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Through The Vast Unknown
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4
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The other Julie sighs, holds up her can of hairspray. "Thirty seconds to
comply," she says. "Twenty-nine, thirty. You lose." She sprays a cloud of
toxins into the boy's face. He screams and starts rubbing at his eyes.
They've gone very red and sort of puffy. He runs off in the general
direction of his less brave mates, crying, "I'm blind! I'm blind! I can't
get my contact lenses out!"
Julie blows at the nozzle of her spraycan like a smoking pistol. "Annie
Oakley," she says.
"Go and get us lollies," says Debbie.
"How much we got?"
Debbie does a recount. "Four pound seventy-five," she says. "We'll keep
the seventy-five pence in case of emergencies. Just get us four pounds
worth of lollies. Mini Milks, if they've got them."
"I'll have a Lollygobblechocbomb," says Julie. "If they still make them."
The other Julie walks off with the money towards the battered ice cream
van parked at the gates.
"Did you bring the radio?" asks Debbie.
"No. Didn't you?"
"Oh no. What are we going to do without the radio?" says Debbie. "What's
the point of going on a picnic in the countryside if you've not got
Nicky Campbell?"
"Never mind," says Julie, "I'll sing." She starts singing Blur's
`ParkLife', but there's no tune, so it sounds like she's just shouting.
Debbie puts her fingers in her ears.
The other Julie comes back, empty handed.
"Where's the lollies?" yells Debbie, not realising how loud her voice is,
with her fingers in her ears. She takes them out.
Julie looks perturbed. "They don't sell ice cream," she says. "It's just
a front for a drugs ring."
"Oh," says Debbie. "So what could you get for four quid?"
"Nothing. Well, he gave me a go of his joint. I did quite well, actually.
I don't think he expected me to have such big lungs." She coughs. "Are
them biscuits divvied up yet? I've got the munchies now."
They lie on their backs with their heads touching, and eat the biscuits.
"If we had the radio," says Debbie, "we could send messages out to the
aliens."
"It's still happening," says Julie. "Right now, Dave Pearce's sending out
his drive-time transmissions into the vast nothingness of space. I hope
they appreciate it."
"How long's it take, though?" says the other Julie. "I mean. Are the
aliens getting, like, Peter Powell now. Or have they got all that to look
forward to and they're only just getting that John Yogi Bear bloke in his
dinner jacket and tie talking posh?"
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5