Live and Fabulous!

by Grace Dent

  “Well, when you put it like that,” mutters Claudette.

  “Right. Daphne,” snaps Fleur, clapping her hands, “please tell me you’ve got a jack, a wrench and a spare tire?”

  “Obviously,” says Daphne huffily.

  “Good, well, let’s roll then, girls,” Fleur says. “Claude, you can give me a hand with the heavy stuff, ’cos you’ve got the biggest muscles.”

  Fleur holds out one dainty sugar-pink-tipped hand. “And besides, I’ve just had these false nails stuck on and they were très kar-ching. I’ll be devastated if I break one.”

  Claude and I stare at each other apprehensively.

  Fleur ignores us, snatching the car keys from Daphne’s hand and opening the trunk. Then she turns to us, getting quite exasperated.

  “Oh, c‘mon, you wet farts! We wanted an adventure, didn’t we?” she scoffs. “Right. Daphne, stop being rubbish and stick the car into gear with the handbrake on, s’il te plait? Claude, take this wrench and help me get this hubcap thingie off.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I say, feeling quite surreal.

  “You hold this jack. I’ll tell you where and when to stick it in,” Fleur tells me, winking.

  “Hey, we’re just like a proper Formula One team!” smiles Claude.

  “We’re a lot hotter than your typical pit stop crew,” says Fleur, taking a pink scrunchie off her wrist and thrusting her blonde locks on top of her head in a pineapple style.

  “Right, Claude, first we’re going to loosen these wheel nut thingies, but don’t go postal and take them right off. Then once the jack’s in, you’ll be in charge of pumping it up.”

  “Okay,” says Claude.

  “I’m a bit scared,” I say. My lip feels a bit wobbly.

  “Don’t be daft, Ronnie. It’s all going to be coolio,” smiles Fleur. “Anyway, what’s the point of being dangerous bambinos if we never do anything dangerous?!”

  Daphne is staring at the LBD in utter disbelief at what she’s allowing. This Mini is her pride and joy.

  “Now, important, girls, everyone keep your schnecks well out when we’re jacking the Mini up, as we don’t wanna get any bits of us under the car. No one get squished, right? That’s totally the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve.”

  “No problem,” says Claude, beginning to loosen the nuts.

  It sounds so weird hearing Fleur taking charge. I can’t help but admire her, even if she does make an unlikely mechanic in minuscule hot pants and a sequined disco top.

  “Ronnie, you’re on!” shouts Fleur. As Claude finishes the last silver nut, I maneuver the heavy, clumsy jack into position and screw it into place securely.

  Fleur pauses for a second, staring at my handiwork, furrowing her brow. “Right, Claude, that’s gotta be right. Start jacking!” shouts Fleur, Claude begins to pump the lever, using her toned biceps. At first nothing happens, but then something miraculous occurs.

  “Ooh my God, look! It’s rising! It’s rising!” squeals Fleur, sounding much more like herself as just over a ton of metal and engine begins to ascend an inch at a time.

  “I don’t believe it!” says Daphne.

  “Oh my God, we’re doing it!” I shout, putting my hand to my mouth in surprise.

  “This is so ace!” laughs Fleur, rolling the spare wheel closer to the jacked car. “Now, that is proper bird power, eh?”

  “Ooooh, hang on a minute,” says Daphne nervously. “It looks like we’ve got some company.”

  Daphne’s right. A scruffy yellow van covered in spray-painted graffiti has pulled in behind us, honking its horn. This is largely caused by Fleur bending over, showing more peachy butt cheek than common decency allows.

  Honk! Honk!

  Claude stops pumping and stands up straight, hands on her hips.

  “Bonjour-o, chickadees!” leers a voice from the van’s passenger seat.

  “Phwoaaar, you girls can check my oil gauge any day!” squawks another voice, which seems to come from the back of the van.

  “It’s those lads from the service station!” squeaks Fleur, immediately pivoting round on one heel and frantically pulling her blonde locks out of the scrunchie. “Hello, boys!” she purrs, twinkling her hand.

  “Having problems, ladies?” asks the van’s dark-haired, rather tanned driver.

  “We’re fine, thank you,” assures Claude primly. “Almost finished, actually.”

  Fleur pokes Claude in the stomach.

  “Oooooh, well, we’re not sure, reeeeeally,” contradicts Fleur, employing a suddenly baby-dollish voice. “You see, we think we may have got one of those silly puncture things in our wheel, but we’re not sure? You know what we girls are like! We don’t have a clue!”

  Claude rolls her eyes. I stifle a titter.

  “Hey, do you want me to have a look?” suggests the dark-haired guy. “I mean, we can’t just leave you girls stranded, now, can we?”

  “Oooooh, hee hee!” titters Fleur. “That would be sooooo fantastically kind of you! Thank you very much, er, sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Oh, good grief,” mutters Claude.

  “Joel,” says the driver, switching off the engine and getting out. Joel must be about eighteen years old, with close-cropped brown hair and sort of tufty brown sideburns. He has deep hazel eyes and a smattering of stubble. Okay, dagnamit, he’s actually rather lush. He probably knows it though—his type always does.

  “And you are?” Joel asks, smiling and holding out his hand.

  “Fleur Marina Swan, enchanted to meet you, Joel,” purrs the blonde vixen.

  “Daphne,” waves Fleur’s big sister slightly coldly.

  Then Joel spots me trying to mop oil off my forehead with a wet wipe.

  “Oooh, I’m Veronica ... ,” I tell him, beginning to babble. “Er, I mean Ronnie, well, people call me Ronnie anyhow, or sometimes just Ron ... You can call me Ronnie.”

  “Okay, Ronnie,” laughs Joel as I flush an uncool shade of cerise.

  “I’m Claude,” announces Claudette, shaking Joel’s hand firmly. “So anyway, are we changing this tire correctly or what?”

  Joel crouches down by the front tire as the rest of his motley crew tumble out of the van.

  “Gawwwwd, don’t ask Joel, he can’t even change his underpants without an instruction sheet!” remarks a blond shaven-head lad in baggy pale blue jeans and a white vest, his left arm a mesh of Celtic tattoos.

  “Shut it, Damon!” retorts Joel, looking at the perfectly jacked wheel, then turning to the LBD with a curious expression. “You’ve changed tires before, right?”

  “Ooooh, well, not really, just a lucky guess,” simpers Fleur.

  “Er, well, you lucky-guessed right,” Joel says. “You just need to finish the job now.”

  “Oooh my God! That is such a cool tattoo!” squeals Fleur, pointing at a sun rising from the nape of Damon’s neck. Trust Fleur to become distracted from her job by the merest sniff of testosterone. “Spike Saunders has got one like that on his bum crack!” she squeaks. “Hey, who’s got any more they want to show us?”

  Within seconds, Fleur has totally led second mechanic Claudette astray, making her examine Damon’s rather broad, heavily tattooed back, while two other lads, Nico with black curly hair and Franny with longer blond hair, are throwing off their T-shirts and swapping tall tales about eight-inch needles and fainting in tattoo parlors.

  “Don’t worry, Ronnie, I’ll give you a hand,” the more introverted Joel says to me. “Well, unless you want to be here all day.”

  “Ooh, no, we’ve got to get to Astlebury tonight,” I say. “We need to erect our tent before nightfall.”

  Noooo! Isn’t that the most un-rock ’n’ roll thing you have ever heard? I have never used the word “nightfall” before in my entire history of being. Why have I gone all Shakespearean? Shut up, Ronnie, shut up now!

  Sadly I don’t.

  “We want to get a good camping spot, y‘see? Y’know, not too close but not too far away
from the toilets?”

  Gnnnggngngnn!

  “Has someone got a weak bladder?” Joel chuckles, batting his long brown eyelashes as he wrestles with the wrench.

  “Ooh, not me!” I laugh, letting out an inadvertent snort. “Got a bladder like an elephant! I can plod for ages!”

  I stop wittering. Joel is staring at me.

  “You can plod for ages?” he repeats.

  “Without, er, weeing,” I say shamefully, feeling utterly defeated.

  I wish Daphne had just driven that damn Mini into a tree.

  “Now, that’s quite a party trick,” laughs Joel as we begin fitting the new tire together. This gives me cause to come very close to Joel’s chest, which, I might add, smells rather sumptuously of expensive aftershave and a hint of washing detergent. This differs slightly from my beloved Jimi, who very often smells of clothes retrieved from the laundry basket and WD-40 oil.

  “Saying that,” laughs Joel, “it’s not as impressive as our Franny. He can regurgitate beer into a pint glass, then re-drink it!”

  “Euuuuughhh, groooooossss!” I moan.

  “Tell me about it,” says Joel. How someone as sensible as him ended up kicking about with such a raggle-taggle bunch is quite a mystery.

  Joel hands me back the jack, which I place into Daphne’s trunk, spying her chattering quietly on her mobile phone. Daphne takes her voice down lower when she spots me.

  “So, anyway, we’re on our way to Astlebury too,” Joel says, wiping his hands.

  “Oh, really?!” I say.

  “You didn’t think we were an amateur breakdown service, did you?” he chuckles.

  I look around. While Claudette is comparing lat muscles with Damon, Nico appears to be doing press-ups on the tarmac in a bid to impress Fleur.

  “Er, not really,” I smile.

  “Hey, they’re done!” shouts Fleur. “Let’s hit the road! Thanks, Joel!”

  “Maybe see you down around the Hexagon Stage?” says Joel, obviously just being kind.

  “Er, yeah. Maybe!” I begin, suddenly feeling very disloyal.

  “Ronnie, in the car now,” yells Claude, interrupting us. “We’re well behind time, gotta push on now.”

  Joel smiles at me, shoving his gang into the yellow van, which is packed with guitars and rucksacks.

  “See ya, weird bird,” shouts Damon, winking at Claude.

  “Bye-bye, Damon!” says Claude pretend-primly. “Hey, and try not to get any more tattoos. You look like a freak.”

  Damon crosses his eyes, jumping into the van.

  “Bye! Thank you!” we all chorus, and then Britain’s best-looking breakdown team disappears in a cloud of dust.

  “Are we nearly there yet?” sing-songs Fleur as we rejoin the motorway.

  “We’re about one hundred and fifty miles away,” says Daphne, checking her mirrors. “But we quit the motorway in about an hour and hit some narrow, winding country roads up to Marmaduke Orchards, so we’ll slow right down then. That’s when I need your map skills, Claude.”

  “No worries,” beams Claude, who seems to be curiously extra chipper since the flat tire incident.

  Quickly, Fleur is facedown in Red Hot Celebs, while Daphne witters to Claude about the Nepalese transport system. I’m resting my face against the warm back window, zoning out to the sounds of the traffic.

  “Get out of the way, you old dinosaur!” mutters Daphne as we trundle along behind a midnight blue Volkswagen Beetle, going more slowly than I can run. “I want past you!” says Daphne mock-crossly. “You’re in the fast lane!”

  “Awww! Check out the picnic baskets and the tartan rugs,” chuckles Claude. “He’s just an old guy on a day out, bless him!”

  As Beetle bloke takes the hint and switches lanes, Claude and Daphne carry on blathering. I rest my head again, catching a millisecond glimpse of the Beetle’s passengers as we pass them; the driver is an ancient man with a tweed bonnet and a white twirly mustache. He looks like Sherlock Holmes. Sitting beside him is a far younger man with sandy blond hair wearing a red hoodie. In a flash we’re past the Beetle, hurtling way ahead.

  Gnnnngn, that’s it! I’ve officially gone bonkers! I think to myself. I’ve actually begun seeing things!

  I take a deep breath and shut my eyes. Rapidly I’m drifting soundly off to sleep, where my fuddled mind is replete with stuffing golden rucksacks and sandy hair and splattered eggshell. And yellow vans full of mushed banana and giant chess pieces.

  And filling Fleur’s stiletto boots with tea. And Job banging his drum in the kingdom of heaven and eventually being thrown into the Caldwell River and borrowing Jimi’s shirt. And catching tiny pieces of rolled-up magazine in my open mouth.

  Hang on.

  I’m not dreaming that last bit.

  “Stop it, Fleur. She might choke,” Claude nags Fleur.

  “I’m trying to wake her up!” says Fleur, throwing another ball of ripped-up magazine at my open gob. “She’s been asleep like that for hours, she looks like a flipping Venus flytrap.”

  “Come on, Ronnie. It’s time to wake up now,” Claude says quietly.

  I open one sleep-jammed eye. Outside of the Mini, the sun is beginning to set. We’re traveling at a snail’s pace now. A convoy of vehicles reaches out before and behind us as far as the eye can see.

  “Ronnie, are you with us?” Claude says, poking me ever so gently in the shoulder.

  “Ronnie! We’re here,” says Fleur.

  Chapter 5

  fruit, freaks and fairy wings

  Maybe I’m still dreaming.

  As the Mini Cooper wends its way upward on the twisty, rather steep dirt track, right, then left, then right again, the pungent smell of ripe fruit floods into our car. On either side lie the most breathtaking orchards, boasting row upon row of laden apple trees. Luscious red fruits crowd every leafy branch, scattering down messily over the grass and soil below, squishing under the tires of the festival traffic. Enough apples to keep Nana in crumble, pies and turnovers for a hundred more lifetimes.

  And just as apples become vaguely passé, we move on to acres and acres of large juicy pears. Apparently I snored like a gurgling drain all the way through the plums.

  “Marmaduke Orchards!” I gasp. “I just totally didn’t expect there to be ...”

  “Aha! You’re alive!” laughs Claude. “No, we didn’t expect actual orchards either.”

  “Baron Marmaduke owns the land,” chips in Daphne, nudging her brake as a lady with flapping flamboyant pink angel wings on the back of her rucksack cuts in front of our car.

  “He’s one of those eccentric millionaire types, isn’t he?” laughs Claude. “And I mean, he’d have to be eccentric to let a hundred and twenty thousand strangers have a party in his back garden.”

  Fleur is looking all around her impatiently, craning her head to see over the hill. All this fresh air and fauna is clearly giving her the heebie-jeebies. “We’re miles from civilization!” she mutters. “I mean, where’s the flipping festival? We’re in the middle of a fruit farm!”

  Daphne tuts nervously as just ahead of us an ancient multicolored double-decker bus struggles with its brakes. “Pleeeease don’t roll back!” she whispers. “We’ll be toast!”

  Nervously, Fleur checks behind us to see if we’ve got any room to maneuver, letting out a sharp yelp as she spies something in the queue. “Errrrr, don’t all look at once,” Fleur gasps, staring straight ahead again, pretending to be calm, “but I think there’s a Land Rover about three cars behind us!”

  “What? Noooo!” sighs Claude, dying to look but restraining herself. “Not Panama’s Land Rover? It can’t be! They passed us hours ago!”

  “Yeah, well, it certainly looks like them,” says Fleur.

  I sneak a peek. It’s difficult to see, but I’m almost certain I can see Abigail’s white-blonde straight hair.

  Euuuugh!

  “Pah, let’s face it,” Fleur tuts. “They possess only five collective brain cells between them. They’re
bound to be behind us; they probably got lost.”

  Just that instant, a deafening burst of bad pop music with a loud female vocal blares from the Land Rover’s powerful speaker system.

  “I’m runnnnning to your love!

  Wah wah hooooo!

  I’m runnning to your love!!

  Wibble bibble boooo!”

  “Oh my God! That’s a Catwalk song, isn’t it?” shudders Fleur, recalling the breathtakingly terrible all-singing and all-dancing pop group Panama and the gang used to torture us all with. Catwalk even brought out a lame CD single, “Running to Your Love,” which was played three times on the local radio station Wicked FM, well, before Panama sacked Derren, Zane and the whole gang to pursue a solo singing/modeling/acting career.

  “Yeee-hah! My love is in the sky! Like a big love pie,” squeal the profound lyrics, accompanied by a Casio keyboard bossa nova drumbeat.

  Inside the Mini, there’s a collective LBD slapping of foreheads and dropping of jaws.

  It’s definitely Panama and the gang. And they’re listening to their own terrible music!

  “Ahhhhh, jeez! I remember Panama!” sighs Daphne. “Wasn’t she that stuck-up brat a couple of years below me who was suspended for bullying?”

  “Nah, they didn’t suspend her,” sighs Fleur. “Lack of evidence. The girl who complained about Panama ended up seeing the school shrink. McGraw reckoned she was paranoid.”

  We all sigh.

  “Right,” huffs Claude. “Don’t even acknowledge them. That’s what they want.”

  We all feign indifference, staring instead at the hundreds of hairy kids flocking all around us, armed with rucksacks, tents and sleeping bags, making their way up the hill on foot. Other pierced, dyed and braided kids are slumped down on rucksacks, taking a breather, swigging from bottles and munching newly swiped fruit.

  Claude gathers her composure, retrieving the Astlebury tickets from her bag for the twenty-sixth time this journey, just to ensure they’ve not evaporated into thin air.

  “Sorry to hassle you, Daph,” says Claude. “But, just to check, we are heading for Gate A, aren’t we?”