I know this story is really random, but teenage lives are, aren't they? I know me and y friends talk about and do random things, so just because there is a life threatening curse on the buliding doesn't mean they can't have fun xD (And this chapter is basically the title- and when I looked at the HOA archive the other day while I was halfway through writing it there was a story with the Harlem Shake in it, so I'm not copying!)
We ran down the stairs, laughing and shouting as we went, but both of us at the exact same time slipped at the bottom of the staircase and skidded dramatically into the living room, Jerome doing jazz hands. Harry and Eddie were both sitting at the counter stuffing their faces with toast, and in Eddie's case, a stack of pancakes drizzled with maple syrup. I shuffled over to Harry and put my arms around his neck. "Morning." I murmured. "Actually, it's afternoon now." I added as an afterthought. Harry grunted in response and Eddie nodded, his cheeks so full of pancake he looked like a chipmunk. I went over to the fridge and brought out the large Sainsbury's carton of orange juice and took a few chugs.
"Don't let Trudy see you do that, she'll never forgive you." Eddie said after swallowing his mouthful of breakfast, then started shovelling the pancakes in his mouth again.
"Good to know." I replied and put the carton back. Jerome started whistling Monty Python's 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' and rummaged around in various cupboards before taking out a box of Coco Pops and setting it down on the counter.
"The Holy Grail of cereal." He joked and brought out two bowls and spoons from another cupboard. I reached into the fridge again and got out the milk as Jerome started pouring the cereal into the bowls. We added the milk and we both sat down and started eating, and all you could hear was Harry crunching on his toast.
"What're we doing today?" Harry asked in between mouthfuls of bread and jam. Eddie shrugged.
"Patricia's ditched me for Amber and Nina and Joy today. Have no idea where they are." Eddie told us.
"Video games?" Harry suggested.
"Maybe." Jerome replied. "Do you know where Alfie is?"
"No. Think he's with Nina and co."
"Harry, do you remember making videos at the orphanage?" I asked him as an idea popped into my head.
"Yeah."
"So…?" They really weren't catching on.
"Oh! You want to make a video?" Harry asked.
"Yeah!"
"Well, what ideas do you have?"
"Uh, I dunno."
The counter fell silent, with Jerome and Eddie milling over the idea of a video. They were deep in thought, as I could see Jerome straining to think of something. But it was Eddie who came up with the million dollar (or should that be pound?) idea.
"What about a Harlem Shake video?" He suggested, still stuffing remnants of a pancake into his mouth.
"What's a Harlem Shake?" Jerome asked us and me, Harry and Eddie mock gasped.
"You don't know what the Harlem Shake is?" Eddie asked, still pretending to be shocked.
"Wow, some of you boarding school kids are really deprived." Harry sneered.
"Pfft, forget Gangnam Style, the Harlem Shake is the new dance craze." I told him.
"It's basically a person dancing on their own to this particular song, and around the fifteen second mark, there's a jumpcut and everyone goes absolutely bonkers." Harry explained.
"Bonkers?" Eddie asked.
"Yes dear American Eddie, bonkers. If you don't know what it means then Urban Dictionary it. You've clearly not been in the UK for long." Harry replied.
"Well, let's do it then. I have a camera upstairs." Jerome declared and after eating the last of his cereal he bolted out of the door and charged upstairs.
"Where's Jerome heading to?" Alfie asked after he appeared in the doorway.
"Oh! Alfie! You have to help us with something!" I waved him over.
"Sure. What's up?"
"Well, we're making a Harlem Shake video and we might need some extras." I told him.
"Cool. But what's a Harlem Shake?"
"Shit, you boarding school numpties really are deprived." Harry remarked.
"We'll show you in a minute, but right now you need to get the craziest costume you can. The crazier the better."
"Okay then." Alfie grinned and ran upstairs too.
"Same goes for you two." I said to Harry and Eddie.
"Yes sir." Harry saluted and pulled Eddie away from his precious pancakes. I leapt up the stairs two at a time, and ran into Jerome on the landing, who was holding a very expensive looking Canon camera. "Hey, if you need a costume me and Alfie have built up quite the collection over the years."
"Okay then."
I followed Jerome back to his room where Alfie, Harry and Eddie were leafing through a massive trunk in the far corner. Well, when I say leafing, I mean throwing out garments onto the floor behind them.
"Oh my God, a feather boa!" Alfie exclaimed, and wrapped the hot pink feathers around his neck.
"Who's going to start the video?" I went over to them and asked.
"Eh, I will." Harry shrugged and found a silver morph suit, Mario hat, CSI style sunglasses and a neon green belt. "This is puuuuuurfect!" he said in his mock camp voice. Eddie found a life vest, snorkel, flippers and washing up gloves to wear, and Alfie found a cowboy hat, neon yellow tutu and a Gryffindor Hogwarts tie. I found a Hawaiian grass skirt, purple sparkly wig, a lei and a red and grey woollen bobble hat. Jerome chose some hideous black and yellow Bermuda shorts, an Australian cork hat, flip flops and blue surgical gloves. After some more rummaging he snatched the feather boa from Alfie's neck, almost choking him.
"Before we change, we have to start with Harry dancing in the middle in his costume on his own." Eddie dictated. Harry nodded and started to change into his morph suit.
"Oh, God Harry!" I exclaimed and covered my eyes.
"But we're family, Kayla." Harry teased. "Okay, you can look now." But his voice was muffled as his whole face was covered in the silvery latex. Eddie taped the CSI sunglasses to Harry's head as his ears were covered and Harry placed the Mario hat on his head and tightened the belt around his waist.
"Okay, the rest of us just sit around and ignore Harry making an idiot of himself in middle of the floor. We're gonna have to set the camera up in the corner and put it on a timer." Jerome nodded and retrieved a tripod from his desk and set it up on the bedside table near Alfie's bed. Eddie yawned.
"Tough night?" I asked him.
"Yeah, me and Patricia got in a little late."
I raised my eyebrow. "No! Not like that." Eddie redeemed himself and laughed. "I wish though…" he muttered.
"All set!" Jerome called. I clapped my hands together.
"Okay guys! Let's roll." We took our places in the room. Jerome was at his computer at his desk, Eddie was pretending to listen to music, Alfie was sleeping on his bed and I was reading a comic. The timer counted down on the camera and I started playing the music aloud on my iPod. But as soon as Harry started doing the Harlem Shake beginning dance, Jerome and Alfie promptly burst into fits of laughter.
"What?" Harry asked with a hand on his hip, which made him look even stupider.
"I-didn't know- that- was the- Harlem Shake!" Alfie cried between laughs.
"Oh my God, I can't breathe!" Jerome cried, tears in his eyes. After the two boys had calmed down we restarted the video, much to Harry's annoyance. The timer ticked, and the camera started recording and Harry started dancing, and in the corner of my eye I could see both Jerome and Alfie just about holding back their smiles and laughter. We recorded Harry for about twenty seconds which left us time to edit, and I gathered up my costume to get changed into in my own room.
"Don't you trust us?" Eddie smirked and pulled his shirt off.
"No, not really." I replied and went back to my own room. I found a plain blue vest top to wear with my hula skirt and I tied my hair up to make wearing a wig easier with a hat. I added some hot pink lipstick and blue eyeliner after I had got changed and bounded back down the stairs to the boys' room, and after entering the room again I laughed.
"What?" Eddie asked with a mouthful of plastic.
"You look so stupid." I replied.
"Says Lady GaGa." Jerome spoke up from pulling on the surgical gloves.
"Yeah." Alfie agreed and stepped into his tutu.
"Are you going shirtless?" I asked Jerome.
"Yeah, I mean, it goes with the Bermuda shorts, does it not?" Jerome said and pulled a strongman pose.
"Ha ha." Eddie laughed. "These flippers feel weird." He told us and started doing an Irish jig. "Look." He pointed at his feet. "They're too big."
"Shut it, whiner." Harry said and started spinning around on Jerome's computer chair.
"Are we ready?" I asked them. They all nodded. "OKAY THEN!"
"Oh, one more thing!" Eddie held up his finger and dashed down the hallway. He quickly returned holding an already blown up rubber ring. "This is puuuuuurfect!" he imitated Harry.
"PLACES EVERYONE!" Alfie shouted and jumped onto Harry's bed. Eddie took his place next to Jerome's bed and Jerome positioned himself near Harry, and I took my place behind him. The timer started counting down again and the click went off. Harry carried on his thrusting dance, and Eddie started pretending to swim across the room with his snorkel and rubber ring, Alfie started jumping up and down, Jerome started doing a camp version of the Macarena and started slowly inching sideways to the camera, and I started running around in circles and hitting everyone on the head with an inflatable hammer Jerome said he had won from a fair in the summer holidays. All was going well until Alfie jumped and slipped off Harry's bed and onto Jerome, and they both screamed and fell on the floor. This time it was me, Eddie and Harry that burst into fits of laughter.
"CUT!" Jerome screamed. "CUT!"
Eddie, who was still laughing, wandered over to the camera and stopped recording. Alfie clambered off Jerome who too started smiling at the incident, and then started laughing like there was no tomorrow. And at that very moment, the door opened.
"Guys, Trudy's made biscuits and is wander- what the hell!?" Fabian stopped in his tracks in the doorway after looking at our attire. We looked at him like we were completely normal and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with us. "Well… as I said… she's made biscuits." He muttered and left.
We all started laughing hysterically again, and I could just about hear Fabian talk to Amber in the hallway.
'No Amber, I wouldn't go in there if I were you. No, just don't.'
That just made me laugh even more. Jerome pulled the computer chair back up to his desk and connected the camera to the computer to start editing. Eddie was having a laughing fit and rolling around on the floor, Alfie was struggling to drink the glass of water Harry had given him after he had said he couldn't breathe, and Harry himself was desperately trying to pull off the morph suit and really failing. I climbed onto Jerome's lap and rested my legs over his thighs so I was sideways. After I had pulled the purple sparkly wig off my head and pulled out my hair tie Jerome took off his cork hat and placed it on my head.
"Suits you." He mused. I nodded dramatically and pecked him on the lips. Jerome opened Windows Movie Maker and uploaded the clips, and he waved Alfie, Eddie and Harry over to watch the unfinished footage. It began with Harry thrusting and Alfie and Jerome laughing, and when Jerome played the last clip we all laughed out loud again when Alfie fell onto Jerome. "Okay, so what do I need to do?" Jerome asked.
"Do fifteen seconds of the final clip of Harry dancing on his own, and mute the sound." Harry told him, whose morph suit was now twisted with one of his arms through the neck and the other folded inside the suit over his chest.
"'Kay."
Jerome cut the first clip to fifteen seconds and rid the video of sound, and pasted the other clip after the first one. He plugged my iPod into one of the computer jacks and copied the Harlem Shake audio into his files and added the music to the video. "Now what?"
"Cut the clip to when there's a sound like a lion roaring and make the last three seconds slow motion." Eddie told him. Jerome nodded and cut the clip.
"Oh my God! It's Alfie falling onto Jerome in slow motion!" Harry cried and started laughing again.
"Shall we watch the final product?" Jerome asked everyone.
"Hell yeah!" Alfie shouted. Jerome pressed play and let the comedy unfold. We laughed at Eddie's swimming routine, and me hitting him on the head and he faked drowning, and at Jerome's camp Macarena, and we laughed especially hard when Alfie fell onto Jerome in slow motion.
"Ha, we have to show the others this." Eddie said and started clapping.
"Yeah, but I'm getting changed." I said and got up from Jerome. I ran upstairs again, still with the cork hat, and changed into a Metallica concert t-shirt, black converse and grey leggings 'cause I'm lazy. I kept the hat on and bounded down the stairs again. I caught up with Jerome and the others at the top of the stairs and his arm slid around my shoulders, and he kissed me on the top of my head. In his hand I could see a CD which he obviously had burned the video on to. Without warning Harry screamed "WOO HOO!" and slid down the bannister and grabbed my hat, placing the garment on his head as he slid down the wood. I didn't even bother chasing after him. We entered the living room where conveniently everybody else in the house was lounging around and eating the biscuits Trudy had made.
"EVERYONE!" Jerome shouted and clapped his hands. "WE ARE GOING TO SHOW YOU A SHORT VIDEO, IN WHICH MYSELF, KAYLA, HARRY, EDDIE AND ALFIE ARE STARRING IN!"
The others gave us some weird looks, and Fabian started laughing, guessing that our exceptionally awesome costumes had something to do with it. Jerome hurried over to the DVD player and turned it on along with the TV, and slid the disc into the reader. He rushed back to the sofa where Alfie and Eddie were sitting and pulled me onto his lap, ready for the 'show'. It started with Harry, and immediately our housemates started laughing, and when it came to the jumpcut with Eddie swimming and Jerome's Macarena everybody was in stitches. And when it came to Alfie slipping onto Jerome in slow motion everybody was in tears.
"OH MY GOD! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
