The Fiche List

Chapter Four

15. Bake a giant cookie

7. Cover someone's (Jase's) car in Post-It notes

"Fiche!" Someone hissed at me.

I moaned and curled myself tighter.

"Fiche, get up!"

Whoever it was was shaking my shoulder now. I muttered incoherently and pulled the doona over my head.

"Go away," I rasped when they tried to pull it back.

"Get up, Fiche! We got shit to do!"

I let out the longest sigh known to man. "What?" I finally hissed back.

Without moving.

Suddenly, my comforting hibernation ended when they whipped my doona completely off me and out of my vice grip. I instantly curled tighter into myself.

Cracking open one eyelid a hair, I discovered Lea standing next to my bed with her hands on her hips. I squeezed my eye shut again and kicked out at her with one foot. She deftly avoided it.

"You're cruel."

"Whatever. Get UP, Fiche! We have to stick like four thousand Post-It notes to Jase's car before he wakes up! Let's go!" She started slapping my leg incessantly.

I grudgingly sat up and glanced at the glowing red numbers of my clock.

Four AM.

Seriously?

I started to complain about the timewhen someone clapped softly near the end of my bed. My head whipped around to find Sean standing there with my doona piled in front of him. I narrowed my eyes.

He grinned knowingly.

Lea grabbed my arms and yanked me off the bed. I pulled the first jumper my hand touched over my head and allowed Lea to take my hand and lead me through my own house. Once outside and assessing the task ahead, my eyebrows couldn't help rising towards my hairline.

There were two bags full of the notepads sitting in front of Jase's old ute. More than seemed necessary to cover every inch of it.

"Um..."

Lea ignored me and dove into a bag, pulling out a triple pack and tearing it open. She climbed up on the bonnet and systematically started placing the fluro squares over the windscreen. Sean fiddled around with the camera he had set up on its stand, then started on the driver's door. I just stood and watched them, still half asleep.

"Fiche! Come on, we don't have forever!"

I stepped forward with the stiffness of a person who'd remained stock-still all day in the middle of winter. Grabbing a blue, pink, and green set, I got to work on the passenger side.

"Where'd you get so many?"
"A dozen shops."

I nodded. Not really sure why.

"Jase is gonna flip when he sees it."

I could almost hear Lea smiling.

"I know," she crowed. "We're gonna hide the camera in the bushes, and watch from my house."

I pictured my brother's face when he came out later and found his car completely covered in Post-Its. My mouth curved up into a grin.

"Then we're gonna go into town and cover a car on Main."

Ah. That explains the sheer amount of notes.

We worked in silence for the length of time it took to cover the sections we were all working on.