Chapter 13: Will You, Won't You Join the Dance?
Red hair. Why did I stop dancing because he looked like he had red hair?
Because you're nuts. Face it, girl, you're talking to yourself.
Thinking. Thinking to myself. Talking implies speech, I'm not speeching, speaking.
Why ever not? Talk to that guy.
Uuh?
That one! Quick! He's hot and he's getting away!
Indeed, to the average heterosexual female eye, the male human walking past Dorothea was reasonably good-looking. Nothing special. Quite pale, dark hair that flicked into a kiss-curl on his forehead, midnight-blue eyes framed by smoky lashes. . .
Eeeyaack! He looks like a nice sort of, of Artemis!
No! No! Don't think that! Flirt! Flirt, damn you!
Shocked beyond words and working jaw muscles, Dorothea simply stood and gaped as the boy left, looking somewhat disturbed by this strange girl. Inconsolable in defeat, the spirit of the serviette stumbled to the back of Dorothea's consciousness and melted made spiteful remarks about Dorothea's clothing, hair and sexual orientation.
Gradually, Dorothea regained the use of her jaw muscles and closed her mouth.
Of course, by then it had already been twenty-three minutes and there was quite a large gap between herself and the other party-goers. The Artemis look-a-like was long gone and apparently Juliet had run out of glitter, because Dorothea couldn't see the blonde girl's shimmering cloud anywhere. Trying to catch the eyes of a few passers-by only heightened her paranoia that yes, everyone thought she was a freak. A drooling, frizzy-haired freak. The type of person no one wants to associate themselves with, lest everyone thought that they, too, would be uncool by association. Or maybe they just thought she was stoned; staring slack-jawed into space for half an hour gives that sort of impression.
Dorothea began to feel incredibly annoyed. Everything about this place, from the backwards plugholes to the psychotic gun-wielding maniacs to the ramrod-stiff vampire boys who lives in castles on the tops of hills. . . well, ground-that-was-slightly-higher-than-the-surrounding-countryside, they were all despicable. This country didn't even have proper birds. Where were the bellbirds? The fantails? The kereru, sitting on power lines and making them sag several metres before falling off and lumbering through the air to a sturdier perch? Where?
Fine, then. She would dance.
And so, Dorothea Danella Danielle Smith danced like she never had before because of course, Dorothea being a nice girl, she had never attended any sort of dance apart from barn dances with her parents. The dynamics of a mosh pit were completely new to her.
For those readers who are also nice girls/boys/pots of geraniums, a description of a mosh pit is probably needed. Imagine, if you will, a wooden stage elevated some one-and-a-half to two metres above the floor. Directly in front of the stage is a small area fenced off with iron scaffolding and containing three bouncers whose job it is to make sure no unruly teenagers jump at the stage and electrocute themselves on the wiring. In front of that are the unruly teenagers. . . jumping, screaming, waving hands clenched into horns and making up a pulsing heaving mass of sweat and elbows and flying hair getting up your nose and in your eyes and strobe lights and people, people everywhere shoving you, ramming you, pushing you down under the feet until someone else grabs your arm and then you're back, pushing screaming jumping flying-
-and, exhausted, stumbling over to the punch bowl to get a drink. Really, she was surprised that more people didn't die of mosh-induced dehydration. Heh. Well, stranger things have happened, she mused. After all, my hair is quite straight at the moment. . . she also wasn't certain that all the sweat on her serviette was hers. Ew. Well, at least it was still on her. And the band wasn't half bad. The singer's hair was a bit odd though, it looked. . .
Hmm. . .
Well, Dorothea finally had to admit that it was a mullet. A cool mullet, though. That is, as cool as it is possible for a mullet to be in this day and age. And the bleached-out colour gave it a sort of halo look as the singer gasped out a final refrain before taking a running jump off the stage. Dorothea dipped herself another cup of punch before sliding into one of the plastic chairs that stood- mostly upside down- around the walls of the hall. Singer-boy was surfing the mosh-pit, a flying haloed alien above his glittering worshippers. . .
Ooh, er. The room flicked up and down as Dorothea twisted her head to follow a wave of pink. Well she thought it'd been a wave. Could have been Juliet. What time was it? Dorothea wanted to dance. . .
The room twisted again and exploded into scarlet sparkles as the floor danced towards Dorothea's face.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Are you sure she'll be all right?"
"Look out for her arm, idiot."
"Her arm? But-"
"She probably just fainted from the excitement, you know. You know how girls ge-"
Thwack.
Dorothea creaked open one eye. The ground was moving, and she was upright. But her legs weren't moving. Funny. . . someone was lying on the floor. Wasn't she lying on the floor?
"Someone probably spiked the bloody punch again. Geez, don't they know it's only funny once? That car, the black one- watch her arm!"
No, she was upright. And she had white hair in her face. Not her hair, she had straight brown hair. Haha, straight. Person on the floor didn't have much hair. Was on the snow anyway. Snow on the floor?
"So-rry. But I don't see-"
Or. . . outside? Snow, outside, yes. Very good. Top marks with cherry. Person on floor going away. Sore stomach- shoulder? Shoulder in stomach? Not her shoulder. Not flexible enough. White-hair shoulder? Pink shouting. Door. Ow, door and head. Oooch.
"Whuh?"
"Oh, 'Rea, hell, you're awake. Great! Some dickhead spiked the drink, y'know, probably some stupid schoolkid huh. . . you all right? Cool! This is Trip, he rescued you from the moshers. . ." Something about the voice skidded numbingly along Dorothea's consciousness as she tried to place it. Sounded… pink.
"Ju'et?"
"Yeah, babe. Hi! So we're just gonna take you home, don't worry, Miz Angeline will give the organisers absolute sh- er, he- er, will totally bust the organisers' ba- er, damn. You sure you're all right? Cool. Yeah, watch your arm there. So, Trip. . ."
Legs, two, there. Arms, two, there. Weren't you supposed to take it-at-itinerararararies? Head, one. . . here. Yep. Hair, straight- no, frizzy- there, there, and there. And over there. Um. What else?
The journey home was quite uneventful; Juliet smiled a lot at the strange rescuer Trip and Dorothea puzzled over whether people had two eyes or just three and a nose. Or wings. Ooh, wings. Fun.
OK, out the door. Snow, ooh, want a jersey. With a clown on it. No, too small that one now have a green one oh 'nother door good warm bright oh yuck. Oh no no no. . .
"Juliet-" the slim youth's eyes widened almost imperceptibly: "Dorothea?"
It was too much.
"I'm SOOOOOOOOOORRRRRR-YYYYYYYYYYY-uhh. . . hic. . ." bawled Dorothea, legs giving way. Someone held her up as she continued to wail, "I-I did-d-dn't mean tooooo, I'm sorry sorry sorry didn't mean iiiiiiit-t-hhhhi. . ."
She had to tell him, it was too too cruel and big-
"D-didn't mmmean to think you were li-i-ike thaaat, didn't mean it y-you don't not h-have a mind meant not human mind meant c-comp-pcom- machine. Mean' no feelins like machin' not lik-ke stupid meant . . . meant. . . zzzz. . ."
The arms carried her upstairs and she fell asleep.