Gaby Book 27 Smell of the Crowd by Maddy Bell Copyright© 2022 Madeline Bell Life has some certainties, birth and death of course, but the rest is a mix of Minestrone and Spaghetti, some of which we have no direct influence over. We can however decide whether we want Parmesan or other seasoning, we can give Gnochi a try, doesn't mean we'll like it but at least we'll know. Gaby has reached just such a point in her life, she knows she likes Pizza, she's not averse to Spaghetti or Lasagne but is Gnochi for her? The Gnochi in this case is doing the singing with BlauHase on a more serious level, as a 'hobby' its fine but could this be a change of career? Well you don't find out without trying so that's just what our heroine is about to find out in this, the 27th book of the Gaby saga.

 
The slightly annoying red clock figures on the room TV flicked from five fifty nine to a round six, not a time of the morning Gaby was particularly keen on being conscious for, she had enough of that getting up for college. It didn’t help that sleep hadn’t come easily last night, by the time Misty had tidied up her stuff and cleaned off all her makeup she’d been dozing but then miss carrot top had wanted to talk. Not only that but she seemed oblivious to Gab’s hints that sleep might be a good idea.

Of course the cause of her current wakefulness wasn’t the gently snoring girl across the room but rather the very painful jolt of cramp that wracked her leg. If you’ve had bad cramp you’ll know the feeling, if you haven’t, well just be grateful, its far from nice. That had been twenty minutes ago according to those flickering numerals, sleep was not looking like it was coming again anytime soon.

Her mind wandered, it had been quite a day what with one thing and another. The race had actually gone okay – well until the cramp, Dad was probably right about the cold and wet being the cause but why she’d had a repeat laid in bed was a mystery. Then there was Misty, she didn’t consider herself a prude but her friends transformation from wall flower to Goth vixen was unexpected to say the least.

Would she do anything like that herself? Oh she’d dressed ‘full Goth’ a couple of times but big boots, fishnet and heavy slap was a bit different to getting your face pierced and giving your hair the sort of style and colour makeover that Mist had. For one, she liked her hair long and preferably its natural pale blonde, for two, she’d never volunteered to get any of the holes she did have, let alone pay someone to make you look, well slightly weird.

And what was that about getting a tattoo? Seriously Mist? You think you know someone, you spend years as close as sisters and then you discover they think of themselves as this other person. Blink, six oh one.
 

"Hey Erd, you getting up or what?” Mist enquired in a far too cheerful tone.
"What.”
"Geez girlfriend, its a wonder you ever see daylight.”
“’s over rated.”
"Guess we’ll just have to cancel your appointment with Axel, I thought you wanted him to finish it,”
"Okay, okay, what time is it anyway?”
"Ten past nine.”
"But the appointment isn’t until two.”
"You do have to get dressed and do your hair.”

I carefully brushed and combed my redder than red hair into place, hmm, have to touch up my fringe a bit too.

"Hey Gab, you getting up or what?” Mist enquired in a far too cheerful tone.
"What.”
"Geez girlfriend, its a wonder you ever see daylight.”
“’s over rated.”

Dé ja vú or what?

"You do want breakfast this morning?”
"Well du-uh!”
"Best shake a leg then, its ten past nine.”
"What? Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”
"You looked so peaceful, thought I’d let you sleep in a bit.”
"There’s a bit and there’s missing breakfast,” I told her making a wild scramble for the bathroom.

Morning necessities dealt with, I looked in the mirror, slap can wait but not looking like I’ve been slept on would be good. Of course, the image in the mirror didn’t have assorted face jewellery, didn’t have intensely red hair and my chest wasn’t adorned with, well anything. Nope the girl in the mirror was the one I‘ve seen for the last few days, slightly faded pink hair hanging below my shoulders, gold ring in one nostril and of course my favourite Snoopy sleep set.

I’m not sure if that was a dream or a nightmare, I really should steer clear of cheese late at night.
 

My mind was expecting to see Anna Louise when I got to the breakfast room, she really is a morning person, out for a run every morning before anyone else has surfaced. But of course she left with Sam last night, instead, sat with LJ, was his wife Hilde. Of course I’ve met Hilde a couple of times before last night but I wouldn’t say that I know her at all.

"Mornin’” I offered, "Mind if we join you?”
"Sure, we’re just about done anyhow,” Little Jo told us.
"You’re both late down,” Hilde suggested.
"Yeah, someone let me sleep late.”
"No pleasing some people,” Mist shot back.
"So you all packed?” Little Jo queried.
"Ish,” I told them, helping myself to coffee.
"Fruit juice Gab?” Mist enquired.
"Apple if they have it.”
"I’m sure if you’re a few minutes late we’ll cope,“ Hilde stated.

Was that some sort of rebuke or censure? Was she being a bit snippy and if so, why?

"So what did you guys get up to yesterday, you never said last night,”
"BJ wanted to go look at the Feuerwehr Museum so we spent most of the afternoon looking at fire trucks,” Little Jo offered.
"Any handsome firemen?” Mist enthused returning with the fruit juice.
"More like the geriatric ward,” Hilde snorted.
"You could’ve come with us Mist,” Little Jo mentioned.
"I know, Anna did ask but I had, er, stuff to do.”

Stuff like turn herself into, well, the slightly freaky girl sat next to me.

"Well, we’ll leave you to it,” Hilde stated to which her husband jumped a little, a week of sloth replaced by the new order of having his ‘better half’ along.
"Sure, see you later,” Mist told them.

"What do you make of her?” I asked having collected the makings of my Frühstuck, Brotchen, cheese, meat, a bit of salad and a bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt.
"She’s not Anna, thats for sure.”
"Its not just me then, there’s just something about her that feels a bit off.”
Mist nibbled on her toast before replying, "I don’t think she wanted to come.”
"So why come then?”
"Dunno, it was just a feeling I got last night.”
"Maybe she’s worried about all the groupies.”
"Maybe its not groupies. Perhaps its us,” Mist conjected.
"Us?”
"Young, nubile women, eager to please.”
"I like Little Jo but really? Eww!”
"Maybe he has history?”
"Maybe she’s paranoid,” I put in.
"She’s probably perfectly nice, she just needs to settle in.”
"Loosen up.”
"That as well.”
 

The drive down to Hanau wasn’t exactly arduous, out to the autobahn then a steady trundle south west down the sixty six, through the Kinzigtal.

"What’re we doing for lunch?” Mist queried, beating me by a heartbeat in asking the question.
"There’s bound to be a McDonald’s or something,” Stefan suggested.

Looks like we’re back to a diet of fast food.

"You can’t be serious,” Hilde hmphed.
"We are on a budget liebe,” Little Jo interposed
"That stretches to litres of bier but not decent food.”

She did sort of have a point, we’ve fallen on our feet a couple of times but others – yeah, best not go there.

There was a billboard on the approach to Hanau, you know the sort of thing, so many minutes to the nearest restaurant, in this case, seven minutes to McDrive Lamboy off route eight, which pretty much sealed our fate.

"Well there’s a Macky somewhere near the next junction if we go towards Frankfurt," Marcus stated.
"Or we go into the town and try to park this,” Animal added from the driving seat.
"Okay, burgers it is,” Hilde allowed.

Part of me wanted to cheer, they do usually have decent toilets, which I’d soon need, but the rest of me fancied something, well not burgerish. We trundled on , it was only as we started the turn onto route eight that Hilde let out a little squeal.

"Yes!”
"What now,” her other half enquired.
"There’s an IKEA, look you can see the mast.”
"And? We don’t have time to go trawling around furniture stores,” Little Jo told her firmly.
"I know dearest, what else do they have in their stores?”
"Meatballs?” I ventured from my corner.
"Precisely, we can go there to eat, it’ll be cheaper than a burger bar too.”
"Its the same direction,” Animal noted.

It probably took a minute or two longer than going to the McDrive but, whilst quite busy, even with the bus we got parked easily, all we had to do now was find the restaurant. Back in England we were sort of lucky in as much as we were only about ten miles from the IKEA at Eastwood, not that we went very often. Originally you had to go half way around the store to get to the restaurant but there was a sort of rat run shortcut if you knew from by the entrance.

Its a bit more civilised at our local one here in Germany, down in Koblenz, you can go direct to the restaurant when you go in but the Hanau store looks a bit older so who knows.
 

"I don’t know where you put it,” the orange haired one opined, "You had all that curry last night, a big breakfast and now that.”

The that in question was of course the IKEA speciality, meatballs, fifteen of course with mash, peas and that Lingonberry jam stuff. Of course I had a slice of Daim cake and canny shopper that I am, a pop glass, you get free refills if you have a store card!

"We might not get much later, this amphitheater place is a bit out in the sticks from what Robert was saying.”
"There must be something.”
"Well I’m not taking any chances.”

We did get a few strange looks, five er, casually dressed men, Hilde looking like a hausfrau, me with pink hair and Mist doing the full orange Goth thing. Not that we were alone in standing out, there were a couple of gothy girls giving Mist some serious looks, at the other extreme was an older couple wearing what I call casual Kostum, not dirndls and lederhosen but at the expensive end of native couture.

"So just where is this amphitheater place?”
"Robert said its in the grounds of some Schloss place down by the river,” Stefan told us in reply to Marcus’ enquiry.
"Schloss Philippsruhe, the directions are from the next autobahn junction from where we came off,” Animal added after consulting a crumpled bit of paper.
"It can’t be far, Hanau’s not that big a place,” Little Jo observed.
"We all done?” our leader asked.

By chance, having followed the signs for the motorway direction Frankfurt, we avoided going back onto the sixty six. Roberts directions were pretty much spot on, a couple of kilometres skirting the town before turning onto a dead straight urban street which took us right to the Schloss place. It was only another couple of minutes before we were parked and our manager was striding towards us.
 

"A good rest people?”
"Not for everyone,” I pointed out.
"Of course Gaby you had your competition, a success I hope?”
"I’ve had better days,” I admitted.
"And Misty, I see you have changed your hair, no one will miss you now hey?”
"Hopefully.”
"So, to business. The venue engineers should be here anytime, they want to get set up as early as possible, something about shifts, you know what its like with local government. Ah the beautiful Hilde.”

Well that might be pushing things a bit, meeow!

"How do you fancy being in charge of merchandise?”
"Merchandise?”
"They haven’t told you, the CD?”
"Of course, it has been mentioned once or twice.”
"I’ve secured a kiosk to use this evening to sell it to the clamouring fans if you are up for it?”
"I’m supposed to be on holiday.”
"Go on Hil,” Little Jo encouraged, "Its only for what, an hour?”
"Am hour before, maybe thirty minutes after,” Robert proposed.
"CD’s?”
"Well I took a flyer and got some t-shirts done with your design on Gaby,” he admitted.
"Guess all the families will be getting them at Weihnachts!” Big Jo joked.
"CD’s and t-shirts, no other surprises Robert?” Hilde asked in a manner that suggested she had prior experience of Robert Silsman.
"Thats it, I swear Hil.”
"Okay I guess.”
"Great, I knew I could rely on you.”

"So when do we get to see this phonographic wonder,” Animal enquired.
"Of course, you haven’t seen it, I’ve got one somewhere here,” he stated, starting a search of his person, "Ah, here we are, a real bona fide BlauHase tour album.”

In my head I’d sort of imagined something more impressive but this wasn’t even in a crystal case. Instead our ‘bona fide BlauHase tour album’ was in a card sleeve, sort of like a mini version of Dad’s vinyl LP’s. It didn’t look much, the front had my leaping hare design and the back the set list and so on, exactly as we’d discussed on Saturday.

When I say exactly I mean that literally, I thought they’d replace my sketchy scrawl with proper text but what we had was what I drew in the laundromat, dodgy spacing and everything.

"I thought they were going to just use what I did as a sort of template?”
"That was the original plan,” Robert agreed, "But they were quite impressed by your handiwork, their art director thinks it epitomises not just the music but the whole ‘bootleg’ thing. According to him, and I think I agree, when bands put out a ‘bootleg’ release they try too hard, fancy artwork, exclusive extras and so on, this looks like something the band have done themselves.”
"Well we have,” Marcus pointed out.
"My name’s on it!” Mist enthused.
"You are part of the tour,” Stefan observed.

I wasn’t quite sure what to think, part of me was miffed that they had used my original scrappy doodling, another was quite chuffed that they had used my actual scrappy doodles. The CD itself, whilst having the legal niceties around the edge just had the leaping hare printed on it, yeah I think it hits the mark.
 

I think in the summer, when the weather is more predictable, the venue is played open to the elements but I was glad to see that there was a sort of tent like roof over both us and the audience, well most of them, and we had an arrangement a bit like Moselfest around the stage. The changing facilities are housed in a couple of temporary buildings, we get one, our support, when they get here will have the other. They aren’t luxurious by any stretch but they are out of the elements, have indoor plumbing and a couple of movable screens gave us girls a bit of privacy.

Yes, we have support again tonight, I’m not sure who thought a Rockabilly band would compliment us but thats what we’ve got, Hanau’s finest, the one and only Four Five Six’s. Its not really my kind of music but there’s a lot worse and I guess with Hanau once being home to a major US military base, the American influence will still be strong hereabouts, there are certainly quite a few late model American cars on the streets, more than you generally see in Germany.
 
Maddy Bell © 01.03.2022