The Disco at the Heart of Dusk, Chapter One

Flashsatsumas and the counter-Juniper were at the bus stop by the front gate, bright flags flying behind them.

“I’m never going to get used to this place,” said Flashsatsumas, hands on hips.

“Don’t go spoiling it,” the counter-Juniper warned, as a double-decker from town rumbled into sight and began to slow. “She’s really looking forward to today.”

“That’s the part I find hard to understand!” Flashsatsumas cried.

The bus door hissed and clunked to discharge a little ginger-haired girl, who skipped from the step all smiles. The last time Flashsatsumas had seen her she’d been a ragged captive in pigtails, but now she sparkled lilac and mauve while her red tresses bobbed in a new pretty style. She was supposed to be tracking down her long-lost parents, but looked like she’d hit the high street before reaching for a telephone directory.

Flashsatsumas suffered the girls to go “Oh!” and hug each other a bit.

“Well, Sheila,” he then greeted the smaller one in bracing tones. “And how are things with you?”

“Much better than they were,” Sheila told him truthfully. “We found a nice bed and breakfast on the seafront, and half of us are already home. Henry, Dee and Erica all had parents who lived nearby, as it turned out. Mine and Robbie’s seem to have moved house, but Peter’s working his magic on the phone book, so it shouldn’t be long. Anyway, it’s left me with a little bit of time to kill.”

The counter-Juniper gave Flashsatsumas a superior smirk, as though this explanation had addressed every point in Sheila’s plan to which he’d voiced doubts.

“Right, you,” the taller girl then continued to the shorter. “First things first.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sheila, obligingly turning her back. “You did say.”

“I didn’t,” the counter-Juniper corrected at once, contorting somewhat with one hand down her waistband to rummage in her pants. “It’s not the sort of thing I’d have thought of.”

“Really? I was sure it was you,” replied Sheila with a frown, while disclosing and poking out her own frilly white reverse.

“No, easy mistake to make, over the phone at least,” said the counter-Juniper, extracting at last a yellow sprig which was starting to look like it had been picked a little too long. She hooked with one finger Sheila’s elastic, and popped the wilting thing inside.

Flashsatsumas wouldn’t have watched, except that he wanted to be sure some precautions were being taken against Sheila’s recapture the minute she crossed into camp bounds. The counter-Juniper could be as smug as she liked, but Flashsatsumas stood by what he’d said. That Sheila should have telephoned reception at all, leaving a message for Mini-Flash Juniper to call her back after six, was proof enough he was a long way from his galaxy. Having said that, Flashsatsumas also supposed his companion had a point. This was a realm where fearsome monsters kept their distance from a scraggly old bit of oilseed, even one showing the signs of having been down several different pairs of underwear including Flashsatsumas’s own.

On a related note, the girls seemed to have theirs settled and sorted out.

“Now, I should like very much to see little Calvin,” condescended splendid Sheila, whose approximate age and height appeared to both observers identical to those of her theme. “Such a sweet boy. Henry was wont to rescue me more swiftly, but I can’t fault the zeal with which your small friend went about it, considering.”

“At this time of day our small friend’s usually at National Pentathletes,” said Flashsatsumas.

Sheila beamed back at one bemused male, and a female who was becoming less so about the reason for the new outfit and hairdo.

They set off together, Shelia leading the way as she evidently remembered how to get there. “She’s not asking much, Flashsatsumas,” added the counter-Juniper, in tones which implied he needn’t start up again. “Kids wait all year round for the sake of having one week here. Sheila’s only after a little bit back out of what was stolen from her. Besides, think of all the good money her parents must have paid.”

“They could ask for a refund,” Flashsatsumas pointed out. “Under the circumstances, they’d probably be entitled.”

“It’s easy, Calvin!” laughed Sheila’s voice from out of nowhere. “I always play my little brother like this. Try again!”

A netball hanging in mid-air at waist-height started to bounce from the court.

“Can’t get used to not seeing my own feet!” complained Calvin’s voice from just above.

Spectator-sports were a whole new experience when both participants were invisible, as Flashsatsumas and the counter-Juniper had quickly discovered. The latter however hadn’t been surprised when Sheila suffered a sudden attack of shyness in the changing room, and Calvin’s power of mimickry seemed to have been working just fine when they came face-to-face. Luckily the pair were unique among bashful young couples in having a handy way around the problem, and once they no longer had to look at each other they’d started to get on just fine.

“Well, I can tell where mine are!” retorted Sheila’s voice, and giggles pealed out from both positions as though she’d said something barely allowed in a civilized sports centre.

“I bet you can!” came back the scandalous rejoinder, followed by more splutters.

Invisible trampolining was next, and it brought no let-up in what was starting to feel to the counter-Juniper and Flashsatsumas less like athletic competition and more a repetitive radio-drama. While two sidelong sets of springs were creaking and tarpaulins sinking floorwards as if by themselves, the listeners heard all about how Sheila was staying invisible because she didn’t want some boy seeing her knickers when she got it right, and Calvin was staying invisible because he didn’t want some girl teasing him when he got it wrong, but even the fits of merriment punctuating this exchange seemed mild once the contest was underway. Then, while both trampolines rhythmically plunged and bounced back and resettled and repeated, Calvin and Sheila commenced shrieking to each other that that was a triple somersault seat-drop, and that a double-twisting tuck and pike, and then when they’d exhausted their mutual knowledge of trampolining terminology proceeded to invent ever more elaborate titles for the moves they attributed to themselves, each apparently more hilarious than the last.

Flashsatsumas was grateful when he was able to announce: “Oh, here’s Miss Ugly!”

Since that one’s fade-ins always took a while, there was time enough for those who’d been somewhere around the ceiling to come gradually down. They became visible again too, even as the girl in the old-fashioned pink tutu did much the same, and disembarked red-faced and grinning from their respective canvases.

“It’s time for my lunch anyway,” Calvin confessed to Sheila.

“What are you having?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Calvin, convulsing the pair of them with this last crowning witticism, and then when they’d finally recovered he bade the company goodbye and took his leave.

Miss Ugly for her part greeted Sheila. “Just came to check you weren’t being tortured again, which was what it sounded like,” said she. “Maureen told me to tell you she and Pat have made up a bed for you at their chalet, like they said they would. According to Maureen there’s also a thing called a junior disco tonight, and she’s not going, but she thought you might want to.”

Sheila’s pretty face lit up for the first third of Miss Ugly’s last sentence, but fell at the middle and hadn’t recovered by the end.

“Why isn’t she?” pouted the disconsolate one.

“If I remember rightly, it was because discos are daft stupid rubbish and the girls who go are all crackers,” related Miss Ugly. “It’s left me a little curious, actually. What is a disco?”

When the answer came back that it was a sort of dance, Miss Ugly’s was the face that lit.

“Dance is the only thing I ever learned to do!” she breathed.

A radiant Sheila seized her hand, and that decided that.

END OF CHAPTER ONE