ONE

Right.

I’ll start by introducing myself. Then the band. We’re the most important people in this, I suppose.

I’m Lucy and I’m fourteen. I’m white with brown hair and I’m ‘curvy’, according to my mum. That probably means I’m a bit fat even though everyone tells me I’m not. I live in north-west London with my mum and my big brother, but my nan might as well live here too. Actually, Sinead might as well live here too. Sinead’s my best mate and she’s a nutter, but you’ll meet her soon.

Our house is falling apart. Well, it’s not really. It just looks like it is because stuff is coming off the walls on the outside – the ‘pebbledashing’, it’s called. All these white clumps are crumbling off the walls, leaving patches of old red brick underneath. I didn’t mind the red brick, though. It reminds me of the start of Coronation Street. Mum said she’s going to track the builders down and sue them. Nan said she’s going track them down, line them up and knee them all in the bollocks. She’s got metal in her knee, so that would really hurt. It happened in the 1960s after she climbed up the gates of Buckingham Palace. She was trying to get a glimpse of the Beatles when they went to get their MBEs from the queen, but she fell off the gates and shattered her knee cap. She says it was worth it to get a glimpse of Paul McCartney. She still fancies him now. ‘Ooh. I bet Paul’s a right goer,’ she says. Yuck.

I’d fall off a royal gate for Owen Mistry. Any day of the week.

Anyway, I got a bit sidetracked there and introduced a few other people. But mentioning Owen (yum) brings me nicely on to the band. They’re called Gonna B. And they’re at number one in the single and album charts right now. There are five of them: Owen, Paul, Lawrence, Rob and Daniel. They’re all quite different – it’s supposed to mean they can appeal to more people.

Owen’s the most important member of Gonna B, because he’s my favourite. He’s from Harrow, near here, so we’ve probably been to loads of the same places. I do all my shopping in Harrow now because I know I could be stepping on the same floors he has stepped on. He’s half-Asian. There’s probably never been an Asian guy in a boyband before, so Owen is as close as it gets. He’s tall with smooth, brown skin and he’s just so fit. He’s the best singer too. Some people think Daniel is the best, but that’s rubbish because Daniel hit a bum note on Richard and Judy a few months ago and Owen has never hit a bum note. My main ambition is to have a proper chat with Owen when no one else is there and him to know my name. Well, my main ambition would be to marry him, but at school they tell us you should make your goals SMART. SMART= specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-bound. So I want us to have a chat and for Owen to know my name within the next year. There’s still the ‘agreed’ part and Ok, Owen hasn’t agreed, but he’s nice to his fans, so I reckon it’ll be OK.

Me and Owen have got loads in common, as well as being from near each other. I like singing, although I’m not as a good as him. I practice, though. All the time. In front of my mirror with a hairbrush. Yeah, I know that’s what everyone does and you look like a bit of a dick when you do it, but I practice properly. I can make my voice do that wobbly thing now and everything. Owen’s parents are split up he hasn’t seen his dad for years, same as me. He says he’d never abandon his kids and is determined to be a good dad one day, which is really sweet. His favourite subjects at school were English and music and that’s the same as me. He liked history too, so I’m trying a bit more in history – even though our teacher looks like Rod Stewart and walks on the desks shaking a metre ruler at people. We both love Indian food. Tandoori Hut down the road probably isn’t quite the same as Owen’s mum’s home cooking, but still....

Sinead likes Paul the best. She always goes for the bad boy types. Me and her do this thing we call ‘imagining’, where we make up stories about me being with Owen, and her being with Paul. We do it on the way to and from school and we take turns at making stuff up. At the moment, Sinead is telling a story where me and Owen have an argument. It’s because Owen was playing his Stevie Wonder albums too loud while I was trying to write a song (I’m a famous singer in it too and Owen and me met after doing a duet at the BRIT awards, then ended up living together in a luxury house in Hampstead). During the row, I end up throwing loads of Owen’s shoes out of the window and one nearly hits the old Irish man who lives next door in the face. The old man shouts, ‘you pair of shit-houses!’ at us. Me and Sinead pissed ourselves laughing at that bit so much that we couldn’t carry on. Sinead got that from this drunk man we always see on the bus who shouts out that he’s an ‘IRA rebel’ and calls loads of people shit-houses (especially George Bush). She does a wicked Irish accent too, seeing as her parents are from there. I’ve got to carry on our ‘imagining’ on tomorrow. I think I’ll make Owen feel so bad about the argument that he proposes to me or something.

Anyway, I should tell you more about the band: Gonna B are linked with a reality TV show, which is also called Gonna B. But it’s not like Pop Idol or X Factor. The band had already been put together and had a manager (he’s called called Stephen Braston, but we call him Sleazy Bastard). It’s like a documentary of the band doing all their normal band stuff: Writing and recording songs, rehearsing for gigs, going to hairdressers and clothes shops, going to the gym, seeing stylists, chilling out together and having meetings with Sleazy Bastard. Sometimes you get to see other parts of their lives too, like Owen going to see his mum, which is so cute because he loves her so much. We also saw Daniel and Keeley snogging once, which was a bit nasty.

But with the TV show, we get to vote on things at the end of each programme. We voted on what their first single should be, what dance routine they should use at their Astoria gig, whether Paul should eat less McDonalds and whether Owen should grow his hair (I didn’t bother voting as he’d look gorgeous even if he had a comb-over, like my Science teacher). Once, Lawrence got texted by an ex-girlfriend asking if he wanted to meet up, but everyone voted ‘no’, so he couldn’t meet her. He started threatening to self-harm that night and had to be sent to his counsellor, Sarah.

Gonna B have been around for about a year now. And I’ve met them. Loads of times.