to eat from a cone and seasonally inappropriate once the weather changed. I was baffled that others disagreed.
I was at Super Scoop, wearily assembling ice cream cones for a myriad of elementary school kids who’d rushed in after their final bell. The late-afternoon light reflected on the lava lamp outside, giving the ice cream parlor a pink hue.
Technically, my manager, Laser (Presumably, Laser wasn’t her real name, and just as presumably her hair wasn’t naturally neon blue, but I’d never questioned her about either.), was working as well. But she was in the back, watching TV.
Owen occasionally worked the after-school shift with me, when he wasn’t in play rehearsals or baseball practice. Unfortunately, he was engaged with extracurriculars more often than not. Which, really, I should have been too.
At any rate, I was alone, with no one to help handle the elementary school rush, because Laser found it more imperative to watch a rerun of Pitch, Please—the pitch was for a battle of the bands–style show where every week a band member was replaced with a musician from a different genre.
The elementary school kids were noisy and I missed Owen and I’d already dropped ice cream on myself three times. Needless to say, I was tense even before the bell on the door chimed again.
Ishmael waltzed into Super Scoop. “Dude, we need to talk.”
I waited for the last of the elementary schoolers to leave and said, “Talk, then.”
My brother’s eyes wandered to the ice cream case. “Can I get a strawberry cone?”
“Is that what we need to talk about?” I asked. “Strawberry ice cream?”
Ishmael frowned like I was wasting his time. “Gideon, this isn’t a joke.”
“What’s not a joke?” My frustration was growing by the second.
“Seriously, can I have the ice cream first?”
I rolled my eyes but knew the conversation wouldn’t progress if my brother remained fixated on ice cream. When he had the cone in hand, he finally got to the point. “I’m worried about this thing with Sofia.”
“You’re worried? Earlier today you thought it was great. You were whistling.”
“Yeah. But then, like, I really thought about it.”
I adjusted my paper cap and wished for the hundredth time that I worked a real job. In a lab somewhere, preferably.
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
“It’s like you said. This is our prank—I mean, experiment. We’re supposed to be in control of it. We’re the ones who did all the research and stuff.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Please, go on. Tell me about the research we did.”
“You know what I mean,” Ishmael said. “You did research and I…I made phone calls. And the whole idea was mine. But now Sofia’s getting, like, famous from it.”
“I admit, it makes me uncomfortable that someone is involved in the hoax without our consent. Alas, there’s nothing we can do about it now. And as you said earlier, her abduction is a testament to our own cleverness.”
“I said that?”
“Not in those words.”
I moved around the shop, refilling chrome napkin dispensers and letting Ishmael mull over the situation. Finally, he burst out, “But it should have been me!”
I stopped and looked at him. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I should have been abducted. Not Sofia. Why would the aliens have chosen her instead of me?”
I took another long, deep breath. “Ishmael, you realize this is all fake, right?”
“That’s not the point.”
“We’ll have to disagree about that.”
I moved to continue working, but Ishmael reached over and pulled the stack of napkins from my hand.
“At first I thought Sofia’s story was great. But then all day I saw people asking about her abduction.”
“So, basically, you’re upset because Sofia is getting more attention than you?”
“Not just that,” Ishmael insisted. “Sometimes she got things wrong. Like, she called the aliens green when everyone knows they’re gray! She’s taking over our hoax and no one even remembers aliens visited us first.”
I began to speak, intending to remind Ishmael again the aliens hadn’t visited anyone.
But.
But.
He was right. I was proud the hoax was evolving, but the abduction should have been ours. Now, most likely on a whim, Sofia had created the basis for everything that might follow. I would have handled the abduction with care and precision. I would have made sure it was done right.
“You see the problem, right?” Ishmael asked.
“Yes,” I agreed, feeling glum again. “I’m just not sure what to do about it.”
Ishmael licked his strawberry ice cream cone and grinned. “That’s the easy part. Obviously, I need to be abducted by aliens ASAP.”
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