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Main > Series > Chapters > Fame Annual 1985 > Down At The Funhouse
Holly swallowed hard. It was the note that Miss Grant had given her to pin up on the notice board. If the not was where the letter should have been - where was the letter? She scrambled though the contents of her bag, spilling two combs, a purse and some Kleenex onto the table. There was no sign of the letter. Leaving her lunch on the table, Holly raced out of the room, her heart pounding. Surely she couldn't have been that absentminded, that stupid? When she saw the crowd of students laughing round the notice board she knew she could. In her haste to get a seat in the lunch room she had pinned up Lesley's letter instead of Miss Grant's note. Holly pushed her way through the crowd. At the board, Coco was reading out loud. “Dear Holly, what a time we had! Pity your parents had to catch us out. I don't think they really approve of me. Anyway, I'll try to get to see you when I'm in town. All my love, Les.” Holly reached up for the letter, but Coco beat her to it. “All my love, huh? said Coco with a mischievous smile. “I guess Les must be one cool cat. What did he do that was so bad it made your folks mad?” “But - but -” stammered Holly. “Still, he must be something special for you to broadcast your love over all the school,” said Coco, finally handing the letter back to Holly as the rest of the crowd whooped and yelled. Holly's face grew redder and redder. “It's not what you think -” she began lamely. Danny interrupted her with some good-natured teasing. “So now you're a mind-reader as well as a fox? How do you know what we think? Or are you even more of a black sheep than we thought you were?” Holly's embarrassment was turning to anger. They thought they were all so clever. Fox? Black sheep? If they'd all grow up a bit they might get close to the truth. “As a matter of fact, Les is quite different to what you think,” she said, pinning Miss Grant's notice up on the board. “Has he got two heads?” asked Danny. “Four legs? Eight arms?” “No. Les id just different.” “Well, we'll find out when he comes to visit you, won't we?” said Coco. “You will be showing him off to us, won't you? After all, if he's good enough to put up on the notice board, he's good enough for us to meet, right? Unless you're scared that one of us beautiful girls is going to steal him from you?” Coco danced away down the corridor, laughing. Danny led the others in the barrage of questions about her new boyfriend. By the time the music lesson started, Holly had had enough. As Professor Shorofsky explained how the envelope of human hearing ranged from the barely audible rustling of leaves at 3dB to the physically painful 140dBs jet engine at fifteen feet, Holly cursed herself for not explaining properly. How ere the others to know that Les was a girl? That in the holidays she and Holly had gone to a rock concert that finished two hours later than scheduled? That when they finally got back, Holly's parents had been chewing the carpet with worry and were on the verge of calling the police? It has all blown over, of course, but Holly's parents, as parents often do, had put most of the blame on Les. And now Holly had either to produce a boyfriend or admit that she'd let the others think the wrong thing. When she saw Danny grinning at her across the class her toes curled inside her sneakers and she groaned inwardly. “I beg your pardon. Miss Laird?” asked Shorofsky. “Nothing, professor.” “Although the acuity of the human being's ability to decipher sounds lessens with age, even someone of my advancing years is unlikely to -” “I'm sorry, Professor Shorofsky, I was just thinking out loud.” “Pleas don't,” said Shorofsky, wiping his glasses and holding them up to the light. “Just try and utilise that part of the body we are discussing.” “Yes, Professor.” That evening after school, Holly went to the café where Bruno worked to catch up on the lunch she had missed. Chris was there, with Coco, and they were both looking worried. When Holly sat down with them she found out why. “I got this friend from England,” explained Chris. “He's over here on holiday for a while.” Chris flipped a photograph of a handsome young man leaning on a motorbike onto the table. He was lean and muscular and his dark hair fell across his left eye. “He wanted to look round, so I left him with some other friends of min,” Chris continued. “At least, I thought they were my friends. They were driving across town when a cop stopped them and a fight started. The cop got knocked out and now there's an APB on them.” “What's your friend's name?” asked Holly, studying the photograph. “Mickey.” “Surely the cops won't know that?” “They've got his description. I know Mickey well and I know he wouldn't harm a fly. The guys I left him with must have blown their hatches. Now all of them are on the run.” “Do you know where they're hiding out?” asked Coco. “Nope. I said I'd meet Mickey here after school. I've just got to hope he makes it. If I can get Mickey to the cops before the cops get to Mickey, this whole thing could be straightened out.” “But we don't know where he is.” “No.” Holly ate a pizza in silence as Chris bemoaned the fact that Mickey was a stranger in town. They were all aware of how dangerous this could be, especially with the cops on his tail. Eventually Chris stood up. “I can't wait any longer, he said. “I'm going to look for him.” “Don't be stupid, this is a big town,” warned Coco. “I know it. But I also know that Mickey is crazy about discos. He kept trying to get me to promise to take him to some of the good ones. Maybe he's hiding out in the disco crowds.” “You want me to come too?” asked Coco. Chris looked at Holly. “We need somebody here in case Mickey rings. How about it, Holly?” Holly tried to hide her emotions behind a sip of coffee. She didn't need this kind of interference. She didn't want to seem uncaring, but after all - Coco had made her the butt of the joke about Lesley. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I promised I'd be in early.” “That's OK,” said Chris, turning back to Coco. “Now if anybody rings, you come and find me, right?” “Right.” Chris left the café and Bruno brought two more coffees over. As Holly sipped hers she could feel Coco's eyes staring accusingly over the table at her. She was about to try and explain when Bruno returned with an excited look on his face. “Where's Chris gone?” he asked. “I've just had Mickey on the phone.” “Chris is looking for him in the discos,” said Coco. “Which ones?” “I don't know. He's working his way west.” “Well, Mickey's at The Funhouse on West 26th Street. He didn't sound too happy. He's given the other guys the slip, but when I told him to turn himself in he wasn't having any.” “Thanks, Bruno,” said Coco, standing up ready to leave. “I'm going straight to The Funhouse to talk to him. By the time I find Chris, Mickey might have gone.” “You're right, Coco,” said Bruno, picking up Coco's half empty cup. “I'll stay here in case Chris rings.” Coco thanked Bruno again, cast a haughty glance at Holly, then walked out onto the street. As she was hurrying towards West 26th Street, she was so wrapped up with her mission that she didn't give a second glance to the tall man in the long grey overcoat, reading the paper in a doorway across the road. But Holly, watching Coco leave with a mixture of conflicting emotions, spotted him straightaway. And when he folded up his newspaper and set out after Coco, she knew. He was a cop, and Coco was leading him straight to Mickey. Holly took a piece of paper out of her bag and quickly wrote a note. It said, COCO - THEY'RE ON TO YOU - I'LL TAKE OVER. She ran out of the café and sprinted the opposite way round the block, hoping to catch Coco before she reached the next intersection. Holly only just made it. Coco was waiting for the lights to change when Holly, for the first time in her life using the comedian's prat-fall she thought she was wasting her time studying, stumbled into Coco and thrust the crumpled note into her hand. “What the -?” said Coco. “Sshhh! Keep going!” hissed Holly, steadying herself and hurrying on. Coco looked around her and for the first time she noticed the man in the overcoat who was tailing her. She crossed the street and then took a sharp right, away from West 26th Street. Holly checked her purse. Thirty-six dollars twenty-two cents. Most of it was towards her rent, but this was an emergency. She hailed the first cab passing and, amazingly, it stopped. “The Funhouse,” she said, getting in. “You got it,” said the driver, a middle-aged man with a red baseball hat. “Are you a professional dancer?” Holly laughed. As the taxi sped towards the disco she got an inkling of how it must feel to be one of the vast legion of New York's fun-loving party goers, out dancing and laughing night after night. At first the idea excited her, but she knew, deep down, that the whole scene was an illusion, that underneath the glitter and the easy friendships there was a desperate kind of loneliness that had no part in her future as a serious actress. The taxi pulled up and Holly got out and paid the driver. She hurried, head down, past three men in white bomber jackets, then went through the mirror maze that served as an entrance to The Funhouse. Inside, it took Holly some time to get her bearings. Ear-splitting music boomed out of the speakers and flashing lights shone intermittently on the paintings of the clowns and acrobats on the walls. In the middle of the floor, young men and women were slamming and breaking to the sounds of Madonna. One entire wall was covered by a huge three-dimensional clown's head which housed the DJ at the centre of its manic smile. There was no sign of Mickey. “Hey - you wanna dance?” Holly turned and saw one of the white jacketed men she had seen outside. She quelled the sudden fear she felt in her stomach and ran through her repertoire of roles for a suitable one to play. She finally settled on an English duchess that owed a lot to Barbara Stanwyck's playing in The Lady Eve. “I'm so frightfully, frightfully sorry, but I'm somewhat enervated from riding to hounds this morning. And then I got stuck on the wretched tube. I was trying to get to the Embassy to see Uncle Buffy, don't you know. “Uhh?” “Be a dear and close your mouth,” said Holly in her clipped English voice, pushing past the man and making her way through the mass of dancing couples, across the floor and onto the balcony. It was less crowded up there, and within minutes she saw, sitting in one of the plush chairs with his back to the wall, a young man she recognised immediately as Mickey. “Listen, you don't know me, but I know you,” she said, taking a seat next to him. His worried frown broke into an amused smile. “That's a new line to me,” he said, his bright blue eyes twinkling in the light. “It's true,” said Holly, finding it difficult not to smile herself. “I go to school with Chris - he's out looking for you right now.” “That guy has some weird friends. We got stopped for speeding and one of them a skinny little fellow who would have to run round in a shower to get wet, started shouting police harassment. The cop didn't like it but the kid kept on. The cop cuffed him and then the balloon went up. I was glad to get away from the.” “You're safe for now,” said Holly, “but the police have got your description. Chris says if you turn yourselves in he'll be able to clear everything up.” “Well . . .” said Mickey, mulling the problem over. “I suppose that's best -” Mickey didn't finish his sentence. Holly, having seen two policemen on the edge of the dance floor, looked over the crowds of revellers, suddenly embraced him, hiding his face from their gaze. “Cops, she whispered. “Kiss me.” Mickey didn't need telling twice. He took Holly in his arms and kissed her gently, tenderly watching over her shoulder as the cops continued their search. And when they gave up and left, he kept right on kissing. “If beauty were a minute - you'd be an hour,” he sighed, finally releasing her. “You're pretty cute yourself, boy,” replied Holly, slowly breaking away. “But now you've got to go to the police station.” “Can't we have just one dance?” Holly looked down at the dance floor. The frantic dancing had stopped and Smokey Robinson's milk chocolate vocals were flying on a cloud of violins as couples moved slowly together. “No time,” she said, snapping her act together. “Let's go.” When they reached the police station they were surprised to see Chris there, talking to Coco and the man in the long grey coat. Mickey was taken to an upstairs room to explain things, and before he went he took time out to thank Holly once again. With a long, lingering kiss in the middle of the police station . . . . “Okay, you guys,” said the policeman eventually. “Break it up.” As he led Mickey up the stairs Coco linked her arm with Holly's. “That's enough excitement for one night, girl,” she said, smiling. “Now I'm taking you home.” “Coco,” said Holly as they walked down the police station steps, “there's something I want to tell you . . . about that letter from Les. . .” “I'm sorry I made fun of you.” “It's just that -” “Forget it, girl - you're going home.” The following day, as Chris stood on the street outside the school, rapping like a Texas cattle auctioneer, and Danny, Doris and Coco danced in a tight circle, Holly turned the corner into the street more convinced than ever that, with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, she was going to make it. She was smiling to herself when she climbed the stairs. “You look like you had a good night,” called Danny. Holly ignored him. “Another date with the four-armed, two-headed Les? Or was it the creature from the Black Lagoon?” “Neither,” said Holly calmly. Why should she worry? She was young, free, and on her way. And she's already had a phone call from Mickey. Two seats at the Ziegfield for the new Richard Gere movie sounded like a pretty good way to spend the evening. “Let me see . . .” Danny went on, imitating an absent-minded professor. “It wasn't the creature . . . it wasn't the Beast from Fifty Fathoms . . . I know for a fact he's hot for the Werewolf Woman . . . so . . . don't tell me, Holly . . . not Gorgozilla the vampire cheese? He's too old for you and he can't -” “Danny,” said Coco, quietly but firmly interrupting. “Yes?” “Shut up.” And while Danny clutched his heart like a mortally-wounded soldier, they all filed into the building to start another day.
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