I was walking slowly down the road to the shop. I walked into the shop; it was like Blackbush market. I tried to push through all the little children buying sweets. I saw a few older children attempting to steal bottles of ninety-nine pence cider, packets of chewing gum and loaves of bread. I pushed my self to the counter and asked for a top-up card. The elderly women could not hear me. I shouted what I wanted.
“Sorry deary, we are clean out of ‘em!” I rammed myself through the people. I stepped out of the shop and tripped into a dirty puddle from yesterday’s rainfall. I wiped myself off and looked at my watch. Five minutes to go! A state of emergency was declared in my mind. I shot out of the puddle and sprinted as fast as an Olympic athlete. I arrived at the school as red as a beetroot caused by my galloping. My phone rang, a withheld number.
“H-hello?” I answered cautiously
“Where are you?” David asked in a strong, angry tone of voice.
“I’m at the school, where are you?”
“Be there in a second.” He hung up swiftly.
I sat down and waited. After about ten minutes, I tried to phone David, and then I remembered I had no credit, but I had money to buy it. As soon as twenty minutes were up I saw David, Eve, Charlie and Jake. They saw me and began to walk over. Our little party began to get money and our tickets together, after we had organised everything we stomped over to the queue. A woman dressed in a stylish black and yellow suit came over to us; she had a pair of mock seventy’s sunglasses on and everything. She removed her glasses from her eyes and placed them nicely on her perfectly moulded hair. The chic lady said in a show-business way, “You, you and definitely not you. Y’all do. Come with me dahlings!” It was Eve, Charlie and myself who were chosen. We all followed the women gingerly. “Don’t worry, be happy!!” after her little joyful message we began to walk with more confidence. Not much confidence, but with confidence. We walked past a huge poster saying:
Modjo
Coldplay
Destiny’s Child
Sisqo
Gabrielle
Britney Spears
All Saints
AND THE GUESTS OF HONOUR
Robbie Williams
And Kylie Minogue
We all stared at it flabbergasted. I wondered in my mind, are we meeting them? I looked about the school, how different it looked with refreshment stalls everywhere, policemen walking about with dogs, people being moved on, and long queues for the toilets. I went to catch up with Eve and Charlie.
We followed the bizarre woman into the head teacher’s office. I felt very nervous again; maybe it was something to do with going into the head teacher’s office for the first time. Eve walked in first, then Charlie, and finally I stepped in cautiously. This woman fell into the head teacher’s chair. She swung around and flopped her feet on Mr. Etheridge’s Victorian desk. We all stood there taken aback by her disrespect for Mr. Etheridge’s property. She launched into loud and clear speech.
“OK, dahlings, Robbie wants to have a lady on the stage, so that is you, honey. Oh yeah, Kylie is demanding some men. So that is you two. Is everything all right? Good!” The lady spoke so quickly we could not get a word in edge-ways. “My name is Imogen by the way.” We all just stood there, shocked and in silence. Suddenly there were roars of excitement and enjoyment. Forget Cloud Nine, we were in Cloud Nine-hundred and ninety-nine!!! “Dahlings, dahlings. Be quiet!!! Y’all is needed in.” she looked at her gold Rolex watch with polished diamonds in it, “in thirty three minutes, OK? Good. Any problems ask for me at the reception.” She left us alone in the Etheridge’s room. We waited for at least twenty-five minutes; all we did in this time was talk about how brilliant today was going to be and snooping about the room. Then Imogen came in suddenly, scared us all to death but we were so excited because we thought she might have information about something. She spoke into her tiny mobile phone in what sounded similar to a foreign language like Swahili or Russian. Imogen hung up her phone and began to walk over to our little group.
Her mouth began to move, but we were too energetic to listen. I picked up only a few words. “Now, go, want, stage, Robbie, Kylie, and dahlings.” Then it clicked; Robbie and Kylie wanted us to be on stage now! I was thirsty, I had head-rush, and overall I was very, very nervous. Imogen was hurrying us along. We were virtually pushed out of our school.
We got to the front of the field. We walked across the football pitch and Eve stopped for a strange reason, she looked terrified. Her face went from her normal rosy colour to a horrible ashy colour. We all asked, with great concern, what was the matter? All she replied was “Look!” we all turned our heads. It was a gigantic, flamboyant, ostentatious stage. It had gusts of fire coming from these amazing Roman-like fire holders. Imogen continued to walk, she quietly stepped over to use and whispered in a proud voice, “I know it so full of elegance and flair, just wait to the show dahling!” We all followed her thinking “just like you, dahling!!” we pushed and shoved through the crowds until we got to the front row, I stood there for about, well the atmosphere was so amazing I lost track of the time. Then a security guard came up to the group and told us that we had to put our costumes on and that we have nine minutes. Eve asked in a confused voice, “We have nine minutes for what?” He simply pointed to the stage. Five minutes later Robbie Williams and Kylie ran onto the stage. Everybody screamed, anybody who wasn’t there would of thought Beckham had scored the winning goal!
The next thing I knew I was being pushed onto the stage by some six-foot bodybuilding bouncer. Imogen was backstage screaming like a witch, “Dance, sing, jump. Groove to the music dahlings!” we were doing all of that in front of everybody of Totton and everybody watching on the TV. The song finished and we danced and grooved off the stage. Backstage there were Jake and David. “Were doing Britney Spears!!” They said. This was an experience I would not forget. I have been asked to do it next year. Excellent!
By Paul Archer
