Free Dare You by Sue Lawson Page B

you wait ’til we get home?’ asked Sas. ‘Mum’s at work and I’m supposed to be looking after the girls and cooking dinner.’
    She wasn’t worried about that when she took hours to choose curtain colours.
    ‘Sas, I’m dying here,’ said Khaden, his smile charming. ‘I’ll be quick.’
    The sharpness in Sas’s face evaporated. ‘Promise?’
    ‘Absolutely,’ said Khaden.
    At the supermarket, I stopped outside the automatic doors. ‘We can’t take this stuff in there,’ I said, lifting the bags holding the curtains.
    ‘Sure we can,’ said Khaden. ‘We have dockets.’ He turned to Sas. ‘You did keep the dockets?’
    ‘Yeeess.’ Sas rolled her eyes. ‘Anyway, as if they’d sell this stuff here.’
    ‘Fair point.’ Khaden strode through the entrance towards the dairy section at the back of the store. ‘One massive, cold iced coffee for me.’
    I screwed up my nose. ‘Do you know how much sugar is in those things?’
    ‘Have you looked at Khaden lately?’ said Sas, her voice laced with something I couldn’t name. ‘Like he needs to worry about his weight.’
    At the end of the cereal aisle, a woman with bobbed, silver hair and masses of gold jewellery ploughed her trolley into Khaden’s leg.
    Khaden swore and dropped the rug.
    The woman shook her head and looked at Khaden as though he was something gross she’d trodden in. ‘Watch where you are going.’
    ‘Are you for real?’ asked Sas, hands on her hips.
    ‘I. Beg. Your. Pardon.’ The woman’s gaze rested on Sas’s pierced nose.
    ‘You bumped into him.’
    ‘It’s okay,’ said Khaden. ‘I’m fine.’
    The look on the woman’s face said she disagreed. ‘I’ll have an apology, thank you.’
    ‘Sorry. Didn’t see you coming,’ said Khaden.
    The woman harrumphed and pushed her trolley towards the All Bran, her gold bangle clinking against her watch.
    ‘Stuck up old cow,’ hissed Sas, still watching the woman.
    ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Khaden reached for a litre carton of ice coffee and picked up the rug.
    The woman left her trolley and strutted around the corner. Sas thrust the laundry basket at me and pounced like a panther. She wheeled the woman’s trolley away from the cereal, past the dips and cheese, and into the pet food aisle.
    ‘What’s she doing?’ I whispered to Khaden as we followed.
    Khaden smiled. ‘Giving that old bag the shits.’
    Sas abandoned the trolley beside the canned dog food and strolled to the check out. ‘Diet drinks are this way, Ruby,’ she said, taking the laundry basket back. Her eyes sparkled.
    As I reached for a Coke Zero from the fridge behind the express lanes, a strangled cry sounded. The grey-haired woman stormed out of the breakfast food aisle to the helpdesk. When she saw us, she raised her arm and pointed as though aiming a gun.
    ‘Those bogans have stolen my belongings.’
    The beep of the checkouts and squeak of trolley wheels seemed to stop.
    Bogans?
    My spine straightened. ‘Is it an invisible trolley? Because if it’s not, I clearly don’t have it, and neither do my friends, unless Khaden has rolled it up in the rug.’
    The woman gasped.
    The store manager strode towards us. ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘These ... youths,’ spat the woman, ‘stole my trolley.’
    The manager looked us up and down. ‘Did you?’
    Khaden pulled a face. ‘Why would we?’
    ‘Because you’re the type who would dump trolleys on street corners,’ snarled the woman.
    ‘Look, lady,’ said Sas, fluffed up like a fighting cat. ‘We haven’t got your trolley, okay?’ She turned to the manager. ‘I have to babysit my sisters. Can we go?’
    The manager looked from us to the furious woman.
    A girl, about our age, pushed a trolley towards us. ‘Hey, Alex, this trolley was by the dog food.’ I swear she smirked before lifting items out of the trolley. ‘Prunes. Prune juice. Metamucil. All Bran.’
    The laughter bubbling in my throat just about choked me.
    ‘Yes, yes, yes,’