Hannah opened her eyes to
see Colin leaning over her.
"COLIN?! What…where am I?" She sat up and looked
down at herself. "And HOW did I get into my
pyjamas?!" She added suspiciously.
"If you recall, Miss Hannah, you were hit by the blast of an
exploding carton of soya milk. Miss Jess brought you home and you
are resting."
"Oh." Hannah sat up and rubbed her eyes. "But
– Colin…the pyjamas?!" Colin disappeared into his
monitor hole in the wall. "COLIN?!"
"Ah, you're awake." Jess came into the room.
"What's going on?"
"Time off for both of us." Jess said, with a grin.
"Great, eh?"
"But aren't I injured? Or near death?"
"Not particularly. It did mess up your hair a bit,
thought."
Jess handed Hannah a mirror. Hannah screamed and dropped the mirror. It
shattered.
"You idiot! That's 7 years bad luck!" Jess shouted.
"And a rather nice looking mirror."
"Ah, pah." Hannah spat (not literally). "Had
enough bad luck 'till now. Maybe this extra bad luck will equal
extra good luck." A pidgeon flew into her bedroom window and
slid down the pane. "See? If there wasn't a window there,
I'd have got hit by a pigeon!"
"Maybe I should call the doctor back." Jess muttered as
she walked out of the room.
"Colin? I'd like to look up Silverchair merchandise on the
Llama Appreciation Society please."
Colin came out of his hole in the wall and switched on the
internet.
"Oh, and have you still got Jess' credit card number?"
Jess made her way
downstairs and opened the door.
Orlando was standing on the doorstep with an enormous bunch of
flowers.
"Hi. I came to see if Hannah was ok."
Jess took the flowers.
"Thanks, Orli, that was really nice of you. I'd invite you
up but I think she's in her pyjamas and she'd kill me."
"Ok." Orlando smiled and stepped off the doorstep.
"Tell her I called." He set off down the street. Jess
closed the doors and had got half-way up the stairs when the
doorbell rang again. Jess put the flowers down on the stairs and
ran down to answer it.
"Hi!" It was Chris. "These are for Hannah."
Chris poked an even bigger bunch of flowers through the door at
Jess.
"Wow, Chris, they're lovely." Jess took them indoors.
Chris looked past her and saw the other flowers on the stairs.
"Who were they from?" He asked.
"Orlando."
"Well, they're not very BIG are they?"
"Not quite as gigantic as yours, no." There was
a pause.
"Can I come in?"
"No. Hannah's resting."
"Oh. Will you tell her I called and point out that my
flowers were bigger?" Jess sighed.
"Ok, Chris." She closed the door.
She had just staggered to the top of the stairs with the flowers
when the bell rang again. Jess swore, dropped the flowers and ran
down, ready to hurl abuse at whoever had rung.
She wrenched the door open.
"Hi!" A
postman was standing on the doorstep.
"Aren't you a bit late?" Jess asked looking at her
watch incredulously.
"Why? What time is it?" Asked the postman with no
concern in his voice whatsoever.
"Three in the afternoon."
"Oh! How lovely! Sign for this please." He put a large
box down at Jess' feet and gave her a clipboard.
"Thanks but where's the piece of paper to sign?"
The postman skipped off to his van and brought it back.
"There you go." Jess handed it back. "And there's
a little extra free of charge – for God's sake buy yourself
out of this job!" She pushed a ten pound note into his palm
and struggled in with the parcel. It was addressed to her,
strangely enough. She made it to the top of the stairs and put it
down on top of the flowers, wrenching it open.
It was full of polystyrene.
"Hmm." Jess plunged her hand into the depths of the box
and heard a high-pitched voice yell:
"OW!"
She withdrew her hand hurriedly and stared as the polystyrene
shifted and two long, pointed ears appeared at the top of the
box.
"ARRGH!" Jess leapt back and ran backwards to the door
to Hannah's room. "Hannah…LOOK!" Hannah,
still in her pyjamas, came out.
"What is it?" Jess pointed to the box, now shaking
slightly. "Oh, that's just the house-elf I ordered."
"HOUSE-ELF?!"
"Yeah. I got it from the Harry Potter website. Well, rather you
did – it was your money."
A small, rather pathetic figure leapt out of the box.
"Hello?" The tiny creature looked confused.
"Hi." Hannah smiled. "I'm Hannah, this is Jess,
and you are our house-elf."
"Hannah?!" Jess was still in a state of shock.
"Calm down, Jess. We'll call it Twinkles." Hannah spotted the squashed flowers
under the box. "Put them in a vase, Twinkles." Twinkles
started to open every cupboard, searching for a vase. "And
step on it!"
"Isn't this completely against your principles? How long do
they live for? How much was it?" Jess, exasperated, asked
many questions in her confusion.
"Not totally, 20 years and I wouldn't like to say."
Suddenly another pigeon flew into the window that faced into
Leicester Square and slid down the pane.
"What the fuck?" The house-elf said.
"Pardon?" Jess said, surprised.
"What's going on?" Hannah walked over to the window and
pulled it open. "WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE?!"
Another pigeon smacked into her face making her jump out of her
skin. "ARRGH!"
She peered out to see Chris standing on the pavement opposite the
house, throwing pigeons. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to catch your attention." Chris said, pausing
in mid-throw.
"Well, you've caught my attention," Hannah said,
pulling feathers out of her nostrils. "What do you
want?"
"Dinner?"
"Chris, you're a rock-star. I'm SURE you can
afford your own dinner-"
"I mean will you come out for dinner?"
"Oh." Hannah thought about this…for all of 3
seconds. "Yes."
"See you at the hotel at seven?"
"Ok." Hannah shut the window.
"Hannah! You can't eat at the hotel tonight –
we're working!" Jess protested.
"Correction - YOU'RE working." Hannah
grinned. "I'm still on sick-leave."
"I'm not serving you while you canoodle with
Chris!"
"Yes, you are. Unless you want to get sacked."
Jess scowled and was about to speak when there was a crash in the
kitchen.
Twinkles had dropped a glass, which had shattered.
"Oh, BOLLOCKS!" The tiny elf squeaked.
"I don't think that house-elves are meant to behave like THIS!"
Jess exclaimed. She reached into the box Twinkles had arrived in
and found a receipt.
"'One DAMAGED house-elf'?!" She read. "'Reduced
price as elf has tendency to curse at regular intervals'?!"
"Oh…I WONDERED why it was cheaper than the
others!" Hannah exclaimed.
The elf dropped another glass with a smash.
"SHITE!"
"TWINKLES!!" Jess was appalled.
"We'll train him out of it, it's fine." Said Hannah.
"Now, what am I going to wear to my date…?"
"DATE? DATE?! What's all this about a DATE?"
Colin's voice came from nowhere.
"Bog off, Colin." Hannah slammed her bedroom door.
"Talking of clothes, I can't have you wondering around in
the buff," Jess said to Twinkles. "But, if my Harry
Potter knowledge serves me correctly, I can't give you any actual
clothes or you resign…" She grabbed Hannah's fluffy
hot-water bottle cover and cut in some arm and leg holes.
"Try it for size." She told Twinkles.
"Hmm…it's ok, but a bit frigging itchy." The voice
squeaked.
"Language."
Hannah's bedroom door
flung open and Hannah practically flew out. She threw some
clothes at Twinkles. "Iron them, quickly and don't give me
any shite about resigning because they're not yours to
keep!"
She ran back into her bedroom whilst Jess watched Twinkles search
for the ironing board, find it, drop it on his foot and swear
profusely. After it had finished it ran over to Hannah's door and
opened it.
"AARGH! Get out!" Twinkles came running out
being pelted by a hairbrush.
Jess suddenly noticed the cooker was flashing – which was
strange since she hadn't touched it.
"I'll blow it up!" Warned a booming voice on
loudspeakers. "I'll blow it up unless you promise not
to go out on this date!"
"Oh, Christ." Jess wrenched open Hannah's bedroom door.
"Tell Colin that you're not going on a date with
Chris at 7!"
"Why?"
"Because he's threatening to blow the place up!"
"Colin," Hannah came out of her room all dressed up and
ready to go. "I'm not going out for a date. I'm
going…on an anti-date. With the must unattractive guy I
could find."
"Oh…ok." The cooker stopped flashing.
"Hannah, run, while you still can!" Jess yelped as
Hannah applied some lipgloss and ran.
Twinkles had burnt a huge hole in Hannah's favourite skirt.
"SHITE, BOLLOCKS, CRAP and DONKEY-BALLS!" He exclaimed.
Jess put her head in her hands.
� Jess and Hannah 2002