I glance at Jack and Elliot to check I’ve understood correctly. I’ve asked if we can go and my mum has said, “Yeah, that’s cool.” I mean, let’s not even discuss her choice of words.
“So, just to confirm, Mum,” I say. “It’s a party, in London, with YouTubers.”
“And you enjoy it, Nate!” she replies, smiling.
“There … could be alcohol!” I say.
“Oh, I hope so! What sort of party would it be otherwise?” She laughs. We all sort of join in.
This feels all wrong and really weird. “OK,” I say. “Mum. I don’t get it.”
“Nate!” she says, as she packs up the last of the bags and piles them in the back of the camper van. “It’s time I treated you like an adult. You’re sixteen! You need some freedom.”
I nod. “Right. So I can—”
“Make your own choices!” she says. “Also, when we’re home, I’m taking the parental lock off the internet.”
“Huh,” Jack whispers. “Now you can finally wank yourself unconscious.”
“Shut up!” I hiss back.
Dad appears with Rose. “Ahh! Hello, lads!” he grins. “I see you’ve met Mum version two point one. Seems her trip to that yoga guru has caused her to have something of an epiphany, Jack!”
“Oh … good?” Jack says.
“Well, it is good, Jack, yes,” says Mum. “Because life is short, so we must enjoy it while we can. We must live. Breathe. Love. We must smell the roses and eat the chocolate. We should dance like no one is watching. Love without conditions. We must look at the world with a childlike wonder, seeking adventure!”
“And the yoga guru said all this, did he?” I ask.
Mum shrugs. “Well, I worked some of it out for myself. I had a moment of clarity… after the session when we smoked a ‘special cigarette’ together.”
My eyes widen and I nearly choke on my own tongue.
“Because, like you said, Jack,” Mum continues, “who wrote the rule book anyway? And who said we have to follow it?”
“Did you say that?” I ask him.
Jack shrugs. “I mean, yes? Maybe. It sounds quite eloquent, so there’s a high chance it was me.”
“It definitely wasn’t me,” Elliot adds.
Mum strides up to Elliot and grabs fistfuls of his cheeks in her hands. “You’re an adorable little bundle of joy and you have other qualities!” she says.
Elliot looks terrified.
“Mum, leave Elliot’s face alone,” I tell her. “I mean, fine. I guess this is all OK. You shouldn’t do drugs, that’s bad, but OK, I guess it’s done now. Just don’t… I have some pamphlets at home that school gave us…”
Mum guffaws and I frown. Then another horror occurs to me. I’m always seeing documentaries about people my parents’ age having “moments of clarity” and what it boils down to is jacking everything in and living in a rundown cottage on Dartmoor with ten chickens and no hot water. “You’re not quitting your job or anything, are you?”
Mum looks at Dad, who cocks his head and mouths something at her that I can’t quite make out. This is distressing. I’m all for more freedom, but I don’t want to live a life where we have even less money than we already do. Literally, I’m not even saying I need the latest trainers, I just need trainers. You know, I wouldn’t mind a new PlayStation. That’s not gonna happen if my parents embark on being hippies and start running around the hills wearing chiffon and celebrating weird pagan holidays.
“We can talk about this more once we get back home,” I say. “Nobody should make any rash decisions now.”
“Nate—” Dad begins.
“NOBODY SHOULD MAKE ANY RASH DECISIONS NOW!” I repeat. “OK? OK. Let’s … get on the road, shall we? Places to go, people to see!”
Mum rolls her eyes. “God. Chill out, will you, Nate? You’re totally killing my vibe.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
JACK
So, we’re back in the van and we’re heading to our next stop: London. Tariq and Dylan may well have done their oh-so-popular post about their promise rings, but our forthcoming post featuring us at a YouTubers party will get more. The post with Leila Bhatia got a lot of likes and we picked up hundreds and hundreds of new followers. That will definitely have pissed Dylan off. But now with this party, what we’re saying is, We’ve made it, we’ve arrived, we are influencers, we are basically famous, AND WE DON’T NEED RINGS FROM ARGOS TO GET LIKES.
Mrs Nate’s phone keeps pinging on the journey, and Nate, who is already massively freaked out by his mum’s new persona, eventually just flips and screams,
“WHAT’S HAPPENING ON YOUR PHONE?”
To which his mum shakes her head and says, “Aren’t I allowed some privacy, Nate?”
And Nate replies, “You never get this many notifications!”
And so his mum reveals that her sister, the infamous Auntie Karen, posted a picture of Jonty holding a rugby ball on the pitch at “Twickers” this morning, to which Mrs Nate replied in the comments with the immortal phrase: Oh fuck right off.
And since then, it seems all hell has broken loose, family-wise.
“Oh my god, Mum!” Nate says. “This is serious!”
“It really isn’t, Nate,” Mrs Nate says. “Karen’s a total bitch and I fucking hate her.” She glances back at Rose. “You didn’t hear Mummy swear, OK?”
“OK, Mum,” Rose says, without looking up from her iPad. “But just so you know, I agree with you.”
The hotel is just round the corner from Leicester Square, and as if that location wasn’t exciting enough, this isn’t just any hotel. In fact, it doesn’t even say it’s a hotel outside the building. There’s just a huge neon letter “X” because THAT IS WHAT THE HOTEL IS CALLED! It’s called “X” – oh my
