| I sat at my desk, staring out of the window. Some children were playing in the park opposite. I could hear their laughter clearly, and I smiled to myself. One little girl with a head full of copper curls was climbing up the side of the climbing frame, her mother stood next to her, encouraging her to go higher, but keeping her arms free to catch the girl if she fell. The clock on the wall behind me struck 4 o�clock and brought me back to where I was. I looked at the blank sheet of paper in front of me and frowned. I was having a complete mental block and had done next to no work all day. I gathered together my equipment and carelessly dropped it all into my desk draw with a crash. I yawned, put on my coat and picked up my bag ready to leave. �Vicky, glad I caught you. Karl�s just told me he wants to see you in his office for a couple of minutes before you leave,� Rachel said with a smirk, �he didn�t look too happy�Oh no! What had I done? I�d only been working at �Rainbow-designs� for a couple of weeks and had been finding it really hard to settle in there. It was only a small company, and I was in an office with two other girls, Rachel and Sandra. They had been at the company for about 3 years and I think resented me for coming in and trespassing on their friendship. They had never shown me any real kindness. They talked to me when they had too but that was as far as they went.I slowly walked down the corridor towards Karl�s office, unconsciously biting my lip. I took a deep breath inwards and knocked on the door. �Come in� Echoed from within and I turned the door handle and entered. �Ah, Victoria. Just who I wanted to see,� he smiled at me. He didn�t seem to be in a bad mood. �Please sit down. I have a job for you to do, I wouldn�t normally give someone so new to the place a job like this but we�re very busy at the moment, with Sandra and Colin both ill so I don�t really have much choice. I�m sure you�ll do just as well.� He carried on to tell me the nature of the job. I was to travel to Manchester with a journalist from �gr8-pop� magazine, and come up with some pictures for her article, although it seems quite unusual for an illustrator to go with the journalist, that was how �gr8-pop� liked it to be done. It gave their magazine an extra edge over the other teen mags. �Rainbow-designs� had worked with �gr8-pop� many times, but this was a first for me so I was understandably nervous. I was to leave that night and catch the 9:30 train down to Manchester, where I would book into my hotel for the night, and meet the journalist in the morning. I didn�t get that much sleep that night, worrying about meeting the journalist the next day, and about how much Karl was counting on me to do it right. |