The Girls from See Saw Lane by Sandy Taylor Page B

asked.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜No, really, really okay. The best I’ve ever looked?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Dottie—’
    â€˜You look fab,’ I said.
    â€˜Fab enough for Elton to notice me? Fab enough to stand out amongst all the other girls at the club? Because tonight is really important, Dottie. Tonight is my chance to impress the lead singer in a rock band! I mean, imagine that! Imagine me, Mary Pickles, going out with him, Elton Briggs. Imagine the band becoming really successful, like the Rolling Stones.’
    â€˜Imagine,’ I said.
    Mary sighed dramatically and clasped her hands to her heart. I rolled my eyes at her in the mirror.
    â€˜Hurry up,’ I said, ‘it’s my turn!’
    I tried to push past her, but she pushed her back onto the bed. Then she took a paper bag out of the pocket of her coat that was hanging on the hook on the back of the door and wiggled it in my face.
    â€˜Guess what I’ve got!’
    â€˜What?’
    She opened the bag to show me.
    â€˜False eyelashes!’
    â€˜Are you sure you know how to put them on?’ I said. ‘Sally at work said they’re really tricky.’
    â€˜It can’t be that difficult, Christine was wearing some the other day.’
    I turned over the packet to read the instructions.
    â€˜Mary, it says you need tweezers and a magnifying mirror and…’
    â€˜It’ll be fine. I’ll do yours first, then you can do mine.’
    Putting on the eyelashes wasn’t as easy as it looked. Mary somehow or other managed to put one of them on the wrong way up, so the lashes curled down over my eye, like a dead spider.
    â€˜I can’t go to a club looking like this,’ I said.
    â€˜You look fine.’
    â€˜No I don’t. I look stupid.’
    I went into the bathroom and managed to sort it out, but my eye had gone a bit pink and watery. I thought it would be best not to make a big deal of it. After that, I did Mary’s eyelashes and made a pretty good job of it, even if I do say so myself.
    We took it in turns to stand on the bed so that we could see ourselves in all our finery. Mum had slipped me some money to get something new for our evening out and I found a nice little blue top to go with my jeans. Mary was wearing a tight, pale green jumper and a skirt with a nipped-in waist. Her hair was held back with a ribbon and the eyelashes really suited her. They made her look much older and less innocent.
    â€˜Do I look nice, Dottie?’ she asked for about the millionth time.
    â€˜You look fab,’ I said.
    Mary and I had arranged to meet the boys inside the Whisky A Go Go Club. It was famous, not just in Brighton but throughout the whole country, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d expected. In my head I’d imagined bright lights and a glamorous entrance with swinging doors and rope banisters on the staircase, chandeliers and a red carpet like in a film. I thought everyone would be very glamorous too. Instead, it was down a side street and there were lots of rough-looking people hanging around outside, leaning on the walls and smoking and staring at us. The boys were mostly wearing T-shirts and had greased-back hair and tattoos up their arms and the girls were in very short skirts and were wearing sunglasses even though it was evening and the sun was close to the horizon. It made them look a bit sinister because we couldn’t see their eyes. On the main street, we could hear the roar of motorbike engines as the rockers rode through Brighton with their cigarettes trailing smoke as they looked for girls and excitement and trouble.
    Mary and I linked arms, which was always a bit difficult given the differences in our height, and we held onto one another tight. To get in we had to pay a tattooed man at the door, who squinted at us through his cigarette smoke and then pointed us through coloured plastic strips hung over the door frame down some very dark, narrow stairs