I woke up at 4am on Wednesday morning. Greyish light barely penetrated my curtains. Glancing at my clock and registering time and place, the realisation hit me that I wasn't going to much-loathed school that day; I was going to Norway.

Any further sleep that I now desired was, of course, impossible.

My name is Stevie and I am the principle bassist of West Wiltshire Youth Orchestra (by default, as I am the only one, but it sounds good on absence notes). Our conductor, who also happens to be my dear old bass teacher, Mr Morris, had decided to ship the orchestra over to Norway for a four-concert tour the previous year, so seventy-nine of us found ourselves standing outside the Rowbridge Civic Hall with our luggage and instruments waiting for our coaches to materialise. I glanced around, searching for an accessible face, when I spotted my friend Clio, whom I had met at a String Ensemble residential course years ago. Over the past few months she had undergone the inexplicable development of sweet little schoolgirl to neo-Gothic rebel, sporting shaven head and black eyeshadow. It was still hard to adjust.

'Hello,'I said.
'Hiya, Stevie,' replied Clio.
'How are you on this fine morning?' I asked.
'Annoyed,' said Clio. 'My mum's flying to Scotland without Clio.'
'Oh.'
I suppose I should be more sympathetic in situations such as these, but it really isn't my style.
'What's she doing in Scotland?'
'Archaeology.'
'Ah.'

I spotted Pat the pianist. He received one of my lame waves, and returned with a half-smile.
Somebody tapped my shoulder. I spun around.
'Fern!' I exclaimed.
We hugged.

Fern had been the other bassist with me last year. She was now at Music College in Dartington, and Mr Morris had dragged her back so that he could restore the bass section to its former glory. It was great to have her back, though. We were now basses plural instead of just me as bass singular.

'How are you?' I asked.
'Fantastic,' she said. 'You really need to come to Dartington. You'd love it.'
'I'd love to go, but I didn't even take GCSE music.'
'Really? They'd take you anyway. You really should come. We've been doing concerts in weird hats and streaking on campus!'
'Dear God.'

Naomi of Firsts gave me a wave over Fern's shoulder, which I returned.
'Anyway,' said Fern. 'You'd better take care of my little sister.'
'No worries. I am the incarnation of responsibility.'
'Uh-huh.'
These cynics. They do not need to place their hands in my wounds. Isn't my existence proof enough? Don't take that comment too seriously.

Clio and I settled down for an uneventful bus journey to Newcastle at the front of the coach. By about Hippensham she had already reverted to her anti-social state, so I decided to talk to the little girl sitting on her own in the opposite row, who I recognised as having been leader of the Junior Strings when my baby brother had been in Seconds.

The poor child didn't have the guts to question the purpose of my past-tense usage, so she turned up the volume on her portable CD player and began singing like a ballad artist. This continued for a further five minutes or so before I recognised last summer's Corrs hit.

'I know that one!' I cried, startling Rena. 'That's that Corrs song' 'Breathless.?'

Rena smiled in acknowledgement. I started singing it in the wrong key and too slowly to see how she would react.

Musicians usually hate it when people do that, but she just laughed at me, probably because I sounded completely ridiculous. She was about to return to Corr-land when I asked her who her favourite band member was.

This time she embraced oblivion turned to the window and resumed the singing. In total boredom, I glanced around for something to occupy me. My eyes rested on a gargantuan blue construction of material with a sports brand plastered onto its front. I determined that it must be Rena's rucksack.

'Is that yours?' I gestured at the rucksack. I received an affirmative nod. 'Can I talk to it?'
'Okay.' Puzzlement from its owner.
I hefted the rather weighty bag onto my knees and looked it in the logo.
'I shall call you Bob,' I told it. 'Bob the Bag.'

And so we stayed for all of five minutes, conversing on matters concerning life, the Universe, 42 and everything else. My saviour was an inability to feel any sensation in my toes and a John Cleese film full of forced and predictable gags. Afterwards, we watched Bill and Ted, and everybody stared at me as I joined in with all the cries of 'Excellent!' and 'Wild Stallyns!' Bill and Ted are a way of life.

On one of out various stops, we hung around a windy northern service station for half-an-hour. Steven the Leader, Bobby the leader of Seconds, Clio and I stood in the centre of the complex, where we stayed for about a quarter of an hour. Bobby is very tall, whereas Steven is about fifteen centimetres taller than I am. I am only about a metre-and-a-half tall, which makes me the butt of many jokes. They fail to annoy me now, though; I simply accept them as a valid form of communication.

As we chatted, Bobby was constantly eyeing the rack in the newsagent's that was full of the Sarah Michelle Gellar edition of FHM. He looked as if he wanted to go and buy a copy, but Steven looked as if he wouldn't let him live it down it he did. After a while of this, we walked back to the coach park, where we were met by Jezebel and Ophelia, the bassoonists. Jez is named after the original whore (which she is rather proud of), and Ophelia is named after that girl who kills herself in 'Hamlet'. Twisted parents. Jez was devouring a Magnum whilst clutching a copy of FHM.

'How come you have FHM?' I asked.
'Because it came with a free Magnum,' Jez said.
'Why didn't you just buy the Magnum on its own?'
'Because I like FHM.'
I shrugged. The thing with musicians is that they are all a bit off-the-wall, and whenever somebody does something out of the ordinary, nobody cares.

Bobby ambled over from behind a coach.
'Is that FHM?' he asked expectantly.
Jez responded in the affirmative.
'Can I borrow it, then?'
'No.'

It turns out that Bobby and Steven had been comparing the two coaches that were transporting us to Newcastle and around Norway. Mr Morris had chosen the coach that he had perceived to be better, whilst we had been put on the apparently inferior vehicle.

'Our coach has four more horse-power!' declared an excited Bobby.
'Oh yes!' cried Steven, equally enthusiastic but completely sarcastic. 'And ours is three years newer too!'
'Dear God,' I exhaled.
'Does anybody want to go and get their fortunes told at the machine I saw inside?' asked Jez, suddenly.
'Yeah, okay,' I said, so we rushed inside before the coaches left.

Jez shoved 20p into the machine a placed her hand inside its mouth. After a great deal of flashing lights and bleeping noises, a slip of paper fell out of the machine declaring her to be lucky in love and in need of a healthy lifestyle.

'I'll do it again to see if I get the same one,' said Jez.
What the hell. And it was different, too.
My turn, and it was pretty much the same as Jez's, apart from the fact that it declared me not to be paranoid (which I am . very much so) and that everybody would be jealous of my love life. Of course.

When we returned to the coach, nearly everybody had reappeared, so we were forced to board.

At a later, windier service station, Fern and I stood outdoors having a conversation, completely oblivious to the weather conditions around us. Also with us were Naomi, Madrigal of cellos and Kathryn the flautist, who were sharing with Fern once we reached the Youth Hostel in Bergen; Meghan, Fern's sister, and Rebecca from Seconds, who were sharing with Clio and I at the Hostel, and Jim Winterbury, the bass trombonist.

'Don't you think it's odd,' I said to Fern, 'That Mr Morris put us on the other coach from him?'
'Hmm? But isn't he a sweetheart anyway?' Fern adores Mr Morris.
'Yeah,' I agreed. 'He's an absolute darling.'
Jim, fairly new in the orchestra and not yet used to my and Fern's Mr Morris adoration, stared at us in bemused silence. Fern looked at him, then me, and we laughed.

We arrived at the ferry terminal halfway through 'Austin Powers,' one of the most stupid films that I have ever seen. Before we left the coach, Valerie Day, a County-paid woodwind peripatetic who had come to supervise stood up, clutching the coach's mic.

'Hello, everybody. I'm Valerie Day, and I thought that I had better introduce you to the team. This is Carol Marrow,' - a bird-like blonde head raised itself for everybody to see - 'She's in charge of the tuck shop,' she continued, 'Along with Toby Chicken, who is also here to look after the percussion.' She gestured towards a stocky, friendly-looking man with a shaven head. He smiled.

'Also with us is Dick Sparke to look after you lot, and Anna from Wyvern Schooltours.' A bespectacled man with dishevelled hair turned to grin at us, as did an auburn-haired girl, also in glasses.

'I'm in charge of first aid,' said Valerie, 'So if anybody is dying they had better come to me. 'On the ferry we will have a pre-arranged meeting spot where at least one member of staff will be at any time. We'll show you where it is once we get onto the boat. If anybody has any travel medication, take it now. Oh yes, and it turns out that we have a birthday, today. We're all going to sing 'Happy Birthday' to Rebecca Dent. Where is she?'

Rebecca shrunk behind Meghan, even though she had the aisle seat. I stood up, pointed to her and shouted 'She's here!' The whole coach sang, to Rebecca's mortification, then we toured off to find somewhere to wait for the ferry.

As we sat waiting in the cigarette-smoke-filled non-smokers' lounge, I was surrounded by people quoting Austin Powers moronically. Then Clio started talking to one of the Seconds from her school about what her big sister was wearing to her Year Eleven dinner. In utter boredom and annoyance, I left Clio, Meghan, Rebecca and the Second and went to sit with Steven, Ophelia, Bobby and Richard, the assistant leader of Seconds.

'What time does the ferry leave?' I asked Steven.
'Half-seven.'
I inspected my wristwatch.
'Bloody hell!'
We sat in silence for a while. I stared at the floor.
'The carpet,' I announced, 'Looks as if it used to be blue, but then it got covered in dust, then somebody carved a load of marks in it.'
'So how did it stay in the same pattern?' asked Steven cynically.
'Because'- I said, 'Because- it- was- evil dust.'
'And why was this dust evil?'
'Because we're on a hellmouth,' said Ophelia.
'Oh, are you into 'Buffy?'' I inquired.
'Yeah!'
'Don't tell me any of the new storylines,' I warned.
'I don't have Sky,' said Ophelia.
'But all private school girls have Sky,' said Steven unbelievingly.
'My dad hates Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates,' explained Ophelia, 'So we don't have Sky and our computer is a Mac.'
'Brilliant!' I cried, then dissolved into a laughter of admiration for her father.
'So how did the dust get here?' persisted Steven.
'Because we're on a hellmouth!' exclaimed Ophelia in consternation.
'Evil!' I screamed, pointing at the ground, 'Evil!'
'Anyway,' he continued, 'How did they cut through the evil dust? With a laser that they happened to have with them?'
'Yes!' said Ophelia and I in unison.

We boarded the ferry after two hours in the lounge, and it was a further forty-five minutes before we finally pulled out of Newcastle.

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