"I can't think of anything!" Hannah cried and threw down her pen looking at her book in disgust.
"Maybe we should leave it - if nothing comes, nothing comes." Jess shrugged.
"No!" Hannah shrieked, clutching the half completed yellow book to her chest.
"Why not?" Jess asked.
"It's Book Three!"
"And...?" Jess thought for a moment - her absence of care was becoming disturbing. "We're just trying too hard, you know?"
Hannah shook her head glumly from side to side.
"We're just looking for trouble, adventure and famous people now; it's no fun."
"Maybe we should try looking elsewhere... I mean, my hamlet isn't exactly the centre of the world." Hannah changed tact. "Although we did see that cow that looked a lot like the Queen the other day."
"You're such an idiot, Hannah! Cows can't look like the Queen!" Jess frowned and looked out the window. "It looked more like President Bush, if you ask me."
"Shall we... fly to the moon?" suggested Hannah.
"No spaceship."
"Assassinate the French president?"
"No bullets."
Hannah looked at Jess. "And... no gun... Jess?"
"Oh... oh, of course - no gun."
Hannah thought again. "We could... go to town."
"No money."
Hannah stood up, exasperated. "How are we meant to have an adventure with your defeatist attitude?!"
There was a pause.
"No idea."
The two fell into silence, which Hannah didn't break because she never breaks silences because she can never think of anything to say... "Um..." Hannah started and failed, sighing instead. If Jess wasn't talking, they were both screwed.
There was a knock on the front door which Hannah got up to open - Jess was busy knitting herself a 'Monkey', as featured on the ITV digital adverts and voiced by none other than Jess's current favourite comedian - Ben Miller.
Hannah re-entered the room with a letter and a parcel in her hand. "That was the postman."
"Oh, really?" Jess answered sarcastically.
"There's a letter for you and a parcel for me..."
"Oh, great."
Hannah frowned as she opened the box. "Eeew!"
Jess poked her head in the box. "Urgh... that's mank." She stared at all the fish heads in the box.
"I guess someone didn't like 'Book Two'," Hannah commented, laying it on the floor and putting her feet up on it.
Jess turned the TV on. It was the news.
"And now on to our top story - an island near Barbados has been blown up," the woman in a (rather unflattering) red suit said.
"Hey... is that what I think it is?" Hannah leant forward.
"Our island got blown up?!"
"The island got blown up," the woman continued. "The island was called--"
"JessHannahtropolis!" Jess and Hannah both said at once.
"Nothing..." the lady continued. "And it was uninhabited."
Jess dropped her knitting.
"Oh, well that's just great," said Hannah. "We made that island." She paused. "Well, we didn't MAKE it. That would have been a natural process of deposition, but we built it up--" She paused again. "Well, we didn't BUILD it. The architect and his builders did that. But--"
"Oh, shut it, Hans. It's been blown up. End of story."

"Maybe my PlayStation 2 will malfunction if I drop it by mistake and we end up being catapulted into the world of TV...?" Hannah started.
"Hannah, for God's sake! Stop trying to make things interesting! We have, by chance, had two amazing, educational adventures. But just because we've had two doesn't mean we'll have three..."
They both sat there on the sofa looking uninterested and vague.
The phone suddenly rang. Hannah leapt up and grabbed it, "Hello, Hannah speaking... yes... yes... I'VE WON 5 MILLION POUNDS?! No, my name's Hannah... yes... oh, are you sure I can't have it? Oh, OK." Hannah put the phone down and sat back down by Jess. "They wanted a Hannah Norbia."
"Dammit." Jess kicked the sofa idly and sighed. "I think that's it, Hannah - no more adventures. No more dragons or random celebrities... just back to plain, common or garden life." Jess leant back on the sofa.
"I suppose you're right," said Hannah.
Jess picked up her knitting and snuggled down.
"I mean, we should learn to be grateful. Adventures don't grow on trees... and we have had two," Hannah continued. "Eh, Jess?" Hannah looked over at her friend.
Jess and her knitting had disappeared. All that was left were Jess' feet and a trail of wool... sticking out from the back of the sofa.
Hannah looked over at her friend. "ARGHH!!" screeched Hannah.
Jess's legs waved around a bit. Hannah turned around and pulled the sofa away from the wall... unfortunately Jess's head wasn't sticking through it... she had truly go sucked into the sofa. She peered at Jess's legs. "Jess!"
No reply.
"Did you find the video control? It's been lost for weeks!"
There was no answer.
"Are you going to come out or am I going to have to get in there after you?"
No reply.
"Oh b*gger it," Hannah moaned, taking a running leap at the sofa, overdoing it and smacking into the wall by mistake then to fall slowly down the back of the sofa dragging Jess's feet after her.

"OW!" Hannah crash-landed on a pile of feathers and sneezed. Jess fell from the sky a second later. Hannah looked around. They were in a dark, pinkish colour room...expect it seemed shapeless with no ceiling, or flat walls. It seemed to go up and up into oblivion.
"Where are we?" Jess asked.
"Down the back of the sofa," Hannah said, informatively.
"Oh, GREAT. All I wanted was some peace and quiet to get on with my knitting and then this happens."
Hannah stood up. "Let's explore."
"Oh, yes, let's," said Jess sarcastically. "Like there's a lot to see in the back of the sofa."
They walked around for a bit. Hannah was insistent on finding everything that her family had lost down the back of the sofa over the last few years, which included 12 penny chew sweets, one biscuits, one sack, two 'Radio Times', one video control and �3.49 in change. But apart from all the crap on the floor things were mainly dark pink...
"I think you tempted fate for this to happen Hannah," Jess started. "All the looking for an adventure stuff and we get shoved down the back of a sofa."
"But I don't get it..." Hannah whined, I wasn't eating a Mars bar."
Jess looked at her strangely.
"You know...the Mars advert. Anyway, I don't call this an adventure, that's for sure."
"Let's sit down and figure out a way to get out of here," Jess exclaimed, sitting down.
After a little while, Jess and Hannah were scared out of their wits when Lee Evans ran up behind them and said, "Boo!"
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Jess asked grouchily.
"Lee Evans, the sofa gremlin."

<< back to Book 3.1

� Jess and Hannah 2002