
By the afternoon of that
same day, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. The sun beat
down on the dinghy and it's nine inhabitants.
"I guess no-one thought of bringing any water or food
supplies?" Jimmy asked hopefully.
Everyone shook their heads
sullenly.
"It's OK, there's lots of water round here!" Jess
spread out her arms, indicating the sea. Everyone knew that Jess
was slowly going insane, she had been acting strange ever since
they'd left shore, but no-one had the strength to correct her.
Cartman by this time was smelling extremely cheesy. All the
packets of Cheesy Poofs were crushed and sticky in his pockets.
He sat on the other side of the dinghy in solitary confinement. "Aww Jesus..." He sighed.
Daniel picked up his guitar
to play a tune. He stummed the first chord of 'Ana's Song' but
didn't get to the second for the A string snapped and hit Ben in
the face.
Hannah had slowly removed all of her clothing and was
now sitting in between Jess and Steve (where Jess had sat her and
told her not to move under any circumstances), in the large
Silverchair t-shirt, and that only.
"Aww Jesus," sighed
Cartman again.
"Well... at least it's warmer
now," said Jimmy, trying to be positive. "I'd guess
we're going North."
"Oh, great, so we're either
heading for South America, New Zealand, India, Africa or
Japan," said Jess miserably. "That's fabulous, Jimmy,
you're so organised I could set my watch by you!"
"Well, if you had a com-"
"Shut up, Steve!" Jess
interrupted.
There was a silence.
"Is that..." Hannah squinted
into the distance. "Is that... land?"
The others also
looked up and into the distance.
"I think it could be," said
Ben, frowning. "Looks like an island."
"There's a big building on
it," Chris pointed out.
"Civilisation! We're saved!"
Hannah shouted, leaping up. The wind blew her t-shirt up in the
air as she stood.
"Aww... Jesus..." Cartman
sighed again.
"Will you stop saying that, you cheesy little man,"
said Hannah, minorly embarrassed at the t-shirt incident.
Sure
enough as they got closer they saw that it was indeed an island
and it did indeed have a large building on it. The island was
double the size of Patrick's and had two more palm trees on it
compared to his island. The dinghy floated closer and closer and
then it started floating left.
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!" said Steve, rather
over-dramatically.
They had got so close that the automatic doors
had swung open... but they closed as they started floating left.
"Quick, paddle!!" Jimmy shouted, almost falling in the
water.
Everyone ran to the side of the dinghy and paddled like
fury. Sure enough, the dinghy swung around and reached the shore.
The travellers stumbled onto the sand
and looked up at the huge, glass plated building.
"Crazy as this may sound,"
said Daniel. "This looks like a shopping mall."
"What?!" On an island?!"
Jess asked scornfully.
"Well, what's that, then?"
asked Daniel, pointing to a trolley bank.
"Oh." Jess looked at her
feet. "Well it's a bl**dy stupid place to put a shopping
mall."
Hannah walked up to the building. The automatic doors
slid open."Looks totally empty," she
concluded. "Lets go raid the place. Smash and grab."
They hurried in quickly and all
sighed - there was air conditioning. The mall was enormous with
many shops spreading over three floors. There was an escalator
and a lift and there was even the suitable shopping music hanging
floatily in the air.
"Wow," said Ben awe-struck.
"Do you think they sell guitar strings?" Daniel said
gazing around.
"Yes, we do," a voice boomed overhead on a loudspeaker
on top of the tinny shopping music.
Jess fainted.
"What the...?" said Hannah, she looked up and said,
"Who are you?"
"I," the voice replied, "am the owner of the
largest, most successful uncharted island shopping stores
mall."
"Wow," said Hannah,
impressed.
"Why's Jess fainted?" asked
Steve, kicking her.
"Who cares. I can see a Maccy D's,
let's roll," said Hannah.
"There was something really weird
about that voice," contemplated Chris.
"It was just familiar, if you ask
me," said Steve.
"You're weird," concluded
Ben.
Jess was still left in a heap on the floor.
"Maybe she'd wake up if we threw
coke on her," suggested Daniel.
"Doubt it." Hannah stuffed
six chicken McNuggets into her mouth at once.
"I can't believe I was EVER
attracted to you," Jimmy commented in disgust.
"Well you were the one who asked me out in the first
place," said Hannah nonchalently. "Now you mention it,
god knows why I said yes... I'm so glad I dumped you."
Jimmy
blushed crimson.
"I'm topping up on coke," he said running away from the
table, out of McDonald's and across the mall into the toilets.
"Don't think he'll find any in there," Ben said turning
back to his half pounder burger.
"So you two went out?" asked Chris curiously.
"Yeah...for four hours...or was it six?" Hannah paused.
"Aww, who cares."
Jess made a groaning noise and sat up
on the squeaky clean tiled floor.
"Oh, hi!" said Steve, turning around.
"Where is he!?" said Jess, looking around wildly.
"Who?" asked Chris.
"Oh he..." said Ben. "HE, the
God of the Shopping Mall, is nowhere to be seen... we've only
heard him."
"Yeah," agreed Daniel. "He might show up sometime
next week if the escalator is good enough for him."
"Who is he?" Hannah asked Jess, noticing that she
looked quite flustered.
"Mi...Mi...M...Ma...Ma..."
"Oh, spit it out," said Steve dissmissively.
Everyone
glared at him apart from Jess.
"Mich...ael...Pa...PaPa...Palin," she finally got out.
"God... why is it that all these comedy actors and people
that Jess like all own shops on uncharted islands?" Jimmy
asked to no-one in particular, coming back and sitting next to
Steve on the other side of the table. Steve was becoming rapidly
unpopular with his continuous smarmy comments.
"Because comedy acting isn't always fulfilling in the money
requirements," Michael Palin said himself, coming up behind
the fast-food service counter.
Jess had already fainted again.
"For some," snarled Steve.
"Yes. For some have incredibly handsome good looks and
charming attitudes, or so appears to the public, so they are
mainstreamed but with nothing to do with their acting
skills," Michael Palin returned, making Steve go purple in
the face.
"Woah, woah, children..."
Hannah soothed, breaking up the slanging match. "I thought
you two got on...you were both in the 'Wind In The Willows'
weren't you?"
"My favourite," Jess sighed,
un-fainting then fainting again.
"That doesn't mean anything,"
Steve muttered. "Just because you work with someone doesn't
mean you like them." He paused. "I mean, look at
Morecambe and Wise. Shared a bed on TV, yet in real life they
couldn't STAND each other-"
"STOP IT, STOP IT!" Jess
squealed, covering her ears and running into the toilets.
"I keep telling people there's no
coke in there but they never listen..." sighed Ben.
<< back to Book 1.4
� Jess and Hannah 2001