Page 5 of Ward D
I jump slightly at the sound of my friend Jade Carpenter’s voice. It’s funny because she is one of the loudest people I know with one of the biggest personalities, but sometimes she can sneak up on you like a stealth ninja. I turn around and she is standing behind me, leaning precariously against a row of size two blue jeans that would probably be too big on her.
“You think?” I say. I run my hand over the fabric again.
“Yes!” Jade tucks a strand of her pin-straight blond hair behind one ear. She put on far too much eye makeup this morning, and it’s caking on her eyelashes. “You never get new clothing for yourself, Amy. You always wear the same stuff.”
That’s not an entirely untrue statement. Yes, I can usually be found in blue jeans and oversized hooded sweatshirts. But Ilikehooded sweatshirts. They’re warm and cozy, and if it rains, you can put up the hood. They’re like the perfect clothing!
“Buy it,” Jade says. “Trust me.”
With those sage words, Jade wanders off to do her own shopping. Jade will leave the store with at least one new outfit, maybe two. And some jewelry. She always does.
For once, maybe I should do the same. My mom gave me some money—two crisp twenty-dollar bills which I broke on a bottle of peach iced tea (my absolute favorite drink in the universe), but the remainder is still sitting in my wallet. I could buy myself a sweater. I could have something nice to wear that isn’t a hooded sweatshirt for once in my life. It would be fun to show off the sweater at school on Monday.
I grab the price tag hanging off the sleeve of the sweater. And my mouth falls open.
Okay, I willnotbe buying this sweater today.
I shrug off the sweater, replace it on the hanger, and stick it back in the rack of clothing, trying to squelch my feelings of longing. How could a stupid sweater cost that much money, anyway? It’s just a bunch of yarn, isn’t it? I need to walk away before I develop some kind of dangerous attachment here.
While I’m standing in the middle of Ricardo’s, trying not to stroke the forbidden sweater, I notice a little girl standing on the other side of the clothing rack. She is about six or seven years old, wearing a pink dress that is the same color as the sweater, and with blond curls around her face. She is adorable, especially when she offers me a gap-toothed smile.
“That sweater would look pretty on you,” she says in her sweet little girl voice.
“Oh, thank you,” I say.
“You should buy it.”
I smile regretfully at the little girl. “Unfortunately, it’s a little too expensive.”
The girl looks up at me. Her eyes are very blue, like two little pools of perfect ocean water, rimmed with long dark eyelashes. “You should take it then,” she says.
What?
I stare at the little girl, thinking I must’ve heard her wrong. I wonder where her parents are. A girl that young shouldn’t be all alone, should she? “Excuse me?”
The little girl flashes her gap-toothed smile again. “Nobody will see,” she says. “It’s a big store. They won’t miss it.”
She’s right. Ricardo’s is huge. And there are very few salespeople working on the floor. If I stuffed the sweater into my backpack, nobody would notice. I could walk out of here with the sweater and it wouldn’t cost me a cent.
But I couldn’t do that. That would be stealing! I’ve never stolen anything in my life, not even a pack of gum. I couldn’t steal a whole sweater.
Before I can explain to this little girl that stealing is not okay, a hand closes around my forearm. Jade is standing next to me, a wild look in her blue eyes that are flecked with bits of yellow. She shifts her trademark red purse on her shoulder.
“Hey, Amy,” she says. “I’m ready to go. Let’s get out of here.”
Before I can protest, Jade is pulling me in the direction of the exit. It’s for the best, though. The thirty-seven dollars and change in my wallet won’t be enough to get me anything I really like here.
“Do you want to hit up Sally’s next?” I say as we weave our way through the clothing racks to get to the exit. “They have cheaper stuff.”
“Sure. Maybe.”
“Or maybe I can grab another peach iced tea?”
Jade laughs. “I’m pretty sure that if I cut you open, your blood would be like ninety percent peach iced tea.”
Well, what can I say? I love peach iced tea. There are worse vices.
Jade still has her skinny fingers wrapped around my wrist when we get to the store’s exit. As we walk through, a deafening alarm goes off. I freeze, surprised, and Jade’s grip on my arm tightens.
