Chapter nine

Beth Richards had been stuck on the Victoria line for fifteen minutes when she realised that she wanted to gun down all the other passengers. She was only on the stupid tube because the paper had cut her taxi budget, and the budget had been cut because these morons had stopped buying newspapers. The world was full of selfish assholes who were just trying to get in her way.


Other people were the sand in her ass crack that grumpy Monday. Some intern had informed her that her last column on the dangers of multiculturalism had received only 10 complaints and had barely been mentioned on Twitter and then she poured last week's coffee on her suede brogues. To add insult to injury the chocolate machine at the station had eaten the only change she had and she was about willing to rip the skin from the nearest snotty nosed kid's pet rabbit.

Someone was going to pay for all of this. That pointless cake girl - the one who'd managed to get them all excited over the weekend, she was as good a target as anyone. Beth resented being pulled from bed by a phone call from her editor to tell her to write about the new phenomena of cake giving. Apparently it was the new knitting. So what if it made a few hippies in London feel better about themselves? It was clearly some kind of danger to society. She took out her iPad and began to ponder. Something about the obesity crisis and ugly angry feminists………..
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Waking up seemed surreal to Natasha, something to do with being in someone's gran's living room adorned with portraits of Vince McMahon where normally the Queen or Terry Wogan would be. Who knew that you could not only buy, but display an Ultimate Warrior tea towel?

"What about Hulk Hogan?" she asked the Crazy Lady - who was attached to a laptop in the corner of the room on a sofa that you wouldn't buy in a second hand shop.


"He was a fucking pussy." She retorted with a snort.


The smell of chocolate fudge cake wafted in, Kat was awake.


"You girls are famous" said the Crazy Lady, who had thrown away her crazy credentials overnight and could now speak in complete sentences. She thrust the laptop in Natasha's direction.

"We're trending?" she asked. Crazy Lady gave a seasoned nod.


"You'd better buy more gold clothing."


Apparently some pro-fat ninjas had forced an English Defence League rally to be cancelled by poisoning their speaker with cake. The man in question was recovering at home, meanwhile the internet was alight. Opinions seemed to be split roughly three ways. Some thought that they were about to save humanity and had dashed into the street to throw cake at unsuspecting passers by. Bank staff, Librarians, bin men and workers at Superdrug had all reported being handed unprecedented amounts of cake and cups of tea by masked individuals in various locations across Britain.


The second third, the beauty bloggers screamed obesity crisis - angrily criticising what they saw as a direct attack on the health of passers by. And the third - well they wanted to string Natasha and Kat up for attacking their leader. But they were smelly nut jobs and no one liked them.


"There are pictures!" wailed Natasha, wishing she'd brushed her hair, changed her pants, or taken up the offers on Groupon for several weeks of microdermabrasion or that other thing that makes you a better person by blasting you with lasers.


"You bet your ass" retorted Gladys.


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Kat bounded through the front door with a tabloid newspaper held aloft like the Olympic Torch, resplendent in borrowed tiger print leggings and a Big Daddy t-shirt, eyeliner like shadow dancers across her cheeks.


Natasha wondered when she'd be able to drink a cup of tea. No wonder Jordan always looked vaguely harassed. Fame was definitely a burden.


"This one really hates us!" giggled Kat. "Beth Richards says: "It's potato like harpies like these two who, with their vengeful feminism, teach kids that it's good to be obese."


That wasn't nice. Natasha reeled slightly from being described as potato-like in a national newspaper. Natasha didn't think she looked like a potato. She had arms and legs, potatoes didn't have arms and legs. She had hair. Potatoes didn't have hair. She had a nose…….


She suddenly didn't want to eat breakfast any more. The thought prompted her to think about breakfast. "What's for breakfast?" she asked hopefully, "I can smell cake!"


Gladys picked up Natasha's jacket and belted it at her like Beckham playing Skeeball, forcing Natasha to fake it until her breath returned.

"No time for cake Doctor Jones. We've got work to do."