there had to be. Sarah said she didn't care as long as there was chocolate.
About half of the Sweaties included Courtney Love.
The biggest surprise came the next day. It's time for another action scene, so don't move from your seats, ladies and gents, and don't spill popcorn on the pages.
Danny sits on his own, nursing a Tesco's-own-regurgitated-goo sandwich filling sandwich. It's unusual for him to be on his own. He scrapes the table with his management accounting biro, and slowly chews the sandwich, looking like the very personification of melancholy (that is, he's the figure of sadness).
"Morning, Dan!" I say cheerfully. Drearily he lifts his head and looks at me.
"What?"
"Morning, you idiot! Good morning!"
"Is the day so young?" He returns to his sandwich, munching it millimetre by vomit-worthy millimetre. I join in on the script.
"What sadness lengthens Daniel's hours?"
He lifts his hands, and underneath them I read, "I love Katie".
"Could you... Could you set us up, Clever-clogs?" I'm gobsmacked.
"Why ask me? I thought Liam was the expert on setting people up." (Although I'm pretty good, even if I do say so myself.)
"Yes, but Liam's, well..."
"A Trendy?" I interrupt, with brutal honesty.
"Well, he's very anti-Sweaty. And you aren't... you're like Benvolio from Romeo and Juliet, you see the stupidity of it all."
"No, I'm not," I say, abruptly. Definitely not.
"Why not?"
"Benvolio was a Trendy."
"Aren't you?"
What a stupid question, I ask you. You would think he might have noticed Holly Van Daan sitting in the middle.
"I'm a fence-sitter, Danny, not a Trendy. I like Trendies but personally I'd rather have my own identity. Besides, you've got the story wrong."
"What?"
Danny looks startled and confused. "What do you mean?"
"You're supposed to fancy the minor Sweaty Rosalyne first. Someone less devastatingly attractive. Juliet comes later. But yes, all right, I've been invited to gatecrash Paul Bantam's party on the 16th, and he really is Lord Sweaty. And the great thing is this..."
"What?"
"It's a goth party. So just turn up in black make-up, no one'll recognise you."
"Black make-up? But only... girls... wear make-up!"
"Not if you're a goth. Besides, what would your Katie think, if you turned up looking, well, Trendy?"
He shudders, turning pale. He looks like he's about to retch, and then says, sounding a lot braver than I thought he would, "All right, I'm in."
"That's fine, then," I say. "You can meet me and Christian at 8, round my house. We'll be gatecrashing at 8:30, and then you can blend in with the crowd. No one'll notice you, but Paul always gets us to gatecrash. He says it gives the party atmosphere, if none of his friends bother to invite anyone else and forget to tell him. You've been to Alister's parties. They're like that."
He looks mega-confused again.
"Look, me and Christian go to provide conversation topics, and to have Paul's girlfriend Jenna try to convert us to being Sweaties. I'll see you later. Remember, 8 o'clock, black gothy make-up."
I start to walk away, and he calls me. "Holly..."
"Yes?"
"Are you going as a goth?"
"Of course not! It's got to be ultra boring turning up to a party late and then fitting in as if you'd been there all the time. And me, gothic? You've got to be kidding."
OK, so maybe I didn't handle that as well as I could have but, hey, what do I care? He was coming, although I would have to make sure that I had some black eyeshadow just in case he wimped out on the clothes front.
*
Without boasting too much, Christian and I looked well cool. Christian might've been my best friend for years, but I was almost beginning to fancy him. He was gorgeous. As for me, I looked kind of like the heroine in vampire movies. Sort of delicate and beautiful, and refusing to be taken in by those fantasy figures of gothic horror.
At 8:15, just when I had begun to give up on Danny, he turned up on the door. I nearly fell over. I nearly passed out solid and DIED. He was so... gothy. So gothy I'd almost begun to give up on the cause. It looked liked a conversion.
Look at him. His face is totally white and his hair is totally black... his eyes are purple rimmed, and his lips are also black, and his suit... well I thought that he smile and we'd see fangs.
"You really are Danny, aren't you?" I say, only half joking.
"My sister... She... I look like a total prat, don't I?"
"You look like you're gonna get Paul really mad for stealing his show," I say, admiring him. "It's excellent. Hey, Christian, let's go."
*
Christian had only turned seventeen a few months before, and already he had a car he could drive. It was great. I shoved Danny in the back, and I sat next to the driver's seat...
The party was really raging, there was loads of psychedelic rock playing and the door was open. We marched in, and as some people yelled out, asked us what we were doing there, and asked us if I'd turned Sweaty, Danny slipped in behind. So our Romeo moves in to meet his lover...
*
"Good luck," I whisper to him in the maze of black and white bodies, as he moves the crowd. Christian is actually pretty cool at parties when you can't understand what anyone else is saying anyway. Suddenly warning signals flash up, and Paul's best mate and chief lackey, Tony yells, "Hey, that's Danny Carmell, he's Trendy!"
Not many people actually hear him, the music is so loud. Paul replies. "Shut up, Tony, I don't want another of your ****ing fights spoiling my ****ing party, so just get on and enjoy it, all right?"
That's what he said. All right, so I censored it a bit, but you're a polite audience. I hope so, anyway. In the background, Christian is trying to persuade Danny to dance a bit. He still maintains, "I'll look like a total prat."
Then our Juliet sees him, and she's gobsmacked. She approaches him and asks him if he wants something to drink. She pours him the dodgy mixture from a jug that's probably at least one quarter vodka (and the rest pure alcohol, I wouldn't be surprised), and he loosens up a bit. Pretty soon they're snogging on the sofa, and I've never felt happier in my life.
I'm a little tipsy with Dutch courage by now, and I grab Christian and make him give me a congratulatory kiss. Then Craig Danson says he's going to drag me to join the Sweaties, and since he's pretty strong, he picks me up and carries me, screaming in true damsel in distress manner, around the room.
Later on, I find Danny has vanished and Katie too. I'm hopeful that they might have gone for a more private kiss but no, Christian tells me that Dinah, Jenna's best friend, led Katie away and suddenly I see them in another corner of the room, talking to Craig.
Christian says, "Danny left. He thought he wasn't fitting in. I couldn't stop him, Holl'." I kick myself.
Katie doesn't look like she's enjoying the party any more.
*
My English teacher is the kind of Philistine who reckons it's better to read Shakespeare than to watch it. This is rubbish. The best thing to do is act it, then watch it, and then if you have to, read it. Reading's a last resort.
She's always telling me to stop muddling up my tenses. She says that if I must write in the present tense, I must try to maintain it. She has no idea of atmosphere. But the days following were full of it.
*
On Monday, I spend a lot of time with the Sweaties of the form. Katie calls me and whispers to me confidentially.
"Minnie, I really love Danny Carmell." I nod. "I know."
"Why? Why did he have to be a Trendy? He looked so gothic last night, so cool, and now he's a Trendy and all my mates hate Trendies and so do I.
"Why did he have to be Danny Carmell, the role model for Trendies, Minnie?"
"I don't know, Katie, I don't know. But if you love him then it doesn't matter what group he's in."
"No, I love him, but I hate Trendies and…?" She falters, and looks at me pleadingly, hoping I'll understand.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?"
"That's right. He came to my house last night, I was just looking out the window thinking about him and he came and we talked, and he asked me where I had a ladder so he could climb up and be with me, and he said he loved me."
"I think he does."
She sighed quietly on that Monday, quietly but often, and soon she confided her secret in Dinah. I think Dinah understood.
*
Dinah 'set up' Danny and Katie the next time, and this time it was a proper date, what the Yanks call "going steady" described the new couple perfectly. I was happy again, and Christian and I made sure it went well by occasionally checking up on Danny and Katie in school time.
Then disaster managed to strike again. Tony picked a fight with Christian that break time, accusing him of bringing Trendy Danny to the party dressed up as if he was 'one of them'. Christian doesn't usually get angry, but Tony made him livid. They fought and fought and fought, until Danny saw the fighting, and told them to stop, it was stupid.
I admired him then, how he'd seemed like a soppy old soul and then turned out all knight-in-shining-armoury and tried to stop the fight. But I still stood staring in horror when Christian, two years older than that overgrown muscly chunk of a male adolescent Tony, was knocked to the ground, hurt, and his nose bleeding, and other things besides.
*
"Christian," Danny whispers hoarsely to my best friend, and Christian whispers back, "Holly's right. A plague o' both your stupid fashion statements."
*
Danny lunged at Tony a second later, and gave him the same treatment. I was hysterical and close to tears, and all I said was, "you better move, Danny, because you could get expelled for doing that."
In assembly the next morning we all had to file in silently and the headmaster went on and on about a terrible fight, in which Christian Astel and Tony Parks were seriously hurt, and how Danny was suspended. To me, it seemed terribly unfair. Tony Parks had started it... Tony Parks had hurt Christian, and Danny was only defending him.
*
How quickly the sun sets.
Jenna decides to set Katie up with Craig, my strong gothic horror friend. Of course Jenna doesn't know that Katie is already seeing Danny, and Katie starts panicking. As usual, she turns to moi for advice.
"What'll I do, Minnie?"
"You'll have to tell her you won't."
"But any girl would die for Craig..."
"Except me and you."
"Yes! Except me! What'll I do?"
The disaster happens at registration. Katie says quite loudly and clearly, "I won't go out with Craig, Jenna. Me and Danny are already going out."
Shrieks of "Danny Carmell?!?" can be heard for miles around, and Katie flushes. I feel the flush for her, shrinking away painfully. Sweaties remember how he beat up Tony, Trendies become convinced that our Romeo defected to the other side.
All I can think of is how dumb I've been. Why did I think that uniting Sweaties and Trendies was more important than whatever I had to do to unite them? Now two of my friends are miserable and in disgrace with the people who accepted them, and my best friend is in hospital because he helped me do it.
Maybe old Spider Brains is right. Maybe I am a troublemaker.
*
From that day on I took no real satisfaction out of sitting in the middle. Each side was giving me evils. Some saw that it was my fault that Danny was in trouble, and others said that I'd caused the trouble with Katie by inviting Danny to gatecrash with me. I didn't talk to anyone for a couple of days.
*
Finally, one break, Katie approaches me.
"Holly."
She didn't call me Minnie, but at that moment I'm too depressed to notice.
"Go away."
"You think this is all your fault, don't you?"
I nod bitterly. "Christian's in hospital, Danny's suspended, and you're... well..."
"Yeah, I know. Look, it's not your fault. It's Tony's. If Danny hadn't got suspended, Jenna wouldn't have thought I was depressed and tried to set me up with Craig."
"If I hadn't started it... Girls don't fight but Christian was fair game. But hey, maybe nothing's really changed... Christian'll recover and Danny can come back to school soon." I spoke more to reassure myself than Katie.
She looks away sadly, and I curse myself for my quick words. Didn't I of all people know that the Sweaty-Trendy divide was infinite and eternal, and that once a breach was discovered it was immediately blocked again?
"Mum says she doesn't want me seeing Danny again. She's phoned up the school and everything. And Jenna still wants me with Craig. She says she doesn't want me wasting my time on Danny."
"Katie... I'm sorry..."
"It's not your fault. Me and Danny'll have to sort it out. Can you think of any way out of it, Holl'?"
I shake my head. "I'll have to wait and see if I get an idea later. Can't think of anything now."
*
The next couple of days passed uneventfully. I visited Christian both days, and thankfully he was getting better. Katie didn't speak to me much, and most of the leading Sweaties and Trendies weren't speaking to me because I'd tried to create a link between them. Last lesson on Friday was an English lesson, and I sat - where else? - in the middle at the front, where old Mrs. King could keep an eye on Trouble-maker Holly. She rattled on about Far From the Madding Crowd while I sat wondering when we were going to do Shakespeare, and when we did, whether I would really enjoy it. I scrawled out some quick comprehension answers, and then, while her back was turned, grabbed a copy of Plays by Shakespeare: Volume 2 from the desk. It contained Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I fumbled through to the middle pages hoping that the bard might see a way out of the situation that didn't rely on a letter that might get delivered too late.
Of course, I didn't find the answer, because it's only when Romeo and Juliet lie dead by each other's side that the two fashion freaked families renounce their differences. And looking at things, that would be all that was going to solve the current problem.
Then another idea struck me - What if I'd been focusing on the wrong play? Danny Carmell could be brave Lysander, and Katie gentle Hermia, caught in a series of events such that in the dark night fairies confused them but in the dawn everyone saw the light. It wasn't Romeo and Juliet that I wanted to follow. It was the Midsummer Night's Dream, and I had to wake everyone up, or else the tragic end would really happen.
*
It was around ten o'clock, I guess, and my prodigal mother had left me alone for the night to spend some time with her adoring boyfriend. I can't say I'm all too thrilled with him, but he's an entirely different story.
It's a dark scene of calm, as I can't say I've ever been afraid of empty houses at night, unlike so many of my peers. It's odd, really, and I blame it on watching too many horror movies that girls my age can't stay at home alone. I sit on the settee, doing some history work, and my peace is disturbed by some harpy of a telephone. It's probably my mother, so I answer it.
"Hello? Hello, is this Mrs. Van Daan?"
"Speaking," I lie, "Who's calling?"
"This is Jonathan Tate. I believe that my daughter Katerina" - Katerina, I ask you! - "went out with Holly this evening to watch a late night film at the cinema. I think it was the new Spielberg one..."
"Yes, that's right," I lie again. What has Katie done?
"Katerina's a little late home, did she or Holly say anything?"
"Oh yes, Holly phoned to say the film would end a little later than expected. I'm afraid I assumed that Kate- Katerina had done the same for you, Mr. Tate. I'll be sure to take her home as soon as it ends. They're two sensible girls, I'm sure they'll be fine."
"Thank you, Mrs. Van Daan..."
I hear him just about to utter another syllable to request something awkward of me, so I say, "Thank you, Mr. Tate, goodbye," and swiftly hang the phone up.
I'm fairly certain I never gave Katie my number, so it must be a curse to the poor girl that there's only one Van Daan in the phone book. And I know exactly where Katie is. It doesn't take a genius. And somehow or other I acquired the exact address. So, resolving to pay Mum back later, I call Rachel Williams.
"743760, Madelyn Williams speaking."
"Hello Mrs. Williams, may I speak to Rachel, please?"
"Who is it, please?"
"Holly Van Daan."
I can hear her sweetly calling her daughter to the phone.
"What do you want, Clever-clogs?"
I hear Mummy interfering with, "Rachel dear, that's no way to speak to your friends."
I'm certain Rachel is rolling her eyes.
"Hi Rache. I realise that you feel you have no reason to listen to anything I say right now..."
"Well I'm glad you know that..."Rachel interrupts. I have to think quickly.
"...But if you don't get yourself down to the park on Andrews Road, I'm going to make your life hell. Don't think I can't."
"Why?" Oh think of something you can blackmail her for, Holly!
"It's something extremely important that you need to be there for. Bring your Mum, bring any bodyguards you like. But you need to be there..."
"Don't be ridiculous. Even if I did agree, what would I tell Mum?"
"Tell her you've got homework sheets for me or something, it really doesn't matter. Just make sure you're there. I can make your life a waking nightmare, Rachel. I've - got your diary." That was a flash of inspiration!
"What?!"
"I haven't read it. Yet. But you'll only get it back tonight."
"I'm coming, Holly, I'm coming."
"You'd better."
"See you there then... Er, bye."
"Bye!" I say, sweet as honey.
I haven't really got her diary, but it pays to watch, because she accidentally shoved it inside a folder in her locker, and I heard her panicking and asking Sarah where it was. I know that was a very bitchy thing to do, letting her panic like that, but it was my last card to play.
A couple more phone-calls...
Paul Bantam's mobile for instance.
"Hi? Hello?" I say into the crackling void.
"Hello? Hello? This is Paul Bantam, hello?"
"Hi Paul, where are you?"
"The nightclub john... Who is this?"
"It's Holly."
"What do you want, Mr. Minister?"
"Meet me a couple of roads down from there, could you? Andrews Road Park?"
"Why should I, after you brought Danny to my party?"
"It's very important, and if you do it, I'll buy you a drink, no matter how illegal. Bring Jenna."
"All right, I'm coming."
"Bye!"
And finally, leading male Trendy, Danny's best friend, Alister Campbell.
"Hello?"
"Hello, may I speak to Alister please?"
"I'll just get him..."
I know exactly how to get Alister out.
"Hello?" Alister says.
"This is destiny," I say, with a very slight hint of a French accent. "You have a date with me, Alister Campbell, and we're meeting in Andrews Road Park. Tonight."
"Who...?" He begins to stutter.
"Be there," I order him, and put down the phone.
I put on my coat and get my bike from the shed. I'm a champion cyclist when I want to be, and tonight I'm going at mega fast speed. This is the craziest stunt anyone could ever pull, I tell myself quietly, but you wanted it that way. If this comes off it'll be 90 per cent luck.
*
And I arrive just in time. I find Paul and Jenna arguing by a streetlamp on Andrews Road, Rachel huddled next to a parked car a little further along and Alister rushing up the street.
Rachel marches towards me, fuming so hard smoke was nearly coming out of her ears, and Jenna turns to me just about to give me a piece of her mind.
"Why have you dragged us here, Holly?" Rachel and Jenna intone together each into a different ear. Then they notice each other, and being arch- enemies, quickly withdraw, embarrassed.
"What…?" They both start, but fail to finish.
Alister runs into our little huddle. In a frenzy, he attempts to break through us, and I catch him by the arm.
"Hold on, Lord Trendy," I say. "You've got a date with destiny."
"How did you... Er... Oh," he says, looking very embarrassed at the revelation that he'd been had.
"Where's my diary, Bitchy-clogs?"
"In your Business Studies folder, between Advertising and Management, if I'm not mistaken, in your locker."
"How…?"
"I watched you put it in there, and this is important enough to lie for."
"So what now, Minnie?" Paul interrupts, before Rachel can digest this possibly relieving piece of news.
"You are all coming with me."
*
I frog-marched them all along Andrews Road and into the park gate. Marigold Street was straight up the footpath, and passing the Rec.'s landmarks such as the baby swings and lovers' bench, it was ten to one...
"Danny, Katie," I called into the whispering dark. If they weren't here they were in Danny's house on Marigold Street, but I was sure I could hear something in the gloom. I'd rehearsed this in my head.
There is shuffling in the darkness, and then I move in, and am confronted by the guilty looking couple, each with heavy looking bags on their backs.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Go away, Holly."
"I think I deserve an explanation." This time I'm speaking straight from another script. It belongs to a romantic film, or a soap, I don't know which, but it sure has an effect on them. romantic souls that they are.
"Well, we're…" Danny pauses.
"Running away? Is that it? Can't live unless you're together? This is the only answer?"
"Well, yes," Katie says shamefully.
"Come out here a minute."
They slowly walk out, and are shocked to discover class leaders of their respective fashion sense fighting outside. Now we are seven, my lucky number.
"Do you see how stupid this is?" I demand of them. "Because of your meaningless feud, Romeo and Juliet here are just about to commit social suicide. There doesn't have to be hate across the border. I've shown it and I've proved it. You might wear different clothes and say different things, but deep down you're all the same insecure selfish little souls."
"Look, I didn't come here to get insulted." Rachel protests. The others - all the others - readily agree.
Danny hugs Katie in the gloom, no longer caring who sees them.
"Don't you want to hear the truth for a change, instead of the comforting insincere things that Spider Brains writes on your reports? Well you're fighting for no reason. You're fighting because you can't bear anyone to be different. They have to all be the same, all the same zombies following the same trends, with no real beliefs at all."
"Danny nearly killed Tony," Paul says.
"That's an exaggeration, and Tony really did nearly kill Christian. Tony's out from hospital now, but Christian isn't. That was the result of Tony's total narrow-mindedness. Danny was at your party, Paul. You didn't stop him then. Shows you had some brains."
"Listen..." Jenna interrupts.
"Why don't you, Jenna? You've never exchanged more than a few words with Danny and yet you claim that that pillock Craig Danson is better for Katie. Wrong. Craig's only interested in getting a fantastic girlfriend with looks nearly as good as his own. Someone who he can fancy almost as much as he fancies himself. Someone who he can show off. It would have been easy for Danny to show Katie off to every Sweaty boy who's ever met her and they would have been jealous as hell. But for the sake of his own and Katie's modesty, he kept quiet."
"What about…?" Alister begins and I'm on to him.
"If Danny is your best friend, why haven't you supported him? You don't even know Katie's last name and yet you cast her out because she's a Sweaty. You haven't realised it yet, have you? You four are so alike. You have to be the best, the most fashionable, the most popular, and yet as soon as someone decides they don't want to follow you then you hate them."
Then Alister and Paul look at one another, and Rachel and Jenna look at one another.
A car goes down Marigold Street, the trees rustle conversationally, and they all carry on staring.
Paul coughs theatrically.
He says to Alister, Trendy Party King, to Alister Campbell, looking him straight in the eye, "I think that Holly's right, and I guess I'll be willing to accept Danny, so long as he doesn't mind Katie being one of us."
Alister nods, puts his hand forward and they shake on it. "I guess Katie's all right."
Rachel, made nervous by this almost friendly gesture by her male counterpart, brushes her hair back. "Fashion," she says, "Fashion isn't..."
"Fashion isn't everything," Jenna says. "That's why we invite Holly to our parties."
"Yeah," says Rachel. "It's... different, really, having someone else there."
They don't shake hands, as they've been sworn enemies for too long, but they do look at each other, each one most likely thinking, I might be wrong about this, there might be some good in her.
The trees rustle again, and my hair is blown into my face. I brush it back with my hands and for a second cast my eyes away to the inhospitable long grass of the playing field and the starless sky, and remember where I am.
"I suppose I better get home, really, seeing as I'm not going with Danny." Katie is the speaker, and she looks nervously along the streets. Danny opens his mouth...
And Rachel says, "My brother's got a car waiting for me, and seeing as you live up near my way you might as well come too."
"Thanks."
"Cheers, Rache," Danny says.
"We better get back to the Palace," Paul says. (The Palace, by the way, is the nightclub I called him from.)
"Yeah, I still owe you that drink," I say. "Anyone else coming?"
"All right then," Alister says. "You still owe me a date, Holly. Coming Dan?"
*
In a small huddle we trekked back across the park, and we left Rachel and Katie to go home with Rachel's brother (Rachel has a very assertive personality when she thinks about it, and she bullied him into taking her) and the rest of us went to the Palace. It's odd, really, what music can do to you, because I swear we were ready to become best friends as soon as we came out.
I'm going out with Alister next Saturday, and I'm paying. The logic behind this came from him, saying that if Sweaties and Trendies are equal, then so are boys and girls. And I asked him why he wasn't paying for himself (we'd be 'going Dutch' so to speak) and he said that I asked. And I said that was just a trick to get him to Andrews Road and he said that in that case it served me right.
The reason I didn't say no on account of Christian was that, although after a decent dose of alcohol it seemed like a good idea, he's my best mate and if I was any closer to him, he'd be my brother.
It's nothing really special between Alister and me, not like Danny and Katie, but then again, who knows. All I know is that if we have another date, he's paying.
*
"... And he said, 'It serves you right, then'," I say, although I'm speaking in Dutch. It's Sunday lunchtime, and I'm around Christian's house to welcome him out of hospital. Christian smiles. "Good for him, then. So what do you think will happen on Monday?"
"Absolutely no idea. Jenna knows now that Dinah helped Katie go out with Danny, Sarah's going to discover that Rachel gave Katie a lift home of her own accord and Katie and Danny are going to have to decide where they stand on the whole Sweaty/Trendy thing. Or sit, rather, that's a bigger issue. Is it me, or does this sound like some kind of soap?"
"Soap?"
"Sorry, that's my Dutch up the creek again. You know, soap. Series."
"Oh series," said Christian, who'd thought I wanted to clean myself with Danny and Katie. He says teasingly, "Have you given up on Shakespeare then?"
"Not completely, there's hope for Bill yet. Mind you, Shakespeare finishes at the curtain, in real life we have to go on and on."
And so I finish. I draw a curtain on these events past, but never forget them. You need to know how to resolve differences, and experience is the best teacher for that.
So give me your hands, if we be friends, and Holly shall restore amends.
THE END