by Beth Garrod
Oh. My. Days.
Without meaning to, I grabbed the nearest thing to me. Tegan.
“LOOK!!!!” I said it so loud everyone heard and turned to see.
They’d started what looked like an interpretation of the running man. I needed evidence. I took my phone out and started filming.
Marcus leant over. “Do you know them?”
I shouted back. “More than know them. The left one’s my sister.”
I’d never seen anything like it.
Was Jo having an out of body experience? Had she been possessed by someone different? Someone fun? I waved at Rach to come over, she would love this. But she was too engrossed in her convo with Marge.
I edged forward to get a better view. But as much as I waved and shouted, Jo was lost in her own world. She was touching her toes. Now, galloping with an arm lassoing in the air? Were they really attempting a leapfrog on that tiny space? I held my breath. Yes, they were. Although her friend may have just got her leg stuck across Jo’s neck, but they were too busy enjoying themselves to care.
What had happened to my sister?!
This was the best thing I’d seen all festival. It. Was. Phenomenal.
I did what any loving sister would do. And sent a pic through on our family group.
ME: Jo can certainly let her hair down.
An hour later she was still dancing, my message had had no response and it was almost 1.30 a.m. I was yawning almost as much as I was dancing so Tegan and I decided to head back, which started a ripple effect. Adam and Marcus headed off with Mikey and Jay to get some food (apparently post-midnight pizza tastes way better than daytime pizza). Although it meant less Adam time, I was secretly relieved as it meant no awkward goodbye around the tents when we got back.
Needing my sleep, I interrupted Rach and Marge’s chat. Marge looked seriously unimpressed, like I was taking her property.
“Rach, you fancy heading back?” We were happy to stay out a while longer if she wanted to. Never leave a man standing.
She nodded. “Sure. Give me a sec to say my byes.”
“But Rach?! “ Marge pouted. “The night’s just getting started?!”
Rach shrugged. “But these guys are going to bed. And I’ve got flyering to do in the morning.”
Marge laughed and shook her head; she’d heard the uncertainty in Rach’s voice too. “Don’t be lame.” She shimmied. “This is when festivals really get going.”
Tegan stepped forward. “We could stay out for a bit longer?” She didn’t want to leave Rach with MGC (who I needed to urgently rebrand into GWWANAACOAM. Girls Who We Are Not At All Crushing On Any More).
Britney T stopped showing some guys the tiny tattoo on her collarbone that said “You Are Too Close” (she told us it was to stop people perving, but I only ever saw her make randomers get closer to read it) and joined in. “Just ditch that shift. It’s super tragic. It’s not like they can take your tickets off you.”
Good to know she thought we were “super tragic”.
“We don’t mind, do we, Teeg?” I mean, I really minded, and would rather do anything than get up in less than four hours to pick up containers of Chinese noodle leftovers, but binning off the binning didn’t feel right. Plus, Ross terrified me.
Marge looped her arm through Rach’s and tugged on it. “You can stay with us, babes.” She rolled her eyes at Tegan and me like we were her keepers. “She can stay with us.” She said it extra slow, like we were being unreasonable wanting to make sure Rach was OK. I was struggling to understand why Rach would even want to spend time with them. “Honorary member of Party HQ, right? And don’t worry, Rubbish Girls, we wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”
Marge winked.
We looked at Rach.
But she stayed silent. And by not saying anything, she told us her choice.
So for the first time ever, Tegan and I headed home without Rach.
Neither of us were in a hurry to say the obvious.
Was this just what jealousy feels like?
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
EURGH.
Why was waking up always so awful?!
Why couldn’t someone invent something to make it more fun?! Or could we just agree to scrap mornings as a thing? Like daylight saving time, but Horrific Waking Up Avoidance.
I fumbled for my phone. Please, please tell me it’s 3:30 a.m. 4:30 LATEST. I HAVE to have a least another hour’s sleep ahead of me. But my eyes refused to open. I emergency-prised them open with my fingers.
PURE HORROR. It was 4:49. My alarm was due to go off in sixty seconds. Or less (I always set it a couple of minutes early so I can lie semi-asleep thinking how much I hate waking up.)
HAD I EVEN SLEPT AT ALL OR JUST DONE A LONG BLINK?!
It felt like someone had stuck a hoover in my ear overnight and sucked out all signs of life, just leaving a big thumping pile of dust where my brain used to be.
“Ten mins, Bells.” HOW WAS TEGAN ALREADY DRESSED?! “Need a hand with anything?” HOW WAS SHE SMILING?!
“Everything,” I tried to reply, but all that came out was a sound similar to when our blender broke. Tegan laughed.
BEEEEP BEEEP BEEEP.
Argh. Even my alarm sounded like it was ringing extra cheerfully just to wind me up.
“And that – ” Tegan prodded me in the side “ – is what midnight hip-hop karaoke does for you.” But I wasn’t listening. I’d discovered an even greater horror lurking on my phone.
Mum had replied to my picture of Jo dancing last night.
MUM: Love u darlingdaughters! So proud to see uu enjoying yours elves. SMEL.
(She was trying to make “So Much Everlasting Love” happen. It wasn’t.)
MUM: SORry I couldnt reply sooner. Had a man aboutthe house if you knowhat Imean.
Hello, message NO ONE ever wanted to receive from their own mother. Why did she have a “man about the house” in the middle of the night? Or worse. Overnight.
I full-body shuddered so hard Tegan had to nudge me to check my sleeping bag hadn’t gone into spasm.
To stop her worrying, I dragged myself up, using my phone torch to find any clothes. I’d already given up any sort of filing system. Well, not strictly true. My filing system now was just empty it all out and whatever I found was what I’d go with.
This was what I’d planned:
DAY TWO OF FESTIVAL LOOK: 90s indie with a twist of glitter.
ACTUAL LOOK: whatever was warm enough and I could reach.
I was about as close to a zombie as a human can be.
If the first two shifts had been a breeze, this one was a hurricane. A hurricane of sticky cups, manky food containers that all involved at least two types of primary-coloured sauce, and bits of clothing that had been discarded. Who were these people who didn’t notice they were missing a sock?! The only good thing about feeling so near death was that even the discovery of a pair of pants shaped like an alligator with half a cucumber in didn’t alarm me. All I thought was non-recyclable.
Two hours in and a follow-up from Mum came through. Sleep-deprived, hangry, and scarred from earlier, I opened with caution.
MUM: PS HAd a great last nightcant wait to tell you all about it!!
NO. BRAIN. COULD NOT. DEAL.
I bleurghed out loud.
“You all right, Bells?” Tegan threw a cup into my bin bag, as I stood emitting weird noises, like I was malfunctioning. Should I just throw my phone in with it to protect my sanity from more Mum updates? Nah – it was way too useful. (Not for emergency calls but properly good things – like Adam messages or the filter that puts a tiny dancing panda on your head.)
Jo replied with a smiley face. Classic.
So she was up? That meant a perfect opportunity for getting back to the much safer agenda of more footage from last night.
ME: We had a great time too.
I posted some video of Jo playing air guitar. And what looked like air flute.
MUM: SO PROUD OF MY BAB
IES.
And also:
MUM: YOU GO GRILLS!
I think she meant girls, unless Jo had developed a weird nickname I didn’t know about.
“Bells, seriously. You OK?” Tegan looked genuinely worried.
“Just wondering if just ’cos I came out of her vageen, I really am definitely related to my mother.” I buried my phone back in my pocket. “So, the usual.”
Tegan laughed. But that’s because her mum is normal and doesn’t do things like turn up to school in a Santa hat in summer because she’s decided to throw a surprise Half-Christmas party on June 25th.
I messaged back a thumbs up, and as Jo wasn’t taking the bait, a couple of the most arty shots of the festival I’d taken on the camera. Mum was really impressed with the one of the morning mist all seeping up around our campsite. I switched my phone off as I couldn’t cope with any more drama this early in the morning. I’m so thankful Mum was old when the internet was invented. The thought of what horrors would lie one life-changing Google search away if she’d had an iPhone when we were younger, made my mind boggle.
But things were looking up, as we’d arrived at Brenda’s D’Oh Nut Stand, and she gave us another bag of doughnut balls and a cup of tea each.
I sat on the bench by Tegan, happy for a quick break, and sipped my tea. I wasn’t sure if water could technically get hotter than boiling, but if by some scientific anomaly it could, it was happening right here in this polystyrene cup.
“Not … good … mornings.” I was really struggling today. “Need. Sleep.”
Tegan nodded. Our friendship meant joining words were sometimes an unnecessary waste of energy. It also meant she didn’t judge me for eating five doughnut balls in a row. But the sugar helped, and after betting on how many flyers Rach would have handed out this morning (I went for 70, Tegan went for an on-brand optimistic 105), Ross arrived to ruin our fun.
“OK, guys, no messing about. We’re off to the backstage area, and if I find ANY of you have gone off wandering on solo missions, expect to find yourself ejected from the festival quicker than you can say, ‘your face is covered in sugar’.”
Well, at least that’s what I think he said. As soon as I heard the words “backstage area” I zoned right out and into a world of A-list celeb spotting and gossip for days. This was SO exciting.
But when we got there, instead of feeling like I was roaming the corridors of Radio 1, it was like we’d been let loose in a coach station. A coach station in a field, full of buses with blacked-out windows and giant wing mirrors.
“Well, this is…” I looked around.
Tegan finished off my thought. “Disappointing.”
“Exactamundo.” I peered at the one nearest us, standing up on my toes, Tegan doing the same. The outside of the coach gave zero clues as to what – or who – was inside. “Litter-picking crew, who dis?” I said to the massive expanse of black glass.
But as I did a thought hit me, and I elbowed Teeg. “Do you … do you reckon one of these could be The Session’s?”
Tegan raised her eyebrows, unimpressed at the idea. “Who knows? Who cares?!”
“They could be in there. Doing band stuff.” I nodded towards the inside of the bus.
Tegan shrugged. “Yeah. Probably eating Shreddies and writing more tweets about how lame we are…?”
We stared at the windows for any sign of life, but there was nothing.
“Well, on the tiny off chance it’s them in there, this is what I’d say to them…” I put my hands on my hips. And tried to think of something profound.
My mind went blank.
So instead I leapt around on the spot, waving my arms and whisper-screaming the most threatening-yet-low-volume argggggh I could. I channelled Jo’s wild moves from last night.
Tegan smiled. “Nailed it.”
Ross shot us a look, so we smiled sweetly and scurried back to work. Half an hour later we’d cleaned the whole area. It was dullsville – the only exciting discovery was that backstage Portaloos had mirrors on the back of the door (obvs I made Tegan wait just outside the door. That was the new rule). Seeing my first full-length reflection was my most traumatic moment of the festival so far. I really didn’t need confirmation of how ridic my bin-bag high-vis combo looked, especially as Tegan’s super simple mac and neon vest made her look like she was in a retro indie band at a rave.
As we walked through the metal five-bar gate, out of the area, Tegan shuffled closer so we could chat without Ross busting us.
“Shame Adam didn’t get to stay here – imagine the goss.”
“Imagine him telling us what The Session really get up to?” We’d have ammunition for weeks.
“He could tell Brian where to go.”
“Yes, please?! And imagine all the convos we wouldn’t have to have had with Lols about us camping together.”
Tegan winced. “Yeah, I meant to speak to you about that yesterday. You looked kind of…”
“Freaked out?”
“I wouldn’t have said that.”
“Yeah – ’cos you’re too nice.” I swung the rubbish bag up on my shoulder as we trudged along. “It’s just not the convo I want to be having right now.”
Tegan nodded slowly. “Bells, you know if you’re not ready to talk about it, you’re certainly not ready to do anything about it, if you know what I mean?”
I did. But I had no idea how he felt. And I still had two more nights sleeping five metres away from him with Lols’ mouth worryingly near to say whatever it wanted.
When we got back to our tent, Rach was nowhere to be found, but Adam was sitting outside his tent on a box of Red Bull cans. He was flicking water out of his wet hair where he’d just been washing it with a bottle of water. Yup, my boyf was officially a sexy perfume advert. It almost hurt to watch he looked so fit. Whereas I hadn’t even brushed my teeth today, let alone hair. Maybe I could duck into my tent to sort myself out before he saw me?
“Beeeefy!” Too late. But his face lit up when he saw me. If I didn’t have at least five different food sauces splashed down my front bin bag I’d totally go in for a hug. “The celebs return.”
Well, that was one way to describe our karaoke efforts.
“Er, not quite celebs, but yup, we have returned.” I pulled off my bags and threw my rucksack into the tent.
When I came back out Marcus was standing up brushing his teeth with his finger. Did a toothbrush really take up too much bag space?! “You guys crack me up.”
I looked at Tegan. She looked at me.
I looked at Adam. He looked at me.
What was going on?
“Did…” Adam’s smile had vanished. “Did you guys not have your phones on you?”
Hello, least reassuring words in the English language.
Instead of a reply, I dived back into my tent and turned my phone on. I’d missed a group message from Rach from about 1:40 a.m. Apparently, The Session had done another interview taking the mick out of our petition. And they’d accused us of sabotaging the merchandise stand. How did they know?! But Marcus wouldn’t find that funny. Would he?
But a millisecond later, when I opened Instagram, I didn’t need any more explanation.
The technical term for the noise that came out of my mouth was “howl”. “Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg.”
Turns out when I’d been goofing around outside the tour bus, there was someone in it. The Tomato Ketchup Conspiracy Theory, who had filmed me and posted the clip.
Which was pretty awful.
But nowhere near as bad at the fact @HeyItsTheSessionHQ had somehow found it, figured out it was me and reposted it on their account, tagging me in along with this lovely comment.
Urban dictionary called. They saw this vid of Bella Fisher and said there had been a new definition of waste of air #NotThePropertyOfTheSessionPlease #SomeoneStopHer #StopTheSessionHaters
Which Brian had then reposted, video and all, adding his own comment. Weren’t lead singers meant to sleep in until the afternoon, not
wake up early to unleash a bitchy comments on a sixteen-year-old girl?
“Embarrassing. And if anyone’s thinking of turning up to their lame-ass protest at our gig, think again. Session fans mean war.”
So he knew about the protest? We’d lost the element of surprise. Now all we had was the element of making sure loads of people turned up. Which was proving to be a very hard element.
The hate on his post was unreal.
We always thought the grief they were giving us was a joke, now we know they are too.
Bella should probably give up on life now.
#TheSessionWontBeStopped
Oh look, it’s a dancing slug #IWouldn’t #NotEvenWithYours
Crawl back under your rock, bin bag girl.
I passed the phone to Tegan. Could I stay in this tent for ever?! I had two John West tuna snack pots, some marshmallows and 1.5 packs of chewing gum. I could survive on that. Cows just eat grass and they always seem happy.
“Ah,” was all Tegan said. Followed by, “Nice of Brian to tag and repost. A real quality guy.”
“Knock knock.” Oh good. Just what I needed – Adam putting his head into our tent and witnessing me having a minor-to-quite-substantial breakdown, surrounded by at least four pairs of pants that were strewn over my sleeping bag. I threw two behind me and flopped back with my arms stuck out to try and obscure the others.
“Come in?” His head poked in. Luckily he was too distracted by Tegan staring at my phone to see my pant disaster. “You hadn’t seen the Tommy K post then?”
Tegan looked across at me in a star shape across the tent floor. “Whatever gave you that impression?”
I wasn’t even sure which bit I was freaking out about. The whole world seeing me as an unhinged dancing human litter bin? Or the hate I was getting for it?
