"You could be a cat—ooh! You could be Gizmo!" Sal exclaimed, shoving a pair of cat ears in Violet's face. The weekend following the costume party decision, he, Violet, and Ash decided to head to the mall to look for costumes. They found a small shop with huge Halloween posters plastered outside of it and made that their first stop.

Ash giggled. "If you're a cat, you have to speak in meows all night. Otherwise, you're disqualified."

"I'm not being Gizmo for Halloween," Violet protested with a laugh, snatching the cat ears out of Sal's hand. "You do it, Sally. He's your cat."

"Sal can't be his own cat. That just doesn't work."

"Yeah, Vi. I can't be my own cat."

Violet turned away from him with a huff and flipped through a rack of costumes. It was witches, nurses, and zombies galore, but nothing unique. The teen couldn't even find anything cool enough to spark an idea or two. Although the party was 2 weeks away, she was becoming increasingly stressed about her costume. Some unoriginal get-up wasn't going to get her anywhere. She needed to think outside the box.

"Well, Violet, if you're really serious about winning, you could wear this," Ash said, holding up what looked like a bunch of strings and ripped fabric in a bag.

"What is that?"

"Some sexy fighter chick or something. The boys would love it, that's for sure."

"She can't go as a hooker, Ash," Sal intervened. "That in a crowd of drunk teenage boys is just asking for trouble."

"Yeah, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Plus, I wanna win for my creativity, not how much skin I show."

"Fair point."

Violet turned to Sal. "What are your ideas for your costume?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe like an axe-murderer or something. It would work well with my prosthetic."

"Sally, we need to put our uncreative minds together and come up with something cool for both of us."

"Axe-murderers are cool."

"Eh, too common."

"Excuse me," an employee approached the pair with a bitter expression on his face, "we ask that you don't wear the Halloween masks around the store. You'll scare the other customers."

Sal opened his mouth to speak, but Violet beat him to it. "It's a prosthetic, I'll have you know."

"Either remove your mask or leave the store, sir."

"Sorry," Sal mumbled, turning toward the exit. "Come on, Vi."

"No, Sal! This is against the law!"

Ash emerged from behind a rack of costumes. "What's going on?"

"He's trying to kick Sally out because of his prosthetic."

The brunette's expression hardened, as did Violet's. Sal quietly urged them not to make a fuss and just leave, but neither of the girls were having any of it. This grumpy employee wasn't going to make their friend feel unwelcome because of his face.

"He wasn't doing anything wrong," Ash snapped.

"I'm gonna have to ask all of you to le—"

"We've been shopping for nearly 45 minutes and haven't seen a single mask that looks like Sal's. Don't you work here? You should know what your store sells."

"Removing someone from your store because they wear a prosthetic is illegal in the court of law. You can get shut down for this!" Violet seered.

That was when the man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "I'm gonna need security in the Halloween section, pronto."

"Fine, fine!" Sal shouted, grabbing each girl by the wrist and pulling them backward. "You win. We'll leave."

He managed to drag them out of the store just as two police officers appeared from a back room. The employee was pointing to the trio and surely rambling on about Sal and how the girls snapped at him. Violet sent them a vicious glare before turning away and following Sal toward a bench.

Ash yanked her wrist from his grasp. "I don't know why you put up with these things, Sal."

"I just don't want to draw any more attention to myself than I already do just by existing. People hate my prosthetic. I've accepted it," he sighed.

"You're still a person," Violet remarked.

"It's not a big deal, really. Their costumes sucked anyway. We were just wasting our time there."

"Hey, look," Ash said, pointing to a nearby store, "it's Pet Place. You guys wanna go? We could use a break."

"Yes, please!"

"Sure."

Violet had yet to experience a pet store in Nockfell. She wondered if they were anything like the ones back home. She and her parents used to visit them to look at the fish. Whenever she had a bad day at school, her dad would take her there and let her name all of the fish in each tank to take her mind off of things. This was before her parents became to busy for her, of course. She'd do anything to go back and do those things again.

"Afternoon, ladies and gent. Anything I can help you with today?" An elderly man greeted them from behind the counter.

"Just browsing, thank you," Ash replied, hurrying in the direction of the small rodents. Violet and Sal followed close behind.

"Aww, look at that one!" Violet gushed. Sal followed her gaze and spotted a black and white hamster running on its wheel. It was rather chubby and its fur pattern kind of resembled a panda.

"I like him," the blue-haired boy commented.

"Look! Look!" Ash squealed. She pointed to a much smaller hamster that seemed to be running laps around its enclosure. Violet had never seen something move so fast. She couldn't help but laugh.

"I would name him Turbo," she said, giggling as the creature made another lap. "He's so fast!"

Sal chuckled. "He's like Gizmo if he hears us open the drawer with the can-opener in it."

This time, all three of them erupted with laughter, causing the hamsters to scurry into their hides. Other customers in the store gave them odd stares, not that they minded. After the "customer service" they'd recieved in the department store across the hall, they needed something like this to cool them down, especially the girls. Much to Sal's delight, the event seemed to have been long forgotten by them already.

"What do you wanna look at, Sally?" Violet asked him as they made their way down the pet food aisle.

"Whatever you guys wanna look at," he told her.

"What about cats?"

"I can't betray Giz like that!" He teased. "You should know better."

"Anything you wanna look at, Violet?" Ash inquired.

She smiled. "Just the fish, that's all. Then we can find something for Sal."

The back wall of Pet Place was lined with fish tanks. The sound of trickling water and buzzing filters filled the teens' ears as the approached the vast display. Ash immediately made her way toward a tank full of shrimp and crawdads while Violet hurried over to the betta fish.

She peered into one of the small cups that held a fish, admiring its fins. "Aren't they cool, Sally?"

"Why aren't they in a tank like the other fish? Why are they all in cups?" He questioned, cocking his head with confusion.

"Betta fish are extremely territorial. They'd kill each other if they were homed together. Another name for them is Siamese fighting fish."

"Heh, how do you know all that?"

"My parents used to take me to pet shops a lot as a kid. Dad always told me cool facts about the fish, especially bettas." She paused for a moment and let out a small sigh. "We haven't done that in a long time though."

Sal gave her wrist a small squeeze. Violet hadn't even realized that he never let go of her after the incident in the other store. She didn't mind though. She liked how warm his hands always were. "I'm sorry, Vi."

"It's okay. Maybe we'll do it again another—" She interrupted herself with a gasp. "Look, Sally! Look at this one's fins!"

The boy couldn't help but smile as she grabbed a cup off the shelf and held it up. Inside was a vibrant red fish with long fins flowing behind it. It was almost angelic.

"You can tell that this is a male based on his fins. Females have shorter fins. Wouldn't you love to have one?"

He snuck a peek at the price of the fish: $8.99.