The reconnaissance party had penetrated no further into the store
than halfway across the ground floor before being brought to a
standstill. Isobel, who was marginally in the lead, had made a beeline
for a display containing various foodstuffs and small cuddly toys.
"I thought the Doctor said we were supposed to be spying around,"
Samantha said. "Not stuffing our faces with nibbles we haven't paid
for."
"It's just a free sample," Isobel said, a biscuit halfway to her
mouth.
"Rather you than me. If it's like everything else we've seen so far,
it'll taste disgusting."
"Oh, don't be silly." She took a generous bite of the shortbread,
and chewed it thoughtfully. With her mouth full, she was unable to
talk, but the expression on her face spoke volumes.
"Hey," Jamie said, arriving with Victoria. "Is that shortbread?"
He reached out for a piece, but Victoria grabbed his hand.
"Don't!" she said sharply.
"Why, what's the matter?"
Isobel swallowed, gagged, swallowed again, and managed to speak. "It
tastes like rotten floorboards," she said. "But you didn't have any,
Victoria. How did you know it wouldn't be any good?"
Victoria blushed, and looked at her feet. "It's silly of me," she
said. "But you know those old stories, where the hero has to rescue
his true love from the fairies? Well, he's always told never to eat or
drink when he's in fairyland, or he won't escape. So I thought..." She
tailed off.
"I really hope you're talking nonsense," Samantha said. "Anyway,
let's get on with the job. Anything we want to look at?"
"Clothes, I suppose," Isobel said. "Let's head for Ladies' Fashions
and find out the worst."

Ladies' Fashions turned out to be a couple of floors up, and every
bit as bad as they'd expected. In fact, they decided, an in-depth
investigation was needed to establish just how dreadful these clothes
were. Every rack brought forth a new selection of horrors.
"Are you three going tae spend all day keeking at this stuff?" Jamie
asked, as Samantha proudly held up a haltertop that, as she put it,
"looked like it was made of sick."
"No, just a couple more hours," Isobel said. "Hey, who'd wear a
jumper like this?"
Victoria giggled. "Put it down. You don't know where it's been."
"Yes I do." Isobel read the label. "Another fine product from the
lunar penal colony."
"Oh, look at this!" Samantha had moved onto a display of leggings.
"How grotty can you get?"
Victoria and Isobel came to join her.
"I wonder what clan would have a tartan like that?" Isobel wondered.
"I don't know. Jamie, what clan--" Samantha looked around. "Where is
he?"
The trio looked this way and that. The familiar kilted figure was a
little way away, chatting to the elaborately coiffed young lady at the
perfume counter.
"Oh, he's found a new friend," Isobel said.
They watched a little longer.
"I hope that's just a subterfuge," she added.
"Looks more like snogging to me," Samantha said.
"Of course, he might just be using his powers of being attractive to
women in order to gain her confidence and make her cough up vital
secrets. You know, like James Bond."
"Yeah. And perhaps the Daleks are all really nice when you get to
know them."
"I'm going to try these on," Victoria said, a catch in her voice.
Isobel and Samantha turned, to see her already on her way to the
fitting booths with an armful of hideous garments.
"Whoops." Isobel shook her head. "I'll go and make sure she's all
right. You try and get Jamie out of that siren's clutches. Throw a
bucket of water over them or something."

The trying-on cubicle was made of off-white formica, and contained,
in addition to the usual seat and mirror, a vase of hideous plastic
flowers. Somehow Isobel thought that made it worse. The flowers proved
that the ugliness wasn't just the result of carelessness; it had been
done with malice aforethought.
"I'm sorry," Victoria said. "It was stupid of me to get upset. It's
not as if Jamie's my official boyfriend or anything. I know he doesn't
mean any harm."
"Boys." Isobel shook her head. "More trouble than they're worth, I
sometimes think."
Victoria looked up sharply. "There isn't anything wrong between you
and Captain Turner?"
"Extended canon is divided on the subject," Isobel said. "Anyway,
we're talking about you, not me. You wouldn't normally get upset if
Jamie kissed Zoe or Samantha, would you?"
"Or Peri, or Jo, or Tegan..." Victoria imagined each in turn, and
shook her head. "No. Only that brazen trollop. I think this shop must
be having a bad effect on me. Let's get out of here and come back with
explosives."
She rose to her feet, to the ominous sound of rending fabric.
"That was my skirt!" Victoria twisted around, trying to see how bad
the damage was. "What happened?"
Isobel knelt down, and cautiously explored the underside of the
chair with her fingers.
"It's caught on a nail," she said. "This whole place must be
jerrybuilt."
She unhooked the dress, and looked Victoria over.
"I'm sorry," she added. "It's completely ruined."
Victoria, by dint of twisting and looking in the mirror, had reached
a similar conclusion. "I can't go out like this. It wouldn't be
decent."
"Well then." Isobel sorted through the clothes that Victoria had
grabbed as her excuse for coming into the cubicle in the first place.
"We'll just have to see what we can manage with these."

In the event, Samantha hadn't needed a bucket of water to separate
Jamie from the perfume counter girl, who apparently rejoiced in the
name Corannahowmayihelpyou -- which, unless she was a Time Lady,
seemed most implausible. A piece of Samantha's mind had been quite
sufficient to scare the little strumpet away, leaving her to deal with
Jamie.
"What were you thinking of?" she asked him.
Jamie gave her his best disarming smile.
"Ah, well," he said. "Some of us just can't help being devastatingly
handsome, ye ken."
"If you don't start talking sense I'll clout you one. There's
something going on here. In the normal way of things you wouldn't snog
someone you'd only just met, would you?"
"It's funny you should say that." Jamie grinned at her. "I seem to
remember that the only adventure we had together, you--"
"All right, forget that. What actually happened between you and
her?"
"I canna rightly say. We were just chatting, and suddenly, well, you
saw what she did."
"Yeah. And I don't trust her. She's probably trying to lure you into
some sort of honey trap."
"Och, there's no harm in her. Look, the Doctor said we'd be quite
safe, didn't we?"
"I'm not so sure. There's something funny going on round here."
"Ah." Samantha's caution seemed to strike a chord with Jamie. "Then
we'll need to lie low for a bit, to throw the Redcoats off the scent.
Come on."
Before she could protest, he was dragging her in the direction of
Soft Furnishings.

Victoria, as she hurried down the main stairs, was divided between
the emotions of nameless dread and embarrassment. Of the random
handful of garments she'd picked, the least unsuitable had been a
yellow-and-black striped rugby shirt apparently intended for a giant,
which hung down to her knees and completely covered what was left of
her skirt. She'd been forced to roll up the sleeves until they
resembled flotation devices round her arms. Even Isobel had hardly
been able to keep a straight face at the result. To add insult to
injury, Victoria had had to pay for the wretched thing.
"Hang on a moment," Isobel said. "I want to grab a tin of that
scrummy shortbread before we go."
"What?" Victoria stared at her friend in shock. "Isobel, you said
yourself it tasted like floorboards."
"I said it tasted *gorgeous*. Come on. I'll get some for you as
well."
She grabbed Victoria's arm firmly -- too firmly -- and marched her
over to the table with the shortbread.
"Hold this," she said, thrusting tin after tin into Victoria's
reluctant arms. "I want to get my money's worth."
"Isobel, this is madness!"
"Oh, rubbish." Isobel stuffed another free sample into her mouth.
"It'ff wonderfful."
Victoria considered what to do, and made up her mind. Throwing the
tins to the ground, where several burst on impact in a shower of
crumbs, she made a run for the main door. But before she was halfway
there, she could see the stolid green-clad figures of security guards
making their way toward her. She doubled back, dodged behind a table
stacked with travel bags, dashed between two of the advancing
myrmidons, and ducked into the base of an elaborate display of sports
equipment before they could work out where she'd got to.
Trying to muffle the sound of her breathing, she wryly remembered
what the Doctor had said earlier. Whatever they were up against, this
was a lot more than just overpricing.



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