Free Bhangra Babes by Narinder Dhami

marched over
    to the other side of the bhangra rack and began flipping through the CDs in silence.
    Well, really! I was disgusted. She could have said hi. Not that I wanted to speak to her either. But it
was
a bit rude.
    “I think I'll buy this one.” Rocky tapped the CD he was holding. “Shall we go and grab something to eat? Someone told me there's a place at the other end of the Broadway that does a great curry burger.”
    “You mean Baldev's Burgers,” I said.
    “That's the one.” Suddenly Rocky's eyes narrowed. “It's not, is it? It can't be! I've been looking for that for ages!”
    We all looked confused because we didn't have a clue what Rocky was talking about. He bent right over the rack to pick out one of the CDs on the opposite side. But when he lifted it out, Kiran's hand was holding the other side of it.
    “Excuse me,” Kiran said in what was, for her, quite a polite tone, “but I picked that up first.”
    “I don't think so,” Rocky said coolly. “I got to it before you did.”
    “No,” Kiran replied. “I was picking it up, and then you grabbed it.”
    “That's rubbish.” Rocky turned to us. “You saw me get this first, didn't you, girls?”
    “Er …,” I said. It had been my fleeting impression that Kiran had it first, but I couldn't be sure. “Um, it all happened so fast.”
    “It's mine,” Rocky said crossly, yanking at the CD and trying to pull it across the rack. “Hand it over.”
    “No chance,” Kiran retorted, hanging on tightly. “I've been looking for this forever.”
    “Give it to me!” Rocky snapped, sounding a bit like a spoilt little brat. Well, he would have done if he hadn't been so remarkably good-looking. “Let go!”
    A tug-of-war began, with Rocky pulling one way and Kiran the other. The rack of CDs began to rock dangerously from side to side.
    “Stop it!” Geena gasped. “You're going to—”
    I think what she was going to say was that they were about to knock the rack over. They did. It overturned, and all the CDs spilled out all over the floor.
    “Hey, what's going on?” The shop assistant, who had been bending down under the desk, shot upright and glared furiously at us.
    “Now see what you've done,” Rocky snarled at Kiran, who'd ended up clutching the CD after all. She stuck her tongue out at him.
    “Sorry.” Kiran turned to the shop assistant. “We'll help tidy up.”
    “I'm not helping,” Rocky said coldly. “It was nothing to do with me.”
    “Oh, come on, Rocky,” I urged. “It won't take long.”
    In frosty silence, we helped the shop assistant replace the CDs in alphabetical order. When we'd finished, Rocky turned and walked out of the shop without a word. We followed him, leaving Kiran to pay for
    the CD. I didn't much like the sarcastic look on her face as she watched us go.
    “Who the hell does that girl think she is?” Rocky fumed as we hurried to catch him up. “And how did she get to be so strong? It's not natural.”
    “Look, it was just an accident,” I soothed.
    “It was all her fault,” Rocky grumbled. He stared suspiciously at us. “Are you sure she's not a friend of yours?”
    “No way!” we chorused in a very heartfelt manner.
    “Good,” Rocky snapped, “because I'm on to her now, and she's as good as dead. See you.” He strode off, still fuming.
    “What about our curry burger?” Jazz called plaintively after him.
    Geena slumped against a nearby shop window. “That was awful. I'm exhausted.”
    “Wherever Kiran goes, trouble seems to follow,” I agreed, although I was uneasily aware that wasn't quite true in this case.
    Geena's conscience seemed to be troubling her too. “She did apologize to the shop assistant,” she muttered. “Rocky didn't.”
    “Well, he obviously didn't think it was his fault,” I said, leaping to defend my hero.
    “He did pick that CD up first,” Jazz remarked.
    “I thought Kiran did,” I said.
    “You do realize that we can't possibly even
pretend
to be friends with