Pea: I woke up at five in Zak’s arms. I’d intended to go back home after an hour or so but we must have fallen asleep. I can laugh about it now, all these years later, but it was a definite ‘oh fuck’ moment. I knew that if Mum or Dad found out, they’d be locking me in my room to keep us apart. I sat up slowly, not wanting to wake Zak, and then I looked over at where AJ was sleeping. His mouth was open, his covers pushed off. He looked younger. It was astonishing, really, that all these people operated on the whims of this young boy. That he had our family’s fate in his hands. I looked back at Zak, who looked impossibly peaceful, then I crept out and back to my house. I held my breath going up the stairs. Sometimes Mum prowled about in the early hours when she couldn’t sleep, but I seemedto have got lucky. I peeled off my clothes and got into bed. But I didn’t go back to sleep. My mind was racing.
Zak: Pea stayed over that first night. I don’t think either of us were intending for her to. We just fell asleep. It was really innocent, actually, but I don’t think her parents would have seen it that way.
Pea: Mum came into my room at seven and said I had to get up and have a shower if I wanted one, because ‘AJ and co’, that’s actually what she called them, would be coming in from eight onwards. I asked if she knew it was Saturday, and she told me not to be rude, that she’d had to agree on a time schedule and she’d booked us in for seven until eight each morning. So I got up, bleary-eyed, only to find the bathroom door locked. Dad was in there.
John: That whole showering thing was ridiculous. I mean, I’m up early anyway, but I don’t like to be told when I can and can’t use my own bathroom.
Pea: I got back into bed for a bit, then got up when I heard the bathroom door lock click. But Sebastian beat me to it. I banged on the door, telling him I was next in the queue, but it stayed defiantly shut. I looked at Dad, who shrugged and said, ‘You snooze, you lose.’ I eventually got in the bathroom at ten to eight. When I came out, my towel just about covering my arse, Maggie was standing there with silk pyjamas on and a washbag in her hand. She said good morning, but I don’t think I replied.
Alex: I usually turned up at about ten at the weekends, but that day I was there at nine. Pea was finishing off a bowl of cereal. She went over to the cupboard, held up a box of chocolate Pop Tarts and raised her eyebrows.
Zak: When I went over there to shower, Pea and Alex were eating Pop Tarts. I was starving. There was no food on the bus because no one had been out to get any yet. I asked if there was one for me and Pea stood up to put another one in the toaster. When she’d done it, I caught hold of her hands and pulled her towards me for a kiss. And that’s when her mum walked in.
Alex: Oh God, Zak was standing there in a towel kissing Pea, and Cathy looked like she was ready to kill someone.
Cathy: I think I just said her name and they broke apart. Zak looked sheepish and disappeared upstairs to the bathroom, and I told Pea we needed to have a talk later.
Pea: The threat of that talk was hanging over me the whole day.
Alex: When Cathy left the kitchen, I burst out laughing. I thought Pea would do the same thing but she looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was and then we just carried on eating our Pop Tarts in silence.
Zak: I showered in five minutes, and all the time I was cursing myself for letting that happen. I needed to get Cathy and John onside or I knew I could kiss my chances of spending time with Pea goodbye.
Alex: Every Saturday, without fail, we’d eat something and then head out into the park. So we did that, but when we went past the tour buses, Pea slowed down and asked if we should invite them to come along. I said, ‘Who? Zak and AJ?’ She nodded. I said I guessed we could.
Pea: It only struck me as I was knocking on the bus door that these guys had hired the entire park, and it should maybe be them asking us if we wanted to join them rather than the otherway around. It was an odd realisation, because I’d tied my whole identity up with that place. Would they mind us still using it? I couldn’t see why they would, and Mum and Dad hadn’t said anything, but I wasn’t sure.
Zak: I stuck my head out and said I’d be with them in five minutes. AJ was still asleep. There was a weird atmosphere between Pea and Alex, and I wished I could get rid of him somehow. Maybe when AJ woke up, he’d join us and then Pea and I could sneak off for a bit.
Pea: We headed for Adventure City. That’s where we spent most of our time. It was where the Pirate Ship and Gravity Spin and Canyon and, of course, the 360 were. Straight away, I could see there weren’t many staff around. And when we got to the Pirate Ship, there was no one there to operate it. I looked around and noticed Guy, over at the Ghost Train. I waved and he jogged over. When I asked him what was going on, he said he guessed my dad had cut down on the number of staff because there weren’t going to be many visitors. But he could operate any ride we wanted to go on, he said.
Zak: That staff issue was bullshit. I knew Maggie had paid Pea’s parents a lot of money to hire the park, and that they’d expected it to come fully staffed.
John: Yes, I’d temporarily laid off some of the staff. It just didn’t make sense for them to be standing around all day doing nothing. Even the mighty AJ Silver couldn’t be in two places at once, could he? I kept on my most experienced ride operators and food servers and told them to make sure they were where they needed to be at all times. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. I mean, I still don’t.
Danny: This is John all over. Always trying to avoid paying out for anything. Mind you, no one else knew about the debt, so I can kind of see it from his point of view.
Zak: I knew AJ would kick off about it.
Pea: I was a bit embarrassed, actually. It made Dad look like a cheapskate. I tried to cover it up and asked Guy to start up the pirate ship for us. I sat on the back row, in between Alex and Zak.
Alex: She didn’t raise her arms in the air, like she usually did. She grabbed hold of Zak instead. Like she needed him to rescue her. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like who she seemed to be becoming when she was around him.
Maggie: I was trying to read a book when AJ came banging on the door of my bus. He stormed in, said he’d been over to Water City and none of the rides were going. He asked if I’d made sure that the rides were part of the deal I’d made. I went a bit cold. I mean, John and I had never discussed this. But who lets you rent a theme park and then doesn’t have the rides up and running? I said I’d go up to the house, and he followed me there. It was Cathy who came to the door. She looked like she hadn’t slept much. I told her what the problem was and she frowned and then retreated inside and called for John.
John: I told them there was at least one ride operator in each of the five cities and that operator would gladly walk about with them and start up any rides they wanted to go on. AJ had this grimace on his face, and it didn’t change. Maggie didn’t look very happy either.
Maggie: I said I thought it was pretty poor, him trying to save on staff when we’d paid them so much money.
John: But they hadn’t paid the money at that stage, you see. Just the 10 per cent deposit and then the further 20 per cent on arrival. And what did she think the staff were going to do with themselves if we had them all here, with only a handful of people in the park?
Maggie: AJ spoke then. I remember because John stepped backwards with the force of it. AJ said he didn’t give a fuck what the staff did or didn’t do, but that John had better make sure they were here first thing in the morning to start up any rides he and his team wanted to go on. Then he stormed off. I looked at John, waiting for him to say he would do as AJ asked, but he didn’t. He just held my eye contact until I blinked.
John: I wasn’t going to be dictated to by a seventeen-year-old kid. I didn’t care if he was AJ bloody Silver.
Cathy: I heard it all unfold from the lounge. I didn’t want to get involved. The thing with John is, he’s bloody stubborn. And he hates being told what to do by anyone. If I wanted him to do something, I usually started off by asking if he’d do the opposite.
Maggie: In the end, I said, ‘Look, have the full staff back here tomorrow and we’ll say no more about it.’
