Legends of Ninjago: Book 3: The Four Fangs: Chapter 10 — Winner, Winner, Catastrophe Dinner

“Dinner is served!”

Cole opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling of his room. He could hear and feel his friends’ footsteps as they thumped through the hall, eager to reach the dining table, but he remained where he was laying. For a long time he debated whether or not he dare attend the humiliation-fest that would be dinner at all, until someone knocked on the door.

“Cole?” His father asked, peering into the room. “Dinner is ready. It’s rude to keep others waiting.”

Cole held himself together just long enough for his father to leave, and then he made a face and tried to strangle the air. He had not missed his dad’s constant nagging, not a single bit. Don’t-be-so-dramatic-this and it’s-rude-to-keep-others-waiting-that. Was it so wrong to just want to be left alone now and then?

He knew that pressing the matter would only cause a scene, so he dragged his feet downstairs and entered the dining room. It looked as though it had had some work done recently, mainly the upholstery on the chairs and the new red wallpaper.

The second thing he noticed upon arrival was that the others had left a chair open for him, next to his father. He proceeded to take the seat on the complete opposite side of the table. Liu’s gaze seemed to grow just the tiniest bit cold, but Cole didn’t care. A few of his friends seemed to be looking back and forth between the two Becket men, as if waiting to see what would happen next.

“Alright then,” said their host at the head of the table. “Dig in.”

Jay hesitantly reached for the rice and after he was done, the others took their turns, still keeping their eyes and ears open.

Then Liu cleared his throat. “So, how have things been at school lately?” He filled his bowl with noodles and looked up at his son.

“It’s been fine,” said Cole, starting his meal with a small serving of vegetables.

“Your teachers haven’t been working you too hard, I hope.” He took a bite of noodles.

“Comparatively, no,” Cole muttered, reaching his chopsticks up to his mouth.

“Comparative to what?” Liu asked, setting his chopsticks down.

“Nothing.”

Cole kept his head down and worked on his food while Liu begrudgingly switched targets. The one good thing about having guests around was that they forced his father to act more amiably than he otherwise would. “And what about the rest of you? How have you all been enjoying your school?”

“You mean the…” Nya started.

“The Martha Oppenheimer.” Everyone turned toward Jay who still had a noodle hanging out of his mouth.

“The Martha Oppenheimer?” Liu repeated, furrowing his brow.

“He means the Marty Oppenheimer,” Zane clarified, stressing the word “Marty” and narrowing his eyes at Jay. “And Jay here is a bit of a…”

“Bafoon?” Ann offered.

“I was going to say, jokester, but that works too,” said Zane. Jay was not amused. “And school has been largely uneventful.”

Liu sniffed his approval. “I wish I could say the same for the rest of Ninjago. Did you all hear about those villages that were attacked by those monsters?”

Cole’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

“Terrifying stuff. Someone on the news was saying how they must be some sort of evolutionary mutation or other, though I find the fact that they look almost exactly like Serpentine to be very strange.”

Kai suddenly coughed and spluttered out a bit of soy sauce.

“You alright, Spike? Do you need a napkin?”

The fire ninja shook his head politely.

“Yeah, those attacks did look pretty scary,” Nya said, diverting everyone’s attention. “You’d have to be a maniac to want to run into a situation like that.” The way she spoke made it sound like she was referring to someone in particular, or perhaps it was just Cole’s imagination.

“Yes, I’m sure the brave men and women who arrived on the scene and risked their lives to save the civilians would concur,” said Ann, taking a sip of water. She, too, sounded very pointed.

“These noodles are really good!” Keaton piped up, taking a huge mouthful. “What did you say they were called again?”

“Zhajiangmian,” Liu smiled.

“Jaw-chang… Jaw-chang-shaw?” Keaton tried to repeat through another mouthful of noodles.

“It’s a traditional dish from the South, where my family is from,” Liu went on, ignoring the staring contest that had started between Ann and Nya.

“That’s where we’re from,” Kai blurted, swallowing some rice. “Me and my sister.”

“Really? Which prefecture?”

“Zhang-He prefecture.”

“Ahh, very good, very good. Been through there one or two times—lovely countryside there. What about you, Ann?” He asked, bringing her back into the conversation. “Where are you from?”

“Uh, Ninjago City,” she said quietly.

“Tha’s wher Jay’s fwom too,” said Keaton, downing a bowl of rice.

“Born and raised,” Jay said with a big grin.

“Ahh, I see.” He turned back to Ann, a cheeky grin in his face. “Is he your boyfriend then?”

“NO!” They both cried, turning bright red.

“Why? Does it look like we’re together?” Jay asked, more out of genuine fear than anything else.

“I can fix that,” said Ann flatly, and she held up her chopsticks as if they were a dagger.

“You don’t look like a couple,” Zane interrupted, giving both of them sharp looks.

“Sure you do. A couple of idiots,” Kai chuckled. Ann pointed her chopsticks in his direction.

“Knock it off!” She and Jay both growled.

“Hey, takes one to know one,” Nya joined in, unable to keep from snickering, and this time Ann looked like she just might actually stab someone.

Zane cleared his throat VERY loudly just then and everyone slowly became aware of Mr. Becket eyeing them all with a worried sort of look.

He gave a muffled cough. “Alright, then,” he said awkwardly, and then they all went back to their food for a minute, silently chewing and glowering to themselves. “Oh, I forgot to mention: I would be very grateful if you didn’t use the peppermint body lotion in the upstairs bathroom. Or the lavender soap, come to think of it. Both were quite expensive.”

Nya and Keaton exchanged a look but kept their heads down, taking two more bites of rice.

“We’ll be sure to,” said Ann, trying very hard to sound grown-up. “After all, you’ve let us stay in your beautiful home, it’s the least we can do. Ow!” The table stopped and stared for a moment as Ann’s glare zeroed in on Nya, who seemed not to notice Ann’s sudden cry of pain and picked up her water glass for a sip.

“Ah!” She yelped as the water in her cup seemingly sprang up to meet her mouth and spilled all down her shirt front. “You did that on purpose!”

“Did what?” Ann asked, glancing at a very confused Mr. Becket.

Nya’s eyes turned to slits as she started using her napkin to clean herself up. “Nothing,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“You’ll have to forgive Nya,” Ann said to Liu. “She can be very clumsy.”

Nya gave a shrill laugh. “It’s nothing compared to the way you snore at night. The first time I heard you I thought you were a bear.”

“Speaking of bears, you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?” Ann shot back.

“Okay, I think we’re crossing a line here,” said Jay, trying to smile and inching a bit closer to Nya.

“Hey, Keaton, pass the noodles, would ya?” Kai asked. The two of them were mostly still just eating.

“Oh, that line was crossed a looong time ago,” Ann grumbled.

“Oh really? When was that exactly? The day you had your emotions sucked out?” Nya said, leaning forward in her seat.

“Guys, the food’s getting cold,” said Kai, taking another huge serving of noodles, and seemingly content with how much leftover there currently was.

“You don’t understand anything,” Ann huffed, rolling her eyes.

“I understand perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“If you understood, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“No, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you weren’t such a stuck-up jerk!”

“Says the arrogant little neophyte who… who…”

“Yeah?”

“Grr! Just forget it!”

Ann ejected herself from the table and stormed off to the nearest bathroom, leaving everyone else either staring after her or slowly taking their next bite of noodles as they glanced around the tense room, seemingly waiting for permission for things to go back to normal.

Cole never liked it when Ann lost her cool like that. It was one of her worst traits, by far, but he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a reason for it. Why did she, out of all the people present, have such a hard time dealing with stressful situations? It was a question he was afraid he might never hear the answer to.

Keaton was first to resume eating, and she seemed to almost hunch over her bowl, to the point where her face was almost entirely hidden. Kai slid the noodle dish closer to her and she took a second helping.

“We are incredibly sorry about that,” Zane said to Liu carefully. “We’ve been… stuck together for quite some time now. I’m sure you can imagine how stressful things have been for us recently.” Well, at least someone at the table was trying to act mature.

Liu gave a strained smile and took a sip from his glass.

Cole knew that expression well. It was the “I don’t approve of your friends” look, and it was far, far from the first time he’d seen it. Actually, come to think of it, he couldn’t remember a single time when his dad hadn’t used it in the company of friends. No one Cole ever met was good enough for his sky-scraping standards, so why should this group be any different?

He unceremoniously chugged the rest of his water, then excused himself.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Liu asked as he got out of his seat. Cole rolled his eyes and turned around to pick up his bowl, chopsticks, and cup. “Thank you,” Liu called after him as he went into the kitchen.

It was already dark outside, so the whole house was lit with warm lamplight, especially the kitchen. Cole deposited his dishes in the sink, then trotted back upstairs where, hopefully, he wouldn’t be able to hear any more “conversation.”

* * *

“Well, that went swimmingly,” Nya snarked as she and Keaton trudged back into their room where a sullen Ann was sitting by the fireplace. She glanced in their direction, but nothing more.

Keaton made for the bed where she gingerly sat down, watching the two older girls. “We should get ready for bed, right?”

“Are you kidding?” Nya asked. “It’s seven o’clock. The only people who go to bed this early are retirees… and Ann.”

You could practically hear Ann’s eye roll from across the room. “You think you’re sooo funny, don’t you?” She asked, getting up.

“Funnier than you, Miss Can’t-Come-Up-With-A-Comeback.”

“Yes, that’s because I chose to fill my head up with practical knowledge, not foolishness,” Ann retorted, crossing the room, but only getting as far as where Nya was standing. “And tonight you made quite the fool of yourself.”

“You’re one to talk,” Nya shot back. “Using your powers in front of someone? I thought you were supposed to be the ‘smart’ one. I guess everyone was using those quotation marks for a reason.”

“You use up Mr. Becket’s fancy soaps, then you make a scene at dinner. You’re not exactly scoring very high on the IQ test either, little missy.”

“You did not just call me ‘little missy!’”

“Yeah. I did. What are you gonna do about it? Cry?”

“How about I give YOU something to cry about!?”

“You wanna try? Be my guest.”

“STOP!” Keaton suddenly yelled, and the three of them felt an intense burst of air push them toward the walls. When it hit the fireplace, it nearly left them without light. “Just… stop! Can’t you two just get along? Why are you even fighting anyway?” Through the dim light of the room, you could just make out the water brimming in her eyes.

They stared at her for a moment, then they stared at each other.

Ann couldn’t really remember. Perhaps there had just been something about Nya that she didn’t like. She certainly had a face that was easy to hate, but maybe that was just the anger talking. Or perhaps she’d forgotten the true reason when her memories had been messed with. That seemed to be the most plausible answer, since—for as long as she could remember—Nya had always kinda, sorta, vaguely reminded her of someone she used to know. Someone she also used to argue with a lot. Maybe Keaton felt the same way.

“Sorry, Keat,” Ann said quietly. “That’s enough for tonight.” Nya nodded slightly and went to sit down on the sofa by the fireplace, her arms folded. Then Ann walked over to Keaton and gave her a stiff hug, and a long overdue one at that. They’d been so busy lately…

The conversation in the stone tepee came to mind. Keaton had sounded very excited when the Winter Fest was brought up… and they had been roughing it for quite a while now… and the more she replayed everything in her head, the more and more tired she became. Maybe… maybe this little “vacation” was coming at a good time—they didn’t even know for sure if the Serpentine were really up to anything truly bad—and maybe… it was time she just relaxed for a while. Not that she really knew how to do that, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.

After Ann let go of her sister, she soon found herself walking over to one of the lace covered windows—the lights of the town shining through the glare of the strengthening firelight—and she began to shake her thoughts out further, free from the red monster of rage.

In regard to the events of the evening, it was painfully clear that she wasn’t acting very mature or responsible. At all. If Wu were here, she’d be facing disciplinary action. They were supposed to be a team, and here she was arguing with someone three years her junior. Maybe it was just in her nature. She sighed as she slowly came to terms with what she needed to do now.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Without a word, she walked over and revealed Mr. Becket on the other side.

“Hello, I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said politely.

“No, not at all,” she replied. “Can I help you with something?”

“Well, actually, yes. Would you mind coming with me for a moment?”

* * *

At about seven-thirty, Cole made his way back downstairs, sure that no one else would be around, and headed for the kitchen. It was dark, but he knew the way perfectly fine. The light from the inside the fridge lit up the room, causing him to squint as he rummaged around for something sweet to snack on. Low fat yogurt, nope. Pickles, nope. To fu, nope. He changed targets and opened up the freezer instead. Straight away he found a box of Fudgy Bars and grabbed one of the white bags from within. Score!

As he passed by the dining room, his mind flashed back to dinner and he had to resist the urge to cringe. He thought for sure Jay’s big mouth would have been the star of the night, but in the end, what did it matter? The outcome was still the same. He could already see his dad coming to him in the morning, saying what horrible taste he had in friends, and blah blah blah.

He was just about to take his first lick of the Fudgy Bar when he heard a terrifying noise coming from the dance studio.

“See? What did I tell you? Absolutely ravishing!”

Oh boy. What was his dad doing and who was he doing it to?

He could see light coming from the slightly open studio door, so he walked over and was about to barge in when he heard Ann’s voice and stopped cold.

“I don’t know… isn’t it a little… much?”

Very carefully, he leaned toward the door and peeked inside. There was his dad, smiling like an idiot, and then, next to him, there was…

Cole’s heart nearly tripped over itself. For a singular split second… he had very nearly mistaken her for… for…

She was standing there, her back to him, with her hair pinned up in a neat bun, wearing an old, white, floor length gown. The same gown that was proudly on display in one of the family photos hanging on the wall. He felt his throat catch as she twirled a little, sending the skirt flying. She looked perfect. Like a princess.

“Not at all, my dear. It adds just the right amount of flair. And it fits you like a glove!” His dad went on, positively gushing at the sight of her.

Cole felt his feet take two steps backward.

No. No. No. No no no no no no. He had already made up his mind—he was over Ann. He was over Ann. He was over Ann.

Why couldn’t he just make his stupid heart understand that? Why did his lungs have to breathe so hard? Why did his stomach have to get all twisted up into a thousand knots? Why did Ann have to look so… beautiful in his mother’s dress?

He found himself back at the door, watching her float across the floor, while his mother’s face flashed across hers in Cole’s mind. One part of him was starting to realise why he had really fallen for Ann in the first place… the other didn’t care. It was simply melting.

“And you’re sure it’s okay for me to wear this?” She asked, looking herself over one last time. “I’d hate to accidentally ruin it.”

“I’m sure,” said Liu. “It’s been gathering moth balls for far too long now.”

Cole’s heart twisted, just a bit. What exactly did he mean by that? Had he just been waiting for an excuse to use the dress again? Didn’t he care about the woman it had belonged to?

Ann was walking straight towards him, so he ducked into the nearest shadow and watched her head to the dining room bathroom, presumably to change. Liu had followed her and was now standing in the doorway of the studio. Cole could just see the brim of his nose sticking out, moustache and all.

“Well that didn’t take long,” he heard himself say.

Liu didn’t seem shocked to find his son standing there, next to him. “What would be the point of keeping it locked up?”

Cole watched that nose of his bob in and out of sight. “It would preserve it, for one thing.”

“…One day, it will go the way of all flesh. With or without our help. We should make the most of the time that we have left.”

Cole wanted to argue… but he also kind of wanted to agree. Overall, the conflicting feelings just made him frustrated. The silence wasn’t helping either. “So, what? You’re not gonna lecture me about my poor choice in friends?”

Liu sighed. “They’re… interesting, to say the least. But they’ll do.”

“‘Do?’ Do for what? The competition?” Cole blinked, and then it all made sense. “Oh, I get it now. You can’t go on tour anymore, so you’re going with the next best thing, is that it?” His father didn’t say anything. “Unbelievable.”

“We all have our own unique strengths.” His moustache twitched. “This is mine.”

Stiff as starch, he limped over to his room at the end of the hall and disappeared behind the wood of the door. Cole stared at it for a long time.

Eventually Ann came out of the bathroom, somewhat confused as to where Liu had gone, but Cole explained that his father was currently indisposed and offered to take the gown she was holding. He was walking into the studio as quickly as possible, leaving his FORMER-crush to climb back up the stairs alone, and trying not to remember how she had looked just a few minutes ago.

Very carefully, he placed the old dress on a hanger in the studio closet, letting the rich, silky fabric cascade down in beautiful ruffles. He wondered if it still smelled like his mother’s perfume… With no one else around—though he still felt somewhat silly—he discreetly brought a piece of the fabric up to his nose and breathed in.

Yep. That was her alright.

Something in his chest lurched as he took a second breath. The feel of the cloth, the smell of her perfume—he could almost pretend that she was really standing in front of him right now. With every aching bone in his body, he desperately begged for that to be true. He wanted to open his eyes and see her smiling down at him. He wanted to feel her touch again. He…

He wanted his mom.

He just wanted her.

With some effort, he did eventually open his eyes, but he didn’t see her smiling face, nor did he feel her comforting touch. All he saw was an old dress hanging in a closet. Nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. And it never would. Not this time, anyway.

He eventually wiped his eyes, then turned out the lights and closed the studio door. That was enough weepiness for one night; he hadn’t even gotten to finish his Fudgy Bar.

* * *

The next morning, the crew awoke to the smell of pancakes sizzling on the stove. Despite the disaster at dinner, Liu seemed in high spirits, greeting everyone with a big smile and a warm “good morning!”

Sleep hung in everyone’s eyes (or perhaps it wasn’t sleep, but rather the tension from last night) but the pancakes and the sunshine helped to melt the ice somewhat.

When Ann got up, she made sure to apologise to Liu about her behaviour, but he waved it off, saying to “let bygones be bygones.” Cole eyed him with a great amount of suspicion. He was never this nice. ‘He just needs them all for the competition,’ Cole thought.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for the subject of the floor show to take over the conversation, and once it did, there was no going back. Apparently, Liu had stayed up late, pouring over papers and papers of possible dance routine options and had finally come to a concrete decision about… well, everything. And yes, there was an aerial. Several, in fact. Cole drew his hand over his face as he wondered how on earth they were going to pull that off with an inexperienced dancer like Ann.

Fortunately, they would be practising those at a later date. Today, Liu had a hard enough time getting Kai, Jay, Zane and Keaton to simply dance in sync.

“Hold up your left hand,” he announced, looking a little weary. “The foot beneath that hand is your left foot. Now, when I play the music, start with your left foot.”

He punched the play button on the stereo, but the result had barely changed. It was painfully obvious to anyone that their current backup dancers had no idea what they were doing.

“Alright, stop, stop, stop!” Liu said coming over. “Cole and Ann, let’s work on you two for a bit. We’ve done the intro enough, I feel we can move on to the next part.” He described it in crystal clear detail—the way he always did—and Cole just stood, nodding, with a blank expression, wondering how many ways this could go wrong. Honestly, they were still very early on in the song, so they hadn’t built up to the crazy moves yet, but there was still a lot more stuff for Ann to do independently, and… Ann…

When the music started, Cole found himself fumbling more than usual. Every time he looked at her, all he could see was her in that dress. That beautiful, beautiful dress. He knew he’d be in for a lecture even before the music stopped.

“Cole, head out of the clouds, please, you’re a dancer not a pelican. Let’s take it from the top.”

A great deal of the day was spent just trying to explain what the dance moves needed to look like, which stressed Liu out a lot more than it stressed Cole out. Actually, Cole was enjoying watching Liu try to teach Kai how to do basic footwork and spins. It was like watching two monkeys argue over a lychee fruit.

“One, two, three-and-four, five, six, seven-and-eight, it’s not that complicated,” Liu would say, and then Kai would look as though he was seriously considering a career in pyrotechnics.

After many, many hours of this, however, everything was finally starting to click. At the very least, now they could walk in time to the music. Still, a very large portion of the routine had yet to be practised, and they were going to be in for a ride.

Liu decided to end rehearsals early (for his sake as well as theirs) leaving the group with not a whole lot to do until dinner time.

“Cole? Are there a lot of shops in town?” Ann asked after a while.

He said that there were a handful of nice shops. At least, that’s the way it had been two years ago.

“Alright. I’m going to head into town to buy a few things. Anyone who wants to is welcome to join me,” she said, heading for the door.

“I’ll come with you,” Keaton said eagerly, followed by Jay and then Nya. Zane, Kai and Cole glanced at each other, still just standing around in the empty studio, then they started walking in Ann’s direction.

“Beats doing nothing, I guess,” Kai muttered.

Cole remained at the back of the group as they walked down the street, calling directions to whoever was at the front. Every so often, he would catch sight of Ann’s ponytail and then drop his eyes back to the pavement. FORMER-crush, he reminded himself. FORMER. As in, not any more. Done, gone, over, left behind. Now he just needed to find a way to get that information delivered directly into his heart.

Mainstreet was as bustling as it ever was this time of year. There were fewer tourists, sure—travel wasn’t exactly the thing on everybody’s minds these days—but those who had arrived from far away places gaped and gawked at all the decorations, the quaint little shop fronts, and the overall cozy winter vibe that the town was famous for. And that included his friends.

“Oh, oh! Look at this one!” Nya called as she bent over a pet shop window. “It’s sooo cuuute!” Inside, Cole could see a display of fake puppies pulling along a red sleigh with a fake kitten at the reins, advertising their upcoming adoption event.

Speaking of sleighs, there was one coming down the street right that very moment. Cole was familiar with it, though. They always offered horse-drawn carriage rides this time of year, plus it added to the town’s old-timey feel.

“A horse!” Keaton squealed. If the carriage hadn’t already been filled with passengers, the driver might have stopped and asked them if they wanted a ride.

“Stay focused,” Ann said somewhere nearby. “Cole, where did you say the store was?”

“Uh, three buildings down,” he replied hastily, his eyes glued to the ground.

The group started walking over to a shop called Baths and Bubbles that had been decorated with a thousand fairy lights and a huge heaping of multi-coloured garland. The girls (and Jay) all went inside, leaving Kai, Zane and Cole standing on the sidewalk, watching the people go by. It was impossible to know how long they would be in the store, so Cole made himself comfortable.

Then, at one end of the street, Cole thought he saw someone that he recognised. The police. There were two officers walking in their direction, one of them surprisingly tall and bulky. Cole was still a little fuzzy on the details of exactly what happened with his friends and the IBI, but a feeling in his gut was telling him to hide. Fast.

“Guys, at your ten o’clock,” he said, trying to appear casual. “Inside the shop, now.” They didn’t hesitate to follow him, even if their noses were bombarded with the densest cloud of perfume and soap smells known to mankind. Cole walked up to the first person he saw—Keaton—and made the hand sign for “not safe.” Her eyes widened and she quickly relayed the message to the others.

Two figures cast their shadows across the store window and instantly the group began looking for places to hide. Without hesitating, Ann knocked over a display of bath bombs, then played it up as an accident, saying sorry over and over again to the cashier as she rushed over and started cleaning up. That’s when Ann turned around and motioned for the others to follow her. While no one was looking, they bolted out the back door, passing through the store’s storage area on the way out, and arriving in a small alley, still coated with a layer of snow.

“What exactly are we running from?” Jay asked.

“Police,” said Cole. “I didn’t want to risk it in case the runaway flyers had made it this far North.”

“Point taken,” Ann said solemnly. Then she looked around and her blood pressure skyrocketed. “Where’s Keaton?”

* * *

Keaton was hiding in the storage room, on top of one of the shelves. Using her powers to listen through the air, she could clearly hear everything that was going on in the store.

Two men had come in and approached the cashier.

“Excuse us, ma’am, we were wondering if you’ve seen a group of teenagers pass through? Two girls and three boys.”

“I don’t know,” she replied as she finished picking up the last of the bath bombs. “Do you have any idea the number of people I see on a daily basis? A lot of them could fit that description.”

“Did any of them look like this?”

Keaton heard a rustle of paper followed by a bout of silence.

“…I’m not sure. I think…”

Keaton suddenly felt someone grabbing her arm. She jolted as she looked down and saw Ann giving her the most worried glare she’d ever seen. Without much say in the matter, the two of them were out in the back alley, getting as far away from that store as possible.

“What were you thinking?” Ann asked.

“I was gathering information,” Keaton said simply. “I’m a scout. And those guys were definitely after us.”

“Great. It’s Ninjago City all over again,” Nya moaned.

“Not necessarily,” said Cole as he stopped and stared across Mainstreet. Keaton followed his gaze and wound up at a building labelled P.E. Vanderbelt’s Hat Emporium.

“You’ve got to be joking,” said Kai, his iconic spiky hair proudly on display.

“Just come on,” said Cole as he led them across the street.

Inside, they found a beanie for Kai, a newsboy cap for Ann, a fedora for Zane, a baseball cap for Nya, a two Pom-Pom knit beanie for Keaton, and a bucket hat for Jay. Plus some scarves and a few other accessories that the girls found along the way. Cole didn’t exactly feel it was necessary for him to have a hat since he wasn’t on the police’s list and everyone in town knew him already anyway.

With the hats on, now it would be much harder for anyone to identify them via their hair, but there was still a chance that they could be discovered. So, when they eventually came out of the hat emporium and started walking down the street, this time much more aware of their surroundings, Jay paused in front of a clothing store.

“Hey, how about some shopping?”

“We have the hats, they’ll be enough,” Ann said, getting out of the way of a passing pedestrian.

“Oh, no, not for that. I just wanted a pair of clothes that I haven’t been wearing for two months. Plus some pj’s and maybe some socks,” Jay replied, and then Keaton and Nya turned around, looking expectantly at her.

“Fine,” she said, her eyes half open out of frustration. “But make it quick.”

Inside they went, but quick was definitely not the word anyone would use to describe it. Ann remained by the windows, checking for any signs of the officers, while everyone else got lost in the much bigger clothing store, trying on coats and jackets and pants and dresses and sweaters and shoes. Even Kai perused a little.

At some point, Nya had suggested that Keaton’s shorter height might be another factor by which people could identify her based on her description, so they started trying on various heeled boots while Ann stood by the window watching and silently ranting about how VERY impractical those shoes were, and how if they were ever in any danger or just needed to run, Keaton would be at a severe disadvantage, but the fight from last night made her bite her tongue. After all, Keaton looked like she was having fun.

By the end of the hour, they were walking out of the store with five large bags, full to bursting with clothes that they probably didn’t even need, and were now making their way through the crowds, trying to get back to Cole’s house.

Ann could feel her eyes stinging from the cold, and all she wanted to do was get back to her bed and collapse. She hadn’t seen the officers in a while, so hopefully that meant they had moved on.

Then Zane caught a whiff of something in the air. “Mmm, are those french fry corn dogs?”

Everyone’s head snapped to the corn dog stand across the street, where the cook was hand battering a fresh hot dog and then coating it with small pieces of french fries. The greasy, meaty smell was clearly too powerful for any of them to resist, because in a matter of seconds, Ann found herself standing all alone while she watched the others crowd around the food stand on the other side of the street. She noticed a food truck or two up ahead, and surmised that they must have wandered into the street food district. How fortunate.

After an eternity of waiting, they were once again walking home. Keaton had offered her a corn dog, but she declined, saying that she would wait until dinner.

Out of the corner of her eye, though, Ann watched her sister carefully. In her Pom-Pom hat, heeled boots and dark purple coat, she looked almost completely different. A little older, too. Then, as she chomped down on one of her corn dogs, she looked unbelievably happy. Even if things weren’t going exactly to plan… she was glad that Keaton was enjoying herself.

By now, the police officers had been largely forgotten, and the conversation started flowing freely. The girls were talking about the Winter Festival and how amazing it was probably going to be, meanwhile Kai, Jay, and Zane were talking about something called “Starfarer,” and then Cole… he was hanging in the back of the group, not talking to anyone. Did he eat a bad corn dog, maybe? Was he just tired? Whatever the case, she hoped he was alright.

When they got back to the house, Liu was already making dinner—something to do with yams and black fungus. Ann suddenly wished she had taken that corn dog.

Everybody went upstairs for the most part, trying on the clothes they had bought, or in Ann’s case, crashing onto the bed and intending to never wake up again. There was just something perfect about the air right now, with the golden, evening sun warming up the room, the softness of the blankets and pillows, the smell of dinner being made, and the sounds of idle chatter. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend that she was home again. Home and safe and taken care of again. She quickly fell asleep. A blissful, unconcerned sleep. For once, everything actually felt right with the world.