Leila gives everyone a polite smile. She’s dressed in skinny jeans and knee-high leather boots. She looks so utterly sophisticated and kick-ass, especially in contrast to us boys, who, due to the water incident, are down to emergency clothes reserves. Nate’s back in his PE shorts (which he claims aren’t PE shorts), Elliot’s in these board shorts, garishly decorated with flamingos and palm trees, and it’s only I, in my skinny-fit, super soft stretch denim shorts, with rips, in pastel pink, who is maintaining any sort of standards here.
“Really glad you could make it,” Leila says. “V Machine is a great festival for people who don’t really like traditional festivals, so I hope you all have an amazing time!”
I laugh. “Yes, but there’s some music and stuff, right?”
“Oh, yes,” Leila says.
“Yes! See?” I say.
“It’s more folk bands, acoustic indie stuff, obviously none of the big acts because this is all about authenticity and being eco-friendly. It wouldn’t be right to fly over a huge band and all their entourage and put them on a huge stage with all those amps and lights – think of the carbon footprint!”
“I know, right?” I look at Nate, who is just staring at me, unimpressed. “So, any bands we might have heard of?”
“Jasper Phats and the Oink Oinks?” Laila says.
I run my tongue over my lips. “Amazing, we’ll check him and his Oink Oinks out.” I turn to make introductions. “So this is Elliot, Nate, Rose and Nate’s mum and dad.”
Everyone shakes hands.
“So, who exactly do you influence?” Nate’s dad asks. “This is a whole new world to me. Is it something I could do?”
Nate rolls his eyes. I feel a bit sorry for Nate’s dad. I know he lost his job and all, and, sure, I guess he’s looking for new options, but I’m not sure Instagram influencer is one he should be considering.
“I’m a lifestyle blogger,” Leila tells him. “I specialize in mindfulness, retreats, meditation, that sort of thing.”
I nod. “She’s really good. The best. She has half a million followers.”
“Wow,” says Nate’s dad. He looks genuinely impressed. “And you … make money doing this?”
“I do paid promotions for brands that I respect, yes.”
Nate’s dad nods. So does Nate’s mum. I think his parents like Leila, but then she’s the most sensible person our age they’ve met on this trip.
I clap my hands together to move this on, because I don’t think Nate can take much more of his folks embarrassing him by asking perfectly reasonable questions like normal people. “We’re gaining followers on our Insta account!” I tell Leila.
“Yeah, I really admire what you guys are doing – showing your exes you don’t need them! Hopefully this festival will get them nice and jealous!”
“Ha ha, yeeeah,” I say. I glance at Leila. It would be so cool to get a photo of us with her. That would definitely get some attention, especially from Dylan, because he absolutely worships the ground she walks on.
“We’ll definitely get some good posts out of this festival,” I say. “Like, maybe even … now? Look at this backdrop.” I wave my hands across the vista of tents and line of Portaloos behind me.
Leila hoots with laughter. “Horrendous.”
I swallow. “Is it?”
“So horrendous it’s brilliant – let’s do it!”
“Hooray!” I say, and immediately start arranging us all in the best formation – Leila in the middle, me and Nate flanking her, Elliot in front, on his knees. My proposal that we all pretend to be looking at something random and strange in the distance is accepted, and we all pose with expressions which vary between wonder, disgust and horror, with Leila actually pointing at the pretend thing, whatever it actually is.
The photo is fabulous. It’s fabulous. I immediately upload it, tag Leila and caption it: Add your own caption, we’re too busy #LovingLife at V Machine! And then I add something which makes me crazy happy, and it’s not even a lie: #Gifted Yeeeeeeees! Hashtag gifted, mofos!
“Right, gotta run,” Leila says. “But I’ll catch up with you boys later and we’ll do some shots, yeah?”
We all nod like those funny dogs you see in the back of cars sometimes, but then I turn to see Nate’s mum, looking like, No way is that gonna happen. This concerns me. We upheld our side of the bargain; we did the stupid water thing, now it’s our turn.
“What I think would be a good idea, boys,” she says, “is if we all did something as a family.”
Nate groans.
“Family is important, Nate!” his mum continues. “Karen’s always posting pictures of her family all together, doing activities. That’s what normal families do. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
Nate takes a deep breath. “You agreed, if we did the raft building…”
“Well, it’s just one thing,” his mum replies.
Nate crosses his arms. “What?”
Elliot looks up from the festival brochure he’s reading. “How about this? There’s an interactive exhibition. One hundred surprising ways with cucumber,” he says, looking between us with wide eyes. “If eating them’s one, what are the other ninety-nine?”
“Not that, Elliot,” Nate’s mum says. “It sounds silly, and I’m sorry, but I’m not putting on Facebook that I’ve taken a group of teenage boys to an interactive cucumber exhibition. It’s simply wrong.”
“Then what?” Nate repeats.
“There’s a panel event on in the VegVerse tent actually,” Nate’s mum sniffs. “Family, Faith and Fennel in the context of feminist verse novels.” She clears her throat. “Sounds interesting. Shall I book us tickets?”
“I’m going to find some food,” Nate says. And he stomps off.
Nate’s mum shakes her head and walks over to the van, scowling. And I know I have to do something to save this situation, because otherwise Nate’s going to be in a bad mood, his mum is going to scupper our plans – which will result in crap pics, no likes, and bang goes any hope of my influencer career.
“Yoo-hoo! Mrs
