"I hold in my hand the envelope with the answer we've all been waiting for" said Basil. I love the way he's so dorky. After doing a little drumroll with his fingers he opened revealed the winner of the poster girl was me. Like, duh! So after much hugging (and awkwardly missing Basil's mouth and sticking my tongue up his nose) he asked to speak with Mapi alone. I left them to it and got to folding anything foldable. I couldn't really hear because some old trout came in looking for a muff (I was too preoccupied with earwigging to snigger). Just as I turned around to check the winter woollies Mapi left the shop. I didn't know what the story was until Basil eventually came over a couple of hours later. "Aoiphe, I don't want you to get upset about this but Mapi's had to be disciplined because of something she did" I'm all "Ohmagod, Basil, that's terrible" thinking how great it was there were just two of us working together. "Well, it's just that it concerns you. I'm afraid she gave Dermo the photographer some money to, well, make you look bad in the shot he took of you. He was caught adding acne to your chin". I stood there very calmly. "I sent her home to think about what she did but she'll be back in on Monday and she's going to apologise to you".

"How much did she bribe him with?" I enquired. He told me it was fifty euro. I suppose it would take a lot of time to make me look ugly. I lost out on twenty quid. If I ever see that Dermo again I'll claw his eyes out. I cast my mind back to school when I played an upset Von Trapp child and made my eyes well up.

"Oh Basil. Why do people do bad things? Why can't we all love each other?" I asked appealingly.

"Man, it's rough. Don't cry though Aoiphe. It's just a cultural thing. She didn't mean it". It was working. I started wailing on his shoulder and the next thing I knew I was in the Stag's Head with a hot port and a hot boy.