Live and Fabulous!

Table of Contents

 

After putting on my new Kings of Kong CD, I sit down on the bed and begin opening the letter. This is very irregular. Nobody writes to me, ever. As I tear open the outer package, I notice that inside the first large red envelope is a smaller, pale yellow envelope. Upon the yellow envelope, in ink, is written:

I grab the yellow envelope and carefully rip it open, reaching inside, suddenly feeling a strong urge to go to the toilet.

Is it possibly possible, even in a parallel wonky universe, that Spike “so beautiful it actually hurts, multimillionaire, Duke of Pop” Saunders actually remembers meeting the LBD last year, and has got his personal assistant to send us something?

Surely not.

From the yellow envelope, I pull out four, thick, shiny gilt-edged pieces of paper with a silver hologram of a tent perched upon a hill glittering on each one. And then I gaze at them, totally spellbound by their majestic beauty.

In my hands!

Four “with compliments of Spike Saunders” Astlebury Festival Tickets!!!

SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, NewYork, NewYork 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
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(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
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Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam's Sons,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005
Published in Great Britain by Puffin UK, London, 2004
Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006

Copyright © Grace Dent, 2004

All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Dent, Grace. LBD: live and fabulous. / Grace Dent.—1st American ed. p. cm.
Sequel to: LBD: it's a girl thing. Summary: Now fifteen years old, Ronnie, Fleur,
and Claude, with Fleur's sister as their chaperone, are having the time of their lives
at the Astlebury music festival when Fleur suddenly disappears while crowd surfing.
[1. Music festivals—Fiction. 2. Rock music—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.
4. England—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.D4345Lb 2005 [Fic]—dc22 2004005508

eISBN : 978-1-101-00700-6

 

 

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume
any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

for
bob watts
and
veronica mccormack—
who took me to Glastonbury when I was thirteen.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Huge thanks to all of the usual suspects ...

 

Thanks to Sarah Hughes and all the brilliant Puffin people for their support and patience as LBD II rolled along and real life occasionally got in the way.

 

Thanks to the fabulous Adele Minchin.

 

Eternal gratitude to Caradoc King, Vicky Longley, Rob Kraitt and Linda Shaughnessy at AP Watt.

 

Massive thanks also to John Rudolph and the U.S. Penguin team, who believed in the LBD from the very first word (and even made raunchy pink thongs to prove it).

 

Finally, thanks to Jon Wilkinson for enduring my incessant moaning and numerous show-biz tantrums.

 

You're all great—it wouldn't be half as much fun without you.

“So can I take your name, please?”

“It'sh Ronnish ... ,” I tell the nurse, sniffing back tears, smudging foundation on the keypad of my mobile phone.

“Ronnidge?” confirms the nurse.

“No, Ronn-eee ... I'm Veronica Ripperton,” I say meekly.

“Okay ... and is that Miss or Mrs. er, Flipperhorn?”

“Ripperton,” I repeat, dabbing my eyes. “Look, this isn't about me anyway. It's about my, er,
friend.
Well, he's my boyfriend. I need to know if he's in your emergency ward.”

“Can I take his last name?” replies the nurse.

I can hear pages being flicked and a long, faint exhale of breath. As the nurse begins searching her logbook, I catch sight of my sorry self in the living room mirror. What a fright.

It's 7 P.M., Friday night, and I, Veronica Ripperton, am pacing the floorboards upstairs at the Fantastic Voyage pub. I'm wearing my most fantastic “makes yer boobs look like a proper rack,” pale pink, clingy T-shirt (now mascara stained) and my intensely snazzy “entire month of pocket money in one card swipe” denim pencil skirt (now covered in snotty bobbly tissue bits). Despite braiding my hair and applying Light-Reflecting Bronzing Powder since 3:30 P.M., on sound assurance from
Glamour
magazine that it would give me “that blissed-out San Fran beach babe look,” it pains me to say I look more like a sunburned, depressed Martian. Or a “South American swamp donkey,” as my tactful friend Fleur would probably say.

Obviously I'd be more destroyed about the above if my life wasn't in tatters anyhow.

“Steele. He's called JIMI STEELE,” I tell the nurse. “Try looking at the lists for your special fracture unit ... or ... oh my God ... what about the intensive care ward!”

My voice is beginning to choke up.

“Uggghh
... he might even be DEAD,” I whisper. “Actually, could you put me through to the morgue after this, please?”

“That won't be necessary,” replies the nurse firmly. “Now, what time did this accident happen?”

“Accident? Ooh, well, I'm not totally sure there's been one yet,” I say, truly hoping I don't sound like a complete idiot. “It's just that I heard an ambulance go wee-wahing down the high street about ten minutes ago ... and my boyfriend Jimi ... well, he's almost two hours late to pick me up. We're going to the Blackwell School Summer Disco, you see.”

Even deeper sigh from the nursie.

“Tuna on whole wheat will do for me. Actually, Julie, just green salad,” says the nurse, blatantly chatting with a passing colleague.

“And I've called his mobile phone, but it went straight to voice mail. It must have been smashed in the horrific impact of the car pile-up,” I babble on and on. “He's a skateboarder, you see, and he's always doing really dangerous, death-defying stunts and ... er, hang on, are you ordering your dinner!?”

“Mmm,” admits the nurse. “I've been here since seven A.M. and I've only managed to grab half a yogurt and a handful of M&Ms. My damn phone won't stop ringing.”

“Ooh, er, sorry about that ... ,” I mutter.

“But I'm listening at the same time,” says the nurse. “Death-defying stunts, you say? Wonderful. Well, I'll no doubt be sewing his vital organs back inside him at some point soon then. But, fortunately for you, his name's not down on my, er, guest list tonight.”

The nurse chuckles at her own little joke.

“He's not there? Oh, brilliant. That's totally ace!” I say. “So do you have the numbers of any other emergency wards that I could call?”

“Veronica, who on earth are ... ,” interrupts my mother, Magda Ripperton, materializing before me clad in what can only be explained as a bizarre, multicolored ... jeez, and this pains me to say it ... jumpsuit. You know, like overalls that mechanics wear, but fitted around the ass with a silver zip up the center. The zipper is undone a few inches, revealing a generous glance of mother cleavage.