Free Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter

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—”
    â€œCheck 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 —”
    â€œIf 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.”
    â€œGracious 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.
    â€œWait,” Lottery says, bending down to pull bills out of her sock, “mine was just like