String of Fate

Chapter Eighty Five

I leaned on the counter on the busy Saturday afternoon. The rock climbing company that my family owned and run was always busy on the weekends. There was always one person who would come in everyday and it was great to see that he wasn't put off by the weekend people trying it out, which was usually groups of people who had never thought about rock climbing before in their lives. Still, the cats hated the fact that there were a lot of people here on the weekends because he couldn't actually climb the walls himself.

Liam, my favourite regular, wasn't here yet, but he was due to turn up at any moment. While I waited, I reached over and scratched the top of Ginger's head which poked out from the bed that was on the check-in counter. Oreo, our other rescue cat, was nowhere to be found on the weekends. Sometimes, I thought that the only reason that Ginger stayed in the warehouse was because of the head scratches that he got off us and the customers. He was a very friendly cat, though, which was always a good thing for a rescue.

I looked up as the door opened, letting in a little breeze, and couldn't help but smile as I saw Liam walk in. The smiled dipped a little as I saw that he was followed by a group of teenagers from my year in school. I was a little bummed since I didn't really get along with them at all. It was why I preferred to work at the warehouse at the weekends. Still, Liam headed straight to the counter and brightened up my day again. "Hi, Liam. It's good to see you. Are you after the usual?"

"You know me so well, Meg." He replied, leaning on the counter and stretching over to scratch Ginger on the head as I typed in the request on the computer behind the counter. He held out his membership card and I scanned it, handing it back to him once it was registered in the computer. "All done?"

"Yep. You're all set. Have fun out there and try not to break a bone." I laughed, making him laugh too. He headed over to the harnessing up area and I had to turn my attention to the group of teenagers. "Hi, and welcome to the Rock Centre. Do any of you have the memberships or are you all buying one time tickets?"

"One time for everyone, please." The girl at the front spoke, not pleasantly. Still, I had to keep the fake smile on my face.

"Great." I responded, quickly doing the headcount of the six of them. "Are you all paying individually or all together?"

"Let's do it individually, just to make it easier on us." She answered. That meant that it would be a bit more difficult and time consuming for me. Oh well, it needed to be done.

"All right. It'll be fifteen pound each. Who's paying cash?" I wondered. Three of them were, which made things easier. I started with theirs, making sure that I gave the right people the correct change, putting each of the purchases through the computer as I did so. It didn't take me long, thank goodness for speedy technology. Then, I got ready for the first card payment and put the card machine on the counter. "First card payment, please."

The girl who had talked first reached forward and shoved her card into the machine, then entered her PIN, and waited for the approval to remove the card. I waited for a second for the message to pop up on the screen and then put through the second card payment. The last girl looked at the screen of the card reader and didn't need me to prompt her to put the card into the reader. Once she was done, the message popped up on the monitor. I handed the five receipts to the girls, the fake smile still on my face as I pointed in the direction of the harnesses, and my mum sorting them out. "Just head over there and my mum will sort you out with the harnesses and get you started. Enjoy your visit."

The five of them headed over to my mother and I turned my attention away from the group as my mother handed out the harnesses. It was time to go back to scratching Ginger's head while I waited for the next customer to walk in. It had just turned afternoon so I had roughly an hour until there was likely to be some more customers. I looked around the warehouse and found my dad helping a guy attach the cable to the harness. He saw me and I waved for him to head over once he had finished.