Page 72 of Knox Academy Omnibus
“This isn’t what you normally do?” I check.
“Hell no. This sucks,” Kalen replies. Speak of the devil and she shall appear; Laura is swanning towards us like she’s the queen of freaking England, dressed in a sequined shimmering cocktail gown. It’s entirely inappropriate.
“Kids, you’re late.”
“Sorry, Laura, the limo had to go round the block twice whilst we finished up the orgy.” Kalen grins at her.
“Kalen!” Monty’s sharp reproach comes from behind us.
“Jeez, chill out, dad. Laura knows I’m joking by now!” She smiles tightly, unamused and probably wondering if Kalen was telling the truth. “Anyway, as I was just saying to Amelie, this was NOT what we were expecting.”
“Well, no. But Laura thought it would be nice to do something special tonight and I agree. It’s nice to do something a bit different.” Monty couldn’t sound less honest if he tried. He looks so uncomfortable in his tux.
“Tell me there’s candy floss or I might have to kill someone!” Kalen demands.
“There’s a kiddy bonfire in the far field but-” That’s as far as Monty gets before Kalen is grabbing my hand and dragging us away from the parentals.
“Bye! Don’t wait up for us, Larry the Limo is waiting to bring us home! Laura, make him give you his jacket, I’dhatefor you to get ill!” The twins laugh as we all race as far away from Laura and Monty as possible.
It takes about five minutes traipsing across the field to get to the kid’s party, which isn’t for kids at all it turns out. The enclosed field is rammed with teenagers, an enormous bonfire burning in the centre of the chaos. Fairy lights are strung all through the surrounding perimeter trees, and on the far side of the enclosure are a variety of food carts.
“Now this is more like it!” Kalen crows.
“Oh my God!” Elsie cries, grabbing my hand.
“What? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“Marcia Brown is over there! What do I do?”
“Erm, go say hi?” I suggest. I think Elsie's crush is cute, but I have no idea if Marcia is interested in Elsie in that way.
“Okay, sure, yeah...I can do that.”
“Ooooh, Vag- I mean, Elsie, do you have a crush on our girl Marcia?” Onyx drawls, changing his nickname for her when I glare at him.
“Your girl?” She raises an eyebrow at him.
“Our girl. As in, we’ve all ridden that bike. More than once. Sometimes in tandem,” Onyx winks, as if the lewd metaphor wasn’t obvious enough.
Elsie’s face falls.
“Onyx you dick. What did you say that for?” I snap at him.
“Because it’s true.”
“Doesn’t mean it needs saying.”
“Absolutely bro, she’s right,” Kalen pipes up. Never thought I'd see the day that he took sides with an outsider compared to his family, but I do know that he and Elsie have been getting a lot closer. “Like, it’s true that you had herpes that one time, but we don’t tell everyone...ooops.” I laugh.
“That was a cold sore you asshole.”
“Herpes is herpes dude. Apologise to Elsie.”
“Sorry Vag...Elsie. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Can we get food?” I ask as my stomach gives an almighty rumble. It breaks the tension and the silence.
“Absolutely! Follow me!” Kalen declares. He leads us around the perimeter of the bonfire and over to the food stalls. There’s so many choices I don’t know what to have, but Kalen takes care of that by ordering a bit of everything, so we tuck into loaded jacket potatoes, hot dogs, pulled pork rolls - which are all delicious - but dessert is so much better! There’s candyfloss and toffee apples, warm popcorn, chocolate drizzled fruit kebabs.
