Waking up on the wrong side of the bed was soon to be the least of my problems. In fact, It was the reason for all my problems. Mother Dearest had managed to get me a job in The Bean Bar, to keep me busy before I started school in September.

Since we'd lived in Texas for approximately two and half days, I had yet to make any friends, and it was kind of all her fault, she felt obliged to keep me entertained. It would have been vaguely fun, except for the fact that my boss was a total nightmare; a perfectionist and thinks that the world revolves around her poxxy shopping mall coffee shop.

Needless to say when my alarm went off at the criminal time of 7 am I was not in the greatest of moods. As I trudged downstairs Mum was bustling around, shoving toast in her mouth and grabbing a gold scarf to shove in her bag.

"Rae, what goes with this?" she asked holding up a pair of white sandals. I shrugged.

"You're the designer," I said running my fingers through the nest that had collected on top of my head.

"You're right," she said running around the kitchen.

"Oh Rae!" she suddenly exclaimed in desperation. "I'm so late! I was up all night trying to finish the last in the collection. Would you take to Noah to school?"

"Holidays Mum," I reminded her casually.

"I know, don't be late for work. Noah's got summer school."

"Summer school?" I asked in despair "What?"

"Yeah, I'm apparently too dumb to have a holiday," Noah (lil' bro) said stomping downstairs.

"Yes you are honey," Mum said so nicely "Rachel's going to take you there. Aren't you love?" she asked threateningly.

"Nyuh," I answered drinking orange juice then made a face "This is foul!" I exclaimed.

"Don't say that Rachel, you sound too English," Mum said;

"In case it's passed your notice for the past fifteen years. I am," I said.

"Yeah and you're going to draw even more attention to yourself if you don't adopt this accent," she answered, gesturing to herself, the picture of Amerciana, still racing around the house

"Seen my-?" she began asking

"Under the table," I called back. Where everything other piece of her clothing lived.

Messy bitch.

"Have fun darlings!" she cooed

"Now who sounds like an English prat?" I asked sarcastically.

"I never called you a prat," she answered and left. I rolled my eyes

"Hey lil' bro," I said ruffling Noah's hair. "Eat food then we'll scoot off to dumbass school,"

He just smiled, knowing full well that he was stupid. But he was a freaking awesome little brother, what he lacked in educational intelligence, he made up in common sense.

We were a team, us against the world (or Mum as the case usually is).

"I don't like America," he mumbled as we walked to my work.

"Hmmm," I just answered. "It's sunnier,"

"I get burnt," he shot back, I smiled.

"It's bigger. Better shops!"

"Easier to get lost. And I hate shopping,"

"Jeez Noah! Tough, we live here now." I didn't like it here either, but Mum had just hit her big break and we couldn't hold her back. Plus her entire family lives here.

We'd met our grandparents only twice in our lives and we were both too young to remember (or in Noah's case not born yet on one occasion) and we had never met Mum's sister. I had always wondered about her, apparently her and Mum had a huge fall out over the 'family business' and haven't seen each other since.

This was also another reason why Mum wanted to move back to America, she said it was time to build bridges. Later on I found out I was her secret weapon. But back to walking to work.

"Right Noah, tell Mum I walked you all the way and I'll get you that turtle game, yeah?" I said when I came to the entrance of the mall

"Deal," he nodded.

"Good, have fun!" I said sarcastically. He laughed bitterly.

"You're seven minutes late," barked Zoë, boss from hell. "I wanted to give you a briefing before we opened."

"Sorry. I had to take my little brother to school,"

"Rachel. That's not a valid excuse. It's the summer holidays," she said whilst making a milkshake. Seriously, who would get up this early just for a milkshake?

"He's got summer school," I answered

"Yeah sure," she said disbelievingly "There's a customer waiting," she said. I sighed and walked over to him from behind the counter

"What can I get you?" I asked, super cheery smile on my face.

"Do you do table service?" he barked grumpily, wearing an ugly grey suit and an even uglier expression.

"No, it's a take out only," I said, glancing around at the tiny shop, no tables or chairs in sight.

I know it's early but Jesus use your eyes.

"Useless," he muttered under his breath, well hissed, however he said it I still heard it.

"I'll take one Americano with an extra shot. Large. And no, I don't want anything else," he said.

Okay no messing with this guy. I rolled my eyes when I turned to make the coffee. Zoë saw and hit my arm

"Respect," she hissed giving me a look that Satan himself would retreat from.

"Sorry," I said trying to sound sincere and, through some miracle, managed to make his coffee without spitting in it.

"That $2.10," I said remembering to say dollars instead of pounds. He spluttered the coffee he had just swigged all over me. I looked at the soggy apron in disgust, closed my eyes and prayed for strength.

"What?" he screamed "An Americano costs $1.85 in The Coffee House!" he yelled. "This preposterous! Daylight robbery!" I was about to ask him why he just didn't go to The Coffee House instead of coming here and ruining my day by spitting coffee all over me when Zoë zoomed over to see what he was shouting about.

"Is everything okay here?" she asked politely, but I could hear the strain in her voice.

"Of course not!" Mr. Ugly Grey Suit said. "This woman's surely overcharged me,"

"Rachel!" Zoë scolded, blaming me immediately. Who ever thought that the customer was always right needed some talking to.

"How can I have overcharged him?" I asked in my defense "He's only bought one thing! It's there, the price is there on the board behind me," I pointed dramatically at the big blackboard. Written on it in white fancy writing was each item we sold with the price next to it.

Clearly, oh so very clearly was 'Americano-$2.10'. I, slowly and very smugly, turned back to him, with that I-was-right expression fixed firmly on my face. Instead of apologising and humbly paying for his drink, his face grew redder and redder.

"That can't be right!" he exclaimed "You can't be allowed to charge these extortionate prices. It's theft, pure theft. Outrageous,"

Boy this guy was really getting on my wick. It was 25c, 25 measly cents more than what he paid at 'The Coffee House'.

That was 13 whole pence in England.

Absolutely ridiculous.

And he still hadn't paid, so I casually reminded him.

"I'm sorry, but that's still $2.10." I said.

"No! I'm not paying that. I want a refund, you can have your coffee back." What was this guy's problem? Was he in a $1.85 budget or something?

"We can't take it back," I answered my voice little louder than usual "Because you spat it all over me," I gestured the brown coffee stain on my apron angrily. "Just pay, and leave!"

He looked momentarily shocked when he realised he wasn't the only one who was prepared to get aggressive. Grumblingly and muttering things to himself (I reckoned they were death threats), he handed over the money.

"This better be one bloody good coffee," he said on his way out. As soon as he had gone Zoë rounded on me.

"What was that about?" she yelled hysterically, her dark hair frizzing out of its last minute ponytail. "You do not argue with me in front of the customer, you do not argue with the customer! You especially do not yell at him!"

How could she blame me? What had I done wrong except defend her pathetic little coffee shop and her pricing decisions.

"Oh I'm sorry," I answered sarcastically "I must have missed that briefing,"

She narrowed her eyes at me "Thin ice," she warned with venom in her voice. "Another trick like that will cost you your job,"

I shut my mouth. I would be unbelievably bored out of my brains if I lost this job.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

Zoë nodded, a scowl on her face, and went back to filling up the cake stand.

The rest of my morning was horrifically uneventful. The incident with Ugly Grey Suit Man had got me thinking, maybe Zoë should lower some of her prices, the competition was clearly holding the Upper Hand, the amount of people going into Bean Around the World compared to ours was clearly at least double. I decided to be the ever fantastic Business entrepreneur and discuss the matter with Zoë.

"Hey Zoë. You know that Ugly Suit Man?" I asked.

Big mistake. I was surprised her head didn't drop off, she did not take one breath during the entire three minute lecture of respect for customers. I decided to get back to the point.

"Yes I know I'm sorry. But maybe he had point, maybe you are charging too much for a shopping mall coffee shop. What if you sent me to check out the prices in Bean Around the World, and you can base your new pricing on that," I thought it was amazingly intelligent of me to think of the secret spy bit. Obviously Zoë was still in a bad mood about the whole 'me exploding in front of the customer' thing because she grew even redder.

"Why? So I can go bankrupt? So I'll have to sell my lifelong ambition? I've worked way too hard and long on this project for some skinny little British know-it-all to come and persuade me to 'lower my prices'" this she said in a cruel imitation of my voice "so that her mother can move in and turn this into some kind of hippie fashion celebration!"

No wonder we were getting half as much customers as the competition, I wouldn't want to buy coffee from a mad shrieking woman whose hair had gone wild with the crazy. And what was that about my Mum? She was totally mental. I shrugged.

"Never mind," and went back to what I was doing.

Which was nothing.

In the early afternoon a few girls came in, presumably after their shopping trip, for some coffee. One had a boy with her and it seemed he had dragged his mate along too. His friend looked terribly bored, I thought he could have got it on with one of the other girls but after a few moments of listening to their shrieks and cries of indecision, I knew exactly why he was so reluctant.

Zoë left to go into the back room and told me to handle them, I got the faint impression she didn't like kids. After what felt like a year and three days the giggling friends had decided what they wanted. I made it as a batch, put it on the counter and took their money.

"The chocolate dust and cream stuff it over there," I said vaguely waving in the direction of the toppings "It's self service but don't go mad, my boss will kill me," I said wearily, massaging my temples as the shrieks went straight through me. The boy who had been dragged along was standing by the counter, looking at his shoes.

"Do you want anything or…?" I asked kindly, feeling sympathy for the poor lad.

"Oh...I…err…umm yeah…sure I'll have a…a…" he studied the board. "Any recommendations?" he asked. I shook my head

"S'all crap," I said without thinking. He smiled. "I mean…the milkshake's good." It was half true, it was good when you stirred it for about three hours to get the lumps out.

"I'll have one of them. Banana." he decided. I smirked, I liked this guy. Banana would be my first choice.

Oh yeah, because that's what you want to base a relationship on, your milkshake preferences.

He winced as one of the girls cooed his name from the Topping Counter.

"Wiiiill!" she simpered "Hurry uuuuup! Look at all the chocolate we can have!" she held up her coffee and we saw that one quarter of the paper cup was filled with chocolate powder, the cream underneath was struggling to hold the weight. The boy, whose name I now knew was Will, turned back to me.

"You want something stronger?" I teased.

"Don't tempt me," he answered half smiling.

I turned to make the milkshake, congratulating myself on putting on a clean apron after I was rudely spat upon. Mixing up the powder I decided that if I gave him a lumpy milkshake, he probably wouldn't come back. And I wanted him to come back. So my mind struck into ingenious mode and I spotted the Milk Frother. A wave of inspiration struck me like a ten ton wagon.

Oh I was clever.

If I mixed the mixture in this, there was no way it would be lumpy, just glorious, frothy, tasty milkshake. I even amazed myself sometimes. In my excitement however I forgot to put the milk into the metal container and just attached the paper cup onto the machine.

"So do you work here most days?" asked Will, who looked impressed at our 'Milkshake Mixer'. I nodded. "Yeah. I'm stuck here all summer." I wasn't going to tell him it was my first day.

But maybe I should have, then he might have taken a cautious step back when I pressed the 'on' button.

For several glorious seconds it worked.

Then the paper cup exploded under the pressure of the vibration, not only soaking me and Will in lumpy, sticky milkshake, but the whole counter.

"Fuck!" I cried, jumping back and colliding with something as the girls at the Topping Counter squealed.

Wow I didn't realise how much milkshake one cup could hold. It was all over the floor and half the shop was milky. And it seemed to be spreading flowing like-.

I turned around and groaned.

In my desperation to get away from exploding milkshake I had knocked an eight gallon container of milk over. It went incredibly far, milk, when it wanted to.

Very spectacular to watch how fast it streamed out into the mall. Not as spectacular as watching how fast Zoë streamed out from the back room and started yelling at me.

It was mortifying as her screams echoed around the now silent vicinity.

Especially since a milk sodden Will was witness to her complete eruption. If I wasn't so annoyed with myself I would have been impressed, Zoë's explosion was better than the milkshake's.

"I'm so sorry Zoë. I was just trying to make the Milkshake better," But even I would have fired me.

"I've had enough of your 'improvements'." she hissed, way too mad to even raise her voice. "Rachel you are so fired,"

Balls. I should have stayed in bed this morning. Zoë was apologising to Will and his ruined shirt.

"Don't worry," she said reassuringly. "You'll get a new one out of her wages,"

Freaking hell, she sure as hell knew nothing about the latest fashion. With the measly wages she was paying me he'd be lucky to get half a trainer (or sneaker as is said here in America). He just smiled and told her not to worry about it.

"I'm sure the stain will come out," he said, politely.

Well that's a story for the grandkids. I got fired on my first day of my first job by flooding the shop with milk and exploding a milkshake on a cute guy.