I am nine and I

love Erin

so so so

much

because

we got

together today.

I willy want to see him. so I am go to work on Sunday

Erin Paylor was 17, long and lanky, with hair poking through his oily pores just slightly, protruding like thorns on a bramble branch, and Mindy-Mae was entirely, completely infatuated with him. She skipped on down to the Macy's downtown, braids bouncing in time with the delightfully swishy skirts of her dress, with a pink ribbon tied around the front. It had been a recent gift for her ninth birthday, and Erin had been unfortunate enough to be working the till, because it was a Saturday, and he could only work around what his high-school schedule allowed. He had complimented her, called her a pretty princess, and that had been the end of that.

She had exactly five dollars and thirty-five cents, scrounged up from the piggy-bank, and a little skimmed off the top of her brother's too, and as she pushed her way into the air-conditioned haven of the department store, doors rolling open on their little automatic sensors as if they were loyal subjects attending their princess' every move, she headed straight for the rack of sungalsses in the corner. She reached out immediately for a pair of chrome heart-shaped ones, the frames shifting under the fluorescent strip-lights in greens and golds and purples. This, Mindy-Mee decided, was her tiara. The little tag tied onto the arm with white thread: thread that she imagined Erin himself tying on with pinpoint accuracy, read "$4.99*".

Erin was refolding a table of t-shirts with the hollow-eyed diligence that haunts all teenage retail workers, doing sums in his head of hours x minimum wage = a new guitar + a night at the bowling alley.

"I found the sunglasses," Mindy-Mae announced.

"Cool," said Erin, not looking up, turning his attention back to a sloppily folded pile of cheap graphic-tees. Then, as if realising she wasn't going away, sighed and turned to her again. "I'll ring you up," he sighed, trailing over to the till with a half folded shirt still in his hands.

She slid the sunglasses and her five dollars across the counter with a great big beaming smile. Erin stared at the pile of coins, sat on the counter like a dragon's hoard. Then:

"These are twenty-four ninety-nine."

"The tag says four ninety-nine."

"That's the frames only price, the lenses are extra, it's---" he stopped. "It's more than that."

Mindy-Mae heard this as a test, a challenge, a trial, even. This tracked, because great men were always giving out trials to their suitors, like she had read in a book about a knight, who had challenged a princess for his hand in marriage. Her name was Constanza, and she had to solve three riddles and retrieve a golden apple from a dragon, which she achieved with only the utmost patience over brawn and violence: she had waited for the dragon to tire itself out by sending in small prey for it to eat, mice and small birds and water bugs, and when the week had ended, the dragon found himself too tired to fight Constanza when she traipsed on in to the cave and fetched the apple entirely unharmed.

"I can come back Sunday," she said, "I get my allowance Sunday."

That was a whole week from now. A week was a whole seven days, and seven days was a very long time to be patient. Mindy-Mae smiled to herself as she congratulated herself on so deftly defeating the proverbial dragon.

"You don't need to--" Erin sighed, trailing off as he watched Mindy-Mae skip back out of the automatic doors. He trudged back to his display of clearance graphic tees, and wondered if he could swap his Sunday shift with Wendy.