Live and Fabulous! (20 page)

The LBD all stand very still, straining our ears.

“‘
”Cos I'm looooooost,'
” croons the lad.

“Oooh my God, now you come to mention it ... yes, it is!” gasps Fleur, her eyes lighting up. “Ronnie! Claude! You don't think that it's ...”

Fleur starts flapping her hands about excitedly, starting to hyperventilate.

“No, Fleur, I don't think that's Spike Saunders singing, you silly mare!” I say, shaking my head.

Fleur looks very disappointed.

“But he's quite good anyhow, isn't he?” I add.

As our neighbor struggles with the difficult key change in the third chorus, he's drowned out completely by the growing roar of his friends.

“Regurgitate! Regurgitate! Regurgitate the beer!” the boys are yelling.

And then after an ominous silence, we hear a squishy splatter.

“Ugggggghhhh! You're disgusting, Franny, you minger!” yells one lad.

“Stop encouraging him then, Nico;” shouts another.

“But he hasn't re-drunk it yet, Damon!” the lad replies. “He's not getting the five quid unless he re-drinks the vomit!”

Before I can say another word, Claude Cassiera has sprung to life and vamoosed through the maze of tents toward our neighbors.

What's she up to? She's not going to tell them off, is she?!

I want to follow her, but something's holding me back. They seem a bit wild to me. What if things get nasty?

“Could you pur-lease keep the noise down!” I hear my hard-hitting bambino buddy snarl. “Some of us are trying to go to bed!”

Fleur and I wince, waiting for a tirade of abuse and beer cans.

Instead there's a stunned silence ...

... and then a huge joyous cheer!

“Wah-hayyyyyyyy! Claudette!” erupts the bunch. “How you doing! ?”

“Helllooooooo, boys!” hoots Claude back. “Sorry, did I give you a shock?”

Eh?

I bound toward the racket, not quite believing my own ears. These guys can't possibly be who I think they are, can they?

Surely not? Oh my God, it is!

It's Joel, Damon, Nico and Franny! Our knights in shining armor from this afternoon, slumped around a hearty bonfire, less than twenty meters from LBD HQ, strumming guitars and regurgitating lager beer for kicks!

“Ronnie!” shouts Joel, putting down his guitar and grinning broadly. “You made it!”

“Oh, my word, Ronnie, isn't this an incredible coincidence?” announces Claude. “I had no idea this lot were camping in the Magical Glade! Isn't that freaky?”

Claude should never get a job in the theater.

Damon jumps up, hugging Claude warmly. For some reason he is wearing a girlie blonde bobbed wig, perched all crooked on his head.

They must have been at the fancy dress stall too.

At this point, faced by a wall of testosterone, it strikes me that not only am I covered in grass and mud stains, but I'm wearing sparkly deely-boppers and ...
gnngnnnng
... a stick-on comedy fake boil on my chin! I pull off the deely-boppers and ker-ping the boil somewhere past the Hexagon Stage.

“Take a seat, Ronnie! Everyone shift up a bit!” says Joel, patting a space beside him on the camping blanket he's perched on. “So the tire held out then?”

“Yeah! We're all here in one piece,” I smile, vaguely mesmerized by Joel's long brown eyelashes and hazel eyes. Joel's eyelashes are, dare I say, even longer than Jimi's, which I'd never have thought possible.

“Hey, thanks again for helping us out before,” I say, trying to smooth down my fringe, which has gone a bit woo-hah because of the deely-boppers.

“No problem at all.” Joel smiles, picking up his guitar, and strums a perfect G chord. “So, are you ready for a sing-along ?”

“Ooh, I'm not much of a singer,” I blush. “I play a bit of bass guitar ... Hey, but you can fairly belt it out, eh? Was that one of the new Spike Saunders CD tracks?”

“Yeah!” Joel says, grinning. “I mean, it's not released for weeks, but ...”

“You downloaded it off the Internet, didn't you?” I grin. “So did we!”

“Ugghhh! Not another Spike Saunders fan!” groans Damon, glugging a can of lager. “What a total moron that guy is! Total popified girlie rubbish. Joel must be the only geezer in Britain that likes ‘im. I reckon it's just a ruse to woo ladies. Y'know, show off his sensitive side? Not that any of you girls would be as daft as to fall for that.”

Joel blushes now.

So do I, for that matter.

“Actually, I just think he's a brilliant songwriter,” Joel says to me. “I know all his stuff off by heart. That new album Prize is his best yet!”

“What?” I smile. “You can play all the tracks off Prize already?”

“Er ... yeah, sad but true,” Joel blushes again. “You think I'm a total dweeb now, don't you?”

“No, that's totally cool!” I begin to tell him, only I'm interrupted by a loud familiar voice and a fragrant waft of Supermodel Eau de Parfum.

“You guys again!” squawks Fleur Swan, who has made a swift costume change into delicate pink cotton pajama bottoms, a cream cashmere sweater and fluffy kitten-heel slippers. “What are you lot doing in our field? Ronnie, call security! Have them release the hounds!”

All the boys cheer as La Swan makes her entrance.

“Eh? What do you mean, your field?” laughs Franny, clearly in an advanced state of beer-induced relaxation. “We were always going to camp here. In fact, we told Claude ...”

“Hey! How about another song?” interrupts Claude “Dark Horse” Cassiera. “Let's have something off Spike's last album, eh, Joel?”

Fleur finds a pew and everyone cheers as Joel strums the opening bars of “Merry-Go-Round,” Spike's most famous, multimillion-selling, award-winning hit.

Ah, up close he sounds even more excellent! He can do all those twiddly bits and complicated chord changes, just like Spike's guitarist Twiggy Starr, and he can do the swooping high and low notes straight after each other too! When I first met Jimi, he used to play his guitar loads; his band Lost Messiah were always playing little gigs. I was so proud of him. That all went down the drain when the town council built that new skate park. Now his guitar just gets used as a door stop.

“
‘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.