The Rockin' Rodents

Dancing Queen

When Johnny and Ari found him, Ari punched him in the arm. He inhaled her perfume as the sharp pain radiated out from the impact, Ari always smelled good, for a punk. He realized that he didn't need to be high to find her pretty and that made it harder to be angry with her.

"Where the hell did you go? We were worried sick!"

"Hey, Ger! Are you still high? Feel like dancing?" Johnny, Ger's best mate and drummer in their band "The John Malkovich Side Project" (Ger didn't like the new name, but wasn't sure how to convince Johnny to change it, several hours ago they were called Insert Witty Name Here) started doing "big fish, small fish" with his arms, like a dodgy audition for a TV dance show.

Then surprisingly nimble for a guy into Heavy Metal started to vogue like Madonna. They say drugs improve a person's experience of music, Ger supposed it might apply to the medium of dance too. Johnny started singing Dancing Queen by ABBA

"Are you? What's with the dancing queen" Ger said back.

"Me! No way" Johnny waved away the idea, before starting into the chorus of the ABBA song and had reached "young and sweet, only seventeen", before stopping suddenly.

Both boys looked at Ari simultaneously, as the same thought struck them. If Ari had drugged one of them, maybe she had done it to both of them.

"Am I?" asked Johnny. "like, high?"

"No Johnny; you're wired enough without adding pharmaceutical substances into the mix. Besides, I'm a doctor, remember? Trust me, Ger was in no danger, I just wanted him to you know... lighten up a bit."

Her voice trailed off a little at the end, as she was coming to the conclusion that everyone who does something stupid eventually arrives at. Sometimes, you can't rationally justify your acts and you've got to own your mistakes.

She tussled her badly self-dyed blond curls (Ari changed her hair color more often than some boys changed their underwear) which sat in a temporary mess on her head and was as close to a Mohawk that she could get past her father and her brothers.

"You're a first-year medical student and we're not talking about a prescription for a headache. Also, did you find time to dye your hair while I was lost, possibly dead on the streets of Dublin?" he asked.

"I'm sorry about the drugs, I wish I hadn't done it," she said. She thought she could see something different in Ger. Maybe the plane had worked, so why not continue with the lie?

She explained the hair color. "To be fair, you weren't answering your phone. We couldn't just leave the gear at the pub in that neighborhood, so we took it back to the hostel. We figured you'd cool down and answer the phone eventually. Dying my hair takes my mind off things, you know that."

It's true, the week of their final exams at secondary school, Ariana had become a human rainbow. A human rainbow that nobody could see because of her hijab, but a rainbow nonetheless.

"OK, I'm tired. Let's go to the hostel and get some rest," replied Ger.

They walked back in a line, Johnny between Ger and Ari recounting stories of their night's adventures, trying to get them to laugh, or at least smile.

They caught a few hours of sleep, got up, and got their stuff together. Luckily, Johnny had a cousin in Dublin who had lent him a drum kit, and he was free to help get the rest of their stuff back on the train.

The train was almost empty, the odd family or men in suits with expensive phones or tablets. The "King's Dead Yeah! Movement" had a carriage to themselves. Johnny zonked out on an empty row of seats, his skinhead skull resting on his rolled-up jacket, but Ariana and Gerry were still emotionally prickly, having failed to resolve the issues of the (non)drink spiking.