Friends Forever! (26 page)

“Man, did you squeeze cheese?” Freaky D laughs, nudging Finn with his elbow.

“What?” laughs Finn, shaking his head, then pointing at Sebastian. “Nah, not me! It must have been Mr. Boy Band here.”

By this point Sebastian has his nose cupped in his hands, looking like the toxic fumes are poisoning him. “Not guilty!” moans Sebastian. “But whoever let that one go better get themselves to a doctor. They're clearly unwell.”

As the male judges roar with laughter, Scrumble takes a small bottle of smelling salts out of her bag and inhales deeply. Meanwhile Abigail carries on with her promenade of the stage, walking like she's fractured her bottom.

“What's up with you?” hisses Panama. “Stop walking like a freak!”

“I can't help it,” mumbles Abigail. “I've got a bad stomach.”

With all fifteen contestants now lined up at the back of the stage, the MTV cameras sweep up and down the line, filming us. I try to do my best noncheesy smile and wave, knowing that everyone at the Fantastic Voyage is watching. Claude does a dainty wave, while Fleur begins pulling rock 'n' roll devil horns with both hands and doing a fancy “jump and wind” dance move. Okay, she looks pretty daft, but at least she's happy.

“Aren't they all gorgeous?” yells Lonny. “But sadly, now it's time to eliminate some lovelies. So let's make some noise for the Demonboard Babe clap-o-meter machine!”

“Good luck, girls,” shouts Fleur, crossing her fingers and jumping up and down even more.

“You're bound to be safe, Ronnie,” whispers Claude, nudging me and pointing down at Saul's gang, who are whistling and cheering. “Your fan club has been going wild down on the front row.”

“Yeah, Ron,” laughs Fleur, “you'll walk away with this one!”

But just as I begin to beam with joy, I spot the clap-o-meter. Or the
crap-o-meter,
as it should have been called. It's not a scientific noise-level meter at all—in fact it's just a rubbish box with “clap-o-meter” written on the side in red crayon, and some milk-bottle tops and old egg cartons stuck on to it by a crowd of preschoolers. My heart groans as Lonny walks along the line shouting names out and pointing at us, with the crowd cheering equally wildly every time. Suddenly I realize that the first round is a complete joke—anyone can be kicked out.

After a few minutes of total bedlam, Lonny fiddles with his earpiece and calls for silence.

“I have the results!” Lonny shouts. “And that was a really tough one to decide, but I can tell you now that the five girls we're saying good-bye to in Round One are Amy Harding, Tatiana Winehouse, Gail Winters . . .”

“What!?” huffs Amy Harding, a tiny slip of a girl in a dress so indecent she's clearly wearing it only for legal reasons. “You're getting rid of me? Are you insane? I'm the only one you'd even look twice at in the street.”

“But . . . I . . . I . . . ooooooooooh!” begins Tatiana Winehouse, dissolving into tears as her friend Gail Winters wraps an arm around her shoulder and blubs in unison.

Meanwhile, poor Lonny is trying to continue with the list. “Also leaving in this round,” he shouts, “is Abigail Munro!”

“Now there's a shock,” says Panama, holding her nose and elbowing Abigail, who is standing beside her. Abigail simply shrugs in acceptance as some security guards elbow past us all, trying to remove Amy Harding, who is up at the judges' desk squaring up to Freaky D and calling him a “blinkered fool.”

“And, erm, finally this round,” shouts Lonny above the racket. “We're saying good-bye to . . . Fleur Swan! Give them all a big hand now, everyone!”

Oh my God! Fleur is out!

Our trump card has been eliminated.

Claude and I glare at each other in total horror.

This is terrible, but worse still, Fleur clearly hasn't heard that her name has been called. As Candice begins to chivvy all of us girls off the stage, back to the dressing rooms, our blonde friend is still clapping and smiling, blissfully ignorant of her fate.

“Fleur!” shouts Claude. “Fleur, come here.”

Fleur looks directly at Claude, stopping clapping for a second to give us both a big thumbs-up.

“Oh no,” Claude groans, sidling over to Fleur and whispering something discreetly into her ear.

Fleur looks at her curiously, then asks her to say it again, which Claude does. Then Fleur's face crumples. I feel a sting in the back of my throat.

“C'mon, Fleur,” whispers Claude, taking Fleur's hand and walking her off the stage, back toward the dressing room. “Don't take it personally. That clap-o-meter thing is a piece of garbage. It was totally random! You should have won. You're beautiful.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly, walking behind them, realizing that while Fleur is now history as a Demonboard Babe, Panama Goodyear, Cressida Sleeth and Leeza Palmer have all lived to fight another round.

Right, I think. This is war.

Back in the dressing room, the atmosphere has turned decidedly belligerent.

“Oh, stop sniveling, Abigail,” growls Panama, looking annoyingly sublime in a purple Gucci bikini with gold clasps. “I'll have the prize money in my hands within half an hour. We'll grab Sandybongo and the other Argies and go out and buy some bubbly to celebrate.”

Abigail lets out a little sniffle.

“Look, keep on being a pain in the butt,” Panama warns Abigail, “and I'll send you back to the Windsmore Suite.”

Meanwhile, beside them, Leeza is beginning to boil over. “Right, who's got my bikini top?” she snarls, rifling through her Louis Vuitton carryall. “Hey you! Fake blonde with the bedraggled mop! Precious, is it? Where's my top?”

“Who, me?” whimpers Precious. “I've not touched your bag.”

As Claude and I change into our swimwear, trying to ignore the fuss, Leeza becomes noisier and more personal.

“Somebody in here has stolen my bikini top! I can find the bottoms, but not the top!” Leeza fumes, her huge boobs juddering under her dressing gown. “Hey, Ruskie!”

“Ja
?” replies Svetlana Varninka, throwing an icy glare.

“I know you've got it,” Leeza bitches. “I mean, that bikini top would keep your peasant clan back home in potato vodka for a year.”

“What did she say?” gasps Svetlana, pulling herself up at least two inches taller than I remembered her. “She called my family
what
?”

As the rest of the room winces, waiting for the inevitable bloodbath, Abigail begins to weep even louder. “Oh, borrow mine, Leeza!” Abigail cries, throwing her bikini top at her friend. “I won't need it now anyway.”

“Cuh, that won't fit,” tuts Leeza. “I had to preorder a doubleD cup from Gucci in New York. It was the biggest one available! I packed it into my carryall to bring here last night. And now it's gone!”

Leeza simmers silently for a second before swiveling around to where Fleur is sitting sadly with her face in her hands, totally devastated about her Round One ejection.

“Oi, Swan!” shouts Leeza. “Want to give me my bikini top back? Now. Or else.”

Fleur glares at Leeza with total revulsion in her eyes before throwing her head back, somehow finding the energy to defend herself. “Oh, my turn now, is it?” she yells. “Well, I've not touched your bikini top! In fact, what would I do with it anyway? Throw it over my dad's car in cold weather, you mega-boobed mutant?”

“Well said!” shouts Precious.

“Oh, shut it, thunderhips,” snarls Panama, jabbing Precious in the chest and sending her flying backward into her makeup bag.

“Achhhhhooooooo!” splutters Cressida, standing meekly in her magenta bikini, rifling through her Miu Miu vanity case. Cressida's eyes are puffed up like golf balls. She's getting sneezier by the second.

“Leave Precious alone,” roars Svetlana, waving her finger menacingly at Leeza, “or I'll paint you all over that wall!”

And with that, a tremendous fight erupts between Svetlana, Panama, Fleur, Leeza, Precious and almost every other female in the room. Makeup brushes are hurled, girls are shoving each other, all sorts of insults and accusations are being thrown. And all the while, one little Miss Claude Cassiera is calmly painting strawberry lip gloss onto her full lips and adjusting the straps on her camouflage bikini.

“Claude,” I whisper as Svetlana begins to drag Leeza around the room with her hands gripping each of her earlobes, replicating some sort of World Wrestling Entertainment tackle, “what exactly have you done with Leeza's bikini?”

“I beg your pardon?” says Claude innocently, with just a soupçon of minx in her voice. “I've no idea what you're talking about.”

“Claude,” I say, shaking my head slowly, trying not to smirk. “The truth, now.”

“Look, Ronnie,” says Claude quietly. “If Leeza packed the bikini into her bag last night, then surely it must be there. Well, unless somebody went in her suite and moved it.”

“Claude!” I gasp, looking around the room at the growing carnage. “And . . . and . . . what about Cressida? Is that your work too?”

“Who?” says Claude mischievously, powdering her nose.

“Cressida Sleeth,” I repeat.

“Oh,
her.
Well, you know what Cressida's like,” smiles Claude. “The slightest thing sets her off, doesn't it? Dust, detergents, dog hair. She's so fortunate that she doesn't need to work near them every day. Like I do.”

Claude pauses for a second to stare across at the one-woman snot mountain. Cressida is waving something in the air that looks like a necklace while simultaneously shouting and sneezing.

“But then,” continues Claude, looking at me and winking, “Cressida's so blessed her mother isn't dependent on her for money.”

But by this point Claude's voice is being drowned out by Cressida's wailing. “Who is Trixiebelle Frou Frou? Is it a dog?” she squeals, standing beside her vanity case, waving what we can now see is a pink dog collar with a diamond-encrusted name tag. “Why is there a dog collar in my vanity case? Achooooooo! This is an outrage! I'm very, very highly allergic, you know!”

Just that moment Candice appears.

“Girls?” she yells. “What's going on? I could hear the shouting down the hallway. Is everything okay?”

“I'm unwell,” bleats Cressida, brandishing the dog collar.

“Oh dear,” says Candice. “Well, would you like to give Round Two a miss?”

“Yes,” sniffs Cressida pitifully. “There's terrible negative energy around here. The marquee needs to be cleansed of its heavy aura. Do you have a shaman on staff?”

“Listen, Candice,” butts in Leeza, “some thieving scumbag has stolen my bikini top from my bag. I'm going to have to go out topless. Okay?”

“Noooo!” howls Candice. “It's not that sort of contest.”

“Tsk,” tuts Claude, watching the brewing chaos. “All that money. No class.”

“Well, this is just wonderful!” shouts Leeza, pointing at Fleur, Claude and me. “Just because I'm in a different league of beauty from these ugly hounds, someone's sabotaged my chances of winning.”

Candice rolls her eyes and looks at her wristwatch. “So Leeza, are you telling me you're not competing in the swimwear round? Because I need you to be ready, right now.”

“I'm ready,” smiles Panama, checking her perfect reflection in the mirror and heading for the door. “I was born ready. Catch you later, losers.”

“Well, I'm ready too then,” quacks Leeza. “Abigail, give me that bikini top. I'm wearing it in this round.”

“But I thought it was too small,” Abigail says.

“Shut up,” huffs Leeza, flinging off her dressing gown and beginning to wrestle herself into the groaning top. Leeza's boobs look like they're being strangled to death. The left one keeps making a bid for escape, but Leeza keeps pushing it back in while nagging Abigail to tie the clasps tighter around the back. If that bikini top manages to survive one whole round without exploding, it will be miraculous.

“See?” says Leeza, checking herself in the mirror. “Not too shoddy, huh?”

“No, Leeza,” winces Abigail. “You look great!”

“Oh, and incidentally,” says Leeza, as she heads toward the door, “good luck, everyone. Especially you, Ronnie—you're going to need it.” Leeza nods at my less ample cleavage with a little smirk. “Huh! No prizes for guessing what you'd spend your prize money on.”

But as Leeza passes by, I spot something very, very wonderful indeed. Unbeknown to her, there's a large patch of brown goo smeared all over the back of her bikini bottom. It smells exactly like chocolate, but it looks like something very, very different.

“Oh my God,” Fleur gasps. “Look! Look at Leeza's bikini briefs!”

“Ugh,” I howl, laughing till tears ran down my face. “That's chocolate sauce, right?”

“Right,” winks Claude, with a small self-satisfied grin.

 

 

So, okay, “Round Two: Swimwear” is a bit embarrassing.

But not a fraction as embarrassing as it is for Leeza.

Because with the entire crowd cheering and the TV cameras rolling, Leeza trots out onto the stage, sucking in her cheeks like a supermodel, with one hand on her hip and her nose aloft, totally oblivious to the large chocolate stain all over her cream bikini bottoms. As Leeza reaches the photo pit at the front of the stage, where snappers from the
Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Star
and
NME
are all gathered, they begin to snigger and point. Rapidly, the news spreads throughout the crowd. Then a slow handclap starts and some comedians begin to shout some rather uncharitable stuff.