Next door in the main master bedroom, lying zonked out on his front, in the middle of a four-poster bed, is a totally unconscious Sebastian Porlock, the second gorgeous member of the shirt-phobic triumvirate.
This really throws me. I almost burst into tears with happiness. I've had a poster of Sebastian on my bedroom wall since I was fourteen. I mean, okay, he's not as swoonsome as Spike Saunders, Duke of Pop, but he's still a tasty dish all the same. My mother once caught me crying inconsolably into my pillow one night because I'd finally figured out Sebastian would never be mine.
I've grown up a lot since then.
To our amazement, Sebastian Porlock is also totally and utterly stark naked. His small, pert tanned bottom cheeks greet us as we tumble into the bedroom to serve his eggs Benedict.
Sigh. It's such a perfectly formed, soft and blemish-free bottom, I want to bite it.
“Oooh! Er . . . aaaagh!” stutters Claude, covering her eyes.
“Good morning, er, afternoon . . . Mr. Porlock!” I shout. “We've brought breakfast.”
“Sppghhhllgh,” snores Sebastian, stretching a little before turning over on his back to reveal . . . well, to reveal more than I really wanted to see.
Euuuuuuugh!
“Oh, please!” squeals Claude as Sebastian snores like a trooper, legs akimbo. “My eyes! My eyes are burning! Cover him up! Aaaagggggh!”
But neither of us can pull the cover up for laughing.
“And a snorer too?” tuts Claude. “I can't stand that! So inconsiderate.”
“Yes, Claude,” I say, drying my eyes. “
So inconsiderate.
Hey, have you got your phone?” I chortle. “Let's send Fleur a picture!”
“Let's hope she's finished lunch,” Claude laughs, snapping away.
Of course there are some guests Claude and I aren't exactly over the moon to see. Downstairs in the indoor tropical spa area, Cressida Sleeth and Panama Goodyear are relaxing by the pool in their teensy-tiniest bikinis. Neither of them has a single lump, bump or ounce of spare flab, and both are a gorgeous honey color from head to toe and all over their disconcertingly plentiful cleavages.
“Claude,” I groan, as we approach with their drinks order, “have you noticed something different about Cressâ”
“The boobs, right?” says Claude.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“It's not just Cressida,” Claude says. “They've all gone up three cup sizes at least.”
“Have they had surgery?” I whisper.
“Dunno,” says Claude, furrowing her brow. “I shall have to investigate.”
“How are you going toâ” I begin, but then Cressida spots us.
“Oh, wonderful,” she says through gritted teeth. “It's the phantom flan flingers. Still slaving away, I see, girls? Well done, Claude; you'll stay off the streets yet.”
Claude narrows her eyes, then serves Cressida her elder-flower infusion.
“Tsk. Ignore them, Cressida,” Panama sneers. “It's so totally déclassé to chitchat with staff. My mother won't even make eye contact with our cleaner.”
Yards away, Abigail and Leeza are splashing about in the whirlpool, Leeza's ginormous boobs acting as her own flotation system. At a nearby table a group of MTV producers are holding an impromptu meeting to discuss tomorrow's Booty Quake.
“Oh, Abigail,” Panama yells across the spa, intentionally loud enough for everyone to hear, “being surrounded by all these music industry types really takes me back. It puts me in mind of when we almost signed that recording contract.”
Abigail cringes a little. Panama, Abigail and Leeza did once have an amateur pop band. Catwalk, they were called. It was the closest thing you could get to audible excrement.
“Well, it was more of a hobby,” blushes Abigail. “We weren't very good.”
“Rubbish!” squawks Panama. “We were far hotter than half of these losers playing tomorrow.”
Several of the MTV crew and assorted Mortuary Team members stop what they are doing and stare crossly over at Panama.
“Shh, Panama,” hushes Cressida, visibly shrinking into her lounger. “Everybody will hear!”
“I want them to hear!” storms Panama. “I happen to know that I've got star quality. If you're hanging with me, you better fasten your seat belt, because I'm going places fast. I'm going to be a famous singer one day, mark my words. Listen!”
Panama clears her throat, then scrunches her face up and begins to sing.
“Oooooh, I'm floating in the sky!”
she squeals.
“Like a big love pie! I'm running to your love. Oh meeeee! Oh my!”
Panama sounds like she has her bottom caught in a paper shredder. She's using that excruciating singing technique bad singers always use, taking a perfectly normal song, then making it last fifty-five minutes longer by doing wibbly-wobbly key changes on every note. The MTV staff are actually running out of the room clutching their ears.
“They're off to call their managers,” says Panama, nudging Cressida proudly. “Tell them there's a new star in town.”
them upstairs
At 8 P.M. I stagger back to the West Turret, through the crowds of pop stars, journalists and assorted hangers-on in the hotel lobby, feeling utterly exhausted. There's no way Scrumble can stop us from going to Booty Quake tomorrow. We've worked our butts off.
In the flurry of orders I managed to lose Claude entirely. I last saw her chatting with a journalist from the
The Mirror
in the day spa area. He was giving her his card in case she had any inside scoops. Then, when it was time for us to clock off, Gene and Leon told me Claude had been sent by Scrumble to the Windsmore Suite to clear dirty plates away from Panama and Co.'s rooms.
I am a little worried about her, actually. It sucks facing that lot alone.
The second I enter our apartment, I grab a dining chair, pull down the trapdoor and climb up into the loft, where Fleur is sitting on a blanket on the dusty floor surrounded by swaths of material, glitter and sequins.
“Hurray, you're back,” she smiles. “How's it going?”
“Veronica!” smiles Saul, who is lying on his sleeping bag on the other side of the loft about twenty meters away. Saul chucks down his
Ripboard Monthly
magazine, rushes across and proceeds to wrap his arms around my waist and give me a big snog.
“Eeeuuuuuuh, get a room,” groans Fleur, covering her eyes.
“Ha! Sorry,” I laugh, pushing Saul away gently. “So what have you two layabouts been doing all day?”
“Well, when the coast was clear downstairs,” Fleur says, “Saul crept down and went off surfing. Apparently he's got some surf thingy to do tomorrow . . .”
“Fleur,” I tut, “Saul's one of the Demonboard Surf contestants tomorrow.”
“What? Are you?” coughs Fleur, looking at Saul. “Oh!
That's
what you were wibbling on about. I heard something about, y'know, surfboards or something, then I sort of switched off. Sorry, Saul.”
We can't help laughing at her.
“Anyway, back to me,” Fleur says. “So once Saul had gone, I spent the day preparing. Y'know, having a bath, exfoliating, pedicure, manicure, eyelash tint, that sort of thing.”
“And then I got back from the beach,” Saul interrupts. “And I thought I'd been followed.”
“So we thought we'd better hide,” says Fleur, who's loving her new “Secret Squirrel” lifestyle, “which gave me time to make this!”
Fleur proudly holds up a black halter-neck bikini with small silver stars and pink bows on it. The bottom section has tiny little pink ties.
“That's amazing!” I say. “You did that yourself?”
“Not just a pretty face, huh?” she smiles.
“You'll look great in that tomorrow,” I nod enthusiastically.
“No, I won't,” Fleur says. “I'm wearing my fabulous cerise polka-dot bikini from It's a Girl's World.
You're
wearing this one!”
“Oh . . . hmmm,” I groan, staring at the bikini, which now appears to have shrunk to the size of a snowflake. “Wonderful.”
“Ronnie, you're not flaking out on me, are you now?” says Fleur.
“No, I'm not. It's just . . . ,” I mutter.
“Saul, tell her,” commands Fleur.
“I don't need to tell her,” says Saul, wrapping his arms around me again and nuzzling my neck. “She knows she's a babe.”
“Yak!” sneers Fleur, looking physically sick. “Not like that!”
Saul and I both start blushing.
“Now then, Ronnie Ripperton,” says Fleur, “this is the eleventh hour. I know I'm going to try my hardest to win that money tomorrow. And you are too. All you need to do is smile, prance about a bit and don't say anything nincompoopish when the cameras start rolling.”
Fleur pauses. She shakes her head.
“Okay, scrap that,” she says. “Just don't fall over or insult any of the judges.”
“Gotcha,” I nod.
Just then we hear movement downstairs. We all freeze.
“It's just meeeeeeeeeeee,” shouts Claude. The trapdoor opens and Claude's face appears through the hole. “I'm coming up.”
After a small struggle, Claude Cassiera is up in the loft, looking around in amazement.
“Wow! It's soooo much nicer up here now,” says Claude, wrinkling her nose playfully at Saul. “That terrible smell of underpants has gone.”
“Oh, don't start,” groans Saul. “Look, I didn't ask you three to invade my penthouse. This was my home, can I remind you?”
“Saul, Saul, Saul,” sighs Claude, shaking her head. “Don't even start me on the legal impossibility of that. Now, anyway, everyone be quiet, because I need to tell you about my afternoon.”
“Go on,” I say.
“Well, after I left you, I had the pleasure of taking Warren Acapulco's dog Trixiebelle Frou Frou for a whoopsie in the garden.”
“Euuuuuh, gross,” sniffs Fleur.
“And I got a hundred-pound tip for my trouble,” says Claude.
“Hot dang,” chuckles Saul, shaking his head. “It'll need a dump tomorrow too, won't it? Can I take it?”
“No way,” laughs Claude. “That dog is the gift that keeps on giving. I'm going to pop up later and give it extra dinner. Oh, and listen to this: guess who just saw Psycho Killa, in the flesh, right in front of her eyes?”
Claude pauses dramatically, then points at herself. “Meeee!” she giggles.
“What does he look like?” I ask.
“Mmm, to be honest, small and quite camp,” says Claude, shaking her head. “He was wearing this blue Lycra jumpsuit with silver buttons. Actually, he put me in mind of your aunty Susan's godson.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling slightly disappointed. I half expected him to be holding a severed human head, just like on the cover of
Body Bag Holiday.
“And finally,” says Claude, looking rather mischievous, “I've just been up to the Windsmore Suite. I was sent to collect all of Panama and Cressida's filthy plates and cups. And let their putrid bathwater out. Yuk. They don't call them filthy rich for nothing.”
“Oh dear. Are you okay?” I say. “Were they being nasty?”
“No,” says Claude. “They weren't there. They'd gone into Destiny Bay. They were having dinner with some pro surfersâwell, according to hotel gossip.”
A small crafty smirk sweeps across Claude's face. “So I had a little snoop around in their vanity cases,” she says.
“Naughty,” I giggle.
“And,” she says, slowly, “I think I've got to the bottom of their collective boob growth.”
“Spill it!” I gasp, moving closer.
“It's so gross,” says Claude. “They've been taking some weird hormone boob-grow pills. And far too many of them, by the looks of it.”
“What?” gasps Fleur. “Noooo! There's no such thing! You can't take pills to make your boobs swell up four cup sizes. I should knowâI asked my doctor about it when I was thirteen.”
“She's right,” I say sensibly. “You can't get a hold of such a thing.”
“You can if your father is head of chemical research at a major pharmaceutical firm,” Claude says. “You can get a hold of whatever you want. Tested or untested.”
“Noooo,” squeals Fleur. “That's terrible! It's illegal. And dangerous too!”
The LBD stand looking at each other in total shock.
“Well, thank God they didn't catch you snooping,” I say eventually. “That was lucky.”
“Lucky for me,” Claude says, but then under her breath she mutters, “but for them, rather unfortunate.”
Chapter 8
booty quake
It's the day the LBD has been dreaming about for months.
Saturday, August 14th!
The Big Beach Booty Quake!
Destiny Bay, which is hectic at the best of times, is absolute bedlam. Kids are flocking in from miles around, pouring off trains and jumping off buses, road-blocking the surrounding streets with their cars, each one reverberating with pumping bass lines and loud hip-hop. It's 11 A.M. and the sun's already blazing down. There isn't a single cloud in the sky, nor on the horizon, which means most of the kids flooding down onto the sand are already in states of undress, revealing their skimpiest bikinis and pumped abs.
Down on Misty Beach several huge outside broadcast vehicles and dozens of stressed-out staff are working away on today's live TV show, which is beaming out on MTV, the Extreme Sports Channel and Entertainment News Europe. Everywhere you look, hairy, sweaty technicians are fiddling with TV cameras, speakers and lighting rigs or congregating around the various marquees and soundstages, checking clipboards and barking into walkie-talkies. Meanwhile researchers are dispensing green VIP wristbands to various important bods as they enter the front gate.