Natural Uprising

Part 1 : Chapter 1

"Nora, come here!" I called, catching Nora pulling her trolley passed the crisp isle I was finishing up for the day, five minutes were left until my last ever shift as Customer Assistant at Wainwright's Grocers was over.

I waved the last bag of Doritos I was about to stack at Nora and she faked a cry. "No, I can't believe this is your last ever shift before you leave me forever," she whined.

"I honestly thought this day would never come!" I squealed, stacking the Doritos on the shelf and throwing the cardboard box they came in into the recycling. "It's over! I'm done! I'm of here!" I began jumping up and down and Nora joined me, hugging me tightly as she did so.

"Please don't forget about me, and please come home soon."

"Oh shut up Nor, I could never forget about you," I said as we began to push our trolleys to the stock room. "How could I ever forget that time you were sick out of your nose at our first sleepover. Or on your eighteenth when you fell asleep on the bathroom floor of Pryzm. Or...."

Nora shoved her trolley into mine, glaring at me but she couldn't hide her amusement and we erupted into giggles.

"Something funny girls?" A man's voice came from behind us. I rolled my eyes at Nora before turning around and smiling sweetly at our manager Todd.

"Just excited to be done with this place Todd."

"Oh yeah, forgot it was your last day. Make sure you leave your uniform in the office and sign out before you leave."

"Great, thanks for the kind words Todd." I muttered as he pushed past us towards his office.

Nora smirked, "Well you weren't expecting a leaving speech were you?"

Wainwright's Grocers had been quite the experience. I had worked in many retail jobs since I was legally allowed to start work aged 16 and had begun working at Wainwright's after I had graduated seven months ago to save money to go travelling. Nora didn't know what she wanted to do with her life so followed me, as she usually does, to Wainwright's. I had always enjoyed working in retail, however, Wainwright's was a shock to the system. It was awful. Wainwright's was run by Todd Wainwright, grandson of Mr Wainwright who had opened Wainwright's Grocers over fifty years ago. Todd had a serious case of small man syndrome. He was an aggressive, bossy, arrogant, obnoxious, chauvinistic pig to put it lightly and he made every day working at Wainwright's living hell.

After leaving my uniform in the office and signing out I ran to freedom, jumping and twirling my way through the car park towards Nora's car.

"Stop it, you're embarrassing yourself!" She called after me, laughing and shaking her head

Once in the car I plugged my phone into the aux cable and played Peter Andre Mysterious Girl on full blast to get me in the Australian spirit. We both screamed the chorus and I attempted to body roll Peter Andre waterfall style in the passenger seat.

Two rounds of Mysterious girl later we were pulling up at my house. Nora turned to me, a tear in her eye, and mumbled "I really don't want you to leave Gigi."

I pulled her into one final awkward across the car hug. We had already finished all our leaving celebrations (or commiserations in Nora's case).

"I won't be away for ever. In fact, I'll probably hate it. I'll probably come back after three months and it will be like I never left!" I tried to assure her, although I secretly prayed that I would fall in love with Australia. That I would meet the Aussie man of my dreams, marry him to obtain the necessary visa and stay there forever. Besides from my small family and Nora there was nothing for me in the UK except tainted memories and I was ready to move on.