Chapter Twelve: In which you will have to read the chapter to find out what happens in it, because the author has a mental block at the moment. But there is a party.
Heatless winter sunlight poured through the conservatory windows and Dorothea shifted uneasily. She'd spent most of the morning mentally scratching at something just out of reach, and, like the perfect adjective, it had kept itself well screwed onto the other side of an adamantium wall. It had already taken the enjoyment out of her avocado-and-double-cream-camembert croissants, and looked to be spoiling the rest of the day too. Not only that, but Jack hadn't emailed her and the senior Fowls had left for a day on the town, leaving her alone with their increasingly bat-like son.
Dorothea groaned and whacked her head against the back of the sofa, or whatever fancy French name was given to this subtly smug species of seating. Unfortunately, what with it being a rather dry day with incredibly low humidity (mostly due to the fact that Dorothea had tripped over the thermostat), her hair had styled itself into a giant fan, suitable for knocking vases off shelves half a metre above the hair-owner's head. Or, in this case, one vase containing flowers and water.
The vase fell safely onto the luxurious sofa and remained in one glistening piece. The flowers were strewn- some slightly de-petalled- around it. The water, however, had made a much more interesting landing.
Dripping wet, Dorothea scrabbled around and thrust the blooms haphazardly back into their vase. Then, hair slightly less vertical than before, she made her way upstairs to her rooms. It should be stated here that Dorothea, though rather slack in the areas of hair-styling and fashion, was immensely vain when it came to having 'rooms'. Borrowed rooms, yes, but her borrowed rooms. No longer for Dorothea the indignities of shared bathrooms and living rooms! No longer the drudgery of having to build a million shelves to store stuff on! Why, for the whole two-and-a-bit more weeks she was staying at this lovely mansion, Dorothea had the wonderful freedom of having at least fifty square metres of floor-space! She could throw her books over there, her clothes over there- and there, and there- her homework . . . well, it was somewhere. Probably. Doo-de-doo. . .
Wonderful though the hair-care properties of flower petals were reputed to be, Dorothea decided that water laced with chemicals designed to extend the life of cut plants was not what she wished to marinate her fuzzy locks in. So she had a shower.
A Short Musical Interlude
"You should really let me do something with your hair," lilted Juliet as she bobbed around the door.
Dorothea moaned. Not again. Not another day wasted as yet another well-meaning fashion guru sprays and mousses my hair. Another day! Another opportunity lost. Another opportunity to . . . to. . .
"Oh . . . all right. Sure." What harm could it do? Nothing worse than Beth's attempts, anyway. Poor, deluded, snip-happy Beth.
"Great!" Juliet chirped. "I'll be right back!"
Oh, god. What's happened to her? Horrific visions of blonde, bobbing aliens italicising the minds of blonde Irish teenagers flooded Dorothea's mind. Blonde, bobbing, and shrieking OMG!!!!11!!!LOL!!!!111!!!!one!!! Please, no. Please, O-random-deity-listening-in-on-my-thoughts, let not the evils of chatspeak destroy the mind of the only sociable teenager I've met in Ireland.
Within eight and a half minutes, Juliet returned with an armful of hair products and one squishy bottle balancing on her left foot. Now, some people, they'll stay loyal to a single brand forever, forsaking Two-for-One sales and traversing every shop in town in defiance of the dreaded "Out of Stock" signs. Not Juliet. Juliet, true child of the 21st century as she was, set her LushLox alongside her SatinShynz, Splits-be-Gone fraternizing- albeit unwillingly- with a dodgy bottle of Pretty Beauty Lady Hair Go. That particular product had been left on the shelf for this occasion.
As Dorothea's hair began to sag under the weight of various gels and potions, Juliet took up the true mantle of the hairdresser- and began to prattle.
"So, yeah, he is so" – Dorothea winced- "out of my life. Can you believe a guy would do something like that? Totally unreasonable."
Dorothea, lulled by hands massaging her head, began to doze.
"So. . . any significant other in your life, Dorothea? Any studly farmers stashed back down south?"
This sudden query surprised Dorothea in the same way small pieces of spheroid metal surprise rabbits. "Nhh-bgrdl- blenk- nnniiiiiiiii. . . Uh, gosh, no. Nonononono." The thought, while being horrible and disturbing, was also quite amusing. After all, Dorothea was the one who, during Computers class at school, actually concentrated on drawing a Photoshop wrench instead of sending lewd emails to her classmates.
"Oh, what? Aren't you, like, fifteen or something? Come on, you've got to have some romance in your life. What else are hormones for?" It had been a very nice wrench.
"You know, when I've fixed your hair, uhmmm . . . could do something about your nails, too . . . you walk nicely enough, but your lips are totally peeling. Dorothea?"
A very nice wrench, with Sparkles of Doom.
"Dorothea?"
Doooooooooooooooooom!
"Uh? I mean, yeah. . . what? Sorry."
"So, you coming to the club tonight?"
"Club?"
"You know, dancing. Some Youth Meet thing- getting kids off the streets and night and all that jazz. Cool music though. You should come. I'll lend you some clothes."
"I've got clothes."
"Uh-huh." Juliet was obviously a master of patronising sympathy. "Probably still all grungy from being in your suitcase, though. Not really what you want to wear dancing."
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"I'm not going to wear this dancing!" Dorothea shrilled before catching herself "- I mean, uh, I'll get cold or, or. . . it'll fall off. . ."
"What? Oh, lighten up, it's fine. We're going to a club."
"But-"
"There'll be boys."
"It's a serviette. A sparkly serviette."
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"I don't suppose you could offer any viable reason for wearing what appears to be a pocket-handkerchief."
Irish accent- check.
Sneering drawl- check.
Total lack of any human mind at work behind glacial eyes- check.
Dorothea spun to face Artemis, kohled eyes shining with indignation. Well, shining because Juliet had started giggling over some guy who was supposed to show up at the 'club', and a giggling Juliet isn't very accurate with a kohl stick. "It's not a pocket-handkerchief. If you had any life outside of your fricking computers, you'd know that only freaks wear pocket-handkerchiefs. This-" she flicked her hand towards her top "-is a serviette."
And with that, she stalked off, revelling in the sense of silky, flat hair against her neck. And back. Oh, gods, this shirt. No, not a shirt- the word 'shirt' implied an article of clothing with both a front and a back. This barely had one of the two. And the partial one that it did have was covered in silver sequins.
And on top of all that, Dorothea had actually Talked Back to someone. Quite lamely and American-teenager-on-a-sitcom-y to be sure, but still- not like her at all. Not like her at all. It must be the sequined top.
Sparkly Sequins of Dooooooooooooom!
"You ready to go, 'Rea? Big bro's waiting." Juliet had gone to even further lengths to 'glam herself up' as she had for Dorothea; that is, where Dorothea looked like something out of Chicago, Juliet glinted and shimmered and shone like a psychedelic Christmas tree. "Get your butt into gear."
The trip into town was hardly unusual- both girls froze half to death, having forgotten, it seemed, winter; Butler refused to travel more than 60km/h on the country roads, and Juliet shed what must have been half a kilo of pink glitter onto the interior of the car. This left her with approximately three and a half kilos left on her face and clothing- not to mention her shoes.
Oh, those shoes.
To get an idea of the designer miracle- or travesty- that was Juliet's new pair of shoes, envisage a pair of ballet slippers, the ones with the ribbons that criss-cross up your legs. Except they're made out of shiny, cerise-coloured faux crocodile skin, and the ribbons have pink rhinestones of various shades spaced at regular intervals along them- as do the fifteen-centimetre heels. The open heels are trimmed with rhinestones too. And the sides of the soles. The ribbons were also tipped with glitter-crusted plastic globes which were, surprisingly, pink.
She was wearing matching gloves.
Dorothea herself was dressed a little more modestly. Where Juliet had turned to imitation reptile, Dorothea shied away towards a pair of simple black sandals (with silvery clasps set with purple plastic 'stones', admittedly. But let it pass). Where Juliet had curled and primped and beglittered, Dorothea simply let her (Straight! Sleek! Shiny!) hair swish around free (apart from a silvery clasp set with a purple plastic 'stone'. But as Juliet said, Accessorizing is, like, necessary!) in matt brown curtains. Where Juliet had invested in an oversized belt, Dorothea had blushed and stuttered and clung defensively to a skirt with black and blue swirls on it. Where Juliet had decided on a single-shouldered (and pink) rhinestone-spotted shirt, Dorothea had- well. The serviette. Enough said, and a bit of a let-down really: she'd been going so well with the rest of her outfit.
Dorothea sneezed on some stray glitter, and shivered. It had begun to snow, and the heavy flakes were already building up at the corners of the car windows.
"Juliet-"
"Yeah?"
"What's this party going to be like?" Dorothea, after all, had never been to anything bigger than a Year 8 fundraising social.
"Oh, you know. Music, dancing, boys. Some potheads and so on, but they usually get weeded out and taken to the cops 'fore long. Whole thing's supervised, but it's not too bad. Madame Fowl wouldn't let me take you to a proper party." Dorothea grinned. "Doesn't let me go to them either. Damn."
"We're here." Butler informed the girls.
A blast of frigid air struck Dorothea as soon as she clambered out of the car, and for the first- no, make that eighty-second- time, she regretted wearing the serviette. Not only was it extremely small, it seemed to have an 'attitude', which Dorothea was trying not to let rub off on her. In fact, were it not for the (sequin-enhanced) bandage on her arm, Dorothea would have-
Oh, cripes. The bandage. She'd been shot. Why was she going to a party? What could she possibly be thinking, going to a freaking dance when she should be at the Manor, resting, eating mints. Watching trashy movies and bemoaning her pathetic social life but instead, instead she was going to a, a teenage nightclub which would mean she. . . actually. . . might. . . have. . . a. . . social. . . life.
Oh.
Well.
That was an entirely different story, then. Bring it on.
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The first thing that hit Dorothea, even before she got in the door, was the noise of course. It beat a tattoo against her forehead like someone crushing mallowpuffs between her eyes. It screeched. It pounded. It made the WEEeeeeEEiiIIIiiIInnnNNNnnG noise you get when you run a pick up and down the vibrating string of an electric guitar. It rocked.
After the music, nothing made much of an impact. The strobe lights flickered against the disco balls, but the walls sang with bass. Dry ice smoked up the floor, the percussion beat matched every dancer's heart.
And the entry fee may have been steep, but the lead singer stole your soul.
"WHAT IS THIS MUSIC????" Dorothea screamed in Juliet's ear.
"HUH????"
"WHAT!!! IS!!! THIS!!! MUSIC!!!????"
"I!!! DUNNO!!! SOME!!! POM!!! I!!! THINK!!!"
"OH!!! COOL!!!"
"DO!!! YOU!!! WANT!!! A!!! DRINK!!!????"
"NAH!!! I'LL!!! BE!!! RIGHT!!! THANKS!!! ALL!!! THE !!! SAME!!!"
"O!!! K!!! SEE!!! YOU!!! SOON!!!"
The pink figure slid off through the gyrating dancers, followed by the cloud of pink glitter that marked her progress through the room.
The crowds closed in, and Dorothea danced. The lead singer was great- moonlight-blond hair that changed colours under the strobes, green-blue-violet-orange-white-lavender-maroon-blue-red. . .
Red. . .
Author's Note: I updated the last chapter, so no more barely-explanatory diary entries for Chapter 11! Sorry this update has been so long coming, but insert all previous excuses here.