Free Strike by Delilah S. Dawson

stubbornly stick out my chin . . . and hide the box under the coats in my cart.
    In the food section, I grab crap. All crap. Pop-Tarts and granola bars and peanut butter crackers and Gatorade. Snack cakes and cookies and animal crackers in a giant plastic jar shaped like a bear. Since I know the guys will forget it, I slam a twelve-pack of toilet paper on top. I’m sure I’ve forgotten half the things I should be getting, and as I stand in the aisle biting my lip, I remember one thing. One small thing. Just for me.
    The guys are arguing over tents as I hurry by without a word, straight to the craft section. I get a roll of knitting needles with all sizes, even rounds. Pawing through the yarn, I choose soft things and cheap things and bright things and speckled things, butnothing in that damning Valor blue that should’ve been a tropical teal but somehow ended up cold and ugly. I stop in front of the embroidery, but you can’t hang samplers on tents. The last thing I get is a couple of backpacks on sale from the back-to-school section so Gabriela and I have a place to keep all our clothes. It’s all we have now.
    The guys are in line, looking smug and easy. I guess they solved whatever they were arguing about, and they each have a full cart. Perched on top of Wyatt’s cart is a stuffed green turtle with big, goofy eyes like Ping-Pong balls. Which means he remembers that my stuffed-turtle collection died in the truck fire, which is possibly the sweetest thing on earth.
    â€œThought you might need some company,” he says, and my heart wrenches.
    I can’t say thanks without crying, so I just wipe my eyes and hug him.
    Outside of my turtle, everything else he has makes sense, including a portable plastic aquarium for his snake. I know we’re missing a million things that we won’t think about until we’re squatting in the tent, but at least he remembered two sleeping bags and a two-pack of pillows. His stuff adds up to four hundred and something, and we all go tense as he swipes the card.
    â€œCan you put in your passcode, sir?” the cashier says.
    Wyatt gulps. “Uh. I . . . uh . . .”
    We just stand there staring at each other, and the lady looks toward a stand where a thick-built dude in a manager’s jacket is watching us, one hand on his radio.
    The skin on the back of my neck prickles, and I look around at the other people waiting in line to check out. It’s mostly men, and they all look guarded. They’re staring at us like we might be trouble. Black holsters peek out from under their shirts, and they constantly glance at one another and the doors as if waiting for a shoot-out. Most people are alone. There’s not a single child. Maybe Chance wasn’t that off when he said it was turning into the Wild West. People have to have food and toilet paper and aspirin, but no one is sending out a pregnant wife with a little kid to fetch it, either. There’s no polite conversation, no friendly banter. Just tense silence and carts overloaded with necessities.
    â€œJust run it as credit, idiot,” Chance says. He reaches past us to the machine, hits cancel, and presses credit. It goes through, no problem, and I try to look cool and not like I expected Valor SWAT to burst through the door.
    I’m next, and mine is more than seven hundred. The lady gives me a pained look when I run my card. “Sorry, honey. There’s only five hundred and fifty on there. How else would you like to pay?”
    My face goes hot, and I start doing mental calculations about what to put back when Chance slides another card through. “You got my sister’s stuff, right? Here’s her card.”
    That card goes through fine, and once Chance is up, our cashier chews her gum like cud and says, “You kids got one of them festivals or something? We’re selling lots of tents lately. Seems like a dangerous time to be out in the