𝑀𝑂𝑇𝐻𝐸𝑅𝐹𝑈𝐶𝐾𝐸𝑅𝑆 ~ 𝐽𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑀𝑎𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒

16

The blonde led friends to the empty news room where most of them sat and stared into space while others contributed in helping Erin. "Okay. Right. Okay. How do I do a new line again?" James asked the group as he stared at the computer screen in confusion.

"Return. Jesus, James. How many times?" Michelle scoffs irritated by the boy. Seeing his confusion as his eyes darted around looking for the key, Saoirse leaned over the boys shoulder and pressed the correct button. "Thanks." James whispered with a smile earning a wink from the girl causing his face to be coated in red blush.

"I can't understand. Come on!" Clare suddenly screamed out and kicked the machine in frustration. "Seriously? Will you be quiet? I'm trying to get my creative juices flowing over here." Erin hissed.

Her words made Michelle and Saoirse cringe. "Okay. You're gonna have to never say that sentence again." Michelle states scrunching her face in disgust. "Aye, I don't want to know what juices you've got flowing." Saoirse adds slightly gagging at the thought.

"Enough. Come on. We need to make a call on our late story. Okay. So, let's..." Erin trailed off when she saw Orla waving her arms about. "Would you stop doing that, please?"

"I can't let my heart rate drop, I'm afraid, Erin." Orla shakes her head and continues shaking her body about. "Let's just run through some of our favourite ideas. So, firstly, animals." Erin announces to the group ignoring her cousin.

"Animals. Can someone elaborate?" James questions the blonde. "What specifically about animals? Because you know animals is a pretty broad topic." Saoirse questions her more.

"Yeah. So, this concept would focus on animals, alongside pictures of famous people who look a bit like animals." Erin sort of makes it up as she goes along. "Michelle Pfeiffer looks like a cat." Orla adds backing up the idea. "Exactly."

The other four share a strange look as if to say 'what the fuck?'. "Okay. Right. Animals. Er, what's the next one? Shoes of the..." James eyes the board trying to read the writing.

"Shoes of the world." The blonde replies confidently. "And that involves...?" The boy asks with clear confusion in his voice. "So, this piece would concentrate on different shoes from around the world, sitting alongside pictures of, you know, different shoes from around the world. So, like, how in Russia they wear boots because..."

Erin is cut off by Michelle, "Cos it's Baltic." She simply nods in agreement. "In India they wear sandals because...?" Erin gives another example to which Michelle replies, "It's boiling.".

"So that's it, is it?" James says in disbelief looking at the board for more. "Thoughts?" Erin's eyes stare up at the boy through her eyebrows.

"I'm not totally convinced by either of them, if I'm honest." James tries to gently let the girl know without upsetting her. "And if I'm being completely honest neither of them are great, actually they're terrible." Saoirse sighs agreeing with her boyfriend.

The blonde turns to the chalkboard and stares in horror. "Oh, my God. They're shit.They're absolutely shit. How can we print this utter shit?"

"Okay, don't panic." James lightly patted the girls back as her breathing picked up. "Don't panic? Don't panic, James? Shoes of the world. What does that even mean?" She panics looking around, her eyes wide.

"Yeah, we're fucked." Michelle sighs,rolling her eyes. "No. It's Okay. It's gonna be Okay. We just need to change our approach slightly." The blondes voice gets louder and louder while flapping her arms around.

Their attention switches to the box Erin suddenly slips open. "The writing competition?" Clare asks noticing the specific box, fear seemed to have crossed her face for some unknown reason.