miss fortune mystery (ff) - targed by the tempest Read Free

Santana to take the stage continued into another hour.
    Of course these kids are raising hell, there’s nothing else for them to do. There may be four times the number of people they expected, but there’s no excuse for this degree of bad planning.
     
    The opening act, some new band from England, named Bad Company, had been pretty good. And it had been exciting to see Jimmy Page show up in a helicopter that landed behind the stage to play their second set with them.
    Joe Cocker must have been late getting to the stadium; the wait for him had gone on for hours. And then, when he did appear, he was staggering, stinking drunk. Maybe he’d stopped at every bar on his way to the stadium.
    This is a Texas college town, after all , and the legal drinking age here is eighteen, the same as home, she thought. There were an unusually large number of drinking establishments here. Trying to have one drink in each one would’ve taken him a good chunk of time, and would also explain his obviously elevated state of inebriation.
    He’d actually vomited on the stage during his rendition of You’re So Beautiful . It was completely disgusting. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to listen to that song again without gagging.
    The concessions had run out of everything in the first few hours of the event. The three of them had brought their own canteens, but Gertie had almost sold hers to some guy that had tried to exchange it for a twenty-dollar bill. Walter had told her to hold out for a fifty.
    There were rumors of some enterprising young souls selling bags of ice and Dixie cups out of their trunks in the parking lot. Supposedly, they were asking for outrageous sums, and getting them. They’d probably make enough from their resourceful idea to pay off an entire semester’s tuition.
    She was relatively sure the rumors were true, based on the vast number of Dixie cups she was seeing. It seemed the kids who bought those bags of ice were then reselling it by the cup inside the stadium for an even bigger profit. Ice was definitely a hot commodity, and as the crowd grew ever more rowdy, she didn’t think water was the only liquid being poured over that ice.
     
    “Hurry up Walter!” Ida Belle cried as she stood anxiously on her tiptoes and watched Gertie fly through the air. Walter was closing in on her location when Gertie’s bright-pink and white, polka-dot panties flashed the crowd as the skirt of her pink-plaid sun dress flew up over her waist.
    The crowd roared their approval and Gertie’s joyous peals of delight grated on Ida Belle’s very last nerve. She wondered if Gertie had any clue how many people were photographing her posterior for posterity. Serves her right, she thought.
    She abruptly sat back down and clutched at her chest when Walter miraculously caught her foolish friend before her colorfully-clad butt hit the ground.
    Her heart felt like it was about to pound its way right out of her ribcage. We’re too old for this nonsense, she thought as she watched Walter drag a weak and giggling Gertie back through the crowd to their seats.
    “Oh my dear, that was a blast,” Gertie exclaimed. She exhaled loudly and then hiccuped, trying to catch her breath. “You should go try it, Ida Belle.”
    “I don’t think so,” Ida Belle huffed, “anyway, I’m sure my plain, white undies wouldn’t draw nearly as many amateur photographers as your pretty, pink polka-dots did.”
    “Oh dear, did they really photograph my… my ass?” Gertie asked, and then she got even huffier than Ida Belle. “You should’ve stopped them Walter.”
    “Really?” Ida Belle snickered, “ Walter should’ve stopped dozens of people from snapping your ass? He was kind of busy trying to get down there in time to catch your ass. Maybe you shouldn’t’ve flashed your ass in front of thousands of people.” Ida Belle shook her head and then snorted when she couldn’t hold back her laughter anymore. “It’s flat amazing, Gertie, the things