Jess blinked and looked upwards. Her head and torso were lying on a rather dingy looking faded floral patterned sofa. Above that there was grey sky. "Hannah?"
"Mmmm?" Hannah mumbled, pulling her legs out of the sofa with maximum effort.
"Where are we?"
"On a rubbish tip," Hannah replied.
Jess struggled to look around and saw that, sure enough, they were on a broken sofa on the very top of a huge rubbish tip. Jess saw a broken washing up sink nearby. "Wow. Don't judge a sofa by its cow."
"Too right," said Hannah, crawling out of the sofa and standing on it.
"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?" came a voice from somewhere far below.
"SURFING! WHAT DO YOU THINK WE'RE DOING?" Jess shouted back down.
"HOW SHOULD I KNOW? I'VE NEVER STOOD ON THE TOP OF A RUBBISH DUMP – I'M NOT WEIRD ENOUGH!" the voice came back.
"Ooh… touch�," said Hannah.
"WELL… ARE YOU GONNA GET US DOWN OR WHAT?" Jess shouted.
"MIGHT DO!"
"NOW, LOOK HERE, MR… WELL… I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I CAN'T SEE YOU, BUT YOU'RE BEING VERY ANNOYING AND—"
Suddenly a scoop from a digger appeared in front of them.
"GET IN AND I'LL LOWER YOU DOWN!" the voice shouted.
Jess and Hannah looked at each other and looked at the digger.
"Can't we just go back?" Hannah asked Jess.
"Let's at least find out where we are, and then we can go back and tell Lee - sorry, the 'Sofa Gremlin' – where we went and how nearby a cow we need."
Hannah nodded.
"CAN YOU GET IN SOMETIME THIS WEEK?" the digger operator called.
Hannah and Jess jumping in the scoop and admired the view as they were lowered off the heap. The digger engine was turned off when they got onto normal ground and the person who had spotted them hopped out and slammed the door. Hannah almost fell out of the scoop.
"I should report you two," commented the guy, who was no more than 20 and gothed up to the max with black eye makeup included.
Jess managed to squeak a small 'sorry' and, on seeing Hannah's jaw hanging open, shut it for her.
"What were you doing?"
"Erm… sightseeing," Jess said, desperately.
"Oh, yeah, sure."
"We WERE!" Jess insisted. "And you've got no right to doubt me, you… you… PEASANT!"
The guy ignored Jess and turned to Hannah. "I'm Otto. Hi."
Hannah smiled as best she could with her paralysed face. "Hannah," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
"And this one?" Otto asked, indicating to a furious looking Jess.
"That's Jess."
"'Jess'… how… novel."
"Silence your infernal racket, commoner."
"Shut up, Jess," Otto snapped.
Jess shut her mouth, then opened it again, then shut it – never had anyone been so direct with her. She was highly baffled.
"I should report you…" Otto started once more, twiddling one of the many three inch spikes on his head which were his hair.
"But you don't really want to do that—" Hannah said, quietly. "We have an interesting secret."
"What? That you can see the Angel of the North from up there? No sh*t."
"No. That you're a paraletic, drug induced FREAK!" Jess snapped.
"No. But, body and soul, I'm a freak, I'm a freak."
Hannah fell out of the scoop.
"STOP TRYING TO WIN HER OVER WITH SILVERCHAIR LYRICS!" Jess shouted.
"We… we came from—"
"No! HANNAH! NO!"
"It was the old sofa up there, we—"
"HANNAH! HANNAH, LISTEN: 'I'M WATCHING YOU WATCH OVER ME… AND I'VE GOT THE GREATEST VIEW FROM HERE'!" Jess's attempts to distract Hannah with yet more Silverchair lyrics failed.
"We came through the back of the sofa and there are pink cows and Lee Evans is a sofa gremlin!" Hannah shouted without taking a breath.
"D'oh!" Jess smacked her head on a convenient slab of concrete lying on the rubbish pile.
"What?" asked Otto, raising a (well plucked) eyebrow.
"You heard," said Hannah.
"That's crazy!"
"Did they say YOU were crazy when you said you wanted your cheek pierced?" Hannah asked, empathetically.
"Well… yeah… yes they did."
"But you did it. You did it and you SHOWED 'EM ALL!"
"YEAH! I DID!" Otto looked pleased.
"YOU SICK B*ST*RD!" Jess screamed in frustration. "I BET YOU'VE GOT YOUR PENIS PIERCED!"
Hannah giggled and went red.
"Yeah, well…" Otto trailed off and looked to the floor.
"RIGHT!" screamed Jess. "Come on – we're going back." She dragged Hannah up the rubbish heap. She stopped after 20 metres and turned around. Otto was standing two metres behind them staring at the floor (more like the fridge he was standing on). Jess turned back round and turned Hannah around. They walked on.
30 metres later, near the top of the rubbish tip, Jess turned back around. Otto was standing there; he quickly turned to put his back to them and started to whistle an innocent, random tune which turned slowly into Silverchair.
"Oh, GOD! Let's take him WITH US!" Hannah said, flinging her arms around him, nearly spiking her eye out on a bolt through his bottom lip.
"He was FOLLOWING us, Hannah! He's a FREAK!"
"Yes, we've already established that," Otto interrupted.
Both Hannah and Otto looked at Jess.
"Oh, FINE!" Jess stomped into the back of the sofa.

Lee, the Sofa Gremlin, gave a small yelp and dived behind the nearest cow when he saw Otto land on another squashed cow alongside Hannah and Jess.
"Who or WHAT is THAT?" he asked.
"He's a freak," Jess informed him.
Hannah was misty eyed. "He's lovely…"
Otto gave her a 'look'.
"In a hard… tough kinda way…"
"Let's try another cow… I want to go home." Jess went over to another bovine figure and touched its back.

"Hannah?"
"Yes?"
"Where are we?"
"Dunno. It's dark."
"Yes, you idiot, that's why I didn't know wher—"
"Hello."
"Oh, b*ll*cks, are you still here?"
"No. I'm a figment of your imagination."
"Oh, P*SS OFF, Otto!"
The three of them fell into silence.
"Well, what do we do?" Jess asked the darkness.
"Jess, is that your hand?" Hannah said.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing."
There was another silence.
"What do we do, then?" Jess tried again in a vain attempt to start some good suggestions.
"Well, we kinda have two options," Hannah started. "We can either go back through the sofa calling a bad or we can stay to sit in the dark."
"Do you want to know what I think?" Otto started.
"Otto, if I wanted your opinion, I would have stopped talking by now." Jess put him down like a dog.
"Oh," said Otto. "And if I wanted to get on with middle-class girls like you, I wouldn't have 22 piercings."
"Fair 'nough," said Hannah. "How about the weather, eh? Good today, hey?" Hannah waited for a reply. "Guys? Hey! The weather?"
Hannah heard the sound of strangling.

"You idiots! There's no point in going to a sofa that's being kept in someone's garage!" Lee exclaimed.
"Well… we didn't KNOW it was kept in a garage, did we?" Jess replied, brandishing one of her knitting needles.
"Will you stop b*gg*ring us about and tell us which cow leads back to Hannah's sofa?" Otto said, wearily.
"Well… I don't KNOW – that's the problem. There's no way of knowing which cow leads where."
"Oh, S*D THIS!" Jess marched off in the opposite direction to Hannah, Lee and Otto.
"Where are you going?" Hannah shouted after her.
"To try pigs! Hannah's got an armchair too!"
"Two, ACTUALLY!" said Hannah.
"Great. Two chances to get to your house out of THIS." Otto held out his arms and they looked at the thousands of pigs everywhere.
"Oh, B*GGER," Jess said.
"This really isn't an adventure!" moaned Hannah.
"Oh, ARSE!" added Jess.
"Let's try this one." Otto pointed to the nearest pig.
"Oh, B*LL*CKS!" Jess continued.
"Well, we might as well start trying or we'll be here all day," Otto said.
"Sh*t, b*gger, b*ll*cks, blast, NINCOMPOOP!" Jess exclaimed.
Otto gave her a quick slap and shoved her hand against the pig.

<< back to Book 3.1

� Jess and Hannah 2002