swirl from the
last bit of change left in her car.
“Next time anything
like that happens tell me straight away. Don’t get yourself all worried. You
know I could help.”
“I just thought you had
so much going on. This was the last thing you needed to hear – more bad news.”
“Trust me; it would
have made me happier knowing you came to me when you had a problem. Next time…”
“I know, sorry.”
“After class we’ll go
to the bank and get this sorted, unless you want to miss the chance to sit with
Christian,” I joked.
“Bless him, he bought
the coffee.”
“OK. Because he did
that I’ll let him off. I’ll be nice,” I promised.
Chapter 17
Too many things
had gone wrong lately but I was going to make sure that the things I could
control (like my work) didn’t. Therefore I arrived at work half an hour early.
Hugo had been working since 8 a.m. and looked awful. Unfortunately, he’d caught
a nasty cold so I reassured him that the new girl, Leah, and I would look after
the place this evening. As I had closed the coffee house numerous times before,
I offered to stay till the end, 9 p.m., which was an hour after my shift was
supposed to finish. As Leah was new I didn’t expect her to stay any longer than
her normal work hours.
There was a bitter
chill in the air, which blew in occasionally instead of the usual flurry of
customers tonight. I busied myself with stocking the shelves and helping Leah
brush up on her knowledge of Coffee Time merchandise. It was evident that Craig
had spent too many shifts flirting as she wasn’t aware of the procedures. Poor
Hugo had managed the best he could in his state but I expected a bit more from
that lazy ladies’ man, Craig. Surprisingly the next time I glanced at the clock
it was 7.30; I couldn’t believe how quick the time had flown by. Leah had been
lovely to work with. I felt as if I’d made a new friend.
After emptying the
dishwasher, cleaning the tables and mopping the floor I was about to walk
towards the front door to turn the open sign over to closed, when a short man
stumbled in. I was about to tell him that I could only
sell a coffee to take out but he seemed very unsteady on his feet and his left
hand was pressed onto his head as if he was injured. Slowly, I stepped out from
behind the counter to ask him if he was OK but he staggered over the mop bucket
before raising his left hand as if to stop me from stepping any closer. Next he
mumbled he was OK.
Suddenly I saw the door open violently. A
slightly similar looking man with a dark stubbly beard, shaven head, wearing
blue jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt stained in blood, stormed towards
him with rage. Mortified I ran behind the counter only to shout that I was
going to call the police unless they took this brawl outside. Paying no
attention to my threat the short man delivered a punch to the other man’s chin,
causing him to catapult onto one of the tables, snapping its wooden leg clean
off. Panic and horror flooded through me at the sight of the clean parquet
floor now flooded with dirty mop water, mixed with the muddy footprints of
these unwanted customers. Furthermore, the broken chairs and table were now
being used as weapons. Just then I had a vision of one of them throwing
something and hitting the front glass window, smashing it to smithereens. I had
to do something to stop them from ruining the place completely.
“I have called the
police, now GET OUT!” After shouting with all my might I stormed towards them
but out of nowhere a chair came flying towards
me. Luckily I ducked letting it continue
to sail over the counter and smash the coffee cups I had recently taken out of
the dishwasher. At that moment I ran out of ideas but I had too much at stake
to give up. Hugo was the only one that had given me a chance and I could not
stand here and do nothing so I went into the storeroom to grab the fire
extinguisher. Suddenly my eardrums exploded with a frightening roar