Author's Note: A Bad Day story, Ginger has a really rotten bad day and is quite miserable. Biggles and the others try to cheer him up. This was written a time when I was having a day just like Gingers, and writing about him getting comforted rather made me feel better myself.

Warning: The warning is placed here for vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen.

Disclaimer: I do not own Biggles. I am merely playing with him and his friends. I give my word that when I am done with them they shall have come to no permanent harm. In case of damage I promise I will fix it with some chewing gum and Ginger's mechanical degree.

A VictoryWellEarned

Chapter 1 Rotten Doesn't Cover It

When Ginger reached the front door and wiped his feet on the doormat he was not in a good mood. In fact he was in a rather miserable mood and he did not feel that it was unjustly for it had been a long rough and miserable day. He had not expected it to be the high point of his career when he sat out in the morning, but he had certainly not expected anything of the sort he had experienced.

Biggles had received a call from the airport with a plea for help. Someone was smuggling large quantities of valuables of different sorts into the country and the custom people could do nothing about it. There were a few people who went back and forth regularly but still nothing had been detected so for quite some time he had been spending his days out by the airport watching the passengers as they got off the plane. He had been standing both with the custom people and also out by the machine, all to catch a glimpse of what was going on but so far he had had no luck at all.

It had been a boring and ungratifying job, but today had been the worst so far and he was truly sick of it. To top it off he had been detained and had been forced to take a later bus from the airport than he intended. When he got off the bus at the last stop there had been no taxi in sight which meant he had to walk home. On a sunny day, or at least a tolerable day it would not have been such a terrible matter but this day it was pouring down rain.

Closing the door behind him he made his way up the stairs, trying to wipe mud from his hands and onto his coat instead. He was tired, cold, wet and terribly hungry, a sensation that caused him no little discomfort as he knew the dinner would no doubt have been taken from the table at the hour he now arrived.

The other three of them were sitting in front of the fire, looking inexcusable pleased and comfortable.

"I say, if you've dragged in any little amount of that mud you've on you onto Mrs. Symes clean floor she shall be in a terrible spat," Bertie laughed as he saw him.

Ginger stopped dead in his tracks and his eyes narrowed though he said nothing. Algy rather thought the look on his face had to be what authors meant when they declared someone looked like a thundercloud. He could just about see the lightning flashes in his eyes. Ginger was by no means hot headed but he was also the more emotional of the four and he was clearly quite furious.

Bertie seemed to pick up on it and quickly quieted down while Algy regarded their young friend with a bit more concern, under the anger there was something that gave him a feeling of someone struggling not to give into despair. Ginger was swallowing hard and it worried him to think about what might have put the boy into such a state.

"How about you take a couple of deep breaths and explain to us what's wrong?" Biggles asked quietly and calmly.

"I wouldn't know where to start," Ginger muttered bitterly.

"Any kind of disaster over at the airport?" Biggles inquired and he shook his head. "What is it then, bad day?"

"Bad day!" he burst out. "Bad day doesn't cover it, rotten day doesn't even cover it. I don't even know a bad enough word to describe it."

"Alright, I get the general idea," Biggles nodded. "Go put on something dry, then you can tell us all about it."

Ginger made his way to the bathroom to drop the soaked and muddy clothes to the floor, then angrily scooped them up and hung them haphazardly over a towel-rack to dry. He was to mad still to do a very proper job out of it and instead aimed for simply getting them off the floor. If Biggles scolded him for the mess he would likely snap at him and that would only make matters worse. Grabbing his dressing gown he wrapped it around himself and went back out to the others, his stomach growling at him.

"There now," Biggles had a note of sympathy in his voice. "Start at the beginning of it all, what's been going on to get you into this state."

"Everything has been going wrong today, every single thing," Ginger swallowed again. "My alarm clock gave out on me, so I got so late I didn't have time for breakfast. Had to go off without anything to eat at all. Then when I get there all them people are getting on me for not having come up with anything yet. Like they have themselves. I've been doing the level best I can, but whoever's in charge of that racket knows his business. All they care is that they've someone to blame and pick on, been insulting me and messing with me all day, sneering at me. I swear you'd think you were in prep school for the way they're acting. I didn't think that adults lowered themselves to that kinda of insults."

"Harsh," Algy agreed grimly.

"I thought I'd get a break from it at lunch," Ginger went on. "I mean, Mrs. Symes packed me sandwiches and with no breakfast I was sure looking forward to it, only when I went to get them they weren't there. I don't know what happened, someone said they'd been cleaning out old leftovers but whatever it was they had done they had cleared my lunch out. Wouldn't put it past them to have done it out of sheer spite either."

"Come now, they wouldn't do that," Bertie put in while polishing his monocle.

"They sure acted rotten enough towards me to do it," Ginger declared with a glare. "I didn't have enough money with me to get something in the canteen so I've had nothing today and I tell you right now I'm so hungry it's not funny anymore. I thought I had at least figured it out, I mean, I've no proof, but I know who it has to be. It can only be them, I swear it."

"Did you check them out?" Biggles asked. Ginger was not unskilled in picking out likely suspects. He didn't have the keenest sense for it, but he still had some pretty good instincts.

"I sure did, and they had nothing on them," he said sourly. "What more, they claimed to take offence and I had to apologize."

"Apologizing is the right thing to do though, I mean if you were wrong," Bertie shook his head and Ginger glared at him again.

"I can apologize when I'm wrong," he stated angrily. "But I'm not, I'm sure of it. They've got some trick to it. Besides, they didn't deserve an apology."

"How come?" Algy asked.

"When I had said I was sorry, he looked down his nose at me and said it was only to be expected when they sent boys to do a mans job," he was still just about bristling from the insult. "Then to top it of the chief there started yelling at me for it all right there in front of everyone. Got on me for what a fool I was to get on innocent travelers and said he couldn't figure why he asked us for help in the first place when I was an example of how incompetent we all were."

By now Biggles lips where a thin line for such an act was inexcusable. Certainly the man himself were pressured and felt like he was in a tight spot, but that was no reason to treat someone there to help in that manner.

"Good heavens, no wonder you look like thunder," Algy shook his head.

"Doesn't end there," Ginger was calming down a bit now, telling the others of his misfortunes helped some. He pulled up the dressing gown to revel a row of bruises along his shin. "Got tripped up and went down on my face, you'd think they'd never seen something so funny for all they laughed. You'd think it was common decency to at least ask if I was okay, but I reckon they were too busy laughing. To top it all off, I couldn't get a taxi from the bus stop and had to walk here. I can deal with the rain, but when a driver goes through a mud puddle and just about soaks me in mud and don't even stop, then it's just getting too much."

"More than a fair share of misfortunes," Biggles agreed. "I don't blame you for being in such a row about it. But if you want a piece of advice then try calm down, the sooner you do the sooner you will start to feel a bit better."

"I don't feel like anything could make me feel better today," he muttered sourly. "I'm minded to just get off to bed, don't think tomorrow is going to be much better, but I've had all I can take of this day."

"Well, don't go to bed before you've at least had a bite to eat," Biggles told him. "If you do your just gonna be more miserable tonight, if you don't wake up sick from hunger and cold."

"Is there anything left from dinner?" he asked in a voice that rather hinted at someone feeling utterly defeated.

"I don't know, but tell you what. Get yourself off and grab a hot bath, the last thing you need is to catch sick, in the meantime we'll see if Mrs. Symes can't find you something," Biggles decided.

"Why not, I'm too tired to argue," Ginger pushed to his feet and shuffled off towards the bathroom again.

"Poor little blighter," Algy sighed. "I don't think I've ever had a day quite that bad."

"I can't think of one off hand either," Biggles mused. "How about getting some more life in that fire Bertie? And Algy, I know Mrs. Symes intended to fix something up for him when he got home, would you mind seeing if she has anything ready?"

"Not at all," Algy flashed a smile as he headed down the stairs, feeling rather certain that their house keeper would have something ready. She rather spoilt them at times and although it was late she would not retire before Ginger was home and fed. Therefore he was not surprised when she brought out hot soup, fresh warm bread and plenty of cold cuts together with all the makings for a quite filling dinner.

Ginger by that time was just getting out of the bath and his cheeks were flushed from the warmth. With his hair still damp he went to get dressed but Biggles stopped him. Normally he would consider it hardly proper to have dinner wearing a dressing gown, but at the moment he would rather the boy was comfortable. It had not escaped his notice how he shone up when Mrs. Symes put the plate down and urged him to eat the soup before it got cold and she did not have to say it twice.

As hungry as he was Ginger wolfed down the food, causing Biggles to smirk knowingly while Bertie were more concerned he'd forget to chew and choke on the food. It did not take him long to polish it all off and he leaned back in his seat, looking decidedly more at ease with the whole situation.

"What time were you planning on getting up tomorrow?" Biggles asked. "If your alarm clock has given it's last tick-tock I'll get you up."

"I need to be heading out there at about seven, so I shall have to get up at six," Ginger decided. "Not looking forward to it though," he added with a heavy sigh. "I know it's that fellow, I'd bet my life on it, but I don't see how he's doing it."

"Well, don't wreck your brain to pieces about it," Biggles decided. "It'll come to you sooner or later. When it does, you just let me know."

"Okay chief," he nodded. "I just hope they're not going to get nasty about it and file complaints with Raymond or anything of the sort. It could get quite tricky if they do. We'll be winding up getting the rap you know."

"Don't worry about that, they asked for our help and we gave it to them," Biggles decided as he lit a cigarette.

"Yes, but what when they go complaining about who you sent?" Ginger asked glumly.

"I'll tell them that I sent someone fully competent and that I don't expect that I could've done better myself," Biggles stated firmly. "You know that, I wouldn't send you unless I knew you could handle it. They're just looking for some way to shift the blame likely as not. Don't let them get to you laddie."

"I'll try not to," he stifled a yawn. "I'm exhausted, I think I'll go to bed now though."

"You do that," Biggles nodded. He had to admit he was thinking hard about it all, for while he meant every word about Ginger being competent enough he also knew the boy was right. Someone might try to stir up trouble for them on account of it. It was always like that, someone wanted to get out of the hot water and tried to get someone else in it as well. He himself found it annoying but took it as a part of life, Ginger though might start getting to think he had dragged shame over the rest of them by failing at the task dealt him. He rather hoped they could sort out the smuggler racket so that it would not come to that. He was still thinking about it, when Ginger bid them all goodnight and disappeared into his bedroom.

TBC

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