Chapter 4 #4
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.’
John: And I said, ‘When are those showers and toilets arriving, again?’
Maggie: Yeah, touché. We’d both made mistakes. I was trying to fix mine. I was too mad to answer him.
Danny: Let’s leave them all there and see what Sebastian is doing, shall we?
Sebastian: It was late morning, and I was the only one in the house.
Everyone else was in the park trying to smooth things over or whatever.
I was drawing. And then there was a knock on the door.
I thought it must be someone needing to use the shower, and I was already annoyed with the impact this visit was having on everything, so I took my time going down the stairs and opening the door.
I wasn’t expecting to see AJ Silver standing there.
He asked if he could come in, and I shrugged and said he could if he wanted to.
He was in the hallway and I turned to go back upstairs, and he asked if I had ten minutes.
We ended up drinking tea at the kitchen table.
I found some Jammy Dodgers in the cupboard.
I remember him saying they didn’t have those in the States.
The whole thing was kind of weird. I didn’t know what he wanted.
We didn’t talk much, and not about anything important.
Then he got up and left. I was a bit baffled, but I just went back to my room and put a film on.
Zak: It was almost lunchtime when I saw AJ.
He was on his own, his expression furious.
We were still in Adventure City, about to go on the 360.
AJ was walking towards us, and when he got close, he broke into a jog.
Asked me where I’d been. I said I’d just been around, with Pea and Alex.
He looked at the two of them like he’d never seen them before. Said he’d been looking everywhere.
Pea: I said that maybe we should give them walkie talkies. The staff all used them, and since a lot of them weren’t there, there would be a drawer full of them in the office. That way, they could keep track of each other.
Zak: Pea was just trying to be helpful, but AJ snapped at her.
Said the staff would all be back in the morning.
I wondered who had told him that. I asked if he wanted to hang with us now he’d found us, and I could see him trying to decide.
He wanted to storm off, to make a big thing out of it, but he also wanted our company. That part won out, in the end.
Pea: I guess my first impressions of AJ were quite poor.
But that Saturday, once he’d got over the fact of not being able to find his brother, I saw a different side to him.
I remember being surprised by how funny he was.
Not telling jokes, nothing obvious like that, but his responses to things we said were all so sharp and quick.
I caught Zak looking annoyed a couple of times when I was laughing, and I tried to rein it in after that.
Alex: AJ and I got on really well. Something clicked with us.
Neither of us took life very seriously, and we both liked to have fun.
A few times that day, my brain reminded me that this guy I’d met and was getting on well with was one of the most famous people in the world, but after that I sort of forgot about it. He was just AJ.
Pea: We didn’t go back to the house until late afternoon. We’d grabbed chicken and chips in the food hall for lunch, and then we’d gone over to Fun City and gone on all the kids’ rides that I hadn’t ridden for years. Zak and I had shared candy floss.
Zak: It was so great being around Pea, but all I wanted to do was touch her and it was hard with other people around.
At one point, when AJ and Alex were swapping stories about music concerts they’d been to, I took her hand and led her around the back of the carousel.
I put my hands on her waist and she tilted her head.
Kissing her felt like diving into sun-warmed water.
I was addicted to it. But after a couple of minutes, she pulled away.
I asked her when we were going to get to spend some time alone, and she said she didn’t know and left it at that.
Pea: I was scared. Not of Zak, obviously, but of his age and experience. I was scared that as soon as we were truly alone – if we ever were – he would be expecting me to sleep with him, and I didn’t know whether I felt ready. I was embarrassed to tell him it was my first time.
Alex: Oh, those two kept sneaking off but I didn’t really care. AJ had asked me if I wanted to go to the Manchester show next week, and I had tried to play it cool and failed spectacularly.
Zak: AJ was always inviting people to his shows.
It was a thing he did, to make people like him, I guess.
He knew those tickets were worth a lot – not necessarily a huge amount of money, but there were more people who wanted to go to his shows than there were tickets available – and he liked the power of offering them up casually, like it was nothing.
I remember thinking, I’m not sure how happy Maggie will be about that, and before I’d even finished the thought, AJ had asked Pea if she wanted to come too.
Now, I don’t know why but the idea of Pea going to one of AJ’s shows freaked me out.
When she saw all the hysteria, and the spectacle of it, what if she decided that she liked him more than she liked me?
Yes, I was insecure. I had a pop star for a brother. Who wouldn’t be?