just a joke. Of course there aren’t machine guns in there,’ I protest.
Damn, they will mess up my neatly folded clothes. I turn angrily to Alex- courage-under-fire -Bryant and am about to let rip, when mother calls me and Michael Jackson’s Thriller blares from my Blackberry, almost as if I had choreographed the music to add effect to the increasingly tense situation. Alex Bryant gives me a despairing look. I click it off and turn to the clerk.
‘It really isn’t appropriate to joke about machine guns in this present climate,’ she says in a solemn voice and manages to get her face to match. A quick glance at my ticket gives her more ammunition.
‘I see you’re going to Cambodia,’ she says, raising her eyebrows.
‘Miss Holmes is accompanying me,’ says Alex in a hot sexy voice while giving her a smile that is enough to melt any woman’s heart. It certainly makes mine flip which makes me angrier than ever.
‘What flight is she on?’ calls someone from the waiting queue. ‘I hope you’re going to check those bags. I don’t want to get on a plane that may be hijacked.’
For heaven’s sake, do I look like someone who would hijack a plane?
‘Really, you only have to look at me to see I’m not a hijacker,’ I say, forcing a laugh and wishing it sounded more authentic.
No one else laughs. Not even sodding Alex Bryant, to whom I now look at pleadingly.
‘We’re travelling together,’ he says, draping an arm around me, ‘and I think you can rest assured that I would not travel with a terrorist.’
I shrug his arm off me.
‘Excuse me, I’m a hijacker,’ I correct. ‘They think I am a hijacker, not a terrorist.’
‘It is the same thing isn’t it?’ he says dismissively turning to the clerk with a wide grin. How dare he make me look foolish?
‘It’s quite different actually. I might hijack the plane but may not necessarily want to blow it up.’
What am I saying?
He turns from the clerk and gives me an odd look. His mouth moves but he doesn’t speak. I wait expectantly as does the clerk. After what seems to be something of an internal struggle his steely blue eyes bore into mine, and he says in a smug voice,
‘And your point is?’
That is just the kind of question he would ask isn’t it. You know the kind that you just find impossible to answer.
‘My point is that I would never ever consider being a terrorist because they blow people up whereas a hijacker just hijacks and doesn’t actually kill people…’
Christ, I’m just getting in deeper and deeper. Why do I feel this overwhelming need to somehow get the better of Alex- always-right- Bryant?
‘Lady, you are killing me right now. Just how long do you intend to hijack that counter? Some of us would actually like to get on our flight,’ yells another passenger.
‘Merry Christmas to you too,’ I snap.
‘So, what you are saying is you wouldn’t consider being a terrorist, but you would consider being a hijacker?’ says a smug Alex leaning close to me. I blush furiously and hate him for it.
‘No of course not,’ I say defensively. ‘What I meant was if I had to choose, I would obviously choose to be a hijacker and not a terrorist…’
He nods knowingly.
‘That is what I just said.’
What a smug irritating arsehole.
‘This is when they do it isn’t it, at Christmas time. They are such bastards. Someone arrest her. I don’t want to be on a plane that is going to be hijacked,’ shouts a woman from the queue.
‘I’m not going to hijack the plane, have you all gone mad?’
Jesus Christ, all I did was crack a silly joke about machine guns and now all eyes are on me and everyone has gone nuts.
‘I think you would be wise to stay quiet,’ whispers Alex.
He leans forward and says something to the check-in clerk which I can’t hear. I really do not know what I am doing
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