"Ok, right…"
Hannah turned the map upside down, and then another 45 degrees to
the left. "Go left now."
"What, now?"
"Yes, now!"
The car screeched round the corner on two wheels.
"Oh." Said Hannah.
"Oh? Oh what?!" Jess panicked.
"Oh, I think we were meant to go right there." Hannah
explained, turning the map upside down again.
"Why do you keep turning that map around
incessantly?!" Jess screeched.
"Look, be calm, I got an A star in Geography." Hannah
said.
"Why don't we just stop the car and let me have a
look at the map?"
"NO! There's nothing wrong with my
navigational skills!" Hannah muttered indignantly.
"I'm pulling over."
"NO!" Jess pulled over. "NOOOO!"
"Excuse me." Jess leant out of the broken window
towards a man walking down the road. "Do you know where
Leathcliff Road is?"
"It's somewhere over that direction." He waved a hand
vaguely.
"THANKS." Jess revved to leave.
"I can tell you where Glasgow is."
"Nah, mate, it's ok, thanks." Jess pulled away.
"I TOLD you not to pull over."
"Shut up, Hannah."
5 hours later, which was
pretty disturbing considering they were apparently half an hour
away when Jimmy surprisingly (or not for some) departed the book,
anyway, what was I on about? Oh yes…a squirrel sat in the
middle of the road, with an acorn. A very nice prized acorn at
that. He sat in the middle of the motorway stubbornly and didn't
move an inch. Until he got run over that is. Then his muscle's
twitched in 5 minute spasms.
"That was a red squirrel Jess! You evil bitch!"
"Haven't red squirrels been extinct for 10 years?"
"Who said?!"
"My dad-" Hannah laughed. "-My biological
dad." Hannah coughed and choked on her tongue. "It MUST be around here
SOMEWHERE." Jess turned the wheel and they turned into
another road. "Aha!" Jess slammed on the brakes.
"Jess, not NOW." Hannah looked at the sweetshop they
had parked outside.
"NO. I think this is it." Jess indicated to a
small door next to the shop. "I think that leads up to our
apartment." Jess checked the directions again. "Yes.
I'm sure."
Hannah opened the car door and stepped out.
"Above a sweetshop? Tidy." Hannah ran inside to get
some humbugs.
Jess got out of the car and inspected the front of it. She peeled
the dead squirrel they had killed off the radiator.
"Well, that's dinner sorted."
Hannah came running out of the shop with a paper bag of sweets.
"Ready?" She asked.
"Ready." Jess unlocked the door and let it swing open.
Jess and Hannah stood in
the pitch dark with a closed door behind them.
"I think you should open it again Hans."
"Why, can you feel that thing against your leg too?"
"JUST OPEN IT!!" Jess screeched.
Hannah pulled the door in to come face to face with a hairy man.
"ARGH!"
"Would you like to buy a 'Big Issue'?"
"What, door-to-door selling of a homeless magazine? How
ironic."
"You don't even know what ironic means," Said Jess.
"And why do you keep starting your sentences with question
words?"
"What? You're talking crap."
"Would you like to buy a 'Big Issue'?"
"NO!" Jess screamed.
"Oh, 'Vanity Fair'?"
Jess slammed the door.
"Now we're back to square one." Hannah said.
Jess opened the door and kicked the hairy man off the pavement.
"That solves that problem."
"Can you feel a light switch anywhere?" Jess ran her
hands along the wall.
"No."
"Oh, bollocks." Hannah stamped her foot. The lights
miraculously came on. "Ooh."
Jess and Hannah could now see they were in a shot hallway leading
to a flight of stairs.
"You go first."
"No – you."
"In your dreams."
Jess sighed and calmed herself.
"Ok, we'll go together."
They walked towards the stairs. Hannah stamped manically in the
hope of turning on the lights up the stairs.
"Give it up, Hannah." They began their ascent. Each
step creaked a different not and they managed to play an
attractive tune on the way up.
At the top they stared
around in awe.
"Wow, it's even bigger than your mouth."
Jess knocked Hannah down the stairs and the tune played,
miraculously, backwards.
The lights came on again.
"I think you'll find the lights are sound activated!"
Hannah shouted from the bottom.
"Really? What makes you say that?"
"Well, remember firstly, when I-"
"I was being sarcastic." Jess stepped down off the
landing platform onto the plain, beech wood flooring. Jess
wouldn't have been surprised if this one room was in fact the
entire house. She sat down on the deep red leather settee, which
was not a 3-seater, not even a 4-seater, but five seats!
(7 if you are a family of dwarves).
"I guess we'll have to get screens of some sort since
there's only the one room…" Jess started, sighing. No
sooner than she'd finished speaking then 3 doors previously
assumed to be part of the walls slid open to reveal two bedrooms
and a kitchen/dining room.
"WOW!" Hannah ran into one of the rooms. "Bags
this one."
Jess leant back on the sofa contentedly and closed her eyes for a
moment. When she opened them again a computer screen on a long
cable was in her face.
"ARRGH!"
� Jess and Hannah 2002