Vassa in the Night (8 page)

“Aw, are you worried about us, Vassa? We shop here all the time. We've all done one solo run, even, though once was definitely enough for me! But we have it down. We have what you might call
technique.
”

“And
you
shouldn't be discouraging customers,” Opera Boy says. “Now should you? Because I'm here to spend everything I've got. Down to the last
nickel
.”

“We do offer a wide array of delectable, hard-to-find treats,” I tell him. It's completely hypocritical of me, and I know it, but I can't help feeling some contempt for his recklessness. He might wind up spending a lot more than money. “Have you tried our strawberry marshmallow butter?” Behind him his friends are fanning out, one or two of them at the opening of each aisle. They're striking poses, pretending to be boxers warming up or sprinters waiting for the shot.

“I
live
for strawberry marshmallow butter,” he assures me. “Want to show me where it is?”

I shake my head and step back. “I have to stay at the register. You go ahead.”

He doesn't, though. Lottery glances over her shoulder to see what's keeping him and then turns back with a knowing sneer.

“So,” Opera Boy says. Like a lot of people around here he's probably some crazy mix of nationalities, with golden-brown skin but gray-green eyes. Messy dark hair. “So would you do it? Chop my head off, over just some little snack pack?” He holds up a cellophane package: crackers made to look like man-in-the-moons accompanied by a mound of spreadable green cheese.

“Me, personally?” I say. “That's not really my job, but I guess if everyone else was
busy
…”

“Then you're not the only one working here?” He's still fiddling with his moon crackers, zipping them around like a toy airplane. Every time it flies past his hip, a small involuntary current jolts through my nerves.

“That's right, I'm
really
not.” I look dramatically toward the shelves, trying to inject a clue into his foggy head. “I'm not alone, but you won't see my coworkers until it's too late.”

He nods. “That's what I thought. There's something sneaky in here. You can hear the
hop
.”

“So maybe instead of being a self-destructive moron,” I suggest, “you should get the hell out. At least pretend you care about your life?” I have no right to be this mad, but I am. My nails are digging into my palms. He swings the crackers in midair, looping and twirling them. And then his hand dives straight for his pocket. Is he really so desperate to show off? I let out a small shriek and my heart jams into my throat. The pack is gone and his hands are rising again. I expect him to wave them triumphantly in midair, display how empty they are.

And then he laughs, loudly, and his curled right hand flips to show the crackers, tucked behind his wrist where I couldn't see them. I'd like to slap him. He pulls up the side of his jacket, tugging at the fabric. At first I don't get it, but then I realize: he's showing me that his pockets are sewed shut with big, bright pink stitches.

“Oh, I observe
basic shopping precautions,
” he says. Lottery is glaring at him again. “Okay, we'll see you in a few.”

I head back to my chair and watch the children at their little game. They move down all the aisles at once, going fast, dodging and weaving as if they were hounded by sniper fire. They're giggling, grabbing random items off the shelves, and then darting forward again, sometimes tossing boxes to one another.
Technique,
like Lottery said.

Once or twice I get a glimpse of fingertips bounding after them; they're looking pretty aggravated. I almost stop worrying. Probably if Opera knows enough to sew his pockets shut, the others do, too. Once I distinctly see a hand feinting toward a girl in Chelsea's year, Felice, with something silvery clutched in its green glitter pincers. I'm just about to yell out a warning when the hand drops back, fidgeting, the silver object still in its palm. It couldn't find an open pocket, I bet. I'm starting to understand why they think this is fun. They reach the ends of their aisles and switch places, then start their shuffle back to me. They're doing well, almost at the counter.

One of the hands hops up on a stack of boxes—the damned light bulbs, though somehow I never spotted them until now. It's still holding the silver whatever and I watch it rearing up, then pause to check its aim.

Lottery's pockets might be impervious, but she does have an open hood on her jacket. It's hanging down her back like a basketball hoop, and the hand has a nice straight shot. “Lottery!” I scream. “Jump!”

She does, probably more from surprise than from anything else. There's a small
thwack
as the silver object hits her in the middle of her back, then claps down to the floor and rolls under a shelf before I can see what it is. Lottery flings herself around just as the hand vanishes with an audible scuffling. “What
was
that?”

Her friends are clustering in front of the counter, no one laughing anymore. “That was you,” I say, “coming extremely close to dying. Put up your hood.”

She's a little green, but she does what I tell her. “Vassa, what the—”

“Check out,” I snarl. “And get out. How stupid can you all be?”

Her lips have started trembling. “You think it's appropriate to
insult
me, when I was almost set
up
—”

“If the threat of annihilation makes you go all drama queen, then there are other fine shopping establishments that can better serve your needs,” I tell her. “Are you buying something or not? Let's get this over with.”

Opera Boy bursts out grinning. “Now that's what I call gracious service! My mom always complains that kids who work these kinds of jobs are so
surly.
She should see Vassa in action.”

“Gracious enough to save her life,” I snap. “Limit one per customer. Now if you'll bring your purchases to the register, I can have the pleasure of seeing you all leave here.”
Intact,
I don't say. But in fact I am extremely relieved about that.

They drop garish objects on the counter: those moon crackers with the processed green cheese, mushroom-flavored cookies called Fun Gus's Sugar Spores, jars of pastel goo, and red gelatinous blobs in blister packs. Each blob has what appears to be a tiny squid in the middle. It's all piled up in front of me and I turn to the register. I worked in a drugstore last summer so I don't anticipate much trouble there. I pick up the crackers, tap in $1.89. The BY's raiders stand in front of me, swaddled in their own arms. They look a whole lot more uncomfortable now than they did when they got here.

Behind their back that hand hops up onto the lightbulbs again and waggles to get my attention. It jabs toward me with its gleaming forefinger, then one glittery claw swipes in a significant horizontal line. Then, in case I somehow failed to grasp its meaning, it does it again. And again. It's bad enough, I guess, that I got away, and now I've gone and cheated them of their next victim. I don't want to take it too seriously, but that green nail sweeping back and forth is kind of distracting.

I try to keep my attention on the task in front of me, entering the prices and dropping things in bags. I realize too late that I didn't ask if they wanted to be rung up separately, but they better not complain. “Okay! Your total will be nineteen dollars and thirteen cents!” I say brightly; there's one vivid green key, unlabeled, but I'm guessing it'll do the job. When I hit it there's a discordant clangor like a xylophone slapping a brick wall and the cash drawer sails open.

“Wait,” Lottery says, bending down to pull bills out of her sock, “mine was just like two-fifty.”

“Why don't you all just cough up and figure out the details later?” I suggest. “Who has a twenty?”

One problem with the no-pocket rule is that it's taking them all forever to get their money, worming dollars out of holes in their cuffs or reaching up under their sweaters to pull out baggies duct-taped to their guts. I find myself distinctly unhappy, watching them claw out singles and quarters and flop them on the counter. Now and then a wadded bill tumbles to the floor and someone has to go after it. Like the sagging hood this strikes me as a weak spot in their
technique,
and I don't much like having the register open, either.

“Guys, seriously. You should hurry up,” I say. I start picking up bills and smoothing them out. There aren't enough.

There's a faint, dry, slithering sound near the register. I look over, expecting to see the hands, but there's nothing there. The bills in the drawer are stirring slightly. There must be a draft; the front door keeps flicking ajar and then shutting again.

Opera bends over, probably to get that last nickel he mentioned from his shoe. “Hey, here's a twenty! On the floor.”

Lottery holds her hand out. “Oh, I must have dropped that! Thanks, Tomin!”

He's dangling the bill in front of his face as if it was a dead scorpion. “I don't think anyone dropped it. Weird, it's not moving now.”

“Moving?” I ask.

“I seriously could have sworn that it was crawling out from under the counter. It sounds crazy, but then this place is not entirely normal.”

In the corner of my eye there's a pale shimmying, and I spin to see a bill draping itself over the drawer's edge and then dropping. I catch it in time and smack it back down. “I think that came from the register,” I say, my throat tight. “Look, you have to give it back.” Just glancing over at him for an instant was a mistake. I can hear the whispery coasting of paper on paper and I lean in and cover the drawer with my arm.

“Ooh, I've got one!” Felice squeals. “Free money!”

I slam the drawer as a light cascade of paper flutters over its edge. Bills stick out from the top, fingering the air impatiently, but I'll deal with them later. I'm climbing onto the counter now while they're all stooped and staring, now and then stamping suddenly as currency wafts in reach of their feet. Money must be everywhere. I'm just starting to comprehend what a disaster this is, and Erg isn't even in my sleeve anymore.

“The balance in the register has to be perfect! You don't—” Felice is already stuffing money down her shirt. Right; no pockets. “I saved your idiot friend, and now you're going to get me killed? Look, please just help.”

Opera, or I guess Tomin, is diving around on the floor and snagging up cash, but he—alone out of everyone—reaches toward me with the ruffling fistful held out. An offering. I'd appreciate it if I had time for anything besides tumbling over the counter, grabbing like the rest of them at the paper oblongs that skim along the floor like autumn leaves packing their own private breezes.

The store chooses this moment to start lowering itself toward the ground. As long as we're all trapped in here there's still a chance, but once they take off into the night with those stolen bills there won't be much hope left for me. We're already touching down, the glass door yawning wide, and Felice is gamboling toward the open night with laughter babbling over her lips and dollars twitching in her cleavage. I can barely think, but I leap after her and grab her arm, trying to make her
understand
—

The cash register drawer shoots open with a bang and money lofts into the air like confetti. Night breezes spiral in, and I see bills coiling up as if wrapped around invisible fingers, then whisking away. The air is dizzy with fluttering paper, and most of it seems to be making for the door.

“Vassa? You better just come with us.” It's Tomin, pulling on my elbow. I can't react; my whole body feels sandbagged and numb. “I get it about needing a job, but there's no way it's worth dealing with this. Come on!”

The door is open and the parking lot glitters like a black lake. The motorcyclist growls by, never looking at anything. For some reason I'm thinking of Babs, her wispy disappointed face as she looks around at the mess, her creaking knees as she tries to bend far enough to pick up her money.

But Tomin is right, there's no fixing what just happened. I'm going to have to run for it, and I let him tow me out the door. At first my legs wobble under me, but then adrenaline whiplashes through them and they're striking at the pavement in a blur. I'm running so fast Tomin can't keep up; he has to let me go.

Babs is a psychotic killer. Why did I care, even for a second, how she'll feel?

Dark streets open up in the gaps between the houses, and the sight of them grabs my heart and pulls. The row of stakes stands just ahead. Soon I'll be home with Chelsea and …

“Erg!” She's not in my sleeve anymore. I start feeling all my pockets for her. God, she's still in BY's. I ran off too fast and she didn't have a chance to catch up. All at once I stop dead, hoping to hear her tiny wooden feet scampering over the asphalt. There's nothing but the wind soughing through my hair and the low snarl of the cycle ratcheting up the scale. I turn in time to see it bearing in on me, black and somehow shapeless like an oil slick pouring over the sky. I jump aside, stumbling and falling to one knee; at first I think I just happened to be standing in its path. Then it grinds to a halt and rounds on me again.

Everyone else is scattering, already out of the ring of heads and vanishing behind trucks parked across the street. Not even Tomin has stayed to see if I'm okay. I'm up and trying to run but the motorcycle is there, somehow too big and too blobby, a seething mass that blots out the sky. Every time I try to dodge around it, it seems to grow and closes off my escape. It doesn't really look like a motorcycle at all anymore, more like a wall of rippling cloud, and it's driving me back the way I came. “Erg! Where are you?”

I can't see the motorcyclist, just a blur like a storm front pushing me back toward the bright orange store. I must be hallucinating because I glimpse flashes of peculiar objects in the black mist: a globe on a brass stand, something that might be a lampshade. BY's is still crouching all the way down with its door wide open. Waiting for me. Somehow I've been herded within a few yards of the wide windows. They beam at me, warm and welcoming, while on my other side …