To Catch a Creeper Read Online Free

Hmm. Well maybe…maybe in the last scene they could all be singing, “Don’t worry ’bout a thing”.’ I didn’t even know I was going to say it until it popped out.
    Gurlet raises his eyeballs skywards, Turks looks baffled and Vicious Vivien is smirking.
    ‘Bob Marley. Reggae,’ I explain. ‘Just an idea, since you’ve got the little Rasta kids. Or “Oh I’m go-ing to Barbados, Oh sun-ny Caribbean sea”. And I really like the name, Gradual Brown. Really hip.’ They love to think things are hip here. ‘But in a Generation X kind of way…er, perhaps.’
    Lewis snorts. Other people are grinning, some more openly than others. Rosa’s jaw is hanging in a southward direction.
    ‘What on earth does she mean?’ Turks asks Lewis with a puzzled expression.
    ‘I think Cathy’s under the impression that eating Gradual Brown will turn your creamy fat couchies into reefer-smoking Rastafarians,’ Lewis titters. ‘Great trick if you can manage it, Gurlet.’
    ‘What?’ Turks stares at the screen, then laughs. And laughs. Everyone else joins in, lolling about holding their stomachs and retrieving tissues from handbags, pockets and cuffs. Still I’m not confident all the looks coming my way are friendly. Gurlet’s certainly aren’t.
    I grab the chance to collapse back in my chair and Rosa squeezes my hand. ‘Was I OK?’ I ask quietly.
    ‘Spot on,’ she replies with a curious look on her face.
    ‘Fucking ridiculous!’ Gurlet blasts. ‘What the hell does she know about…?’
    ‘Bugger me, no, Cathy’s right.’ Turks is wiping his eyes now, mouth open. ‘Hey, Gurlet, why not endow them all with dreadlocks and a big bamboo while you’re at it?’
    ‘Not a bad idea,’ I whisper to Rosa, who’s busy doodling a foetus on her notepad. ‘They could limbo dance under it.’
    ‘Cathy,’ she sniggers, ‘a big bamboo is what they call a willy in Jamaica.’
    ‘Trust you to know willies of the world,’ I nudge her arm, relieved the focus is finally off me.
    ‘Don’t tell me you’re about to present our clients with a campaign that suggests their bread’s gonna turn us gradually black?’ Luckily, Turks is still on at Gurlet so he doesn’t notice us heads down, biting our lips, trying hard to keep our faces straight and shoulders from shaking. ‘Solve the nation’s health problems and end racial tension all in one.’
    Gurlet presses a button and removes the disc, looking huffy. ‘Obviously the visuals are rough. And, with all due respect to Cathy,’ he gives me a daggers look, ‘she’s hardly experienced enough to grasp the bigger picture. Maybe the concepts of hip and cool are foreign to her…’
    ‘But buying bread isn’t, is it?’ Turks slaps him on the back. ‘Don’t you see, Gurlet, Cathy’s our secret weapon, Mrs Average Housewife. The hand that rocks the cradle, buys the groceries and actually spreads the darn sandwiches. Unappreciated, unnoticed, invisible – but the crucial force in the marketplace, isn’t that so, Viv?’
    He’s right, I inwardly reflect, I’m rarely appreciated, seldom noticed, often invisible. Even in my prime I could stand at a bar for hours, waiting for drinks and waving fivers while all were served around me. Younger and Wilding’s secret weapon. I puff with pride.
    ‘Absolutely.’ Vivien nods her head in agreement and smiles at me. ‘Cathy’s our eye into all those overweight frumpy women that the rest of us rarely notice unless their kids are squalling.’
    Wait a minute! That doesn’t sound so great. My ego deflates faster than one of Richard Branson’s air balloons, as she waxes on.
    ‘The voice of the middle-aged don’t-know-how-to-be’s even if it was handed to them on a plate, trudging through our supermarkets, desperately trying to find something to throw down their children’s necks so they can get back to watching the latest reality show. Sorry, I agree with Turks. The clients’ll never go for it. They’re pretty conservative