Girls Who Play Guitars

•drama in ellie-ville•

"Goodbye Ellie—"

"One more thing, Mr Amato," Ellie said before the door slammed in her face, "you should appreciate Kimmie for who she is - not who you want her to be!"

Ellie sniffed her tears in and headed back to her bike, her fury at herself and everyone else rising like a twelve-inch record played at 45 rpm.

This wasn't about Daniel. It wasn't even about Jessie. This was about holding onto—and being there for—her loyal friends.

She hitched her leg over the bike seat and pedalled blindly back along the bustling main street of Port Lagan, dodging reversing cars and wandering tourists. She wasn't wearing a bike helmet and hoped no one noticed, imagining the headlines in Tattler if she got arrested: 'Rock Rebel Without a Stack Hat' or 'No Helmet Hair for Slider's Ellie Devine'.

The shonky wheel on her bike finally gave out by the Post Office and she had to push her bike the rest of the way home. Ellie couldn't believe the same time last week she was on tour with Glue, getting interviewed by national newspapers, having her photo taken for guitar magazines. Now she shoved her cranky school bike along the edge of the sandy road in her old jumper and shorts, dusty and a mess from crying.

So much for the calm, controlled, edgy Ellie from Slider. This Ellie Devine was emotional and stressed, and her mind raced from too many things. She wasn't sure how much more she could take.

Thankfully no one was sitting on the front porch when Ellie wrenched her bike up the driveway. She stashed the bike back in the shed where she'd found it and tiptoed inside.

There was no sign of Daniel. Or Gav. Or James. Or her parents. Jupiter was there to greet her though, and she cuddled into his soft neck, feeling his thick fur under her chin, warm and musty.

Ellie took a lengthy, scalding shower; pulled on her old jeans and an Elastica hoodie she'd scored from Lachy.

The phone seemed to be constantly ringing. Thank God Ellie's parents had hooked up their answering machine because it was going off every ten minutes. Ellie didn't want to find out who was calling. She knew it was local busybodies, sneaky journalists who'd somehow got her home number, or her parent's friends who were curious about all the visitors.

Ellie knew she had to call Brenin, too.

But not before she found something that would prove they could win the case.

She got a quick bacon sandwich from the chaotic kitchen that still had the brunch dishes strewn everywhere and stood with her hands on her hips, surveying her bedroom. Her suitcase of papers still lay open on the floor. She knew there were two more boxes at the bottom of her wardrobe along with another pile of old videos and cassettes in the lounge, along with the ones she had in her room.

She pushed up the sleeves on her hoodie as Jupiter came over to her; sniffed at her hand.

"Hey Jupi, it's time to take Jessie down," Ellie said to him, rubbing at the short hairs on his warm head. "Let's do this."

Ellie popped open the cassette player so she could crank music while she searched. The demo tape Daniel had listened to the night before wasn't in the deck where she expected it to be. In fact, the cover was missing too. Maybe Daniel had taken it.

She pulled a tape down from her bookshelf where she'd arranged all her cassettes and CDs in alphabetical order last time she was home and jammed it into the deck and pressed play wanting the manic notes of AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck' help her search for evidence of Jessie being an evil mole.

As Angus Young's epic intro burst into the room from the tiny speakers, Ellie cranked the volume full blast and let the solid thickness of their cheese grater, dirty sound buffer away at the edges of worry she had in her head.