Friends Forever!

by Grace Dent

  “So anyway,” Warren Acapulco continues, smiling at me and Claude, “how long have you been waiting to meet us?”

  “Erm, oooh, well,” I smile, flushing pink. “We weren’t. We were waiting for Psycho Killa.”

  Warren’s face remains poker straight. He produces a photo from his pocket and a pen, signing the picture, before handing it to me and walking away.

  Let the beat play on . . . Warren Acapulco xxx

  “From now on,” giggles Claude, “let me talk to the celebrities.”

  “But I didn’t even ask for an autograph!” I laugh, staring at the cheesy publicity shot.

  “Never mind,” laughs Claude. “Stick it on eBay. Some fool will buy it.”

  This is turning out to be the best day ever!

  But just then, a face in the crowd spoils my happy mood. “You girls!” shouts Scrumble. “Come here!”

  “Quick, look busy!” says Claude as Scrumble storms toward us, ignoring us and grabbing at two Harbinger Hall cleaners pushing a trolley of mops, brooms and bleach through the lobby.

  “Where are you going?” Scrumble shouts at the older of the two girls, clad in a green cleaner’s pinafore.

  “Er, we’re, erm, going to clean the Edelweiss Suite,” the girl stutters.

  “Oh, really?” tuts Scrumble. “Can I see your ID cards?”

  The girls begin to flap.

  “I’ve lost mine!” claims the younger girl.

  “Run for it!” shouts the older girl.

  But now Scrumble has a walkie-talkie in her hand, barking orders. “Security! We have a situation here,” she’s flapping. “More intruders have infiltrated the building en route to God Created Man’s suite!”

  “We’re not intruders!” squeals the older girl as her overall falls open to reveal a God Created Man tour T-shirt and a digital camera hanging from her neck.

  “Tell that to the judge!” shouts Scrumble.

  “Claude, God Created Man are here!” I gasp. “Phwooooar!”

  “Oh my God, they are so lush,” grins Claude.

  “And they’re right here in this hotel!” I laugh.

  “Well, you can’t snog any of them,” winks Claude. “Don’t think Saul would like that!”

  “Hmmm, good point,” I blush, thinking of the very lovely Saul Parker for the zillionth time that day. Blimey O’Reilly, I have totally lost my marbles over that boy. And he’s not exactly remaining sane about me either. In fact, last night, after a moonlight walk down on the private beach, Saul even said he’s been considering getting a little V tattooed on the bottom of his back so he’ll always remember this summer. Serious stuff, eh?

  Agh, I cannot stop thinking about Saul Parker! It’s like a form of wonderful insanity. I’m like a different person ever since he came into my life. More confident. More alive.

  “Ronnie, stop dreaming,” says Claude, nudging me back to the real world as the two fake cleaners are marched past me by security personnel. “You keep drifting off. You’ve got it bad, you have.”

  “I soooo have not,” I blush.

  “But we only wanted an autograph,” pleads one of the girls.

  “Trespassers must be prosecuted,” huffs Scrumble, looking very proud of herself indeed. And then her eyes rest upon Claude and me and she looks even smugger.

  “Ah, Veronica and Claudette,” she smiles. “And three become two.”

  “Good morning, Miss Scrumble,” says Claude.

  “It certainly is,” she replies, “now that we’ve trimmed the deadwood from our waitressing workforce.”

  Claude and I say nothing. It’s for the best.

  “Miss Swan arrived home safely, I take it?” Scrumble says.

  “I spoke to her this morning,” says Claude. “She’s fine.”

  “Good riddance to her,” mumbles Scrumble under her breath. “I shall be forwarding her the dry-cleaning bill for my jacket.”

  At this point a small giggle tries to surface on my mouth. It happens every time I think of the satisfying thwack the cake made colliding with her forehead.

  “Now,” continues Scrumble, checking her clipboard, “I have it here that several weeks ago you both booked tomorrow off for this beach party affair.” She wrinkles her nose as she says “beach party.”

  “That’s correct,” says Claude. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” goads Scrumble, waddling away. “Let’s see how hard you work today.”

  room service

  And work hard we do.

  Delivering room service orders, running messages, serving cocktails and clearing away plates. Scrumble tries to break our spirit with a mind-boggling list of demands, but she can’t. We’re on cloud nine. Behind every Harbinger Hall hotel room door lies another pop star, rapper or MTV presenter! Standing there live in the flesh!

  In Room 307 MTV presenter Lonny Larson begs for hot lemon and honey after he’s been up all night partying with God Created Man and feels like hell. Lonny still looks totally gorgeous with his huge green eyes and rich Belfast accent. He signs Claude’s and my order books and even lets us snap camera-phone pics of him in his fluffy terry-cloth bathrobe!

  Upstairs in Room 404, the Mortuary Team’s Freaky Death Squad calls up requesting Harbinger Hall stationery, pens and vanilla ice cream with extra chocolate sauce, as the calm ambience of the hotel, the regency antiques and the regal chandeliers have inspired him to finish his new track, “Gonna Chop You Up, Sucka!”

  Our next delivery, at the newly painted Barclay Suite, is for Dita Murray from the Scandal Children, who flew in at 3 A.M. from Singapore. Dita is a tiny little thing with blonde braids and a white pale complexion, much frailer than she looks in her videos. When we arrive with her herbal teas, Dita is with some flouncy guy in a pirate-inspired outfit who is holding up swaths of fabric to her face and muttering “fabulous” and “bella” again and again while a dozen personal assistants flurry around, asking her if the room is ivory enough for her. Weird.

  But probably the best job of the day comes from the Edelweiss Suite. Cathy, long-suffering personal assistant to internationally successful boy band God Created Man, calls up begging Rosco to whip up some late brunch for her three pop stars. Siegmund asks if we want to deliver it. Try to stop us!

  After a lot of swearing on Rosco’s part, Claude and I set off to the Edelweiss Suite with a trolley laden with eggs Benedict, coffee and croissants, only to be met at the door by the one, the only, international sex god Jenson Carter! He’s wearing nothing but a cheeky smile and small hand towel covering his dangly bits.

  Gnnnnnnngnnnn! Claude and I nearly faint with glee.

  “Come in! Come in, ladies!” Jenson smiles, beckoning us into the suite.

  Claude just stands there opening and closing her gob. “But . . . but . . . you’re nak—” she burbles.

  “Move it, sister!” I hiss, dragging Claude into the suite.

  The band checked into Harbinger Hall only at 1 A.M. that morning, but the place already looks like a herd of wildebeest stampeded through it. The place smells of feet, farts and pot noodles—the smell of all boys’ bedrooms since the beginning of time. Everywhere you look there are clothes, shoes, plates, discarded bottles of booze and dirty glasses.

  “Sorry ’bout the mess, girls,” apologizes Jenson. “Me, Lonny Larson and the boys had a little poker game going last night. Things got a little wild.”

  Next door in the main master bedroom, lying zonked out on his front, in the middle of a four-poster bed, is a totally unconscious Sebastian Porlock, the second gorgeous member of the shirt-phobic triumvirate.

  This really throws me. I almost burst into tears with happiness. I’ve had a poster of Sebastian on my bedroom wall since I was fourteen. I mean, okay, he’s not as swoonsome as Spike Saunders, Duke of Pop, but he’s still a tasty dish all the same. My mother once caught me crying inconsolably into my pillow one night because I’d finally figured out Sebastian would never be mine.

  I’ve grown up a lot since then. />
  To our amazement, Sebastian Porlock is also totally and utterly stark naked. His small, pert tanned bottom cheeks greet us as we tumble into the bedroom to serve his eggs Benedict.

  Sigh. It’s such a perfectly formed, soft and blemish-free bottom, I want to bite it.

  “Oooh! Er . . . aaaagh!” stutters Claude, covering her eyes.

  “Good morning, er, afternoon . . . Mr. Porlock!” I shout. “We’ve brought breakfast.”

  “Sppghhhllgh,” snores Sebastian, stretching a little before turning over on his back to reveal . . . well, to reveal more than I really wanted to see.

  Euuuuuuugh!

  “Oh, please!” squeals Claude as Sebastian snores like a trooper, legs akimbo. “My eyes! My eyes are burning! Cover him up! Aaaagggggh!”

  But neither of us can pull the cover up for laughing.

  “And a snorer too?” tuts Claude. “I can’t stand that! So inconsiderate.”

  “Yes, Claude,” I say, drying my eyes. “So inconsiderate. Hey, have you got your phone?” I chortle. “Let’s send Fleur a picture!”

  “Let’s hope she’s finished lunch,” Claude laughs, snapping away.

  Of course there are some guests Claude and I aren’t exactly over the moon to see. Downstairs in the indoor tropical spa area, Cressida Sleeth and Panama Goodyear are relaxing by the pool in their teensy-tiniest bikinis. Neither of them has a single lump, bump or ounce of spare flab, and both are a gorgeous honey color from head to toe and all over their disconcertingly plentiful cleavages.

  “Claude,” I groan, as we approach with their drinks order, “have you noticed something different about Cress—”

  “The boobs, right?” says Claude.

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  “It’s not just Cressida,” Claude says. “They’ve all gone up three cup sizes at least.”

  “Have they had surgery?” I whisper.

  “Dunno,” says Claude, furrowing her brow. “I shall have to investigate.”

  “How are you going to—” I begin, but then Cressida spots us.

  “Oh, wonderful,” she says through gritted teeth. “It’s the phantom flan flingers. Still slaving away, I see, girls? Well done, Claude; you’ll stay off the streets yet.”

  Claude narrows her eyes, then serves Cressida her elder-flower infusion.

  “Tsk. Ignore them, Cressida,” Panama sneers. “It’s so totally déclassé to chitchat with staff. My mother won’t even make eye contact with our cleaner.”

  Yards away, Abigail and Leeza are splashing about in the whirlpool, Leeza’s ginormous boobs acting as her own flotation system. At a nearby table a group of MTV producers are holding an impromptu meeting to discuss tomorrow’s Booty Quake.

  “Oh, Abigail,” Panama yells across the spa, intentionally loud enough for everyone to hear, “being surrounded by all these music industry types really takes me back. It puts me in mind of when we almost signed that recording contract.”

  Abigail cringes a little. Panama, Abigail and Leeza did once have an amateur pop band. Catwalk, they were called. It was the closest thing you could get to audible excrement.

  “Well, it was more of a hobby,” blushes Abigail. “We weren’t very good.”

  “Rubbish!” squawks Panama. “We were far hotter than half of these losers playing tomorrow.”

  Several of the MTV crew and assorted Mortuary Team members stop what they are doing and stare crossly over at Panama.

  “Shh, Panama,” hushes Cressida, visibly shrinking into her lounger. “Everybody will hear!”

  “I want them to hear!” storms Panama. “I happen to know that I’ve got star quality. If you’re hanging with me, you better fasten your seat belt, because I’m going places fast. I’m going to be a famous singer one day, mark my words. Listen!”

  Panama clears her throat, then scrunches her face up and begins to sing. “Oooooh, I’m floating in the sky!” she squeals. “Like a big love pie! I’m running to your love. Oh meeeee! Oh my!”

  Panama sounds like she has her bottom caught in a paper shredder. She’s using that excruciating singing technique bad singers always use, taking a perfectly normal song, then making it last fifty-five minutes longer by doing wibbly-wobbly key changes on every note. The MTV staff are actually running out of the room clutching their ears.

  “They’re off to call their managers,” says Panama, nudging Cressida proudly. “Tell them there’s a new star in town.”

  them upstairs

  At 8 P.M. I stagger back to the West Turret, through the crowds of pop stars, journalists and assorted hangers-on in the hotel lobby, feeling utterly exhausted. There’s no way Scrumble can stop us from going to Booty Quake tomorrow. We’ve worked our butts off.

  In the flurry of orders I managed to lose Claude entirely. I last saw her chatting with a journalist from the The Mirror in the day spa area. He was giving her his card in case she had any inside scoops. Then, when it was time for us to clock off, Gene and Leon told me Claude had been sent by Scrumble to the Windsmore Suite to clear dirty plates away from Panama and Co.’s rooms.

  I am a little worried about her, actually. It sucks facing that lot alone.

  The second I enter our apartment, I grab a dining chair, pull down the trapdoor and climb up into the loft, where Fleur is sitting on a blanket on the dusty floor surrounded by swaths of material, glitter and sequins.

  “Hurray, you’re back,” she smiles. “How’s it going?”

  “Veronica!” smiles Saul, who is lying on his sleeping bag on the other side of the loft about twenty meters away. Saul chucks down his Ripboard Monthly magazine, rushes across and proceeds to wrap his arms around my waist and give me a big snog.

  “Eeeuuuuuuh, get a room,” groans Fleur, covering her eyes.

  “Ha! Sorry,” I laugh, pushing Saul away gently. “So what have you two layabouts been doing all day?”

  “Well, when the coast was clear downstairs,” Fleur says, “Saul crept down and went off surfing. Apparently he’s got some surf thingy to do tomorrow . . .”

  “Fleur,” I tut, “Saul’s one of the Demonboard Surf contestants tomorrow.”

  “What? Are you?” coughs Fleur, looking at Saul. “Oh! That’s what you were wibbling on about. I heard something about, y’know, surfboards or something, then I sort of switched off. Sorry, Saul.”

  We can’t help laughing at her.

  “Anyway, back to me,” Fleur says. “So once Saul had gone, I spent the day preparing. Y’know, having a bath, exfoliating, pedicure, manicure, eyelash tint, that sort of thing.”

  “And then I got back from the beach,” Saul interrupts. “And I thought I’d been followed.”

  “So we thought we’d better hide,” says Fleur, who’s loving her new “Secret Squirrel” lifestyle, “which gave me time to make this!”

  Fleur proudly holds up a black halter-neck bikini with small silver stars and pink bows on it. The bottom section has tiny little pink ties.

  “That’s amazing!” I say. “You did that yourself?”

  “Not just a pretty face, huh?” she smiles.

  “You’ll look great in that tomorrow,” I nod enthusiastically.

  “No, I won’t,” Fleur says. “I’m wearing my fabulous cerise polka-dot bikini from It’s a Girl’s World. You’re wearing this one!”

  “Oh . . . hmmm,” I groan, staring at the bikini, which now appears to have shrunk to the size of a snowflake. “Wonderful.”

  “Ronnie, you’re not flaking out on me, are you now?” says Fleur.

  “No, I’m not. It’s just . . . ,” I mutter.

  “Saul, tell her,” commands Fleur.

  “I don’t need to tell her,” says Saul, wrapping his arms around me again and nuzzling my neck. “She knows she’s a babe.”

  “Yak!” sneers Fleur, looking physically sick. “Not like that!”

  Saul and I both start blushing.

  “Now then, Ronnie Ripperton,” says Fleur, “this is the eleventh hour. I know I’m going to try my hard
est to win that money tomorrow. And you are too. All you need to do is smile, prance about a bit and don’t say anything nincompoopish when the cameras start rolling.”

  Fleur pauses. She shakes her head.

  “Okay, scrap that,” she says. “Just don’t fall over or insult any of the judges.”

  “Gotcha,” I nod.

  Just then we hear movement downstairs. We all freeze.

  “It’s just meeeeeeeeeeee,” shouts Claude. The trapdoor opens and Claude’s face appears through the hole. “I’m coming up.”

  After a small struggle, Claude Cassiera is up in the loft, looking around in amazement.

  “Wow! It’s soooo much nicer up here now,” says Claude, wrinkling her nose playfully at Saul. “That terrible smell of underpants has gone.”

  “Oh, don’t start,” groans Saul. “Look, I didn’t ask you three to invade my penthouse. This was my home, can I remind you?”

  “Saul, Saul, Saul,” sighs Claude, shaking her head. “Don’t even start me on the legal impossibility of that. Now, anyway, everyone be quiet, because I need to tell you about my afternoon.”

  “Go on,” I say.

  “Well, after I left you, I had the pleasure of taking Warren Acapulco’s dog Trixiebelle Frou Frou for a whoopsie in the garden.”

  “Euuuuuh, gross,” sniffs Fleur.

  “And I got a hundred-pound tip for my trouble,” says Claude.

  “Hot dang,” chuckles Saul, shaking his head. “It’ll need a dump tomorrow too, won’t it? Can I take it?”

  “No way,” laughs Claude. “That dog is the gift that keeps on giving. I’m going to pop up later and give it extra dinner. Oh, and listen to this: guess who just saw Psycho Killa, in the flesh, right in front of her eyes?”

  Claude pauses dramatically, then points at herself. “Meeee!” she giggles.

  “What does he look like?” I ask.

  “Mmm, to be honest, small and quite camp,” says Claude, shaking her head. “He was wearing this blue Lycra jumpsuit with silver buttons. Actually, he put me in mind of your aunty Susan’s godson.”