Lunch went well - Tay ordered a single huge bowl of spaghetti bolognaise (another Gold Card advantage - you don't need cash until you check out) and while he ordered, I took the opportunity to call my parents and tell them I'd be staying overnight. Again convincing them took far longer in my opinion than it should have, but they eventually agreed. I walked back over to our table and we both tucked in. The 'exertion' of the morning had made us both very hungry indeed!

Just as we were finishing the first course, a middle-aged woman, who I'd noticed had been glancing over at us from time to time, got up and walked over to our table.

"Excuse me, are you Taylor Hanson?"

Tay lookad at me in a 'why can't people just LEAVE ME ALONE' sort of way and turned to her and put on his killer smile. "Yes, ma'am,"

"Oh my goodness! Er, my daughter is absolutely mad about your group - it's a shame she's over the other side of the park..." Tay looked at me relieved. "Do you think I could take a photo or two - she'll never forgive me if I don't..."

"Yeah, sure!"

Tay shuffled his chair right next to mine and threw his arm around my shoulder. I was caught off guard a little, but put my arm around his as well. A couple of polaroids later, Tay produced a black marker from his pocket - apparantly "For emergencies," and signed his photo. He then pushed the photo infront of me.

I looked back at him blankly. "Go ahead! You're in the photo - she might as well know who you are..." Fair enough, I thought, and signed over my picture next to Tay's. The woman thanked us and left. The other polariod was left behind - tay picked it up and shoved it into his back pocket.

"What're we on with now, then?" he enquired.

I suggested that we do a tour of the Towers' "White-Knuckle Rides", but first have a walk round the grounds to let the excessive amount of bolognaise we'd eaten between us settle.

We meandered through the Japanese-style garden that was origionally Alton Towers' only attraction -- it started life as a very impressive show-graden and park area. Then rides began to appear more as a side line and amusements than a money-making operation. It soon became apparant that the public wanted more and more, and gradually the Theme Park took shape.

Whilst we were walking, Taylor filled me in a bit on his life on the road. I could now see why his music was so involving and sincere - he really loved it with a passion. He said that playing music was one thing, but being on stage and have thousands of people share that passion - sing the words and move to the music - was just out of this world.

We took a seat on a bench overlooking a lake that had one of those old Japanese style houses in the middle with a huge fountain coming from the top. Tay flung his head back and gazed through closed eyes into the sky.

"The one thing that gets to me the most is the way I look - I'm 14, for Christ's sake and you still can't easily tell if I'm a boy or a girl from a distance. It really pisses me off. And to make matters worse it's the first thing people pick on if they don't like me. I suppose I'll grow out of it or something..."

"I hope you never do," I whispered under my breath, hoping he wouldn't hear. He turned and looked at me, and smiled faintly. He held my had and I squeezed back. "You up for Nemesis, then?" I asked.

"Go for it,"

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful - Tay's Gold Card again proving its worth as we happily strode to the front of every cueue in the park - and geting to ride as many times as we wanted without having to get off and cueue again. It was great. The icing on the cake was that Taylor and I got on so well - it seemed as if we could talk together about anything we wanted to without apprehension. It had to be one of the best days in my entire life. Ever.

By this time it was about half six in the evening and we were feeling pretty knackered, however Tay wanted to experience Alton Towers' infamous Cork Screw before we headed off to the hotel.

"Have you ever tried eating anything while you're on one of these?" I asked.

"Not that I can recall - why?"

"Well there was a TV show that used to be held here during the 80s called Snakes and Ladders - I think you can still see the remnants of the set up by the castle... Anyway, one of the challenges was to try and eat an ice-cream and drink a small coke and spilling as little as possible - I've never tried it but have always wanted a go. You game?"

"Sure!"

I went off and waved Tay's Gold Card at one of the stores by the Cork Screw and picked up two 1.5 litre Colas and two 'so big you can hardly hold 'em' ice creams and handed one of each to Tay, who just looked bemused. The gates opened and we were escorted to the very front car.

"OK - no eating or drinking until we're over the first drop - the guy who's eaten or drunk the the most with the least over him or all the nice people behind us wins!"

Tay just looked at me in disbelief as the lift started to pull us up the first slope. I just grinned back. "You can see the whole park from up here! Hey, look at th... Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit!"

"START EATING!!" I yelled.

As we went down the first drop, Tay took quite a convincing bite out of his ice cream. Not a good move - the car immediately went into the first loop and as a consequence Tay's hand was pushed down with the G-force,spreading copious amounts of vanilla ice cream all down the front of his tank top.

I was too busy watching Tay to notice the loop as well - the top flew off my Cola and decided it would spray me, Tay and about another 8 people behind us as we went through the loop.

The second loop directly followed the first and caught me the same way with the ice cream. Tay still managed to hold on to his cola, but this time a sharp clockwise barrel role caught him, hurling the cola all over me.

By the time we pulled back into the station, we were absolutely covered from head to toe in 3 litres of cola and a bucket full of melted vanilla ice-cream. We simply couldn't stop laughing.

"How d'you say we go back to the hotel and get ourselves cleaned up," suggested Tay.

I agreed and we both stumbled as if drunk down to the other end of the park and onto the monorail that would take us back to the Hotel.


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