The Bare Necessities (Non-Profane Edition) Read Free Page B

is here if she doesn't join in. I think
she should go home if she doesn't want to be here, but I know that
she can't. But she's here and should just be normal while she's
here.”
    “I spent a few
months when I hated going,” Claire admitted as she got up from the
floor. “I … I didn't like my weight. When I was fourteen.” Paige
screwed up her face, and Claire shrugged. “I know I am about
half-a-stone overweight.”
    “No, you're
not.”
    “I am,” Claire
argued with her as they threw the cans into the bin. “I know that,
but when I was fourteen I was pretty skinny, like you are now.”
Paige tensed and opened her mouth to interrupt, but Claire
continued before she could say anything. “But I thought I was very
fat and, I stopped eating.”
    “Like …
Anorexia?”
    “Yeah,” Claire
muttered. “That's what they called it. And I would wear T-shirts,
shorts, everything. So maybe your sister is going through
that?”
    “No,” Paige told
her. “I know what it is. She has problems and, although she denies
it, she likes the attention.”
    “Oh.” Paige and
Claire walked to the tents, talking earnestly to each other, when a
scowling Hazel, wearing a long T-shirt that came down to her knees,
glared at them.
    “I'm saying
nothing,” Paige muttered under her breath to Claire as they
approached the teenager, and then broke her promise. “Hazel,
seriously, what the hell is that?”
    * *
* * *
    “Go on, have a
go!” Paige's mother passed the small folder to her daughter as
Paige watched a performer take to the stage and Hazel sulked in the
corner of the small pavilion. There was a mixture of naked and
clothed patrons, although Paige noticed she was towards the
younger, as well as the least dressed, end of the visitors.
    “I'm not sure,”
Paige replied. “I like to sing my own songs.” She looked up to see
a middle-aged married couple murder a Sonny and Cher song, and then
looked down at the folder. “And …”
    “You could do one
with your sister,” her mother suggested, and the apprehensive Paige
scowled at Hazel, who was staring at her lemonade. “We'd like
that!”
    “Don't think so,”
Paige muttered and looked around the room for Claire; she wasn't
present, although the karaoke night had only just begun and there
were many families who also hadn't arrived. Paige flicked through
the folder, reading the available songs by each artist and jumped
when an ice cube rolled down her back.
    Her squeals
weren't heard as the couple got overly-generous applause and Paige
turned to see a giggling, and dressed Claire hovering over her.
“Serves you right for flicking cold water at me earlier,” the
voluptuous teenager giggled and Paige scowled. She could smell
alcohol on Claire's breath, and Claire pulled up a chair to sit
alongside her new friend. “Sorry, this is Mum, Dad, George,” she
said with a wave of the hand and pointing towards her two parents
and brother sitting on the next table.
    “Well you've met
my family,” Paige muttered.
    Claire grabbed the
folder. “Oh, you doing it? Of course, you said you liked singing.
What are you doing? Joan Jett you liked, didn't you and Pink and
Katy Perry and …”
    “I wasn't going to
do it,” Paige interrupted and adjusted her towel on the cold, hard
seat. “I'm not great at singing in front of audiences and …”
    “Oh, I'll do it
with you,” Claire gushed. “I love karaoke. I'm more of a Lily Allen
and Katy Perry person but … you doing it Hazel?”
    “No!” Hazel cried
and sneered at her elder sister. “Do it with her, not me.” Her
mother looked expectantly at Paige.
    “What about
Firework or Teenage Dream or …”
    “I'll do Hot N
Cold,” Paige said firmly. “I've sung that a few times when …”
    “Great,” Claire
interrupted and looked at Paige and her family. “Sorry, were we
meant to be naked for tonight?”
    Paige gestured
around the room at the other patrons. “It's up to you,” she told
her, and Claire looked her friend.