Juggling Balls

Chapter Nine

'Why now?' Lisa said as she and Martin stood outside the supermarket doorway, watching Sam trying to wrestle a trolley free from the, seemingly welded-together, rest of the trolley herd. Martin held up the list so Lisa could re-read the message at the beginning of it.

**URGENT SHOPPING LIST**

It is vital you get the items on this list today, as soon as possible. It will be necessary for Martin, Lisa and Sam to all go in order to carry the necessary quantities.

Repeat: the shopping is both urgent and vital.

**

Warning:

Sam will have to spend some money, so be gentle with him.

Lots of love,

Hermione.

**

'I think that machine has got it in for me.' Sam wrestled the shopping trolley into moving in roughly the direction he needed it to go. 'I don't see how this has anything to do with me at all.'

'Your name was on that list, and you came along here,' Lisa said. 'Aren't you even a tiny bit curious about what is going on?'

Sam looked up at the clear blue sky above the car park for a moment. He lowered his gaze to stare at Lisa. 'Not if it involves me having to spend some money.'

'Let's just get on with it.' Martin set off towards the shop. 'At least, once we have done it we won't have to go shopping again for several months, judging from the size of this list.'

Once inside, Martin looked up at the first aisle, down at the list and then back up at the aisle. He frowned and then smiled. It was something that had never occurred to him in all the years he had been going shopping. The list was set out with the goods in the same order as they appeared in the aisles. Martin was astounded.

Of course, he had tried experimenting with shopping lists when he was younger, but they had never done anything for him. No matter how carefully he wrote the list, or how much detail he went into, his trips to the supermarket always resulted in him standing confused in the car park afterwards, clutching a tin of anchovies and a damp, wilting, lettuce.

'Look at this!' Martin showed the list to Lisa and then pointing up to the rows of shelves. 'It's all in the right order.'

'Oh,' Lisa said. 'I used to try to do that. But it never worked.'

'Why not?'

'Because every so-often they change the things around on the shelves.'

'Do they?' It was beginning to make sense to Martin now. He had always put his confusion over where to find anything on his shopping list down to his complete lack of interest in the shopping experience. To discover it was a deliberate act by the supermarkets occasionally to put packets of tampons where Martin thought the tins of anchovies ought to be, made him feel marginally better about it all. Maybe, he thought, he was not such an incompetent shopper after all.

'Apparently, they do it because it makes people pay more attention.' Sam dropped several bags of crisps into the trolley. 'Otherwise people just go to the usual shelves to buy the usual things.'

'But doesn't it annoy people?' Martin ticked off crisps on the list.

'Apparently not.' Sam picked up a packet, saw it was supposedly healthy, sighed and put it back. 'It seems most people enjoy shopping, at least according to the surveys anyway.'