“Good morning, my dear.” He gave her a smile, but June noticed he looked pale.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, just a small headache. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Why don’t you go home today and get some rest?”
“Oh, I’ll be as right as rain once I’ve had this coffee. Besides, I wouldn’t want to miss the drama here.” He indicated Mrs.B, who was stabbing the air with her finger.
“I think we should make a formal complaint to Ofcom,” Mrs.B shouted. “That news report was blatantly ageist.”
“And they didn’t use any footage of me and my friends,” Chantal said. “It’s like we weren’t even there.”
“Exactly. This is why I’ve never paid my license fee. They’re all right-wing b—”
“There’s someone at the door,” June said, pointing outside toward a man wearing combat trousers and an exhausted expression. He had a camera slung over his shoulder.
“He looks like one of those bottom-feeder journalists,” Mrs.B said. “Go and tell him to piss off.”
“He’ll just want to humiliate us again,” Stanley said.
June ran a hand over her hair and walked to the door. “Can I help you?”
“Is this the library with the pensioners protest?” the man asked.
“Well, you see, it’s not exactly a pensioner protest.”
“That’s what everyone’s calling it.”
“Everyone?”
“It’s gone viral. It was trending on Twitter last night.”
“What?”
“Here.” He pulled out his phone and showed it to her. The hashtag #oapprotest was everywhere on the screen. “People have gone mad for it—your old dears are famous now. Especially that guy who talked about surfing.”
“But we thought the news made us all look a bit, well, silly.”
“Nah, people love a feel-good story. And I’m not the only one to think so.” He signaled over his shoulder to where several other men and women were crossing the road toward the library. “Can I come in and do some interviews before this lot get in?”
“Hang on a minute.” June shut the door and returned to the group.
Mrs.B was mid-rant when June arrived. “I hope you told him to put his camera where the sun don’t shine.”
“Not quite.” June explained what the man had told her.
“I’m sorry, but what does ‘viral’ mean?” Stanley said. “It sounds rather unpleasant.”
“But they completely misrepresented us,” Chantal said.
“Look, if we’re going to stand any chance of saving the library, we need to get as much attention as possible,” June said. “And if that means playing up to this ‘pensioner protest’ thing to get in the papers, I think we should do it.” She turned to Stanley. “You were the one who started this occupation. What do you think?”
He sighed. “Reluctantly, I agree with you. We’d be fools to miss this opportunity.”
“But I’ve never been called an OAP in all my life,” Mrs.B muttered. June looked at her and she frowned. “Fine. If it’s for the good of the library, I suppose I can handle it one more time.”
“There’s just one problem,” Chantal said. “If they only want to see pensioners, it’s going to seem like a pretty small protest.”
