Finances
Written in class again (naughty girl, I know, but I'm here for the [subject] classes, and find the [other subject] bits so boring). Two linked drabbles.
In a small Housing Commission flat in Nowra East:
Annalise groaned and pushed her laptop away from herself. Youth Allowance could only stretch so far, and one of the stretches it couldn't make was frequent marathon phone calls to Ireland. She was in danger of having the landline disconnected for non-payment, and even if she got last month's covered, there was still this month's.
Her phone rang.
"Hello."
"Hey li'l sis," Ern said. "How's things going with Irish sugar daddy?"
She looked at the pile of bills. "Sugar daddy, I wish. Don't s'pose I can come live with you an' Bertie?"
"Why are you in an Australian bank's online banking?" Artemis asked.
Beckett blushed.
"I thought Fowls didn't steal things any more," he continued.
"I'm not ..."
"I was helping him check up on his little Aussie friend's finances," explained Melissa. "She's currently got twelve dollars in the bank. Australian, which we all know aren't worth much. And her phone bill's overdue."
"So?" Artemis replied.
"So her phone bill consists almost solely of calls to Beckett." Melissa said.
"Pay it for her, then." Artemis said.
"Artemis, she didn't like me paying for ice cream. She'll like that even less." Beckett said.
Nowra is a town of some 30 thousand people, about half an hour's drive to the north of the Jervis Bay area, where the Fowls were holidaying when Beckett and Annalise met. Nowra East is a part that's got a lot of Housing homes and a bad reputation.
Youth Allowance is the name given under the current welfare system to the government payment for jobseekers under 21 and full-time students between 16 and 25 who are from low-income homes.
And as sort of a bonus, a descriptive drabble, set on the day they met :
Annalise reminded Beckett of Holly, but only a little. She was short, brown and athletic, but those weren't as great a similarity as he would have thought. After all, her skin was honeyed, the lighter parts almost golden in the harsh sun, not nut brown, she was 5'3", not 3'3", and she was a surfer, not a soldier. Her nose was flat, not hooked, her features round, not sharp, and her hair was not an auburn crew cut but mouse-brown, only very slightly red at the ends with sun-bleaching, long, wild, and tangled with sea salt.