I’ve got two tickets to Iron Maiden, baby
Come with me Friday, don’t say maybe
I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby, like you

“I don’t know the chords,” admitted Music Man, “but I’ll improvise. If I get the right key. Does anyone know the words?”
His eyes roamed over Lightsinthesky (who was parked behind the drum kit), Leigh (who was clutching a borrowed guitar), and Einstein (who nominally played the trumpet, but had never brought it to school, except for jazz band). I didn’t have my violin with me, but I was there, hanging posters.
“All right,” I said huffily, “I’ll sing it.”

Not taking GCSE music, very few of us should have been in the rehearsal room, but there was going to be nobody to stop us. Music Man was taking it, of course, and most of us were in jazz band. That would be our excuse, if we were ever asked. Nobody ever asked. It was a tiny rehearsal room, anyway; you could barely fit a band in there. Einstein was perched on a side table, due to the dearth of chairs.

“Her name is Noel. I have a dream about her…”

We may have all loved music, but Lightsinthesky had an ulterior motive: Leigh. Several years ago, when I was 13, I offhand said that if I was a teenager, I may need a girlfriend. Lightsinthesky made it his mission to find me one, and randomly selected Leigh (who I didn’t know), before deciding that he’d rather have her, and spent the rest of his school life trying to do just that. The fact that she was in such a close proximity to him in the rehearsal room was a genuine surprise. They even tried to start a band together at one point.

“What’s wrong with my life,” he said in an undertone as the bell rang, “is that Leigh isn’t shagging me senseless every lunchtime.”
“She just played Teenage Dirtbag with you,” I pointed out gamely. “Well, us. I mean, I was singing lead, but you were there hitting things, so…”
“But she’s so intensely shaggable and…”

I’d stopped listening by that point. Singing Teenage Dirtbag by virtue of the fact that I was the only one who knew all the words was an unexpected high point. I suddenly had a vision of the trailer for the upcoming series of my life, Year 11, in which I’d be turning sixteen and taking GCSEs. It would be of all the main characters rocking out in the rehearsal room, except I’d have a microphone this time, and I’d also be wearing my new glasses. I hadn’t ever worn glasses beforehand. This was a new thing for me.

It would be filmed from a bird’s-eye view in vibrant colour and I still regret never making it.

Two years later and we were back in the rehearsal room, accompanied once again by Leigh, plus the girl who had a crush on Music Man and Lightsinthesky, who had become a bassist, because apparently that’s how you get all the ladies. We had moved on from Wheatus by now, and Music Man was teaching us how to play RHCP. We did a fairly good Californication, as long as my guitar was turned down enough. Lightsinthesky got over his distate for pink and jeans as long as Leigh was wearing them.

I was having a much more interesting 17 than I had assumed my 16 would be. I’d be having my first kiss and, eventually, sex for the first time. I’d spend the first term of year 13 a lot more confident than my fractious year 12.

Somebody started playing Dammit by Blink-182 at one point, and everyone gradually joined in. I still didn’t have a mike, but I knew all the words.

“Well, I guess this is growing up,” I yelled over the racket, chancing a sideways look at Leigh, looking for all the world like she was living her best life…

…and beaming at me.