Girls Best Friend: Part 7

As Justin walked away from her towards the boarding gate he needed Millie was grinning. No-one had ever given her their card before. It was all rather exciting and for a moment she felt like she was in a movie. She felt smug as she thought about their brief meeting. Then she felt a bit embarrassed and within seconds she felt like an idiot. Justin must be crazy she thought, there must be something wrong with him, why would he want to go for a drink with me? She looked down at his business card.

Justin Held

Private Investigator

Specialising in retrieval of stolen goods (e.g. diamonds, people, dogs)

Also available for carpet fitting, plumbing emergencies & removals.

Millie looked at her boarding pass and saw that she had to board 30 minutes before departure, she checked her watch and saw that she still had half an hour. She found it strange to be getting on a train and knowing she would have to go through much the same process that she would if she was getting on a plane. She picked up her broken bag and carrying it in one arm like a baby, she grabbed the others and dragged them haphazardly towards the ladies bathroom.

She followed the signs and thought that if the toilets were any further away she would have walked to Paris before she found them, then she thought what if she needed 20p to use them, and began wondering if she thought she had one. Millie was pleasantly surprised to find the toilets were free and there was no queue.
She went in to a cubicle and sat down and looked at her luggage. Great! what a lovely stain and how brilliant that she would now smell like a brewery for the duration, she checked inside to see if anything had been damaged,  but Millie had wrapped everything in clingfilm, and it was all ok. It had been a combination of ideas that she had come across when researching packing tips and techniques for the adventurous traveller. Some people had said that she should roll all of her items so they would take up less space and she could get more in and that had worked, but lots of people said take a carrier for dirty clothes and one even said to go as far as to vacuum pack it all. Well, she wasn't crazy…so she had rolled all her clothes and then wrapped them in clingfilm to keep them dry, her luggage did slightly resemble a drug barons stash but she was very pleased that she had done it after what had happened with the Baileys, and she mentally gave herself a little pat on the back.

She tried to pack some things from the broken carrier into her hand luggage bag but she was still left with quite a few items. There would be only one thing for it, she would have to get another bag. She came out of the cubicle and checked herself in the mirror and was surprised to find that she actually didn't look too bad. This new adventurous Millie had a healthy glow.

She went to one of the shops in the station and saw the exact bag she needed, it would be perfect, the price tag wasn't so perfect but she decided she would pay as she had to board soon. She sat outside on a bench and moved things around and tucked things in until she had just three bags, her main luggage, her new bag, and her hand luggage, she checked she had her boarding pass out and looked at her seat number, coach 11 seat 72, she was about to look away when she saw the notice again:

BOARDING CLOSES 30 MINUTES BEFORE DEPARTURE

WHAT?! WHAT?! Millie had thought it said she had to board 30 minutes before departure and checking her watch again she saw that it was 32 minutes till departure and she had exactly 2 minutes to get to the gate. She slung her hand luggage over her head and shoulder, placed the new bag on the top of the main luggage to lean against the handle and legged it. Luckily for Millie she wasn't far from the boarding gate and she made it just in time.

Hot and sweaty and panting, with hair stuck to her head and her coat buttoned incorrectly she passed as quickly as she could through passport control and security. Next she went through the departure lounge, checked the boarding gate, ran up the escalator, found the platform and then all she needed to do was to find her coach. As she walked, still panting, along the platform she looked up to see a huge clock indicating that departure was in two minutes. She was going to have to run again and she did, she wasn't a great runner at the best of times but with luggage too she really struggled, as she loped along the platform with her bag on wheels swinging and threatening to topple over, she wasn't sure she was going to make it and it was then that it occurred to her to get on the train and walk through the coaches. Millie grabbed the handle of the first door she came across and threw her stuff in like an Olympic bowler and jumped in after it, she literally closed the door, gave a sigh of relief and the train was off.

Millie stayed where she was for a few minutes whilst she composed herself for the walk to her coach, by her calculations she had three to go through before hers, and she lifted up her bag and began the walk. It was mainly 5 minutes of Millie saying ‘Oops, sorry, excuse me, oops, excuse me, sorry, can i just, thanks, thanks’ until she reached her coach. At the end was the luggage rack, and as if by chance there was a space the exact size and shape of her bag just waiting for her, and she pushed her bag in, found her seat and put the bag that was hanging across her body into the overhead shelving. The seat beside her was free and she was pleased about that as she wasn't in the mood for small talk. Millie sat down and took her coat off, pulled out the onboard magazine from the back of the seat in front of her and thought about getting some snacks from the bar or maybe even a drink. She saw from the corner of her eye that there was a power point between the seats in front of her and thought it would be a great opportunity to make sure her phone was fully charged and she got her bag down to get it out. Typically, it wasn't in that one, and she went to the luggage rack to get the other bag.

Millie stood staring at the luggage rack for a good 10 minutes, and playing back in her mind the run along the station and the throwing of bags onto the train, and she realised that somewhere between the boarding gate and the train she had lost her new luggage, her new luggage that had her mobile phone and her instructions, booking details and maps that she needed and she came over all queasy. She was lucky it didn't have her money or passport as she had carried the passport and moved her money into her main luggage. Apart from the paperwork all she had in the bag were a few t-shirts, a swimming costume and her pyjamas all rapped in clingfilm. She wondered forlornly back to her seat and couldn't believe her luck, oh well at least she could check the details on her email via her phone, she slapped her forehead hard like some melodramatic mime artist as she remembered she didn't have her phone.The first thing she would do when she got to Paris would be to find an internet cafe.

Millie was tired and opted to have a nap for the duration of the journey and she listened to the radio that was available, much the same as on a plane, through the arm of the seats. She was just dozing off when the show she was listening to had a newsflash..

"Well listeners, we have a newsflash for you today…beep de beep beeeeeep…Only moments ago St Pancras station was evacuated by police after a bag was left alone on the Eurostar platform. There is no more information at the moment but one of our correspondents is on the scene with the man that found the bag.
‘What can you tell us?’
‘Well, I work for Eurostar and the train had just left for Paris and there was this bag still on the station. I thought someone had just forgotten it and I went to check inside for ID and all I saw was shiny cling filmed packages – it was just like on TV when they find bombs – so I left it there and informed my manager.’
‘And were you scared?’
‘I was, I thought I wouldn't see my pet parrot again, it was just awful’
‘Ok, thank you’
So there you have it, a suspected bomb has been found on the platform to the Eurostar, St Pancras has been evacuated and the bomb squad are on their way, back to you in the studio.’

Millie was sweating again but without running, she tried to shake the feeling that it was her bag, surely it couldn't be, other people must wrap their items in cling film too, and she slid down into her chair and rested her head in her hand. Millie tried not to think about what kind of trouble she would be in if it was hers? She took the earphones out and tried to sleep. Soon she would be in Paris and it would be OK.