Live and Fabulous! (27 page)

“Look!” gasps Claude, nudging me. “Zander Parr! I don't believe it! He's there!”

I spin around, spotting Zander Parr, not merely on TV, but asleep on a sofa right beside us, looking all small and delicate, wearing the aforementioned underpants firmly on his head, wrapped in a Union Jack flag to spare his blushes.

“Oh, wow!” I say. “It's really him.”

We peer at him, mesmerized by his famousness for a moment, before moving on to a bistro-style seating area where TV and radio crews are holding meetings about their day ahead. Men and women are lugging bundles of heavy cameras, wires and lights into the marquee, while TV presenters such as MTV's Lonny Dawson and Chloe Kissimy are rehearsing their lines for today's live links as well as making up questions to ask the bands.

“So, how have you been enjoying Astlebury so far?” Chloe Kissimy is reading off a piece of paper, over and over again, trying to commit the difficult question to memory.

In a small clearing in the chairs, kicking a soft football, are some lads we recognize straightaway as the hip-hop squad Blaze Tribe Five. They're the first band on today. God, they are all so lush! Meanwhile, over in a quieter corner, slumped on a set of plush leather couches, SmartBomb, the three-piece Cornwall electronic dance act, are being interviewed by the Midnight Mayhem girls, Britain's premiere tabloid gossip columnists. Fleur reads that page every day! Those girls are her heroes.

On an adjacent sofa, Mick Monroe, the editor
of Red Hot Celebs
magazine, is quaffing back champagne cocktails flanked by a flurry of beautiful girlies who are either a girl band, some more random models ... or simply a passing Swedish volleyball team, sent by God to make girls dressed in bin bags and raincoats feel inferior.

I don't really know what to say by this point.

I'm suffering from celebrity overload! No one at school is ever going to believe this, and I'm far, far too cool to go up and ask for autographs. Claude is also beginning to walk funnily, as she's totally desperate to pee and there's no toilet sign anywhere. Asking anyone is out of the question. These people look like they've never pooed or weed in their entire lives.

“Okay, this is just too weird now,” I say to Claude. “It's beginning to freak me out.”

“I know,” says Claude, picking some mud from her hairline. “I think we're a tad underdressed.”

We look at each other, knowing that although it's tempting to hang about and grow “acclimatized” to a VIP lifestyle, we've got a far bigger drama to handle.

One of us is missing.

And that's when we spot the most freaky sight of all.

Commandeering the entire far corner, which boasts several squashy burgundy sofas, is a posse of people who just compel you to stare at them, as they're all so impossibly, funkily, glamorous and “in-crowdish.” There must be more than two dozen of them, I'd guess, slumped together, like they've been up all night but want to carry on partying. They're giggling and gossiping and playing guitars. The guys all seem to have long scruffy locks and a variety of facial hair, and they're dressed in faded denim and kooky T-shirts. They look like male models attempting to look like normal Joes and failing, wonderfully. Several women are lounging among the clique too, all of them out of exactly the same angelic mold as Zaza Berry: tall, bronzed, willowy, vaguely bohemian, either lying with their pretty doe-eyed heads on the laps of a rock star, or sitting cocooned in a pair of strong arms, wearing beestung pouts of indifference.

You'd have to have lived on Jupiter for the last year not to recognize their ringleader, the legendary Curtis Leith, singer with the Kings of Kong. He looks like Jesus in blue jeans, chairing the Last Supper.

“Claude! It's the Kings of Kong!” I splutter far too loudly, which thankfully no one hears, as the DJ has begun spinning some tunes.

“No, it can't be,” says Claude. I don't know who she's arguing with, me or just the laws of reality.

“It's them, Claude! It's them!” I persist. “Over there, lying on the burgundy sofas, look! Curtis Leith! And Lorcan Moriarty, the lead guitarist, is there too.”

“You're right!” shudders Claude. “And Benny Lake, the drummer!”

I home in on the tableaux more carefully, trying to pick out faces. There's a chick I recognize from last winter's Gap campaign ... Lilyanna someone? She was married to Zander Parr for, like, about five minutes. Beside her a brunette woman applies red lip gloss in a small heart-shaped mirror as a coffee-skinned model type regales everyone with a story about something fabulous she did last year in Cannes. And in the eye of the storm, chatting, giggling and looking supremely minxish, wearing this incredible pair of indigo jeans and an off-the-shoulder stripey top, is a blonde girl who might well be Tabitha Lovelace's little sister. She's pretty and slim, with slightly flushed cheeks. Maybe she's an actress or a pop star or something. She looks really familiar.

Uh-huh. Hang on.

“Claude!” I gasp, placing one muddy hand over my mouth. “You're not going to believe this. I think that's Fleur.”

The next few seconds are an absolute whirlwind. Claude and I let out huge screeeeeeches, all the music and chatter seems to pause, and the entire room turns and gawps at the fuss. At the same time, Fleur Swan, for it truly is the little madam, sees us, emits an even more piercing euphoric eruption, then proceeds to charge at us, arms and legs and hair flapping, before scooping us both up and hugging us tightly.

“
It's yooooooooou!”
she squeals.
“You've found me! Oh, hurray!”

I'm so relieved to see her safe, well and not dismembered by the local neighborhood serial killer, I feel like collapsing.

“Fleur!” I say, getting a bit choked up. “We're so pleased to see you!”

“Me too!” laughs Fleur. “Hey, and isn't this all so great? We're in the VIP!”

Claude, by contrast, is not letting Fleur off so easily. Propelling herself up to about seven foot, three inches of pure anger, she begins jabbing Fleur away with both hands, shouting, “Well, we can see that, can't we?! You're in the VIP!” stamping one foot, with eyes as black as a raging bull.

“I know!” coos Fleur. “Spike sent us VIP passes! Isn't it wonderful?”

“Wouderful!?”
thunders Claude.
“Wouderful, Fleur? You brainless, selfish, vacuous, idiotic bimbo. I could almost punch your lights out, you silly mare! How is it wonderful?”

“Er, it's a bit wonderful,” I mumble, realizing the entire Blaze Tribe Five collective have pulled up seats to watch.

“Oh, and you can shut up, Ronnie!” yells Claude. “You've been worried out of your mind!”

Fleur's not looking half as perky now.

“You are so out of order!” shouts Claude. “Who exactly do you think you are, putting me and Ronnie through all this worry?”

“But I was fine! I was partying with the Kings of Kong in here!” Fleur says.

“Oh, you were fine, were you?” growls Claude. “Well, while you've been being
fine,
we've had police sniffer dogs looking for you! Oh, and Sky News has been showing your Year Seven Blackwell school photo since six A.M.!”

Fleur's face turns green. “Not the one where I've got a wonky fringe and a sweaty forehead!” she whispers.

Claude glares at her, torturing her for a few seconds.

“You're kidding, aren't you?” says Fleur anxiously. “You didn't call the police really, did you? Or Paddy?”

Claude flares her nostrils a little, making her sweat a tad longer.

“Okay, Fleur, we didn't,” she says. “But we very nearly did. We covered for you instead. We've even lied to Daphne and that's not on!”

“Oh, mmm, yeah ... Daphne,” Fleur says sheepishly, as if it's beginning to dawn on her what she's put us through. Fleur's eyes begin to fill up a little. “Look, I'm really, really sorry, girls,” she says. “Truly, I am. I got a bit carried away, you know, once I got in here and met everyone. And the phone network's broken so I couldn't call anyone. And then I met the Kings and ...”

“Oh, just button it, bimbo, and give me a hug,” tuts Claude, fighting to suppress a small smile. “I'm so flipping relieved you're alive, Fleur!”

Fleur gives Claude a big warm hug and a kiss.

Thank God they've made up—that was going to be one long, silent car journey home.

“So anyway,” says Fleur, untangling herself from Claude's muddy raincoat. “I take it we don't have to rush right back to Daphne, do we?”

Claude and I look to each other for consent.

“Well, maybe we could stay just a little while longer,” I suggest, eyeing the buffet. “I'm famished.”

“Me too,” says Claude, licking her lips.

“Hurray!” says Fleur. “But, er, before that, I was just thinking maybe you two could fit in a quick restyle.”

“A restyle? What do you mean? What's wrong with us?” says Claude awkwardly.

“Er ... not much,” begins Fleur. “It's just that right now you remind me of that old lady who used to live in the hedge behind the tennis courts. And, well, we all know what happened to her, don't we?”

“No,” says Claude.

“She got locked up, Claude,” says Fleur seriously.

In less than an hour, I barely recognize the Veronica Iris Ripperton standing before me in the mirror.

Trust Fleur to have not only ingratiated herself with the Kings of Kong and all of their girlfriends, who seem to view her as a tiny protégé, but to have infiltrated the enemy camp too, becoming all chummy with the fashion stylist Hazel Valenski. Hazel, who's been flown over to the UK by the Kings of Kong's New York record label to style them for tonight's gig, is hiding away from her enemies in the wardrobe marquee next door to where we found Fleur. Hazel was surrounded by racks of expensive designer dresses, astounding hats, fabulous shoes and handbags you'd probably slit your own throat for. As Fleur dragged us into Hazel's lair, the fashion legend was sucking a jujube and echinacea smoothie through a twirly straw and grumbling about the “demented skeleton” Tabitha Lovelace, who she'd heard was in the VIP “bustin' her chops about Curtis Leith.”

“Jesus! I am so over her freakin' ugly boyfriend!” Hazel yelled to a passing makeup artist. “The papers just made all that rubbish up anyway!” she moaned. “But hey, if Tabitha pops in for a touch-up, you better get that antiseptic concealer stick out. Her acne looks set for another flare-up. That's quite an unfortunate situation for the face of La Rivess cosmetics, don't you think?”

The makeup artist cracked up, laughing at Hazel's bitchiness.

“Hey, Hazel!” shouted Fleur.

“Hey, Lost Girl! What's new?” smiled Hazel, the platinum blonde streak in her curly brown Afro reverberating as she spoke.

“Ooh, I'm not lost anymore!” laughed Fleur. “I found my friends! This is Ronnie and Claude. They sort of need a bit of Hazel magic on their look though. Could you help them out too?”

Hazel stared at our bedraggled clothes, raised an eyebrow, then began to roar. “I'm a stylist, not a magician!” she hooted, standing up and browsing through a nearby rail. “But I'll give it a shot.”

“Great!” smiled Claude.

“But first of all, you both need showers,” Hazel said, throwing us towels. “I don't even put trash that smells like you two outside my apartment, because it lowers the tone of the neighborhood.”

Claude and I blushed furiously.

“Hey, and you girls better bring this stuff back! Or I'm gonna be in trouble! If I lose any more clothes, Venus Records will fly me back to New York cattle class. And Hazel Valenski does not do cattle class! What does Hazel not do?”