"Right. Well, your father is a problem that should have been dealt with... Hmph, but then you wouldn't be here. Ah well, one persons mistake is another's good fortune. But the point is, my dear one, unless<i>you</i>are willing to report him and press charges, no-one can do a thing. If I go to the police, it's just here-say. For all they know you could have got that lip falling off the back of a chair. You do have the reputation of being something of a klutz, after all..." Andrea shrugged. "<i>I </i>know you are telling the truth, but let's face it, who are they going to believe, an upstanding pillar of the community or the local witch?" She rolled her eyes at the word. "Anyway, hopefully he won't be your problem for too much longer, hmm? As for your mother... Well, let's just say she missed the opportunity of a lifetime when she fell for your father, and she knows it and part of her has regretted it ever since. Part of her doesn't want you to make the same mistake she did, and part of her is terrified of what will happen if you don't, and wants you to follow exactly in her footsteps. But that's enough talk about them." Andie left the cryptic statements hanging and moved on, refusing flatly to return to the topic.<br/><br/>"Now, I will have a contract for you to sign ready on Tuesday when you come in. I'll show you the stock system and pricing and stuff as we go. Oh and one very important thing, sweetheart. Do<i>NOT,</i>under<i>ANY</i>circumstances, get<i>knocked up</i>! If you do, I shall have to fire you. This is a very small business with very tight profit margins and I cannot afford to pay maternity pay. Sorry. In fact it's probably best if you stay away from men altogether. That's the only one hundred percent guaranteed method of contraception, after all! Save yourself for the<i>right</i>person...!" There was something odd in the way Andie said that, almost as if she might be hinting at someone in particular.<br/><br/>"But right now, you need to learn how to work The Beast!" She giggled and led Kaileigh out to the front of the shop. "Now then, come this side of the counter dear, you work here now. Right, this magnificent specimen is The Beast." Andrea gestured proudly to the cash register. "This thing that looks like a nineteen seventies reject laser gun, actually<i>is</i>a laser gun."  She lifted the scanner out of it's clip. "Don't go shooting aliens with it, though, please. The aliens in here are saleable goods and if you kill them you'll have to pay for them..." Sometimes it was impossible to tell whether Andrea was joking or not. "It's for scanning bar codes. Bring me something off the shelf, dear one." She waited until Kaileigh brought her an object. "You know what a bar code is, I take it? Good. So you point the scanner at the barcode and press the trigger and it fires a scanning laser that reads the code and interprets it into a ploo code, that's short for Product Look Up, Pee Ell Yoo. PLU!" She demonstrated and the item description and price came up on the LCD screen. So if you want to ring up the item, you tap the screen where it says 'ring up'. Cancel the item, tap cancel. To cancel an item you've already rung up..." She ran through all the basic functions, including how to use the chip-and-pin card reader, how to use the manual "click-clack" machine that some people still insisted on using, how to enter a cash or personal cheque sale, how to give change (Obvious seeming but none the less important), and how to cancel an item if she made a mistake.<br/><br/>"If the worst comes to the worst, give me a shout and I'll come and help. Okay? Right, let's see how you do..." And with that, Andrea  walked back into her office, leaving the door open just a crack.