Chapter 13 - Unlucky for some....

Wow! I'm back, and not really on form, but, yeah, I'm back!

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I don't remember getting home, but I woke up the next morning in my own bed with a splitting headache and the sound of the phone ringing. It took me a whole five minutes to realise what the hell was going on before I got it and answered it.

'Newton?' I asked hoarsely.

'The one and only.' He answered, his cheerful voice grating through my alcohol blattered brain, 'so what's new?'

'Not too much,' I answered, 'just.....ah.'

'Hangover?'

'Yeah....'

'Oh right.' There was a brief silence, 'So do I want to know what happened last night?'

'No.' I said, painfully.

'Okay, call me tomorrow. You sound awful.'

'Thanks mate.'

'Okay, hear from you tomorrow.'

'Okay, bye......' I put the phone down and collapsed on the bed again. My head ached badly. How many pints did I have? Probably enough to floor a small elephant.

My mind suddenly realised that today was Sunday. For some reason my mind started thinking about getting a bike. I knew that I'd have to get around somehow, and I refuse to buy a car on the principle that it's too expensive and I don't have the money for the upkeep. Also, I don't have the time to be looking after a car, as it is relatively unimportant.

So getting up and throwing on some clean clothes, I stumbled out of the flat and to number forty, across the hall. I knocked on the door, not expecting a response, but was surprised to see that Jill was in fact awake. She was in her pyjamas however, which I'd seen before when she'd picked us up from the Airport. In her hand she held a cup of what had to be coffee.

'Morning Tim, you feeling all right?'

'Yeah, just a bit hungover......how much did I have to drink?'

'Three beers, you lightweight.'

'Lightweight, me?'

'Three beers and you were off. I mean, Isaac isn't much better, he lasted three and a half before you could tell he was drunk. Well, as if there's much difference.'

'Um, I hope I didn't get us thrown out.'

'Nah, apart from trying to chat up a lesbian you were fine. '

'Thanks for reminding me.'

'So what're you doing up so early?'

'Um, this is going to sound really strange, but do you know if there're any good bike shops around here?'

Jill looked at me oddly. 'What?'

'I was planning on getting a bike,' I said, miming it to her, 'so I could get around....'

'You couldn't after a few pints.'

'I didn't mean then. I meant to and from the studio.'

'Oh!' She said, as if just getting my point, 'Well, I suppose I could show you this afternoon. I better make sure Isaac was okay last night.'

'What the hell did we do?'

'Nothing much. You were just like normal, but laughed more, but Isaac, it's weird. When he drinks he gets really serious. He tried to talk to me about fate and causality before I managed to get him into bed.'

'Me?'

'Just led you back to your room. Don't remember too much.'

'Thank God.'

'Look, how about I knock on your door in a few minutes, and we'll go and look at this bike shop. I need to get dressed, and you probably don't want to wear two beiges at the same time.'

'What's wrong with beige?'

'Nothing in particular, I mean, two beige's aren't bad, but the sort of make you look like an escaped metal patient.'

I looked down at my beige shirt and combats. The horrible though comes into my mind is that she's right. 'I'll see you in a minute or two, all right?'

'Yeah, see ya.' She smiled at me before closing the door. As I walked away, I suddenly realised that I felt the same uncomfortable feeling as if I'd just been examined at the doctors again. I shock the feeling off, and returned to my room. I don't want to people of New Zealand to think I'm a mental patient when they first met me. Yet.

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Well, I bought myself a bike, with a little help from Jill. After getting myself a nice new mountain bike, she showed me to the garage underneath the block of flats where cars, and now bikes were stored. Placing my shiny black bike that hadn't earned itself a nickname yet, next to Jill's green bike which she called 'Mallard' (because it's green and when you try to use the breaks they make a sound too similar to a ducks quack than should be allowed) she told me that she often went for a bike in the countryside, and if I'd like to join her. I said no, and she smiled brittlely, before getting on her bike and driving off, the previously mentioned squeaks being heard for a few miles off.

For the rest of the Sunday I found myself just listening to my music on my headphones. I don't know, after everything that had happened in the last few days I felt glad of my Sunday off just to sit around my new flat and chill on my own.

I must have listened to my elbow CD more times than I care to remember, just lying on my bed, feeling half asleep. I think I looked through my script, leisurely flicking through it a few times, and had a bit of time looking through the book. Tomorrow would be the first time on a proper movie set, and apparently it was completely different to be in front of a Camera than it was just a group of actors. It was always the way, wasn't it? I must have learnt most of the script off by heart, and right now I was reciting parts of it off, or at least the part I had to do tomorrow.

And apart from that, I have to see 'Belle Borley again, and all my mind can come up with is how insane she is. She seemed like the kind of person who could change at any moment. One moment she'd be laughing happily at a joke, the next she's be laughing manically as she gunned down a small town of people. And there was one thing I still didn't get. It's bloody hot here, but she wears bandages underneath several pounds of black velvet and cotton. She says it's fashion, but I still don't get it. Well, I though, she's a Goth. There's probably something symbolic about it that she likes.

But there is nothing as soporific as elbow playing as you look at a script. I think I must have drifted off to sleep because I remember there being a loud crash that woke me up from either sleep of a trance of deep thought. Sitting up straight I thought that someone had broken in. It was just then I remembered I'd left a window open. Grabbing onto my script like a baseball bat, I sneaked out into the kitchen. I saw a vase that had been so kindly donated by the Tripperdellia apartment company had been smashed all over the floor, and that the fridge door was open.

I opened the fridge door. Okay, the intruder was obviously an odd person. He had taken part of a chicken and smashed a pot, but hadn't taken the TV or in fact anything else of value. I looked at the window. It one of those windows that opened in the middle and you could use as a tray if you ever felt the need to do so. It its from experience, extremely difficult to get in and out of one of those without bashing your head. I put my head out the window, looking for a way in when I heard a noise like a door squeaking.

I turned around, hitting my head on the window, cursing with pain as I grabbed my script and waved it like a poker at whatever was behind me.

When I saw it was a cat I was extremely disappointed.

It wasn't a nice looking cat. It was in so many words a moggy. It looked vaguely like a cat, but I couldn't identify any particular breed. It was all the colours a cat could be, with a while belly and paws, red splodges all over it's mainly tabby and black back, and a little orange patch over the right eye on it's tabby and white face. It was only a few months old as well. With a chicken leg in its mouth, grinning in such a way only an emaciated mongrel kitten-cat can grin. It looked at me again with its bright green eyes and dropping the chicken leg it meowed again.

'Who let you in here?' I asked, sliding down the wall.

It purred at me, picked up the chicken leg and started gnawing the meat off the leg. I hit the floor, legs splayed, and sighed. 'Why don't you go back to your owner?'

The kitten looked at me, as if begging me to let it stay. 'You can't stay, I can't look after you and I don't have the time.'

The cat, looking up from its half-demolished chicken leg gave me a look of contempt.

'Look, cat, this is my property, get off!'

The kitten looked at me again, and to my surprise came up to me and started to rub around my legs. 'Oi! Cat! Stoppit!'

But it didn't. It kept on purring and rubbing me, stretching as it went, as if to signify that I was now owned by it. I stretched out my fingers, which it sniffed and then rubbed. 'Hey, you aren't so bad..'

It was at this point the cat chose to jump on my stomach and looking into my eyes meowed pitifully. 'What do you want from me?' I asked.

It meowed again, starting to paw at my chest. I tickled it under its chin. It purred, and rubbed my hand. I smiled. It was a moggy cat, it was worthless, possibly disease ridden, extremely precocious and bossy. It left hair all over my clothes, it was small and annoying, no one else in their right mind would give the ugly cat a second glance. But I did. I suppose it reminded me of myself, if I ever became a cat. I couldn't see a collar, and the cat was now making itself at home sensing that it was now mine.

'Okay, 'I said grumpily, 'but only until I find someone else to take you in, understand, small rodent-like cat?' The cat meowed happily, and started to follow me as I got up. 'You better be housetrained.' I said. The cat meowed as if to say yes, 'and no more raids on the fridge.' The cat gave me an innocent look. 'Finish your chicken....what's your name?'

It looked at me as if to say, I can't tell you my name because I can't talk, idiot.

'How do you feel about the name Josaphat?'

The expression on the cats face said it all.

'Um, Edward?'

The cat would have said something sarcastic if it was human, but it didn't, due to the fact it was a cat.

'Well, you look like a Mog to me.'

The cat, as if finally pleased with the name, gave me a look to show that it liked the name.

'Y'know, this could be the start of a half-decent relationship Mog.'

'Mow.' Replied Mog.

'No need to be sarcastic yet.'

It purred. Stupid cat, I though, but without much vigour.

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Be grateful, you are spared the usual long list of notes.

Thank you for reading, and please review.

Xandra the Blue.