Candy and the Broken Biscuits

This is where Pirate comes in. I am marginally terrified about almost all of it but I’m 100 per cent convinced that it will work. Since Clarence put my head in that cloud on Saturday, anything seems possible. I feel like I’ve been given a preview of my future and I’m giddy at the thought.

Stomping over to the computer, Hol turns up Battle Royale by Does It Offend You, Yeah? Her bedroom is bigger than mine, but mostly pink and covered in pictures of princesses and ballerinas as she shares it with her two little sisters. On her way back to the bed she steps on a pointy, plastic doll.

“Bloody Norah!” she screams, face gripped by cartoon agony. I start laughing again, only just ducking out of Barbie’s way as Hol flings her at my head. I retrieve the doll and putting on my best Miss World voice.

“Pirate, don’t be mean to your friend Candy. She has news happier than dancing kittens and smiling unicorns!”

Hol ignores Barbie and levels her question at me. “What news is this, then?”

I jettison the thing into the toy landfill on the floor and scootch down to Hol’s end of the bed, removing my jumper-turban so as not to compromise either the gravity or brilliance of Clarence’s idea. Sensing something significant is about to happen, Hol removes her Rambo band.

“News of an unbelievably excellent plan. For The Biscuits. We need other members, right?”

Holly pushes her tongue under her bottom lip, crosses her eyes and screws her face up into a village-idiot expression, “NNnnuuh!!”

“A simple ‘yes’ will suffice, Rodgers. We need members, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And our efforts to get Operation Awesome off the ground have so far proved…well, useless really.”

She scowls.

“Although the OA concept has been fantastically executed and possessed of huge artistic charm.”

Placated, Holly gives a queenly nod. “Proceed.”

“Anyway I was thinking – you’ve got the right idea but maybe the wrong medium!”

“Medium?”

“Yeah – we need to reach out to people but in a way they’re going to, like, get excited by?” I take a little breath and feel a pang of guilt for passing off the ideas Clarence and I had talked about yesterday – Clarence’s ideas – as my own. “Hol, listen. What are the biggest music shows on TV?”

She gives me her trademark bored stare, one that you and I might throw at a wall of drying paint but that Hol reserves for teachers, siblings and other inferior life-forms. “There are no music shows on TV.”

I clear my throat. “Talent contests. Britain’s Got Talent. X Factor…”

“Are we counting those noises as music now?”

“OK the music’s terrible, but people love it. Millions of people! And the bit they love best is…?”

The Stare again.

“It’s the auditions, Holly. People love an audition – the chance to show off, the chance of success, the risk of rejection. Something about it captures their imagination. And even more than auditioning, people love to watch auditions.”

Half The Stare, half a frown of genuine confusion.

“Look. In two weeks, Mum and Ray are going away, right? On holiday to some mountain or other.”

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