I awoke to the sounds of a summer Sunday morning. I couldn’t place where I was immediately but then I realised that I was in my room at Bond acres. Seven thirty – time for a training ride before meeting the guys. I dressed quickly and managed to leave the house without waking Jules and Dad, I think.

I decided to head out to Retford, I needed to loosen up after yesterdays train journey. I was riding on sort of autopilot and going over last week’s holiday with mum. This ‘training’ ride was a bit different to last week with Mum and Maria and the rest of the team! That day was awesome! Then there was Thursday with Kat and Freddii at the pool, that was just so much fun.

As I rode past Thoresby Hall, people were already setting up for the boot sale; it would be busy around here in an hour or so. I went back to my musing. Now Sunday and Mums big win, now that was just an incredible day, riding in the team bus, doing the feed, Mums big sprint finish, meeting Kat. Then I remembered about the masquerade at the dinner. Hmm not really sure how I feel about that or having to pretend to be a girl at the Krone. I guess it was no real hardship, the strange thing really was the way both Mum and Dad not only went along with it but Mum especially encouraged it.

I stopped briefly to watch the traffic on the A1 as I crossed the bridge, there was a time trial on, so I watched a few riders pass before I continued on. Well at least I can forget dressing up as Gaby now I’m home; I mean what reason could there be?

Retford was negotiated and I turned toward Worksop. I decided I’d better try a bit harder on the way home so I turned my attention to my riding. Past the prison, under the A1 at Ranby and along to Worksop, I decided to cut through the town rather than take the bypass. The town safely crossed I followed the Mansfield sign which would take me home. Just over twenty minutes later I was home and it was still not much past nine.

We had arranged to meet at Maddy’s for a sort of end of holiday party, yeagh! School tomorrow. By the time I had showered and joined the others for breakfast it was nearly time to leave for Maddy’s.

“What are you up to today Drew?” Dad asked

“Meeting the guys, Mrs Peters is feeding us” I replied

“When are you going?”

“Er, I need to leave in a minute or two”

“I’ll give you a lift, I’m dropping your sister off at Charlie’s so I can drop you on the way ok?”

“Thanks Dad, I’ll just get my stuff”

“Your sister will be a few minutes yet. Did you enjoy your ride?”

“It was ok, I went out to Retford”

“You just be careful when you’re out”

“I am”

“You are what?” Jules asked as she joined us

“Careful when I’m out”

“Oh right”

“Come on you two if you want a lift”

Dad dropped me at the end of the Peter’s road and I walked along to Maddy’s abode.

“Hi Drew, come on in, have a good holiday?” Mad’s mum answered the door

“Yes thanks Mrs P, the weather was good and we got to see mum a fair bit”

“That’s good” she lead me through to the back of the house.

“Drew’s here girls” she announced

Much to my surprise I found myself engulfed by Ally, Mad and Bernie who gave me a considerable hug. I don’t know what I did to deserve that.

“What was that for?” I said blushing

“We missed you this week” Bernie giggled

“You want a drink Drew?” Maddy asked

“Yes please”

“Come on Drew, tell us all about it”

“Is Rhod coming?” I asked

“He’ll be here about twelve, he’s not fully recovered yet but he went swimming with me and Ally on Friday” Bernie replied

I found a comfortable spot – the swing seat and prepared to tell them about the trip.

“Wait for me” Maddy yelled as she came back out with my drink. She joined me on the swing seat and it was time to tell my tale.

“So you had to pretend to be a girl at the hotel?” Ally queried

“Yeah, otherwise we couldn’t have stayed there. I don’t know why but they thought I was a girl when we arrived and we couldn’t convince them otherwise,” I added

“That is just so weird Drew” Maddy added. “And so you had to share with Jules?”

“Yep, she wasn’t pleased”

“I bet!” Bernie stated

“…and she thought you were a girl?”

“Well I was wearing Jules stuff still so I guess I looked a bit girly”

The girls just nodded.

“Your Mum dressed you up?” Maddy was incredulous

“Well she said if it was worth doing, it was worth doing well”

“And you wore her dress?” Bernie continued the questions

“Well I could hardly go to a fancy dinner in jeans could I?”

I told them all about Monday’s visits and Rhod arrived as I started to tell them about the Nurburgring place. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks and he was looking a bit drawn and peaky still.

Ally was really interested in all the car stuff, she’s a Grand Prix fan and has a crush on Jensen Button!

They listened as I bored them with Tuesday’s training session and how Mum came clean about the deception at the reception on Sunday. I explained how I thought a couple of the girl’s still thought I was a girl even after Mum explaining it all.

I raved about the Roman Villa and how everyone recognised Mum. They all thought that was pretty cool. I had got through Wednesday before Maddy’s mum called us for lunch, pasta, pesto and salad today followed by homemade ice cream.

“And so they saw your tan lines?” Ally giggled

“Yeah so I had to tell them how I got them, I’m not sure if they really understood it all though. I guess that’s just about it. We did some sightseeing on Friday after Mum left then Kat took us around Cologne before we got the train.”

“Sounds like you had a good time” Rhod suggested

“Yeah even if Gaby had to go along too,” Ally added

“Well that wasn’t too bad I guess” I can’t believe I said that, “so what have you guys been doing?”

The others hadn’t really done that much, only Mad had really done anything, a visit to ‘Anicon’ over in Manchester. So we checked out her pictures and stuff that she got, the others had seen it before but were happy to see it all again with me. Mad and her olds had gone in costume, I was blown away by Maddy’s. She’d even used a wash out hair colour and looked just awesome.

It was getting on in the afternoon before I remembered to ask about our exchange partners.

“Rhod got a mail from Dan but no one else has” Mad told me

“What did Dan have to say?” I asked Rhod

“You know, stuff.”

“Like?” I prodded

“Well you know, what stuff he’s doing at school, he runs for the school so he was going on about some match he was going to, it was all percentages this and rating that, pretty boring”

“Like don’t you know your average?” Maddy mimicked an American accent much to everyone’s mirth.

“Perhaps we should mail them?” I suggested

So that’s what we did. My mail to Britney had the edited highlights of my German trip; I missed out the Gaby moments!

“Dinner!” Maddy’s Dad called us in

You have to say the Peters eat well. We sat down to a proper Sunday roast, Rhod had some stuffed aubergine thing instead of the beef and Mrs P once again delighted our taste buds with a peach and rhubarb crumble with real custard. Mmmm. If you’ve never tried it, do. After washing up we watched a couple of Buffy vids before Mr P did the taxi bit to get us all home.

Tomorrow was the start of summer term, which means just one thing – six weeks until the summer hols!

Maddy Bell 17.09.03