by Grace Dent
“ ‘Life’s just a merry-go-round,’ ” sings Joel, giving me a sweet smile. “‘It makes you dizzy. It makes you feel down.’ ”
Pggh, I think, at least Joel has a hobby that’s sociable. Not one that involves having his limbs bandaged up and antiseptic cream applied to gammy wounds at the end of the day. And I bet Joel wouldn’t stand me up on Blackwell Disco night. No, he’d probably arrive super early with a one-man band strapped to his back, crashing cymbals between his butt cheeks, serenading me with love ditties.
Sigh. He’s sooooo totally lush.
Would anyone notice if I licked his face?
Oh, pull yourself together, you great soppy gorgon.
“Help yourself to beer, girlsh!” slurs Franny, signaling to a pile of cheap beer cans beside the van. It’s so high it may well have a snowy summit.
“Nah, I’m all right for now,” says Claude, who seems, curiously enough, to be high on life at the moment.
“Ooh, okay, I’ll have one!” says Fleur, eyeing up the pile of cans before noticing Franny’s vomit-splattered chin and diced-carroty-smelling clothes.
She shudders a little.
“Y’know what, Franny, I think I’ll pass,” she whispers. “I only really drink chilled champagne anyway. Have you got any Cristal?”
“Er ... no, not really,” says Franny, scratching his head. “We’ve just got two hundred cans of Tesco’s store-brand lager. It’s a cheeky little number though.”
“Then I’m good,” says Fleur, wrinkling her nose a touch.
What a peach of a day this has turned out to be!
By 2 A.M., a dozen Spike Saunders songs and daft conversations later, Franny has passed out among the ashes of the dead bonfire while Nico is adding a mustache to his friend’s face with a neon marker pen. The lovely Joel and I are gossiping about great bass guitarists, while Claude and Damon are lying on their backs pointing out star formations in the exceptionally clear night sky. I feel like I could talk to Joel all night.
He’s one of those lads who really listens when you speak and chooses his responses really carefully. I want to stay up till dawn, putting the world to rights, even though I can also hear my eyelids pleading with me for some sleep.
“Right, people, I’m going to love you and leave you,” yawns Fleur, blowing us all a kiss and making her way back to the tent.
I have to admit I’m shattered too. I feel like curling up here on this blanket and snoozing while Joel plays guitar. That would be perfect.
“I suppose we should head off too, Claude?” I whisper to Claude. “It’s pretty late.”
Claude mouths “five minutes” at me, then carries on chattering to Damon.
“Okay, just me then.” I smile, standing up.
“Oh, you’re off too?” says Josh, putting his guitar down, then picking it up again, then placing it down again. Then wiping his hands on his jeans.
He seems a bit awkward. “So, do you want me to er, y’know, walk you back to your tent?” he suggests.
I stare at him, almost wanting to say yes ... but sort of also understanding the hidden code of this illicit scenario. Walking places with lads? After dark? Just you and him, away from all your mates? Well, it sort of means a lead-up to snogging, doesn’t it? It sort of says, “Something naughty’s going to kick off.” Something involving tongues and lips and possibly hands. Something your mother wouldn’t like. Not, I hasten to add, that I’m adverse to a bit of canoodling, especially with a hottie like Joel ... It just feels sort of weird after what happened with Jimi this morning.
Of course, I could just be being presumptuous here. Maybe Joel’s just being gentlemanly.
(I can almost hear Magda snorting raucously at that last thought.)
“It’s okay, Joel,” I say quietly. “I’ll walk by myself. We’re only just camped over there.”
“Okay then,” smiles Joel matter-of-factly. “I was just trying to be, y‘know, gentlemanly. ’Night, Ronnie.”
“ ’Night then, Joel,” I say, walking away, slapping my forehead.
Gah! He was just being a gentleman, I think. What a total numpty I am!
“Ah, what an incredible night!” whispers Claude as she crawls into the tent just after me, trying to find a space around star-shaped Fleur. “That was indisputably the best night of my entire life ever! If I died now, I’d be content. But we’re here for two more days! It’s unreal!”
“Claudette Joy Cassiera!” I whisper back, feigning shock. “You mischievous, scheming madam! What is going on between you and that ... that boy?”
I poke her as she wriggles into her sleeping bag.
“Stopppit!” Claude giggles.
I go in with a two-handed tickle. Claude hates being tickled. “Stoppit! Stooooopppppit. Hee hee! Or I won’t tell you about the totally amazing, fantabulous tongue-snog we’ve just had!”
“About the what!?” I shriek as Fleur rolls over, letting out a snore like an asthmatic warthog. “You naughty girl! I’m utterly appalled!”
“I know!” beams Claude.
“Tell me everything now!” I squeak.
As we dissolve into a gargantuan gossip and giggle session, discussing the whys and wherefores of Joel’s and Damon’s butt cheeks and pecs, we barely notice footsteps and heavy breathing drawing closer to our tent.
“And then he said I had the best eyes he’d ever seen on a real-life girl!” coos Claude. “That’s quite good, isn’t it?”
A twig cracks loudly right beside the front of our tent. I hear someone stumble a little.
“Shh, Claude, hang on, there’s someone out there!” I shudder.
“Oh my God, you’re right!” whispers Claude, grabbing my hand nervously.
“Play dead!”
We both lie dead still. I open one eye very slightly.
A ghostly face is pushed up against the gap in the tent’s zipper, peering in at us.
I daren’t breathe!
“It’sh okay, Rexshhh,” whispers the mystery presence slightly tipsily into her mobile phone. “They’re all totally fast asleep,” she coos. “They must have gone straight to bed when I left. I know! Straight to bed, can you believe it? What absolute little angels!”
I have to put my hand over Claude’s mouth at this point to stop her howling with laughter.
Chapter 6
morning has broken
“Well, that’s just flipping charming!” huffs Fleur Swan, sticking her head through the tent doors.
Fleur appears to be wearing a baby-pink turban over her blonde locks and a pair of large, glamorous dark glasses.
“Wah ... gnnngn ... wha’timeisit?” I grunt, sitting up in my sleeping bag, realizing I’ve been sleeping with my face precariously close to Claudette Cassiera’s exposed brown rump.
Bleeeeeee!
Claude’s a good pal and all that, but this level of intimacy is beyond the call of friendship.
It’s Saturday morning, our official first day at Astlebury ... and I feel like absolute poo! My back is stiff and aching. Claude and I were far too idle to blow up the air mattress and then drag Fleur on top of it, so we’ve kipped on the cold, hard ground. I also seem to have Cheesy Footballs, the remnants of last night’s midnight feast, embedded in my forehead and a mouth like a pilgrim’s flip-flop. To make matters worse, our neighbors at the twenty-four-hour dance tent are still thumping away, accompanied by an emcee with verbal diarrhea who’s yelling, “Wakey, wakey, party people! Oi! Oi! Oi! Big shout going out to the Astlebury Massive! In da areeeeeee-a!!!” again and again and again.
It’s only 8:15 A.M.!
I am sorely tempted to storm over in just my grunderwear and cut the plug off his microphone.
I am not a morning person.
“So, I’ve just walked over to the Karma Quadrant to begin my beautification progress,” huffs Fleur, “and I asked the security oompa-loompas where the shower block was ... and they just laughed at me! I mean, how incredibly rude!?”
I shuffle out of our tent in my sleeping
bag like a giant slug, blinking in the bright morning sun. Fleur, dressed in a pristine white fluffy terrycloth dressing gown, kitten-heel slippers, and holding a luxurious lemon-colored bath towel over her arm, is glowering back at me.
“You went looking like that?” I ask, suppressing a smirk.
“Of course I went like this,” says Fleur, gazing at me like I’m an imbecile. “And yes, obviously it raised a few eyebrows with the great unwashed out there, but I just told anyone who commented that it was style, darling, and nothing they needed to worry about ... Oh, and Ronnie, suffice to say, that Karma Quadrant shower block doesn’t exist. It was just an Astlebury myth. What am I going to do now?!”
“Er ... rough it for a few days?” I say.
Fleur gives me that look again.
“Time to hit the wet wipes?!” I venture, chucking her Claude’s bumper-sized pack of antiseptic wipes. All around us Astlebury folk are crawling out of tents and vans, clutching their heads, making unpleasant remarks about DJ Retinal Migraine over at the dance tent and begging for ibuprofen. Near to us, three guys with shaven heads and goatees who have been crammed into what appears to be little more than a child’s playhouse are glugging down bottles of water and staggering toward the porta-loos. Last night, it seems, was a big night for everyone.
It’s like a scene from Zombie Hell IV.
“Morning, campers!” zings Claude’s smiley face, poking out of the tent.
“Ahhhh! What a beautiful day! What a great day for seeing some bands, eh?” she cheeps.
“Morgen, Frauline Cassiera,” flounces Fleur, turning to me again to continue her rant. “Oh, and don’t even start me about those disgusting portable toilet cubicle thingies! They’re absolutely covered in ... in ... well, I can’t even say it ... they smell really, really gross! And some bloke was asleep in the first one I went in! And there are no mirrors anywhere ... or any toilet paper! And nowhere to wash your hands afterward except the occasional primitive water outlet pipe with a queue of about fifty hippies beside it. There was a woman in the nude soaping her bits when I walked past too! It’s just ... just ...”
“Exactly like we warned you it would be!” smiles Claude.
“It’s worse! It’s like I envision Earth after an all-out nuclear attack!” gasps Fleur. “There’s nowhere for me to plug my straighteners in! My hair’s going to be like a static badger by the end of the day!”
Fleur pauses for a second, then gasps as the most hideous thought of all crosses her mind.
“Oh my God! If my hair does that mad woo-hah thing at the front again, well, I’m simply going to kill myself!”
“Oh, shut up, you insane old goat,” chuckles Claude, standing up and strrrrrretching with a small satisfied groan.
“Ooooh, that’s right, just insult me! Everyone pick on me as usual!” says Fleur, pretending to be offended. “It won’t be like this when I meet Spike Saunders and he says, ‘Yes, Fleur, I did used to fancy you! Yes, I was going to marry you and let the LBD have an annex in my Mayfair mansion for you all to live in, and let you have a splishy-splashy in my Jacuzzi with the gold turbo-bubble buttons ... but now that I’ve seen you looking like a Sasquatch that’s been run over by a tractor, I think I’ll pass, thank you!’ Pghhh ... That’ll serve you all right!”
Claude and I stare at Fleur; then we all burst into fits of snottery giggles.
Fleur crawls into the tent, dragging her makeup behind her.
“Now both of you shut up and leave me alone!” she huffs. “I have to unleash the magic.”
When Fleur’s in good form, she can make you pee your pants laughing. But then suddenly, as I’m reaching for some toilet paper to blow my nose, I notice something strange about Daphne’s tent. It appears to be emitting two sets of loud snores! One little girlie one and another big boomy one. On further inspection something highly irregular is poking out from underneath the door.
“Claudette! Look!” I shout, pointing at two rather large size 14 black boots. “There’re extra legs in Daphne’s tent!”
Whoever is in Daphne’s tent must be absolutely enormous; he can’t lie in her one-man tent without spilling out onto the grass.
“Wow!” laughs Claude. “When did he arrive? We were still awake at five!”
“Is that Rover?” gasps Fleur, sticking her head out. “Has he infiltrated LBD HQ?”
“It’s Rex!” Claude says, her eyes wide with delight. “Ooh, I wonder what he looks like. I can’t wait to see! Shall we throw sticks at his feet until he sits up?”
“He’s not an evil giant, Claude,” I say.
“Oh Gawwd, he’ll be some stinky new-age type with egg in his beard and a ‘Free Tibet’ T-shirt, no doubt,” smirks Fleur. “I bet he plays didgeridoo too.”
“Shh, he’ll hear you!” I shush as Daphne’s tent reverberates with a particularly hearty snore.
“Hmmmph ... don’t care,” says Fleur. “What’s he going to do? Garrote me with his friendship bangles?”
“It’s nice to be nice, Fleur,” says Claude, pretend-primly.
“Oh, whatever,” says Fleur, brandishing a large blusher brush covered in pink powder. “So anyway, ladies, evil giants aside, what’s the sketch for today? Claude, have you got an itinerary worked out?”
“Who, me?” says Claude unconvincingly. “Nah ... I just thought we could, y’know, go with the flow? just see what happens?”
“Really?!” I say, feeling disoriented.
“Er, well, sort of ... I mean, sure, I took the liberty of printing off the Astlebury timetable from the website and making a few markers of stuff we might like to see.”
Claude grabs her Astlebury file, producing three charts, all marked in a variety of felt tips with squiggles and arrows.
“Now, I’ve put a gold star beside bands, et cetera, that we love, and added a point system to bands when there’s a timetable clash.” Claude puts her plan down on the grass. “For example, Brassneck Ruffians are on at noon on the Hexagon Stage, but we’re not that keen on them so I’ve given them a low rating. I thought we could go and hang out at the Astlebury Fun Fair then. I’ve rated that as choice two ... or we could go to the new-band area, as long as we get more central for Final Warning at four P.M. We all love them so they’ve got a gold star. And then the Losers are on after that.”
“The Losers?! Wow!” I say. “I’d forgotten about them! They’re ace!”
“It’s Carmella Dupris that I absolutely have to see!” says Claude excitedly. “That’s a must. I can’t miss that.”
“Oh, and then it’s Color Me Wonderful,” says Fleur, taking her schedule and looking at it. “They’re meant to be so amazing live!”
“Er, but Claude, you haven’t scheduled bathroom stops,” I say dryly, looking at the plan.
“Of course not,” smiles Claude. “I’m not that bad now, am I?”
“Pgghh, well, that suits me fine, girls!” sniffs Fleur. “After seeing those poo-traps, I’m not drinking or eating another morsel until I get home. I’m just going to wear lipstick and look pretty instead.”
Fleur smears on some plum-colored lipstick and blows us both a kiss.
I don’t think she’s joking.
“But anyway, girls,” coos Claude, “basically, we can do whatever we want! That’s the bestest part!”
“Oh, really?” I say, delving into my rucksack, trying to work out which creased items I can throw together to create “festival chic.” “So we’re not hooking up with any lads later on then? Any tattoo-covered, shaven-headed guys? Guys called Damon, by any chance?”
“Oooooh, shut up!” blushes Claude.
“Eh ... what? What’s going on here?” says Fleur, sitting up on her haunches, waving a mascara wand. Fleur Swan can sniff out hot gossip at 500 meters with a clothes peg on her schneck. “Have I missed something?”
“Nooooo!” says Claude.
“No, not really, Fleur. Claude only snogged Damon last night!” I blurt out.
Ahhh, isn’t it great to be the first to
tell someone gossip?
“Whahhhh? When!?” squeals Fleur. “And how ... how do I not know this?!”
“You were zonked out!” I laugh. “It was when they were walking back to the tent. They ended up playing face invaders over there by that tree. And she felt his bum. She said it was so firm, you could take the top off a pickle jar with it.”
“Noooooooooo!” squeals Fleur. “That is soooo contravening Rule Four of the Parent/LBD Behavioral Contract! For shame, Claude! For shame!”
“Gnnnnngnnnn,” groans Claude, covering her face.
“And Damon said she had a better bod than his favorite Sports Illustrated model!”
“Oooooh my God!” hoots Fleur. “Then what happened?!”
“Then she floated into the tent and waffled endlessly about him till her throat nearly packed in,” I smile.
“Hee hee!” hoots Fleur. “Was she being all mushy?”
“Totally!” I say. “She sounded like one of those padded valentine’s cards you get in Clintons Cards. She is sooooo in love!” I conclude, opting for my favorite ripped denims, a little black vest top with lacy straps and a pale blue patterned headscarf.
“I am soooo not in love!” protests Claude, burying her head in her hands. “Stoppit! You’re giving me a headache!”
“Ahhh! See? The headache ... ,” says Fleur authoritatively. “A classic sign of being in love! Love hurts, y’know, Claude?”
“Phhhhgh, tell me about it,” I groan, suddenly recalling Jimi’s contorted face as we pulled away in the car twenty-four hours ago.
Right. Forget about that, I tell myself.
“Okay, everyone shut up about me and get dressed!” says Claude, changing the subject. “Now, chickadees, my itinerary denotes that the Beyond Las Vegas Casino opens in half an hour. I quite fancy a few hands of blackjack ... you can win amazing stuff like the entire top one hundred CDs or your body weight in chocolate. Actually, this map says there’s a stall next door where some folk are giving out free breakfasts from seven to eleven A.M.... well, it’s free as long as you promise to listen patiently while they talk about their religious beliefs. No, on second thought, that’ll be just like being at home,” Claude says, rolling her eyes. “Let’s just buy breakfast instead!”
