Chapter Twelve: Sweet and Sour
I don’t know how it happened, but we were dynamic crew when all four of us – Olly, Liam, Ash, and I – decided to go shopping. Liam and Ash were a bit lovey-dovey, which was weird, but I guess I was okay with that. It was just a little strange since I didn’t even know Liam liked Ash until a few days ago. I was cool with it, though, and Liam still wanted hang out with Olly and me. After all, he was the one who invited Olly and me to go shopping. Liam’s dad was taking him to find a Halloween costume. And Ash was super excited to look for matching costumes with Liam.
We got picked up in Liam’s dad's big truck that had a middle consul large enough that it probably could’ve fit two of us sitting side by side. The step to get up into the truck was probably two feet off the ground.
20 minutes later, Liam’s dad dropped us off, giving us a time limit and telling us to stick together, and to meet him in the front of the store at the end. We walked around as Ash ran her hands through a few of the costumes on the shelves, asking occasionally if it was something Liam liked too. We moved down the Halloween aisles with big colorful costumes hanging high on the shelves above us. Liam didn’t like some of the choices Ash picked out, and then he really liked one until he realized the costumes in question were $80 dollars each.
“Why?” he said, exasperated… And they kept looking.
Olly pushed a shopping cart, occasionally hopping up on the back of it and riding on it. It had a bum wheel and each time drifted precariously to the right toward the shelves of costumes.
“So… what is this stuff you wanted to go shopping for?” Ash asked me as I watched Olly. “What did you dress up as last year?”
I mumbled something. It was not one of my prouder moments. I’d dressed up as a character from a new Disney+ series that was super popular last year, but thinking back, it felt a little childish.
“Cool,” said Ash. "My little cousin dressed up as something like that…” That didn’t make me feel much better.
Ash then stopped, admiring another costume.
“Liam? Do you want to be piñatas?”
“They have Halloween costumes that are piñatas?” I asked, looking around. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Then I realized the costume wasn’t actually a piñata, it just had a lot of flaky paper hanging off of whole costume. It was white and came with a matching wrapped headpiece that completed the mummy costume.
“Isn’t that offensive to be calling a mummy a piñata?”
Ash waved her hand dismissively. “They have to do a better job on mummy costumes then. It’s probably offensive to dress up as mummies to begin with. Can you imagine being King Tut and learning that a bunch of kids are running around dressed up as you using rolls of toilet paper?”
"Have you ever seen those costumes that make someone invisible?" Olly asked, following his own train of thought.
“Invisibility cloaks?” Liam asked. “Yeah, I have one, it’s in my Hogwarts school trunk that I’ll be getting as soon as I turn eleven.”
“Haha… no, it’s a costume with two iPad screens. You set it up so they talk to each other and the front iPad shows what the camera from the back camera picks up. And vice versa. So basically, you look like you have a huge hole in you…”
“You should dress up as that!” I said to Liam and Ash.
“Woah, yeah, that is cool!” Ash and Liam went back to looking at costumes, Ash reaching out to hold Liam's hand. It made me a little sad since it reminded me of before, when I thought Stella liked me – before I realized she had actually hired her siblings to throw moldy food at me and fill water balloons with oil.
"Come on," I said to Olly. I grabbed the front of the cart and steered it to the end of the aisle and into the next one.
I started grabbing items off the shelf and plopping them in the basket.
“Umm…” said Olly. “Is this for your costume?”
I pulled more items off the shelf…
“Hmmm… Should I get the bigger one or the smaller one?"
“Is that for you?”
“Nope,” I said, choosing the bigger one and setting it in the basket. “It’s for the twins.”
An hour later, Liam’s dad dropped Olly and me off at my house. Liam and Ash waved goodbye and went back to Liam’s house.
“Come on!” I said, walking into the garage. “Get ready…” We reached onto the shelves in the garage and filled a bucket with water. I grabbed the big bag from shopping and Liam carried the bucket of water. In each of our hands, we carried massive super soakers… Pays to be prepared.
We marched across the street and then down to Stella’s house. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make this work, and I really was hoping not to see Stella – or her parents. We just wanted the twins… fortunately, I thought the twins were the most likely to be outside. At least, they seemed to come pretty quickly at times when we were outside. As we approached their house, I began to feel optimistic that they were indeed outside – we saw paper littering their yard and the neighbors', and found the twins a moment later in their back yard playing some sort of game with paper airplanes.
The yard was littered with paper. All over the place. And the wind, gentle as it was, was blowing papers from their big stack they had ineffectively tried to prevent from blowing away with a clump of grass. It looked like they had thrown nearly 50 paper airplanes that were in various shapes, various distances throughout the yard.
Zach, midway through folding another paper airplane, looked up at us, his eyes widening. Addi tensed, preparing either to run or to climb into the little playground they had in their back yard.
“We come in peace…” I said, holding my arms up a bit.
The kids eyed the super soakers warily. Peace through strength, right?
“Don’t worry; it’s just water.” I said. “We just didn’t want you throwing more balloons at us… or soup. Or soda and Mentos or whatever.”
“You like spies, right?” asked Olly. “And ninjas?” I said. Addi and Zach stared at us, mute.
“And superheroes – or, I don’t know, villains,” I said. “Really, we come in peace!”
I reached into the bulging bag. Addi and Zach tensed. I then pulled out a big candy bar. The thing was probably 11 inches long with a massive HERSHEY’S printed on the front. Addi and Zach’s eyes grew wide.
“How about we make a deal…”
“What kind of deal?” Addi asked, stepping forward.
“We’re going to hire you.”
“Hire us? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Yes, you can’t actually work in a store. But, we can hire you and you can work for us.”
“What for?”
“Stella hired you to throw oil balloons at us…” The twins' eyes widened and they seemed to become a little more distant. Evidentially, they were imaging the colossal chaos that that would occur if they threw oil balloons at Stella. “We don’t want you to throw anything at her. We want you to take something of hers… And give it to us.”
“Not actually stealing; we’ll eventually give it back… Just so it’s missing for a little while.” Olly said.
“And it has to be something important,” I said. “But not too important… Like you can’t take all her clothes.”
“Or her entire backpack…”
“Just something she likes…”
The twins looked back and forth between Olly and me. It’s the least we can do to stand up for ourselves, I thought. I mean, we weren’t telling the twins to go throw oil or moldy food at her.
“How much will you pay us?” Zach asked.
Yeah, I don’t know if that chocolate bar will be enough,” said Addi cagily. Of course the twins were going to be hard bargainers… Thus, the bulging bag of candy.
I looked at their slightly manic faces. She was probably literally right. The kids would probably sit on the little playground in their yard and much through the entire massive chocolate bar in one sitting.
“Okay… two chocolate bars.” I pulled another one out of the depths of the bulging bag. Thank goodness, we’d almost decided not to get that second one.
“Three,” said Addi.
“No, two.” I said. I broke the big chocolate bar in half. “Actually one and a half.”
“Two…” said Zach.
“Okay, two. But you have to bring us something good in return. One now, and one when you bring us the item.” I said.
“Deal.”
And so we shook on it. I tried to look for misgivings in the twins' eyes. We gave them one of the massive chocolate bars…
“Wait here,” Zach said. He whispered something in Addi’s ear and she nodded. “Actually, wait in the playground so Stella doesn’t see you.” Zach and Addi rushed off toward the house.
“Do you think they’re coming back?” Olly asked.
“Who knows?”
A few minutes later, Addi and Zach did come back.
And they presented, with a great flourish, a hairbrush.
“Um… no. You guys need to get something better than that,” I said.
“No, this is really good,” Zach said. Addi nodded. “Take it.”
“Stella really likes that brush.”
“Yeah… Can we have the other bar now?”
I hesitated.
A minute later, Olly and I were walking back to my house.
“Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how she reacts.”
“I think we just got scammed,” Olly said, as we walked back to my garage together, holding the brush. “We don’t know what Stella likes. They could give us anything…”
But the twins, it turned out, were as good as their word.
We got picked up in Liam’s dad's big truck that had a middle consul large enough that it probably could’ve fit two of us sitting side by side. The step to get up into the truck was probably two feet off the ground.
20 minutes later, Liam’s dad dropped us off, giving us a time limit and telling us to stick together, and to meet him in the front of the store at the end. We walked around as Ash ran her hands through a few of the costumes on the shelves, asking occasionally if it was something Liam liked too. We moved down the Halloween aisles with big colorful costumes hanging high on the shelves above us. Liam didn’t like some of the choices Ash picked out, and then he really liked one until he realized the costumes in question were $80 dollars each.
“Why?” he said, exasperated… And they kept looking.
Olly pushed a shopping cart, occasionally hopping up on the back of it and riding on it. It had a bum wheel and each time drifted precariously to the right toward the shelves of costumes.
“So… what is this stuff you wanted to go shopping for?” Ash asked me as I watched Olly. “What did you dress up as last year?”
I mumbled something. It was not one of my prouder moments. I’d dressed up as a character from a new Disney+ series that was super popular last year, but thinking back, it felt a little childish.
“Cool,” said Ash. "My little cousin dressed up as something like that…” That didn’t make me feel much better.
Ash then stopped, admiring another costume.
“Liam? Do you want to be piñatas?”
“They have Halloween costumes that are piñatas?” I asked, looking around. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Then I realized the costume wasn’t actually a piñata, it just had a lot of flaky paper hanging off of whole costume. It was white and came with a matching wrapped headpiece that completed the mummy costume.
“Isn’t that offensive to be calling a mummy a piñata?”
Ash waved her hand dismissively. “They have to do a better job on mummy costumes then. It’s probably offensive to dress up as mummies to begin with. Can you imagine being King Tut and learning that a bunch of kids are running around dressed up as you using rolls of toilet paper?”
"Have you ever seen those costumes that make someone invisible?" Olly asked, following his own train of thought.
“Invisibility cloaks?” Liam asked. “Yeah, I have one, it’s in my Hogwarts school trunk that I’ll be getting as soon as I turn eleven.”
“Haha… no, it’s a costume with two iPad screens. You set it up so they talk to each other and the front iPad shows what the camera from the back camera picks up. And vice versa. So basically, you look like you have a huge hole in you…”
“You should dress up as that!” I said to Liam and Ash.
“Woah, yeah, that is cool!” Ash and Liam went back to looking at costumes, Ash reaching out to hold Liam's hand. It made me a little sad since it reminded me of before, when I thought Stella liked me – before I realized she had actually hired her siblings to throw moldy food at me and fill water balloons with oil.
"Come on," I said to Olly. I grabbed the front of the cart and steered it to the end of the aisle and into the next one.
I started grabbing items off the shelf and plopping them in the basket.
“Umm…” said Olly. “Is this for your costume?”
I pulled more items off the shelf…
“Hmmm… Should I get the bigger one or the smaller one?"
“Is that for you?”
“Nope,” I said, choosing the bigger one and setting it in the basket. “It’s for the twins.”
An hour later, Liam’s dad dropped Olly and me off at my house. Liam and Ash waved goodbye and went back to Liam’s house.
“Come on!” I said, walking into the garage. “Get ready…” We reached onto the shelves in the garage and filled a bucket with water. I grabbed the big bag from shopping and Liam carried the bucket of water. In each of our hands, we carried massive super soakers… Pays to be prepared.
We marched across the street and then down to Stella’s house. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make this work, and I really was hoping not to see Stella – or her parents. We just wanted the twins… fortunately, I thought the twins were the most likely to be outside. At least, they seemed to come pretty quickly at times when we were outside. As we approached their house, I began to feel optimistic that they were indeed outside – we saw paper littering their yard and the neighbors', and found the twins a moment later in their back yard playing some sort of game with paper airplanes.
The yard was littered with paper. All over the place. And the wind, gentle as it was, was blowing papers from their big stack they had ineffectively tried to prevent from blowing away with a clump of grass. It looked like they had thrown nearly 50 paper airplanes that were in various shapes, various distances throughout the yard.
Zach, midway through folding another paper airplane, looked up at us, his eyes widening. Addi tensed, preparing either to run or to climb into the little playground they had in their back yard.
“We come in peace…” I said, holding my arms up a bit.
The kids eyed the super soakers warily. Peace through strength, right?
“Don’t worry; it’s just water.” I said. “We just didn’t want you throwing more balloons at us… or soup. Or soda and Mentos or whatever.”
“You like spies, right?” asked Olly. “And ninjas?” I said. Addi and Zach stared at us, mute.
“And superheroes – or, I don’t know, villains,” I said. “Really, we come in peace!”
I reached into the bulging bag. Addi and Zach tensed. I then pulled out a big candy bar. The thing was probably 11 inches long with a massive HERSHEY’S printed on the front. Addi and Zach’s eyes grew wide.
“How about we make a deal…”
“What kind of deal?” Addi asked, stepping forward.
“We’re going to hire you.”
“Hire us? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Yes, you can’t actually work in a store. But, we can hire you and you can work for us.”
“What for?”
“Stella hired you to throw oil balloons at us…” The twins' eyes widened and they seemed to become a little more distant. Evidentially, they were imaging the colossal chaos that that would occur if they threw oil balloons at Stella. “We don’t want you to throw anything at her. We want you to take something of hers… And give it to us.”
“Not actually stealing; we’ll eventually give it back… Just so it’s missing for a little while.” Olly said.
“And it has to be something important,” I said. “But not too important… Like you can’t take all her clothes.”
“Or her entire backpack…”
“Just something she likes…”
The twins looked back and forth between Olly and me. It’s the least we can do to stand up for ourselves, I thought. I mean, we weren’t telling the twins to go throw oil or moldy food at her.
“How much will you pay us?” Zach asked.
Yeah, I don’t know if that chocolate bar will be enough,” said Addi cagily. Of course the twins were going to be hard bargainers… Thus, the bulging bag of candy.
I looked at their slightly manic faces. She was probably literally right. The kids would probably sit on the little playground in their yard and much through the entire massive chocolate bar in one sitting.
“Okay… two chocolate bars.” I pulled another one out of the depths of the bulging bag. Thank goodness, we’d almost decided not to get that second one.
“Three,” said Addi.
“No, two.” I said. I broke the big chocolate bar in half. “Actually one and a half.”
“Two…” said Zach.
“Okay, two. But you have to bring us something good in return. One now, and one when you bring us the item.” I said.
“Deal.”
And so we shook on it. I tried to look for misgivings in the twins' eyes. We gave them one of the massive chocolate bars…
“Wait here,” Zach said. He whispered something in Addi’s ear and she nodded. “Actually, wait in the playground so Stella doesn’t see you.” Zach and Addi rushed off toward the house.
“Do you think they’re coming back?” Olly asked.
“Who knows?”
A few minutes later, Addi and Zach did come back.
And they presented, with a great flourish, a hairbrush.
“Um… no. You guys need to get something better than that,” I said.
“No, this is really good,” Zach said. Addi nodded. “Take it.”
“Stella really likes that brush.”
“Yeah… Can we have the other bar now?”
I hesitated.
A minute later, Olly and I were walking back to my house.
“Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how she reacts.”
“I think we just got scammed,” Olly said, as we walked back to my garage together, holding the brush. “We don’t know what Stella likes. They could give us anything…”
But the twins, it turned out, were as good as their word.
