‘Nonsense. I’ve now taken it upon myself to ensure we get you those tickets, Nora,’ Josh says. ‘And it will be fun to leave the other fans of this beloved band in the dust behind us. I look forward to it.’
‘Yeah, I’m in,’ Owen agrees, before adding quietly, ‘Probably one shot to do this, Elliot.’
Hennie and I agree, looking to Elliot. Josh and Owen’s eyes are steady as they study him patiently. After a moment, the shadow of a smile appears on his face.
He shrugs. ‘Alright, let’s give it a try.’
Josh immediately whoops and bounds over to collect him into a loving headlock, which makes Elliot wheeze.
Josh turns back to us with bright eyes, looking considerably more awake. ‘Okay, so what do we do? What’s the first clue?’
Hennie repeats the first clue to the group and is immediately bombarded with ideas from the boys.
‘It’s gotta be the jungle – bright lights? Green and blue? The trees under the blue sky, that’s pretty clear to me?’ Josh suggests.
‘Could be, but could also be a dance stage. Bright lights… could even be Trapeze? Ham, what colour is that? Blue?’ Owen asks.
‘Nope, it’s red with a bit of blue.’
‘What if it’s Mirrorball?’ Elliot chimes in suddenly. ‘The top of it is green and blue, there are lights reflecting everywhere… could be described as blinding, I guess.’
I nod in agreement. ‘It makes sense it would be a bar or a smaller venue, if we have to speak to someone for the next clue.’
‘So where do we go first?’ Hennie asks.
‘Might be better to split up and cover more ground. Why don’t you two go to Mirrorball and we’ll go to Jungle?’ Owen offers.
‘We could just be quick, we don’t have to split–’ I begin, as Elliot cuts me off.
‘It makes sense, people are going to be fast. It’ll give us better chances,’ he murmurs.
Hennie nods. ‘I hate to agree with the thief, but he’s right.’ I hear Owen snort. ‘Okay then, everybody. We understand our assignments.’
She quickly collects everyones’ numbers to create a WhatsApp group to keep in contact, and I quietly ignore the knowledge that I am now in possession of Elliot’s number.
‘We’ve got this, team. Everybody hands in,’ Josh announces, putting his hand into the centre of our circle.
‘Oh, God,’ Elliot mutters.
‘Everybody. Hands in!’ Owen shouts, joining in.
Hennie and I reach our hands on top of theirs, grinning quietly as we wait for our last member.
Looking exasperated, Elliot sighs and puts his free hand on top of mine. And Josh wastes no time erupting into a cheer and pushing his hand up into ours, sending our arms scattering into the sky.
‘Wait, wait!’ Josh turns to Owen with glistening doe eyes. ‘We should get a photo of that, mate. That was a treasured moment I won’t wish to forget.’
‘No time, no time,’ Hennie interrupts, which is just as well because Owen did not look eager to recreate the photo. ‘Let’s get moving, we gotta go!’ she proclaims, before reaching up on her tiptoes to whisper to me, ‘We’re gonna win these tickets no problem, Harty.’
I ruffle her hair as she dashes away, and turn back to my unfortunate partner. He looks at me with quiet determination.
‘Let’s do this.’
14
‘So, where do we start?’
We arrived at Mirrorball with little to no trouble. The crowds were thankfully quiet due to the early start – most festival-goers are still sleeping off their Saturday morning hangovers.
