~*Alexandra*~
Gathering up our stuff, Jenn and I exited the food court. As we passed a toy store, Jenn stared through the window curiously. "Do you want to go in?" I asked her, surprised. We hadn't gone in a toy store for years.
She nodded, so I tied my coat around my waist and followed her in. Jenn peared over a shelf on her tiptoes. "What're you looking for?" I asked, squeezing a talking Teletubbie. It responded in a joyous voice, "Big hug!" I giggled. "Jenn...look at this..." I looked up to hand it to her, but she wasn't there.
Deciding that it wasn't that great, I replaced the Teletubbie onto the shelf and went off to search for Jenn. I found her pacing up and down the Barbie aisle. "Jenn! What are you doing? You hate Barbies!"
"I know you I hate Barbies, Alex...I do too," she rolled her eyes, and glanced around some more. "I just...I thought I saw something, that's all."
"Okay...if you say so..." I sighed. Picking up a gymnastics Barbie, I snorted disgustedly. "Look at this Jenn...who looks like this? Nobody! What kind of example is this for little girls...?" I shoved the Barbie back on the shelf when Jenn didn't respond.
Just as I was about to tell her how annoyed I was with this not talking thing, a superball bounced over the aisle and hit me in the head. "Ow!" I reacted, even though it was so small that it barely hurt. It bounced some more and landed at Jenn's feet.
She stopped it with her toe, and then bent down to scoop it up. She tossed it back over the shelf into the aisle before us. Two seconds later, it was thrown back, bouncing higher and knocking over a Malibu Barbie display. I raised my eyebrows.
Two more balls came over, and I barely dodged them, allowing them to hit a box of Barbie shoes. I picked up a ball and Jenn picked up the other two and we threw them over the shelf. We waited a few seconds until they returned, with 4 more balls added. Jenn and I threw them back.
We played this game for a few more minutes, and every so often another ball was added. Sometimes it hit us and we laughed. Other times, we guessed that we hit our targets because a soft plunk along with a muffled "ow!" and laughter came from the opposite aisle.
Finally, I stopped throwing the balls back, and Jenn did too. I motioned for her to follow me around the aisle to meet our mysterious attackers. Just as we were about to go around a tall tower of Legos at the edge of the aisle divider, a man stopped us.
His nametag was labeled "MANAGER." Uh-oh.
"What do you ladies think you're doing?" He viewed with dismay the many bouncey super-balls scattering aisle 6.
"We...um..." I began, but stopped when two tall base-ball capped young guys walked a little too fast out of aisle 5, laughing loudly. Matching blonde ponytails stuck out of the hole in the back of the cap. Dark sunglasses shielded their eyes.
"It was them!" Jenn pointed to the two boys and they turned around, gasped at us, then ran out of the store.
The manager whirled around to where Jenn was pointing just as they rounded the corner and disappeared from our sight. The manager guy looked at us and sighed. "First, please pick up each of the balls and put them back in the bucket, then I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
We protested, but the manager only told us firmly that we had better or he'd report us. Jenn and I muttered rude remarks under our breathe as the manager walked away. We chased down all the tiny balls and put them back in the clear plastic bucket on the shelf in aisle 5.
As we left the store, I asked Jenn why she had wanted to go into the store anyway.
"I just wanted to see something..." she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder back into the store. "A little girl...that's all..."
All The Way To Albertane
You Are My Hope
Next
Back to chapter 3
