The Rainy Festival

When Marta, Javi and Lucia bought tickets for a music festival in the south of England, they made a list of everything they needed. It was a very short list. "It's July," said Javi, who had organized the trip. "We won't need many clothes. One tent is enough for three people, and we can buy food there." Nobody checked the weather forecast.

It started raining twenty minutes after they arrived, and it didn't stop for four days. Their tent, which had looked big enough in the shop in Valencia, was absolutely tiny. There wasn't enough space for three people and three backpacks, so Javi slept with his feet outside under a plastic bag. By the first morning, there was a lot of water inside the tent and very little dry ground outside it.

Food was a problem too. There were plenty of food trucks, but the prices were extremely high, and the friends had too little money for three meals a day. They lived on bread, a few bananas and an enormous bag of crisps that Lucia had bought at the airport. "We have too many crisps and not enough of everything else," Marta said on the second day, looking sadly at their dinner.

And then there was the mud. It was everywhere: in their shoes, in their hair, in their sleeping bags. On Saturday, Lucia lost a boot in it and never found it again. She spent the rest of the weekend with one boot on and a plastic bag tied around her other foot. Hardly anyone noticed, because most people looked just as bad.

But something strange happened. The worse the weather got, the friendlier everyone became. A family from Leeds, whose tent was next to theirs, invited them for tea every morning. A group of students from Manchester lent them a second tent, so Javi could finally sleep with his feet inside. A few strangers shared their food, and nobody complained about anything.

The music was fantastic, too. On Saturday night, their favorite band played in the pouring rain, and thousands of people sang every word, completely soaked and incredibly happy. Marta danced so much that she couldn't feel her legs. Javi said it was the best concert he had ever seen, and for once nobody argued with him.

On Monday, they flew home with very little luggage, because they had thrown away most of their clothes, two sleeping bags and Lucia's last boot. At the airport in Valencia, it was thirty-four degrees and the sky was perfectly blue. The three friends stood in the sun for a moment without saying anything. Then Lucia took out her phone. "So," she said, "shall we buy tickets for next year?"