The Dangers of Pomegranate Salad

Chapter 6

Chapter 6, The Mall Adventure

“Can we PLEASE go to the mall tomorrow?” Jen whines as we eat our spaghetti. “I want to meet Alice there, so she can tell me what she wants for her birthday” Alice is Jen’s friend. She’s about as obsessed with all things ‘girly’ as Jen is. I find her annoying and stereotypical. Mom looks at Jen, thinks about it, and then nods. “Sure. We haven’t been in a while, do you guys want to come?” she gestures to me and Henri. “Maybe, I’ll decide tomorrow” say’s Henri, who then continues shoving spaghetti in to his mouth.  “And Terre?” asks mom. I nod “Ok, I think Jackie said she was going tomorrow so I can meet up with her.” I say, excited at the prospect of seeing Jackie. “Ok it’s a Plan” says mom.

The Next day we are all packed into the car, each of us with a little money for anything we might want. We pick up Alice and then head for the mall.  The mall is about fifteen minutes away in a town called Independence. As we drive I text Jackie, and ask her if she is going to the mall. She says yes. Alice and Jen blather on about the latest show and how cute one of the characters is.

Alice has black hair and green eyes, and a tan complexion. She wears one of her pseudo eighty’s looking outfits, with pink leg warmers and high tops.  She has a high ponytail held together with a pink scrunchy. Jen thinks she looks amazing.  I think she looks like Madonna threw up on her.  Jen doesn’t look much better.

 When we arrive Jen, Alice, and Mom head strait for Claire’s, while Henri and I go to the food court. He finds his track buddies, Luke and Zander. They wander off, and I’m left alone.  I soon spot a head of carrot top red, and see its Jackie bouncing her way over here. Jackie is ADHD and is always moving. She waves spastically, and then bounces over here. “HI!!!!” she says in her quirky little voice. She flips her long red hair, revealing penguin earrings.

 Her outfit is urban Goth, with a little bit of cosplay, (her description, not mine) She has one of those hoodies with ears, a poufy leopard skirt, some really big pirate boots, and a top hat.  The sort of thing only a crazy person would wear, and Jackie is definitely crazy.

“Hey! How be you?” I ask her “I be good” she says giggling. That’s our little joke, Jen’s a bit of a grammar Nazi so we make grammatical errors all the time to annoy her, even when she’s not around. It just sort of became a bad habit I guess. “Awesome, so where do you want to go?” I ask her. She ponders, then points to Hot Topic. She likes that store, and I do to even though it’s a bit scary for me, but it has lots of Marvel stuff.

We head over there and look around, I find a cool spider-man mask, and almost buy it, but decide on the Avengers symbol T-shirt. As we shop Jackie and I talk. “So, about the thing you were texting me about yesterday….” She says giving a mischievous smile. “Oh, well, I was walking through the woods….” She stops me “wait, why were you in the woods?”

“Because I like in there, anyway I was walking and I found this tree house, and I wanted to go up in it, because I’ve never been in a tree house, so I did. And then I fell out of the tree house and Haden, who was in it, climbed down and wanted to know if I was ok. I was but I was a little lost so he led me home, and I gave him my number.”

Jackie looks doubtful at my story, “is that really what happened?” she asks, hands on hips. “Yes, that’s what happened.” I say, “I was thinking about going to try and find the tree house again, see if he’s there”

 She looks at me and shakes her head, “if you are going into the woods, at least listen to my lecture on how to protect yourself from wild animals” Jackie is paranoid of animals. She was bitten by a stray dog when she was seven, and since then she thinks they’re out to get her, so she reads a lot about how to protect yourself from an attack. “Ok if you run into a mountain lion,” I roll my eyes “we don’t have mountain lions in Missouri” I say “shut up and listen to me. If you do come across one, make yourself as big as you can and be loud. Get something as a weapon and if it attacks fight it back.” She says. “So that’s if a mountain lion gets yah, now if a bear comes at you….” She goes on but I mostly tune it out. I’m not going to run into a mountain lion or a bear, or a wolf. Eventually she realizes I’m not listening and gives up.