by Kenzie Lappin
(384 words)
Last night I dreamed that my friends and I were solving a missing person’s case in a Claire’s. No one else would look for a missing girl. I felt something poking at my gums, and pulled a whole chicken bone from my mouth.
An employee snatched it. “We can use that to make jewelry,” she said condescendingly.
Damn, the magic of little girls is something totally unique—penny-ante spells, hearts yearning for mystery and death among glitter and pink hair extensions. The thing is, we like the glitter too. We like finding beauty in the ugliness of growing up.
The girl had been missing for a couple hours. In the dream-world of childhood, this was of course forever. We sniffed around the racks for clues.
Blood spatter on the wall.
We had a conference and agreed that this was probably important.
But the employee we dragged over rolled her eyes. “That’s from the ear-piercing station.”
“That shouldn’t happen,” I said.
“Beauty is pain,” she told us, and walked away to bust some shoplifters.
We searched for more clues. The aisles of fake leather wallets and rings that turned your fingers green stretched on forever. We asked people for help, but they were distracted chasing chickens across the aisles. Too busy for us.
I found a sparkly hat and put it on. “Elementary, my dear Watson,” I said. “It seems our adversary has taken our companion someplace beyond our reach.”
One of the other girls was wearing a necklace made of bejeweled wolf’s teeth. She said; “It’s a good thing I’m a witch and I can see the future! Don’t worry. We’ll get there eventually.”
In the end we found the missing girl.
“I was next door,” she told us. “Slaughtering chickens in the beauty salon. They also threaded my eyebrows and gave me nail extensions.”
“Oh dude,” we said.
“What? Beauty is pain. I think I’m done with the glittery stuff. I’m a grown-up now.”
That sounded like not a whole lot of fun. Where was the mystery? The game? Maybe we’d see eventually too. Some of us would try to resist it, and some of us would be excited to go to that place. One of us even had a Hello Kitty training bra. “Whatever,” we decided. “Let’s go to the food court.”
END
Kenzie Lappin is a writer with short stories in publications such as Wizards In Space Literary Magazine, Brigid’s Gate Press, Belanger Books, WordFire Press, Air And Nothingness Press, and more. Check her out on Twitter at @KenzieLappin.