I WALKED THROUGH the town with my hot chocolate (whipped cream included) cup in hand, it being long-empty.

After my baffling encounter at Delight Pops, I thought I should probably just go visit the areas of the town that were completely isolated, like a flooded swamp or a roadside ditch, and then tell Aunt Cheryl that I had thoroughly explored every nook and cranny of this exotic town.

But alas, I ended up near a patio diner, where there were some people just bumbling about, some sitting in groups while eating delicious food and catching up with their friends. Families of three and four and five were busy making sure that everyone was accounted for and that no one was crying over ketchup mixing with the mayo.

But I, of course, ended up getting stuck with a family of seven.

How? Because after I threw my cup away in a garbage can near the patio, I turned around just to trip over a small pebble in my way. I pitched forward and stumbled right into a table with seven people, where the parents seemed hassled by the five children in which: two of them were squirting packeted ketchup at each other, another two were trying to see how many baby carrot sticks they could fit into their nostrils, and the last child was sitting there with spoonfuls of relish dumped over his head.

I had smiled at the parents politely, wondering how they were going to solve this major complication, when they suddenly looked at me like I was the Pope before asking for my help.

And so, this is how I ended up holding two staggering ice cream cones while the dad led the other three children to the taco truck nearby. Meanwhile, the mom was trying to clean-up the other two children.

So I stood there with the two tall ice cream cones in my hand, getting kind of restless and staring at the sky, the ground, the trees and even a squirrel staring at me suspiciously; I looked at everything but the actual children.

They were making silly faces at me, trying to get me to play along with them. And for a while I did, after that squirrel staring at me finally scurried up a tree after I blinked at it. And making silly faces with little kids was actually kind of therapeutic, especially since I had the piled ice cream cones in hand to block my face in case anyone was wondering if I was a certified lunatic. Other than that it was quite nice, surprisingly.

But then it happened.

"Do you know how to cross your eyes?" one of the kids asked.

"Of course," I shrugged, and the kids exchanged excited looks, turning back to me in awe. "Will you please do it?"

I laughed and crossed my eyes, staring into the middle of my vision. The mom just chuckled as she continued with her work, and when I uncrossed my eyes, she mouthed thank you to me. I smiled at her, laughing when the kids tried to cross their eyes as well.

"It's like this, kiddos," I started, crossing my eyes again. "It's really easy..."

My peripheral vision was obviously not at its best when I was crossing my eyes. And perhaps I was heavily, um, involved in this salient endeavour that I wasn't even paying attention to the outside world.

It was at the last millisecond— no, jiffy— that I heard a loud and panicked, "Please move!" along with a quieter and horrified, "Oh no."

First, I heard the startling noise of wheels rolling over gravel, like from a skateboard or something similar. I uncrossed my eyes and turned curiously, only to see a quite familiar person on roller blades zigzagging towards me like a caffeinated mouse in a maze.

It was Mr Not-Neel, and I saw his eyes darting to either side of me, where the children were still laughing and playing.

Without thinking I elbowed the two kids out of the way (gently— well, mostly gently), and then suddenly, before I could even blink, Mr Not-Neel and I were colliding, body to body, and some colourful curses were exiting his mouth.

We then spun together like we were in a tornado as he tried to press his body away from mine, and I breathed, "You?" in alarmed wonder.

"Pleasure seeing you here, Miss Almond Baba. Yes, it is I," he winced as we spun again, and I tripped over my own feet. That's when the ice cream cones left my hands, leaping in the air like ballerinas.

It seemed like time froze when Mr Not-Neel caught me, preventing me from tripping and laying like scrambled eggs on the ground. I gasped in shock, and his lips parted slightly as he frowned down at me in his arms. "Ice cream just hit the ceiling," I whispered unnecessarily, and that seemed to break the spell because Mr Not-Neel let go, and then gravity happened and I was coated in vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, cookie dough, and butter pecan ice cream.

I squealed as the cold liquid melted down my arms and legs, and then when it was over, I stared at Mr Not-Neel.

"I. Am. So. Sorry," he started, dark eyes widening at me. He was reaching towards me like he could fix this all with just one touch, when there was a noise like a buffalo stampede coming from behind me, the direction from which Mr Not-Neel had initially hurtled towards me from.

We turned and I saw it was nothing less than a buffalo stampede, it seemed, because there was a group of people, looking immensely angry and charging towards one person. Namely, Mr Not-Neel.

But instead of hurrying away from them again, he turned back to me, then turned towards the table, reaching for some napkins. "I'm very tremendously sorry," he started, but I cut him off as I watched the stampede coming closer.

"Just go," I gritted out, and Not-Neel looked at me in apprehension.

"Miss, um, Almond Baba, there's no way. How can I just—"

Ugh. Not Miss Almond Baba again. "Go."

All I was starting to see was red, and Not-Neel seemed to understand that because he dropped the napkins back, looked at me apologetically, then fled down the road in his roller blades, calling, "Please accept my apologies, Miss Almond Baba!" over his shoulder.

Almost immediately the stampede flew past as well. "Thank you for holding the rascal back, dear," someone called out, and others echoed the sentiment. As if I'd bumped into him on purpose because I loved bathing in sweetened and flavoured milk fat daily.

I looked down at myself, then stared at the crowd, raising an eyebrow. They must have taken the hint because they ran on, shaking their fists and saying something about 'the dangers of bacon'. It was then that I realized they were all wearing colourful shirts that said 'Go Vegan: Turnip the Beet!' in different fonts. I watched the stampede go and wondered what Not-Neel had done this time.

I started turning back around when I noticed the squirrel from before. It looked at me like it was laughing at me, before bounding over and chipping away at one of the cones that had landed upside down on the ground. Wow.

I looked up at the sky in disbelief at the turn of events, then turned back to the family I was helping. The two kids were staring at me with their mouth slightly hanging, and the mother was too before she snapped out of it. "So sorry, my dear. Let me help you get cleaned up."

I nodded gratefully and we walked towards the washrooms, after making sure the kids would stay where they were. They promised they would, and they seemed genuine about it.

But just my luck that when I was trudging by, one of them stuck their hand out, touched the ice cream on my skin, and then licked it off his finger, exclaiming, "Wow!"

I held in a loud sob as I kept walking.

⬫⬫◍⬫⬫

One hour later, I was cleaned up and dried down, though the sweet smell was still sticking to me. On the bright side, the family had bought me a large cup of different scoops of ice cream as consolidation, so there was that.

I roamed the streets with my cup in hand, using the small wooden spoon to take even tinier bites. I passed by a large farm, an elementary school, a spa, a small circus, a convenience store appropriately called A Convenience Store, and then I finally wound up at a bus stop, which was when I finished the ice cream cup as well. I was throwing away the empty cup and spoon in a garbage can located beside the bus stop, when, besides some other people standing around, I saw a little girl standing at the bus stand as well, with a guitar in her hand. She looked slightly anxious, wringing her hands, and I walked up to stand at the bus stand, wondering if I should ask her if anything was wrong.

When I looked at her, she gave me a hesitant smile, but her eyes still betrayed her stress.

"Hey there. Is everything alright?" I asked, and she shrugged, chin slightly trembling.

"I- um...I- Well- Someone in my sister's class said something about how she could only play guitar and knew nothing else because she wasn't as good as him in math or art," she rushed. I nodded for her to continue. "And when she told me, I made a bet with the kid that I could earn more than thirty dollars playing the guitar."

I nodded again. "Alright...I sense there's a 'but' in there somewhere?"

She nodded, eyes filling up with tears. "But I don't know how to play guitar, and I just made the bet out of anger. I don't know what to do now."

"I see." There were a bunch of holes in that plan: firstly, her making a bet to play guitar even though her sister was the one good at it, and secondly, the fact that money didn't really have anything to do with that kid in her sister's class being rude, and so on. But the girl's intention was true, and I felt bad for her. Plus, I imagined that if she didn't go back winning, the other kid would only be even more nastier to her sister.

"Gambling is not right, you know?" I started, and the girl nodded, looking down at the ground as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"But," I continued, "I know that you said it for your sister." She nodded again, sniffling.

"I can play the guitar, kiddo. Do you want me to help you?"

The girl then looked up at me in shock, hope lining her teary eyes. "Will you do that for me? Please, I would very much appreciate that, ma'am."

"Alright." I smiled at her, and she beamed back, wiping her tears away before lifting the guitar strap up from around her neck. She gently placed the guitar in my open hands.

There were a few people at the stand already. I sat down on the bench and looked at the girl as I strummed a few chords. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Lillian," she replied, then added, "My sister's name is Alexa."

I smiled. "And my name is Cora. It's nice meeting you, Lillian, and tell your sister Alexa I said hi, alright?"

Lillian beamed at me. "Even if we don't win the bet, I will still tell my family all about you, Cora."

I laughed, wondering how quickly I'd managed to make a junior friend, and then started strumming the strings. "This one is for Lillian here," I called out, "and her sister Alexa, and for the love of music." Several heads turned but I continued playing Alexa's instrument.

I thanked the stars for the pop-star-guitar-smashing-on-stage-Beethoven-Mozart-wannabe phase I went through in almost all of middle school, when I'd learned online how to play the guitar and piano.

I played the tune and chords of Carol of the Bells, reasoning it was a popular song anyway, and I realized I'd made the right decision when the kind strangers dropped some coins into the hat Lillian had set on the bench beside me.

Then, I switched up the song completely: Send My Love (To Your New Lover) by Adele, and to my utter, delighted surprise, Lillian sat beside me on the bench and started tapping out a beat. Together, we sounded great; in sync (she had an amazing sense of rhythm!), and most importantly, we sounded genuine. I didn't know if the audience could sense our fun and joy as our worries were washed away temporarily, but when I finished strumming the last, powerful chord of the song, the people in the bus stand broke out into applause, smiles on their faces.

Mission: Complete.

Lillian and I high-fived each other, and it was so cute and wholesome and downright a strange experience for me that I slightly started tearing up. Perhaps this was why Aunt Cheryl had sent me out; even though major fiascos had happened (and I still smelled sweet), this moment was one I would cherish, always.

The kind townsfolk had given more than I had expected (okay fine, I expected, like, four dollars and three cents, max... but hey, I didn't know Lillian and I would get so many admirers!), and I was about to take the guitar strap off from around my neck when someone straight up handed me a ten dollar bill.

It would be our highest handout, because most people had dropped a dollar or two in. I felt slightly (no, completely) guilty for even looking at the bill when I remembered it wasn't for me anyway. So I was about to profusely thank the person and ask Lillian to accept it, if she wanted it.

But then it happened.

I recognized the ten dollar bill. Not because some important person's face was on it and they had the most distinguishable features, no, but because of the little pen marks on the side, along with the creases that were only on the corners of the otherwise smooth bill.

It was mine.

The little pen marks were there because I knew Aunt Cheryl often accidentally left her change underneath whatever pile she had on her desk, and too often it would be some papers she was writing on, during which her pen had run just slightly off the page to mark the bill. And folding the corners was simply a bad habit of mine, but still recognizably mine nonetheless. The wornness of the money was too familiar (I had been fiddling with it when I entered Delight Pops), and surely, my absolute, utter confusion was justified.

I pushed my hair away from my face and I looked up then, curiously, only to stare into the dark, surprised eyes of Mr Not-Neel.

"You?" I gasped, jaw dropping in disbelief.

___

A/N: This chapter and the next one were supposed to be just one chapter but it was super long so I cut it up ✂️

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