Free Diary of a Chav by Grace Dent Page B

date or nuffin’, more like hanging out together in a four.”
    So I said, “Well what do I get out of that?!”
    And she said, “Oh come on Shizza, be a mate.”
    So it turns out that Carrie really wants to see Bezzie and vice versa, but Bezzie has promised Wesley that he’d hang out with him this Saturday ’cos Wesley had the day off at Argos where he works part time in the storeroom when he’s not doing his NVQ2 in Plumbing. So anyway, Bezzie was meeting Wesley and they were going to cruise about in Bezzie’s Vauxhall Nova and show off his new chrome exhaust and Carrie wanted to ride with them too.
    So I said again, “Yeah, Carrie, but why do you need me there?” So Carrie said well ’cos I’m her BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD of course, but also ’cos her dad, Barney, was giving her ’nuff grief about seeing Bezzie and he doesn’t want Carrie going around in Bezzie’s car, so Carrie wanted me to come over to Draperville and pretend we’re both going to the Multiplex to see
Hopeless In Love
starring Lindsay Lohan, but we weren’t really, we were meeting Bezzie and Wesley in Fatty Arbuckle’s parking lot and going for a ride.
    So I said to Carrie, “So you want me to lie to your father?”
    And Carrie said, “Oh get you, goody-two-shoes, what about last week when I had to back up your story to your mother about those Niko trainers getting stolen in PE when you really sold them to the Bean twins’ big sister for a tenner?”
    I shut up then and stuck some lipgloss on and my big parka with the fluffy hood and my big hoop earrings and decided to go and meet her.
    Barney wasn’t in when I got to Draperville, but Maria, Carrie’s mum, was. Maria was in the lounge area by their big dinner table arranging loads of orchids that she’d bought from Asda into a big glass vase. Carrie’s mum was asking me all about the movie we were going to see and I felt proper terrible about lying to her as Maria is a nice woman. I felt even worse when she gave us a tenner Easter money to spend on popcorn and hot-dogs. Carrie nearly pulled my arm off dragging me to Fatty Arbuckle’s as quick as she could.
    When we got there, Bezzie and Wesley were parked up in the disabled space and they beeped their horn and we got in. Wesley turned round in the front seat and smiled at me and said, “All right Shiraz?”
    So I said, “Yeah” and looked out of the window and blew a big Bazooka gum bubble while Carrie stuck her head through the seats and gave Bezzie a kiss, which he looked a bit shocked at.
    We set off into Ilford and I stuck my seatbelt on and made Carrie fasten hers too, even though there wasn’t much danger as we never went much over twenty-one miles an hour and there were old people my nan’s age passing us on Rascals.
    When we got into Ilford town center Bezzie rolled down the windows and flipped on the CD player and stuck on one of the G-Mayes Detonators’ new tracks called “Gun Bumpin’” which Bezzie told me and Carrie was all about how guns are dead bad and are totally destroying society. The chorus went like this:
    “Brap-brap-brap boi
    Am gun bumpin’.
    Brap brap brap —
    a got da crowd jumpin —
    Brap brap brap — got gun fingers frontin’
    Got ma gun in your mouth — now ya no dis boi is sumfin’.”
    Bezzie turned up the volume dead loud so it was blasting out of the trunk and the entire car was shaking and my ears were crackling. People in the street were giving us funny looks as we drove along and some people were smirking. They obviously couldn’t work out that the Detonators’ track was AGAINST guns not FOR them. That’s the thing about grown-ups, they just judge you and act prejudicial without even checking the facts out proper. I hope I’m never like that when I grow up. I hope I never just look at some young people and go, “Ugh, chavs!” just ’cos they’re wearing a hoodie or a Burberry scarf or listening to loud music. I’m not going to turn into a boring old fart who