"Oh, shit" Mal said suddenly. "Yawn test! Fucking yawn test, mate!"

"What test?" exclaimed Rona.

"Shit, yeah, you're right. Why didn't I think of that?"

Rona held up her hand to get the attention of the waiter and then turned back to her friends. "What the hell are you two talking about?" When the waiter arrived she ordered a flat white.

Alain licked his lips, ready to explain. "You see" he started, "what we have here, is a situation where it seems as if a young woman is watching me. Now, you may ask yourself, how can we be sure if this is indeed the case?"

"You could ask her" suggested Rona.

"We may get to that yet. First, though, there's a simple test we can conduct."

"The Yawn Test" said Mal.

"Yeah, sure" said Rona. "What the hell is this 'Yawn Test'?"

Alain grinned. "You're familiar, I'm sure, with the phenomenon of the 'social yawn' -"

"Why are you talking like that?"

Alain ignored this interjection, and continued: "- whereby, upon observing a person yawn, you will also, almost uncontrollably, feel compelled to yawn yourself."

"Okay" said Rona, "I can see where this is heading, and it's turning into one of your stupidest ideas yet."

Alain and Mal continued unconcerned. "First things first" said Mal, "we need to calibrate."

"Oh, you two spend far too much time together."

Alain turned his head slowly, slightly, to the right. "Stop" whispered Mal sharply. "She flinched. Scale it back a bit."

Alain grinned. "This is going to be a tricky one, with her behind meit's going to be hard for her to see me yawn."

"Yeah, about that" said Rona, "what exactly d'you think she'd checking out? The back of your head?"

"Sshh" whispered Mal. "Recalibrate" he said to Alain. Alain straightened his head and then turned it again, but less so.

"Good, good, that should work" said Mal. "Get ready to yawn on my mark."

"Oh, for . . ." Rona slapped her hands on the table.

"Rona, sit down! You're screwing up the test!"

"Yeah, imagine that!" she said sarcastically. "I've got a better test. It's called the 'Hi, are you checking out that idiot over there?' test."