Evie's TARDIS Diary: What's a Birthday?
Fifteen minutes later Jenny and I had been dispatched to the supermarket to buy food for the party. Sylvia had been coaxed into compiling the list of all the things we needed to buy and Donna had given us her purse. She'd also told us a four digit number, saying it was her PIN. Jenny and I had looked mystified until she'd explained that it was the number we needed to input to use her card. This had drawn more blank looks, so Donna had sighed and pulled out a card from her purse and waved it at us.
"This is my bank card, OK?" She said slowly. "When you get to the till you need to put this into the machine and type in the numbers I just told you. OK? Can you remember that?"
I rolled my eyes. "We're alien, not stupid." I told her sarcastically.
She laughed. "Off you go then. As quickly as you can."
So off we went. Along with the shopping list and Donna's purse we'd been given directions to the nearest supermarket, which was in walking distance. On our way to Tesco, we bumped into several neighbours who stared at me in confusion before I gave them a brief smile and pulled Jenny hurriedly away. As far as they were concerned, Evie Song was only about fifteen now.
"So… have you ever done this before?" Jenny asked as we approached the supermarket. Clearly the look I gave her answered her question and she pulled a face. "OK… so… basket?"
"No… let's get one of those wheeled trolley things." I suggested, spotting some parked together near the entrance. "That'll be easier."
We went cautiously towards the large glass wall of the building, which slid aside as we got close enough. Passing through the automatic doors, we suddenly found ourselves in a huge building that was crammed full of all sorts of things. It was difficult trying to work out where to begin.
"What's on the list?" Jenny asked, leaning on the handles of the trolley.
"Chips, burgers, sausages, bread rolls, ice cream, chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce, strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, tomato ketchup, brown sauce, chocolate hobnobs, lemonade and coke." I read out quickly.
We gazed at each other, wondering where we were supposed to start. Sighing and running a hand through my hair I glanced around the shop. Spotting a sign hanging from the ceiling I pointed at it and gave a little exclamation.
"Look, Jen." I said excitedly. "Milk… OK... Cheese… Confectionary… Ah, frozen food." I read, finally finding something promising.
Pushing the trolley between us, each putting a hand on the handle, we headed towards the promising sign and managed to get there without causing too much havoc. We narrowly avoided running over several people with the trolley.
"Frozen food… chips!" Jenny said, pouncing on the fridge that contained the item of food that we needed. There were a couple of moments while we struggled to open the fridge. There was a complicated mechanism, which we finally realised was a sliding panel on the top. A nice man helped us get into the fridge, showing us how to slide it open.
We battled the fridges again for the burgers, before retreating out of the frozen food aisle. Once we'd moved away, the goose bumps on our arms vanished and we warmed up in an instant.
"Why are there so many different types of bread roll?" Jenny demanded as we stood in the bakery section, staring in complete confusion at the shelves of bread. "Which ones are we supposed to get?"
"Umm…" I flipped my hair over my shoulder and screwed up my face, thinking hard. I scrutinised the different brands of bread laid out in front of us. Then I sighed and shrugged, picking up two packets of bread rolls from the shelf; one white and one brown. "These will do. It's just bread, isn't it?"
"I suppose." Jenny agreed, still looking totally confused.
We worked our way through the list, going in search of each item in order. By the time we were almost finished we realised that this wasn't the best method because we must have walked the length of the entire supermarket at least four times.
This realisation was made marginally better by the discovery that if we ran and then jumped on the trolley we could travel along the aisles at some speed. There was a slightly awkward moment when I went careering into a display of boxes of cereal and we were forced to make a hasty retreat from the aisle before someone noticed.
Finally we'd collected each item on Sylvia's list and made our way to the checkouts. There seemed to be two options; a conveyor belt that was manned by a person sitting behind the desk wearing a uniform and looking totally bored or some kind of machine that did all the work.
"Person or machine?" I asked Jenny, leaning on the handle of the trolley and raising an eyebrow.
She considered for a moment. "Machine… surely that'll be easier. There will be less awkward questions if we act oddly."
Nodding, I pushed the trolley towards the self-checkout machines and we waited in the queue. As other people used the machines, we observed closely, trying to understand what we were supposed to do. When it was our turn, we thought we had a pretty good idea of how to work them.
"Right… you hold them on the scanner thingy and I'll put them in the bag." I said firmly as we made a start.
"OK." Jenny agreed, nodding as she began.
For a while everything went smoothly. We just had the chips, burgers, sausages and tomato ketchup left when things started to go wrong.
"Take the last item out of the bagging area." The machine commanded. Both Jenny and I jumped and glanced quickly at each other.
"Go on then!" She demanded, slightly panicked by the tone of the machine. "Take it out! Quick!"
Doing as she asked, I grabbed the bag of frozen chips and removed them from the carrier bag.
"Please wait for assistance." The machine ordered.
We glanced at each other in alarm. A young man appeared at my side and scanned a card before typing something into the screen. The message disappeared at once, as did the assistant. He hadn't said a word, before he went. Raising my eyebrows at Jenny, I returned the chips to the carrier bag and we resumed our little routine.
It was a relief when we finished. Jenny pressed the option to pay by card and we put it into the reader as the screen indicated. It took a couple of attempts to get it in the right way, but finally it worked and I typed in the four digit number Donna had told me.
"I never want to do that again." Jenny said passionately as we headed out of the supermarket, laden down with shopping bags. "It was horrible."
Nodding in agreement I pulled a face. "I know… I can't believe they have to go through that EVERY time they need food."
"Duplicators are definitely the way forward!" Jenny said with a grin.
The walk back to the Noble's house took longer than the walk to the supermarket because of all the shopping bags. We kept ourselves occupied by chatting about my past birthdays and deciding how old Jenny should be. In the end we settled on the idea that today was her 22nd birthday, which would make us the same age. That made things far simpler for everyone.
As we walked through the front door, we saw at once that Donna, Wilf and Sylvia had been busy while we'd been out. They had decorated the house with streamers and balloons and 'Happy Birthday' banners.
"Surprise!" They called in unison as we entered the kitchen.
"Why, thank you!" I said jokily, pretending to be touched by their greeting.
"Don't be an idiot!" Donna laughed and swatted at me, before reaching out and hooking the plastic bags from my hands while Sylvia took Jenny's.
"You've been ages." Sylvia said in her usual abrupt tone. Jenny looked as though she was being told off. Apparently it was going to take her a while to get used to Sylvia's way of talking and behaving.
I smiled sitting in the nearest chair, resting my elbows on the table and resting my chin in my hands. "I know… sorry, Nan. That shopping malarkey is far more difficult than I'd ever imagined."
Sylvia looked at me suspiciously. "What did you do, Evie Song?" She demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
"Nothing!" I protested, holding my hands up to demonstrate my innocence. "It's just far more complicated than we expected."
Wilf chuckled. "I suspect that there's a story to be told here. Come on, out with it, girl."
So between us Jenny and I told them all about our adventure at Tesco. Wilf and Donna found it hilarious, especially the cereal box avalanche, while even Sylvia chuckled a little. She relaxed immensely during the evening and, by the time came for Jenny and I to return home and face the music, she was perfectly happy.
"See you soon, Nan." I said, giving her a hug before moving to the door.
Jenny echoed my words, slightly unsurely.
"That better be a promise." Sylvia ordered, taking everyone by surprise. "I've always wanted granddaughters."
