Chapter Five
Amy's afternoon had gone very differently to Dave's. At four o'clock, she was standing at Lauren's front door. The house looked a lot nicer than the flat she was currently staying in, but that wasn't really saying much. Amy reckoned most prisons would be preferable to live in compared to her current residence. Lauren opened the door and gave her a grin.
"We need to be quite quiet, because my mum's on the phone at the moment, but I think her call won't last too much longer."
"Is it a work call?"
"I think so. At least James is out, and I think mum's going shopping after this call. She'll be a while, so we can have the house to ourselves." For Amy, this was ideal. If Lauren was the only person in the house, this would make her job a lot easier. Additionally, from the little she'd seen of the boy, James seemed incredibly annoying. "Are you hungry?"
"Yeah, a bit," Amy nodded. She wasn't really: her stomach felt like it was flipping around inside her, but she thought it would probably be polite to accept Lauren's offer.
"I can make sandwiches," Lauren smiled. Amy thought back to her new school's idea of a sandwich - stale bread complete with soggy filling - and tried not to let her revulsion show. She'd been completely put off sandwiches. Possibly for life.
"What filling?"
"Whatever I can get my hands on. Honey, Nutella, icing sugar, that sort of thing, and then we can toast them. Trust me, you'll love them."
To Amy's surprise, the sandwiches were one of the best things she had ever eaten, even taking into account the brilliant food the CHERUB campus served. She very nearly burnt her tongue on the gooey mess in the middle. Lauren had clearly made these sandwiches enough times to avoid this mistake. Amy decided she'd maybe been a bit hasty to swear off sandwiches. The two girls happily chatted for a few minutes, until Gwen called through to the duo.
"I'm going out shopping! Behave yourselves, ok?"
"Yes, mum!" Lauren hollered back. She flopped back on to the sofa. "So, you want to watch a film or something?" After some debate, the two decided to watch a film - it was agreed to watch a Disney film that wasn't too princess related. Lauren suggested the Lion King, on the grounds that it didn't feature any humans and so therefore couldn't be princess related. About half an hour into the film, Amy guiltily turned to Lauren.
"Sorry, I really need the toilet, where is it?" Lauren fired off directions, looking absolutely transfixed on the screen.
Amy shut the door to the toilet loudly and darted into Gwen's study. The computer was still whirring away, and Amy realised that it hadn't shut down properly - on the screen, there was a notification informing her that Excel was blocking the shut down. For once, a technological malfunction on her side! She sat down by the computer, and stuck the memory stick into the USB port. She set it to start copying the hard drive of the computer across. A pop-up notification told her the process would take over an hour. Files began to whirr across the screen - she'd need to fix that later on. Amy groaned as she realised she'd made a mess of the timing, but left the study reluctantly. She quietly went and flushed the toilet, then entered the living room and flopped next to Lauren. Lauren had barely moved since she'd left.
Eventually, the credits began to roll, and Amy stretched out.
"So, what do you want to do now?" Lauren asked tiredly. She thought quickly as Lauren stood.
"I think I dropped my phone," Amy said, assuming a panicked expression, hoping Lauren couldn't see her phone in her pocket from where she was standing.
"I'll have a look with you if you want," Lauren yawned. The two girls walked through the house, checking everywhere they'd been, ending up by the toilet. Amy looked into Gwen's study.
"Wow! Your mum has so many books," Amy said. "Can I have a look?"
"We're not really supposed to go in there, but I don't think a quick look would hurt. I'll check the kitchen again. I'm so sorry, I have no idea where it's gone."
"Don't worry, it's my fault." As Lauren walked off, Amy quickly pulled out the memory stick and exhaled loudly.
"Any good books?" Lauren shouted, and began to walk back through. Amy quickly shut down the computer, panicking slightly/
"I think they're mostly intended for someone a bit older than me," Amy laughed.
"Fair enough," Lauren shrugged.
"I should probably go, my dad will be mad enough as it is for losing my phone, I don't want to be late back. I had a great time though."
"Yeah, we should do it again. Minus the whole losing your phone thing. I'll keep an eye out for it."
"Thanks," Amy said, and began walking down the street. Halfway down the road, she realised with a sinking feeling that she'd forgotten to clean up on the computer the evidence she'd been on there.