Page 75 of The Cake Fairies

They were back in the VIP field already, Polly facing due north and striding furiously ahead of Annabelle in her polka dot wellies. She’d resigned herself to a difficult evening ahead, even before her accusations had made their sneaky escape into the Somerset countryside, so she may as well get on with it.

“Did you hear that, Jonty? She saidshe doesn’t know her anymore!” Polly turned angrily to clock two guys who had to be in their late teens, backs propped against a clementine-hued camper van, arguing over ownership of a bongo; the two-a-penny expensive-faced kind of lads who speckled Glastonbury’s fields with their ‘something for the weekend’ facades of grunge and grime, before returning to Eton and its public school sidekicks. Well, at least they weren’t on their screens, she supposed.

“Chill, babe. What you need is a few puffs on this,” Jonty’s mate informed her, waving a joint with all the co-ordination of Ray attempting a dance at the village hall.

“What I need is for you to get your damned snouts out of my business,” she snarled.

“Hey, this is Glasto, man! Leave your politics and shit at home.”

Glasto.

It was Glasts at a push if you were a local. Because, actually, they were standing in the village of Pilton.Bleughto the way these outsiders thought they owned even a piece of her beloved home county. Not that Polly was really feeling all that homesick. She’d happily leave her traitor of a cousin here and escape to London. She missed the bright lights of that city like she could never have imagined.

Mercifully, the teens had forgotten her already, taking it in turns to take deep drags and float back to their own temporary home of psychedelia.

The most disconcerting thing about any of this was Annabelle knew she’d been found out. It was as good as etched on her face.

“My own cousin,” Polly continued, grabbing her by the crook of her arm and dragging her away from the couple of clowns behind them, straight into the path of a much larger assemblage. “Look at her!” She gestured to their brand-new huddle of rubberneckers; a cosy community sat cross-legged around their swanky VW campfire. “The last remaining stalwart in my life.”

She knew it was pathetic but somehow her index finger couldn’t help but draw a picture frame of guilt around Annabelle, as if they were some kind of festival entertainment duo who plied their wares from gathering to gathering, collecting coins in a busking cap. “How could she stab me in the back like that?”

Annabelle’s chin finally wobbled, and Polly had to marvel at the way she was beginning to feel a tinkle of empathy for her – despite the fact she’d committed the ultimate sin.