by Beth Garrod
I dug the camera out of my bag and smiled. “You know me too well… Wrist, please!”
Teeg never liked appearing or being tagged in anyone’s pics, but was fully resigned to her pivotal role as Insta-BFF so held out her arm. I snapped away (making sure the words Dump and Access were nowhere to be seen), and posted, along with the comment:
BRB. Hanging with the (wrist) band @MyFriendWhoRefusesToBeTaggedOnInstagram and soon to be @ItsRachelTBH #RebelRocks #veeeyeyyyypee #StopTheSession #HashtagBlessed
Tegan gave it a solidarity like before helping lift Dave back on to my back, she was still carrying her bag around as if it were no heavier than a feather. A really, really light feather.
“This way.” She set off down a path, through the city of tents.
Walking and carrying heavy things were two of my least favourite pastimes, and my hand still smelt of cowpat, but I had a grin so wide random strangers kept smiling back. I already loved it here. And before we knew it, we were in our workers-only campsite.
Home.
It was a massive field, with only about fifteen tents already up, so we had our pick of the area. Tegan had been watching camping YouTube tutorials – tentorials – so I followed her lead as she picked a spot by the wire fence (in her words, “next to the edge of a field Rach can camp in – and close to the Portaloos, but not so close we’re in the waft zone”).
I’d never felt joy like the joy of taking Dave off for the final time. It was like taking off a bra – that you’d been wearing for four years straight.
“OK. An hour and ten before we have to have our first staff meet so…” I looked at the tiny bag with our tent in. “Shall we put this up, then have an hour to get changed, de-sweat, and generally have the best time ever?”
“Hecccckkkkk yassssssss!” Teeg whooped.
It was weird. I’d never really been that interested in adventuring outdoors, sleeping in tents or enjoying nature. But as I looked at our little patch of field, I felt like I might start watching Countryfile or suggesting camping as a legit summer holiday.
I plopped the contents out. “I officially declare our new home. OPEN!”
Life couldn’t be better.
An hour later I’d changed my mind. Lots had happened:
•I’d almost flicked out Tegan’s eye with an unruly tent pole.
•In panic I’d then yanked it back so hard the pokey metal bit snagged through my shirt and got caught in the stitching of my bra, thus making a hole which drew even more attention to my major under-boob sweat.
•I’d then stepped backwards on to my variety pack of Walkers Crisps – they were effectively now Walkers Dusts.
•A tent peg had pierced right through the sole of my pump, and almost, almost into my foot (it said to wedge it into the ground! It never said human feet were not an acceptable way to do this!).
…And the tent still wasn’t up.
I hated camping.
“Teeeeg. I never want to see another tent again as long as I live.”
She handed me a tin of baked beans to try and help hammer in a peg that was refusing to budge. “Remind me again why just lying on the ground in a sleeping bag is a bad option?”
THWACK. The beans were actually quite a good shout. It was the most the peg had budged in five minutes.
“Potential hypothermia, extreme damp, and substantial risk of someone stepping on your head.” She whacked her peg, using a bottle of Diet Coke wrapped in a sock. Despite having actual muscle in her arms, as opposed to just arm-shaped flesh like me, she was also struggling. “But once we’ve got these last ones in we’ll just need to peg the inner in, and we’ll be done.” I could totally see why people lived in houses. This was exhausting. But with immense teamwork, we eventually did it. Throwing our stuff inside, we hurried over to the big marquee – headquarters for all the crew.
A beardy man in a woolly hat (even though it was one gazillion degrees outside – or was everything outside when you were in a tent?) was at the far end, standing on a table, a bunch of people gathered round. We shuffled to the back as he introduced himself as Ross. After a quick welcome, he took us through the rota. We were the “Sunrise Shift”, with our first shift straight after this, and then three more – Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 5 to 9 a.m. We were in teams of six, picking and sorting everything we found, from stuff on the floor through to rifling through the huge oil-drum bins. Not exactly glam, but it was my ticket here, so I wasn’t going to complain (well, I was, but not when scary Ross could hear).
“So, any questions?” He’d finished the health and safety bit (Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t die. And if you do, don’t blame us. But you’ll be dead so you can’t *unhinged laugh*).
I stuck my hand up. Everyone looked round – I smiled into the middle distance to mark myself as a friendly crew member with all of our best interests at heart. “Will we have any picker-upper thingies?”
Ross nodded. Phew.
“Yup. These.” He stretched both hands out. “State of the art … hands.” Everyone laughed. Thanks, guys. “So always wear gloves, ’cos you don’t want to get a kebab stick impaled through ’em … or stick your fingers into something that rhymes with poo…” He looked right at me. “Oops, sorry, my mistake. I meant something that IS poo.”
Cue round two of slightly alarming solo cackling. Then he handed us the last bit of our work attire – high-vis jackets – as he hissed to remember he was “Lord of the Dump”. Shudder. Tegan Velcroed hers up and shimmied like there was any way on earth we could style this out.
“Neon gilet is GO!”
I knew her technique. Be extra positive because she knew I was stressed about being spotted by all the people we knew who weren’t having to work – most specifically Luke and Ska. And I could add Jo to that list as well – she’d use this as laughing-at-me ammo for years. Wearing high-vis really made being low-vis so much trickier.
As we made our way round the site for the first time, it was like nothing I’d seen before. Tegan and I had to hold hands when we got our first glimpse of the main stage. It was enormous, mirrored REBELROCKS letters shimmering all the way along the top of it.
“Teeg.” I was speaking slower than normal, taking it all in. “It’s EVERYTHING I hoped it would be.”
She pointed to the top of the stage where something was glinting.
“With an added glitter ball sheep.”
We both gulped. If it was exciting enough now – with no crowds and no performers – what on earth was it going to be like tomorrow when it properly kicked off?!
I couldn’t let my brain go off-leash and delve into the mental gold that was Adam playing, for fear of melting from the head down. So instead I focused on finding large bits of rubbish to make my bag look the fullest it could do on the least work. Although it really didn’t feel like work when the whole place was full of the loud thud-thud of a soundcheck. It was like being backstage ALL THE TIME. Plus with Tegan to chat to, it was like tidying my room, just outside – and with less temptation to procrastinate by rearranging my 1975 posters.
We got waves and “hi”s from all the other workers too. Everyone seemed happier than in normal life. Like we were all in some secret club, while the real world carried on somewhere else. Things peaked after the man at the printed T-shirt stall waved us over and asked if we could do a quick tidy round. Happy to help, Tegan and I got it done in under a minute. The lady running the doughnut stall next door, D’Oh Nut Stand, then asked us to do the same. Sixty seconds later not only were we the proud tidiers of her area, but also the proud owners of two free bags of freshly fried doughnut balls.
This was the life!
Teeg and I saved them till that night, when we were back at our tent. It had turned chilly, so we got in our sleeping bags and sat outside to eat them (the doughnuts not the sleeping bags), watching everything happening around us. I took some arty camera photos of the site in the moonlight, and some less arty ones of Tegan and me, seeing who could fit the most doughnut balls in our mouths. I eve
n tried to make campsite friends, and headed over, bean can in hand, to a group who were struggling with their pegs. But as I approached they pulled out a mega hammer, and I had to do a U-turn and walk back, acting as if taking a tin of beans for a walk was a normal thing.
As I got back, Tegan threw her phone in her bag as if I’d caught her using it when she shouldn’t. I knew her too well to be fooled.
“Good day one?” Maybe she’d tell me.
She wiped some sugar off her mouth. “The BEST.”
We chewed for a bit.
I knew exactly what she’d been looking at. Updates from the organizers. Or lack of.
“Worried about tomorrow?” Our happiness at the signatures going up was being dragged down by a total lack of response from the organizers, or any of the press. We’d said they had to respond by tomorrow but all we’d got back so far was a steady stream of hate on our @StopTheSession account from really hardcore fans of the band.
And when the organizers got on stage tomorrow to properly launch the festival at midday, if The Session were still on the line-up … well. We didn’t have a Plan B.
My phone broke our worried silence by vibrating.
Maybe Adam had messaged? I reached out for it.
But it vibrated again.
And again. Like when a charging wire isn’t properly plugged in.
Tegan and I looked at each other.
What was happening?
Why had her phone started to do the same?
I picked mine up. My notifications were on fire.
Forty-nine new followers?
Normally I’d feel excited. But this didn’t feel good. More and more were coming through. Fifty-three. Fifty-four.
Along with posts on my previous photos.
Something was wrong.
And when I headed to my feed, I knew exactly what.
I felt physically sick.
And it wasn’t from eating so many doughnut balls.
It was official.
The Session had hit a new low.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Plip.
EURGH.
Where was I?
Why was my ear wet?
Why did I feel like an ice cube?
“Bells…” A hand shook my shoulder. “Bellsssss!” I fumbled for my phone. It lit up the room. No. Not room. Tent. And it was 4:50 a.m. Ahhhh … everything came rushing back.
I’d wrapped a sock around my face in the middle of the night to try and stop the onset of frostbite. And I’d clearly been dribbling into it ever since, so now my ear was wet with my own night-dribble.
My limbs slowly reconnected with my brain. I was crumpled into a heap at the bottom of our tent, sort of like a human croissant. Guess this is why sensible people don’t pitch up on a slope.
I pulled my sleeping bag back up over my head, hoping to defrost my nose (if it was indeed still attached to my face and not rattling around in my bag like an odd-shaped ice cube).
The hand wobbled my shoulder again. “C’mon. It’s time.”
I stuck my head out of my sleeping bag and grunted. Teeg was already fully dressed and giving me a cheery wave. Standard.
“We got another couple of hundred signatures overnight.” This was amazing news, but all I could manage was a slightly different grunt back. Luckily Teeg knew my noise repertoire well enough to understand that at this time in the morning this grunt signified “that’s epic news”.
“Rach couldn’t sleep and sent another email to the press and organizers with the update. You should read it.”
I knew why Rach hadn’t been able to sleep. For the same reason as us. Last night, she’d been holding back tears on the phone when we realized what was going on. What Brian had done. Not content with ridiculing our petition, he’d gone one step further. Posted the personal profile pics of Rach, Tegan and me in his feed, calling us out as leaders of #StopTheSession and tagging in our own personal handles. This was a man who had over half a million followers. Worst of all was what he’d said underneath:
Trying to The Session? Get a life. These are the people who are opposing free speech . Sessionites, go do your worst #StopTheSessionHaters
All three of us had hundreds of new followers – all of them there just to watch our every move and tell us how awful we were. Rach had changed her profile to private. I’d wanted to do the same, but Tegan had talked me into being brave enough to stay public: “Stay loud,” as she said.
She was probably right – but it would be a whole lot less terrifying if I could just hide.
As Teeg pulled on her boots, I snuck a quick look at my feed. Over a hundred comments since I fell asleep three hours ago. Wonderful. Tegan clocked what I was up to and pushed my bag of clothes over to me. “Oi. Get a move on. We’ve got litter to pick.”
Getting dressed inside a tent turned out to be like trying to complete The Cube. There isn’t enough room to extend your arms or legs, let alone stand up into anything straighter than a crouch. How Tegan had done this whole palaver without waking me I would never know. Gymnastic training had served her well. All my rummaging meant my stuff was now spread all over the tent whereas Tegan’s was still neatly packed. Sometimes we were like yin and yang. If yin was a tidy competent human, and yang was one who once wore her school skirt inside out.
“Bells? You OK in there?” Tegan was back from her wee, her torchlight silhouetting me as I scrabbled around. My jeans undone, I pushed myself out head first.
“I liiiivvve!” I whisper-wailed, staggering to my feet, my trainers clunking into place. I thanked the Gods of Temporary-Material-Based Housing that tents didn’t have mirrors. I didn’t need to see myself to know I looked like a jumble sale on legs.
Tegan, however, was wearing leggings, a couple of pairs of socks that were bunched above some heavy-duty boots, two jumpers and a raincoat. And she made it look ay-mazing.
“Welcome to day two!” She smiled. I tried to hug her, but had so many layers on that my arms wouldn’t bend. I resembled a scarecrow attempting to engage in human interaction. “You OK?”
“Just dealing with the fact your look is so ICONIC.”
“Ha! As if. It’s just old gym stuff I threw on.” She pointed the torch up the path. “Shall we go?”
As we walked to the meeting point, the air was so cold I was both sweating and shivering all at the same time. Swivering. The sun was rising, tiny campfires were still smoking and loads more tents had popped up around us. A couple of muffled voices could be heard, but it was impossible to tell where they were coming from.
This.
Was.
Amazing.
We were part of something that belonged to us. Unique and special and secret from the rest of the world. I put my arm through Tegan’s and squeezed her.
She squeezed back, letting me know she knew all the things I was thinking and thought them too. I kept my voice down so as not to wake all the people who weren’t stupid enough to be up at this time.
“I know this is cringeworthy, but … I’m so happy you’re here to share this.” I promptly tripped over a guy rope. Teeg yanked me back just before I totally faceplanted on to a tent. “Aaaaand I’m even more happy you’re here to stop me from starting the world’s earliest pile-on.”
She laughed. “Any time.”
But I hadn’t finished.
“Ignoring the fact that Rach isn’t here yet, that we’re being trolled by an evil pop star, that we’re freaking out about later –” I ignored Tegan’s judgmental raised eyebrow, and ploughed on “– that we’re about to see more mushed rubbish than I’d wish on any human ever … except maybe Luke … and that we’re awake at a time only meant for small mammals and postmen and postwomen…” I paused, knowing that this was going to sound cheesy. But I didn’t care. In fact, bring on the cheese. Make me a verbal stuffed-crust. I stretched my arms out and looked up at the sky symbolically. “This is kind of perfect.”
Or not.
’Cos a massive blob of water
hit me on the eyelid. And then another blob. And then some sort of multi-blob situation. Water blobs were falling everywhere from the sky! (I suppose the more common name for this is “rain”.) It was like I’d summoned the world’s heaviest downpour. Please tell me Brian hadn’t got the weather to hate on us too?!
I was in a field with nowhere to shelter. And no coat.
With a quick “Wait here” Tegan sprinted back to the tent, leaping over guy ropes as she went. She was too nice to say what she was probably thinking. That maybe she had a point when she’d told me not to take my only waterproof coat out of my bag to make room for a second box of Coco Pops. Especially as I’d forgotten to pack bowls.
I was still thinking about what clothing I’d sacrifice for foodstuffs when Tegan returned, a scrunched ball of black plastic in her hand.
“Here.” I took what she was holding out. A bin bag. She tore a hole in one of them.
“It’s the best I could do.” My face fell as I realized her plan. “Look, I’ll wear one too…” She pulled it over her shoulders. “It’ll be fun.” “Fun” was one word for it. Another slightly more accurate one would be “mortifying”. “You’ll thank me in four hours when you’re not soaked to the bone.”
But as I pulled them on, I thanked her now. The rain was torrential. I ended up putting one on each leg and tucking them into the belt of my jeans. I was like a Victoria’s Secret Angel. If Victoria’s secret was that she loved wearing refuse sacks topped with a high-vis jacket.
After a regroup with our team we headed down to the main site. There wasn’t much litter to pick up from overnight and as we trudged around, the rain began to ease. As the morning wore on, the temperature rocketed to a boiling hot summer’s day and my bin-bag combo made me feel like I was in a sauna for one. I’d never sweated so much in life – and I’d even once tried to do a Davina home workout with Rach and her mum.
“Almost there, Bells.” Tegan looked at her watch. “Only twenty minutes left.”
I smiled weakly. Not because I didn’t want to smile more, but because I’d already bent down over two hundred times and my muscles were threatening to go on strike. All my spare energy was going into keeping positive about The Session. The organizers were due to make the final line-up announcement at midday, and that was only 2.5 hours away. If something was going to happen, it had to happen soon. But with every second, more and more normals (as we’d started to call the not-VIPs) were arriving, heading to pitch their tents before the music started, chatting excitedly about who they were about to see. Despite wanting to think about anything else, we kept on hearing them talk about The Session petition. The snippets of chat I caught mirrored what was being said online – people either were 100% with us, or thought we should get over it.
