Chapter Twenty-Four - We All Scream

Trinity was having a blast.

She didn’t think school and learning could be this fun.

One of her was stuffing boxes of crayons into one of her bags (she’d hidden it under her shirt) while another had snuck into Steffie’s mom’s room across the corridor and was going through her drawer. For a lady that wore such boring clothes, she had some weird stuff hidden away in her closet.

“Trinity!” Athena hissed.

Hissing was bad. It was too weird a sound, so it alerted people that someone was trying to be sneaky. Also, it was rude to hiss at someone. “What?” The Trinity pushing Steffie’s chair asked.

Steffie was protesting about their plan to go get ice cream, but it was really half-hearted protests, mostly muttered and whispered. She didn’t actually care, otherwise she would be protesting louder.

Athena looked down the corridor, then back. “Where are you?” she asked.

Trinity stared. “I’m right here?”

“You know what I meant,” Athena said. “We can’t leave one of you behind, come on.”

Trinity smiled big. Slightly-Bigger-Sister Athena didn’t want even a third of Trinity to be left behind. It made her feel warm on the inside, like when she ate spicy trash. “Okay, all of me’s coming,” she said.

Teddy pushed the door to the mom’s room open, and then the rest of them followed her into the room. Trinity slipped out of the closet. She didn’t find anything really fun in there. What kind of boring person didn’t hide snacks in their bedroom? “How do you open that door?” Teddy muttered just above a whisper.

“I got it,” Trinity said. She slipped over to the Rench door and undid the clasp over the door to open it.

Getting Steffie out proved a bit tricky. Her awesome chair with the wheels didn’t quite fit through the doorway, not until all the girls got together and wiggled it past. Teddy ended up getting her fingers stuck between the chair and the door and she said a lot of the words that made the Boss red in the face. Finally, they got her out and into Steffie’s backyard.

There wasn’t a pool or anything, or even any toys. It was a boring backyard. One of Trinity went to check in their trash can, but it was one of those tall black ones, with the little wheelies at the back. Those sucked because if she tipped it back to look in, the whole thing could fall over, and if she boosted herself up to jump inside, the cover might clomp back down like some sort of giant mouth, and then she’d be stuck inside the trash can.

All in all, Trinity gave the backyard a failing grade, and the trashcan an even worse one. It even had one of those discri... deskrimi... she squinted... one of those not-nice stickers that had a racoon in a red circle with a bar across it.

“Okay, where’s the ice cream place from here?” Teddy asked.

“It’s a couple of blocks down that way,” Steffie said. She pointed to the right, out towards the front of the house.

“The only way out of the backyard is that path, right?” Athena asked.

There was a fence all around, with a gate on the left side of the house. “Yes,” Steffie said.

“Well, we can’t use that one. We’d need to cross in front of the house right after, and there are windows looking out the front,” Athena said.

“Whoa,” Trinity said. “That’s smart. How do we get past then?”

“We’ll have to go around the other way,” Athena said. “Around the block, then back over to the ice cream place.”

“Awesome,” Teddy said. She grabbed the handles at the back of Steffie’s chair and started pushing. “Let’s go already!”

Trinity ran ahead to open the gate, and then she also ran ahead to the front corner of the house where she was able to check and see if anyone was around. “It’s clear!” the her next to the others said.

“How do you know?” Steffie asked.

“Because I looked,” Trinity said proudly.

Steffie frowned back at Trinity, but she didn’t have time to ask many questions since they reached the sidewalk and all of them started moving along at a quick jog. “A-aren’t we moving a bit fast?” Steffie asked.

“We don’t wanna be around for long. What if the Boss steps out?”

“Who’s the Boss?” Steffie asked.

“Uh, no one said the Boss, I said big sister Emily,” Teddy said.

“Step-Boss could be trouble too,” Athena said.

“Who’s Step-Boss?” Steffie asked next. “Those are weird names.”

“No one said nothing,” Teddy said. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine in a bit, just as soon as we’re around the corner.”

Steffie squeaked as they crossed the road. “You didn’t look!” she said. “You’re supposed to look both ways!”

“For what?” Teddy asked.

“Cars!”

Teddy snorted. “Why would you be afraid of cars?” she asked.

Trinity shook her head and touched her bigger bear sister on the arm. “Cars are scary,” she said. “More racoons die every year to cars than almost anything else. There’s literally nothing you can do to stop a car from hitting you. So if you see one coming, the best thing to do is stop and stand still.”

“What?” Steffie asked. “No! If you look both ways you won’t be in the car’s way, so it won’t hit you.”

Trinity frowned. “But what if I’m crossing the road and then the car starts coming after that?”

“Then go back on the sidewalk!” Steffie said.

“That doesn’t make sense. Just stand still. Cars only see you if you’re moving.”

Steffi huffed. “Cars don’t have eyes.”

The Trinity that was in front of Steffie spun around and started walking backwards. She gestured to the front of a car parked on the edge of the road. There were plenty of those since all the buildings nearby were those homes that all looked nearly the same. The front of the car she was pointing to clearly had two big eye-like bits, and a big scoopy mouth part. That was the bit that thumped racoons.

“That’s just... uh, mom talked about it when I was having nightmares. Sometimes the brain sees faces where there aren’t any. Cars don’t have eyes.”

“Sure, sure,” Trinity said. She knew better.

They reached the street a block down from Steffie’s place, then paused at the intersection. “Which way now?” Athena asked.

Steffie pointed. “That way. Are we really doing this? If-if we go back now, we can say that we just went for a little walk.”

Athena chuckled. “We are going for a little walk. A little walk to the ice cream place.”

“Don’t worry, girl, we’ll bring you back home in no time!” Teddy said.

“Don’t call me girl! I’m probably older than you,” Steffie said.

“How would you know?” Teddy shot back.

“I’m taller than you.”

“No you’re not!”

“Just because I’m sitting down.”

Trinity grinned and spread her arms as she ran along the sidewalk. She liked being outside. There was sunshine, and interesting smells, and right now she was with some of her favourite people.

Maybe one of her could go back to Steffie’s place and go get hugs from the Boss. That would make it all perfect. But then she’d need to rotate herself out so that all of her got some ice-cream.

They reached the ice cream parlour eventually, a little shop with a bright red roof on the corner of a street. Trinity sounded out the words on the sign, which was easy for her since she had three mouths and could make all the syllable noises at the same time. Miss Corle’s, the sign said in big swirly letters. There was a glowing cone next to them too, and a small line of people out front.

Not too many though! They’d get there fast!

Trinity skipped ahead so that she’d be first in line, with her sisters and Steffie filing in behind her.

“Oh, we can see the prices,” Athena said. “Trinity, how many dollars do you have?”

Trinity shrugged and just handed Athena all the wallets she had, including the one from the person ahead of them in line.

Athena took all the bills out, then handed the wallets back. “Can I have one,” Trinity said, gesturing to the paper bills. She took a couple of green ones and stuffed them back into the wallet of the guy ahead of them before sneaking it back into his pocket. Everyone deserved some ice cream.

Meanwhile, another of Trinity’s bodies had hit the jackpot.

She grinned from ear to ear, then looked around to make sure there wasn’t any competition around. Nothing but a couple of pigeons!

An entire trashcan filled with the bottom stubs of cones and napkins with plenty of ice cream rubbed off onto them. It was like finding a tiny slice of heaven.

The girls were almost next in line when someone coughed from nearby.

All of them turned to see the Boss, her arms crossed, and her face blank. “Care to explain? She asked.

“Oh no,” Steffie squeaked.

“Hey, want some ice cream?” Trinity asked. “There’s enough for everyone!”

***