was more difficult for the teens.
“That’s my case there, that pink one – and that one!” Charm’s voice shouted. “Careful – they’re genuine Louis Vuitton repros!”
A sandy-haired lad, with a guitar slung over his shoulder, shrugged in bemusement. “You planning on stoppin’ here permanent?” he asked dryly. “How many frocks can a body wear in one weekend?”
“These is just me basic essentials,” she replied, pulling up the handles and trawling the cases back to where her mother was waiting.
Another boy, in a pale blue Hackett polo shirt with the collar turned up, stared after her, inclining his head to one side.
“Now that’s tasty,” he said appreciatively.
“I dinnae eat plastic,” the other lad commented.
“Afford to be fussy, can you? Even now? You’re wrong though, matey. That there would have been top trophy totty even before DJ ruined everything.”
“You reckon? Did you no hear her and her mother yakking on the coach all the way here? I can do without that earache.”
“Trick is not to listen to them, amigo. Just nod when they look at you and flirt a bit with their mums. Works a dream.”
“Dinnae call me amigo.”
“What then? I’m Marcus. Do you play that guitar?”
“Aye, you look like a Marcus. And no, I just carry this with me to use as a paddle in case I get washed overboard my luxury yacht.”
“No need for the attitude. We’re in this cack together.”
The Scottish boy considered him a moment. He had seen Marcus get on the bus at Manchester. He was about fifteen, the same as himself, but a type he would normally never associate with, in school or out. He was far too cocky, sporty and wore casual clothes that had never been chucked on the bedroom floor after use. He probably folded them before putting them in the laundry basket and ironed his socks and underwear. He certainly spent way too long in front of the mirror and too much money on self-grooming products, if his painstakingly arranged hair, moisturised skin, pungent shower gel and aftershave were anything to go by. Before that book had taken over and changed all the rules, he must have been a swaggering fish in his own little north-west pond. But, despite those unappealing traits, this Marcus was undoubtedly right. Aberrants such as themselves faced enough battles out there without picking quarrels among their own kind.
“Alasdair,” the Scottish boy muttered, extending his hand. “Just dinnae call me Al, Ally – and if I hear a Jock or a Jimmy, at any time over the next few days, I will have to kill you.”
Marcus grasped the hand and shook it, too heartily in Alasdair’s opinion. He was like a teenage estate agent or used car dealer.
“Nice to talk to another normal person for a bloody change!” Marcus said.
“Whatever normal is, aye.”
“Not being a raving Jax-head, that’s what I call normal.”
“I wouldnae know any more. It’s been so long.”
“It’s mental. I still don’t get it. Soon as that ruddy book came out, every girl I know… knew, cracking pieces they were, no rubbish, dumped me and chased after some scrawny loser just because he had a ten of clubs on his Primark anorak. I was like, what?”
Alasdair glanced at the branding on Marcus’s shirt and smiled to himself. In Scotland the word ‘hacket’ meant ugly.
“Aye, well,” he said. “If your own parents can kick you out as mine did, there’s no many surprises left.”
If he had expected Marcus to sympathise or ask him about it, he would have been disappointed. He wasn’t.
“So,” Marcus continued, reverting to his favourite topic, “if you don’t fancy that hotness, it’s a shame to let it go begging. I’ll have a crack at her. I am having one hell of a dry spell. Before they brainwash me this weekend and do my head in good and proper, I’m going to cop off with a fit bird one last time.”
Alasdair seriously began to wonder if this boy’s brain actually was located in his underwear.
“Did you check out that other coach?” Marcus continued. “No talent at all in that. Just more kids and a definite ‘Avoid’ in a manky green cardy. The blonde bit is the only thing worth chasing.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Alasdair told him. “Yon plastic dolly’ll no be interested in you. Fancies herself way too much that one.”
Marcus pushed the short sleeves a little higher up his biceps and picked up his case.
“No skirt in its right mind can resist the Marcus magnetism,” he boasted as he sauntered after Charm. “When I shift into fifth gear pulling mode, I’m the Stig’s knackers.”
Behind him, Alasdair winced.
“Total tool,” he muttered.
Jangler was irritated and his feet were throbbing. No one was taking the least bit of notice of him. He cleared his throat and clapped his hands. Eventually he called one of the minstrels over and banged crossly on his drum.
The children’s heads turned his way. The teenagers dug their hands deep into their pockets or folded their arms. Charm stood to attention and waited politely, posing her head this way and that, as cute and as coy as she knew how, all the while wondering where the cameras had disappeared to. Marcus positioned himself behind her and admired the view. Jody sunk her chin into her chest and huddled into her cardigan. Alasdair looked at the pompous little man, staring over his spectacles at them, and hummed the theme to Dad’s Army to himself. For all his medieval costume, the Lockpick reminded him of Captain Mainwaring and in spite of everything, the Scottish lad couldn’t stop smiling. At the back, Nike boy hissed through his teeth and kept his earphones in.
“As there are thirty-one of you,” Jangler addressed them, “eighteen girls and thirteen boys, I’m going to call out your names in groups and assign each group a cabin. Make your way to it, unpack and freshen up, and we will foregather here again in one and one half hours to commence the weekend’s revels – won’t that be nice? Now females first…”
He began to read from his clipboard. The younger children looked confused. Their parents had trailed after the Ismus, but help was at hand in the form of women, dressed as serving maids, who found their bags and cases and ushered them to the right cabins.
The camp had only been open a couple of years so these dormitories were modern, comfortable and pretty spacious inside, considering. Usually they slept five, but extra frames and mattresses had been fitted into them for this special weekend. The girls were allocated three cabins. The boys were crammed into two.
Shaking her wet hands, Jody Barnes emerged from the toilet and returned to the bed where she had dumped her holdall. She looked around her. The place was clean, if spartan. She assumed the prints of painted Mooncaster landscapes had been hung on the walls for their benefit, but there was also a TV and a games console.
Each cabin was laid out the same. This ground floor housed four beds and there were two more on the small, partly enclosed mezzanine area up the stairs. Jody should have raced straight up there and bagged one of those bunks for herself, but her bladder had decreed otherwise. Two of the younger girls from the other coach had claimed them instead. Still, she didn’t mind; this wasn’t so bad. After so many months being the only person in Bristol shut out from the world of Dancing Jax, it was going to be a breeze sharing this place with other rejects, even if they were mainly kids.
The only downer was that Charm creature. She’d been put in here as well. Her mother was still fussing around her and Jody felt a pang of jealousy. Her own parents were outside with the Ismus somewhere. They only came today so they could meet him. They took no interest in her any more. They were bored of having to be her mum and dad in this world. Five months on, the pain of that rejection