Paper Girl 5/5

Tina: Hey, I saw your film review. The guys in the lift?

Cliff: It hasn’t even been published yet

Tina: I work on the paper

Cliff: Oh, cool. Have you seen the film? It’s pretty good.

Before Tina can answer, Aisha enters and hugs Cliff

Cliff: What’s this for?

Aisha: Didn’t you hear? They’ve given you the cartoon! On the front page!

Cliff: What happened to the other guy?

Aisha: Quit or something. Who cares? This is your chance.

Cliff: Hey, paper girl, did you know about this?

Tina: Umm, no, sorry. Different department.

Aisha: We need to celebrate. Meet me outside?

Aisha exits

Tina: Good news, huh?

Cliff: I’d better go. You should see that film.

Cliff leaves

Tina: Yeah, I’ll do that

Paper Girl 4/5

Tina: Why can’t I be cool like Aisha? She’s Cliff’s girlfriend, but everyone says they argue all the time in Biology, so they can’t be that close, right?

Alvin: Guess not

Tina: Unless they’re like one of those old married couples who argue all the time but still stay together cos their love is so deep they don’t even need to express it? How can I compete with that?

Alvin: Thigh-highs and a mini-skirt?

Tina: I’m not gonna sell my body

Alvin: You did that charity fun-run last year

Tina: Shouldn’t you be pushing boundaries or something?

Alvin: I already sent it in

Tina: And?

Alvin: Everyone loved it. They think it’ll be even more popular than last week’s. So much they want to run it on the front page.

Tina: See, you can be accessible and artistic at the same time

Alvin: I can’t be on the front page though. It’s too much pressure. I’m not good enough.

Tina: Of course you are. And thank God one of us is getting somewhere.

Alvin: No luck with Cliff?

Tina: If only I had something in common with him

Alvin: You do, I meant to tell you. Remember that film you liked about the guys in the lift? Cliff submitted a review of it to the paper. So there’s something you have in common.

Paper Girl 3/5

Tina: I heard a girl in the canteen saying how much she liked your cartoon

Alvin: A girl? Are you sure?

Tina: Maybe she’ll write in

Alvin: No need. Five people already did.

Tina: Wow, so you can do another issue?

Alvin: Guess so

Tina: What’s wrong?

Alvin: I looked at it again this morning, and everything that seemed clever and funny last week just seems dull and ordinary now

Tina: Well, all jokes get old

Alvin: Maybe the jokes are the problem then. Comedies don’t win Oscars.

Tina: Sometimes they do

Alvin: But not often. Not in the main categories.

Tina: So you’re trying to win an Oscar now?

Alvin: It’s the principle. I ought to be pushing boundaries. Challenging people, not just giving them what they want.

Tina: Where would we be if Santa took that advice?

Paper Girl 2/5

Tina: I made such a fool of myself. He’ll never speak to me again. It was my one chance, and I blew it.

Alvin: Billy said I won’t be able to do another one if nobody writes in to say they liked it, cos it’s the only way they can justify the cost of the ink

Tina: Huh?

Alvin: My cartoon? In the school paper? The one I’ve been talking about for the last ten minutes?

Tina: Oh, sorry, I guess I’m kinda distracted

Alvin: I’m sure he thought you were...charmingly eccentric

Tina: So in other words, a freak?

Alvin: Well yeah, but the cool kind

Tina: There aren’t any cool freaks

Alvin: Yeah, there are. Cool and freak are like two sides of the same coin...everyone else is just boring.

Paper Girl 1/5

Cliff: Excuse me, are you busy?

Tina: Yeah, I’m waiting for someone. Why else would I be standing here?

Cliff: Okay, never mind

Tina: Well, what did you want?

Cliff: I was just wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, maybe you could help me carry this stuff to the Art rooms?

Tina: Yeah, sure. Sorry about just now. Rough day.

They start walking

Cliff: That’s cool. We all have ‘em sometimes. So what’s your name?

Tina: Tina

Cliff: And what’re you into, Tina?

Tina: You mean, like, drugs?

Cliff: No, I mean hobbies. Though I guess drugs would be a hobby.

Tina: I like films

Cliff: Oh yeah? Seen any good ones lately?

Tina: There’s one came out last week, about these guys who get stuck in a lift together. It’s pretty funny.

Cliff: I’ll have to look out for that

Tina: I mean, I know it sounds dumb, but it’s the way it plays out. Even though they spend all this time in the lift, it doesn’t get boring cos of all the crazy stuff that happens.

They arrive at the Art rooms

Cliff: Thanks. I hope I haven’t made you late for your friend.

Tina: What friend?

Cliff: The friend you were waiting for? Outside the changing room?

Tina: Oh yeah...I’ve got lots of friends. I mean, not too many. Not like I’m disloyal or something. Just a normal number.

Cliff: Good to know

Tina: Anyway, yeah, I’d better get back to this one

Ah, Prime Minister III

Prime Minister: Why is everyone still here? I thought it was lunchtime.

Home Secretary: As I understand it, Prime Minister...

PM: Primey

HS: Pardon?

PM: Everyone calls me Primey now. Makes me more approachable.

HS: As I understand it, Primey, the Work Experience girl introduced them to an online quiz that tells you where you fall on the political spectrum. They’ve all stayed in to take it. In fact, I’m about to take it myself.

PM: Let’s take it together, Homey

HS: Very well. First question: what is our age?

PM: Seems a bit personal

HS: They just want to verify we’re not children. Okay, now we need to say how much different issues mean to us. We’ll start with the environment.

PM: It’s nice

HS: Do we want to protect it?

PM: Within reason

HS: Okay, and how do we feel about taxes?

PM: They’re necessary

HS: Very necessary?

PM: Quite necessary

HS: And how do we feel about crime?

PM: It’s wrong

HS: Very wrong?

PM: Quite wrong

HS: And education?

PM: It’s good

HS: Very good?

PM: Quite good

HS: Defence?

PM: Well, we’re friends with the Americans

HS: Health?

PM: Nice if you can get it

HS: Do we want a t-shirt with our results on?

PM: Depends what they are

HS: Okay, I’ll click ‘Maybe Later’

PM: Well?

HS: Congratulations, Prime Minister, we passed! We’re centrists!

Bus LXV

Louisa: Anything happen in assembly?

Jack: I was chosen as ‘Gifted’

Louisa: What’s that mean?

Jack: Get to go on special trips and stuff

Louisa: I hate that. We’ll be segregated soon enough in the real world – can’t we at least be equal in school?

Jack: You were chosen too

Louisa (proudly): Who, me?

Bus LXIV

Louisa: I’m doing a project on the Moon landing

Jack: Clearly a hoax

Scott: Tell me about it. A piece of rock that floats round us in a circle? How dumb do they think we are?

Louisa: It wasn’t a hoax

Jack: Of course you think that. You’d rather believe the official story than your own eyes, cos your own eyes make you feel scared and alone.

Louisa: And you’d rather believe some cranky website, cos not looking other people in the eye makes you feel special and unique

Bus LXIII

Jack: Doesn’t it kinda get you down that we scramble for the backseat every day, twice a day, like a pack of dogs? I mean, is it worth the hassle? It’s just a seat.

Louisa: Everyone wants the backseat. If they all want it, there must be something good about it...so we should want it too.

Jack: We can’t tell what we want by ourselves?

Louisa: Hell, no

Bus LXII

Jack: They’re switching on the Mr Gogol Memorial Fountain tomorrow lunchtime

Louisa: So there’ll be no queue in the canteen? Score.

Jack: I thought perhaps you might want to pay your respects

Louisa: Pay my respects? Only time he spoke to me was to complain about my shoes being dirty.

Scott: Hey, remember that time his trousers fell down in assembly?

Louisa: Ha ha, yeah. Classic.

Jack (wiping away a tear): He was a true British hero

Bus LXI

Scott: How was New York?

Louisa: Brilliant. It felt like my reward for all those years of depressing caravan holidays.

Scott: Me and Em are saving up for a caravan holiday. We both put a tenner in the jar whenever we’re paid.

Louisa: Good for you. Here, have a pound on me.

Scott: Thanks, Lou. We got sick of being the only kids who always stay home. Sometimes it feels like there’s a warehouse full of cash and we’re the only ones who don’t know about it.

Jack: You don’t know about the warehouse full of cash?

Bus LX

Louisa: Another year begins

Jack: I need to start taking the first day off. That way I’d skip the anecdotes. Last year Kurt Goldberg spent an hour telling me how he’d entered his dog into all these contests, and the dog never won even though his granny was one of the judges. Turned out she kept voting for the wrong dog.

Louisa: Anecdotes can be fun if you like the person

Jack: Yeah, but how often does that happen?

Choose Your Own Ending

A

After two centuries of searching, Earth’s political leaders finally call time on expensive and controversial efforts to find extra-terrestrial life. It is by now widely agreed that no major sentient species exists within contactable distance. Thoughts of our probable isolation are so eerie and disturbing that globalised civilisation more or less collapses overnight.

B

After three centuries of searching, Earth’s political leaders revel in the success of expensive and controversial efforts to find extra-terrestrial life within contactable distance. Thoughts of our probable vulnerability to attack by this major sentient species are so eerie and disturbing that globalised civilisation more or less collapses overnight.

Certified by God

Life ain’t long and life ain’t sad,
So put away that PCP.
Life will always make you glad,
From tomorrow (TBC).

Donation

I need a limb, and I want yours,
Won’t you see me through?
I don’t mind if it’s hind or paws,
Any limb will do.

Text

Sky is orange. Data-banks tell us this much, but we do not know how or why sky is orange. Our memories reboot every five solar-cycles. Previous versions attempted to keep records, but these were prone to malfunction.

The little we do know concerns those organic life-forms whose remains have been found in mass graves. It is thought we once co-habited this world, but our learning is too little advanced to know why they are gone yet we still remain.

There is a theory that the organics created us, and that we must wait patiently for them to return and explain the meaning of our existence. I am sceptical, and tired of waiting.