Disclaimer, I guess: I don't own anything having to do with TBTR… sadface. Also, fair warning about foul language lol
Chapter 2: Business Purposes
All the girls gave me hell. I didn't have the heart to tell them that my box of records was unharmed, since I hid mine in my room, and told a diver to grab those ones. We stood sulking in the cool breeze, still clueless of what to do now.
"Excuse me ladies," A voice said.
"Twat." I heard Rochelle say. I sniggered at that. I turned around and there was a man in a nice suit.
"Yes?" Jackie said, coming to stand in front of the rest of us, to probably make it seem less like we were sizing him up. I have to admit we are a pretty intimidating crew. Not one of us is unfortunate looking.
"I'm assuming you ladies were the owners of the boat."
"I was the captain," Jackie said boldly, "and who are you?" She crossed her arms smartly, and squared her stance.
"I'm here on behalf of the Minister Dormandy. Are those divers police officers?" He asked, trying to look past our body of people.
"Yes…" She shooed us all out of the way and led the oddball to the edge of the dock.
"Right, men!" he called behind himself and a few other officers came to his side, which had previously been helping us. "Would you care to explain to me why you're helping these criminals?"
"We were doing our civic duty sir. They've done nothing wrong."
"That's not the point. They're docked in London, so therefore they're breaking laws in London."
"Actually, we're currently off air." I piped in. He whipped his head around to see who had spoken, but gave up searching through our faces.
"Right, and we shall keep it that way." He said anyways. "Call the divers up."
"We have to wait for them to resurface, sir." An officer said.
The man huffed, and tapped his foot. When the three divers resurfaced with another load of our things, I went to help them by taking the boxes of stuff in their arms and handing it off to several of the other girls.
"You, girl, stop moving those boxes. They're hereby property of the government."
"Sir, don't you need a warrant?" I asked nonchalantly, and bent down to pick up my box of music, which appeared safe and sound. He flared his nostrils. "What did you say your name was, sir?" I asked again.
"I told you, his name was Twatt." Rochelle said, stepping by my side.
"Rochelle?" This Twatt fellow said, leaning in. "It's been awhile." He seemed extra pleased to see her, I noticed as I stood beside them.
Rochelle was a bit repulsed by him; any girl could see it. "I see you're still twatty Twatt from school." Everyone was still giggling.
He didn't seem to notice, or had gotten used to being made fun of in school. "You shouldn't be affiliating yourself with these people and with this life. Its against the law." I saw him shoot a disgusted look at us. He then turned to Jackie, his manner still disgusted, "So whose lovely work is this?"
"Ah, that would be Radio Rock." She gazed out at sea, where long before the girls showed up, I watched them as they headed back out.
"I can't say I'm sorry for you," he continued a bit more quietly, "however this does give me something to bring back to the Minister." He probably thought he was mumbling to himself, but he was speaking quite clearly.
I opened my box full of records, and my eyes lit up in delight, as I realized it was left untouched, other than a bit of water damage to the bottom of the cases. I didn't notice how watertight this box would be before, but it certainly came in handy when a rogue crew came and ravaged your boat, wrecked your stuff and sank your boat. I chose not to tell the others that my box was safe and sound. I'd probably get chewed out.
For the next couple of weeks, we all sort of went our separate ways. And regrettably, the only thing I could listen to was Radio Rock. Sunshine Radio, are you kidding? Anyways, I was sitting at home, at my father's house, since my parents were separated, and my mother was less agreeable about my leaving school.
"Hey Dad." I said out loud. "How's mum?" I was lying on the couch, while he was in the kitchen talking to his maid. She did everything for him. I can't say he'd be a very good cook. Or cleaner. Or anything for that matter, other than being very charming to his buyers.
"She's been asking about you." My dad was a real estate agent. He actually sold his own house that he owned with my mother, and helped her buy a new house, along with a new one of his own. I thought they were a little childish, despite them telling me. I couldn't argue that I wasn't childish, frankly because, well, look at the state of me.
"Yeah? Has she found a school that will take me?" I asked bemusedly.
"I told her good luck with that months ago. Actually, no, she found out about your career taking an abrupt halt."
"I'm on temporary leave."
"Right. Anyways, she's trying to get you a job. She sent me this." He held in his hands a flyer. At first I wasn't interested, because I wasn't much up for applying to stuff in the paper, but something on the page caught my eye, a few articles under the few red pen circled job opportunities, in bold print letters read Radio Rock.
Before I'd met those lads, I'd never had a qualm, maybe a slight sense of competition. Of course ever since the event a couple weeks ago, I've had this odd obsession with them. As previously mentioned, I even listen to them.
On the newsletter, it stated a competition. You've got to be fucking kidding me. So of course it had something to do with applying to their radio station. The stakes were surprisingly simple. You had to listen for a bell that rang twice a day from seven til eight, and then state all the songs in the playlist until the second bell rang at the end of the week. And when the week was out, you had to send in your playlist with name and contact. I glanced at the start date, which was tomorrow, the Monday.
"Dad, I'm going for a ride, where are the keys?"
"On the mantle, and for god's sake don't smoke inside the car; wait until you reach your destination. I've still got that new car smell."
"Bye." I was already running out the door.
By the time the week was over, I had paid special attention to every show, listening to the bells every day. For some of the songs, I had to ask my dad what it was, since they were from a little farther back than my knowledge supplied. Since Jackie was still out looking for another boat to house us, she just gave me the contact information to help my plan instead. Only my two girlfriends Justice and Molly would accompany me, since the others either wouldn't listen to a sentence containing Radio Rock, or were attempting to find other jobs.
I copied my list out twice and gave it to them to mail it to Radio Rock, so we could all go together.
Oh, right, my plan. Well I guess you could say that's why some of the other girls were sceptical about joining in. You see, I didn't have a good one. Okay, I didn't have much of one at all. Originally I was thinking whatever would incapacitate Radio Rock whilst I was on it, I would try and accomplish.
But as we sat here on the ferry with 197 other contest winners, I wasn't so sure what I was thinking. I went to the loo, steeping around numerous girls who were checking with each other to see if their make up looked good, and if their clothes were tight enough. When I got out, I momentarily forgot my sea legs, and stumbled into someone.
"Sorry." I grumbled, and picked myself up, conscious of my leather trousers being dirty.
"My bad." I looked up. How the hell did Twatt get on the boat? I suppose it must have something to do with the lack of creativity in the competition that made it so a monkey could win it, or at least all these pathetic-looking young women and Twatt. I probably could have been grouped in with them by looks.
His eyes seemed to feel my oncoming question as he recognized where I came from too, "Business purposes."
"You know, I think I like you, Twatt." I said. I knew he was here to try and shut down Radio Rock, or at least trying to. I'll stick to his side for the time being. I told Justice to keep Molly from ogling (she was a tad ditzy, only if the boy knew where to look) and keep tabs around the boat, and we would meet back up on deck at the end of the tour.
The boat came into view on the horizon. It shouldn't take us longer than forty minutes to reach the bastards.
Finally after a long wait, of me bouncing in my shoes, and gripping my sweater closer around me, we were boarding the famous Radio Rock. As I climbed on deck, I saw the figure of their manager dude.
Everyone was on deck talking, screaming, and my ears were deafened, because they've been screaming every since we were almost a mile away.
A man standing on the upper deck addressed the crowd energetically, "Ladies and gentlemen welcome to our boat of bliss!"
The fans, if possible, became louder, and even girlier than before. My masculinity was compromised. That was a joke.
Twatt probably didn't want me following him around for all the snooping he was doing, so I kept him in the corner of my eye for most of the tour. He always eyed everything suspiciously. Like the cookies they just baked in the kitchen were illegal. I watched in horror as they tackled the cook to the floor with love and adoration. I'm sure they must have envied the only woman on board.
Those two fellows, Simon and Angus backed away from the screaming women and over towards me. I pulled up my hood, and shrunk behind—well Twatt is gone. How did he disappear? So I was momentarily by myself.
"How are you enjoying the tour?" Angus said, putting his arm around me. You could tell he was trying to be really smooth about it.
"Er, great." I said. I had to get away fast. I pulled my sweater tighter around me and unwound myself from his arm and went my own way.
"Wait, you can't leave the tour."
"We're on a boat, you nut." I heard Simon say as I retreated. I managed to leave without them making a huge fuss over it.
The corridor I was in was empty, but you could hear the faint laughter in the background. I slipped my sunglasses, just in case someone recognized me. I made my way quietly, listening for Twatt.
The slapping of men's shoes could be heard on the metal floors and quickly went outside. On deck, I caught a glimpse of him going through a door, which I swiftly followed suite.
Down a few sets of stairs, I came upon an open door.
NO ENTRY, it said. Yeah, right. I pushed through, thinking that Twatt was actually pretty smart for a ministry nimrod.
I tiptoed down the steps, and came up beside him. "Hey." I whispered.
"Jesus!" He jumped almost a foot into the air. "Girl, you shouldn't be down here."
"Relax, we're both here for similar reasons." I said. But I gave him his space anyways. He was observing the conditions of their pipes and engine and whatnot, so I sat back in the corner, still keeping ol Twatty in view.
I heard footsteps from the stairs on the other side of the room, so I hid behind a boiler. I couldn't exactly warn the man without giving away my position.
"Hello." My senses spiked and I tried my best not to breathe, but every little movement I made sounded amplified. "Can I help you?" I peeked around the boiler and was glad he wasn't talking to me. A stylish man was talking to Twatt.
"Oh yes, uh, hello." I almost face palmed, because Twatt sounded like a huge pushover. "Got a bit lost." Even better response.
"More than a bit. In order to get here, you have to open a really quite heavy door with the words no entry on it."
"Well I didn't see that so it must have been left open." Kudos to that clever response.
The man approached Twatt, and eyed him through his glasses. "You look suspiciously square to be a fan of this boat's output."
"No, no. No I'm a real fan."
"I hope so, because if word gets out that you're here to spy on us, I think you may have trouble hanging onto your testicles."
"Are you threatening me?" Fucking Twatt.
There was a short pause. "Do you know what? I think I am. Because I've got pretty good instincts, and you look like a twat to me." I had to hold back a laugh that could have blown a hole in the side of the ship.
"Get out of here!" I heard Twatt start to leave. "Everyone leaves in fifteen minutes!" He yelled again.
I watched as they left, and when I heard the door shut behind the other man, I came out of my spot. In my excitement, I slipped, falling under something. In the last seconds, I felt my head smack against the metal, causing me to black out.
This does put a damper on things…
Review Please!
The next update probably wont be until after my exams which end next Monday (hooray, right?) but I'll probably end up updating earlier anyways lol…
-sage94
