Beat on the Brat by The Ramones. Fiction by Aimee Said

Siouxsie’s bedroom, suburbia, 2010

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I’m surprised to see that Siouxsie’s house is pretty much like ours. Even her bedroom (which I’d imagined would look like some sort of goth club cum artist’s studio) bears a startling resemblance to mine, except for the cool stereo in the corner and a huge Ramones poster over her desk.

“You like the Ramones?” I ask her.

“Yeah, that’s why the poster’s there.”

“Sorry, it’s just, well, they’re so … old. I thought I was the only one in Year 10 who liked them.”

“Are you kidding? Vicky just bought a copy of Rock’n’Roll High School on eBay signed by Joey Ramone himself.”

“Vicky?”

“I know, you wouldn’t pick her as a punk fan, would you?” Siouxsie laughs.

After an hour of making notes for the debate about Pride And Prejudice we’re pretty much done.

“Time for a break,” says Siouxsie, going over to the stereo and putting on a CD. Seconds later she’s jumping around like a woman possessed to “Beat on the Brat”.

“Come on, Freia,” she says, pulling me up from the chair. At first I just sort of stand there while Siouxsie pogos up and down and plays air guitar. When I realise that she’s not paying any attention to what I’m doing, I let loose with some side kicks and moderate headbanging myself. When the track finishes we fall onto the bed, puffed and laughing like loons.

I walk the five blocks home feeling lighter and happier, and I can’t explain why, except that when I saw that Ramones poster in Siouxsie’s room I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time in a long while.

 

© Aimee Said.  Aimee writes young adult fiction for fun and web content for money. This is an edited extract from her first novel, Finding Freia Lockhart, published by Walker Books Australia in 2010. Aimee has fond memories of pogoing in a sweaty crowd of Ramones fans at the Hordern Pavilion in 1989.