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“Hi,” I said to Fred, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Fred, this is my brother, Kevin. Kev, this is Fred.”
Fred greeted him with a warm handshake. “Nice to meet you.”
“And you.” Kev smiled.
“Can we go?” Max asked from the car. “It’s going to be hard enough to get parked as it is.”
Fred motioned to the front seat once again. “Ladies first.”
“Thank you.” I smiled and got in, and he closed the door for me. “Look at that,” I said to Max. “You’re not the only one with manners around here.”
“Shut up,” he muttered, but his lips were twitching up to one side into a tiny smile all the same. “Everyone ready?” He looked over his shoulder.
A pair of yeses came from the back seat, and he pulled away from the lodge.
“Are these karaoke nights really that crazy?” I asked, looking back at Fred. “I don’t trust his judgement on it, and I’m sure you’ve been before.”
Fred grinned. “They start pretty tame, but there’s a whole chorus of pensioners in this village who let loose after a sherry.”
“I feel like Max hasn’t adequately prepared me for this.”
“In his defense, there’s not really any way to prepare anyone for this. It’s one of those things that you’re just kind of… sucked into,” he said, and Max chuckled.
I turned around with a huff. “I’m going to regret this. I just know it.”
“It sounds fun,” Kevin said with a shrug. “It can’t be any wilder than some of the bars in London.”
“That’s what I said,” I muttered. “I was told I was wrong.”
My brother snorted. “Then it sounds like an even better night than I thought. Let’s go!”
•••
“That’s a pig,” I said, gripping onto Max’s arm. “And it’s wearing a bowtie.”
He peered down at me, half-smiling. “Your cat wears a bowtie.”
“Yeah, but my cat is cute. That… is a pig,” I repeated, eyeing the giant pink and black pig wearing a neon yellow bow tie. “Why is it in the beer garden?”
He pressed his lips together. “Probably the same reason that chicken is wearing a tutu.”
“A chicken is wearing a what?”
He sidestepped, taking me with him. “A tutu.”
Yep.
A chicken was wearing a tutu.
If you could call it a chicken. It resembled a giant ball of fluffy white candy floss more than anything, but it was wearing a rainbow-coloured tutu.
“Why are there partially dressed farm animals at a karaoke night?” I asked. “Oh, God, is your grandmother here with a goat?”
“Probably Goatzart. He tends to be the best behaved one.” Max looked around. “Once a year they have a farm animal fashion show to raise money for the local animal rescue, and tonight is that night.”
“And you didn’t think to warn me about this?” I let go of his arm with a half-hearted tap on his chest.
“It’s not really the kind of thing one can warn about,” he replied slowly. “It would take quite a lot of explaining, and I’m not entire sure there’s really any way to explain it at all.”
