The untitled story shall henceforth cease to be untitled!

Yes, I have finally decided what my story is going to be called.

Allow me to introduce you to the wonder that shall hereby be known as:

How to Deal with a Curse of Lamentable Tribulation

Compelling, no? Don't you just want to read it?
Well the first three chapters are right here, and further ones shall be added as they are written. Go and check it out.

Chapter 1: http://nwithers.blogspot.com/2009/03/chapter-1-jake.html
Chapter 2: http://nwithers.blogspot.com/2009/03/untitled-story-chapter-2-chocolate.html
Chapter 3: http://nwithers.blogspot.com/2009/04/untitled-story-difficult-third-chapter.html


Disclaimer: I reserve the right to change this title whenever and for whatever reason I feel like. It could be because I've thought of a better one, it could be because I decide to take the story in a different direction than would accurately fit the title, or I could just do it on a whim because I'm bored. That's the level of commitment I'm putting in to this.

OK, so this is the third time I've changed the title already. The others sucked. This one does not suck quite so much.

Untitled Story - The Difficult Third Chapter - The Tiara

Note: Chapters 1 & 2 of this story can be found deep with the archives of this blog, because I just don't feel like making it any easier for you to read.


I didn't know what to say.

"I don't know what to say," I said.

I turned to Matt. He looked just as surprised as I was. I savoured the moment, knowing that all too soon the shock would wear off and he'd be ridiculing me again. Really I was impressed that I'd managed to get over it faster than he had. I'd already thought of three princess-based jokes that would have been perfect for the situation, had it been anyone else holding the tiara.

"Say something..." he whispered to me.

"But I don't know what..." I replied.

I turned back to the old lady. She was already walking back in to the other room.

"Be careful with that," she said over her shoulder "it's very valuable."

"Um, excuse me," I said, running after her . "This is obviously very...er...lovely and everything...but I'm not sure I:-"

"Oh, but you must take it!" she interrupted. "It is a gift, a token of thanks for your heroism. I can not let you go unrewarded, and one should not turn down such an offer. Not accepting this valuable treat would be both foolish and rude!" She seemed to be getting steadily more worked up as she spoke, almost as though she couldn't wait to be rid of the damn thing. Well that was nice. I don't know much about rewards, truth be told I've never offered anyone so much as a pat on the head for doing something, but I'm fairly sure giving someone some old piece of crap you just don't want lying around your house anymore isn't the standard procedure for expressing how thankful you are to them. I mean I was a hero, not a hobo!

"Well, it's just...when you said a reward I was expecting something a little more...cash-like." Smooth.

"Ha! Money? Do I look like I have money to give away?" I looked around the enormous hallway we were in, with the two marble stairways that met in the middle and the antique chandelier swinging gently above our heads, as the 9 foot oak grandfather clock ticked away next to the jewel-encrusted mirror. I decided not to answer the question.

"My husband spent all his money going off on his adventures. Everything you see here was found or given to him on his travels. Even the house came from a little known, yet exceedingly wealthy, African village. The head of the village had it transported over here by boat. My husband never made a penny for all his work! Now please, you have your prize - now leave me."

And with that she flung herself up the stairs, rather impressively for someone her age, and disappeared through one of the many doors at the top. Matt walked in from the kitchen and we silently looked at each other for a few moments before turning to leave.


**********************************


"A tiara?"

I nodded my head glumly.

"Can I see it?"

I shook my head glumly.

"Why not?"

I shrugged my shoulders glumly. I don't know why I did this, I suppose I just wasn't in the mood to talk. Also I was trying to convey the extent of my glumness to Ashleigh in the hope of receiving a sympathy hug, or possibly a sympathy boob flash.

"Oh stop being such a baby" she said, hitting my in the arm in a less than sympathetic way. What a bitch. "Come on, show it to me."

I sighed (glumly) and lifted the goddamn thing out of my backpack. It was fairly heavy for its size, with two neat rows of green and blue jewels following the swirls and loops of the silver wire frame that would wrap around the head of the overpriced girlfriend of some pretentious king in some ridiculous country no-one even cares about. A large red ruby sat in the middle, with more of the green and blue stones circling around it - just in case it wasn't shiny enough for you to notice. It was very nice I supposed. In a shitty, girly, wannabe-princess, completely-inappropriate-for-an-eighteen-year-old-very-manly-lifeguard-who'd-just-saved-your-life way. Ashleigh tried it on.

"How do I look?" She asked.

'Like a heart-stoppingly beautiful princess that a thousand brave knights of olde England would risk their mothers' lives to win the heart of just for a second,' I thought. "Like some drunk bitch on a hen night," I said. I always found it a mystery why girls never seemed to want to go out with me. Ashleigh hit me again as Matt approached us, setting down two pints for himself and me and a vodka & coke for Ashleigh.

"You owe me two-fifty." he said, sitting down.

"I'll pay you in tiaras."

"Sod off."

"Am I not even allowed a free sympathy beer?"

"Sod off more, you don't get sympathy for being given a billion pound present."

"I don't want it! You can have it for the beer!"

"Oh no, I couldn't take the princess's tiara from her. Not when she'd look so pretty wearing it." He grabbed the tiara from Ashleigh's head
and forced it on to mine. Ashleigh somehow managed to produce a camera from somewhere and snap a picture in the half a second it took me to throw the thing off. Why do girls always have cameras in pubs? How many pictures of yourself looking sweaty and drunk in a dark, crowded room do you really need? I didn't know, but I certainly hoped it was enough to hide the one she'd just taken once it was inevitably added to the brain-melting overload of pointless shit that is facebook. I hated facebook. And cameras. And tiaras. And stupid beautiful girls who tormented me with their cruelness and wonderful, untouchable boobs.

"Fuck you!" I shouted loudly, which of course just alerted the entire pub to the less-than-manly tiara that I was now desperately flinging from my head, straight towards the whirling ceiling fan. There were gasps and laughter from strangers all around me, as the three of us were showered in brightly coloured stones, before the battered lump of silver shot back down towards my gaping, horrified mouth.

It hurt.


****************************************************


Somehow, over the next two days, Matt had convinced me to actually pay money to have my garish headpiece repaired. We'd collected all the pieces from around the table at the pub and - after restraining myself from simply throwing them all in the bin - had taken it back home where I'd spent the next couple of hours bashing the framework back in to place with a hammer and re-attaching the jewels with super glue while Matt hovered around me offering tips on the best way to put the thing back together. It was he who had stopped me getting rid of the pieces, pointing out the probable value of such a piece of jewellery and promising unending riches if we managed to make it look like a tiara again. I'd grudgingly agreed. When he wasn't being a dick; Matt could be very sensible about some things. It was just strange how his sensible ideas always seemed more annoying than the alternatives. Needless to say, after all my efforts all I had managed to do was make the silver even more lumpy than it had been before, and superglue several green and blue jewels to my hands. It was decided that this was a job for professionals, and on the basis of "spend money to make money" (Matt's words) we gathered the pieces up again and took them to an antique jewellery repair shop.

Fortunately I lived just round the corner from one.

Unfortunately the unsmiling, thin haired old man at the counter charged me two hundred quid just for the service. I was so close to walking out of the shop and leaving the pieces in the gutter right then, but Matt repeated his "spend money to make money" mantra a few more times to make me stay in there. Also he stood in the doorway and kicked me in the shins until I gave in. Why he assumed I'd share any money I might make from this with him I don't know. I decided right then that if I got some sort of profit back from this I would spend a good portion of it having him deported. For the meantime though I was two hundred pounds out of pocket (Matt had generously donated nothing to my cause) having a broken tiara I hated and never wanted be put back together so I could continue hating and not wanting it.

A week later we went back to the shop to pick it up again. It had been a dull week - since I'd now spent all the money the swimming baths had given me as a hero bonus I found myself with very little to occupy my time with until the next payday. Meanwhile everyone else I knew seemed to be going to gigs, clubs, parties and pubs and having the best week of their lives. I needed some good news from the jeweller, needed him to reassure me that my unwanted tiara was worth enough money for me to retire before I went to uni.

The little bell above the door jingled to announce our entrance to the shop. Sparkling rings, bracelets, necklaces and even an old sceptre greeted our eyes as we walked towards the counter, looking around for the old man who'd served us last time. But from out of the back room came, not an old man, but a beautiful long haired girl. I couldn't help it; I stared at her coming towards us - all legs and breasts. And a face. She moved gracefully over to the counter, a small smile playing across her mouth as she flicked a stray strand of brown hair away from her large, blue eyes. She could have been a model, could have been an angel. She could have been stolen from the best dream I ever had and placed right here in front of me in the conscious world. The time it took her to walk the three steps from the back room to the counter was all the time I needed to fall in love with her.

"Hello there boys, how can I help you?" She asked, looking from me to Matt as if questioning who would be the first one to pluck up the courage to answer her question. I decided to get there before Matt could.

"Yes, hello there also," I said a little quicker than most people usually speak as I offered my most charming smile. She seemed suddenly taken aback, her face falling faster than a bungee-ing hippo. I suddenly remembered the large gap at the front of my charming smile, where the fan-propelled tiara had knocked my tooth out. I hastily stopped smiling and continued.

"Er, yes. We brought in a tiara last week to be repaired...that old guy said it would be done by now...so, er...is it?" I was not doing well.

"Yeah...hang on a sec." She said, looking at me in a way that didn't seem to say 'take me now', as I had hoped she would. She turned back in to the back room, and after a few seconds of rummaging re-emerged with the now restored tiara.

"Brilliant, yeah that's the one." I said. "He also told us he'd be able to value it once it's fixed, could you...er...do that for us too please?" My mind was racing, trying to establish links between expensive jewellery and wooing women. Unbelievably I was coming up with nothing.

"Well actually, I'm afraid this thing appears to be pretty worthless at it is." What? "See the front of it? It looks like the main jewel that should go there is missing. I don't think you'd get a good price for this thing without it."

"What? That's impossible!" I looked down at the tiara. It was true. The large ruby that had stood in the middle of the tiara was gone. But we'd picked up all the pieces in the pub, we'd made sure of it! It took us ages! Could it be at home? No, surely I would have noticed a ruby in my room during the last week. Had it been in the pieces we brought to the shop? I was sure we'd had everything, but it was so hard to tell with it broken in to so many pieces. I looked to Matt in desperation, as if he'd pull the thing out of his pocket singing 'ta-da!' but he looked as dumbfounded as me. I was lost for answers. Somehow, the most precious part of my tiara...

...was missing.

Untitled Story - Chapter 2 - Chocolate Flakes

Note: Chapter 1 can be found a couple of posts down the page because I didn't think the layout of this blog through.



"Eww, you kissed an old woman!" Matt said in a high pitched, children's mocking voice.


It was later that afternoon and I was sitting in Starbucks, my hair still wet from the three showers it took me to feel clean again, getting abuse for my earlier act of heroism. Was I not allowed one celebratory coffee before the kissing jokes started?

"I didn't kiss her! I performed a first aid technique to prevent her from dying, just as you would have had to do if you'd bothered to work for once."

Matt was another lifeguard at the baths. We'd both joined up on the same day after deciding that the job involved lying around staring at girls in bikinis all day, and being paid for it. What we hadn't realised, though it should have been obvious, was that pretty girls usually don't spend all their time lying around an indoor swimming pool in revealing-yet-tasteful swimming costumes - they usually go out shopping or something with their friends and boyfriends who don't spend all their free time shouting at children for jumping in the water. Those who did turn up usually just treated it as a workout, and didn't stay very long. In the pool, swim a few lengths, out of the pool, change, home. No stopping, no relaxing, no flirting with the pathetically desperate lifeguards. Instead I spent several hours a day, every weekend, staring at the water as a steady stream of bored parents with their sugar-doped children, overweight mammoths trying to justify their breakfast curries and wrinkled seniors trying to defy the closeness of death came and went throughout the day. I'd been working there for six months and the most interesting thing that had happened (until this morning, that is) was when they drained the pool after a child had had an "accident" in there and I'd got to go home early. It may have been the most boring job in the world, but it paid well and I needed the money. I also didn't trust myself to work up the effort to find another job, even if I'd left this one. Matt, on the other hand, didn't seem to care as much as me. Today was the 5th week in a row that I'd covered his shift as he'd spent the weekend doing whatever it is that people who don't spend their free time with a whistle around their necks do. Having fun, probably. Being normal. I still have no idea how he managed to always have enough money to do whatever he wanted without every working. Hell, I was struggling to get by every week and half the time I was collecting his paycheck as well! I had even less idea why he kept his name down as an employee if he was just going to have me do all his work every week. "Legal purposes," he once told me, which I'm fairly sure makes no sense.

"Yeah, there's no way I would ever get off with some random old woman, even if she is drowning."

"What? So you would have just left her there to die by the side of the pool as you watch?"

Matt considered this. "Well, the pool's usually pretty busy at that time. Lots of fitness freaks trying to keep, you know, fit. One of them probably knew first aid, leave it up to them."

I stared at him. "But...you're the lifeguard! You can't just 'leave it up to them', it's your job! They're sitting back leaving it up to you because you're the one who's supposed to deal with this sort of thing!"

"Aha, not necessarily. As a lifeguard am I not simply guarding their lives by ensuring they do not endanger them through running or jumping while near the pool? Surely it is the job of the paramedics to bring her back from the brink of death. Otherwise I would be a life-keeper. Or a life-resumer. Or a death stopper! Yeah, now that's much cooler. Matt and Jake. Swimming pool death stoppers. Then I'd start going to work." He grabbed his coffee and triumphantly drank half of it in one swig. I hoped it burned him.

"Yes but...I...You can't..." I had nothing. Dammit. Matt could be so worryingly logical when it came to excuses for not working. There was nothing I could do to argue with him. I'm useless in these situations. Give me a drowning pensioner over a dicussion with Matt any day. I looked around for inspiration and saw Ashleigh walking towards us holding a coffee with what appeared to be a forest growing out of it.

"Ashleigh, will you please agree with me that, as a lifeguard, it's my responsibility to save people from drowning. I can't believe I need to find clarification for this. Also, what the hell is in your coffee?" I asked as she sat down next to Matt.

Ashleigh was Matt's girlfriend. They'd met at some party shortly after Matt and I had become lifeguards. She did sometimes come down to the swimming pool to hang out with us in her bikini but, by Matt's rules, I was not allowed to look at her during these times. He even fashioned a pair of blinkers for me once, to help me abide by his strict law after he caught me breaking it a few times. It was difficult though. How are you supposed to talk to someone without ever looking at them? Especially when that someone looks like Ashleigh. She was tall and thin, with long brown hair that swept over one side of her face, a beautiful smile that showed off her perfect teeth. And fantastic boobs. In retrospect, Matt may have been completely justified with his rule - though I hated him for it at the time.

"Oh, I told the coffee guy that I liked the flakes they put in the coffee sometimes, so he gave me like twenty of them. I think he likes me," she smiled as she said this - I believe I mentioned her smile? It was perfect.

"What?" cried Matt, "He's trying get with my girl?" Seriously, who talks like that? I made a mental note to talk to Matt about watching so many old American TV shows. "Where is he? If he tries anything funny again, I'll kick his ass!" Matt was 5'2 (which only furthered my confusion as to how he got an amazonian goddess like Ashleigh in the first place).

"Of course it's your responsibility," she said, ignoring Matt and slapping my hand away as I tried to steal one of her flakes. "If you're not going to save someone from drowning, then what are you doing taking a job as a lifeguard? The two kind of come together..."

"Thank you," I replied thankful for whatever God allowed me to meet this creature that was so smart and beautiful and wonderful. If I told her Matt's theory, maybe I could convince her that he was cruel and stupid and she'd come to me instead and we'd elope together and live happily forever.


"But you did get off with an old woman," she giggled.

I hated her.

Matt seemed to have forgotten his outburst of thirty seconds ago and was laughing along with her. It would be nice to have some friends who would congratulate me and treat me nicely when I save someone's life, I thought, instead of these sadistic bastards.

"I wasn't getting off with her! I was performing..." I started saying, my voice seeming much higher and louder than it usually did, when the ringing of my phone cut me off.

"Hello?" I answered, standing up as Matt and Ashleigh continued to laugh at me.


"Ah, Mr Johnson, hello. This is Officer Jameson, calling on behalf of Mrs Prinkleton."



"Who?"



"The woman you saved this morning..."



"Oh yeah, her. Right. Yes. Carry on." Idiot. Who else could the police have been calling you about?



"Well she's doing fine Mr Johnson, since you seem so concerned," smart arse. "In fact she heard about how you were the one who saved her and she has decided she would like to offer you a reward. As I'm sure you're aware, she's a very wealthy woman."



"I..I was not aware of that. A reward would be lovely." Not the most gracious of acceptances - how are you supposed to react to this sort of thing? Why have I never learned how to accept what could possibly be a large sum of money from an elderly lady whose life I saved that morning?



"Really? You've never heard of her? Prinkleton? No? Wealthy husband? Famous explorer? Died under mysterious circumstances? Nothing?"



"Er...Sorry. Doesn't ring a bell."



"Oh...Right." Great, now he thinks I'm a moron. I must be the least heroic hero in the world. "Well anyway, she's asked me to let you know when she's out of hospital, and you can go and collect your reward then.



"Right. Good. Thank you...sir. Goodbye"



I returned back to the table where it appeared Matt had been explaining his 'lifeguarding isn't about saving people' theory to Ashleigh.



"You are right about one thing - death stopper is cooler. Would probably make a decent band name too."



I sat down with them after quickly grabbing a couple of Ashleigh's flakes.



"That old woman wants to offer me a reward for saving her."

"What, really?"

"Yeah, apparently she's really rich too" I confirmed as chocolate crumbs fell down my shirt and melted in to little, delicious stains. Who the hell came up with the idea of chocolate that falls apart when you eat it?

"Wow." Matt seemed suitably impressed. For about 3 seconds. "Hey, maybe she's just looking for a little more action, if you know what I mean. Maybe your reward's a little something for both of you" He winked and they both started laughing again.

"It wasn't a...I didn't...Oh shut up!"

***********

Despite his sordid predictions, Matt accompanied me to Mrs Prinkleton's manor house out of curiosity for just what my reward could be. It had been three days since I'd saved her life and, despite some decent mentions in the newspaper, all anyone really wanted to comment on was that I'd been "kissing" some old woman. Turning up at her house a couple of days later probably wouldn't help those rumours that I was secretly a debaucher of the elderly, but I was a hero dammit and I deserved my prize.

The huge wooden door opened up to reveal to us old Mrs Prinkleton herself, looking even smaller and frailer than I remembered with her white hair looking like mould on an orange and a better moustache than I could have grown in a year. I shuddered at the memories that I knew would haunt me forever.

"Hello Mrs Prinkleton, I'm:-"

"Who are you?" she interrupted, which I thought for a minute was rather a ridiculous question when I was in the middle of introducing myself before I noticed she was squinting at Matt.

"I'm...uh...I'm Matt" he replied, looking pretty taken aback. He must have been as shocked at her rudeness as I was. Old people today. "I'm a friend of Jakes..."

"What happened to your face?" she asked, rather bluntly, as she examined the large red circle on Matt's cheek.

"Er...Long story, I'd rather not go in to it really" he mumbled as I tried my hardest not to laugh. It wasn't a long story, it was just a ridiculous one. The previous day Matt had tried to attack Starbucks guy as he was now convinced, for some reason, that he was trying to steal Ashleigh's heart from him (and probably her boobs). I've no idea how he came to this conclusion, but the outcome of the situation had Matt collapsing over the counter after trying to leap over it to throttle his startled nemesis, who countered the failed attack by cracking Matt across the face with a pot of hot milk. Needless to say, with his burnt and bruised cheek and my still very swollen nose we probably didn't look like the kind of people who would be turning up at a rich old lady's house with honourable intentions.

She squinted a little more at him, then finally seemed to decide he didn't look like much of a threat to her belongings and ushered us both inside. Her house was huge and full of all sorts of odd decorations and souvenirs from all over the world.

"They were my husbands" she explained as she saw me staring at a case full of arrows and spears. "I'm sure you've heard of him, he was a very famous explorer. He came across all these items on his travels across the world. Before he so mysteriously died of course."

I mentally kicked myself for forgetting to google his name earlier. Why did everyone assume I'd heard of this man? And why did they all refer to his death as 'mysterious'? Did many deaths come with this description? If I hadn't saved his wife, would her death be reported as mysterious? Would she be remembered for 'mysteriously struggling to breathe once her head was under the water'? I'd never witnessed any other nearly fatal experiences while I'd been working there, so I knew drowning in a public pool was not particularly common. Was this enough for it to be mysterious though? I realised I was thinking about this all too much and turned my attention back to the real world, where Matt was concentrating more on her husband's life than his death.

"An explorer? I didn't realise there were explorers any more. Haven't we found everything yet?" he asked.

She looked at him darkly. "Oh there are many more unusual things still to be discovered in this world," she replied. Now that was mysterious.

"Um, yes well...we really were just coming for the er...the reward you see, so..." I said, rather uncomfortably.

She looked at me once more before turning around and walking towards the back room without saying a word.

"Smooth." Matt said to me, walking after her.

We followed her in to the kitchen where a small object was lying on the counter, wrapped in brown paper.

"Here you are then. Accept this gift with my gratitude."

She didn't sound very appreciative, considering I'd kept her from her watery doom, or even happy about giving the object away. I however was getting steadily more curious as to what this package was. I'd assumed it was simply going to be a (hopefully large) cash gift and had been praying it wasn't whatever Matt had been thinking up in his disgusting little mind a few days before. But this object looked the wrong shape to be filled with money. What could it be? My mind was racing through the possibilities of the possible wonders I could be about to recieve from this collector of exotic objects. I picked it up off the counter top and ripped off the paper to reveal inside...

...a tiara.