Midnight crash by Tara zlick (ready player one ebook TXT) 📕

and the worry lines stained into
his forehead like the ochre swirls of an aboriginal art painting seemed out of control
today.

‘Where’s Colin?’ he asked.

‘Gone to lunch Vince.’

‘I don’t like him leaving you alone. I told him before,’ he snapped.

Vince always treated me as some little girl who couldn’t handle herself without a
guy around. It’s probably why he’d never let me work alone, which sort of defeated the
purpose of hiring cheap labour. Sure, he paid me nothing, but he had to pay Crass to look
after me on a Saturday afternoon.

Then he looked around the empty store. Topps was the only one in it. He was
pretending to read the back of a Battlestar Galactica TV series cover.

‘So, the joint is empty again,’ Vince said. ‘Every day is slowly getting worse. I
should get you a microphone and make you spruik for customers outside.’

‘I wouldn’t know what to say. It’d be a disaster.’
‘Hey, my cousin Frankie is missing his two front teeth. Having a conversation with
him is like talking to a wind tunnel. But he stands outside his restaurant and drags in three
hundred, four hundred people a night. Why couldn’t it work for us?’

I didn’t say anything and just let him have his whinge. Then I saw that Vince had
the pay envelopes in his hand. Boy, did I love those little white envelopes. Even more
than Vince loved whinging. I loved tearing mine open to see the orange tip of a twenty
dollar note poking out. Not that the envelope was often full. The only reason Vince hired
me was so he could pay me peanuts. Eight dollars an hour – and that’s on weekends.

‘Mate, what do I have to do to make more money?’ Vince asked, putting one arm
over my shoulder and gently squeezing it.

‘I don’t know, Vince. I often think that myself,’ I said, squirming a little.

‘Well, you’re no good to me then,’ he said, removing his arm. ‘Money is money,
and I need ideas. Now with that bloody Blockbuster store all my customers are beginning
to leave. I gotta start branching out. There’s no money in DVDs anymore.’

Vince gave his wart on the back of his neck an angry massage, complained that
Blockbuster was only popular because their store smelt “new” and that most of the films
made this year were rubbish and he wouldn’t watch them for free, so why would
customers pay six dollars to hire them? Then he left.

‘Vince sounds like he needs some happy pills, and what’s with the little hug?’ said
Topps.

‘Yeah, he does that a bit,’ I said, ‘it’s kinda totally creepy. Anyway, what’s up with
the DVDs though? Would he risk keeping pirated DVDs in his own store?’

‘Hey, maybe he watches too much Sopranos; you know, thought some old-
fashioned Cosa Nostra counterfeiting might make things spark up.’

I had to admit Vince was looking more and more desperate. The last time I worked
with him, all he did was complain. But that was Vince. He whinged about his estranged
wife’s spending habits and child support of his kids, his 4WD that kept breaking down,
about government taxes and GST and the film distributors who charged him a hundred
dollars a DVD. I looked around the empty store. Vince probably did have a good excuse
to resort to renting and selling illegal DVDs.

Topps walked behind the counter and into the office. ‘I’m going to take a look. See
what sort of operation Vince has.’

‘What about Crass? He’ll be back soon.’

But Topps had already gone out the back and down the stairs. Oh, man. I’d admit
he was one of the smartest kid I knew, but sometimes he just had no idea. I could feel
myself immediately beginning to sweat. I was about to yell out to Topps to get his butt
back to the counter when the store door opened.

It was Vince again. ‘Topps!’ I tried to hiss as I backed away from the counter,
trying not to look panicky and suspicious. Instead my voice froze up in fright.

‘I hafta grab…something,’ Vince said as he walked around the counter towards the
back. What if he found Topps poking around the office or down the basement with a
couple of Vince’s pirated DVDs in his hands? I had to do something and fast.

‘VINCE!’ I said, a little too loudly. He jumped.

‘What?’

‘Er…I was thinking. The new Nicole Kidman movie.’

Vince raised his wormy eyebrows and looked at me. ‘What about it?’

‘It’s just that you’ve put it on the bottom row of the new releases. I heard it was
really good. Don’t you think we should move it up so customers will see it?

‘Do what you want,’ said Vince. ‘As long as they rent the stupid thing.’

He walked into the backroom towards the stairs. I heard the first wooden stair
creak. Then the second. He was going down the basement. Oh man, this was bad. This
was really bad. I hadn’t wanted Topps to go down there in the first place. And he was
such a skinny little runt, with his gawky stare, his glasses and slouchy walk and hair stuck
up like a carrot. Vince would probably beat him up.

‘Hey, VINCE!’

He rushed back to the counter thinking something serious had happened. I didn’t have a clue what to say now. I just wanted to give Topps a warning. I
fumbled around with ideas. ‘Um, Vince, I wanted to ask you about the err...’ I looked
around the counter wildly until I saw the cash register. ‘The emergency alarm underneath
the register. Does it still work?’

Vince didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he looked really annoyed. ‘Yes it still
works! Why do you ask me these stupid questions, eh?’

‘Well, you know, what if there was some sort of emergency?’ I reasoned. ‘Is it
connected to the police station or something? I’ve never been told.’

‘Why don’t you press it and find out, yeah? I sat on it three years ago and the police
where in here in five minutes waving their revolvers around, so I’m guessing the thing is
still okay, okay?’ He threw his hands in the air again, turned around and walked straight
into Jim Carrey.

Vince staggered backwards and Topps put the cut-out on the ground. It was life size
and taller than his slight frame.

‘I found Jim,’ said Topps. ‘He was hanging around beneath the stairs. A customer
asked for it.’

‘Gimmie a break here,’ said Vince. ‘What are you doing the hell in my office?’.

‘I’m Peter Topolski, I come here all the time. I’ve rented every one of your South
Park discs and most of your Manga titles. I just wish you’d get more in.’

Vince looked at me and narrowed his eyes. I could see his nose hairs sprouting
defiantly as he flared his nostrils. A most unpleasant face. ‘What’s going on here? The
office is for employees only. Not your boyfriends.’

‘Sorry Vince. He was helping me out.’

‘Maybe I should hire him instead then, yeah?’

Vince stalked out the back and down the stairs. Topps looked at me and grinned
like a moggy cat. ‘He called me your boyfriend.’

‘He didn’t say it in a nice way. He said it in a really sarcastic way.’

‘Are you sure? He seems like a serious sort of guy who wouldn’t throw around
words like that.’
‘You wish.’

I grabbed the cut-out of Jim and made a big deal of putting it safely behind the
counter. Topps was my mate; a good mate. Just like Skye. We’d been best friends for two
years but we weren’t a couple and, as far as I was concerned, we never would be. I just
didn’t have any feelings for him beyond friendship. Why couldn’t it have stayed that
way? I guess deep down I knew he liked me, even though he pretended to only joke about
it. It got a reaction from me because I didn’t find it funny. I just hoped it was his
hormones and he’d grow out of it.

At school I had to put up with constant questions and teasing and laughs about me
and Topps. Girls like Courtney Jarratt, who thought because she had a boyfriend we all
needed one. So she went out with Year Nine’s resident hero because he made it to the
All-Schools long jump championship and came second. Big deal, he could jump a couple
of meters, so what? And so what if they’d been going out for a year and a half and he’d
given her an forty dollar gold necklace from Bevilles? Did that give Courtney the right to
set up every other girl in our class?

No, I liked things the way they were. Being able to watch Anime or Jack Black
movies without Topps trying to slip his arm around me, or getting all mushy when we
were alone walking through the park. We could just have a good laugh and goss. That’s
what I wanted in a friend at the moment. All that romantic stuff was sort of gross, if you
thought about it. I’d never tongue wrestled a guy, and I wasn’t about to start. French
kissing? Yuck. It’s okay for people like Jessica Alba. They got paid millions to do it.

‘Try and make some money for me, yeah?’ said Vince as he left, a bunch of
paperwork stuck under his arm. ‘And make sure your boyfriend pays for his movies.’

When Vince was gone I said, ‘You were lucky to get out of that, dopey, but hey,
did you get down to the basement?’

‘Yeah, but I only got a real quick look. The covers are good quality, that’s for sure.
Digitally printed. You can tell they’re fake, but people would pay seven, maybe eight
bucks for them, no problem…’ But Topps didn’t get time to even move. Crass walked in as we were arguing. He
didn’t look happy. He dumped his gym bag in the backroom and came out brushing his
peroxide blonde hair in that spiky-echidna look he loved.

‘Any action?’ he asked.
‘Vince came in to drop the pay packets off. They’re in the top drawer.’
‘What? Oh man, he hates me leaving you here alone.’
‘He said that too.’
Crass swore for at least half a minute. Something was bugging him. A few


customers came in so Topps waved goodbye. I told him I’d speak to him later.
‘That your boyfriend?’ said Crass as he scanned videos in for a customer.
‘No. He’s just a mate.’
‘Righhht...’ he said, drawing out the word sarcastically.
‘He really is just a mate.’
‘You two seem to hang out a bit though.’