The Real Thing by Brian Falkner Read Free Book Online Page B

but
not the same bottle
, as number four. Six, seven and eight are from a larger bottle, at least two litres, and number nine is from a post-mix dispenser like a soda fountain.’
    There was general surprise around the table, and Mr Pansier in particular looked absolutely flabbergasted, but Fizzer hadn’t finished.
    ‘I wouldn’t stake my life on any of this, however, because the drinks all taste a little strange to me. I suspect you might use a different sweetener here in the States than we do back home. Maybe corn syrup instead of cane sugar. Something like that, I can’t be sure.’
    He put his notes down and looked a little guiltily around the room. ‘Sorry.’
    Mr Fairweather looked at Mr Pansier. ‘Well, Ricky, how did the lad do?’
    Mr Pansier looked stunned. As a pretext for delay, he opened a folder in front of him and pretended to scan a few sheets. Eventually, just when the wait was getting embarrassing, he said, ‘I think he’s right, pretty much, although it was a sixteen-ounce bottle, numbers four and five.’
    ‘Fraser did say
about half a litre
,’ Anastasia reminded him. ‘And half a litre is five hundred mil, which is near as dammit to a sixteen-ounce bottle.’
    Mr McCafferty was more direct. ‘Let me get this straight. This kid can tell the difference between the taste of Coke from a big bottle, and Coke from a small bottle, and you’re quibbling over a few mil! Hell,’ he tossed his pen down on the table in amazement, ‘I couldn’t tell Coke in a can from Coke in a bottle, and I work for the company! What kind of a test was this anyway?’
    ‘I … er,’ Mr Pansier started, but Mr Fairweather held up a hand and cut him off.
    ‘He was right about the sweetener too. So does anyone have any doubts about Fraser’s ability to help us out of our little … difficulty?’
    There was a unanimous shaking of heads.
    ‘OK, Fraser,’ he said, ‘let’s talk money.’
    It turned out to be just as well that Tupai was there, as Fizzer, never having had much money, had no real idea how to negotiate financially. Also, he believed that if you did good in this world, then good came back to you through unexpected ways, so he would have done it for nothing if it came to that. Karma he called it, (although, actually, Karma is a much more complicated concept than that).
    Tupai, on the other hand, found the negotiation process a little like a street fight and jumped in boots and all. Helped, no doubt, by the fact that, unknown to him, the people at that table were desperate enough to have mortgaged the company if they’d had to.
    The actual amount they arrived at is highly confidential, and there are several severe penalties for revealing it. But suffice to say that Fizzer and his dad would no longer be living in a caravan park by a smelly mangrove swamp, and Fizzer would not have to pay his way through university. He could also have purchased a brand new convertible Italian sports car if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t have a drivers’ licence and, anyway, he wasn’t into that sort of ostentatious display of wealth. Money had very little meaning for Fizzer.
    Tupai also accepted a modest fee, for no other reason than that they offered it. There was even the prospect of a job at Coca-Cola for Fizzer, after he had finished university, but that was too far ahead in the future to think about.
    So Fizzer was appointed as a Coca-Cola taster on a short-term contract, and Tupai was appointed as his assistant.
    Fizzer possessed good, almost uncanny intuition. But he was not psychic; he could not see the future. And that’s a real shame, because, if he had known what was in store for him, he might have turned the job down.

THE SECRET RECIPE
    The lock on the far doors of the yacht’s lounge snicked loudly, and the twin handles began to turn.
    A man and a woman entered. He was holding a menacing-looking pistol in his right hand, while she carried a clump of small, spiral-bound notepads and a handful of pens.