6teen Fan Fiction ❯ 7teen: Chillout ❯ The Big Hit ( Chapter 3 )

CHAPTER THREE

First the gas lines, then the air conditioning, and now the lights… this was all starting to seem connected. “Maybe it's just a malfunction…?” Jen suggested. “Maybe the cold wave is hurting the power lines?” but that was not likely as all the mall systems seem to be going off and on again at different times.

Everywhere we looked, something was going wrong! Lights were flickering, the AC constantly blew at people, gas-cookers were soft and then flared up like crazy, horribly turning whatever foods they were cooking.

“Okay! Seriously! What is going on?” Wyatt demanded to know.

That's when Nikki's phone rang. It was Jonesy. She tried to inform him of what was going on, but Jonesy sounded as if he was in a panic. “Nikki… I seriously could use some help right now.” He cried.

“What…? I thought this was your big score.”

“It is… only… it's a little TOO BIG…!”

The noise and sounds of all the angry customers could be heard by the rest of us, and we decided to head for Grinde-Me. We ran into Jude along the way, literally as he cold floors made it hard to stop his skateboard, but we all headed to the shop to see such an angry spread of raging customers complaining about their coffees not being prepared right or have been kept waiting or far too long. “Ooh…It's like there's only one last tampon on sale.”

We all gazed at her “What? I've been in things like before.”

We fought our way past the angry crowds and all the flying coffee cups being thrown about. Caitlin's brand new jacket even got stained. “Oh, no…! I just got this!”

We found Jonsey hiding behind the counter, with his hands over his eyes and he was shaking and whimpering like a baby. Nikki tapped his shoulder causing him to jump and scream, and we all jumped and screamed too.

“Don't ever do that again!” cried Jonesy.

“What's going on in here?” Jen asked.

Jonesy explained that the power systems were all going crazy…

The grinders wouldn't grind the beans at a consistent rate. The heaters were all cold. Even the dispenser units were going crazy and not giving things out properly. Too much milk… too much sugar… not enough water… and with the coldness increasing, the people were getting quite cranky! “It's like every system in the mall is messed up or something.” Jonesy said.

Several coffee cups were thrown over. The counter barely missing us, and Jonesy's boss was cowering under the counter at this point too. “Where did I lose control…?” he whimpered.

Jonesy peered round the corner of the counter to see how bad the crowd was getting and something slipped out from his back pocket. “What's this…?” I asked as I picked it up. It was a small sticker with the word “Heat” on it.

Jonesy turned back to face us. “Uh oh…!” he muttered softly hoping we didn't hear him, but we did. “Uh oh…?” asked Jen “Do you know something about this?”

“I can explain…” Jonesy said, but Jude immediately recognized the sticker as from the mall's main breaker. “Dude…!” he snarled.

“You did all this?” added Wyatt.

“What? No…!” Jonesy said “Well… yes… but I only peeled off this one sticker. I didn't touch anything else. Honest.”

The point was now to get to the breaker, and we all managed to slip through the angry crowds without being seen. Jonesy would've hated to mess with them if they had found out what he had done.

No sooner had we slipped away did Ron show up. “All right…!” he growled “I knew there'd be a day when the army would rise again… IT'S TIME FOR FREEDOM!” and he jumped into the crowd doing whatever he possibly could to break it up, only… all those people against just him… extremely bad idea. Ron soon found himself being lifted up by the crowd. “AAH… help me!” he cried “Soldier need assistance!” and he was thrown clean out of the shop and onto the cold floor. “Ow…!” was all he could groan.

…

The rest of us managed to get to the maintenance halls and reached the main breaker and we found it was still open, but not a single of the switches were labeled. In fact, all the stickers were scattered around, and worse, all the circuits were improperly wired sending power surges from one source to another instantaneously. This was what was causing all the power systems to go berserk.

“Man!” cried Jonesy. He never thought anything like would happen by only taking one little sticker. “Well…?” snapped Nikki.

“Well what…?”

All of us expected Jonesy to fix things up. “You've had maintenance jobs before.” Jen said

“Yeah but I'm no electrician! I can hardly wire a drawstring through my gym-shorts.”

We all didn't think it could have been that hard, but just looking at all those many wires and circuits made us dizzy enough to want to faint. “Ah man this stupid thing!” snapped Jonesy, and in his outrage he slammed it hard with his fists… and strangely… it worked!

The lights came on. Gas lines were open. The AC was off… and the heat… the glorious heat finally started to kick in. Everyone in the mall cheered as they felt the warmth kicking in and they could finally ditch their winter wear.

We were all just speechless. “Wow…! …never thought that'd actually work.”

…

We walked all around the mall to check everything over. Everything was back to normal. We stopped on one of the upper floors to rest a bit, and a good bit of news from the weather station came in, saying that the cold front was going to die down by mall closing.

“Dude…! Awesome…!” Jude said as he stamped his foot and accidently kicked his skateboard sending it zooming down the way. “Sally!” he cried. We all ran after that runaway board, and through a series of unusual coincidences, the board zoomed past many shoppers, ricocheted off of objects along the way, made its way to the fourth floor, headed straight into Comic Cavern followed by the shattering sound of the glass of my display case… YET AGAIN!

“Ah! Come on!” I cried as I banged my head on the railing. “Oh! What a day! What… a… day!”

“Sorry, bro…” said Jude. I accepted his apology.

Jonesy couldn't help but tease me at the fact this was the third time my case had been shattered, but the rest of us just sniggered at him. “What…?” Jonesy asked, and he soon got his answer when he felt the ground shaking…

The shaking was being caused by an angry mob which was rushing to give Jonesy such a pounding when they found out it was he who sabotaged the breaker and led to all this trouble. “AAAHH…!” Jonesy screamed as he ran for it while avoiding the crowd.

“Yep… things are defiantly back to normal around here.” Nikki joked, and then we saw Jonesy's boss among the crowd and yell out. “Jonesy… you're fired!”

“Defiantly back to normal.” Jen laughed, and we all shared a laugh as we continued to watch Jonesy run for his skin!

Ending theme

I'm 7teen…
I have found my own way
I love my job, and I live at the mall today
and I am on my own now and forever

I'm 7teen… 7…TEEN

Still, the memories will last.

Jonesy… Caitlin… Wyatt… Jen… Jude… Nikki… Mykan

7TEEN!