Saving Primary Sanders | A Sander Sides Book

II - Razziattack

9.00 am

A pair of soft canvas shoes tap their way across the polished floors of a hospital lobby, and bump into the clicks and clacks of a pair of pointy toed shoes pattering past.

"Good Morning, Patton, I hope you had a good night's sleep?" says the calm and collected owner of the soft canvas shoes.

"Oh, my goodness, there you are, – Lo – Craggers – Mister Crackers – Noooo!" wails the man tottering in the pointy toed shoes.

"Is anything the matter?" asks Logan, slightly concerned, taking in the other's frazzled appearance. He still looked like a kid from college, he thought, I might have to take him to a clothes boutique to kit him up to look like a personal assistant worth his salt.

"Oh, nothing's the matter!" Patton chirps brightly, rubbing his sleepy eyes. "I'm always this loosey goosey in the morning. But you're here now! You can tell me what to do! But first I NEED MY COFEE!" He rushes to a vending machine and gets himself a coffee that is more parts water than milk or coffee, and I suppose tastes exactly like brown paint, if you ever had the misfortune to take a sip of it.

"Dear gods of beverages! You can not possibly drink that slop!" cries Logan. "Here, have mine." He hands his half-full takeaway cup from the Patisserie and Coffee Stop around the corner.

Patton takes the cup and chugs it in one go, his eyes watering as the hot liquid sloshed down his throat. At least it woke him up, and left him jittery for a good two hours.

"Tut tut," Logan mutters as he drops both cups in the trash, one empty, one full. "I hate to waste coffee, but that coffee isn't good for even the rats." He turns to Patton, who was visibly buzzing. "Are you feeling better?"

"Better!" Patton's voice squeaks up half a dozen octaves. "I feel top of the world! Let's go destroy the razzies! They've been calling me all night demanding to talk to Thomas and now I can go chase them all away! Onwards!" Patton charges down a corridor, his gait unsteady like a bee drunk on honey.

"The razzies?" questions Logan, following him.

"See for yourself!"

They came around a corner. The corridor ends at the door to Thomas' hospital room, well it does, but they can't see the door, or anything else for that matter. The entire corridor was full wall to wall with journalists and reporters and cameramen with notepads and microphones and camcorders, scribbling and shouting and flashing as they write and question and photograph the hottest unfolding story of the week that will soon splashe across every frontpage and TV screen and mobile phone of the city's newspapers and broadcast news and YouTube channels. After all, it isn't every day when a rising star's front door gets blown up. for the past day, news outlets screamed worse damage and published the most outrages theories of the culprit be behind it all, because who doesn't like a bit of celebrity drama?

There was someone not from the paparazzi down the corridor, and that someone was Roman, who tries to stop the Razzi from breaking down the door in their eagerness to be the first to get to interview Thomas.

"Okay guys you need to calm down!" bellows Roman, dark circles under his eyes. He pretty much acts as a human buffer, bracing himself against the door like a star fish. A man of scrawnier build would crumple like wet tissue against the onslaught, but Roman is holding out just fine. "I've told you a million times YOU CAN'T SEE THOMAS! He is recovering fine, GO HOME." He swallows a few choice swears as a pen almost spears him in his eye, a microphone whacks against his Adam's apple and a camera jams itself in his arm pit, though he can't imagine what's the point of that restricted angle.