“But breaking the glass might draw attention,” I point out. “Plus anyone passing by will definitely notice a shattered window.”
“I can pick the lock,” Tawni says.
“What? Really? That’s awesome,” Roc says, gazing admiringly at her.
“How’d you learn that?” Adele asks.
“When I ran away, before I was caught, I learned all kinds of interesting things, not all of them legal,” she says.
“Go for it,” I say, stepping aside.
“Anyone got a thin knife?” she says.
“I think I’ve got something that might work,” Roc mumbles, rummaging through his pack. “Here!” he exclaims, handing Tawni a tiny paring knife.
“What do you use that for?” I ask.
“If you have to know, cutting my toenails,” he says.
“Gross.”
Tawni’s already got the knife jammed in the lock, twisting and turning it at various angles, trying to get the mechanism to line up in the right way. A minute passes with us just watching her and Trevor mumbling something that sounds like a poem under his breath.
Another minute passes and then, “Got it!” she cries, as the lock clicks and the door pushes open. We’re in.
Tawni and Adele go in first, while Roc and I help Trevor. “I don’t want to go to school today, Mommy,” he murmurs, his head lolling lazily to the side.
“Don’t worry, little Trev-Trev, we’re going to put you right to sleep,” Roc coos, making me crack up.
When we get inside, the girls are already roaming the aisles, relying on the dimmer security lights to check out the merchandise. Their eyes are wide and their mouths slightly open. “What do you do in here?” Adele asks when we approach.
“Uh, shop,” Roc says.
“Shop?” Tawni says.
“Yeah, you know, like pick out clothes and try them on. If they fit well, you buy them at the register.”
“Register?” Adele says.
“Um, don’t worry about it,” Roc says. “We won’t be doing it that way anyway.”
“We should move upstairs,” I say. “Anyone passing by the front window will be able to see us.”
The escalator is turned off, so Adele and Tawni run up the steps, while Roc and I haul Trevor, who now appears to be sleeping, his breaths slow and deep, after them, one step at a time. When we get to the top, I say, “Let’s dump him somewhere to sleep it off.”
“Good plan,” Roc agrees, smirking.
We find a cozy corner, and while I hold Trevor up, Roc piles up long, brightly colored dresses to use as a bed. We lie him down, rolling up one of the coats—a turquoise one—for a pillow.
“Now what?” Roc says.
“Now we shop.”
We find the girls standing in front of a rack of shoes, just staring. “What are these?” Adele says, picking up a pair of red, ultra-high heels.
“Shoes,” I say.
“No way!” Adele says. “How could anyone walk in these?” She sits down on a nearby bench and starts taking off her boots.
“They can and they do,” Roc says. “Most of the girls here wear them. It seems the heels get higher every year. Being tall is in.”
“But they’re not really tall,” Tawni says.
I chuckle. “True, but that’s not what matters. It’s all about image. Most of what you’ll find in the Sun Realm is artificial—just like the sun.”
“But why do people care?” Adele says, standing up unsteadily, now wearing the red heels. “A shoe’s a shoe,” she adds, trying a cautious step forward.
“Not to these people. They want their clothes to make them stand out,” I explain.
“But they don’t,” Tawni says. “They still all look the same, just different than moon and star dwellers. If they really want to stand out, they should visit the Lower Realms wearing those.” She points to Adele’s heels.
Adele, clutching a rack of shirts as she moves forward another step, says, “I can’t even walk in these, much less run or kick.”
I laugh again. “Sun dweller women don’t do much running or kicking. They mostly just go tanning, go to the salon, go shopping, that sort of thing.”
“But how do they…live?” Tawni asks. This is all clearly blowing both girls’ minds.
“Usually they have rich boyfriends or husbands who deal in shipping or own mines in the Lower Realms,” I say. “There’s a lot of old money up here that’s been passed down for generations.”
“So while we’re all working like dogs for our next meal…” Adele starts, taking off the heels.
“The sun dwellers are up here attending parties, killing time, and generally enjoying their lives,” I say coldly. “Can you see now why I left?”
“Not really,” Tawni says. “Wouldn’t that be a good reason not to leave?”
Roc surprises me by saying, “Tristan’s got too good of a heart for that. He doesn’t like to see people suffer while others take advantage of them.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“We shall never speak of this compliment again,” Roc says, smirking.
“I’ll remind you every day,” I joke.
“That’s the last time I say something nice about you.”
“We don’t have to wear these—what do you call them?—high shoes, to blend in do we?” Adele asks, her face scrunched with concern. “Because I don’t think I can walk more than a few blocks without killing myself.”
I take the shoes from her. “High heels,” I correct. “You can if you want, but I think we can find something much more sensible, but still fashionable.”
“Sounds good. Where do we start?”
“You and Tawni should pick out some tunics that you like. Pretty much anything in this store is in style right now, so it’s hard to go wrong. Roc and I will get ourselves and Trevor outfitted and then help you with your shoes and accessories.”
“Accessories?” Adele and Tawni say at the same time.
“We’ll show you later,” I promise. “Try and have fun with it.”
“Yeah, girls are supposed to like shopping,” Roc adds.
Adele and Tawni look at each other like we’re completely out of our minds, but then move off into one of the aisles full of the new Beau Gabore line of flaring-bottom tunics.
“This should be interesting,” Roc says.
“Thanks for the compliment,” I say again, trying to keep a straight face.
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I’m not sure I can do that,” I laugh.
* * *
An hour later we’ve made good progress. I’ve torn strips from a dark training tunic to bandage my scraped shoulder. Roc found a chest of ice to apply to his bruised tush. Trevor’s still out, and we had the unfortunate experience of undressing him, pulling a brand new black Rizzo tunic—very stylish and modern—over his head, and getting him into a matching pair of what are known as “chairman’s pants,” high-waisted and straight-cut all the way to the brown Montgomery boots we found in his size. The pants were the trickiest, and required Roc and me to both take a leg, while we cringed, desperately avoiding touching anywhere near anything we wouldn’t want touched ourselves.
Once finished with Trevor, we split up and decked ourselves out. Roc found a whiter-than-white ribbed tank-tunic that contrasts nicely with his brown skin, thick bright orange marching pants (sun dwellers tend to like parades), and fake leather white moccasins, which are all the rage right now. I was able to complement my light blue nylon tunic with a navy blue leather jacket, complete with turquoise buttons and arm studs. My pants are blue camouflage, which has just come back after a decade of being out of style. Due to my well-known appearance, I decide to continue wearing a hat, but replace the woman’s hat Adele nicked for me with a silver fedora with blue trim that casts a decent shadow across the upper part of my face when worn sufficiently low over my eyes. Unwilling to stoop to the level of moccasins, I find a pair of rugged brown boots that are only in fashion because they have a decent-sized heel that I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in. But they definitely beat the thin-soled slippers that Roc’s wearing.