Matt quickly stopped caring how he got Rona to contact her friends, and eventually he managed to guilt her into composing and sending the text-message. Finally resolved, and resigned, Rona decided that there was no point in being coy about it - if she was going to beg, she may as well do a good job of it - and she sent out the following message:

"Hi guys. I rly need a job asap. If u hear about a good 1 pls let me know."

Matt stopped short of asking her to hold her mobile up to the mouthpiece of the 'phone they were talking on so that he could hear it beep with each sent message - but only just.

It was only a minute before Rona's 'phone started ringing. "Is that your 'phone?" Matt asked excitedly. "Who is it?"

"It's Hannah" Rona replied. "I guess I better answer it."

"Okay, well ring me back and tell me what she says" Matt insisted, and he hung up.

As it turned out, what Hannah had to say wasn't very much, or at least not much that was very useful to Rona.

"Hey, Mouse" she started. "Looking or a job, eh? Bummer! Not so much fun being coolest chick on the dole any more? It's funny, I always figured you'd be on it forever, doing all your writing and everything. Don't stop writing, okay! Do it for me. Hey, listen, wish I could tell you there was a job at this end for you, but you wouldn't believe the number of C.V.s we get for the shop. Everyone wants to work there at the moment! It's insane. We're getting all these full-on bogan princesses coming in asking about work right now. It's fucking bizarre. With the bleached hair and the fake tan and the whole lot. I think they wanna work there just to get the discount on the clothes. Hey, you know this one girl came in and I'd actually sold her a jacket just the day before! Fucking denim jacket, you wouldn't believe it, it's like the eighties all over again. Anyway, this girl says 'Oh, oh, I love the clothes here so much I just have to get a job here!' Can you believe that?"

"Hi Hannah" Rona replied.

There wasn't much luck from Rona's other friends, either. When she managed to extricate herself from the conversation with Hannah, such as it was, Rona got a text-message from Phuong, who also had no good news. Rona wasn't surprised: Phuong's parents' shop was strictly family-only, and there was more than enough family to go around. Sacha couldn't help, either - or wouldn't: she texted back to say "You'd go mad here within a day", and Rona couldn't really argue. Alain texted back to ask if she knew of any job that would suit him - as if she would! "No" she replied.

It looked like being "no" all 'round.