Chapter Forty
‘Today, campers,’ Raven whispered to her phone under her tented covers, ‘… Big Boned Goth Girl is hitting the road. And yes, I did just talk about myself in the third person.’ She smirked. ‘I think that’s enough Kanye action for one day, don’t you? Back to Owning My Fears … So, today’s bit of Too Much Information, or, as I like to call it, honesty: Today I am scared utterly shitless of what lies ahead. And what is that exactly? That’s fifty-three miles in one day. On a bicycle. Where there are hills, a nuclear power station, and the promise of rain. Which will all be very interesting, considering I’ve not really been riding my bike much.’
She did one of those silent laughs that let her viewers know she knew she’d put herself in a tricky situation and was well aware of the consequences, but … hopefully it would be a mind over matter thing. It better be, anyway. Particularly seeing as she’d made it very clear she found being hot and sweaty as a result of exercise completely revolting. It seemed a lot of other people thought so too, and as such, she now had almost a thousand followers, including seventy-two in Argentina. She was pretty sure Dylan and his way with hashtags had something to do with that. #GothGirlsGotBack Ha! Priceless. The look on his face when she’d actually twerked. Hilllarious.
She hadn’t had this much fun in actual years. Hanging out with Dylan was like having a real mate.
Not boyfriend/girlfriend style, just … fun.
When actual strangers began following her, it was a proper shocker. It had also made the knot in her stomach tighter because at some point she was going to have to tell Dylan and her followers and probably Kath about Aisha and the truckload of guilt and panic and, let’s face it, fear, that had all but turned her inside out exactly when she should’ve been doing something helpful, but that day had been an epic TIFU day if ever there was one, just like the day when the cutter had rung her and had obviously hit an artery and just like that, the self-doubt monkeys began swirling round her brain— zip! Zip it up. And breathe.
Right now, right here, in this moment, she was enjoying being Big Boned Goth Girl. A self-styled, too tall, heavily proportioned, geeky goth of colour who hated exercise and loved learning weird facts about just about anything, including the fact that the so-called Lake District only had one lake and that it was possible to become a knight by buying a round of drinks in the pub at Piel Island.
Being a geek and making a berk out of herself weren’t the only things that had helped boost the numbers. They’d been tactical. They’d tagged in Brand New Day, obvs. Trip of a LifeTime. Again, obvs. Cycling stuff. Whatever was trending that day, including musicians, actors and politicians being idiots because the only people they thought about were the old voters who weren’t thinking about the young people and the apocalypse of a planet earth they were going to be living in sooner rather than later, but … whatever. Noel Fielding. Bake Off. Make-up. She’d tagged tonnes of make-up brands. Amazing goth clothing she’d never be able to afford to wear in a million years. Dylan had suggested she start writing mock lyrics to songs about being a goth geek and loving it, but she had a voice like a donkey and there were limits to just how far she was prepared to go to make the point that you should be free to be who you wanted to be on social media without fear of being bullied. All of which meant she needed to get her head back in the right place and do this thing before she climbed onto her bicycle and began what could only be fifty-three miles of horror. She propped herself up on her elbow, making sure the covers were still over her head and shifted the camera a bit.
‘As discussed, they don’t make much in the way of cool cycling gear for big girls like me. Particularly ones on a budget. That being the case and the “team t-shirt” being mandatory … I am forced to accessorise.’ She pulled another face to let her viewers know she was being ironic. Of course she was going to accessorise. That’s what Big Boned Goth Girl did. Particularly today, given she’d already caught a glimpse of the t-shirts they were being forced to wear. A rather startling shade of yellow. YELLOW! Who suited yellow? No one apart from maybe Michelle Obama, that’s who. ‘After great amounts of reflection and limited make-up supplies, today’s eyes will feature … flames of glory! If you look the part, it’s easier to become the part. That’s your top tip for today. But, shhhhh.’ She flicked back the covers to reveal the dark guesthouse room. ‘We have to be very, very quiet.’
She tip-toed past a lightly snoring Flo and a curled-up Sue who looked more like a kitten than a full-grown woman. Raven quietly closed the bathroom door behind her and put her phone on the little shelf above the sink in the teensy-tiny attic toilet that was more slanted ceiling than room.
Raven grinned at her phone and brandished her favourite eyeliner. ‘As ever … once the false eyelashes are on, we start with my favourite colour … black.’
Chapter Forty-One
‘It’s here, Sue!’ Flo made large pointy gestures at the continental buffet. ‘That yoghurt you were after.’ She was surprised how quickly the dining room where riders were gathering for a ‘team spirit breakfast’ was filling
