𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐄 | ꜱᴘᴏᴛ ᴄᴏɴʟᴏɴ

𝐒𝐈𝐗

      FRENCHIE WAS AFRAID THEY WOULD LOSE THEIR SELLING SPOT.

     Before Jack raced ahead, he urged Frenchie to join him when selling just in case something happened. So she took her stand between the two poles, and got ready to sell her heart away.

     "Don't be afraid to show a little skin." Jack winked.

     Frenchie made a choking sound, and Jack opened up his empty pocket.

    "We got nothin',"he urged.

     "Jack," Frenchie said, "Money's not just gonna magically appear."

     "Oh well!" Jack yelped.

     Frenchie wrapped her arms around her newspapers. "If I lose my selling spot, I'm going to spend my life reminding you that it was your fault. "

"That's cool," Jack said, grabbing onto his own papers. "I wouldn't mind having my company be you, Ethel."

Just to spite him, Frenchie stuck her tongue out at him. She only stopped when she noticed a few nearby pedestrians giving her dirty looks.

     The cold breeze dove into the grid of downtown streets, birds tried to follow, but the wind was way too strong. Ones left wing clipped the edge of a building, slicing by a stone gargoyle before it pulled up.

"Get closer to the buildings," Frenchie suggested. "We can track down more people that way."

"You want to lead this thing?" Jack grumbled, but he did what Frenchie asked.

After a few minutes, Frenchie spotted another bird, zipping through the streets with no apparent purpose, blowing over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making horses swerve.

"Oh great," Jack said. "The headline sucks."

He was right. The main headline blasted on the front page of The World was worse than last week. They letters wove together in a chaotic dance, the words shooting to the top of the paper, bending a boring story, and diving back down toward the slums.

"This is one of the worst headlines I've ever seen," Frenchie said.

"We just have to make it a bit interesting, Ethel," Jack said. "You know that."

"More than a bit," Frenchie said. "Look."

A group of civilians circled over a wide avenue next to a lake-side park. They were converging—at least a dozen of them, whirling around a big public art installation.

"Who or where do you think I can get some food out of?" Jack asked. "And I don't wanna have to pay."

Frenchie groaned. "You cant just steal from people, Jack"

"Well, we don't exactly have the funds, Ethel!" Jack argued. "We ain't had anything to eat in days!"

Frenchie paused and turned her head. "I'm not looking. Do what you want."

Frenchie focused on the art installation. The closer she got to it, the faster her heart beat. It was just a public fountain where people rose from either end of a long granite reflecting pool. The people seemed to be of the richest quartile, flashing the combined image of a people who were to be held at the highest of respect. And in the front, looking right at them was—

"Jack..." Frenchie said nervously.

"I see him," Jack said. "I don't like him, but I see him."

Frenchie looked the same way. "You didn't. Right, Jack?"

Then the sky seemed to go dark. The clouds swirled together into a single funnel cloud and skittered across the fountain, kicking up a butterfly almost as high as the monoliths. They got to its center, went near a window cover, and disappeared through it.