Fic: An Act of Charity (1/2)

[john_amend_all]

Title: An Act of Charity (part 1)
Author: john_amend_all
Characters: OCs, Ace, Dodo
Rating: All ages
Word count: ~4800 total, ~2400 this part
Disclaimer: 'Doctor Who' characters belong to the BBC.
Author's notes: It's widely acknowledged that the 'Dorothy' mentioned in SJA: Death of the Doctor is intended to be Ace. There's another school of thought that would prefer it to be Dodo. Here, it's both.
Summary: What it's like to work for A Charitable Earth.

I hadn't expected to end up behind the counter in a charity shop. When I'd been at school, the expectation had been that we'd all walk into jobs with high-flying outfits in the City, or multinational corporations. But as it turned out, my exam results weren't brilliant, the banks and multinationals weren't interested, and I ended up at home with nothing to do, while most of my friends went off to university. Those of us left behind got into trouble in one way and another, and after one drunken escapade too many I found myself being sentenced to community service, working for A Charitable Earth.

When I showed up at the shop on my first day, I'd expected to be the only one there under 55. Certainly the manager, who'd been there to meet me and show me how the till worked, looked old enough. But even so, there wasn't anything blue-rinsed about her. She looked, and acted, like a hippy who'd smoked something really out of the way in the Sixties and never really come down to Earth since. I'm pretty sure she made all her own clothes, too. And just in case anyone was still inclined to trust her sanity, she insisted we all call her 'Dotty'.

As for the rest of the staff, I wasn't the only youngster. It seemed that the charity had quite a working relationship with the local magistrates, and they had several people repaying a debt to society, like me. To begin with, I'd always be working with one of the older volunteers, but after they were sure I knew how things worked and wasn't going to stick my hand in the till, I could end up paired with anyone. I worked quite a few shifts with a tough-looking girl called Deez, who told me she'd been in and out of trouble 'for years' until the charity had sorted her out. Her real name was Jessica, but nobody ever used that. Even her namebadge said 'Deez'.

"Do you have to have a nickname to work here?" I'd asked her.

She'd shaken her head. "No. When I started I was Jessica. Not even Jess. Dotty insisted on all the syllables."

"She's a fine one to talk."

"I don't think she's as daft as she looks," Deez had assured me. "She can't be, not and run a shop like this."

"So when did everyone start calling you Deez?"

"Long story," Deez said, and that was all she'd tell me.

Then, one morning when I showed up for my normal shift, I found a small knot of people already in the shop. Most of the younger staff were there, along with a couple of the blue-rinse brigade. Dotty was perched on the counter, wearing one of her less successful dresses. This one looked like a rug; maybe it had been, before she got her hands on it.

"There you are!" she said, making it sound as if my arrival was the cue for some kind of celebration. "Mrs Rycroft and Mrs Hill" — there was no question of those two battleaxes having nicknames — "will be looking after the shop this morning. Everybody else, we've got a house clearance to deal with. Now, Josh, I believe you can drive?"

"That's why I'm here," Josh said.

"Oh, yes, of course. Well, if you promise not to crash into the Chief Constable's car again, you can drive the van. It's parked out at the back. Now, where did I put that address?" She started searching her handbag, making quick darts at it as though she was afraid there was something in it that might bite back. "Yes, here we are. Prospect House, Gladstone Drive. Do you think you can find your way there?"

"'Course I can." Josh certainly didn't lack self-confidence. In his account of his accident, which we'd all heard at one point or another, he had been blameless, the Chief Constable had been entirely in the wrong, and any magistrate not in the pay of the police would have seen this at once and let him off. I don't think any of us actually believed his story, but we couldn't help admiring him for sticking to it.

"That'll be fab. You'll have room for a couple of passengers in the van, and I'll take the rest in my car. Now, who wants to ride with Josh?"

In the end, I ended up in the van as one of Josh's passengers. I spent most of the drive regretting it — being driven by Josh, in a clapped-out old van, was the scariest experience in my life to date. I said that to Deez later on; she replied that being a passenger in Dotty's car had been the scariest experience of her life, and next time we both ought to take the bus.

Prospect House, when we got there, was big, old and ugly, three floors high. It was set back from the road, behind a dark hedge. It wasn't actually boarded up, but getting on that way: by the look of it, nobody had lived there for some time. The front garden was overrun with brambles, though someone had hacked enough of them down to make space for us to park. We hung around in the driveway while Dotty hunted for the key and opened the front door. Then, she took us round the premises, in one breath telling the story of the elderly couple who had lived there, and in the next saying what we should do with this piece of furniture or that knick-knack. She used 'him' and 'her' to refer to the furniture, as well as the former occupants, just in case she wasn't being confusing enough already.

Most of the stuff was on the bottom floor — it seemed that the stairs had been too much for the old couple in their last years — so most of the heavy lifting we had to do was on the level. But there were one or two 'pieces', as Dotty called them, upstairs, and now and then Dotty would send a couple of us upstairs to fetch one. Downstairs everything had been reasonably clean and modern, but the rooms upstairs looked as if they hadn't been touched in years. The wallpaper was peeling, and the furniture we were recovering was all under dustsheets. Most of the rooms looked as if they'd last been decorated about eighty years ago.

It was while Josh and I were trying to shift a heavy chest of drawers out of one of the upstairs bedrooms that he suddenly said "Hang on," and let go of his end.

"What?" I asked him.

"I heard something fall down. Half a mo." He reached into the gap we'd opened behind the chest, and pulled out a small box, the sort of thing you might keep a ring or a brooch in. It looked old and worn, its surface polished shiny in places. He opened it, holding it so I couldn't see what was in there, and snapped it shut again.

"Let's have a look," I said.

Josh shook his head. "Finders keepers."

"But surely it belongs to—"

"Me," Josh said firmly. "I found it. No-one else knew it was here, did they? Dotty didn't, or she'd have said, 'Oh, I do so want you to make sure you don't miss the darling shiny things in this room.'"

Despite myself, I couldn't help laughing at his impersonation of her.

"But you ought to tell her."

"I'm not telling her anything." He pointed his finger at me. "And neither are you. Look, no-one knew this was here, so no-one'll miss it. If you say anything you'll just make trouble. You don't want to do that, do you?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Promise?"

"Promise." I know I shouldn't have, but Josh could be very convincing.

"OK. Let's get this thing downstairs before Dotty comes looking for us."

We kept on moving furniture until Dotty called a break for lunch. The van was more than half full, but there was still plenty to do. She'd said lunch would be provided, and sure enough she dished out packets of odd-looking fruit and lumpy home-made yogurt from the boot of her car. There were a few grumbles, to say the least.

"No chocolate?" Deez asked plaintively.

"Yeah, we know, you're a chocolate addict," Josh said. "You need to cut down on it before you start getting stuck in doors."

If anyone else had called Deez fat there'd have been violence done. But somehow Josh could get away with saying anything to anyone.

"Fruit won't kill you," he went on. He took a bite of a greengage, winced, and spat it into the brambles. "On second thoughts, I'd kill for a Coke right now."

"Why not get one?" Deez said. "There's a Co-op nearly next door." She pointed down the road.

"Didn't bring any money. But I suppose if it's in a good cause—"

"I'll go," I said hastily. I had a nasty feeling that Josh was about to explain why you were allowed to shoplift if you were working for a charity, and he'd probably talk me into agreeing with him. "That's a Coke and some chocolate. Anything else?"

Once I'd found out what everyone wanted, I went down the road to the supermarket and set about getting it. It seemed simple enough until I came to pay — the bottle of Coke I'd got turned out to have a leak, and the girl on the checkout as good as blamed me for it. I had to stand there while she mopped up the mess and then sent for someone to go and get a replacement bottle. By the time that was sorted out, the people behind me must have been waiting for ten minutes. Then the cash register came up with the wrong total — which can't have been easy when it's all done with barcodes — and once we'd finally agreed on the right amount, I got out my money and found that I was five pence short.

"I haven't got enough—" I began.

"'S all gone through now," the girl replied sulkily. "I'll have to get the manager. He's prob'ly on his lunch now," she added. "Might have to wait a bit."

"Oh, Gordon Bennett," the woman waiting behind me said. "Here, take this." She'd got out her own purse while we'd been arguing to and fro. "Five pence. Happy?"

The cashier took the money silently and with bad grace, and completed the transaction. For a moment it looked as if the till roll was going to jam and I'd be stuck there forever, but after a bit of groaning it went through and I was free to go. I hung around until the woman behind me had made her own purchases.

"I just wanted to say thanks," I said to her, once she'd finished. "And sorry for all the trouble."

"Not a problem," she said. "Call it my business."

"Business?" I repeated. She certainly looked like a businesswoman; fortyish, dressed for the office, with a smart handbag. Not the type I'd expect to sympathise with the likes of me — after a few hours shifting furniture, I didn't look anything special.

"That's right," she said. "See you."

She walked away briskly. I watched her go, and then made my way back to Prospect House. Deez and Josh were waiting outside.

"We'd almost given you up," Deez said.

"I had a bit of trouble at the shop," I said, and gave them edited highlights of how I'd got on. "Here you go."

"Thanks." Deez nearly snatched the chocolate from me and gulped it down. "I needed that. Can't go shifting furniture on grapefruit and... what was it?"

"Papayas," Josh said.

"I suppose not." I handed him his Coke. "Dotty must have been flapping about all over the place wondering where I was."

Josh shook his head. "I don't think she even noticed you were gone."

We headed inside, and got back to work.

*

"So what was that thing you found?" I asked Josh. We were taking a breather on the top landing; Dotty had decided that we needed to investigate the attic, and had gone in search of ladders, taking everyone else with her.

He pulled out the box, but didn't open it. He looked torn between wanting to show off his find, and wanting to make sure no-one else — in particular, Dotty — found out about it.

"Promise you'll keep this to yourself?" he said.

"I promised already," I protested. "OK, I won't tell."

Slowly, Josh opened the box. Inside, set in a pad of faded pink velvet, was a silver ring, with a design etched around its outer and inner surfaces that looked something like interlinked spiders.

"What d'you think?" he said. "Bet it's worth more than the rest of this stuff put together."

"I still think you should tell Dotty," I said.

"Not a chance." He pulled the ring out of its box, and slipped his little finger through it. "I'm not wastiiiii—"

I caught my breath. I'd been looking at his hand; for a moment, the ring had flared with brilliant light. As I blinked, the afterimages looked like white spiders crawling over his hand. Then I looked up at his face — it was pale, nearly white, and frozen in a horrified expression.

"Josh?" I shook him by the shoulder. "Josh!"

He shook me off, hard enough to send me into the nearest wall, jumped to his feet, and set off at a run. I gave chase down flight after flight of stairs, our footsteps echoing in the empty house. The others were sitting around at the bottom of the staircase — it looked as if they'd left Dotty to search for the ladder on her own. They looked up at the sound of our feet.

"Josh?" Deez began. She jumped to her feet. "What's the—"

He punched her in the face, and she went down like a bowling pin. Then he was through the door, and away. I ran after him, but he turned, and held up his hand, the one he'd put the ring on. Pale lightning flickered around it, and ran down his arm as far as the elbow. I ducked back inside, and slammed the door; a moment later something thumped against it from outside, smashing it against the wall with me pinned behind it.