The three baby dragons pottered in behind Cartman who was looking extremely proud.
"Hey, cool!" said Kelly and Richard, jumping off stage and running over to the dragons. Much to the Stereophonics' anger, Silverchair ran onto stage, took over their instruments and started playing. "Oh, bugger," said Kelly.
"Don't worry," said Hannah, "Means you have a chance to do other stuff now..." Hannah trailed off. "Why is it that everything I say gets turned around?! Not that I'm complaining about you..." Hannah paused. "There I go again!"
The sound of 'Anthem For The Year 2000' by Silverchair slowly started getting drowned out by a swooshing noise. Not for the first time in her life, Hannah spotted a helicopter outside the front door of the mall. That wasn't the only interesting thing she spotted, there was also a speedboat roaring across the sea heading straight for the automatic doors.
"GET OUT THE WAY!" screamed Hannah, grabbing Kelly's hand and diving towards the stage.
The roar and spray of water sounds got louder and louder. The boat sped up out of the water, across the sand and smashed straight through the automatic doors, landing in the middle of the mall on top of Steve. A man in a suit wearing black shades hopped out. He turned to face the crowd. "Ah," he said, raising a hand and pointing to the back. "Jimmy."
"No!" Jimmy squealed, backing towards the door. "No! You won't take me! You'll never take me alive!" He ran through the automatic doors and out onto the beach. One of the baby dragons burped a shard of flame at his feet, causing him to trip over, writhing in pain.
The helicopter had landed and more black-suited men had hopped out. There was no escape.
"No...!" Jimmy wept pathetically, as the men bundled him into the helicopter. "Hannah!"
Hannah tried to avoid eye-contact. She pretended to be frightened and threw herself onto Kelly.
The helicopter's blades began to spin. Everyone looked up, and saw the helicopter rise two feet in the air... Jimmy was still struggling in the helicopter which was shaking violently. Jimmy dived out of the door but one of the suited men was holding onto his feet.
"WAIT!" came a shout out of the helicopter, but it wasn't Jimmy who was shouting, it was a somewhat familiar voice... "TAKE HER DOWN!" came the voice again. The helicopter slowly lowered and sat back down on the sand. The pretty much b*ggered automatic doors pinged open dragging scraps of metal across the floor and broken glass. The man with the commanding voice stepped out of the helicopter as all the people crowded around the entrance to the mall.
Jess gasped. "Patrick!" she exclaimed before fainting onto Hannah.
"What are you doing here?" Hannah asked, kicking Jess who had fallen on her smart Nike trainers.
"Well... I kind of... erm... turned Jimmy in. The government guys brought me here in return."
"Well, I can't say I blame you." Hannah said, already losing interest.
The helicopter took off, sending sand and dust everywhere.
Steve, who had pulled himself from under the wreckage of the speedboat, came to the doors. "Oh, it's you," he muttered. "Was all that REALLY necessary?"
"I wasn't the one who landed on you," Patrick said. "It was quite funny though." He stifled a laugh.
"Oh, Patrick!" said Jess standing up. "I'm sorry I left you."
"That's OK, I had quite an interesting time actually... doing some spy work for the government and all that." Patrick smiled.
"But that's what they're taking me away for!" screamed Jimmy, still hanging out of the helicopter.
"No actually," said Patrick in a calm, superior voice. "They're taking you away for throwing custard pies at President Bush and leaking the Bill Clinton, oral sex with Monica Lewinsky secret."
"Oh... but that was nothing compared to the Ukranian aerospace programme secret I leaked." Jimmy blushed.
"Yeah well, that's the way things are," Patrick concluded.
Two of the men pulled Jimmy back into the helicopter and it rose into the air.
"Bye bye, Jimmy..." sighed Cartman.
"Was he a close friend?" Kelly asked Hannah, who was still attached to his shirt.
She thought carefully before replying, "Oh, God, yes! How can I live without him?!" and sobbing into Kelly's shirt.
Michael appeared from the automatic doors and saw Patrick. "Ah, Patrick," he said, extending a hand. "How lovely to see you again."
Patrick shook his hand frostily. "And you." He glanced up at the huge super-shopping mall. "Where did you put your little plaque, then?"
Michael pointed to a small golden plaque fixed in the wall of the mall. It read: 'Shop on a small island of the year 2001'. "I'm sure the whole boat through the door thing was innocent..." Michael said looking at the tip that was his mall.
"Yeah, sorry about that," said Patrick, smothering laughter. "Government gets a bit high and mighty when they get a lead."
"You b*st*rd." Kelly Jones, the lead singer and guitar player of the Stereophonics with Hannah attached to his shirt in a bundle of tears came up to Patrick. "He happened to be a friend of Hannah's and you just turned him in with no regard to her feelings."
His Welsh accent was strong but finally realising what he was saying, Patrick replied. "Oh..." Simply. Patrick looked at Hannah who raised her head off of Kelly's chest and mouthed 'sorry'.
Chris Joannou from Silverchair came over. "You just turned in my cousin."
"Sorry, no offence to you."
"S'alright... been wondering what to do with him for ages - forever complaining."
"Oh," Patrick said surprised.
The third and final person to come up to Patrick was Jess who bounded up and wrapped her arms around him.

"We can't stay here," Hannah pointed out as one of Superturtle's offspring toasted another palm tree. Michael now had one left.
"Well, where do you suggest we go?" asked Kelly, moving away slightly. Hannah was a nice girl but he had to draw the line at having her hand in his back pocket. They hardly knew each other.
"We have the dinghy," suggested Cartman, cradling Superturtle in his arms.
"Your dragons will melt the dinghy. It's too dangerous. You could sink," said Michael, shaking his head. "You can't use your dinghy."
"How about the speedboat?" Steve suggested, still bruised from it landing on him.
"I think it's pretty much dead," Hannah said miserably, snuggling up to Kelly.
"We could fix it," Steve said, determined to leave. The atmosphere between Patrick and Michael was frosty.
"It would be nice to have my mall back to normal," Michael said staring at Patrick who shuffled uncomfortably.
"Do we have to go?" moaned Hannah, thinking of Kelly and the HMV inside.
"Yes," stated Kelly.
"Where are you guys going after the performance here?" Hannah asked Kelly.
"Um... home?" Kelly said, confused.
"Good, I'll give you a lift."
"Hannah!" said Jess who was standing next to her.
"What?" said Hannah. "...OH!" She blushed. "Why does everyone always interpret everything I say in the worst, rudest way possible?!"
"Because that's clearly what you were thinking of!" Daniel laughed.
Hannah 'humph-ed' and stomped off towards HMV.
Ben ran after her.
"What do you want?" she asked him.
"You looked p*ssed off. I thought I'd come and... be nice."
They continued walking towards HMV.
"I was going to go look at the Silverchair stuff in HMV. Want to come?"
"Sure," said Ben, although looking back on his old albums etc. actually seemed quite boring.

<< back to Book 1.4

� Jess and Hannah 2001