Mr Hook's Big Black Box

«Continuing Where We Left Off»

"So where did he take you?" Destinee asked, beaming with excitement at the story.

"A very uncomfortable place," Dwayne answered, "Isn't that right, Cheese?"

"That's not nice," Destinee was a little bit serious for just a second, "After all he's done for us, you should give him some respect."

"Yeah, sorry," Dwayne nodded, "So, Cheese, where did the big man take you?"

"Well that's just it. There were too many drugs in the air, or in the water. I don't remember anything else at all. Still, I bet I shed some light on the mysteries that have been bugging you, right?"

"I think it's just possible you remember even less than I do," Destinee smiled so sweetly, "Thank you." With the grateful tone, and the smile, and the little bob of her head, Martin Cheese was already smiling back and mumbling some carefully practised display of humility before he realised what she'd actually said.

"Hey!" he barked, "You know what, Monty, being cute doesn't mean you can just play with a guy's feelings. I did everything to impress you, and you just treat it like a joke. Well let me tell you, I'm a success in this world. I own my family business now, one of the big twelve traditional small publishers. I've approved movie contracts! I'd like to see any of this bunch of losers say you did anything important with your life. You know what? You're not worth it. I'm better than this!"

He was yelling at Destinee pretty loudly when his incandescent rage seemed to burn out. It would have been a perfect moment to storm out, if he'd been paying any attention to the words coming out of his mouth, but he just ended wagging a finger in the air, the same gesture even though he was no longer ranting. Destinee put a hand to her mouth and stifled a giggle.

"I'm a success," Kris answered casually, as if he just couldn't think of anything better to say, "You know what my company does?" Cheese turned to face him, raised his finger to lay down some truly devastating wit, opened his mouth, and then stopped. Then he turned and walked out, muttering angrily under his breath.

"Screw you all. I don't need a girl that talks back to me anyway. You don't know what you're letting yourself in for, Alexandro, sure you don't. See who's coming back crying in a year or two, I bet you..."

After he vanished down the corridor, there was an amused silence for just a few minutes. Nobody wanted to be the first to laugh at the little tirade, because there was really no other response.

"What's got inside him?" Kris broke the silence, and immediately elicited a round of chuckles, "Anyway, Dwayne was telling us about the week with Mr Hook's Black Big Box. When we all came up here and saw that Box in the middle of the room."

"Isn't that more of a prologue, though?" Marco shrugged, "I mean, if you're telling the story of the Box, it really started when the soldiers were trying to break into the club room."

"Soldiers?" Dwayne shook his head, "You're getting ahead of yourself. The soldiers didn't even show up until like Thursday, and by then they couldn't get to the room. Most of the interesting stuff was way before that."

"No, there were soldiers around half the week," Marco insisted, "I'll tell you..."